Unpopular Opinion

I'd say nostalgia is a big factor in what keeps technically inferior sound quality in the market

I mean, if we're just talking high bitrate digital audio then yeah, convenience and sound wise digital beats the pants off of analog any day. CDs in particular though? Nah. Gimme that solid state no moving parts convenience I get from packing 50GB of flac, aac or vorbis rips onto my phone and a Chromecast audio to plug into my sound system.

Lol

Right...I also have feelings on making music absurdly perfect when recording....I feel it becomes too sterile.

The myth of the superiority of vinyl, and the idea that vinyl is inherently Authentic in a way that digital formats aren’t is one of the most successful scams in corporate history. In one fell swoop, the recording industry persuaded music fans that they need to pay extra for a format that has measurably inferior fidelity, that cannot be copied (well, you can digitise it to a WAV, but then you get a murky, crackly sounding WAV; even if the sound coming out of the speakers is identical to how it would be from the record, the fact that you’re not playing a vinyl record diminishes it), and that wears out slightly each time you play it. Meanwhile, a lot of records never get released on CD, only vinyl and streaming, closing the digital ripping loophole. Well played, RIAA/IFPI.

My amplifier has all the streaming services available and some of them like Tidal stream at higher bitrates than a CD. CD's are obsolete these days, I don't know anyone who still has a CD player. So obviously sales decline.

Vinyl on the other hand is an (analog) experience by itself. In my experience there is nothing like crate digging for unique samples at the local record shops, sampling them with my AKAI S-1100, the warm dynamic sound of it, the noise floor bringing harmonic distortion, the ticks and cracks that add to the groove.

I do agree with the sound quality of a CD vs vinyl. Any flaw in the vinyl (including just being a bit dusty) makes popping, hissing or other unwanted noise. CDs aren't as easily damaged and don't introduce unwanted noise unless you hella scratched that shit or had something go wrong with burning it so the data itself was fucked up.

But most musicians putting out vinyl these days are doing so without a middle-man, so you buy the vinyl to support the artist and not some mega corporate label or venue. I don't even have a turn table; I just display the records.

The sales thing tho... That's just because of paragraph 2 and the fact that CD players aren't the norm; digital media and streaming are. Compare vinyl sales to digital sales and not CD sales. Shit, man, I don't even know where you would find CDs for sale these days outside of a big music warehouse that sells used stuff. My local Target doesn't even carry those lame background flute CDs anymore.

The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad.

I mean... CD sales are only behind vinyl because vinyl has become collectible, while CDs offer no practical advantage over stored files on a hard drive or high-quality streaming.

And before you say, "but what about compression?", the fact is that even lossy compression is good enough that most audiophiles can't tell the difference. Audiophile publications started doing blind comparisons back in the 90s, and it quickly became clear that somewhere around 192kbps MP3 the ability of humans to statistically discern the compressed vs. uncompressed versions started to disappear.

CDs are technically better for perfect reproduction. I still prefer vinyl for most pre-80s material because of the loudness war. Mastering of releases has warped the discussion entirely

The Library of Congress prefers vinyl because CD’s don’t last as long (with proper care).

At best a CD will remain uncorrupted for 20-30 years. In a climate controlled space-station like environment, maybe 100 years, but unlikely. Then it’s gone.

For a second I thought I was back on reddit.

Man, you've got multiple opinions in here that are popular and unpopular in different contexts. In an audiophile community, that opening would be very unpopular

But you also get steaming involved, which is digital rather than CDs in a direct sense.

But the whole "earbud" bit is just silly because the term is often used for IEMs, which can produce amazing sound, even compared to cans or great speakers. Like, my gear is all budget-ish, and my tin t2s hold up well against my beyerdynamics and sennheisers (again, entry tier gear across the board). I've even got those cheap Sony buds that can compare decently to much better IEMs (they don't make them any more, but they came with some of the Sony phones years ago).

So it's hard to tell exactly what you mean by "earbuds" making poor quality audio. It's all about how well made they are imo.

So, I didn't vote on the post, but I feel it is overall a fairly popular opinion outside of audiophile circles, which is where I think you're coming from.

I happen to agree with you on average though. I have a decent vinyl collection thanks to my parents giving theirs to me to add to my own. Sound wise, there's less clarity, more noise, and every play worsens that. They do last longer than CDs though. Some of mine are from the fifties and earlier, but I've had CDs from the nineties end up unplayable just from age. Even the oldest, most played record I have can still play.

I'm a digital guy for listening now though. Good lossless formats are essentially immortal, sound great, and are much easier to store. Rip CDs, enjoy forever :)

I think most vinyl purchasers nowadays buy it for the novelty and as collectibles rather than quality. The ones who would die on a hill arguing that vinyl is superior quality are a minority. As for the second point, a lot of people can’t afford high quality audio gear, and some are not tech literate enough to know that Beats by Dre are cheap junk on the inside.

However, you also have to remember that music nowadays is mixed with the lowest common denominator in mind, which is cheap audio gear. Competent sound engineers know to make sure to test that their mixes also sound good on mid-low tier audio gear, which is the vast majority in the market. Unless you’re Christopher Nolan who insists mixing his movies for high tier cinema equipment only when most people will watch them on a tv and maybe with a soundbar, so it sounds terrible.

Apologies in advance for a long, perhaps boring, old man story. Feel free to skip it if you’d like.

Somehow, I mostly bypassed the vinyl era—not on purpose, just by how timing worked out. My parents and older siblings had vinyl records, which I found fascinating and played whenever I could. We also had a few 8-track tapes, but like many, we quickly realized they were not great and stopped using them.

When I was old enough to buy my own music with my fast-food job earnings, cassette tapes were the go-to choice. I wanted to listen to music on my Sony Walkman or the cassette player in my hand-me-down car, so cassettes made the most sense. My friends and I would drive around, wasting gas but having a blast singing along to our favorite tunes and bonding over our shared love of music.

I ended up with about 25 or 30 cassette tapes. When CDs came out, they were a game-changer. They were superior in almost every way, so I replaced most of my tapes with CDs and expanded my collection to about 300 at its peak. I enjoyed my CDs for years, often playing them when we had friends over for dinner and drinks.

Then came the mp3 revolution. I painstakingly ripped my entire CD collection to mp3 format, which took ages, but I kept the CDs for a while, much to my wife’s annoyance, before donating them to a local charity.

These days, I sometimes find music on YouTube, but I’ve never let go of my personal mp3 library. I have multiple copies on SSDs for safety and occasionally add new tracks, though my taste in music is mostly set. I’m not very interested in new releases, not because they’re bad, but they’re just not to my taste. I might make an exception for a movie or game soundtrack or if a younger friend recommends something.

When vinyl made its big comeback, it seemed bizarre to me. I couldn’t understand the appeal of going backward. But as it persisted, I began to get it. With so much content digital and cloud-stored, it can feel ephemeral. Streaming services can disappear or change, leaving you with nothing. Owning a physical object with your favorite music makes sense; it’s something tangible, something truly yours. Though I stick with my mp3s, I understand the allure of vinyl now.

There’s also something to be said about the quirks and flaws of older technology. The grain of film, the pops of a record player, or the imperfections of an analog guitar amp become endearing over time. When a perfect digital replacement comes along, it can feel “cold” to those accustomed to the imperfections. There's an entire industry dedicated to reintroducing those analog quirks into the digital realm, recreating that familiar, comforting imperfection.

The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad.

Not really. It's a sign that Vinyl has turned into a symbol of support for the creative ideals of musicians and romance for a bygone era, while CDs, superior as they are (except in the case of records in good repair being played on high quality turntables), are "just" things that hold digital music. They sold in insane numbers because they were the standard format until streaming truly took over. Sure, Vinyl sales are up to 40 million or so in the US, but the bigger thing is that the 37 million CD sales are down from almost a billion in each of 1999 and 2000.

You're making multiple arguments here and trying to wrap them up into one.

CDs are in every way better than vinyl records. They are smaller, much higher quality audio, lower noise floor and don’t wear out by being played.

Most of these aren't universal positives for most people.

Economy of space is not a big concern for me when it comes to physical media. Playing physical media is a ritual more than anything for most folks, and I want to hold that giant 13"x13" cardboard sleeve in my hands while listening to the music, not toss around a little plastic jewelcase.

On audio quality: that has been debated on audiophile forums for decades now and the most political conclusion to it is that: music sounds best on the format it was mastered for. Not all music was (properly) mastered for digital.

The bit about LPs "wearing out" is overstated to say the least and 99/100 times, that degradation comes from poor setups. Other than that, you're kind of just describing a alluring fault of analog media. The fact that a piece of plastic can change with you over time as you listen to it, at the exact pace you set it to and in an environment you create, humanizes it and helps build a connection in a way that files on a computer don't really do. Let's not act like disc rot isn't a thing, either.

The fact you can rip and stream your own CD media is fantastic because generally remasters are not good

Funny, because CDs were one of the first examples of shitty remasters in the 90s. You can also rip LPs with minimal effort, too.

streaming services typically only have remastered versions, not originals. You have no control on streaming services about what version of an album you’re served or whether it’ll still be there tomorrow. Not an issue with physical media

None of this supports "CDs are better than vinyl records."

On the rest of your post, none of that really supports CD > Vinyl, either. If you're talking about how people interact with their music and the equipment they do it through, there's far more support for analog setups than CD.

With analog, you can actually make real, physical, adjustments to the audio output. On digital, you're effectively just messing with a bunch of 1s and 0s inside a computer. The whole process is much less authentic.

👊🎤

Vinyl has better artwork.

Vinyl requires more effort to listen too, forcing the listener to be a part of the listening experience.

I have a portable record player that I Bluetooth stream to my wireless earbuds and I think you’re wrong.

I consider myself an audiophile.