I think in this fairly select audience we have ears/experience and equipment that will hear and show the difference between good and bad reproduction but sadly the large majority of the purchasers of vinyl probably don’t or don’t really care enough to question it. And at the prices charged for contemporary releases there must be good margins for a circa £30 record v a £7 to £9 CD for the record companies (I wonder if the artists cut of sales varies depending on the media, I should think not?) and they’re happy to take it while the niche is popular.
Personally I have always found vinyl to be a bit hit and miss in terms of media quality. And nothing has really changed outside of the more high end specialist releases/re-releases. I’ve bought a few shockers recently from artist who I would have thought would have cared more about the quality their fans were listening to and others which have been excellent making me question why the hell the others couldn’t have managed that. Is it recording, mastering, manufacturing? My guess is manufacturing as I hope most artist would care about their recordings, be listening to their masters and test disks and saying ‘no way that’s rubbish’. Or maybe I’m being naive…
Either way I haven’t bought much vinyl lately as I’m tired and disappointed of getting (80%) warped recorded with one end of the frequency spectrum or the other largely absent. If I do think I might want something I scan here and discogs to see if there’s any comments on SQ first.
I would love to see lined record sleeves, it really does make a difference, flat records and the complimentary (along with rather than free) download return. Having shelled out at a high price for the music on vinyl, I might also like to listen to it somewhere where a record player isn’t convenient.
Rubbish. There is no such thing as an “objective” assessment of sound, given that listening is entirely subjective and music (and SQ) affects every individual differently. The pair of us could listen together to the same recording of a Verdi opera and we would experience it in very different ways. The problem with your statement is that nobody, except for a few wankers who look at graphs rather than listening to music, care very much whether one format or delivery mechanism is “theoretically” better or worse than another. If they like the sound, then they like the sound.
Digital evangelists are always banging on about “vinyl warmth = distortion” or vinyl’s technical “defects” or “shortcomings” but LP lovers won’t care, because they like that distortion. And why shouldn’t they?
Who’s this we? Speak for yourself. And, the records I bought in the 1970s still sound “pristinely clear”. What’s your point?
Yet I have four CD’s that will no longer play in any CDP and when put in the disk drive of a computer show a disc with no files. Then there’s another one that has started to delaminate. I have no idea why as I treat my CD’s with as much care as my vinyl.
I never had any hissy, click records. Sure there was some surface noise occasionally.
I only ever had to return one warped record out of hundreds and hundreds.
Maybe you just found the quantisation noise more appealing with a 14bit CD player?
Obviously there is no objective assessment of sound quality, but I would presume people who work professionally in the music industry, have a better ability to judge sound quality, than I as a layman have.
Graphs help us to understand the quality of musical reproduction. I presume Naim uses technical data, to develop a product, as well as listening trails.
I gave up on vinyl, mostly because the quality control by the record labels was abysmal, and you hoped your new LP had not been played on the record shop,s cheap and cheerful record player, with a worn out stylus.
Some of the posts here indicate the quality control is still pretty bad in some cases.
With an LP, some clicks and pops are inevitable. Not something that adds to my listening pleasure. An LP will wear out with use, a CD is as good or bad as the day you bought it, after multiple plays.
Vinyl records are very expensive, here they cost €40. The owner of our local record shop is very picky about the labels he will stock, as the quality of the pressings is highly variable. A CD is €20 at most, I can afford to buy more music, with the bonus that it is on a support with a proven technical superiority.
I can buy second hand CD’s very cheaply, and be fairly certain they will play without any defects, if the surface looks OK, I would never buy a vinyl record second hand, it is just too risky
When confronted by a hi-fi, most people say, “oh but my ears aren’t good enough to tell the difference…” but play them something they know and love they’re usually surprised at how much better it sounds, and how much more they enjoy it.
@Nigel1957 did you not read my reply? To save you the bother if you didn’t I pasted it again below.
Yet I have four CD’s that will no longer play in any CDP and when put in the disk drive of a computer show a disc with no files. Then there’s another one that has started to delaminate. I have no idea why as I treat my CD’s with as much care as my vinyl.
Nothing is perfect but I got the impression you were saying CD’s were, and indeed remained so. That’s not my experience.
Also, I don’t appear to have had the same experience with vinyl as you. I can say, hand on heart, that I have very few LP’s that have pops and/or clicks or are warped or dished. For example, I have a 45 year old copy of Led Zeppelin II that is flawless. Admittedly, I’ve bought LP’s that were not of good quality but they were returned - most times the replacements were excellent quality but on a few occasions I took a refund.
As for sound quality - I have played records and CD’s for many, many, guests and I’ve yet to have anyone say they prefer the CDS3 to the Xerxes 20+. I’ll take that over a graph any day of the week.
I can see a touch of ambiguity but hopefully you get my gist; my more recent purchases over the last year or two have been mostly disappointing (other than a couple of the specialist pressing) and so I haven’t bought any new release vinyl this year. There’s a few albums I would like to get but either I’ve purchased a couple on CD and ripped or I’m just listening occasionally on Spotify for now.
I have over a thousand CD’s that I have accumulated over the years, I have never had problems with any of mine. It depends how you store them perhaps.
I remember returning LP’s back in the day, often getting another warped copy in exchange. I recall the quality of LP’s being pretty dire back in the eighties, with a few exceptions like the ECM label.
I prefer the clean neutral sound of the CD or digital 24bit file, for the music I listen to. I find the music on a CD more detailed, than any LP I ever owned. If I use headphones, I can alter the sound of the music by switching from my clinical HD800S to a pair of warmer Beyerdynamic cans. I guess I could do the same with speakers.
Now perhaps sombody can tell me the reasons they prefer vinyl sound quality, compared to digital.
You state 80% of purchases were warped, not sure where you were buying your vinyl from but I would shop elsewhere, I have no such findings and out of all my purchases in the last 2-3 years I have had one warped record (replaced and perfect) and one which had a fault and was refunded, I’ve probably bought around 50-60 albums in the last 18 months and about the same in the two years prior to that.
Even pre-loved vinyl carefully researched and checked before purchase has been very good.
CD’s have been purchased as well, mainly box sets as they can be so much cheaper than vinyl equivalents. But these have had issues, my box set of Dire Straits studio albums had Making Movies refusing to play as it was cracked, Neil Young Harvest refused to play, yet looked perfect.
No format is perfect, no setup is perfect, the thread was setup to highlight the lack of proper liners for vinyl records and that they should be included instead of paper or card liners.
Go to a different shop, I have lots of 70’s and 80’s vinyl bought new and second hand, the vast majority (95%+) and they have been great purchases. They still play well today.
But this is not a thread above the merits of Vinyl over CD or CD over Vinyl, it was a moan about paper or card liners being used instead of polylined inner sleeves.
If you want to vent about the inadequacy of vinyl compared to CD there are plenty of threads out there to do so.
All my CD’s (1000 plus) are stored on shelving in the same area, in the same room. They’ve been returned to their case straight after play and never been used in the car, so storage or handling can’t be the cause.
Why do I prefer vinyl? I found early CD replay to be very hard and harsh. It has improved over the years but for my ears not enough to surpass vinyl. Don’t get me wrong, I like my CDS3 very much but, as good as it is, the Xerxes 20+ is better.
Here those of us who buy CD’s can join you in your moan.
labels like ECM, still package their CD’s in a sensible container, that avoids damaging the CD, Some have a simpler cheaper version of the Jewel Case, which is fine. Nearly all the labels now just package in a cut price cardboard sleeve with no protection between the scratchy cardboard and the CD.
