CD v Analogue

[plastic penguin]

I think we all need to be a little careful when comparing digital with analogue. It's easy to hype one format and knock the other, but the truth is a bit more fundamental: Personally I try to keep a balance between the two purely because they both have strengths and weakenesses.

I have a healthy vinyl collection, matched equally by CDs. Allied to that thought process, as an avid radio listener, I get equal pleasure from my FM tuner as I do from Freeview but, as with CD/vinyl, they have their own distinct pros and cons.

All-in-all, I just love music and my current set-up, and try to embrace all formats.

 

[Neptune_Twilight]

As CD players matured & sounded pretty good I was glad to see the back of vinyl, even better was the advent of .flac streaming, I can appreciate that some feel that the rituals of playing vinyl add to their enjoyment but for me it's just the opposite - Streaming has enabled me to listen to CD's that I rarely delved into the back of my CD collection to find, I'm listening to far more music than I ever have & enjoying each & every minute & when I'm at home that just about all the time bar for the small amount I watch TV, glad to see the back of CD now also.

If you like the ritual of record playing that's fine but a fair amount of the ritual isn't listening to music & that's what I enjoy - I enjoy faffing with British motorcycles, I spend far more time finding parts, refastening parts that continually vibrate lose, having sprockets made, de-carbin etc, etc. it's enjoyable but it's not motorcycle riding & that's why as I'm getting older I'm spending more time riding my shaft drive Kawasaki while I still can get around, it rarely goes wrong so apart from cleaning it's all riding & I'm beginning to realise riding is more enjoyable than kneeling in my garage fixing up my BSA A10 - I do get more admiring looks on the A10 though & the nostalgia from those who had chairs on one with a family decades ago but it’s one hour riding & 5 fixing.... With the Arthur in my knees the BSA will soon go the same way as vinyl & CD went & for much the same reason.

 

[MajorFubar]

I think we all need to be a little careful when comparing digital with analogue. It's easy to hype one format and knock the other, but the truth is a bit more fundamental: Personally I try to keep a balance between the two purely because they both have strengths and weakenesses.

Amen to that, though I find the attraction of vinyl mostly psychological rather than qualitative, like the big cover art and the physical act of putting on a record and watching it play.

In fact I think psychology has a big part to play. When I first started buying CDs in 1987, I initially struggled with the concept of only owning an album on a reflective silver disc. A part of me felt unfufilled, bit like when someone throws away the last few mouthfuls of your mug of tea. It's like I didn't really own the album unless I had it on LP.

Then without me consciously noticing, it slowly reversed. In 1991 I bought the then-new Queen's Greatest Hits II on vinyl. The vinyl was thin and noisy, one side of the second LP was pressed slightly off centre and I was like "why the hell have I bought this on vinyl when I could have bought it on CD". And two weeks later I did just that.

 

[nopiano]

Major's two posts above are two of the most thoughtful and relevant I've read for a long time. Thank you!

I think I am agreeing if I say it is the triumph over adversity that playing an LP represents that makes a good outcome so rewarding. Even if a download knocks it flying for outright sound quality. Ultimately, I can only cling to my belief that record distorions are inherently more musical than digital ones, or that the failings are somehow more tolerable to the human ear.