[Kinger]

Digital has improved a lot in cameras, not as much in audio.  Why do we have HDTV's and bajillion megapixels for cameras, but SACD and hirez audio flounder?  Because people care a lot more about video quality than they do about audio quality.

No doubt about it.  It is much easier to demonstrate the benefits of HDTV than it is superior sound quality.  Fact is, people just don't sit down to listen to music anymore. (At least the majority anyway.)  Music is now seen as background to whatever else folks might be doing at the time.......

[jawaka]

You've got to remember that music in the horrible 1980's sounded awful too.
Everything was made with synths and exploding drums that sounded like gunshot's. Compere Darkness on the edge of town with the tunnel of love. All music sounded like Toto and Duran duran.
Piano's were synths that sounded like piano's, and strings were synths that sounded like strings. This music sounded good on cd's.
I had to ride 10 Km on my bike to by a record, and can't remember how many times I went back to return a scratched or bended copy.
I was happy with the cd for a while.
Until 1989 when Masters of reality and Lenny Kravitz came with their debut cd's, I realised that I wanted LP's and a more organic sound.
I threw away my awful Bon Jovi and Whitesnake cd's and started listening to The GUN CLUB and NICK CAVE and PIXIES and the CRAMPS and TOM WAITS.
And I got my love for music back.
Perfect sound forever!!

[TheChairGuy]

I'm a few months from 49yo...so my teen years had vinyl and I was in my early 20's when CD came about.

My (same age) roommate in 1987 tossed his turntable and bought a CD player and extolled its virtues.  He was louder than I, I just stayed to myself - noting how goddamned awful it sounded. I tried to talk to him about this a couple times, but he simply wasn't swayed by what I heard and he didn't

Figuring all was lost talking to stubborn, Irish Mike - I pulled his equally CD-enamored, slightly more open minded best friend Frank aside to talk.  When I played my then Townshend Rock tt with Helius tonearm and modded Grado thru my system and sat back to see his expression. 

His expression was priceless  - he realized CD had sold us a bill of goods that simply wasn't true - it was GROSSLY inferior to good vinyl.

I happen to think that digital recording techniques and recording and playback equipment have improved to such an extent that digital is pretty good these days (even at lower price points).  It improved dramatically with the use of an isolation transformer before it, this much I can assure everyone, on the playback side.

Still, no matter the digital system heard there is a distinct lack of goose bumps when digital is being played that good vinyl has in spades I don't know if that chasm will ever be breached.

[S Clark]

You've got to remember that music in the horrible 1980's sounded awful too.
Everything was made with synths and exploding drums that sounded like gunshot's. Compere Darkness on the edge of town with the tunnel of love. All music sounded like Toto and Duran duran.

There was excellent music all though that period, just like in any period, but it may not have been what you particularly liked.  Tom Petty, Police, Queen, Steve Winwood, Stevie Wonder, Alan Parson all had hits- and that's just 1981.  But for the most part vinyl was just too inconsistant when new and was destined to get worse.
Also, most of us were listening with our Duals or B&O's to records that weren't really clean.  At that time my TT was a BIC 980 and I was damned proud of it.

[Bemopti123]

Digital has improved a lot in cameras, not as much in audio.  Why do we have HDTV's and bajillion megapixels for cameras, but SACD and hirez audio flounder?  Because people care a lot more about video quality than they do about audio quality.

I think this has to do with people's inability in concentrating while listening.  How they say in education, there are visual learners and there are auditory learners.  Sadly, there is a lot more of visual than the later, thus people are inherently into watching TV or movies, it is easier, it does not make you think nor concentrate.  Sad to say this, people who are into music or really into music, like many people who collect LPs or have somewhat decent stereos are people with higher tastes or affinities or shoot me here, education.  It is a sad fact.

[jawaka]

Also queen made awful records like Hot space and the works, I was very disapointed with them.
Stevie Wonder made great records in the 70's until Hotter than Juli, in the 80's he made "I just called to...." i can't even finish typing the title.
Steve Winwood made some nice albums in the 80's but they are nowhere as good as TRAFFIC.
Ofcourse there was great music too. Talking heads, David Sylvian, XTC , U2 etc.

[Tyson]

I think this has to do with people's inability in concentrating while listening.  How they say in education, there are visual learners and there are auditory learners.  Sadly, there is a lot more of visual than the later, thus people are inherently into watching TV or movies, it is easier, it does not make you think nor concentrate.  Sad to say this, people who are into music or really into music, like many people who collect LPs or have somewhat decent stereos are people with higher tastes or affinities or shoot me here, education.  It is a sad fact.

Reminds me of a conversation I was having with a friend of mine.  He was lamenting the paucity of smart movies and TV shows.  I pointed out that smart people are the minority, so any time you make something that appeals to intelligent people, you have severely limited your potential market, right out of the gate.  Most TV, most Movies, and most music are dumb because people, as a rule, are dumb.

[SteveFord]

Good points made by everyone.
S Clark really nailed it for me as I was using a Dual 701, Stanton 881S, Discwasher and Carver phono stage.  It was okay but not jaw dropping so CDs really didn't sound all that bad by comparison and my record collection sat unused.
A few years back I got a decent turntable, cartridge and phono stage and I'm so glad that I kept my albums!
Digital is convenient and can sound quite good but there's some element that has escaped the medium.

[Tyson]

Plus, now that it's digital, I have about 12,000 full resolution audio CD's stored on a hard drive about the size of one of those original walkmans!

[Wayner]

And we can't wait till your hard-drive dies................Records or CDs are there forever................

[TheChairGuy]

Most TV, most Movies, and most music are dumb because people, as a rule, are dumb.

Hey - I resemble that remark 

[wushuliu]

I think the 80's was the strangest decade of the 20th century. Everything about it, technology, fashion, art, culture was so bizarre - like it desperately wanted to be the decade of 'the future'. I'm so glad I was too young to be overly affected. The thought I might have bought a michael jackson/eddie murphy 'thriller' jacket gives me the willies.

[wushuliu]

oops, deleted

[Bemopti123]

And we can't wait till your hard-drive dies................Records or CDs are there forever................

But with the advent of Drobos, Raids and the like, there should not be a Dark Age for Tyson UNLESS he deliberately refuses to backup. 

Talking about people who are dumb and the like, I still remember a run to Staples in order to ship something and seeing a young mother with two young ones talking to the computer tech there asking whether it was possible to recover the pictures on her crashed computer....he said it was possible, very expensive and the like and I bet that she had put all the digital pictures she had taken of her children from their birth and the like with what XXXXX mega pixel camera not being able to fully understand the concept of digital, computers and sheetee HDD!  jijijijij

[Bemopti123]

I think the 80's was the strangest decade of the 20th century. Everything about it, technology, fashion, art, culture was so bizarre - like it desperately wanted to be the decade of 'the future'. I'm so glad I was too young to be overly affected. The thought I might have bought a michael jackson/eddie murphy 'thriller' jacket gives me the willies.

There were plenty of times when people wanted to be catapulted into the future, if I am not wrong, it became with the Futurists in Italy and their love of speeding machinery, all the 40s and 50s SciFi drive due to the Cold War and Space Race, the 70s with their pseudo bizarre Glamm rock stuff...but it seems like things really got baked into perfection because technology actually usable back then...who remember the stack of Japanese stereo with gazillion buttons, LEDs, spectrum analyzers, COMPUTER this, COMPU eject, COMPU, COMPU etc...  I was raised in the 80s and it was then when my passion for hifi begun.... in retrospect while some HiFi companies were good others seem to have been pretty awful much like the sheetee CDPs that Sony produced back then. 

[sts9fan]

Digital has improved a lot in cameras, not as much in audio.  Why do we have HDTV's and bajillion megapixels for cameras, but SACD and hirez audio flounder?  Because people care a lot more about video quality than they do about audio quality.

I think this is incorrect. HD video is cheap high quality sound is not nearly as cheap. Plus unlike in the past audio has to compete for entertainment dollars. If a person "has" to buy a tv,DVD player, camera, smart phone, iPad, stereo etc there are less dollars per toy.
SACD and DVDaudio are stupid that's why they failed. When competing for the dollars you can't charge more for the same content.
Gotta feed the monkey ya know?

[rbbert]

Regardless of whether vinyl sounds better than CD or not, today (and for at least the last 10 years) the biggest problem with the sound of most recorded music is the poor mastering.  The fact that there are any excellent sounding CD's (and there are, just check out some FIM CD's) means it's not the medium that is at fault.

[doug s.]

Regardless of whether vinyl sounds better than CD or not, today (and for at least the last 10 years) the biggest problem with the sound of most recorded music is the poor mastering.  The fact that there are any excellent sounding CD's (and there are, just check out some FIM CD's) means it's not the medium that is at fault.

you are correct that the mastering has gotten worse, re: what the big major labels are $hitting out.  but, this does not mean the medium is not at fault.  when a quality winyl recording played back on a $1500 analog rig will sound better than the same quality cd recording on the most expensive redbook rig on the planet.

doug s.

[decal]

Rischa (the OP), LPs and equipment to play them on have always been around.   You were not deprived or duped out of anything, evidently you just weren't looking for it.

[rbbert]

...  when a quality winyl recording played back on a $1500 analog rig will sound better than the same quality cd recording on the most expensive redbook rig on the planet.

doug s.

Wow, that has not been my experience at all if the same mastering is used for both.  But I know this is the vinyl circle...