In my last post offering out my vinyl collection to anyone who wanted to have a listen, I did mention that I also had around 1,000 CDs stacked down my study – along with yet more Grammys! But what I totally failed to mention was the issue of whether CDs ever managed to replicate the sound made by vinyls or whether they always remained poor, if convenient, cousins.
This discussion raged in the 1990s and, with the resurgence of vinyls over the last few years, has once more leapt into life. The technicalities were far above my head but as far as I could gather the problem with early CDs was that the ‘sampling’ rate was quite low, thereby excluding much audio detail. But as CD manufacture became more sophisticated and the sampling rates improved the sound also improved so that by the arrival of ‘surround sound’, CDs were, if anything, delivering higher quality sound than vinyls. Although there always remained vinyl enthusiaasts who disputed this.
However, my omission in not even raising the subject was brought to my attention by an email from a very old friend of James’ and mine with whom we were at university – another James:
Dear Michelle – It’s always a pleasure to get your emails. We can always imagine getting to your concerts, but practically it’s getting more difficult from where we are in Somerset.
Am I a vinyl enthusiast?
I believe James would concur, with the proviso that CDs were brought to market with the wrong format and with the wrong USP: At the time they could have been specified with much more information-carrying detail. E.G. 24bits, 96Khz, but the opportunity was missed in the rush to get them into the shops. And they were said to be indestructible, which was nonsense. However, even the lower compromise of 16bits, 44.1kHz is extremely hard for many ‘golden ears’ to fault.
As for vinyl, it’s supposed superiority is imagined. True, the medium is capable of carrying a very wide bandwidth, but the technical problems are legion. There are multiple analogue stages from the recorded sound to the cutting of the master disk, the last of which is a huge and very heavy cutting head and stylus. Each stage is subject to distortion.
Once sound has been digitised, it can be guaranteed, to any degree of precision required, that the the sound quality wil not be degraded, however many stages it goes through, provided it is kept digital throughout.
For the last sixty years, all commercially recorded sound from high-quality microphones has been digitised immediately. So why then degrade the sound through many analogue stages? To play a vinyl disk with any fidelity rquires a very expensive turntable, tone arm and pickup, beyond the reach of most budgets except for enthusiasts.
Finally, vinyl is a very unsatisfactory medium, if only that it is impossible, in a domestic environment, to keep a disk clean enough so that there are no pops and crackles from minute particles of dust. Many people say that they prefer the sound from vinyl. My answer is that they must prefer a distorted sound, but that’s their choice.
Right….. Does anyone fancy crossing swords with James?
Testing, Testing….
If anyone does – or even if anyone fancies just doing a bit of vinyl/CD research on some rather high class equipment, I could offer you the opportunity. Our 1,000 odd CDs are not catalogued but are stacked in more or less alphabetical order. Although I cannot guarrantee that every vinyl would also appear as a CD, a great many certainly will.
Who fancies pitting them againt each?
Going the whole hog
And then there are our 78s….. We only have around 120 of them but they include many of the ‘greats’ and we will definitely have them in both vinyl and CD. And I have a 78 player….
How about a 3 way session?
If anyone wishes to pursue the subject or take up my testing offer, just drop me an email and we’ll set up a session.
James
I was very touched by how many people had followed the link in the last post to James’ site and who contacted me to say what an amazing guy he was – which indeed he was. Thank you.
For future events in and around Highgate see our Upcoming Events page.
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