Why Vinyl Records Sound Better Than CD

Some people have a bit of an obsession with vinyl. Maybe it's just because they think it is vintage and therefore cool. Maybe they are just old school and not want to move on. Maybe they are complete audiophiles and love their music that much.

Most people understand that vinyl sounds better then CD's and other modern digital equivalents such as DVD, mp3 and other software based recordings. However, the actual reasons why it sounds better are not so widely known. At first glance it might seem a bit complicated but it is in fact quite simple.

It basically comes down to the difference between analog and digital signals. Analog, by definition, is  a continuously variable signal. This means that changes in frequency are represented by a smooth wave. Basically, this means that a change in frequency between two values will occur by moving through the complete range in between them. The result accurately sounds out every tiny change. This is shown by the first graph below.

In order to encode a similar signal onto digital media such as a CD or DVD, a conversion from analog to digital is required. No matter how good the conversion is, there will always be losses which occur through the transition. Technology may get better and better, reducing these losses but it is effectively impossible (at least in modern times), to reproduce an analog signal exactly with digital data. Take our previous example of a gradual change between two frequency values. Now, we have a series of discrete changes between them. Imagine if you were told to sing from as low as you can up to as high you can using only three different tones. You would sing low, a medium note and then high. This is a very extreme example, but shows what we mean by discrete steps. Improved technology would allow you to change frequencies more often in the same period, say 5 times. Now you have a closer reproduction of the original smooth variant, but it still isn't great. This is shown by the second graph in the picture above.

Given that the human ear works at a higher resolution than our current technology, a trained ear can easily hear the difference between an analog and even a high resolution digital signal. This is exactly the reason why so many people prefer vinyl records to their digital equivalents.. We haven't even got to the point of software level encoding. MP3's and other files incur yet another layer of losses which further reduces the quality in audio. Try listening to a vinyl record after an equivalent mp3 and if you can't tell the difference, there might be something wrong with you! Just kidding, but there is a very clear difference. There are certain audio formats such as FLAC, which are higher resolution digital encodings, but this is when compared with a CD track. In other words, it is still digital, and still does not replicate the sound in the same way as a live performance or a vinyl record.

Now you know why a vinyl record is that much better then any digital equivalent from a scientific front. I didn't even mention their inherited greatness just for being a vintage item!