I am a vinyl guy, then I went to CD and never looked back. Yes, early CD sound was iffy, but then early LPs were also bad sounding fidelity wise, both improved over time. I tried streaming, burning CDs, and gone to audio stores to hear the latest and greatest streamers along with my CDs of the same title streamed, and every time CD wins and easy, having said that if I was starting new streaming is easy, like streaming movies on TV, BUT play a DVD Blu-Ray disc and compare it to the ultra HD stream the disc wins easy every time in the picture and sound quality. It’s the same CD vs. streaming. I know streaming is hip and the #1-way folks download tracks etc, so to each his own, it is cool I guess, new, and I guess convenient, but the physical Discs with a high-quality CD player are hard to beat this coming from a vinyl collector. Not dissing vinyl but superior? that is a myth but if you enjoy it and there is a lot to enjoy that is all that matters.
Yes, some vinyl sounds better if they are 1st pressing and purchased back in the 1950-the 1980s, though by the 80s vinyl quality was the pits. Master tapes were still new and fresh without the loss of fidelity over the many years now, something CD had to deal with, even finding the master tape or backups was hard to find.
Many titles had run their course in sales and were deleted from their catalogs. The one good thing when CD came along was the new interest and companies released titles long out of print again knowing there be sales due to the new format, so much so I own music from the 1930s onward, and many titles would never see the light of day again, and in fact, many never to be streamed or for sure on new vinyl.
Another good thing with digital was companies took all their masters or best sources and master them into digital format to be saved due to tapes being so old, much like old films are being preserved and remastered for future generations to be able to see again. So most new vinyl comes from a digital master source and if DSD is used it is as close to the master sound as the quality of the old tape can produce.
Even by the early 80’s the Beatle master tapes were showing a loss of fidelity and tape hiss. The new Beatles Boxsets sound flat compared to the "Blue" English Past Masters 14 LP Boxset from the early ’80s. That was excellent and how the Beatles sounded, I believe it was the Parlaphone label. Stones on the German Telefunken label back then were also the best ever. Then the great M & K, Sheffield Labs, Telarc, and a few others really did great vinyl, but the majors sound went downhill, to compression, bad pressings, etc.
Compare recording quality from say the 1950s to the early 60s to the late 60s and onward. No compression to what sounds more natural and real on a whole, there were always exceptions. In the end, it is what you like and enjoy, magazines market trends, streaming sells in the billions in tracks, it is convenient and people like that.
I still like the physical so my CD collection grows when something interesting comes out but with 1,500 CDs I have all the music I ever could have dreamed of owning. It’s a boomer hobby and it dies when we leave this earth and we boomers grew up collecting LPs and listening to whole LPs in full which is one reason vinyl came back, not just a track of it here and there as in streaming generally.
Young folks think it is dull and a waste of time to sit in front of 2 speakers to listen to music, iPhone, and buds and they are out the door and good to go and they can take their music anywhere in the car, friends’ homes, etc. Another digital radio is good enough and XM/Sirus.
I have 125 in my family and extended family and not ones as an audio system of any high quality, and many make good money, they just have no interest, what they have is good enough and music is a background to them or at parties as background music.
We philes are a speck in consumer sales, and really not catered to. In the 1950s producers and masters were trying to make records sound as real as possible. today it is overprocessed electronically altered, autotuned, with not even needing musicians in the same room, and in my opinion, all you do need is a cell phone and earbuds to listen to that sound quality of recorded music and it sounds good that way. I just read where CD sales are going up again so maybe a new trend.
