Cd wees wees over vinyl ?

[Mikeandvan]

Hi, its mikeandvan, not much work these days, so just mike I guess. But been having loads of time to listen to music. So, I've been quite busy on the cart front lately, trying AT 95 en and the VM 540ML (inc. Rigsby version, Miss Jones, Miss Jones), was using the 540ml until it really started to grate, picks up loads of surface noise, quite sharp, became unlistenable, so got a new stylus for the 95 EN and that's easier on the ear. Then a few days ago I played the 70s reissue of Mingus' 'Black saint and dinner lady', on Impulse, and I was dissatisfied with the sound, especially towards the end of the record, I believe there's a name for this, 'end of side distortion'? I mean that in itself is enough to make you wanna ditch the vinyl! So I thought, get this LP on CD, on to Ebay, CD now here, in a nice GF cardboard sleeve, rather than one of the regular crappy CD cases, who's hinges so often break. And lo and behold its ****ing amazing!! So, kudos to Macca, CD does indeed beat vinyl hands down, no contest, wees wees all over it like a chav beating the crap out of someone and then displaying his dominance. But but, I can't get rid of all my vinyl, I'm so attached to it, the spinning of the record, the covers, the sheer build quality of those 1210s!!

Well, this is outstanding, listening now, and the depth of sound is outrageously good, I fear now listening to vinyl is just like why?

So off to Ebay I guess now, shall i track down absolutely every vinyl I own on CD? Do they all sound better on CD?

[Barry]

Oh - you have opened up a whole can of worms there Mike.

I started with vinyl, so in the beginning there was nothing to compare it with (apart from prerecorded tapes, which were inconvenient to use). Then along came CD (we will ignore prerecorded music cassettes, which I only used for in-flight entertainment), and initially I thought them poor sounding.

But with improved CD players (for me it was the Philips CD104B) the sound became acceptable and I started to buy CD.

CDs are far more convenient to use; and whilst the marketing slogan of "perfect sound forever" is an exaggeration, I now only buy CDs. When stored the spines are easier to read than are those of vinyl LPs.

Vinyl LPs on the other hand are a crude storage medium. They are fragile, the signal needs to be modified so as to be able to be stored, and even then the distortion can be several percent. However being almost wholly second order it is euphonic and acceptable. Vinyl is fragile, easily damaged, have to handled with care and cleaned and 'fussed' with when played. The only advantage for me is the size of the sleeve, which allows you to admire the cover artwork and easily read the sleeve notes; unlike the miserable little booklets that come with a CD.

At the moment my music inventory stands at 2,000 CDs and about the same number of LPs.

Anyway that is my take on the topic. No doubt others will post with equally strong, yet divergent opinions.

[Macca]

Hi, its mikeandvan, not much work these days, so just mike I guess. But been having loads of time to listen to music. So, I've been quite busy on the cart front lately, trying AT 95 en and the VM 540ML (inc. Rigsby version, Miss Jones, Miss Jones), was using the 540ml until it really started to grate, picks up loads of surface noise, quite sharp, became unlistenable, so got a new stylus for the 95 EN and that's easier on the ear. Then a few days ago I played the 70s reissue of Mingus' 'Black saint and dinner lady', on Impulse, and I was dissatisfied with the sound, especially towards the end of the record, I believe there's a name for this, 'end of side distortion'? I mean that in itself is enough to make you wanna ditch the vinyl! So I thought, get this LP on CD, on to Ebay, CD now here, in a nice GF cardboard sleeve, rather than one of the regular crappy CD cases, who's hinges so often break. And lo and behold its ****ing amazing!! So, kudos to Macca, CD does indeed beat vinyl hands down, no contest, wees wees all over it like a chav beating the crap out of someone and then displaying his dominance. But but, I can't get rid of all my vinyl, I'm so attached to it, the spinning of the record, the covers, the sheer build quality of those 1210s!!

Well, this is outstanding, listening now, and the depth of sound is outrageously good, I fear now listening to vinyl is just like why?

So off to Ebay I guess now, shall i track down absolutely every vinyl I own on CD? Do they all sound better on CD?

Just take care as to what mastering you are buying - remasters tend to be more compressed than the original release. Not really a problem with Jazz since it mostly escaped the 'loudness wars'. But rock and pop check out the DR Database first https://dr.loudness-war.info/

Ignore the ratings for vinyl, the algorithm used gives artificially high DR for vinyl.

I've duplicated about 200 of my vinyl albums on CD. Do they all sound better? No, but I can think of only two where I'm not convinced the CD 'sounds better.'

Important to get the gain-staging of your system right, if it's wrong then CD will either sound thin and flat, or thick, stodgy, undynamic and maybe a bit harsh.

vinyl can sound very good with a good pressing, properly clean. But CD is just more consistent. I can play a record and it sounds great, then the next one up is lousy. End of side distortion is annoying I agree, and that constant background roar of stylus in contact with disc does obscure the acoustic information around instruments and vocals to an extent, if not entirely.

I find CD gives a consistently good experience every time, without either of those issues.

[Pigmy Pony]

I could very well be corrected here, but my understanding of 'end of side distortion' is to do with the arc that the cartridge follows when on a pivoted arm, whereby the stylus can at some point be at a less than ideal angle to the groove. Apparently this effect is lessened when using a 12" arm, but I recently read somewhere that other undesirable things can happen with those arms. I imagine linear trackers overcome the issues.

Another concern is the cost of cartridges/styli. My current cartridge set me back about £300 or so, and that's as much as I'm prepared to spend. The thought that using a £1000 cart might mean that playing records could cost about 50p per side is a worry I don't want to take on.

Is vinyl worth all the faff? Probably not. But it's what I grew up with, and I won't be abandoning the format completely. Even though most of my music purchases these days is CD.

I really can't argue with Macca's logic - he might have spent big on his CD transport, but it's not much more than a couple of decent MC carts.

[Mikeandvan]

I could very well be corrected here, but my understanding of 'end of side distortion' is to do with the arc that the cartridge follows when on a pivoted arm, whereby the stylus can at some point be at a less than ideal angle to the groove. Apparently this effect is lessened when using a 12" arm, but I recently read somewhere that other undesirable things can happen with those arms. I imagine linear trackers overcome the issues.

Another concern is the cost of cartridges/styli. My current cartridge set me back about £300 or so, and that's as much as I'm prepared to spend. The thought that using a £1000 cart might mean that playing records could cost about 50p per side is a worry I don't want to take on.

Is vinyl worth all the faff? Probably not. But it's what I grew up with, and I won't be abandoning the format completely. Even though most of my music purchases these days is CD.

I really can't argue with Macca's logic - he might have spent big on his CD transport, but it's not much more than a couple of decent MC carts.

I agree cds are easier to find! But I know my vinyl collection pretty well, as it only numbers around 200 LPs! Enough for me actually, many of them are new additions, I went through a huge recycling of my collection last year, lucky I beat the HMRC Ebay thingy or they would have thought I was a dealer!!

[Mikeandvan]

I could very well be corrected here, but my understanding of 'end of side distortion' is to do with the arc that the cartridge follows when on a pivoted arm, whereby the stylus can at some point be at a less than ideal angle to the groove. Apparently this effect is lessened when using a 12" arm, but I recently read somewhere that other undesirable things can happen with those arms. I imagine linear trackers overcome the issues.

Another concern is the cost of cartridges/styli. My current cartridge set me back about £300 or so, and that's as much as I'm prepared to spend. The thought that using a £1000 cart might mean that playing records could cost about 50p per side is a worry I don't want to take on.

Is vinyl worth all the faff? Probably not. But it's what I grew up with, and I won't be abandoning the format completely. Even though most of my music purchases these days is CD.

I really can't argue with Macca's logic - he might have spent big on his CD transport, but it's not much more than a couple of decent MC carts.

My thinking exactly, why spend ££ss on a disposable cart, something you can destroy in an instant if you've just bought a new AT 440ml for £450, had hay fever, and f***ed it in a hazy fit of rage!! Better off spending big on a CD player, I must admit this Meridian G08 I have is rather tasty, and only £650 used, it hasn't let me down yet, it is a bit fussy on what you put inside it though! So I guess I'm comparing that with a 1210GR with a standard cart - the AT 95EN (actually a decent cart), which isn't that cheap when you consider its apparently only good for 300 hours, £85 for a replacement stylus, so about £250 compared to a standard 1000 hour stylus.

[Mikeandvan]

The improvement in sound I heard today of the cd over the vinyl version of 'black saint dinner lady' was gob smacking, and I'm thinking, life's short, why waste it listening to inferior versions of music you love.

[narabdela]

...life's short, why waste it listening to inferior versions of music you love.

Some people do, and spend a fortune doing it. There's nowt so queer as hi-fi folk.

[alex_baker89]

Some people do, and spend a fortune doing it. There's nowt so queer as hi-fi folk.

Haha, too true!

[AJSki2fly]

The improvement in sound I heard today of the cd over the vinyl version of 'black saint dinner lady' was gob smacking, and I'm thinking, life's short, why waste it listening to inferior versions of music you love.

This is a can-of-worms topic as stated in many other threads before.

CD can be better that Vinyl and Vinyl can be better than CD, Streaming can be better still and also worse that both, digital files on are local server down loaded using a good/clean SP/Internet connection can be better than all.

BUT!!!!

1. There are many, ,any, many variables? (the following assumes the same Pre-Amp, Power Amp cables and speaker combination used through out)

2. Is the CD replay systems as good as the vinyl(turntable.arm, cartridge and phono stage combo) and visa versa?

3. Assuming the 2 above is reasonable/good parity, then is the source, CD and Vinyl from the same original master recordings? If not forget the comparison.

4. If CD and Vinyl are from the same original master recordings, then has each media been mixed in the same way, ignoring final compression for CD or Vinyl in producing the media. If either has been change again forget making comparisons.

5. Taking a reasonably simplistic view then 1-4 are satisfied positively then it is fair to consider comparing the sound from CD to Vinyl. BUT they may intrinsically actually sound different after all that because that each medium uses different compression techniques and rendering to get back to the analogue output through amp and speaker.

The same issues apply when considering other media for comparison, streaming(file type and resolutions), Tapes,reel to reel, Cassette(playback speeds, SQ ie. Dolby dB filtering, tape band-width ), Downloaded files(files types and resolutions)


So the answer is not a straight forward one, I have learn that some CDs do sound as good or better the vinyl and visa-versa, but it can be a complete lottery, and near impossible to know if you have the definitive version in terms of SQ.

Oooh! I forgot another important part of the equation, Vinyl SQ can vary greatly between pressing runs (even where the same master has been used), get a record pressed near the start of a 10K run and if it is pressed properly there is a good chance it will be good, get one near the end then the edge of the SQ may be lost due to stamper wear. Another aspect is Vinyl manufacturers are known for changing Vinyl chemical composition of the years, as supplied from vinyl pellet manufacturers, so release 1 of a pressing may be excellent in terms of recording, and vinyl composition, but a later release may have still the same SQ in recording bu inferior vinyl composition affecting SQ, or maybe better giving a better overall SQ than release1. In my experience if you find a record you love to be noisy or sound compressed(assuming others played sound great in your system) or just plain odd then research a bit and find a recommended release that is NM and see if it is better, I have done this severel times and always been please. A good example of this was Genesis - 'and Then There Were Three", the first copy I had was just awful, noisy from the start, and the inner tracks were nearly unplayable to due to mid and upper distortion. This is record with about 55 minutes squeezed onto it. After some research I discovered in the UK and US that there were extensive release runs with many copy done in each, but in Canada only a couple of runs at a good pressing plant each with less than 10K records, I order one from CA and it proved to be excellent throughout.