Actually the people who buy vinyls are often the young music buffs who also download a lot of obscure material daily. It's all part of the hobby. (Though I'm sure there's also many old guys coming back to their vinyl players.)

It's retarded how many people still think vinyls have a better sound quality than cds. That's simply not true. You can find some good articles online. Yes, they do sound different; you don't need to be an audiophile to hear the warmer, fuzzier sound of the vinyl, with the atmospheric cracks and pops. But while that may sound nice, it's certainly not "higher quality" . The "analouge vs digital" argument is nonsense. Sometimes it's possible that a vinyl has better mastering than the cd version, but that's no fault of the format.

I couldn't find the large technical article I read back in the day, but this and its two follow-ups (follow the links on the right) are neat versions that sum up the issue.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/audio-designline-blog/4033468/Audio-myth-Vinyl-better-than-CD-

Written by IronAngel on 07.09.2011 at 10:14

Actually the people who buy vinyls are often the young music buffs who also download a lot of obscure material daily. It's all part of the hobby. (Though I'm sure there's also many old guys coming back to their vinyl players.)

That is true, but by traditionalists I didn't necessarily mean old guys (my use of the word teeny bopper was just jokingly.)

Written by IronAngel on 07.09.2011 at 10:14

It's retarded how many people still think vinyls have a better sound quality than cds. That's simply not true. You can find some good articles online. Yes, they do sound different; you don't need to be an audiophile to hear the warmer, fuzzier sound of the vinyl, with the atmospheric cracks and pops. But while that may sound nice, it's certainly not "higher quality" . The "analouge vs digital" argument is nonsense. Sometimes it's possible that a vinyl has better mastering than the cd version, but that's no fault of the format.

I don't think many people consider vinyls to sound better because they are vinyl. However, a perfectly good vinyl of an old album will have slightly better dynamics than a CD, because the recording hasn't been digitalized, and compressed. Everytime the song switches formats, it's going to lose a tiny bit of sound quality. However, this is very tiny, and quickly is cancelled out by the fact that playing a vinyl a couple times reduces its quality.

This all being said, I don't really care. They both sound great, along with downloading something from Itunes.

My brother is a fan of vinyl albums. He listens to metal (mainly what I suggest), so I made an experiment some time ago. I know what vinyls he has, so I brought some CD versions of his vinyl albums to his place to do some comparative listening. It's necessary to add that I'm aware of the claim that vinyl fans make, that vinyls sound better. Also, I used to listen exclusively to vinyls for a few years in the 80's. So I played the same songs - first from CD, then from vinyl. What I listened to:
- Tiamat's "Equinox of the Gods"
- Iced Earth's "Come What May"
- Slayer's "Angel of Death"
- Metallica's "Wecome Home"
- Cradle of Filth's "Her Ghost in the Fog"
and quite a few more which I don't recall now.

So, from my perspective, having checked what all the mess is all about, I must say that I prefer CD's all the way. Vinyl does sound a little different, but better? No fucking way. Not to mention constant crackling which is inherent to vinyl, and which becomes genuinely annoying, especially in quieter parts of songs. Not to mention that tracks on the end of every side sound much worse. Not to mention that no matter how good equipment you use to listen, vinyls do get used up, sounding much worse after numerous listens. I hear that low frequencies sound better from vinyl. Either I'm deaf, or this is not the case at all. So, apart from aesthetic value carried by a big cover picture, and generally big illustrations, I can't see why vinyls would be "better" than CD's.