Why Vinyl will always beat CD
There has been this battle for quite a while now. And there are always different answers from multiple point of views. And that is the thing. You can be sure on one thing, analogue music (vinyl), sound different from digital (cd). And if one thing is different from the other, one person might prefer one sound and another might prefer the other. People do not listen to music while watching of precise an audio measures. I mean Nobody listen to music while watching the performance chart of that audio. No. People just liste to music and might prefer some aspect of the music that should not be the same as the one you prefer.
I kinda lied in the title of this video. In reality I think that for some people vinyl is their choice, and for some other would be the CD. I will share now why, in my case, I prefer the vinyl experience.
I think that I will always prefer listen to music to vinyl because of one reason: my analogue audio system was built by myself and for myself. And, if you have a turntable at home, and you care even just a little bit about it, your system is unique as well. Let me explain myself.
When I bought my first turntable, a TEAC (search for the model). It was whole made of plastic and lacked the ability of adjust the tracking force of the stylus. For starting the hobby, this turntable was OK. But then I investigated a little bit, and I have found out that a vinyl record player, has a lot of components that would modify the final output.
Let me just mention some of them:
The platter material changed how the vinyl sits in the turntable, and this changes how the stylus touches it while spinning. The record can slip more or less depending of the platter you have. In my case, the best platter was the one made of cork. The sound with this material will boost the bass frequency of the music but in an organic way. Please bear in mind that if you use a fabric cheap platter, this will generate electrostatic force in your records while spinning them. And you do not want an electrostatic disc. Trust me, it will sound significantly worst.
The tracking force and antistatic mechanism will make sure that your session would be perfect. If you have a tracking force that is very high. This can damage both your record and the stylus. And if you have the tracking force to low, it will damage the sound, and also this might cause some skipping while listening to music. You have to adjust these settings in your turntable and this will affect the output sound.
Phon Preamp. As opposed to CDs, the vinyl need tho have a boost in the signal in. Order the music to be audible. If you turn a vinyl player on, without having any speaker whatsoever, you can hear the sound the stylus makes while touching the record. This very little sound signal is amplified with the phono preamp. Some record players (most of the cheap ones) have the preamp included inside of them. But if you need to chose one for your system, it would be another peace of the puzzle that you have chosen.
The stylus is the component that I think it is the most critical one. The one that, for me, has changed the sound at most in my system. The stylus of a vinyl player has a diamond head that gets degenerated after (1000-2000 hours). So if you listen to music in a frequent amount of time, you should have changed the stylus of your turntable. And this means that you have chosen the stylus that you have preferred. In my chase I have the Ortofon 2M bronze. This made a huge difference from other stylus. Now the sound is way more detailed than before.
All these things make the listening session to be unique for myself. When I am for a trip, long trip far from home. Where I can only listen music that is streamed. I miss my vinyl player. Because I do know how the bass drum of Danny Carrey sound in Invincible when I listen to the my Fear Inoculum Vinyl. And I do know that it sound different from anything else I can listen to. I have been in audio expositions of systems that cost a fortune’s almost like my house cost. And I still think my system has something in particular. Maybe this is the particular thing. That I have created it piece by piece and it sounds just how I like to listen music to.