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CDs just don’t have that “collector’s item” characteristic (yet?). Physical album sales are low enough nowadays that enthusiasts that are looking for a specific medium probably make up a very large portion of the buyers.
It’s more that a CD is just a physical copy of a digital file. Buying a CD and buying a mp3 file are basically the same. People buy records because they have this idea that “analog sounds better”(despite modern record players being digital as well - it’s the tubes, not just the record, that made it analog)
CDs sounds much better than most mp3. I mean you can get mostly lossless compression that is worth using but CDs are just awesome and still likely to be the OG source.
.FLAC would like a word with you. I was only using mp3 as a stand in for “digital file”. There are much better file formats than what you find on a CD.
Both CDs and FLAC are lossless. Flac is just compressed while CDs are uncompressed.
CDs are lossless. It’s the same thing as FLAC.
It’s more that a CD is just a physical copy of a digital file.
Pretty much every vinyl record pressed in the last few decades is a physical copy of a digital file.
Records often do sound better. This is a case of garbage in garbage out though - records cannot handle some of the tricks done in mastering to make CDs/digital sound okay on a car radio (that is against road noise), from a phone (tiny speakers) and all the other awful listening environments most people listen to music (a cynic would call this background noise with lyrics not music). So if you want to make a record you have to master it without those tricks and this makes for better music. People who listen to records also generally are listening in a better listening environment. If you can get a CD mastered for a great listening environment and listen to in a great listening environment it would be better than a record could ever be - but you can’t get a CD mastered like that and even if you could most people are not listening in a great environment and so the CD will sound worse than one mastered as they are.
This is theoretically the best defense of records I’ve heard…
But, I still find it pretty hard to believe they’re mastering the records any different than they do anything else.
My current hunch is that maybe the imprecise nature of a record results in it sounding a bit warmer (which … to be fair is a very desirable sound to a lot of folks; I’ve thought about using a tube amp for that exact reason).
They have to master records differently as too much bass boost will cause the needle to bounce out of the groove and skip.
I … find that hard to believe, but also someone on the R site said in a “everything is bass heavy” troubleshooting section that the vinyl master has less bass and the record players add extra bass back in to the signal.
I’m really leaning towards Vinyl is just a different reproduction that some people like more than digital. Seems like a similar thing with how some people use tube amps with their digital audio library to cause that “old school radio” warm tone when you crank it up.
People who listen to records also generally are listening in a better listening environment. If you can get a CD mastered for a great listening environment and listen to in a great listening environment it would be better than a record could ever be - but you can’t get a CD mastered like that and even if you could most people are not listening in a great environment and so the CD will sound worse than one mastered as they are.
You are right that the main difference is that vinyl records are mastered for use in a specific environment designed for the best audio experience and CDs are generally mastered for a wide variety of listening environments that include terrible acoustics. But any well mastered CD will sound better on the same level of hardware compared to vinyl from a technical perspective and the supposed superiority of vinyl tends to come from the imperfections analogue playback, including noise from dust, is really a preference thing.
Not to mention a ton of modern record players are digital, so vinyl is just one physical step between digital mastering and digital playback.
I’m convinced that “analog sounds better” is just an inaccurate way people describe preferring the experience of listening to a record, and they just can’t articulate that what they really like is the tactile ceremony of loading it in the player or looking at large-format album art or something like that. Surely nobody actually believes that less accurate sound reproduction is somehow an improvement.
It’s fake nostalgia of an era they never experienced. Vinyls always sounded like shit but we had no comparison except the better sound of movie theaters, but you couldn’t have that at home.
Then the audio CD appeared and it was like the second coming of Jesus. The sound was really a hundred times better than vinyls, even with the same set of amps and speakers.
One day they’ll tell us that VHS on a small black and white TV is better than a 4K movie on a giant screen.
i gave up collecting physical music for space reasons but i have considered getting some LPs just for the large format album art. if nothing else they’d be cool to frame and display. CDs will never have that, they’re just going to go the way of the 8 track.
My thoughts exactly. Love the art, love the exclusives like posters. Personally I find the audio quality worse (although this is likely my cat’s fault), but still love the format.
That being said, I have mostly backed out of buying vinyl after acquiring a small collection.
This video definitely contributed: https://youtu.be/aZ2czFuIYmQ
But how will you get your daily dosage of formaldehyde?
It just occurred to me the only functioning CD player I have at this point may be the one in the car, while I do have a USB-equipped turntable in the closet someplace. Afaik it still functions. I had bought it in order to burn my vinyl collection to CD.
CDs are just digital files. Vinyl can sound different day to day, year to year. It degrades over time. It’s sort of like a sense of respect. You listen to it because you really want to. There’s effort involved. And if you really like an album, it’ll show.
Used CDs are a hidden gem, IMO. They last longer than vinyls, they’re cheaper, smaller, far easier to store/transport, and the music files on them are lossless so they can be ripped onto a computer and shared with no drop in quality.
i have a backlog of foreign albums on cd that i use primarily when spotify and youtube doesnt have them
I’ll keep buying CDs for as long as I can. A digital file of music I’ve purchased with no DRM and an included physical backup? Yes please
Yup. I buy CDs when possible and rip them as soon as I get them then store the CDs as best I can.
until CDs are old enough to become cool again
As someone with a record collection, I wouldn’t say that any format of music is better. I do think however that different formats let you hear the same music in different ways. So if you really love an album, it’s cool when you notice things you never did before because you listened to it through a different medium.
I think it’s the deliberate-ness that I love about it. When you put a record on, you’re listening to that album. No shuffle, no skip, no casual earbuds. You’re sitting in a chair and listening.
