there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

(But really, there's no right or wrong answer, is there? It's a matter of personal preference - no two people have the same set of fingerprints, so why shouldn't the same rule apply to their ears? I personally like a lot of brightness. If you don't, fine.)

http://home.eol.ca/~ifftay/reviews/lamflost.jpg

Amateurist OTM about Get Happy

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/12/31/on-vinyl-vs-cd-again/

80s CDs still sound like shit.

That post is about people, not cds vs vinyl. I can't help it if dumb wannabe hipsters keep fucking up the debate by being all "vinyl is better"

"There is no technical reason whatsoever why CDs should sound worse than vinyl. The reason why some CD reissues (especially from the early nineties) sound worse than the originals is because they were badly mastered, that's all. Also, vinyls wear down easier than CDs - don't claim those cracks and pops add to the sound! And there's other kinds of wearage too - I have some sixties and seventies vinyls where the high-end sounds are quite distorted and screechy. The only reason I still have a vinyl player is because I have several LPs that haven't had a (decent) CD reissue, or the reissue is impossible to find.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, May 6, 2005 2:39 PM (8 years ago)
"

o t m

like the article.

A tangentially ignorant and irritating argument is people who elevate dj's who use vinyl over those who use laptops / software. It has absolutely nothing to do with what format is played and everything to do with how they're sequenced and mixed.

on Vinyl vs. CD: From 2001-2010, every CD I bought got ripped and stored immediately. I burned copies to take in the car so the originals didn't get scuffed or stolen. I stopped buying CD's 3 years ago (other than artists I collect) and haven't pulled them out from storage since then. I buy vinyl now exclusively. Most new releases come with download codes and I enjoy the aesthetics more than CD's. When I'm playing mp3s, I tend to be antsy and want to skip around and search for the next song. When I put on an LP, i'm content to let the side play. My preference has nothing to do with sound quality. It's purely an aesthetic and experiential preference.

new vinyl nowadays is fucking ripoff, reminds me of CDs' heyday when places charged $18.99 for an album, except it's much worse now. $25, $35, sometimes $40 for a vinyl album, who can afford to pay that and actually collect a reasonable amount of music?

honestly i've never been even remotely enough of an audiophile to feel like i can distinguish between reasonable-quality mp3s, cds and vinyl. vinyl i like for the artwork, cds so i can play them in my car, and mp3s since they're so portable.

Great piece. The one major advantage to vinyl, though, is that it can be listened to without electricity. So after solar flares destroy all the electrical grids, we can theoretically fashion a needle/speaker out of a paper cone and keep groovin'.

marcos otm re: new vinyl being a ripoff, especially since current pressings are a crapshoot. The handful of new releases I bought on vinyl over the last two years have each had problems (off-center, sibilance, inner-groove distortion) that none of my old records have.

yep modern vinyl quality issues are putting me off as well, although I still like all of the aesthetic/experiential aspects. I have definitely been buying more stuff on CD lately.

new vinyl nowadays is fucking ripoff, reminds me of CDs' heyday when places charged $18.99 for an album, except it's much worse now. $25, $35, sometimes $40 for a vinyl album, who can afford to pay that and actually collect a reasonable amount of music?

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

Zoviet France - Shadow, Thief Of The Sun
no vinyl issue - stick it on vinyl, even crap nu-vinyl mind you (if you must...), and I'm there

on the other hand, I was in Rough Trade NYC recently (impressed!) and had little to no interest in the new nu-vinyl there, but picked up a bunch of used OG vinyl at Academy up the road.

got a new CD player for christmas. i have so many CDs!
though i do listen to old vinyl too, just depends on what's around.

god Shadow, Thief Of The Sun is so good, even if it is essentially a Rapoon album

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 4:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Neil Young make me IA in this regard. He goes on and on about the superiority of vinyl and analogue yadda yadda yadda and then charges $90 for his new record (which, granted, is a triple, but still). At that price, he's essentially promoting digital.

The last CD I bought specifically for its CDness was Jim O'Rourke's The Visitor because it was designed to be one uninterrupted track.

The 70s Miles live records work well on CD in this regard I would say.

otmfm. I definitely would've bought MBV vinyl for $25 but yeah $45 for a single album?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 4:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Neil Young make me IA in this regard. He goes on and on about the superiority of vinyl and analogue yadda yadda yadda and then charges $90 for his new record (which, granted, is a triple, but still). At that price, he's essentially promoting digital PONO.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 5:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fixed

as if someone is holding a layer of net curtain between the speakers and my ears, which takes away clarity and space, stops me fully getting a hold on individual sonic detail

*g

Music For 18 Musicians - like it, never had it, want it
for years, split across 2 sides of vinyl - along comes the CD, problem solved.

I'm thinking of picking up the vinyl (RECORD!) someday. hell, might even get the CD too after all.

look, you can't say vinyl sound is not a thing, because even within vinyl sound is a thing!

when 2 diff pressings of the same tune have a comparative relative oomph factor of 100x, guess which one the CD sounds more like...

still like buying new albums on vinyl but the diff in sound quality is never as superior on vinyl as i might hope - e.g. random access memories never sounded as good as an album with that much of an analogue fetish should have done. most modern albums prob sound best on cd really... other times, cds can highlight that sound quality or great fidelity/detail/whatever isnt all that important for a lot of releases, esp big pop stuff. vinyl is basically best for music recorded before around 1999. though saying that, some lo fi music like grime etc benefits weirdly from vinyl as it gives its sonic crudeness/rawness something a little warmer.

also, the prices of new vinyl are appalling!

Not really, that's what vinyl cost in 1963 in comparative terms.

I prefer a room littered with vinyl to a room littered with CDs. when I kick over a stack of CDs, I swear; several of them break. They can't be put back together. I can kick an LP in its sleeve across the room and I'll maybe bend the corner, no big deal. New vinyl I buy will be playable forever; most of the CDs will become unplayable because of my hobby of kicking over stacks of CDs and taking penalty kicks at the stereo with them. I know the ref from school so I get to take a lot of penalty kicks. I still buy CDs because I just buy music, period, it's a thing I do, but I prefer buying vinyl because it complains less when I mistreat it and is more fun to play with and handle and dote over and apologize to. Sorry for kicking you across the room I was hoping to break another CD case with you. I will kick Fleetwood Mac next time.

Longer albums definitely seem to the main case for the usefulness of CDs, but the purely digital formats sort of blow that out of the water. Like there was that Flaming Lips 6-hour song that came out last year. CD is digital anyways, so you may as well just ditch the plastic and get some lossless files or something.

anybody changed their mind on this one way or another?

i still don't prefer vinyl to cd but I got a Skevono cheap player mostly cos I decided I wanted to play some of the records I acquired for collection purposes (not to sell, just to have cos of nice design).

i'm no audiophile, and I'm mostly digital listening these days.

Vinyl looks better framed on the wall.
CDs easier to rip.

most of my vinyl is just for "hey cool fun, I have this and if I ever see this band again 20 years from now when the pandemic ends, it'd be neat to get autographed". i play them now and then though.

A lot of things sound better on vinyl. I would favour CDs for music with a very dynamic range or a lot of high frequencies (virtually all classical music or electroacoustic music), or that was created digitally in the first place.

Xp I prefer a room littered with vinyl to a room littered with CDs. when I kick over a stack of CDs, I swear; several of them break. They can't be put back together. I can kick an LP in its sleeve across the room and I'll maybe bend the corner, no big deal.

Yeah, CDs were actually pretty great- compact and portable, great sound, easy to jump from track to track. The problem with CDs imo was those plastic jewel cases. They're unnecessarily bulky. They're fragile and always break. CDs would be a lot more desirable to collectors now if they'd been packaged in mini paper LP sleeves like those posh Japanese reissues. There's a reason those ugly CD storage booklets were such a hit.

Countless records are better on CD. There are albums with lots of high end detail in the mix. There are albums that were sequenced with the CD format in mind etc

that was created digitally in the first place.

Exactly

The remastered CD of New Tradionalists by Devo sounds way better than the original vinyl, which was made from a compromised master tape.

my post in this thread from 2013 still stands up.
sorry, i get the emotional connection and all that, but i have no love for vinyl.

Yeah lots of stuff sounds better on vinyl, and there are still some excellent vinyl masters and pressenings like the recent-ish INA GRM reissues on Editions Mego. But for the most part new vinyl is the naked emperor in the room.

The smart collectors are buying up CDs while they're "junk" imo.

I broke so many cds that before the legit digital explosion I rebought the same album as much as three times

I've owned thousands of CDs and never broke one. What are you doing with them?

Nuh uh, i ain't tellin YOU, cop!

Twice in my life I have felt the giddy terror of bending a CD in one hand until the edges touch, then waiting for the splintering sound before it explodes into shards. But they crack at the hub way too easily.

As an artifact, no.

For sound quality, convenience, durability, space (re: small apartments), affordability (re: modern LP reissues), re: not having pops/warp/dust, not having to stop in the middle and turn it over... Most any album can be better on CD.

frogbs I would steer clear of direct drive if you’re concerned about sound quality

I have this, it’s worked great for me except I had to mess with a potentiometer at the bottom to get the speed right.

https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/turntables/dp-300f

yea I've heard that direct drives sometimes pick up the sound of the motor but I've never actually heard this myself

tbh being unable to get my record player fixed and record shops being closed and no gigs has meant I have spent nearly nothing on music for a year.

dunno if it will last when I can actually get my record player fixed, I haven't converted to Spotify, I just play the mp3s/flacs I ripped from my record/CD collection and stuff I downloaded from my laptop plugged into the AUX of my hifi.

I like vinyl a lot, but I don't like having to deal with a broken record player, especially if getting the bastard fixed might cost me £££

I use my turntable mostly for my collection of post-punk, or for recent acquisitions from the cheap racks, and neither Pylon nor Foghat require super high fidelity to me. I use my CD player mostly for jazz and things that want lusher sonics. I just bought a thrift store copy of Linda Ronstadt’s What’s New, and even on my less than high hi-fi it sounds super nice. I already owned it on vinyl, but doubtful I will ever play that again.

TSF - is this the cart you have?

https://ttaino.shop/product/atvm95ml-dual-moving-magnet-turntable-cartridge_1209046.html?msclkid=2666ba16cf291f5e9b75da210b6166e3

it's $160+ everywhere else I look...

hold up this site has got to be a scam

one q for those of you who know things

I've heard the built in pre-amp on the AT120 (which I now have) is kinda garbage and that apparently a lot of people rip them out. I don't wanna fuck around with a soldering iron nor do I want to risk taking this thing apart but I have seen it suggested that something like the ART DJ Pre II (which is fairly cheap) can make a difference. if anyone has an external pre-amp, does it really make a noticeable improvement, or am I just chasing here? I assume I can just hook this up by switching to Line & plugging it into the Phono input on the receiver, correct?

(fwiw I think I might just pick up a micro-line stylus, which I assume would be a much bigger improvement)

or should I just assume the one on my receiver (an HK3470) is better than what I could get from a cheap external preamp?

I don't now about those specific things but I think a pre-amp can make a significant difference. I'm using a NAD PP-1 now which is very entry level and I can say it's not as good as the one in the audio interface I was using that blew some caps.

Kid a sounds better on CD than on the 10" vinyl copy I had. Same for in rainbows.

I assume I can just hook this up by switching to Line & plugging it into the Phono input on the receiver, correct?

In any case it should be easy enough now to compare the turntable’s preamp to the receiver’s so you might as well try both of those before considering an external preamp.

ditto, i would say first try it through the one in your receiver and see if you notice a difference. i don't really have much experience with external preamps, except a friend once lent me a fancy tube one and yeah it made a difference -- sorry to see it go. just a guess, but if you're looking to upgrade i would think the cartridge would make more of a difference that the preamp.

this is the cart i have: https://www.turntableneedles.com/AT-VM95ML_Cartridge_Authorized_Dealer

though it occurs to me....with your new turntable, you might already have an AT-VM95 series cartridge. in which case to upgrade to an ML you'd just need to replace the stylus, not the whole cartridge. it's not that much less, cost-wise, but it's just a pop-in replacement.

https://www.turntableneedles.com/AT-VMN95ML_Genuine_audio-technica_Stylus_for_AT-VM95ML_AT-VM95_series

Kid a sounds better on CD than on the 10" vinyl copy I had. Same for in rainbows.

― candyman

From the ones I own on both formats The Bends, OKC and IR sound better on CD to my ears. Kid A sounds way better in vinyl for me, though.

I haven’t heard HTTT on vinyl but I’m not a fan of how it sounds in digital or CD. I’ve heard people praising the difference on that one in particular.

xp yeah I'm gonna see if I can borrow one first. I know this shit is a hassle but honestly it's quite fun to doink around with. I think I will be getting one of those VM95MLs though. I saw a YouTube video comparing it to the 95E (which I have) and there is a huge difference in some of the inner grooves. Granted I think this is up to the mastering - some of my LPs have IGD, a lot of them don't (or just have it in the last 20-30 seconds), but still, eliminating that would be a dream

yeah my turntable is basically undoink-with-able -- it's made to basically plug and play. i like that, yet the other half of me is a doinker who wants to tune the thing to perfection. when i "grow up," i've been eyeing this schiit turntable that is the polar opposite of mine. it's made for doinkers. you can adjust everything humanly possible. https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-sol-turntable?qt-related_posts=1

I'm starting to become like that, though I don't really know what I'm doing I am slowly learning. its kind of funny how vinyl sort of tunes you in to all these little imperfections - several times I've thought either the record or needle was dirty or something was misaligned but when I've compared to an MP3 version that I've listened to for years it turns out it actually does sound like that. so I guess I'm developing a keener ear. but that sorta drives you nuts.

not the worst way to get started with soldering, but (after reading about the issue even with the preamp supposedly turned off), what an impressive pain in the ass! Mess around a while between the built-in and your receiver before voidingnthe warranty tho i guess.

i found this article on the AT LP-120. why is everyone removing the internal preamp? i don't get that -- isn't there a way to just bypass it?
anyway, he says the first upgrade should be the stylus/cartridge, not the preamp. https://vinylrestart.com/best-phono-preamp-for-at-lp120/

Something something signal path

Agree that it can't be such a big thing

anyway, what makes the journey all worth it, in my experience anyway, is when i'm listening to my records i sort of can't believe how great they sound.

yeah after a decade-plus of listening to nothing but 192 kbps MP3s it's really opened my eyes

tbf the moment of reckoning was a couple years ago with a CD - there was a certain one I had to buy because I couldn't find it online, anywhere. I popped it in the car stereo and a number of times thought "holy shit, this sounds awesome", then realizing that it must be because for once I was listening to an actual CD

Xpost maybethe kid a 12" vinyl, but not the 10" edition. And the American vinyl of rainbows sounded too loud.

In Rainbows is an interesting example for this thread. The double vinyl, 45rpm version I've seen singled out many times as the paragon of vinyl sound quality for a release this century. The more common single LP, yeah kinda sounds shit.

I'm never sure about getting newer (music made this century basically) albums on vinyl. Doesnt seem worth it anymore. You never know what the pressing will be like. Theres the price too obv. But I've come to accept that.

i hear lots of people complaining about modern pressings. maybe i've been walking between the raindrops but i've had the opposite experience -- most of them sound great to me. if they're not analog-sourced they typically use very high resolution digital as masters, they tend not to overcompress the masters, pressings are quiet, etc. plus since peoples' home systems are somewhat "tuned" to their own preferences, things just sound better on them. i guess having a cd-length album split among 4 LP sides can be a drag, but cds are too long and you can make believe each disk is its own LP. their prices are commensurate with what they used to cost. in 1973 (i'm old) i remember paying $3.33 for jethro tull's 'passion play' which though 'on sale' was 33 cents more than i was used to paying for new lps but i did it because i had tickets to see them at nassau coliseum and i wanted to be familiar with their new album. an inflation calculator tells me that would be $26.42 today.

(though in the same store i also got the stooges 1st record off the three-for-a-dollar rack. i think i also got tiny tim's 2nd record and a david frye comedy album to round it out.)

yeah I think Discogs can give you the impression that there are way more bad pressings out there than there actually are. everyone who gets one complaints about it on there and honestly I think a lot of times it's not actually the pressing that's bad - like, I've gotten new records that were full of static and I didn't realize how badly that can effect the replay. also people often use different stereos for their turntable so they're not really comparing them properly - I've had pressings that I thought were bad, only to realize the digital version distorts in the same way. playing music on a decent setup can reveal things you wouldn't hear on headphones or car speakers. often when I think something is bad it's generally a record that wasn't produced very well in the first place. the only 'bad' pressing I've gotten is a 10" record that glows in the dark and probably wasn't really meant to be played anyway

a 10" record that glows in the dark

lol ok what is this

Nature Tapes by Lemon Demon

Definitely different turntables and - more significantly - different stylus profiles can have a huge effect on how they handle imperfect vinyl - I’m using a Technics EPC-310MC at the moment and it is brilliant at digging detail out of records I thought were pretty played-out - but can be very unforgiving of scratches. I have a second TT with a moderately good AT stylus that gets used for cheap and cheerful dollar bin purchases.

So anyway totally agree that it’s hard to have an objective POV about the quality of a pressing.

Having said that I’ve had non-fill (“ripping” sound) in a bunch of contemporary pressings and only one or two vintage LPs, and that’s totally a QC issue.

This is a gross thing to say but I don’t think paper inner sleeves are great for vinyl, often they are glued in with static and can abrade the surface during shipping. On the rare occasions that I’ve bought contemporary records that are stored in a plastic inner they are always in much better condition.

It’s pretty hard to strongly advocate for more plastic use, but then again it’s pretty hard to defend vinyl fandom on environmental grounds anyway.

people on discogs often post reviews like maniacs.

i imagine a warehouse at amazon filled with returned vinyl because people thought it was a bad pressing.

Amazon does ship their vinyl pretty carelessly sometimes. I've heard a few horror stories. luckily I've been fine with the few I've gotten from there but it's weird, you either get it in a really thin cardboard package that could easily blow away or a gigantic box that makes you think you accidentally ordered a table saw

agreed re: the plastic inner sleeves....those thin white paper ones with the hole for the label are probably fine, but the thicker & glossier ones do seem to scuff up the records - nothing that should affect playback, but still, you can get like 300 plastic inner sleeves for the cost of one new record so you might as well. if nothing else they seem to be good at keeping the static away.

just got an 80s vertigo cd of ride the lightning in the mail, it’s kickin ass alright

I should say I have the most recent CD of kill em all and that sounds great too!

ha yeh I would have to say re the og thread premise that the burden of proof is very much on vinyl to sound better than the CD, rather than the other way round

hey TSF - I upgraded to the 95ML on your recommendation. you were right. IGD is pretty much completely gone. first LP I tested it on was Tormato by Yes because the final track on Side A ("Release, Release") had it particularly bad. now I don't even notice it. the record also sounds more crisp - no pops or clicks (though I can't remember how noisy it was before? I mean this is a $1.99 Goodwill record, otoh it's Tormato so who knows how much the original owner played it). almost kicking myself for not getting this sooner. thanks for the recommendation!!

also was very nice that I already had a perfectly aligned AT cart that came with the turntable, just pop it in and go

alright, just gave this the ultimate test: Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star (as you know he's getting polled right now). it's a 56 minute LP with some pretty loud & crazy stuff going on at the end of both sides, so it kind of sounds like garbage on vinyl. with this stylus it's pretty much as good as the CD, none of the blowouts & sharp sibilance that it had before. easily the best "upgrade" I've ever made to my system.

hey great it worked out for you, frogbs. enjoy the listening!