Why Vinyl Records Are Better

The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings.

Why vinyl records are better.

Records aren t exactly known for their portability for example. It s very much alive and is much more preferable than listening to music in a digital format. Why vinyl sounds better than cd or not according to rolling stone magazine sales of vinyl albums continue to grow setting a new record in 2010. Sales of vinyl records have been soaring although they still represent only a tiny fraction of the music industry s revenues.

The artwork the lyrics and personal interaction are all reasons that this once dead format has catapulted back into the mainstream consciousness but when asked most people would respond that the biggest reason they love vinyl is the sound. Analog tape and lps aren t perfect we like them for their sound as it is making them technically better doesn t always make them sound subjectively better. Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the cd audio and dvd audio output. Playing a record uses a stylus.

Frequencies are important for vinyl because records spin at different speeds in the center than on the outside so the high frequencies need to be adjusted so the album sounds the same from start to finish. Before weighing vinyl s ahem good and bad sides it helps to know how records are made. Take a look at the graph below. Does vinyl reproduce sound better or is it just.

Vinyl is one of the best ways to listen to music. For digital to truly eclipse vinyl thousands of records from the 1990s onward would need a remaster. About 2 percent in 2014. Vinyl didn t die when jimi hendrix did.

However that s not to say there aren t advantages to digital music. For vinyl albums you re trying to add back the technical elements that were lost when the first record was pressed. So no vinyl isn t better than digital music but it offers several advantages because of the fact that loudness war mixing isn t feasible on the medium. Vinyl is back no doubt about it.

In brief an engineer such as gonsalves receives mixed recordings from the studio or even a band s laptop. To many the superior sound quality and physical collection are enough to justify the investment. Let s take a trip to a record store and i ll tell you the four reasons why 12 vinyl records are better than digital mp3.