Vintage Vinyl
Why Do Vinyl Records Sound Better Than CD
Some people have a bit of an obsession with vinyl. It could just be because they think it is vintage and therefore cool. They could just be old school and prefer using what they already know. Maybe they are complete audiophiles who love their music that much.
Most people understand that vinyl sounds better then CD’s and other modern digital equivalents such as DVD, mp3 and other software based recordings. However, the actual reasons why it sounds better are not so widely known. At first glance it might seem a bit complicated but it is in fact quite simple.
It basically comes down to analog versus digital signals. Analogis simply a continuously variable signal. Therefore, changes in frequency are represented by a smooth wave. Basically, this means that a change in frequency between two values will occur by gradually reducing the frequency through every possible value in between those two. The result accurately sounds out every tiny change.
In order to encode a similar signal onto digital media such as a CD or DVD, there needs to be an analog to digital conversion. No matter how good the conversion is, there will always be losses which occur through the transition. Technology may get better and better, reducing these losses but it is effectively impossible (at least in modern times), to perfectly reproduce an analog signal on digital media. Take the previous example of a gradual change between two frequency values. This time, what we have is a series of discrete changes between them. Imagine if you were told to sing from as low as you can up to as high you can using only three different tones. You would be forced to sing low, medium and then high. This is a very extreme example, but shows what we mean by discrete steps. Better technology, in this example, would allow you to use more frequencies, say 5 times. Now you have a closer reproduction of the original smooth variant.
Given that the human ear works at a higher resolution than our current technology, a trained ear can easily hear the difference between an analog and even a high resolution digital signal. This is exactly the reason why so many people prefer vinyl records to their digital equivalents.. We haven’t even got to the point of software level encoding. MP3′s and other files incur yet another layer of losses which reduces the quality even more. Try listening to a vinyl record after an equivalent mp3 and if you can’t tell the difference, your ears might be broken. Kidding, but once you are used to the vinyl there is a crystal clear difference. There are certain audio formats such as FLAC, which are higher resolution digital encodings, but this is when compared with a CD track. Essentially, it is still digital, and still does not replicate the sound in the same way as a live performance or a vinyl record.
Now you know why a vinyl record is that much better then any digital equivalent from a scientific front. I didn’t even mention their inherited greatness just for being a vintage item!
About the Author
Jimmy Red – Engineer and Audiophile. Find some awesome vinyl records for sale here. Or maybe just do me a favor and check out my site on high protein snacks.
KETC | Living St. Louis | Vintage Vinyl
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