Is the sound from records (vinyl) superior to digital formats (CDs, music files, etc.)?

Question

Quasi-related

• Are there any perceptible differences between the sound quality of 192 versus 320 kbps MP3 files?
• Do expensive, “premium” speaker cables actually make a difference?

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I've heard this here and there in various casual conversations (hopefully others will also qualify this in the "commonly heard" bucket of claims), but one can also find references online:

Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs.

Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound. (Wired Magazine - Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin).

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Question: It is generally agreed among the serious listeners of classical music that the best of the now obsolete vinyl LP records had a superior tonal quality and better fidelity than any CD. Is this true, and why?

Answer: For a CD recording they take 44,100 snapshots in a minute. These snapshots are then converted to digital information with a certain precision... You can probably see where I am going: by definition a digital recording doesn't include all the sound information... A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform... Therefore vinyl recording sound richer than CD recordings... (Google Answers: Vinyl LP sound versus CD sound).

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The last three years have each set successive records for vinyl sales in the CD era. In 2010, 2.8 million LPs were sold, up 14% from 2009...

Vinyl’s lasting appeal stems from a heady stew of nostalgia, tangibility and, perhaps most important of all, sound quality that musicians and fans often prefer to any other medium.

“Digital is zeroes and ones, man, anyway you look at it,” says Chuck Leavell, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. “Whether it’s a CD or a download, there’s a certain jaggedness to it. Vinyl wins every time. It’s warmer, more soothing, easier on the ears” (Forbes Magazine - Vinyl vs. CDs: The Tables are Turning.

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One reason I'm skeptical of the quality comparison has to do with how records are made. In that video, around 1:25 the interviewee states that a master is made from pre-recorded, mixed music. This implies that it is already digitized. Around 3:10, he states that the music signal is amplified and made to vibrate the stylus cutting the record master. Thus, I see two paths from media to one's ear:

• Live music -> conversion from electrical signal to digital recording (file of some sort) -> conversion to amplified electrical signal to vibrate a cutting stylus -> engraved record -> turntable -> conversion back to electrical signal to vibrate speakers
• Live music -> conversion of electrical signal to digital recording (file of some sort) -> conversion back to electrical signal to vibrate speakers

I could be wrong in this interpretation.

Ideally, this question might have been tackled in a manner similar to this question on bitrate and noticeable quality -- essentially, with a Pepsi challenge between vinyl and CDs.

Summarizing, Is there evidence that the sound produced by vinyl records is either a) of better quality (via some declared standard of measurement) or b) more pleasing to humans compared to the sound produced by CDs?

Answer 1

There is certainly a difference.

The difference should not be looked for in sampling rates or performance, etcetera. The difference is in the production process.

Example

Please compare these two examples to have a specific idea of what the difference is. To easily see the difference, do listen to the plosives and sibilants like the letters "p" and "s" in the singing.

• Iron Maiden—The Number of the Beast (1982)—Vinyl

• Iron Maiden—The Number of the Beast (1982)—Digital

Introduction

Humans are not capable of distinguishing "digital" from "analog". See for example the following conclusion:

In summary, then, no evidence was provided by Tiefenbrun during this series of tests that indicates ability to identify reliably:

(a) the presence of an undriven transducer in the room,
(b) the presence of the Sony PCM-F1 digital processor in the audio chain, or
(c) the presence of the relay contacts of the A/B/X switchbox in the circuit.

The tests were conducted in an amicable rather than confrontational atmosphere, and the parties departed feeling that the day's work had been worthwhile. Further carefully-conducted blind tests will be necessary if these conclusions are felt to be in error.

—source

However the production process of vinyls and CDs changes.

Vinyl

Sounds are etched on the surface of an LP. There are therefore physical limitations to how much dynamic range can be stored. In practice, too much range would result in having the needle skip the groove.

Many of the engineers I spoke with noted that a wider frequency and dynamic range can be cut into a vinyl master than can be reproduced in playback. For example, extreme transients and high frequencies will distort because the stylus cannot properly track them in the disc's grooves.

[...]

At the other end of the spectrum, there are things to consider when working with bass and low-midrange content destined for vinyl. “Low frequencies use up the most space, especially if they're heavy and constant,” Golden remarks. “Care must be taken to control excessive low end. The lathe can cut it just fine, but if the volume exceeds a certain level, the record could skip when played back.”

—source

Also, there is a lot of difference in the frequency response in the external part of the disc from the inner part. In practice, inner songs will sound darker than outer songs.

As a result, the inner tracks will sound duller than the outer tracks. The high frequencies “simply can't be reproduced the same as if they were cut on the outside of the disc,” Golden adds. “And no, it can't be fixed by adding extra high end. That would add more distortion to the inside cuts.”

—source

Albums are therefore mastered in a particular way to make the wide-dynamic-range masters "fit" on the media. This modifies the overall sound - a lot.

Furthermore the media itself tends to saturate musically (in the way that a valve amp has a "musical" distortion). This is put to good use during mastering as well.

CD

Sounds are digitised on a CD. There are many advantages to this, like a much better dynamic range, higher frequency response and so on. However, this completely changes the mastering process, resulting in a different overall sound.

(I couldn't find a citable source, however the fact that CD mastering is very different from vinyl mastering is quite obvious from Sterling Sound's web page (wayback machine copy). Sterling Sound is widely regarded as one of the top 5 mastering studios in the world.)

Conclusion

Now--which one is better? It depends what you are looking for: vinyls have a characteristic sound which is probably a better fit for some kinds of music. Alternatively, other kinds of music, e.g. classical, do benefit a lot from the increased dynamic range of the CD.

One of the first and largest supporters of digital audio was the classical conductor Herbert von Karajan, who said that digital recording was "definitely superior to any other form of recording we know".

—source

Answer 2

"Better" is a vague term which could be "more accurate", "more often preferred", or a number of other things. For simplicity: I will assume the question is one of fidelity.

A CD has a lower minimum frequency at volume and a greater dynamic range (Fries, Bruce; Marty Fries (2005). Digital Audio Essentials. O'Reilly Media. p. 147. ISBN 0-596-00856-2) than exsiting "record" recording processes.

“It is true that the more low frequency you mix on the sides, the more vertical up-and-down movement will be required of the cutter to make that sound. And with more vertical movement, the groove will use more space on the disc. Significant amounts of low end panned hard left and/or right can also cause a record to skip during playback. For the record to have fewer problems, you should try to keep most of the low end near, or in, the center of the mix, especially percussive sounds like the kick drum and bass guitar.”

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An album does have the theroetic ability to output past 30khz wikipedia youtube diamondcut endino, but human hearing drops off below 20khz sources.

Sibilance, the high-frequency noise burst that you get when the letters s, f, and t are emphasized, is a major issue that mastering engineers encounter. “Problematic sibilants typically fall in the 6 to 12 kHz range,” Golden observes. “Because a CD can reproduce it without trouble, it isn't recognized as a problem area until you decide to make a vinyl record.”

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A CD reproduces sound with accuracy up to just over half the samplying rate and with a dynamic range determined by bit-depth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation) youtube University of Illinois

CDs are also not vunerable to Rumble, Wow and Flutter, and degredation of sound quality from play. Records are.