15
Jan

On Vinyl

   Posted by: richard   in Everyday Things, Music

My friend Travis posted about music on vinyl today. I commented, and thought it was worthy of its own post.

I had always heard that vinyl was a warmer, richer sound. But I never really knew what that meant, and I always doubted my ears would really be able to tell the difference. I didn’t necessarily doubt the difference, I just thought it was something for audiophiles to quibble over, and my normal ears wouldn’t really be able to tell.

Then a friend of mine got into vinyl, and i happened to go over to his house this past Christmas Eve. His wife had given him Wilco’s new album on vinyl, and it also came with a cd of the same. Interested, I asked if he could play a bit of each so I could finally see if I would be able to hear a difference.

First he played a minute or so from the cd. And then the vinyl. And immediately I heard the difference. How could anyone not? And, to my amazement, the best description was to say it was a warmer and richer sound. A fuller sound. I compare it to a standard, analog television, that is measured by the horizontal lines across the screen. A cd is like every fourth line missing from the display. You can still make out the picture easily, and enjoy it. But there’s a much more enjoyable experience out there.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 1437 and is filed under Everyday Things, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One comment

 1 

Thanks for the pingback. Most people that sit down and listen to a record on a decent system should be able to notice a difference, especially with bands that still record to analog equipment (Low and Converge come to the mind quickly). I have Over the Rhine’s ‘Ohio’ on 2xLP and the difference between it and the CD/MP3 are quite noticeable.

January 15th, 2008 at 1628

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