The Truth About Vinyl - Vinyl vs. Digital

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Credits:
Narrator/Director: Brian McManus
Writer: Seán McManus

References:

'Disc Playback Characteristics', Wireless World, April 1956, p. 171.

Songs:
Future Yellow - Ooyy
Wear The Crown - Pure Indigo
A Nifty Piece Of Work - Anders Bothén
Sunday - Otis McDonald
Twenty Seconds Later (Instrumental Version) - Tommy Ljungberg

Thank you to my patreon supporters: Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Karl Andersson, Mark Govea, Hank Green, William Leu, Jason A., Chris Plays Games, Tristan Edwards, Ken Coltan, Andrew McCorkell, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Christopher Lam, Deven Warren Rathbun.

[AdamHowellProvo]

I like vinyl for the expense and inconvenience.

[Stein_Maddy]

Collecting vinyl is just fun. The record stores, the hunt, having a tangible piece of art, and listening to an album all the way through is such a lost practice. I love it.

[borond]

as a Gen Z kid, having grown up with technology at a click of a button, a computer in the house, YouTube etc. and entering my teenagedom with a phone in hand therefore having access to countless videos and music in less than a second, getting my first record player around 3 days ago was another level of joy. the feeling of physically having a copy of a beloved song just hits differently, and i couldn't give less shits about whether it's as "high quality" as the Spotify version, watching a physical and real record spin and the stylus sliding in the grooves physically picking up sound is just such another level of musical experience. digital versions of music is still overpowering analog in my life since i always have my earbuds in when i'm out of the house going somewhere, but analog is much more deeply appreciated by me.
this is before having watched the video, i'm interested to learn! :D

[TheNYeye]

I've actually conducted research on digital sampling rate, and that project followed the standards for A/D and D/A audio signal processing that requires anti-aliasing filters. In preparation of that study we monitored wave-forms side by side on a dual channel scope as we processed pure sine waves from 20Hz to 20Khz. While that step-like effect you depict can exist without the filter it is completely removed by the RLC circuit (resistor -inductor-capacitor circuit) of the filter. Across all frequencies the perfect sinusoidal waveform was recreated to perfection. There is absolutely no step like effect on the recreated signal. The real differences between analog and digital recording is that 16 bit amplitude coding, at 6dB per bit yields 96 dB range while the best full track 1/4" professional tape can only yield 60 dB. So actually the vinyl record process is forced to compress the dynamic range. More perceptually important, the instantaneous rise-time of certain musical sounds cannot be reproduced on a record. Neither the lathe cutter nor the playback stylus can reproduce a rise-time equivalent to a gunshot (or a cymbal or rim shot) but digital sampling can. The potential problem with digital processing is that it reveals recording flaws like phase cancellation between multi-miked instruments that were previously masked by analog recorders. It's like having poor eyesight, finally getting a pair of glasses and seeing all that dust! You could go slightly into "the red" with analog recording, in digital that is the horrible sound of chopping the tops off wave forms (clipping). That "warmer" sound on vinyl is not how it sounded to the musicians in the studio.

[jochenstacker]

CDs vs Vinyl?
The true audiophile breaks into the studio and listens to the original master tape!

[jondeauxman]

I will not watch this video until it comes out on VHS

[michaelroberts]

As an "old guy", I grew up with vinyl and the never-ending pursuit of improving my stereo system. Still buy records and play both my old classics and newer versions, but I like CDs and streaming as well. While I have friends and family members who insist the sound is better on vinyl, I honestly can not tell the difference. Some say vinyl has a "warmer", more natural sound. Maybe, but I have never been able to discern it. It's all good when you are playing a great song.

[Cchogan]

As a sound engineer, I have always had a problem with most of the digital v analogue argument, and that is the listeners involved have never heard the master tape - especially when we worked in analogue - so are making the wrong comparison. How close is what you are hearing to the original recording. We often mixed down to tape running at 30 inches per second - normally 1/4 inch tape, but 1/2 inch in some studios. While still being analogue, these were incredibly high-quality recordings. But the resultant vinyl pressings were always disappointing. As you pointed out, they could not reproduce the frequency response of the master, and to that was added increased cross-talk between left and right channels, effectively narrowing our lovely stereo field. And then there was noise. Every time the audio signal passed through another set of amps, the signal to noise ratio became that little bit worse. Add dust, and the final playout via an over-compressed radio station was depressing.

When we first heard digital, especially CDs, it was wonderful! It wasn't completely like the master because the master was played through professional amps and speakers, and home gear (even the so-called high end domestic gear sold at rip off prices) came nowhere close. But it was so much closer than analogue.

Vinyl is fun, it has its own characteristics which are lovely in itself, but it isn't as close to the original as is digital. And for the engineer or producer, that is important too.

[Maxvdk]

Vinyl is superior in music storage. None of my records have ever been removed due to copyright infringement.

[odw]

Vinyl, CD? I will not settle for less than a chamber orchestra in my living room 🧐

[monkeeseemonkeedoo]

Honestly, I'm just a fan of their analog nature. I like the idea of the sound literally being encoded in such a way that running a needle through the grooves recreates the song!

[mcresearch]

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that a phonograph needle travels slower as it moves to the middle and thus the sound quality is lower than on tracks on the outside of the record. I also remember that 12" E.P. vinyl records had much better fidelity thanks to their wider grooves.

[TheCityLightz]

buying vinyl to me is like the collectors edition of my favorite albums

[moorefilmltd]

i just like having the physical media and album art

[smartass]

The biggest benefit of digital recording is they don't degrade with each use. All analog recordings loose quality with every use. Digital also allows you to customize your play list without having to physically change the medium.

[aquilesbaeza]

As a dj, collecting vinyl isnt about the sound quality, but about uncovering oldies that u just can’t get digital because they were never distributed digitaly. A lot of old electronic music has a distinct caracter to it, derived from the constraints that old machines posed to artists. Its a sound you can only get on vinyl.

[joelee]

The picture is bigger on the vinyl cover.

[aggonzalezdc]

For me, listening to a record is an experience. When I listen to a record, I go to my living room, I look through all the vinyls there with all the pretty artwork, each one conjuring memories of where the record came from or of times I have listened to it in the past. Then I find a record, I carefully place it on the turntable, gently place the needle and I sit down on the living room couch without a phone, or a book, or a tablet and I listen to the entire album. I just sit and listen to art. Its a process, its something you do with intent.


We've become so accustomed to streaming music that its not something you really do with intent anymore. Its a background task. Its something you do while you do something more important, like read emails or surf facebook, and the music is relegated to background noise, barely listened to. I find myself listening to random songs, but I may become interested in something else and may stop randomly after 2 or 3 songs. I never sit and listen to an album, start to finish. I have some very high resolution audio files, I think that is probably the highest quality audio I own, not my vinyls, but even these, there is not so much intent. It does not engage the mind and memory in the same way. I often dont listen to a full album on my digital files, but I almost always do with a vinyl. Perhaps these are just my peculiarities, but I think there is something to this. Its not the sound quality that I keep going to vinyl for, its for the experience of listening to a vinyl record that I keep coming back to.

[martineyles]

Something not so well known is that since the 1980s, most vinyl has been cut using a digital delay in the signal path, to allow the equipment to adjust the groove pitch dynamically. Even if the album was recorded and mixed using analogue equipment (reel to reel and mixing desk etc.) it will still be turned into a digital signal before and back before it gets onto the record itself.

[ericrinehardt]

I love both digital and vinyl. They both sound great, but they’re different experiences. Digital’s convenience means I can explore lots of different artists in a cost-effective way. I love vinyl because I love to treasure hunt at record stores. Nothing beats the feeling of finding a good, used copy of a record you’ve wanted for a good price. Vinyl also encourages me to listen to the entire album and find the deep cuts that most would otherwise skip over. I also like the problem-solving and technical aspect of vinyl and like to explore how seemingly simple changes can make big difference in sound quality: type of turntable, stylus shapes, nude vs. bonded stylus diamonds, cartridge generator types, tonearm adjustments, phono preamp load/capacitance settings, different types of preamps, etc. When you get into it, vinyl is basically a hobby whose side effect also involves listening to music.