AFAIK no, audiophiles can be very opinionated though. Definitely do your own research cause I’m a noob.
Vinyls are analog, which means they (more or less) directly convert imprint the waveforms of the recording onto the physical vinyl. In theory, this should create the best quality recording, but in practice physics gets in the way and it will not sound exactly the same. Digital on the other hand converts the analog waves into digital ones and zeros and most digital music is heavily compressed meaning it uses maths to approximate the original recording. However, lossless digital formats (FLAC) exist which theoretically lose no information from the original recording.
I’m not sure it’s possible to compare digital/analog quality but I would guess that you would get better sound quality from a vinyl than say Spotify, but better quality from a lossless file than vinyl.
In my non-expert experience, by the time you get to lossless/vinyl quality you are far more restricted by your audio equipment than by the format, and only experts would be able to tell a difference in quality.
Spotify and other such services almost certainly sound worse because they are compressed. But it’s not really a like for like comparison with vinyl. Spotify is streaming audio for people who want to play music casually in cars, earbuds etc. It offers convenience, not perfect sound fidelity. FLAC / CD on the other hand could be compared to vinyl and would win hands down for better frequency and range. The only reason they wouldn’t is if the CD master sucked and the vinyl master didn’t.
And vinyl is very lossy in its own way. The (digital) master of each side undergoes dynamic range & frequency compression to fit the limitations of the format (e.g. to reduce sibilance, track width). Then the master is cut into a lacquer disc from which a “father” is made, from which “mothers” are made, from which stampers are made and from which the vinyl record is made. So the vinyl in someone’s hand is a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of an altered digital master. The stamper too wears out so if someone is unlucky they get a pressing right the end of its life. And playing the disk can cause wow, flutter, distortion and general wear & tear can cause hiss, pop, dullness and scratches.
So vinyl will never sound better unless it received a better master than other formats.
I fuckin love vinyls, they’re beautiful, fragile, tangible, massive objects, but this is bullshit propagated by audiophile circle jerk who believe they need to break-in their $100000 solid gold oxygen-free gluten-free audio cables to properly align electrons.
That isn’t a consensus at all. It is fairly well known that they are crackly and inconsistent due to dust and imperfections. They also have an inherent bandwidth limit due to the inertia of the stylus.
Isn’t that pretty much the consensus that vinyls have the best sound…?
AFAIK no, audiophiles can be very opinionated though. Definitely do your own research cause I’m a noob.
Vinyls are analog, which means they (more or less) directly convert imprint the waveforms of the recording onto the physical vinyl. In theory, this should create the best quality recording, but in practice physics gets in the way and it will not sound exactly the same. Digital on the other hand converts the analog waves into digital ones and zeros and most digital music is heavily compressed meaning it uses maths to approximate the original recording. However, lossless digital formats (FLAC) exist which theoretically lose no information from the original recording.
I’m not sure it’s possible to compare digital/analog quality but I would guess that you would get better sound quality from a vinyl than say Spotify, but better quality from a lossless file than vinyl.
In my non-expert experience, by the time you get to lossless/vinyl quality you are far more restricted by your audio equipment than by the format, and only experts would be able to tell a difference in quality.
Spotify and other such services almost certainly sound worse because they are compressed. But it’s not really a like for like comparison with vinyl. Spotify is streaming audio for people who want to play music casually in cars, earbuds etc. It offers convenience, not perfect sound fidelity. FLAC / CD on the other hand could be compared to vinyl and would win hands down for better frequency and range. The only reason they wouldn’t is if the CD master sucked and the vinyl master didn’t.
And vinyl is very lossy in its own way. The (digital) master of each side undergoes dynamic range & frequency compression to fit the limitations of the format (e.g. to reduce sibilance, track width). Then the master is cut into a lacquer disc from which a “father” is made, from which “mothers” are made, from which stampers are made and from which the vinyl record is made. So the vinyl in someone’s hand is a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of an altered digital master. The stamper too wears out so if someone is unlucky they get a pressing right the end of its life. And playing the disk can cause wow, flutter, distortion and general wear & tear can cause hiss, pop, dullness and scratches.
So vinyl will never sound better unless it received a better master than other formats.
16 bit is better than so called lossless
they don’t talk about vinyl but audio cassette tape is equivalent to 5 bit digital audio
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
16 bit is better than so called lossless
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I fuckin love vinyls, they’re beautiful, fragile, tangible, massive objects, but this is bullshit propagated by audiophile circle jerk who believe they need to break-in their $100000 solid gold oxygen-free gluten-free audio cables to properly align electrons.
That isn’t a consensus at all. It is fairly well known that they are crackly and inconsistent due to dust and imperfections. They also have an inherent bandwidth limit due to the inertia of the stylus.