Why does vinyl sound better than CD?

Question

Why does vinyl sound so much better than CD? Is it possible to get digital copies that have that sound quality?

Answer 1

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When a CD is 'burnt' the CD-Writer's laser beam is focused through the clear body of the CD onto the dye layer. When the beam is on, it melts a small hole into the thin layer of dye. The laser cycles on & off rapidly ( think binary 1's & 0's) burning a spiral track of melted & un-melted dye which represents the digitally encoded data.

This can then be played back with a CD player, which consists of a read-only laser that doesn't heat or melt the dye layer.


On the other hand, A record or vinyl is similar to a CD in that it is also a spiral track. The vinyl is placed on the record player, and the needle in the groove. At the end of the needle a stylus picks up vibrations as the record revolves and these mechanical vibrations are converted into corresponding electrical signals.

Vinyl uses a wider range of frequencies than CD does, which is why it sounds better. However, CDs being much lighter and portable, they are gaining in popularity among DJs.

Source(s):

Experience

Answer 2

The same people that hold that vinyl (analog) sounds better than CD (digital) are probably the same people that believe pipe organs are superior to electronic instruments. If Bach was alive today, he wouldn't be on a pipe organ - he'd be using cutting edge technology. And Beethoven would be saying, "Give me the digital"

Answer 3

There is really no way to accurately capture the depth of sound of equalized vinyl audio.

My b/f says: you can record direct analog vinyl into oggvorbis format OR you can use a tube pre-amp and tube amp to play UNCOMPRESSED audio files. Both are cheap and easy to do.

Answer 4

the sound waves have a bit/sample rate and it shortcuts to that to save memory the sound sounds the same to the human ear.
but things get lost.
vinyl is the physical hard copy. but their becoming inconvienent, heat, and wear eventually gets the better of them!
cd's are wave files and even their getting replaced by mp3 which have an average of 132 sample rate, im dreading the day they reduce this further and we'll be listing to midi because then their will be no original music it will all be coded notes that the computer/player will play its sample for the corresponding note! think saga, nintendo, the music off them but obviously more elaborate
basically in laymans terms it will be like playin a yahamah piano so good that you can hear snoop dogg's voice but you will know its systensysed

Source(s):

brother is a sound engineer!