Why Vinyl Is Better Than Cds

Cds can handle over 90 db.

Why vinyl is better than cds.

Maybe it was coincidence but vinyl began its resurgence at around the same time as recordings started this trend. The simplest is to make a record that plays faster. What is perplexing is that when the eventual resurgence of high quality audio came it wasn t via a glorious return of the compact disc but rather a hipster fueled vinyl record revolution. On a theoretical level there s just no reason it should be the case that vinyl sounds better.

Their sales have dropped by 95 percent since 2000 the peak days of cds according to a new report and are currently at their lowest level since 1986. It wasn t long before vinyl recordings of the same content often had better sound quality at normal listening volumes simply because they had higher dynamic range. But this article isn t focused on why cds are better than vinyl. Cds are now cheaper than lps.

While coloured vinyl and picture discs are an easy way to ensure degradation to a record s playback there are practices made to better the way an lp sounds. Original sound is analog by definition. Digital got its act together but not until the death of the cd. The difference between the loudest and softest sounds an lp can play is about 70 decibels db.

It didn t used to be this way which is part of what made collecting used vinyl in the 90s and early aughts such a gas. For comparison listening to vinyl as opposed to digital is like viewing the mona lisa with your own eyes rather than looking at a picture of it on a smartphone. It s for this reason that vinyl sounds better than digital. Vinyl is in a resurgence of course with records outselling cds for the first time in almost three decades.

Cds give you more bang for the buck. The vinyl format can generate other issues. Take a look at the graph below. In practical terms this means that cds have more than 10.

Cds on the other hand have been on the decline. The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. A vinyl record is an analog recording and cds and dvds are digital recordings.