Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"


Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

I am sharing this for those with an interest. I no longer have vinyl, but I find the issues involved in the debates to be interesting. This piece raises interesting issues and relates them to philosophy, which I know is not everyone's bag. So, you've been warned. I think the philosophical ideas here are pretty well explained -- this is not a journal article. I'm not advocating these ideas, and am not staked in the issues -- so I won't be debating things here. But it's fodder for anyone with an interest, I think. So, discuss away!

https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2019/11/25/spin-me-round-why-vinyl-is-better-than-digital/amp/?fbclid...
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I’m willing to bet that more often than not audiophiles that greatly favor records over digital, particularly cds due to their general availability since basically Avalon was released (first cd my dad bought at a shop that used to exist in Evergreen, CO called the Blue Spruce), is their first experiences that got them hooked on building an audio system were likely with LPs. I say this because my dad regularly questions if my Node2 streamer with my new MHDT Orchid tube DAC can come anywhere close to a cd player. He often associates streaming with highly compressed mp3s much like the early, and largely very bright DDD cd recordings. He had a Technics record player in the early 80’s, but cds are what hooked him. So much of our preference are imbedded from life experiences that changed us in profound ways, much like great albums like Peter Framptom’s “Framptom Comes Alive” and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” have been those hooks for so many like myself (among many others). Night Moves instantly takes me back to backpacking trips with my dad in southwest (most memorably Anasazi cliff dwelling canyons). This passion we are engaged in is emotional at its core and therefore very personal. This is why the majority of people I talked to about my system smile with a blank look on their face because they didn’t develop their passion around music and building their own audiophile rig and that’s ok. It solidifies for me how personal my system is to me and how I created a place in this world I can escape in some ways immersed in sonic beauty that brings spine tingles and tears at times. Once in while I truly am able to share it with others and that is priceless as well. This thing of ours drills to the heart of what being human is all about.
Most of my jazz and blues groups didn’t produce vinyl for any of their new music.


More than half of my big collection cannot be in vinyl format ...
Then if someone listen music not to the sound first, the choice of digital is simple....You are right for sure...

I’m willing to bet that more often than not audiophiles that greatly favor records over digital, particularly cds due to their general availability since basically Avalon was released (first cd my dad bought at a shop that used to exist in Evergreen, CO called the Blue Spruce), is their first experiences that got them hooked on building an audio system were likely with LPs.
For sure when you have already vinyl collection you stick with your first habit...

These 2 posts explain this eternal non sensical debate analog versus digital....

Merry Christmas to the two of you....



P.S. i hope someone will understand my point about the fact that there is no ideal or better alternative in the absolute from between which we must choose, digital or analog...It is an illusion associated with habit or promoted with the alias of "taste"....

Because we must choose, first and last, natural instrument "timbre" sound quality and it is a room dependant phenomenon, not a digital or analog dependant phenomenon at all.... And the perception of timbre is not mainly a taste induced phenomenon either....

And timbre is not best perceived in so called " warmer" or "cleaner" system, or in digital or analog system, We cannot  reduce "timbre" to some frequencies summation and this phenomenon  is ultimately and acoustically room dependent for his adequate rendition and perception...In one word the room contribute more than the engineering design of the analog or the digital system for his ultimate perception....

First of all, although I part ways with the author numerous times, there is real content here. Those who responded specifically on issues of audio quality either didn’t read carefully enough, didn’t understand it or chose to respond with issues of your own agenda. That is fine. This is a social site and we all want to have our voices and concerns heard.

This misunderstanding also is true  for those digital defenders who jumped into a discussion of quality digital reproduction. If you did that, you were not paying sufficient attention. The author states he is speaking of the paradigmatic content in which each format is played. We audiophiles are a strange minority and little about our musical reproduction proclivities is paradigmatic of anything. It is 100% unarguable that most listeners of digital music use compressed media and often as background. That may well change but for now it remains true.  
The paradigm of each reproduction format shapes the aesthetic experience of the music for most who participate in that format. Does anyone here doibt that? Why?
This entire debate over vinyl vs digital, and for me digital is CD or SACD...I don't stream music; seems to ignore the fact that all we listen to is dependent on the recording process. 
The studio, the recording equipment,  engineer, the producer, how it has been finally mixed. I have over 1500 LP's and over 1500 CD's...I have vinyl that sounds better than CD and I have CD that sounds better LP. 
It's all about how that recording was made as much as the format used for the end product.
It is 100% unarguable that most listeners of digital music use compressed media and often as background. That may well change but for now it remains true.
The paradigm of each reproduction format shapes the aesthetic experience of the music for most who participate in that format. Does anyone here doibt that? Why? Report this

Nobody can contest that....

And nobody can contest the fact that bad digital format mostly in use among young listener create bad habit and dont work very well for a most educated music evolutive perception...

When db level and binary rythm count more than timbre perception, there is a problem for sure and it is very easy then to satisfies ourselves with a compressed digital small phone....We dont generally listen Bruckner symphonies with a compressed digital phone... 😊

But the fact that vinyl listeners are generally more musically educated dont means that digital is less able to deliver subtle natural "timbre" perception than vinyl with losless format...

Digital is more practical for use not more musically perfect and not less perfect than vinyl....

It is not only the paradigm of the format, analog or digital, that dictate the aesthetic; it is also some particular aesthetical paradigm which can also easily satisfies itself with the more practical compressed digital format...It is a 2-way phenomenon...

Being an audiophile i use losless digital never compressed format ....

Merry Christmas to you....