Why Is Vinyl Superior To Cd

Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the cd audio and dvd audio output.

Why is vinyl superior to cd.

For sure hi res digital music is a vastly superior format in both convenience and quality so why would someone side with vinyl over mp3 or streaming. From a technical standpoint digital cd audio quality is clearly superior to vinyl. What vinyl can t do. It is why mp3 with relatively few samples is so poor and hi res audio with far more is the closest we have to a studio recording.

Cds have a better signal to noise ratio i e. To many the superior sound quality and physical collection are enough to justify the investment. The quality of a digital reproduction is dictated by how many of those samples of the original are made. Crackles and pops records that skip and the whine of a needle against the lp all problems that the cd advertised itself on solving decades ago.

Take a look at the graph below. Vinyl may be an underdog to streaming but it has outlasted the cd. The vinyl format can generate other issues. They sound different and that s exactly the point.

Vinyl is great but the idea that its sound quality is superior to that of uncompressed digital recordings is preposterous. Vinyl is one of the best ways to listen to music. Thus the well built stationary record player exists in the minds of many as a hi fi ideal despite the fact that cd quality over the same system would be superior. Even as cd sales eclipsed and nearly exterminated vinyl the format was plagued by accusations that its sound was inferior that it was merely a convenient alternative to the lp.

Original sound is analog by definition. Records aren t exactly known for their portability for example. The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. Cd quality sits somewhere in the middle with 44 100 samples per second at 16 bit accuracy.

However that s not to say there aren t advantages to digital music.