this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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CDs are this odd junction between quality, inconvenience, and low cost, one that makes it niche. They are a physical product and thus higher quality, so to speak, than digital music. Yet vinyls are higher quality (in the hand) and more novel due to the design options. Then they are lossless but even personally ripping is far less convenient than digital music, much less inserting the disc with every use. The others combined— a vinyl copy for display and pirating/a lossless streaming service like Qobuz or Apple’s— costs more for what can be seen as a minimal improvement in the other categories.
So I’m not surprised. Vinyls are a neat little souvenir of songs or albums I enjoy, and though I’ve never actually played a single one, they’re still something I like to collect. Can’t say the same for CDs.
Vinyl? No, not at all. Pressing the platter is already the lossy part, playing has less dynamic range. Some just like the mechanical part and scratching noises better.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
LOL, they are lossy after every playback.
Though admittedly music CDs are not that much qualitatively different in practice.
Your comment illustrates well which kind of people affects the market in this area, though.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Oh. Sorry
Vinyl isn't lossless. First they start with a master - either analogue or digital, then they strip out high/low frequency and compress the dynamic range to make it fit the format, not waste space or jump tracks. Also, the act of pressing discs introduces errors, and the playing equipment can introduce noise like wow, flutter, hisses and pops. I bet some record players, especially ones with USB connections or equalizers probably toss in some adc / dac conversion in there too depending on how they do their thing. There are losses end to end in other words.
CDs are also downsampled from studio tracks, but the format has a higher frequency and dynamic range so providing a CD and vinyl record were from the same master you are going to get a truer, better quality audio from the CD every single time. Also, since it's digital (with error correction) you are getting EXACTLY what was put on the disc. You could rip it to FLAC or some other lossless format and it would be bit for bit identical.
Oops, I was still talking about CDs in that sentence, I thought “disc” later in the sentence would get it across. My b
Bbut CDs have no soul!
Most objects don't.