Hey guys, I'm doing a project for college comparing sound quality between CD and Vinyl, So when I need to do some research would I be able to get your opinion on which is better? Also +1 for having the Gun's N' Roses AFD Vinyl Dan_. That cover is awesome.
Worked in a Hi-Fi shop for 17 years, so I formed some opinions. Firstly, I think it's important to recognise that 'quality' and what sounds better, may not be the same for everyone. If by quality you mean, the capability of faithful recreation of the original soundwave, then I think you'd probably have to give it to Vinyl, problem with vinyl is it comes with a lot of drawbacks and, certainly when compared to CD, unless everything is perfect you will never really get the benefit, and it's my personal opinion that too many hipsters jump on the vinyl bandwagon because of the old-school-cool factor and then make up some rubbish about it how sounds better when, on whatever set-up thay have, it will sounded worse! Okay, so I need to avoid ranting now.
You do have to spend a few quid on a deck to get a good one, but as with all Hi-Fi, spending a lot of money is no guarantee of quality. It's also no different to a CD-player, they don't all sound the same and you have to spend a reasonable amount to get something that will sound good. My all time favourite CD player is the Marantz CD-63 KI Signature edition, I once back to back tested it against about 5 other CD-players for a customer and it 'sounded' the best - at least to my ears.. the guy I was demonstrating it to at the time seemed to think that the Yamaha CDX 390 was the best.... might have had something to do with it being the cheapest. The fact is that the sound will be given its tone, its sound, from the DAC, and this will make different CD players sound different, the transport can almost be any old rubbish.
.. so, I think it's important to recognise that people like different tonal balances to their music, and they will normally infer that the model that offers the closest sound to want they want to hear, is the highest quality.
You can still get CD's with rubbish mastering though, as has been pointed out.
My overall view though is that CD is better. Vinyls advantage is largely a theoretical one, with so many variables and things that can adversely affect a turntable I don't accept that they sound better, and certainly in all my experience I never heard anything to change my mind.
The problem now is that rubbish compressed audio, and listening through rubbish computer systems or portable docking stations is prevailant, meaning that the industry appears to be chasing downloads more than it is chasing quality. The CD Redbook standard can be hugely surpassed these days for Hi-Fi purposes, to the point where there is no chance the human ear and brain could perceive the difference between a digital signal and an 'lab scenario perfect' analogue one, but this is not being pushed in any meaningful way because people want thousands of tracks for as cheap as possible and have no decent equipment to play them on anyway... and if there's not mass distribution, any newer (than Vinyl or CD) format will not survive (SACD, DVD-A).
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Don't worry, there should be some on Ebay or Amazon.
