Why Vinyl Records sound better than CD

July 30, 2010 admin Finance

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 iron rain chicago 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!

Some people have a little obsession with vinyl. Maybe just because I think it is vintage and therefore cool. They were just old school and prefer to use what they already know. Perhaps they are completely audiophiles who like their iron rain chicago that much. />
Most people understand that vinyl sounds better than CD s “and other modern digital counterparts, such as DVD, MP3 and other sound-based software. But the real reasons why they do not know, sounds better. On first glance may seem a bit complicated, but it is really very simple. />
This principle comes down to analog signals compared to digital. Analogis only continuously variable signal. Therefore, the changes in the frequency represented by a smooth wave . In principle, this means that the change in frequency between the two values will be done by gradually reducing the frequency of all possible values between the two. The result is exactly what little change. />
In a similar signal to encode digital media such as CD or DVD, can not be analog to digital. No matter how good the conversion, there will always be losses caused by the transition. The technology is getting better, reduce losses, but they actually can not (at least in modern times) toequency values. This time, what we have is a series of discrete changes between them. Imagine if you said to as low as you can sing to as high as you can using only three different colors. You will have to sing the low, medium and high level. This is a very extreme example, but it shows what we mean by discrete steps. Improved technology, in this example, allows for more frequency, for example, 5 times. Now you are c


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