Crackles and pops records that skip and the whine of a needle against the lp all problems that the cd advertised itself on solving decades ago.
Why is vinyl superior to cd.
From a technical standpoint digital cd audio quality is clearly superior to vinyl.
Records aren t exactly known for their portability for example.
Original sound is analog by definition.
Vinyl is great but the idea that its sound quality is superior to that of uncompressed digital recordings is preposterous.
There is less interference from hissing turntable rumble etc better stereo channel separation and have no variation in playback speed.
Cds have a better signal to noise ratio i e.
To many the superior sound quality and physical collection are enough to justify the investment.
Cd quality sits somewhere in the middle with 44 100 samples per second at 16 bit accuracy.
The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings.
The vinyl format can generate other issues.
Vinyl is a limited market which attracts hipsters and enthusiasts.
A vinyl record is an analog recording and cds and dvds are digital recordings.
What vinyl can t do.
They sound different and that s exactly the point.
Even as cd sales eclipsed and nearly exterminated vinyl the format was plagued by accusations that its sound was inferior that it was merely a convenient alternative to the lp.
For sure hi res digital music is a vastly superior format in both convenience and quality so why would someone side with vinyl over mp3 or streaming.
It is why mp3 with relatively few samples is so poor and hi res audio with far more is the closest we have to a studio recording.
Vinyl is one of the best ways to listen to music.
Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the cd audio and dvd audio output.
However that s not to say there aren t advantages to digital music.
Vinyl may be an underdog to streaming but it has outlasted the cd.