Yet another Vinyl vs. CD/Digital debate

[Luis de Bethencourt]

As an ex-DJ who only spined with vinyl, I must say the real benefit of
vinyl over CD is the manipulative (as in manual like hand) touch of
the format. To speed up, slow down, seek to an other time in the
track... it's all done in a very artesan way with your hands, it is
the real benefit of an analog format.

The difference of the sound... vinyl seams more dynamic because it
performs really well in low ranges but not so much in high ranges,
higher frequencies are shorter and need a more precise wave, and the
drawing inside a vinyl has it's limits (33'1/3 ~ 45'1/2). Vinyl is
great for singles, but not so good for a whole album... the closer to
the center the less precise the wave is (it spins at the same speed
and the lenght is smaller). But it does look darn cool.

CD is persistent, performs well in all ranges and uses the paradigm of
having double a human can percieve. Plus it's a lossless format,
meaning each playback doesn't degrade the quality of the record,
avoiding the characteristic glitch sounds in a vinyl. And very
comfortable to use.

All that said, the analog vs digital sound is a pointless debate once
any of them passes through a digital sound system (including the
speakers).

I see it like a black and white film photography vs color digital
photography. If you love the feel of the grain in film and the artsy
look of black and white, you are definitely going to enjoy more that
type of photography. If you are looking for the benefits of an
improving digital world, go with a DSLR.

I personally love both formats and have a mountain of vinyl records of
clubs that where going to through them away because of the loss of
quality (they usually buy a few copies of the hits planning this
ahead). And I also have my evergrowing collection of CD's.

My two cents,
Luis de Bethencourt

On Feb 16, 2008 2:05 PM, Cory K. <coryisatm at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> hollunder at gmx.at wrote:
> > Hartmut, have you ever been to hydrogenaudio.org ?
> > The site is mainly about lossless and lossy audio formats but also a lot
> > about listening tests, and how to do them properly.
> > I think many people in that forum would love to see
> > proper double-blind-test results that show that you can hear the
> > difference between for example 24/96 and 16/44.1.
>
> > Best Regards
> >     Philipp
>
> Ok. Let's split off this thread. Shoulda been done a while ago. If some
> replies the same time as I send this, re-title the response to that.
> Really, we have a number of threads like this lately and it becomes
> really hard to search for relevant info.
>
> And don't respond to my post in this thread.
>
> -Cory
>
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Luis de Bethencourt Guimerá
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