Sales of vinyl records have been soaring although they still represent only a tiny fraction of the music industry s revenues.
Why cds may actually sound better than vinyl.
The problem here is that it had a tremendous result on the audio quality.
About 2 percent in 2014.
It s more apparent if you listen to an album original released on vinyl verses re released on cd.
That s why snare drums cymbal splashes and other loud instruments have so much more punch in vinyl recordings.
Cd audio is compressed in comparison to vinyl that was originally recorded in analog.
They become virtually unusable after too many plays.
But there is a downside any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static.
In addition as an album progresses the quality of sound decreases.
Vinyl for the most part avoided the loudness war with the rise of digital music cds included it s possible to make a track sound louder than it naturally should.
This leads to rather flat sound sometimes no better than just listening to the original mp3 file.
Digital tracks are typically mastered from the cd to vinyl and not directly to vinyl.
Cd for sure is better than mp3 and streaming due to compression and is no comparison to a vinyl record.
The more information running past the needle per second the more detailed the sound being reproduced.
During quiet spots in songs this noise may be heard over the music.
Why vinyl sounds better than cd.
So a record spinning at 45rpm will sound better than the same one built to spin at 33 1 3rpm.
There s another far superior reason why vinyl is better than lossy digital formats.
There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often.
The latter is usually preferred for an album as it means you can fit more tracks onto a single disc but it is becoming slightly more popular to.
Lps also become warped after repeated use.
Digital files can really give you that analog sound of our youth.
Why cds may actually sound better than vinyl chris kornelis january 27 2015 james russell s mother told him that his first invention was the automated battleship he built when he was 6.
This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate and that can be heard in the richness of the sound.