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Do CDs Sound Better than Vinyl Records?
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Oct 13, 2017 05:53:39   #
jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY
 
It's largely a matter of opinion, but here's a very technical article.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/which-sounds-better-analog-or-digital-music/

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Oct 13, 2017 09:34:39   #
MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama
 
Cd's are good enough for the masses just as an iPhone pic is good enough to email, post, or make a decent print. Sadly, my manual turntable with high dollar cartridge is long gone as is the rich, fullness of sound that only a true analog disk will provide; not recut from digital files. Tube amps rendered the sound even more mellow. A con is that once the analog squiggles in the platter became worn, some of the info is lost... can you say " high notes ". I still have my 70's SAE power amp and preamp set up with vintage Martin Logan Electrostatics; with a good recording you can close your eyes and be transported.... Now you are causing me to have more GAS attacks thinking of a turntable and virgin recordings. LOL

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Oct 13, 2017 10:49:09   #
tbpmusic Loc: LaPorte, Indiana
 
Different, yes - better, that's subjective.
Don't confuse the inherent sound quality of digital with the results of the cd's "mastering" process.
Cd's have continually become more and more "compressed" over the years, resulting in less dynamic range and a huge increase in overall loudness.
Just listen to a cd made 10 years ago in comparison to a newly released cd, they're much louder and "flatter" (less dynamic range) nowadays.
Again, this is an artifact of the mastering process, not the original digital recording.
I personally prefer the super-clean uncolored sound of raw uncompressed digital - zero background noise, full dynamic range.
Commercial cd's are not a true reflection of the capabilities at all, due to all the manipulation going on in the mastering process.
The vinyl process inherently colors the sound, in ways that we've become used to over the years, and is preferable to some folks.
It's all good - listen to what sounds the best to your ears...........

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Oct 13, 2017 16:37:22   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
I once read a rather long article on this.
They sound different and new vinyl sounds different than ones that have been played a lot.
For most people who hear a high end CD or DVD over a good system for the first time it is a revelation because most of them are used to downloaded MP3 sound. Which is cra**y quality sound by comparison. Then a Vinyl record is an even bigger revelation with its "warmer" sound (they said vinyl sounds best between the 3rd or 4th time played and somewhere in the teens. First few plays wear off faults and extra material in the grooves and then somewhere in the teens the grooves start to change from wear and tones are lost).

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Oct 13, 2017 16:49:34   #
JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco
 
A lot of us learned to love music listening to cheap transistor radios and crappy car radios. I didn't feel like I lost that much going from vinyl to CDs. And I still get the same enjoyment of music with my iPod, and I listen to a lot more of it now that I can carry my entire music library with me all the time and access anything I want to hear in seconds.

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Oct 13, 2017 17:05:27   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
JohnSwanda wrote:
A lot of us learned to love music listening to cheap transistor radios and crappy car radios. I didn't feel like I lost that much going from vinyl to CDs. And I still get the same enjoyment of music with my iPod, and I listen to a lot more of it now that I can carry my entire music library with me all the time and access anything I want to hear in seconds.


Personal taste. Like some people are content with McDonald's while others feel deprived if the the place doesn't have 5 stars and even the busboys are graduates of the Cordon Bleu school.
I am in the middle, with my Bose noise canceling head phones (the white noise cancels a lot of my tinnitus) I can hear and enjoy the differences. Other wise I get by with lesser sound quality. But I can't hear my wife call me, then she gets upset. Our daughter says I could always get one of those dog training collars that give a shock and give my wife the remote for when she wants my attention. *%^$#@*!)+~ kid, I wonder who she learned to be a smart aleck from? Opps, I just looked in a mirror.

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Oct 14, 2017 11:36:48   #
rustfarmer
 
Anyone who ever heard a pristine Parlophone Beatles album on a good system (electronic crossover, bi-amped direct coupled speakers) would be amazed how much better this sounds than CD's.

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Oct 14, 2017 11:49:30   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
Boy, this subject is like the Canon vs Nikon debate -people have strong opinions on both sides, and aren’t likely to change. As the owner and designer of a loudspeaker and tube amp design company, I prefer to listen to tube amps, but also prefer CDs, primarily for the lower noise, higher DR, better frequency and transient response and separation as well as the low maintenance. For me, the illusion/soundstage I’m trying to create is better achieved without the hiss, pops and clicks (which for me instantly distracts from the illusion of being in the concert hall) that invariably occur over time, no matter how careful I am with vinyl. But many critical listeners find that vinyl sounds more “musical” and prefer it even given the relatively high cost of a good cartridge, preamp and turntable (and perhaps a cleaning machine). I have made extensive measurements of solid state vs tubes and CDs vs vinyl, and I can tell you the technical reasons for that sound, but it’s the listening experience that’s critical, and that’s a very personal thing.

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Oct 14, 2017 13:24:03   #
Retired fat guy with a camera Loc: Colorado
 
I have always owed a high end system. Still do, although, photography has diverted my spare change, from my upgrading my system, I have a Denon 3313, and a Denon Blu-ray player that was 2 grand new. Gold circuitry, cost money. I am looking at a Oppo 4k player. I have 6 Vandersteens and a vandy center channel, a Mirage sub with 2- 12 inch woofers. It is a above average system. Good surround, you can hear the bullets whiz by.
I remember the good, old bad days of vinyl. I would buy a LP, rush home, carefully take it out of the sleeve, leaving no finger prints. Blow off any dust , placing it on my Thorens turntalbe. Taking my cleaner and fluid gently cleaning it. Dropping the tone arm and.......
Snap, crackle and pop. That drove me bat shit crazy.
I was in a stereo store one day, it was when CD's had first came out. I watched a salesman take a cd, toss it on the floor, and with his foot rubbed it on the carpet. he picked it up, put it in the player and not one single snap, crackle or a pop.
I bought a Phillips, single disk player on the spot. I have never looked back.

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Oct 14, 2017 13:39:25   #
MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama
 
robertjerl wrote:
Personal taste. Like some people are content with McDonald's while others feel deprived if the the place doesn't have 5 stars and even the busboys are graduates of the Cordon Bleu school.
I am in the middle, with my Bose noise canceling head phones (the white noise cancels a lot of my tinnitus) I can hear and enjoy the differences. Other wise I get by with lesser sound quality. But I can't hear my wife call me, then she gets upset. Our daughter says I could always get one of those dog training collars that give a shock and give my wife the remote for when she wants my attention. *%^$#@*!)+~ kid, I wonder who she learned to be a smart aleck from? Opps, I just looked in a mirror.
Personal taste. Like some people are content with... (show quote)


The Bose phones are the bees knees... oh oh, dating myself. I have to wear mine in the loft as the boss doesn't want to hear loud speakers and I really don't care to hear a recorded soap opera; we flick the lights to get attention. LOL

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Oct 14, 2017 18:23:48   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
jerryc41 wrote:
It's largely a matter of opinion, but here's a very technical article.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/which-sounds-better-analog-or-digital-music/


LPs and CDs are MASTERED differently. There is often a very different dynamic range compression used for LPs, to get the music above the surface noise and keep it there. CDs usually take advantage of the wider dynamic range.

All it proves is that some people prefer compressed dynamics... mostly people who have lost some hearing over the years.

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Oct 14, 2017 19:01:09   #
St.Mary's
 
There are several web sites that will test your hearing as to the limit of sound at a certain frequency that you hear. My 80 plus old ears can't hear a damn thing over 6k cycles.

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Oct 14, 2017 19:17:50   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
burkphoto wrote:
LPs and CDs are MASTERED differently. There is often a very different dynamic range compression used for LPs, to get the music above the surface noise and keep it there. CDs usually take advantage of the wider dynamic range.

All it proves is that some people prefer compressed dynamics... mostly people who have lost some hearing over the years.


That is an excellent point. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that so many listeners seem satisfied with the compressed DR and lost octave at each end of the spectrum of MP3s (or perhaps that’s all they have ever heard).

When I listened to LPs, I used lots of signal processing - a DBX 3BX expander (set at 1.2x expansion) to increase DR and a Carver “Sonic Hologram Generator”,which essentially increases channel separation and widens the sound stage. No more. I don’t even use a preamp - just a passive remote controlled step attenuator between the CD (or SACD) player and the power amps.

For what it’s worth, one of the measured differences between the solid state amps I characterized and the tube amps was the distribution of the harmonic distortion. The tube amps tended to have more even order distortion products while the solid state amps tended to more odd order distortion. I theorized (although I am not a musician by any means) that the ear/ brain accustomed to western music tends to find even order (octave) harmonics more pleasing. You can find the same phenomena in LPs vs CDs. A few years ago, a major audiophile publication tested multiple CD players. Interestingly, the ones with the poorest square wave response were preferred by the listeners. Since a square wave in the frequency domain consists of every odd harmonic of the equivalent frequency of the rise time, you would expect that the best defined square waves with the fastest Tr should produce more odd order harmonics. The same is true of tube amps - poorer square wave response compared to solid state (more rounded “corners”) results in fewer odd order harmonics. There are other differences as well, but since styli in LP groves have a very difficult time with abrupt physical changes (square waves and fast transients/rise times) due to physical inertia, perhaps the “softer” transition and attendant lower odd order distortion is more pleasing.

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Oct 14, 2017 19:46:55   #
Ray and JoJo Loc: Florida--Tenneessee
 
The noise you hear when playing vinyl is the viberation of the needle jumping in the groves some is music, other is noise you can see it on an O'scope this is not seen on cds. Now amps are different analoge is better Unless you get a very fast and large A/D. The reason Bose is ex.

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Oct 14, 2017 20:00:24   #
JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco
 
I guess I am more of a music lover than a hifi buff. I can appreciate the sound of a high end sound system, but it isn't necessary for me to appreciate music. I remember reading an article at the height of the hifi craze saying that the interest in increasingly better and more expensive audio equipment with decreasingly subtle differences was a kind of obsession.

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