See our youtube debate.
Mp3 vs cd vs vinyl quality.
There s no question that cds sound much better than mp3s.
And having to search through an extensive cd collection to find the song you want to listen to can be frustrating.
The results may surprise you as they did us.
Cd vs vinyl record comparison.
Still as artists and labels hop on the vinyl trend some new vinyl releases may be mastered from cd quality audio not the high resolution formats audiophiles and folks like neil young adore.
The problem here is that it had a tremendous result on the audio quality.
High resolution audio offers both quality and convenience.
Neither format always renders higher fidelity and the differences in production techniques and the listener s preferences are what.
We compare the sound quality of analog vinyl vs digital audio cd flac on a 100k stereo setup.
Comparing compact discs cds to vinyl or gramophone records is the musical equivalent of comparing digital photography with film photography.
Vinyl can still push music to the limits of its dynamic range 55 70db but it often shies away from doing so in order to maintain sound quality.
Cd quality sits somewhere in the middle with 44 100 samples per second at 16 bit accuracy.
The table below lists the sampling rate and the accuracy for cd recordings and the maximum sampling rate and accuracy for dvd recordings.
Vinyl for the most part avoided the loudness war with the rise of digital music cds included it s possible to make a track sound louder than it naturally should.
Check out our listening results.
The recording industry has a new standard for dvd audio discs that will greatly improve the sound quality.
But the real downside of the cd is its lack of portability.
Cds and vinyl records are both audio storage and playback formats based on rotating discs from different times i.
Cds can also hold 74 minutes of music.
There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often.
There s another far superior reason why vinyl is better than lossy digital formats.
Audiophiles have long debated the quality distinction between vinyl and cd formats.
The quality of a digital reproduction is dictated by how many of those samples of the original are made.
Depending on the overall production of a piece of music one recording may sound superior to the other in a different medium.
