Sunday, September 9, 2012

Vinyl vs. Digital Sound For Home Music Systems



Bet you thought that debate was over.  But Fortune Magazine just ran this article and I got interesting in the 91% number quoted.  Read below.

(Do old records really sound better?  By Omar Akhtar, Fortune Magazine Sept 3, 2012)

“They do.  Think of MP3’s, the format of most digital copies, as the sonic equivalent of Cliff Notes: a summary of a recording’s highlights.  There’s the beat, the melody, verse, and chorus, but not the subtle variations in pitch, resonance, and volume.  In fact, some 91% of the information is lost while converting to MP3.  Vinyl not only retains greater sonic information, it adds a rich harmonic “warmth” as the needle hits the spinning grooves.  Of course vinyl decays while digital is (theoretically) forever.  If you really love an album, spend the $15 for the record… but also keep a digital copy on the cloud.”  Omar Akhtar

Ormar revives the old debate there, and of course I grew up with vinyl and loved it, but the clicks and scratches eventually made me switch over to the CD format.  But I still have lots of vinyl, and I am slowly converting it to MP3, using the special turntable called Ion.  It is a quality unit, and I like how it works.  I use a program I downloaded that will take the input and convert it to MP3.  So far I have not listened to these newly created MP3 versions on quality equipment to tell whether or not it has done a decent job.

If anyone cares to comment, just leave a post with your experience with vinyl, and or the conversion.

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