CD vs. Vinyl

[big screen satellite]

for me its not the listening pleasure or even the storage issue, vinyl offers a better format for simply showcasing decent artwork, they look nicer than CD's (in most instances)

but if it was a case of sound quality then i'd go for CD ever time now, but i'm from a vinyl age so will buy vinyl if, I :

a) dig the cover / artwork or

b) am collecting everything by that artist (i.e. underworld) and in so doing i buy both...

i have the facility to record my vinyl, but more often than not try and find the CD version first, as recording vinyl is so much hastle...

the only instances i tend to buy anything on vinyl over CD's, and the quality of the cover is not an isssue, is, if that the vinyl contains different mixes from the CD version...i'm talking of Vinyl 12" singles vs CD singles rather than albums in this case though....

anyhow, i think most days people buy CD's, only hard core audiophiles or collectors buy vinyl, even dj's will get cd's now as its easier to rip the best tracks to one cd-r and play off those....

[holden]

Originally Posted by myrrh

So, if you are buying the music simply for the pure audio enjoyment of listening to the delicious sounds of the music, and you have an solid system to listen to it on, and the music was easily available in both CD and vinyl, I would chose vinyl, because vinyl sounds better.

This may be true, if you can distinguish the difference in dynamic frequency.sound quality, etc that vinyl enthusiasts are always saying is better for records vs Cds. Most people can't, nor can they distinguish big differences in high-bitrate mp3s vs Cd audio (http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/)

Vinyl may sound "warmer" to some people, but to others (who may have a less-expensive turntable or needle) it sounds more scratchy and the sound "smaller". So, i disagree with the "pure audio enjoyment" argument. It's subjective.

For me, i prefer CDs over vinyl and digital files, because of size and relative permanence. Though records are lovely to look at and for artwork, they have a tendency to get scratched and cases frayed.

[justy]

I was first convinced of the quality of the vinyl experience when I popped a maxi-single by the Cure that had a live version of "Faith" on my parents' decent turntable. Sounded like they were in the room.

The main issue with CDs is basically that, by "sampling" the audio waveform, they're cutting it up into chunks, then recalculating the waveform based on that approximation. 16 bit chunks, sampled 44,100 times a second allows a reproduction of a full-frequency waveform. There's more headroom on a CD than on vinyl, but I do think that vinyl's "completeness" (no slicing and dicing of waveforms here: you can actually see the waveform on vinyl!) contributes to its quality. That said:

Late 80s/early 90s vinyl is crap: cheap materials (recycled PVC, among other things), cramming way too much stuff (45 minutes!) onto two sides, which reduces the impact of bass sounds, not to say the actual loudness of the release because you can't let the wave take up too much space. So choose wisely. Besides, given the fact that most recent releases go through some digital format before mastering anyway, the point is moot for modern recordings.

[Rog]

I will buy vinyl if i am likely to play it out or if it's a single otherwise CD's are more convenient.....i.e. you don't have to turn them over half way through.

*edit* and you can play them in your car/on your ghettoblaster/CD walkman so that if you go on holiday you can take shed loads with you.

[spacefish]

As someone who can actually remember when there was nothing but vinyl (there was reel-to-reel but one didn't generally purchase music that way anymore) and 8-track (available only in car stereos as I first remember them), I would have to say CD. I loved to sit home and listen to my Queen records but I couldn't take them with me to the city or to school. Well, I could but who was gonna lend me a record player?

8-tracks were silly things that cut off songs mid-verse and I never understood why people liked them but they were portable and once home players started to pop up, the 8-track collections grew (some of my school friends hugged their 8-tracks while I stayed home listening to my records).

It took me a long time to get off the (auto-reverse) cassette bandwagon (but for some reason I knew DVDs would eventually replace laserdiscs in mainstream digital video), but having finally made the switch to CDs, I couldn't be happier. Now that I only listen to music on my computer, I'm finally venturing into even more portable formats but I'll be hard pressed to change back to vinyl, even with a diamond-tipped needle.