A lot of people ask me why I buy vinyl for listening to music (not scratching or sampling) as opposed to CD’s or digital. To many, the obvious answer would be sound quality. A well-maintained turntable and needle with a good speaker system playing an analog recording should have better quality than a CD player or computer (playing the same songs through the same system) without a doubt. A turntable can output the raw analog audio signal whereas a digital recording (whether it be on CD or computer) mimics the signal but does not match it exactly.
Analog plays best on analog, period. But if an album is recorded digitally, as lots of music is recorded today, then does it matter? I compared listening to analog recordings and digital recordings on multiple formats: vinyl, CD, and “cheap” MP3 (most digital music are poor quality, heavily compressed MP3’s which by definition are of lower quality than CD’s). While I personally noticed that the analog recordings sounded best on a turntable hands down, I could not notice a difference between vinyl and CD for digital recordings. The cheap MP3’s obviously sounded terrible in comparison to the other two.
So if an album is recorded digitally, is there any point in buying it on vinyl? Some people argue that listening to vinyl gives you that nice, comfortable, “homey” feeling. I still maintain sound quality as my main reference point due to the fact that a vinyl pressing will be the rawest form of the recording no matter what, which produces the truest sound. CD’s can produce a good sound, but there have been times where labels burn an overly-compressed version of the recording which sounds much more watered-down. If you know your labels (which I don’t) and are aware of which ones release top notch quality for their CD’s, then buying a digital recording on CD will not be a problem.
I am not a sound engineer and therefore cannot give you scientific explanation. I can assure you, though, that a mixing engineer would speak very highly of music played through vinyl. Also, I don’t have “super-ears,” so when I say I hear a difference in sound quality, you probably would too.
I always buy CD’s for music I want that’s not available on vinyl. Even though lossless (like FLAC) files are of similar quality, I don’t buy digital because I don’t think it’s worth it, unless that’s the only format in which the album is available. I compared 320 kbps MP3 vs. FLAC and while I could not hear a difference, I would never buy anything lower than CD quality or lossless just because if I wanted to have it in MP3 format (for the smaller size and increased compatibility), I could just downgrade the original.
Now for the alternate reasons:
- Album art: Digital files have little pictures, CD’s have small, shiny jewel cases often complemented with scratches, and vinyl LP’s have large, beautiful displays of art. It’s a no-brainer that vinyl LP’s show album art at its best.
- Value: When you buy digital you are buying a file. That’s it. When you buy a CD you get that file on a nice CD with its own case. When you buy vinyl, you get a one-of-a-kind, unique format you can’t get anywhere else. You can easily pirate music and put it on a CD, but unless you have the equipment to press your own vinyl, a vinyl LP is irreplaceable. As far as tangibility goes, the physical feel of CD’s in your hand doesn’t come close to that of vinyl. The experience of pulling a record out of a sleeve and putting the needle down is almost as good as the enjoyment derived from the music.
- Master cut: You’re not only getting the crème de la crème, but also everything else. Want a high quality digital copy? Get a turntable that can connect to your PC and record one (or an adapter for a regular turntable). Then, you can proceed to burn those files to a CD. You can get the best of all worlds as far as format goes.
Listening to vinyl is only worth it if you go the extra step as far as turntables and hi-fi systems are concerned. You should definitely get some high-quality speakers and a reasonably good turntable. Otherwise, the whole medium is near pointless.
