Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD
chadsort, you've really got the vinyl folks wound up here. You're lucky we're no longer burning people at the stake for heresy, but I'd lock my doors anyway. There have been at least two generations of Esoteric players since your X03SE came out and the sound quality of each new generation has improved over the last. |
I like to inject some hard data into these debates. Check out this link to data about sales of various formats: https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ If you look at the two charts on this page, it’s clear that over the last 45 years digital has outsold vinyl by far, measured in units or $ amount sold, and streaming is the growing format, not vinyl. And digital didn’t even exist for 10 of those 45 years. It looks like cassettes have outsold vinyl. I’m not putting vinyl down. If someone likes vinyl better than digital, that’s fine. Enjoy the searching, buying, cleaning, tweaking, flipping, large covers, smell and sound to your heart’s content and feel free to tell us how much you enjoy it. Same with digital. If you like to have access to millions of albums on your tablet or enjoy the sound of a well recorded and mastered CD, SACD or download, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. It’s all good. |
This year’s "Records To Die For" in the February 2019 issue of Stereophile, which according to the magazine is comprised of recordings that are, "both musically and sonically impeccable," includes 17 Lps and 30 Cds (or other digital formats, but mostly Cd). I counted 47 instead of the 46 the magazine states because one was recommended in both the Lp and Cd formats. This is not new this year, Cds usually outnumber Lps. So that leads me to believe that the absolute sonic superiority of Lps that some proclaim is based more on ego than hearing. |
Is that not how this thread started??Yes it is. We’ve got 10 pages of posts accumulated over almost two months. Do we need to start over again, or have our positions on that been pretty well aired? I don’t want to stifle debate, though. Feel free to tell us what your opinion is on the topic. Mine is both can sound very good and very bad. Listen to whatever brings you enjoyment. |
Any specifics on what turntables, cd players and amps were used, which specific recordings? Those details could affect the outcome pretty significantly and I’d hate to have to throw away my cd player and solid state amp. I can understand that if the gear was not very good, turntable and tubes would be the way to go, but I don’t think that a lower quality tube amp would satisfy most audiophiles more than a good quality solid state amp in the long run. Cd player vs turntable? I don’t think we need to go there again. |
