Does vinyl sound better than digital?

[Implode]

Now this is a really vague question, but I wanted to be general in the thread title. I know that audio quality depends on many things, including the recording itself, but my most recent use of my record player has pushed me to ask this.

I just tried to play a few albums (old and new) back on my record player. I've had this for almost a year. It's not the cheapest one you can buy, but probably not near the highest quality either. I was using the usb out functionality to stream audio to my computer and then out to my headphones. I don't remember the audio being...this bad. Now I know that there are pops and clicks and also a fading quality as the needle approaches the center of the album. That all comes with the experience. What I'm talking about is almost like...compression distortion. Or like a speaker being blown out. It's not near the same extent to what a broken speaker would sound like, but it is obviously noticeable when i compare back to back with digital recordings I have on my computer (usually lossless rips from CD's). Like I said earlier, though I haven't used it in probably 5-6 months, I don't remember it sounding this bad.

Is there some weird compression or data loss when I'm streaming it into my computer? Have I just become more aware of these subtitles? I want to test the audio going directly to my headphones, but I don't have the right cord with me at school. How would the best sounding vinyl compare to the sound of a 24bit 96kHz digital file? People in the various HDTracks threads have said that the difference between 44.1kHz and and 96kHz is not noticable; wouldn't that also mean that the difference between 96kHz and full analog would not be noticeable as well?

Any ideas? Comments? Experiences?

[In The Wake Of Poseidon]

AFAIK albums recorded through analog are better on vinyl, albums recorded digitally are not as good.

Some audiophile told me that USB record players are not ideal either.

I have a USB turntable myself but I just have it hooked up to speakers and not my computer itself, the audio sounds great regardless of how it was recorded.

[Kotowboy]

The thing is - Vinyl has frequencies above and below human hearing - but they make the freqs that we can hear resonate sympathetically.

CD just does away with the freqs that we cannot hear and that's why Vinyl *appears* to sound better or warmer.

My tutor in college said that CD is better quality sound - no question. but people prefer the sound of Vinyl due to the freqs that we cannot hear.

[BlobVanDam]

I'm just going to answer the thread title with a big "no".

The reason vinyl would sound better to someone is because they use different/better masters for some reason (I blame the loudness wars for the recent resurgence in vinyl), and people preferring the way vinyl "colours" the sound.

[Bolsters]

The reason vinyl would sound better to someone is because they use different/better masters for some reason (I blame the loudness wars for the recent resurgence in vinyl), and people preferring the way vinyl "colours" the sound.

This reflects my thoughts on the subject, too. There are a couple of technical reasons to have different masters for vinyl, but there's no reason the CD masters can't have the same master, or at least the same dynamic range or warmth that vinyl masters always seem to get (a good example being DT12, absolutely no reason the HDTracks or vinyl masters couldn't have been on the CD).

And let's face it, even with the different mastering for CD/vinyl, a lot of the "vinyl is better" opinion is placebo, too. There are people who only think vinyl is better because they have been told that it is.

[BlobVanDam]

The reason vinyl would sound better to someone is because they use different/better masters for some reason (I blame the loudness wars for the recent resurgence in vinyl), and people preferring the way vinyl "colours" the sound.

This reflects my thoughts on the subject, too. There are a couple of technical reasons to have different masters for vinyl, but there's no reason the CD masters can't have the same master, or at least the same dynamic range or warmth that vinyl masters always seem to get (a good example being DT12, absolutely no reason the HDTracks or vinyl masters couldn't have been on the CD).

And let's face it, even with the different mastering for CD/vinyl, a lot of the "vinyl is better" opinion is placebo, too. There are people who only think vinyl is better because they have been told that it is.

I wouldn't go that far, as the better master does make a huge difference. It really depends on what part of the sound you value more as a listener. Also, people may not be listening to CDs and vinyl on the same equipment, so it's hard to A/B them for quality.

I think CD and the digital era of music in general has had problems not related to the medium itself. When it first came out, they weren't using good digital transfers of albums, and the albums were not properly mastered for the format, so they sounded thin and flat. The same goes for early digital recording equipment too.
By the time the digital technology had matured, we then got the loudness war, and it's no wonder people are listening to vinyl, when the masters used on the digital versions often sound so awful. The vinyl versions can sound better than the CD in certain regards, but imo there's absolutely zero doubt that CD is the much better sounding medium, when actually done properly.
And I think record companies are more than happy to charge people more for a vinyl version that isn't as easily pirated.

And so here we are in a situation where the 30 year old albums in my collection usually sound much better than the brand new ones. THANKS OBAMA RECORD COMPANIES.

[Nick]

For things recorded in the vinyl era, it's almost always a yes. For newer releases it's often a judgement call. As some have already noted, vinyl does not get hit nearly as hard by the loudness war, and so any album that has fallen victim almost always sounds better on vinyl. For other newer releases there are pros and cons that makes it really up to personal preference.

The BEST 2 channel experience will come, in my opinion, from a well engineered and mastered album released in hi-res via either DVD or Blu-Ray. And of course most anything that has that will also have hi-res 5.1 which is better still if you have the system.

For examples of this see anything Steven Wilson has touched in the last 5 years. (Or hell, likely 10 years)

[PuffyPat]

Theoretically, yes, but now that vinyl is pressed with the same digital masters as what is on a CD (in most cases), there really is no difference. What it really comes down to, is the sound system. If you have shitty speakers, it doesn't matter if you have a record, a CD, or an iPod dock, the music is not going to sound good at all.

[Sketchy]

If you have decent quality digital, no. It's not really possible to cut vinyl as accurately as you'd need to get anywhere near to as good as a fourier transform with decent resolution. Analogue is really not an efficient way of storing data, however, it's the imperfections in the media which make it sound so favourable to many.

[IslandInTheMaking]

Now this is a really vague question, but I wanted to be general in the thread title. I know that audio quality depends on many things, including the recording itself, but my most recent use of my record player has pushed me to ask this.

I just tried to play a few albums (old and new) back on my record player. I've had this for almost a year. It's not the cheapest one you can buy, but probably not near the highest quality either. I was using the usb out functionality to stream audio to my computer and then out to my headphones. I don't remember the audio being...this bad. Now I know that there are pops and clicks and also a fading quality as the needle approaches the center of the album. That all comes with the experience. What I'm talking about is almost like...compression distortion. Or like a speaker being blown out. It's not near the same extent to what a broken speaker would sound like, but it is obviously noticeable when i compare back to back with digital recordings I have on my computer (usually lossless rips from CD's). Like I said earlier, though I haven't used it in probably 5-6 months, I don't remember it sounding this bad.

Is there some weird compression or data loss when I'm streaming it into my computer? Have I just become more aware of these subtitles? I want to test the audio going directly to my headphones, but I don't have the right cord with me at school. How would the best sounding vinyl compare to the sound of a 24bit 96kHz digital file? People in the various HDTracks threads have said that the difference between 44.1kHz and and 96kHz is not noticable; wouldn't that also mean that the difference between 96kHz and full analog would not be noticeable as well?

Any ideas? Comments? Experiences?

I think I know the sound you describe. It could be that the needle is "skating".. pressing against (usually) the inner groove rather than travelling in the dead center as it should. That can cause distortion, but it should be more on the side the needle is pressing against. I find the sound to be really obvious on distorted guitars. Good news: it's relatively simple to adjust. And you can get the info on how to do that all over the net. I recommend doing a google search on your cartridge model & turntable. (If you don't have the manual handy..)  Bad news: welcome to turntable adjusting hell

BTW: Listening through the usb/computer pretty much negates all the supposed advantages you get from vinyl... and you're left with all the bad stuff (snap, cracle & pop) The sound you're hearing is largely dependent on the quality of the A/D conversion happening before the USB port.

[TL]

Digital is capable of better sound than vinyl, but most recordings don't really use digital's full potential.
Digital also allows for certain negative mastering practices that you can't really do with vinyl, extending the volume of the recording past its dynamic limits. If you try this on vinyl, it can cause significant playback issues, where digital will still play and will just clip.

So basically, digital can sound much better, but there are definitely reason the whole myth of 'vinyls sound better' exists.

[jsbru]

If you have decent quality digital, no. It's not really possible to cut vinyl as accurately as you'd need to get anywhere near to as good as a fourier transform with decent resolution. Analogue is really not an efficient way of storing data, however, it's the imperfections in the media which make it sound so favourable to many.

This.

The reason vinyl is appealing to me is the imperfections.  I find stuff like record pops and static kind of comforting, actually.  But I do not think somehow that analog is better sound quality.

[Rhayader]

In my experience, vinyl is way better than any digital.

[Lowdz]

I was a fairly early adopter of cd back in the 80s and I have to say I was very happy with cds over vinyl. I don't miss vinyl at all. I have a few hundred vinyl lps from back in the day but I haven't owned a record deck in over 20 years.

[LP]

All things being equal, a vinyl will ALWAYS sound better. There are quite a few interesting points here, but one thing that no none has mentioned - unless I didn't see it - is this: with what are you listening to your music? A CD player? Your computer? MP3 player? Regardless, all of the previous are digital and need to be converted into analogue so that you can hear it. Now, what is converting it? The $10 sound card that came with your computer?
With a vinyl, or analogue-to-analogue, you don't have that conversion process, which makes a huge difference. Now, say the recording was digital. Well, to put this recording onto vinyl, they had to convert it first. The converter they probably used was probably a Benchmark($1 000) or a Prism($4 000) - either of which are better than the converters you are using. So, the vinyl in this case will still sound better than the digital equivalent you have at home.

[BlobVanDam]

All things being equal, a vinyl will ALWAYS sound better. There are quite a few interesting points here, but one thing that no none has mentioned - unless I didn't see it - is this: with what are you listening to your music? A CD player? Your computer? MP3 player? Regardless, all of the previous are digital and need to be converted into analogue so that you can hear it. Now, what is converting it? The $10 sound card that came with your computer?
With a vinyl, or analogue-to-analogue, you don't have that conversion process, which makes a huge difference. Now, say the recording was digital. Well, to put this recording onto vinyl, they had to convert it first. The converter they probably used was probably a Benchmark($1 000) or a Prism($4 000) - either of which are better than the converters you are using. So, the vinyl in this case will still sound better than the digital equivalent you have at home.

I would rather hear a pristine recording through a cheap DAC than hear that same recording stamped as a groove onto a vinyl circle read via a needle. Luckily, I have a $200 audiophile soundcard, so that's not an issue, but any dedicated soundcard these days is going to be effectively transparent to the listener when factoring in all of the other variables too.

But you're focusing on one small part of the entire process, while not factoring in flaws inherent to the format itself, which are a much bigger factor. Equipment is on the user, not a limitation of the format itself.
Regardless, with any album that was recorded digitally, you're getting a more direct representation of what was recorded, going from the digital file to analogue only at the final stage on your end. With modern vinyl, you're going from the digital file, to an analogue master, which is then pressed, and then you need the equipment to convert that back into sound. More stages of analogue loss vs one stage of analogue conversion done much more directly and accurately.

[LP]

All things being equal, a vinyl will ALWAYS sound better. There are quite a few interesting points here, but one thing that no none has mentioned - unless I didn't see it - is this: with what are you listening to your music? A CD player? Your computer? MP3 player? Regardless, all of the previous are digital and need to be converted into analogue so that you can hear it. Now, what is converting it? The $10 sound card that came with your computer?
With a vinyl, or analogue-to-analogue, you don't have that conversion process, which makes a huge difference. Now, say the recording was digital. Well, to put this recording onto vinyl, they had to convert it first. The converter they probably used was probably a Benchmark($1 000) or a Prism($4 000) - either of which are better than the converters you are using. So, the vinyl in this case will still sound better than the digital equivalent you have at home.

I would rather hear a pristine recording through a cheap DAC than hear that same recording stamped as a groove onto a vinyl circle read via a needle. Luckily, I have a $200 audiophile soundcard, so that's not an issue, but any dedicated soundcard these days is going to be effectively transparent to the listener when factoring in all of the other variables too.

But you're focusing on one small part of the entire process, while not factoring in flaws inherent to the format itself, which are a much bigger factor. Equipment is on the user, not a limitation of the format itself.
Regardless, with any album that was recorded digitally, you're getting a more direct representation of what was recorded, going from the digital file to analogue only at the final stage on your end. With modern vinyl, you're going from the digital file, to an analogue master, which is then pressed, and then you need the equipment to convert that back into sound. More stages of analogue loss vs one stage of analogue conversion done much more directly and accurately.

Well, the important thing is that you're listening to music, right? Some people don't anymore. Regardless of our preferences, and since we are on the Dream Theater forums, why not let Mr. Petrucci give his opinion on vinyl?
https://noisecreep.com/dream-theater-john-petrucci-discusses-vinyl-new-self-titled-album/

[Bolsters]

All things being equal, a vinyl will ALWAYS sound better. There are quite a few interesting points here, but one thing that no none has mentioned - unless I didn't see it - is this: with what are you listening to your music? A CD player? Your computer? MP3 player? Regardless, all of the previous are digital and need to be converted into analogue so that you can hear it. Now, what is converting it? The $10 sound card that came with your computer?

You make a lot of assumptions about what we're listening to our music on. Yeah, a cheap shit onboard sound card as a DAC isn't going to be too great. Some of us have better sound cards in our computers though. Some of us have really good stereo systems with a good DAC, or even home theatre receivers with a good DAC. Don't assume just because someone is listening to digital music that they're only doing it with cheap or subpar hardware. Also, a vinyl user doesn't necessarily have a great setup; just because there's no digital conversion doesn't mean that analogue equipment doesn't alter the sound. A record player with a lousy preamp won't do any favours to sound quality in the same way.

Enthusiasts will always have something better than basic, whether they're listening to digital files or vinyl records.

[BlobVanDam]

All things being equal, a vinyl will ALWAYS sound better. There are quite a few interesting points here, but one thing that no none has mentioned - unless I didn't see it - is this: with what are you listening to your music? A CD player? Your computer? MP3 player? Regardless, all of the previous are digital and need to be converted into analogue so that you can hear it. Now, what is converting it? The $10 sound card that came with your computer?

You make a lot of assumptions about what we're listening to our music on. Yeah, a cheap shit onboard sound card as a DAC isn't going to be too great. Some of us have better sound cards in our computers though. Some of us have really good stereo systems with a good DAC, or even home theatre receivers with a good DAC. Don't assume just because someone is listening to digital music that they're only doing it with cheap or subpar hardware. Also, a vinyl user doesn't necessarily have a great setup; just because there's no digital conversion doesn't mean that analogue equipment doesn't alter the sound. A record player with a lousy preamp won't do any favours to sound quality in the same way.

Enthusiasts will always have something better than basic, whether they're listening to digital files or vinyl records.

Yep. It's not fair to compare the best setup of vinyl and the worst setup of digital, especially when you're making the argument for "all things being equal", which it's clearly not. These are not related to the format itself, but to the listener. And of course there are going to be people listening to digital files on crappy setups, since it's the ideal format for portability, in situations where an expensive setup isn't really an option.

I also know plenty of people listening to vinyl through cheap vinyl players (and even through the internal speaker on them), and surprise surprise, it also sounds like shit! Every bit as shit as if I were to listen to a 128kb/s MP3 through an iPhone speaker.

But then you have people like me, listening to DT's latest album from the HDTracks 24bit/96khz lossless file (which is basically direct from the studio as it was recorded), through a high end soundcard DAC, through studio monitor headphones with a flat frequency response. I'd say I'm hearing it much closer to how DT intended it in the studio than anyone via vinyl.

You can't argue that vinyl always sounds better simply because some people are listening to it on bad equipment, because it works both ways. People who really want to appreciate their music will invest in a good setup, whether it be digital or analogue. "Vinyl will ALWAYS sound better"? Hardly.

[LP]

My first words were: all things being equal. I never said that vinyl will always sound better regardless of the circumstances. All things being equal means listening through the - more or less- same equipment. If you have a $20 turntable vs a $1 000 cd player, of course the cd player will sound better.
Do you have a turntable that's the equivalent in price to your soundcard  + cd drive and have you actually done comparisons? You mentioned studio monitors...what does that have anything to do with anything? We're talking about the source here. You can listen to vinyl through your monitors if you like...in fact, that would be a better way to do A/B comparisons...

[BlobVanDam]

My first words were: all things being equal. I never said that vinyl will always sound better regardless of the circumstances. All things being equal means listening through the - more or less- same equipment. If you have a $20 turntable vs a $1 000 cd player, of course the cd player will sound better.
Do you have a turntable that's the equivalent in price to your soundcard  + cd drive and have you actually done comparisons? You mentioned studio monitors...what does that have anything to do with anything? We're talking about the source here. You can listen to vinyl through your monitors if you like...in fact, that would be a better way to do A/B comparisons...

But your argument was based around a $10 PC soundcard, and mp3 players etc. You're not talking about the source. You're talking about the equipment.
My counter argument is that all things being equal, a lossless digital file is going to be better than all of the stages of analogue conversion necessary to create and play a vinyl, between when it was recorded, and when you hear it. That is talking about the source.

[LP]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

[Buddyhunter1]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

Steven Wilson please leave this thread

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

 

[Kotowboy]

Just for fun I looked up Steven Wilson on the DR Database.

Turns out his stuff isn't all that dynamic either...

Fear Of A Blank Planet and The Incident are both quite hot and the earlier albums are not much better.

Insurgentes is pretty far into the red.

[Tyrias]

Just for fun I looked up Steven Wilson on the DR Database.

Turns out his stuff isn't all that dynamic either...

Fear Of A Blank Planet and The Incident are both quite hot and the earlier albums are not much better.

According to the DR Database FOABP is a DR9 and The Incident is a DR 10, which is really good for a modern rock production. On the other hand, Deadwing and (to a lesser extent) In Absentia are quite hot.

https://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=Porcupine+Tree&sort=year&order=asc

For comparison, The Raven That Refused to Sing is a DR 10, and SW skipped the mastering stage entirely for that record.

[LP]

Anyway, to the original poster and to all others interested in the sound quality of the vinyl edition of DT's new album, I'll start a new thread dedicated to this in the forthcoming days...

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

I realize this post has already been responded to, but.... don't you think it's somewhat hypocritical to tell us to chill?

[Bolsters]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

I love when vinyl elitists get pissy and so eloquently ridicule digital audio. It's always funny.

[BlobVanDam]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

I love when vinyl elitists get pissy and so eloquently ridicule digital audio. It's always funny.

Yeah, strong argument when you have nothing left to add but to belittle the other person. Nothing in that post even makes sense.

[seasonsinthesky]

Just for fun I looked up Steven Wilson on the DR Database.

Turns out his stuff isn't all that dynamic either...

Fear Of A Blank Planet and The Incident are both quite hot and the earlier albums are not much better.

According to the DR Database FOABP is a DR9 and The Incident is a DR 10, which is really good for a modern rock production. On the other hand, Deadwing and (to a lesser extent) In Absentia are quite hot.

https://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=Porcupine+Tree&sort=year&order=asc

For comparison, The Raven That Refused to Sing is a DR 10, and SW skipped the mastering stage entirely for that record.

the funny thing is that SW was railing against the loudness war when he was doing press for Deadwing; i even think there was an interview where he said his music may have to be turned up louder than others'. yet Deadwing is probably the loudest-mastered PT album, so bad it audibly distorts all over!

he said something last year (i think) about possibly releasing anti-loudness war masters of his records and it's DW, IA, and Insurgentes that would absolutely benefit (although Insurgentes has the limiter turned down quite a bit on the DVD-A master).

[LP]

Just for fun I looked up Steven Wilson on the DR Database.

Turns out his stuff isn't all that dynamic either...

Fear Of A Blank Planet and The Incident are both quite hot and the earlier albums are not much better.

According to the DR Database FOABP is a DR9 and The Incident is a DR 10, which is really good for a modern rock production. On the other hand, Deadwing and (to a lesser extent) In Absentia are quite hot.

https://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=Porcupine+Tree&sort=year&order=asc

For comparison, The Raven That Refused to Sing is a DR 10, and SW skipped the mastering stage entirely for that record.

the funny thing is that SW was railing against the loudness war when he was doing press for Deadwing; i even think there was an interview where he said his music may have to be turned up louder than others'. yet Deadwing is probably the loudest-mastered PT album, so bad it audibly distorts all over!

he said something last year (i think) about possibly releasing anti-loudness war masters of his records and it's DW, IA, and Insurgentes that would absolutely benefit (although Insurgentes has the limiter turned down quite a bit on the DVD-A master).

You do have a point there. For some odd reason, a lot of the ''high resolution'' files have the - as you say - limiter turned down. I don't know why they do this for the those particular masters, along the ones for the vinyl releases of course. The new Dream Theater has an average RMS at around -11to -10db, which is low by today's standards, but great for audiophiles. All this is a marketing tool anyway. With digital, there should never have been a limiter present in the master to begin with!

[theseoafs]

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

Oh my god this is the best thing I've ever seen.

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. but that's okay. Go ahead and listen to your puny little virtual and sterile lossless files and leave the euphonically huge and robust music to the rest of us.

I love when vinyl elitists get pissy and so eloquently ridicule digital audio. It's always funny.

Yeah, strong argument when you have nothing left to add but to belittle the other person. Nothing in that post even makes sense.

STFU Blob, you're not being euphonically huge enough.

[BlobVanDam]

STFU Blob, you're not being euphonically huge enough.

Boy, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that...........

[TL]

Man, forget vinyl and digital. I listen to all my music on wax cylinder.