When and how did you, if at all, realize vinyl is better?

• Fully analog without any software between media and ears
• Not protected by any form of DRM, terms of use, etc.
• Actually owning something and that something is not an immediately depreciating asset

Of course there are other reasons related to personal preference and sound, but the bullets above are a pretty big deal to me

Greg

Quick note to dave_b (and no offense here) - 

If you can't understand dragging a rock across bumpy plastic then I would doubt you could appreciate a bow being dragged across the string of a cello.

Seriously - that's what's one of the greatest things about the reproduction of vinyl reproduction is that it works exactly the same way - grooves, friction, vibration between needle and tonearm, resonance = music.

The relationship between record+tonearm+vibration+resonance=music is almost exactly the same as a musical instrument.  

Maybe imperfect BUT

0/1's+laser+software is NOT a musical instrument.

Not arguing which is 'better' but I will say 100% that this is a true statement.  Only difference between a vinyl setup and playing a cello or other analog instrument (reeds, strings, bows, picks, sticks, heads, bells, mallets, vocal chords, mouthpieces, etc.) is amplification.

Stream away - I do

:) 

Don't do it Danny!

I'm not in Atlanta but next time you're in NYC (everyone comes here at some point right?) swing by.

Ironically, the arguments in favor of why vinyl sounds better has less to do with vinyl per se and more to do with learning how to identify and recognize what's "wrong" with digital.  

Once your ears can hear what's "wrong" with digital it will be the only thing that you hear and you will have 1,676 things that suddenly piss you off... Yes I'm serious.

I spent ~35 years in software engineering and can hear the "code" in digital music reproduction and was always of the opinion that code was obsolete as soon as it shipped and should always be improved on.

Once your brain is wired that way, there's no going back.

Sure I love listening to my digital library (CD's, ALAC, WAV or whatever) but you can't get past the fact that there's software between the source and your ears - unavoidable.  Unfortunately, there are great software developers and crappy ones just as there are great studio mastering engineers and complete hacks.

Lowrider nailed it - this is sonic bliss:

"playing a record on a rotating platter, then passing the vibrations picked up by the stylus through the electromagnetic field of the cartridge, and finally sending the signal up the tonearm (which can resonate) results in distortions being generated. The sound now has colourations which we perceive as being warm. These harmonic distortions are different than those produced by digital playback and are more pleasing to to the ear."

This: "What sounds like hyper detail is actually over-etched synthetic junk."

Brought to you by Bose.....

:)

Milpai - Sorry for the late reply to:

This is a completely new one. Never heard that before. Can you please explain how one can hear "code" in digital music reproduction?

It's really pretty simple for me - Once you've been through hundreds of software development cycles you pick up on common themes which include reduction in features, reduction in feature quality, bugs and issues put on the backlog and planned for future release, reduction in fidelity or usability.  

We all experience these realities every day in everything from mobile apps, automatic updates, firmware revisions, etc. etc.

In the case of the digital domain as it applies to music, all of these factors also take their toll.  Case in point - why is there a new file standard or DAC chip every five minutes?

In software there's an understanding that whatever gets delivered is already obsolete the second it is released and should therefor be considered as largely disposable.

In my personal case, I can hear all of these "shortcuts" as digital artifacts like graininess, compression, glare, artificial emphasis, limited dynamics, software imposed curves, smoothing, etc. etc.

Wish I didn't notice them since like most others that prefer analogue, I'm still a slave to my digital library that's massive in comparison to my vinyl.

Greg