CD's or Vinyl?


Gun to your head, if you could only pick one, which would you choose.  As nostalgic and sublime as Vinyl can be I think I'd have to go with Cd's.  Just seems cleaner and more pristine to me.

And You?

 

klimt

People who don't have experienced actual concert (classic, jazz, pop, whatever) usually say that analog (vinyl) is better or true to the music. I know why. Except some cases of very high end analog system and LPs with highest quality, most analog systems give soft sound rather than sharp sound (this sharp sound is only available from real concerts). So, no-concet-experience-people might think the soft sound is musical. Oh, poor people! I cannot talk any more of audio/music listening with the poor people.

CD is absolutely better than LP. This is what Herbert von Karajan said many decades ago!

 

Much depends on the (digitization) quality of the media. I once did an A-B test on some of the Beatles' original vinyl albums and their early CD releases. The CDs sounded really 'plastic', thin and harsh compared to the Beatles' old vinyl albums. In addition, playing vinyl is more of a ceremony. Playing or streaming a CD is more of a technique. Anyway, enjoying music is the goal.

Vinyl for sure because of so many reasons. Top three are that it sounds much better than my digital set up, artwork & the nostalgia of it all.

Physical media already somewhat obsolete in that vast majority of available media is used. Fewer and fewer new releases on vinyl or cd, especially true for cd. I continue to keep in touch with vinyl availability since I still run a pretty nice vinyl setup and titles available just simply pales in comparison to what is available on streams. 

 

There have been some recent threads here which have spoken to the superiority of listening to the music vs the sound. If this is true than streaming wins hands down, so much music available and so easily accessed. And if sound quality is important, as I fully agree with, a properly optimized streaming setup can be a winner here as well. 

 

My take is vinyl will never become totally obsolete due to unique sound qualities that are timeless. CD will die, it has no unique sound qualities vs streams, also more costly and more hassle.