Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

Yes on reflection the article is much weaker than I originally thought and if I knew how to delete it I probably should. Still the comments here are better and more interesting and I'm learning from them.

Have to agree with madavid0 in that this guy doesn't seem to know much at all about what he criticizes.If he's trying to explain why people prefer vinyl because they can play with the records and the record jackets, that is fine.  I play with mine.
If he is trying to explain why vinyl is better, it sure doesn't include reason of sound quality other than his constantly rendered subjective crap reasons. I just hate subjective arguments where the author takes his opinions of "rich sound" like facts. Give me a break, please.I love my vinyl and it can astound people. But it's not better.

All that matters is what YOUR brain thinks .
Mine thinks vinyl is in a airy room.
It thinks CD is playing in a room with no air in it .

It's written by someone who wants to explain why vinyl sounds better without knowing why it is so, and so pads it out with philosophy and a partially-understood discussion on digital. The superiority of vinyl doesn't have anything to do with the openness of grooves allowed instruments to express themselves and resonate, it's about the superior dynamic performance which contributes to sense of "realness". Why does vinyl mastered from an analog source have this superiority, I don't know. Possibly it's related to time domain resolution which digital is bad at. It's okay to just admit you don't know why exactly vinyl performs better than digital in some ways.

FWIW, a major flaw in article regards sonics -- the author's exclusion of lossless digital.

From the article: "And while there are distinctions within digital formats, I use the term to cover MP3s and other digital lossy files and streaming services....It’s key to note that the sound limitations in digital formats almost always concern the compression at their nature....Because digital formats are compressed lossy files and are not played by a physical instrument upon a physical format in the same sense that a record is by the needle on the stylus, on the arm of the turntable, through a receiver and speaker set, then this quality of warmth is absent in digital formats."

My experience is that high resolution, lossless digital produces many of the qualities the author celebrates in vinyl. That said, I don't have the two in my system to compare. Other comparisons between vinyl/albums and the immaterial digital files of streaming/hard drives is interesting, too.

Thank you for sharing. I have to agree with the article and his love and attraction to vinyl. Very well written and thought out.