Okay, what is the deal with vinyl? It has been years since I have actually heard a vinyl setup. Even though I have visited a dozen or audio shops in the last couple of years, I have never listened to any vinyl setups. I always thought vinyl would be a pain in the ass so I never really looked into to it. However, if vinyl really does sound better than cds, then I am willing to give it a try. My new integrated amp has a phono section so I am good to go. Can someone touch on the differences I will hear on vinyl compared to cd? Is vinyl easier on the ears? What else? Thanks for informative response in advance.

Vinyl is overall alot more natural to my ears. I grew up with cds but now believe that a decent vinyl will smoke even the best recorded cds. The dynamics on vinyl is much more believable, with for insistence drums having a real "pop" to them. Strings also sound more realistic. The rythm overall just sounds right, coming closer to what was going on in the studio. Vinyl just seems to have "soul", whereas the digital sources I have heard (even the best of them) seem to be sterile imitators just running through the motions.

This is how it was for me.

Really really really really good CD playback was like having Joni Mitchell in my living room on a stage giving me my own private concert.

Really really really really good vinyl playback was like having her sit across from me and sing to me like I was the only person on the planet and occasionally lean over and sing right into my ear.

I agree with the delectable superiority of vinyl, but it has costs. Getting your first separates system is a big commitment. Getting your first 'audiophile' serious component system is a commitment again. Getting your first serious turntable and tonearm is yet another commitment unto itself. Soon you will have unsightly boxes of crumbly lps in your room (even if you invest in dedicated lp storage, those boxes and piles appear), you will be searching for cleaning fluid, clamps, non-oxidizing sleeves, and you will begin to haunt grimy second-hand stores looking for crumbly, scratchy, but astounding bargains.

But just in terms of the openness, airyness, and casual precision of a good quality vinyl player, it confounds all but the most excruciatingly expensive digital setups. Good headphones offer an intense but somewhat claustrophobic intimacy of detail. Lps played on a serious system with decent speakers are imposingly, vibrantly intimate -- as Dick Danger said, it's like people being in the room with you.

It's amazing how history repeats itself!

I guess this is finally making me realize that I'm not a young kid anymore (how sad)!

I started listening to music when I was perhaps 9 or 10. My parents had an old RCA turntable and some 78 that I played quite often. Then the latest and greatest came along, the 33rpm, and thing were improving, sound wise.

From about 1967 to the introduction of the CD, I chased the best sound I could afford for 'records'...now I guess it's vinyl.

All during college, we compared LP's and setups. Then when I started working, I started in earnest to purchase the best I could afford at the time. I kept upgrading (nothing new here) and there was always something new and better coming out. In the end, turntables were so expensive, tone arms completely out of sight, and cartridges were astronomical!! Will it ever stop??

It did.

Along came the CD. I was an early adopter and I think I purchased the first CD player I could find. I couldn't find any CD's but a few were here and there. When I heard the CD's I thought nirvana was achieved.

No more scratches, no more hiss, no more wow and flutter specifications (although the first CD players listed W&F specs) and a dynamic range that could not be achieved on a LP! It was amazing. Terms such as DAC, bit rates were not spoken, it was un-necessary.

Well, it's now 2005. The airplane I fly has TV tubes instead of the old analog round dials, the radios are digital, and the plane goes about 500 miles an hour faster that what I rode on as a kid going from NYC to Miami. And to think vinyl is the rage of the 21 century makes me wonder what I missed all those years ago?

Well I wish you all the best in you search for the ultimate sound reproduction. Just about the time you spend a few million on state of the art TUBE amplifiers (and let's not forget tone arm pre-amps), laser or what ever driven turntables that need to be mounted in the center of the earth on a 5 ton block of cement ( can have the earth's rotation screw up the playback of the vinyl) and some pick-up that uses mico-gryos for stability, someone will come along and introduce you to the newest thing. We can all guess what that's going to be

PS. If anyone is interested, I will give you for free (you pay the shipping) of my state of the art Denon turntable from the 80"s! It's collecting dust in my garage. I never had the heart to toss it. I knew if I waited long enough it would have some value. Ha Ha!!

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It may be easier on your ears. However, it is a well-known fact (outside the audiophile circles) that vinyl alters the sound. Those alterations are generally called "euphonic distortion". There are many who prefer those alterations to the purer and more authentic sound of cd.

To sum it up: vinyl is great for listening to vinyl. For music listening, choose cd!


Regards,

L.

Seeing as how i'm using a Technics SL-QD35 Turntable with only two legs, I think it's time I send a PM to our good Captain!

I have retained a large vinyl collection and decent turntable but have rarely listened to it over the last 15 years. When I do listen to it I find that Vinyl is ok with a speaker set-up and rock/pop/jazz /folk music, but that it is very hard to listen to classical music over my Stax phones without getting me screaming about clicks, pops, surface noise and overload distortion.

That said there are many good vinyl recordings out there which may be available cheaply. Spending a few hundred on a turntable may thus be a good investment for some listening tastes and habits.

Vinyl has a limited dynamic range so music which has a wide dynamic range, such as classical, cannot be recorded accurately without compression or if you read accounts of recording sessions, the players limiting their output. Thus I cannot accept the argument that its dynamics are natural. Rather they are mostly compressed, however that may suit some kinds of music

When digital sound came out, it impressed most people by its wide dynamics, lack of wow and flutter, and lack of obvious noise. However, there was much criticism of its harshness, poor spatial localization and lack of ambience. Nevertheless vinyl virtually dissappeared within about 5 years although cassettes, not really a high-fi medium, stayed on for many more years.

There is still a lot to learn about what digitization does to sound and many confuse the theory of digitalization, which says that perfect reproduction is possible, with the actuality in which compromises have to be made for real world machines.

Listening to good vinyl reproduction may also help to educate your ear about
sonic virtues that you should be looking for in digital equipment.

I have recently been impressed by the way a combination of a new DAC and Monarchy jitter reducer seriously reduced digital distortions, but without the analog drawbacks. So I think more attention to jitter and other unrecognized problems will pay off in the (hopefully near) future.

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I agree. I find vinyl to be overrated. I can see why people like it though. With its decreased frequency response and dynamics, vinyl accentuates the midrange. Some people like it. Than again, they spend a LOT of money and a lot of effort trying to get their records sound more like CDs, with increased frequency response, dynamic range and neutrality. Granted, I'm overgeneralizing by implying that all CD players are neutral, but the point that I'm trying to make is that it is MUCH more expensive and takes MUCH greater effort to make vinyl sound good. There is NO comparison between a $2000 turntable and a $2000 CD player. CDs will sound crisper, cleaner and will contain more information. It seems to me that this whole vinyl movement is a very niche movement consisting of people who try to be different.

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I am taking the opposite viewpoint: CDs have, and always will be, overhyped. The digital medium just gives the mastering engineers more chances of screwing up their own work - by over-compressing, maximizing, making then way too loud and using heavy doses of artificial digital noise reduction, even on all-digital recordings. (They don't have to, if they don't want to - but almost every one of them take to such abusing of digital recordings and/or masterings, to various extents.)

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Actually, I spent a lot of money trying to build a digital rig (Meridian G57, Meridian G08 and EAR 864) that sounded smoother like vinyl.

Vinyl and Cds sound different. Some people just like the sound of vinyl. I don't think there needs to be any more reason than that. I wouldn't assume vinyl fans are people just trying to be different. In my case, I have put together a high end digital and vinyl rig for several reasons. One reason is that I just like the sound of vinyl sometimes. Another reason is that I have rare records that you can't get on CDs.

It has been my experience that when comparing similiarly priced vinyl and cd setup... the table comes out on top (when properly setup and with a clean record of course). A reasonably well recorded vinyl nearly always sounds better on my old Thorens table then on my Ah! Njoe Tjoeb. One of the my shocking demo expriences I have ever had was listening to a relatively simple $2000 dollar analog rig completely smoke a $5000 Esoteric DV-50S playing the best SACD I brought into the store.

I know I need to get out and listen, but based on the responses so far, it seems that the superiority of vinyl is not wide spread among headfiers. Kind of a mix vote. For the record, I will be using it in a speaker setup, not for headphones.

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Well, I guess the price was right! I now have a queue of interested parties so please hold off for a while. Thanks all for the interest!!

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I don't know which vinly play back you have heard, but actually, an anlogue delivers better dynamics particularly in low frequency area than most digital.

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I see that. And they are misguided.

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I think it's the other way around.
It is lot costlier to make a digital playl back sounds good as most decent analogue.
A humble 1k$ analouge rig can rival a CD player costing many times more.

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Are you listening to the sound? or music?

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If a listener has a large record collection or the music he/she wants to listen to is available on vinyl only, it makes sense to have one.

The availability of the software should drive the format of the playback.

That said, a good record player is a good for your soul.