CD is dead. Long live Vinyl?

[jim goulding]

I must be the elder statesman on this topic. I own a ton of albums. In a few cases, the same title on vinyl and silver. My players are of similar quality except that I have one more TT rig than I do CD player (Sony transport/Bel Canto dac). Vinyl wins in every shoot out I've conducted for sounding more organic and involving except one and that would be Carmina Burana on Telarc SACD Hybrid. Now, we're just talking maybe a dozen titles but sometimes, as in Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love, for example, it's embarrassingly lopsided. I agree that CD has gotten much better since the 80's. Plain ole red book CD's. I've got plenty that sound absolutely fantastic and enjoy them thoroughly.

[Feanor]

I must be the elder statesman on this topic. I own a ton of albums. In a few cases, the same title on vinyl and silver. My players are of similar quality except that I have one more TT rig than I do CD player (Sony transport/Bel Canto dac). Vinyl wins in every shoot out I've conducted for sounding more organic and involving except one and that would be Carmina Burana on Telarc SACD Hybrid. Now, we're just talking maybe a dozen titles but sometimes, as in Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love, for example, it's embarrassingly lopsided. I agree that CD has gotten much better since the 80's. Plain ole red book CD's. I've got plenty that sound absolutely fantastic and enjoy them thoroughly.

I'm certainly not against "organic" or "involving". Nor do I deny that something of the qualities might pertain to vinyl more than CD. Fairly recentlyI switch my digital amp for a tube preamp and high-bias, low-feedback S/S amps, and they have deliverd a good measure of organic and involving qualties.

Nevertheless it is still my opinion that my digital amp was better -- and more accurate -- with really well-recorded CDs than is my current setup. On the other hand my new setup is better with 80% of recordings. So there's the trade off.

In the end, my personal objections to vinyl are not sound, but rathe:

• Ergonomics and durability
• Availability of the sort of music I listen to
• Multichannel sound -- though this is more hypothetical than real in general, including for me.