That's not the CDs fault. That's on you.

Agreed re the importance of dedicated, focused listening. But the listening ritual you describe applies equally to optical disc formats, too. Picking the disc from a physical collection, handling the disc, appreciating the disc art, handling by the edges like vinyl, walking over to a quality disc player or transport, powering up connected dac, amps, preamp, ie all the same as vinyl process. Sit in sweet spot and read liner notes, booklet. Yea, smaller than vinyl, though actual print type may be same or larger than any given vintage lp. If you use a vintage disc player with VFD or similar dedicated display with track, time, and track calendar display, there is similar visual nostalgia to watching spinning vinyl.

​@@jakefootball9402re Harsh and trebly cd Could be that particular mastering and or the disc player or dac you are using. Dedicated external dacs can sound far less harsh than low end cd or dvd player analog outs

Do you get nostalgic about old [SLOW] steam trains too?

I think he is right. It is about the sound more than the rituals. Most of the ultrasonic frequencies emitted by musical instruments have been stripped away from the CD, but vinyl still retains those frequencies. Those ultrasonic frequencies have been shown to have a positive effect on the human mind. I could tell there was something wrong when I tried my first CD back in the 1980s. People knew about the problem even back then. Luckily, there are ways you can add those ultrasonic frequencies back into the digital files. I do it all the time and I'm satisfied with the results now.

In theory CD is the vastly better medium in just about every way, especially over time And perfect CD reading is a lot easier to attain than a perfect record reading. Most audiophiles confuse distortion with character

@@ericmiller254 I can change your mind with an a/b test in about 15 minutes. Not on KZfaq-in person

@@scottkasper6378 That's just proving the CD player is adding distortion, lol

I've been at this for 40 years...vinyl is the better sounding medium. Vintage equipment like a marantz or pioneer makes the difference in terms of sound as well.

Cd sales are down, vinyl sales are up up up.

Awesome!

Weird.

Nice! That’s exciting!

I hope the music will undo the damage of listening to talk radio.

Same here. Just bought a new turntable 2 weeks ago, and just got a amp and speakers given to me for my new set up. I'll be buying a lot of cleaning stuff and sleeves in a week or two. I'm finding my love of music, (that I had lost years ago), once again.

They are Still Red Book Compressed no matter what You play them through.

Fremer strikes me as a deeply insecure man, who constaly wants to show off how much he paid to listen to such an inferior sound source.

​@@RobCCTVYou're simply wrong. He's a leader in his field. He's unfiltered at this point in his career. We like that

You don't need a super expensive system to have Vinyl sound fantastic . But yes you do need to spend more than with CDs to get good sound .

Not nessisarily ! I only spent $180.00 on a 5.1 600watt rms output amplifier including all the speakers and I bought it all at thrift stores.

Well i did invest in a vacuum tube preamp for my turntable and put my turntable in another room suspended from the ceiling on cloth covered window springs . That way i can enjoy the full effect of the bass pipes when i listen to Bach Fuge in Dmin.full volume on the subwoofer. Giggles

@Michael Shultz 5.1 sucks for music...….and 600 watt??? no one cares about the power of the amp. numbers don't care one bit … just listen to it and what you think sounds better.. my 15 watt 70's sansui au 101 rapes my 5.1 harman kardon shit box...

I have the same opinions of very expensive hi fi equipment; then there is the topic of the space; the acoustics of a room, and any obstructions from a wall that could potentially affect the sound within the music

That’s actually a pretty sweet comment! 👌 You point out exactly that it is a journey and it comes with certain experiences that aren’t always pleasing and that it simply isn‘t served to you on a silver platter...I have played music to so many friends and family members on my setup (which took me some time to „grow“ and continues to evolve) and most of them state that they have never experienced music in such an engaging way or didn‘t even know that they could be touched that way by music....but in the end - for most of them - it seems like too much effort (research/expense/time)...“I could never blablabla“, „you have too much time on your hands blablabla“. In essence: it‘s (more than) a hobby! :-)

Agree with you. I spend lots of time researching pressings and always buy the best I can afford. I won’t bother buying a record if there is no pressing that will improve on the digital version.

Yeah you heard that everyone. Sound is not iportant . Emotional attachment to nostalgic media is what vinyl nerds love. they dont care that cd sounds bettet lol

The problem with CD is that the engineers stripped most of the ultrasonic frequencies from it that real musical instruments emit. So it holds much less information than vinyl because vinyl retains those frequencies. Ultrasonic frequencies have been shown to have a positive effect on the human mind. So this is why vinyl sounds better to many. It's because it is better. Luckily, there are easy ways to add those frequencies back into the digital files. That's what I do and I'm happy with the results.

Ruben Davis such things should be mentioned. Too often, vinyl folks like to compare today's audiophile label pressings to mass market CDs from the 1980's.

synaProductions Agreed! Vinyl is the Best Music Format.

It used to be the best because it retained the ultrasonic frequencies that real musical instruments emit. CD doesn't do that. But SACD has solved that problem and you can also add those missing frequencies back into most digital files now. So I think vinyl is no longer the best, but it's still better than CDs.

so true i

I've tried to get back into cd collecting a bit, but the mastering choices that are made with many many cd's now render them almost unlistenable. Look up the loudness war. A lot of digital music sounds verifiably awful now. They sound so harsh

The vinyl colors the sound. Some people find that sound pleasing, but it's probably not the most accurate representation of what was recorded in the studio. I use tube preamps when I record for the same reason. The tubes color the sound and create a harmonic distortion that is very warm an pleasing to listen to. But it's not a accurate representation of the source.

@@toddmoore9138 Vinyl destroys the sound and makes it terrible and bad---you are right. Except everything sounds more realistic, so go figure.

the video was a big waste of time, fremer clearly does *not* understand any technology.

@ReaktorLeak I think CDs are brilliant, and they're so cheap now. You can get far better sound from a CD than you can from most streaming services. With the exception of perhaps Qobuz.

I know this comment is 3 years old but I will reply anyway :) There are some pressings today 2020 which are absolutely rubbish. I bought a colored vinyl and over speakers it sounds much more distorted than even the MP3 version. Over headphones it is even worse because you hear every imperfection in the surface. By the way my turntable has been setup highly accurately and most of my LPs sound great. But every once in a while I buy something and I am shocked at the pressing quality.

@@MrSouzy This is true - and has been so going back to at least 2007/2008 pressings - in my own experience - during the first phases of the resurgence. Manufacturing, materials and especially quality control are oftentimes all over the place.

Very well said .Thank you.

I had a cheap turntable and still thought vinyl was way better. The CD technology is flawed as it doesn't retain the ultrasonic frequencies that are emitted by real musical instruments. Vinyl does retain those frequencies even on a cheap turntable.

In some aspect Laserdisc is still better than Blu-Ray. The smooth fast forward and rewind,frame by frame play and of course the artwork,and better audio mix for TV and smaller speakers.

A CD cannot possibly be as good as the source. The sampling rate isn't high enough. I think hi fi is so subjective, the point is to create what is pleasing to your own ears. If you want a steak to taste like the source, then eat it raw. If you want it to taste pleasing to your particular tastes season it and cook it a certain way. Creating distortions in the food makes it taste better to some. I've invited many people over to hear my system. Not a single person said they preferred listening to the CDs than the LPs. Trust the ears and the body to what sounds good. Sound is processed by the most powerful supercomputer in existence, the human brain. Until sound test equipment can exceed or even replicate the processing power of the human brain, I will be skeptical if its findings.

Mr. Chris Here's a meaningful test: Take your favourite vinyl record, play it on your favourite turntable that sounds just peachy to you, and make a digital copy of it at 16 Bits/44.1 kHz in a non-compressed format such as DAT, your computer's soundcard to WAV, some standalone USB ADC to WAV, a CD recorder or whatever you have. Then, do a double blind test: The original vinyl vs. the digital copy playing. There have been many tests done in this manner, and the results have always been consistent: The listernes guess the sources 50/50 right/wrong, i.e. not better than throwing a dice. That means no-one, not even claimed golden ears, can tell the difference. The digital copy always sounds exactly like the vinyl record playing on the turntable used for recording, and it has all that "vinyl warmths" that analogue fans love. This proves two things: 1. Vinyl acts like an effects processor. It adds certain artefacts that weren't actually present in the original recording. The fact that these artefacts sound pleasing to many people notwithstanding, the "vinyl warmths" is not a strength but a kind of defect. It could be added to any signal using a simple DSP, and actually there are such devices. 2. Non-compressed, well at 16/44.1 done with any half-decent AD/DA-converters is transparent to human ears. Its distortions - while undeniably there - are low enough not to matter for practical purposes. It can even preserve that "vinyl warmth" that many of you think digital is uncapable off. Fact is, the "vinyl warmths" is just an added effect, and as digital will record anything with very high fidelity, it'll also preserve the vinyl effect. Now the question which specific commercial release has better quality is a completely different cup of tea. The only meaningful judgment of fidelity would be comparing the copy against the master tape, but consumers can't do that. The subjective quality of this or that release can't tell us about that. It can't tell us about the merits of each format either, because most differences will be down to different mastering, not the formats themselves. Only if you have a vinyl and a CD of which you know for certain they were made from the same master, you can tell the properties of the formats. Even then you still can't tell which one is more faithful to the original, because you don't have that. The difference you hear could be either due to vinyl changing something, or CD changing something, or both. With my above test, you can tell though. They could easily make CDs sound like vinyl if they'd simply make the vinyl fist and then the CD from that vinyl playing through some high quality turntable. But I hope they never do that, that would be missing the point of digital. But they could market vinyl-sound postprocessors.

+Mr. Chris 24/96 digital can be a bit for bit perfect copy of the master. CD, or 16/44, can also be a bit for bit perfect copy of the master within the bounds of human hearing. It is impossible for vinyl or other analogue playback formats to be perfect copies of anything.

prep74 Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that digital music is less pleasant to listen to. Listening to music on a big stereo like the one in the video encompasses the sense of touch as well. Those vibrations we can't hear can be felt.

Mr. Chris So it is not just about the music? Different strokes for different folks I suppose, me personally, I like to listen to the music and not the stereo, though it is well understood in the field of psychoacoustics that eye candy stereo can create a sort of placebo effect that the sound is better than it actually is. The only vibrations we can feel but not hear are subsonic bass tones, which is not really the tone but vibrations of things around you. Even so, this is more likely to be accurately portrayed through accurate digital whereas it may result in rumble distortion on turntables through feedback - that is why many good phono pre-amps have subsonic filters to remove subsonic content.

Most 70s budget TT have AC motor

centrifugal switch??? Are you refering to the hall effect sensors that act as the commutators and are used to regulate the three phase power that controls the motor?

@@larryownbey7764 A centrifugal switch is simply a pair of breaker governors that regulate the speed in early tape deck motors and the like

In practice, a vinyl can’t do better than 45 Db in dynamic

That dynamic range is digital was wasted by brickwalling the sound.

Lord Toffington I agree with you about classical music. One of the things we all hated about classical music on vinyl were the changes in dynamics in a piece would make it almost impossible to hear. Of course, if you jumped up and hiked the volume, the music then was too loud once the pianissimo section ended.

Çerastes oh and you are an expert, please care to explain how it works?

that's probably due to the mastering

Agreed..digital is only parts..one day it will be great perhaps, though always different from analog

I'm an expert. I can explain how digital audio works. Sound is just a wave going up and down, and nothing else. Digital tears the music apart and glues is back together BUT it recreates the full up-down movement of the wave (in the audible range), so it recreates the whole sound. There is no such thing as a "full envelope" that gets lost in the process - whatever a "full envelope" is, it's not an up-and-down motion so it's not a sound. Likewise, the idea that the recording can be "whole" or "not whole" is not even real since it doesn't even translate into an up-down movement of the wave (in the audible range).

You’re an “expert” who just expended a sizable paragraph to express little more than opinion, sans modesty to admit it’s merely your view...next..

+Çerastes yep that is so true. i have had enough of this hot mastering of most modern digital. if i buy any CDs these days they are usually the ones released before 2000. Now those earlier mastered CDs sound better than any half speed vinyl. Btw, the author of this video talks absolute nonsense.

You have no idea. I work in recording studios and I can tell you if I copy a finished recording I've just produced in the studio onto CD and play it back in that studio it sounds exactly the same. If I was to cut a laqurer disc and press it to vinyl and play it back in the same studio it would not even sound close to the original. Vinyl just has so many limitations you have to compromise the audio signal so much to make it work as a playable format.

I have, and the digital version blows it away. Quit making shit up

I guess it's due to the preference of the person really. I have heard quality digital recordings on disc that have sounded extremely well. I'm not making shit up anyway. No matter what you tell me I prefer the vinyl rendition of it better. If you think the digital is better then so be it. This will always be a he said she said debate.

I guess I've heard the original pressing and the song is on the inner most groove where you have the lowest sound quality on the album. I'd have to hear a version on the outer groove, but that almost proves that vinyl can be very limiting when quality degrades as you get closer to the inner groove. I agree though, its a never ending debate. I want to like vinyl more, but when I play songs back to back, the tightness of the bass disappears. I also have a $600 table so its not a total piece of junk. The fact is, that many who claim that vinyl is superior are the ones that have a $10,000 turntable. Its just not realistic in many cases. Also I apologize for the straightforwardness of my last comment

Yeah and hupe about vinyl even worse. Cracka and distortion even on new vinyl records cause its imerfrect material

+quinto34 Buy a belt-drive turntable with heavy platter. The spinning of the platter will balance out the unstable pitch. You may also check if the belt with MMF9.1 is loosened.

The title song, and "More than This" are mesmerizing. Hauntingly enchanting. For years, I hoped Yanick Etienne was half as beautiful as she sounded, and that I could meet her!

Oh yeah, we may all see Michael's eccentricity here, but we know his love for vinyl is real and knows no bounds. This is his life, his work, and I for one are not in any position to question the man's sanity. He adores sound created by the intricacies of analog, it's purity, it's natural distortion, and a sense of the real world this gives him. This is a man that would even love a Croz if you gave him one. They may be vastly inferior to high end models but this is Mike's World, that warming feel as the needle hits the vinyl and it's intricacies of progressively natural distortion, not phoney distortion due to digitization. It's a sheer delight for the man.

He’s def not insane but nor is he about to do a 180 on vinyl after 50yrs, we all,suffer from confirmation bias to one degree or another

fakiirification 1000% agreed. Vinyl is his religion or cult worship.

No the $30k cables mean that he can listen with clarity 😂

@@beyondonethousand Not true. I am a member of the largest audiophile club in the world, and most of the members I know are format agnostic. In other words, whatever format has the best sound quality for a particular recording, is the one to listen to. It just so happens that many older recordings sound better on vinyl, and it is not my fault that I want to spend the $$ to hear them sound as good as my budget will allow. I am completely convinced that hi-res digital (24/192 PCM and DSD) recordings are the best sounding format ever developed. But by the same token, I believe that the vast majority of digital only listeners, that denigrate vinyl fans, are pretty unaware how good vinyl actually sounds.

Yeah. But Cut off on CD has to be before 22 050 Hz no matter what or you allow aliasing. It depends on filter you will use. But there is no ideal, square filter. These filters doesn't appear in the universe. On vinyl you can cut off high frequency higher, it depends on engineer's choise. The more you're close to inner groove, the less highs you're able to prevent.

+TubularBell I'm not saying that digital is better, they are different ways and both have porblems, but reasoning here is completely illogical.

... Digital is better lol It's just common sense.

Bullshitters are around every corner. Most of the bullshitters pose as anti-bullshitters.

He claims that we listen to music while doing other activities because our brains are telling us "this is terrible," and that we're apparently "incapable" of listening to music "properly" because we don't have expensive stereos. I'm gonna need a genuine psychologist to back that up, because everything psychologists have said about music proves him wrong.

Mark Colegrove Very well put, and true. I'm old, so I started with vinyl. Now, the majority of my music is digital. Once in a while I will have an album in each format, though I try not to do that, and sometimes I can't tell the difference between the two, sometimes one is better than the other. Why do I even have vinyl? Why do I, once in a while, buy a vinyl copy of an album I already have on CD? Because vinyl is just more fun. Oh, and sometimes it's all about that big ole cover art!

I think you’re right. I admit it begrudgingly, though. I really WANT vinyl to sound superior. For reasons I won’t bore people with, I’m beginning to wonder if the emperor has no clothes. That said, as you hint at, there’s something almost sacred about the process of taking a record from its (modern nonstatic rice parchment) sleeve, placing it delicately on your (acrylic, hell, Chihuly blown glass) TT, gently running a (mink scrotum) brush lightly dabbed with (1 part Absinth, 2 parts ferret urine) solution along the grooves, delicately balancing then lowering the (16th century Jade, carried by Sherpa) needle on the (blessed by a Monk) vinyl record. It’s a ritual. And for some, pressing “play” just isn’t the same. Maybe that’s it. Just a thought.

Also: vinyl exclusive content that never got transferred to other formats.

Why does CDs sounds minor to high resolution SACDs ? Or the human brain has the absolute ability to detect the any diference if there is ? For me i love CDs and LPs but CDs is what best to listen to music and collecting albums and creating a music Library Plus that CDs if we take good care of them like not scratching them and e.t.c even in a dailly basis play-backs they can last a whole human lifetime seriouslly

@@Badassvidsz CDs have their issues. Early ones were mastered badly because the technology was new and engineers were adapting. They sounded cold and thin. Late ones were mastered badly because the mastering removed the dynamic range. The were just loud and fatiguing. Badly pressed discs suffered from rot, where the aluminium coating containing the pits and lands delaminates from the disc. There was about a period of 2 years where the mastering was spot on. LPs have their issues. They have a more limited frequency response in recording (to avoid the stylus jumping out of the groove), they suffer with harmonics (although a good mastering engineer can exploit this to make the LP sound better). Played with a worn stylus or with too much tracking force they will permanently be damaged. They suffer from inner groove distortion unless you use an exotic stylus. They suffer from static, from dust and can be scratched easily. But the sound has a warm quality, for most of the time has dynamic range and if you sit and listen to it, you are almost drawn into the music. It is one of the best feelings ever to be lost in music. CD was ruined by the loudness war, just after they had got it right.

@@cjmillsnun Agreed 100% but still is the best format ! { Although i'm also a very audio cassette listener } i do listen music very often from cassettes and especially when they are very good recorded they sound great but yet again CDs are the best format if done properlly of course .

@@cjmillsnun It's still not right.

Which one is that?

You mean the one that the Rolling Estonians owned?

Like Michael said in the video, his opinion is totally subjective which means it's not a real review. You are allowed to disagree with him.

fremer's the rude scumbag , check out his *&^% off replies charming man

You don’t see that he’s laughing after he said that? Of course he hears the difference

Digitizing sound can only appropriate the original, i.e. real, analog signal. BTW, although there were few made, have you listened to a very good direct-disc? They're astonishing!

+Divertedflight I have some hearing loss from too much loud music, but I can't tell if it's harmed my ability to appreciate music. One thing I've noticed is that I don't seem to notice as large a difference as other people do when comparing music that is a victim of the loudness wars to the better mastered recordings.

No its isnt. That's and audio myth. Lps and cds come from the same session tape or first lay to tape but lps need remastering differently to remove the high distortion peaks and to work on the master to get the optimum settings for LP which you cannot do from the initial lay down to tape. Cd uses less care and often the distortion peaks are left in then the whole lot compressed in a way that couldnt be played on lp. One of my clients is a studio mastering chief engineer and deals with this stuff every day. He can tell you that lp bizarrely is more faithful to the live feed bar the dynamic range whilst most initial masters by his clients include stuff added or messed with to get the sound they want...often with loads of distortion and his job his to deal with it to produce decent recordings. Cds with the conversion to digital then to analogue uses things like brick wall filters that cause ringing and other problems. Cd isn't any more faithful or accurate than LP which most people cannot grasp because they focus on comparions with digital potential. Truth is that LP still sounds more real because oddly however flawed it remains better in simply sounding more realistic and 3D. Cd doesn't. Use your ears. Listen to a really good vinyl front end and decent LP...it blows CD out of the water.

That is not how CDs or digital audio works. The pits on a CD store bits, either a one or zero, which work like the bits in your computers hard drive and describe a digital PCM file, which is a way of storing the audio. This audio can be prefectly recreated as a continuous wave by your cd player (look up shannon-nyquist), meaning there is no "silence" it's the same exact wave form

Agree, this guy is talking bollocks

They don't have any noise, and that's the problem. That's why they don't have the presence that analog has.

@@vwqwe-gh6td CD's don't sound sterile and compressed. If they mastered the CD well, it compares or even surpasses the vinyl record. When a CD of digital master isn't mastered properly it will sound worse compared to the vinyl record, because they are using a different master. An example is the first pressing of Thriller on CD. This Japanese master sounds like a vinyl record without pop and clicks. The later digital/CD versions suck in comparison

Or an excellent re-issue. There are many from which to choose.

LP's for older stuff, stream for new. Is there that much new music that is worth evem buying anyway?

"Uncompressed Flac" LMAO ... FLAC *is* a compression just like MP3 is compression, except that MP3 is *highly* compressed and FLAC is lightly compressed. The original storage format is wav which has no compression.

With proper care, surface noise can be negligible.

@@dreamingmusic3299 Yes it is compressed, or else it would be a pointless exercise... obviously he meant to say lossless, not uncompressed... you know, the "L" in FLAC (likewise Apple)... duh. Btw, it pains me to see that people still use any form of compression. If you have 1000 CDs, that is 700 GB as WAV / uncompressed - it is hardly possible to find 1 TB HDDs today (with contemporary connections), so you would buy 2 TB or 4 TB anyway, so to hell with compression.

@@Baerchenization - "To hell with compression". Well said. Which means that with the advent of DVD audio and Bluray audio I hardly see any reason to distribute music on CD any more.

@@dreamingmusic3299 Err... the CD format had been drafted such, that you cannot hear a difference anymore anyway... which is precisely why nobody wanted SACD - you could not hear a difference, or so the story goes.... SACD releases, like vinyl releases, are often lim ed novelty releases nowadays. And so what is DVD audio gonna do for you? You'll have to buy all your shit again, and to take advantage of any actual benefit, if any, you'd have to upgrade your stereo as well.... it is already enough that I feel I have to buy releases on CD and vinyl, so to hell with DVD ;)

Would you care to share your system details please?

@@SanathanDharm Hi. i was a bit evasive as people have "high spirited views". I had my own hifi shop in the 90s, so had much time to mess with equipment and cables. I now use Kef LS50W, they are without doubt the best 2k speakers you can buy. Realistically you would need to spend 5k or much more to get anything close. I had a naim CD2 555PS with 282 and Hicap plus 250 power amp Speakers cost 2k and i cant remember the name, sounded good, cost 18k but not anywhere close to the Kefs. Go to a dealer and listen, you will be amazed, i was and still am! problem is where do i go next? So much bull in this industry. Cheers Alex

@@alexdewsbery3832 Many thanks for sharing your system setup. Sharing your system info keeps it real on the forum and I find these snippets of information the real gems which one can actually put to some actual use. Naim and Tannoy are UK's best kept audiophile secret. What are you thoughts on Klipsch rp 600M or Klipsch RP 8000f?

This is audiofool bullshit.. .im a engeneer.. and a cd has way more dynamic vs a vinyl wich top at 70db...

excatly - todays digital mastering are horrible... Love my record player - but better - no. It just isnt.. but I have recordings that are way better on vinyl than on cd - and vice versa. You can come to what ever conclusion you want - sound is 100% subjective..

Vinyl is superior and far more ritual and involving

Andy Block He is very true on that but computers weren't in vogue in the 80s. But I agree,when listening to vinyl,you sit on your favourite chair with gatefold sleeve in hand and get lost.That's the soul and enjoyment of vinyl to a tee.

Digitalization takes out the imperfections? So then digital format is more accurate, right?

lmao "ear fatigue"?

What demonstration? The demonstration was not even in the video. Were you actually there?

"It was close" and then he laughs. Do you understand making a joke?

+Çerastes *Yawn*

By the mid 80s, mostly all LPs were pressed from a digitally recorded source.