CDs are much better than vinyl, aren't they?

" We've gained control, but we've lost the sound. The sound is gone. Its sensory depravation: you think you're hearing it but you're not. It's an insult to the brain and heart and feelings to have to listen to this and think it's music"
Neil Young on digital recording

In audio circles this is a controversial question and we don't really have space here to go into this in any real depth - never ending flame wars have been fought over this question on various parts of the net. 

A lot of people unaware of the issues might assume CD to be better, but purely in terms of sound quality many in the know would argue the opposite.  To get to the bottom of it you really need to ask the question "Better how?"

Our position here is that whilst its probably true that a very cheap CD player will sound better than a very cheap turntable, a good quality turntable will almost certainly sound better than an equivalently priced CD player.  The proviso being that ultimately the sound quality of any system will be limited by the quality of the recording - but that's as much true of CD as vinyl.

Lets look at some of the arguments:

"CDs are more convenient"
That CDs are more convenient is hard to argue against - you can skip tracks at the push of a button and they usually have a remote control - though you could argue that this only a good thing for overweight couch potatoes with a short attention span.

"CD sounds better"
That CD sounds better is far less easy to agree with - there is a strong argument that the digitisation of music results in a sound which has variously been described as glassy, harsh, boring, fatiguing and ultimately unsatisfying.  It has also been argued that that these failings are to some extent subliminal.  We can only say that from our personal point of view, long listening sessions, where you just want to listen to one album after another happens a lot with vinyl - with CD it doesn't.  At the end of the day they do sound different and to our ears vinyl not only sounds better (most of the time anyway), but we listen to it a lot more.

"Records are a mass of clicks and pops and hiss, you don't get this with CDs"
If a cheap plastic turntable playing poorly looked after records was your reference point then this might be true.  The flipside is that any half decent turntable with a good stylus will be pretty much as good as a CD player in this respect - you might be surprised at how quiet a good turntable is if you haven't heard one.  Its a good idea to look after your records too - putting them away after you've finished with them and using a good quality record brush are to be recommended. 

It should also be pointed out that CDs need looking after as well - if you've ever heard one skip you'll know what I mean and whilst the brain is quite good at dismissing low level noise a skipping CD is ha-ha-ha-ha-hard to ignore.

"CDs take up less space"
Strictly speaking this might be true.  They weigh less and they certainly take up less volume (so long as you don't keep them in a CD rack that is).  However CDs take up more wall space - that's true - use a tape measure and measure it - standard CD cases are over half as long and over twice as wide as a standard LP sleeve and disc for disc take up more wall area assuming you keep the spine out against the wall.

"CD covers are better than vinyl album covers"
That's a joke of course.

"CDs are cool and records aren't"
Jokes - we're full of them

A lot has been written about this, but one of our favourite articles on the subject was written ten years ago by Michael Fremer, a respected music and audio journalist who writes for Sterophile Magazine and elsewhere :

Ten Years Into The Digital Revolution: A continuing Disaster in Sound