How do Vinyl FLACS stack up to CD FLACS?

[fatherotti]

I just got a hold of some Dookie Vinyl FLACS and they sound amazing. I'm wondering if the FLACS would sound better coming from Vinyls rather than CD's.

[LazyPhil]

I just got a hold of some Dookie Vinyl FLACS and they sound amazing. I'm wondering if the FLACS would sound better coming from Vinyls rather than CD's.

Vinyl>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CD

Hope this helps. Just ask if you wanna know why.

[Guest]

Vinyl. Always vinyl.

[Liam]

This would serve better discussion in Green Day Chat. Remember, Green Day Downloads is for actual stuff to download, not discussions of this sorta thing

[fatherotti]

Vinyl>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CD

Really? Care to elaborate?

Is is that Vinyls come more uncompressed?

This would serve better discussion in Green Day Chat. Remember, Green Day Downloads is for actual stuff to download, not discussions of this sorta thing

Oh ok! Thanks for moving it!

[LazyPhil]

Really? Care to elaborate?

Is is that Vinyls come more uncompressed?

Vinyls are not compressed at all. They have analog music which contains every single detail of the music whereas CD's have digital files which have a certain sample rate. Because digital files are basically snapshots of the music they may forget some details. Imagine a circle on your computer screen, it's actually not a circle because it's made out of squares (pixels). No matter how many pixels you use you'll never get a perfect circle. Same goes for music.

[fatherotti]

Vinyls are not compressed at all. They have analog music which contains every single detail of the music whereas CD's have digital files which have a certain sample rate. Because digital files are basically snapshots of the music they may forget some details.

Oh, that's pretty cool. Thanks for the details.

[J&TheNight]

I just got a hold of some Dookie Vinyl FLACS and they sound amazing. I'm wondering if the FLACS would sound better coming from Vinyls rather than CD's.

Don't. This is something that is entirely opinionated, yet people always pretend it's not. If you like the vinyl FLACS more than the CD FLACS, then cool. Really, just go compare them. For the love of all things holy never ask if vinyl is better than CD, the discussion is terrible :C I'm doing this not just for you and me, but for the child.

Here is a nice article on it

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/10/146697658/why-vinyl-sounds-better-than-cd-or-not

[PanicAttack!]

My logic can't seem to grab a hold of this, you argue that the FLAC-files taken from the vinyl are of better quality than the ones from the CD because a digital file can't process all the natural contours of the music. But doesn't the fact that the vinyl is then ripped onto the digital format FLAC make it just as incapable of doing so? Also, I would think that with all this digital technology used today, the master files which are printed onto the vinyl itself must've gone through some digital filter and therefore lost whatever is lost in that process. I think that the "vinyl sound" is simply because of the material and the way that the sound is produced, and has nothing to do with quality of the music itself. It's a bunch of quibbling done to justify that you like the sound of a needle scratching rubber as the background music to your music, or that you like to watch the thing spin.

[J&TheNight]

My logic can't seem to grab a hold of this, you argue that the FLAC-files taken from the vinyl are of better quality than the ones from the CD because a digital file can't process all the contours of the music. But doesn't the fact that the vinyl is then ripped onto the digital format FLAC make it just as incapable of doing so? Also, I would think that with all this digital technology used today, the master files which are printed onto the vinyl itself must've gone through some digital filter and therefore lost whatever is lost in that process. I think the "vinyl sound" is simply because of the material and the way that the sound is produced and has nothing to do with quality of the music itself. It's a bunch of quibbling done to justify that you like the sound of a needle scratching rubber as the background music to your music.

Read the article I linked to! It's really great at explaining it. Personally, I prefer CDs for the obvious reasons of convenience, care, durability, etc. THEN we get to the sound quality. Most who say "digital is awful" are listening to really poor 128-320 kbps MP3 files, when you can rip a CD (or not rip it at all) to a lossless and get a much better recording. Trust me, today I was listening to Green Day on my phone and noticed immediately the difference between all the CDs I ripped at lossless and the one album I have downloaded at 320 kbps (it's 21st Century, I bought it but my friend broke the damn disc before I could rip it at lossless). The quality difference is staggering!!

Really, read the article I linked to. I think it'll help.

Also, you make a great point. Ripping a vinyl to FLAC is the same as ripping a CD to FLAC. At that point both are digital and could have the exact same flaws.

[WhiteTim]

Digital is awful for certain genres of music (i.e. rock) for rock nothing beats analog recordings go listen to the last Foo Fighters cd hell the trilogy sounds so much better on vinyl but yeah the vinyl to flac rips are pointless

[J&TheNight]

Digital is awful for certain genres of music (i.e. rock) for rock nothing beats analog recordings go listen to the last Foo Fighters cd hell the trilogy sounds so much better on vinyl but yeah the vinyl to flac rips are pointless

ehh Idunno, I have the trilogy on vinyl (colored from HT, but apparently the same deal) and I really REALLY prefer my CDs. The vinyl feels very empty in comparison.

In the end it really comes down to everyone's preference though, something most can't seem to understand about it.

On the fun side though, the electronic group Daft Punk have recorded their entire new album with analog and digital, switching for instruments and parts. I'm not versed enough to continue on my own, but it's supposedly never been done to this extent. I'm eager to see how it goes.

[PanicAttack!]

Read the article I linked to! It's really great at explaining it. Personally, I prefer CDs for the obvious reasons of convenience, care, durability, etc. THEN we get to the sound quality. Most who say "digital is awful" are listening to really poor 128-320 kbps MP3 files, when you can rip a CD (or not rip it at all) to a lossless and get a much better recording. Trust me, today I was listening to Green Day on my phone and noticed immediately the difference between all the CDs I ripped at lossless and the one album I have downloaded at 320 kbps (it's 21st Century, I bought it but my friend broke the damn disc before I could rip it at lossless). The quality difference is staggering!!

Really, read the article I linked to. I think it'll help.

Also, you make a great point. Ripping a vinyl to FLAC is the same as ripping a CD to FLAC. At that point both are digital and could have the exact same flaws.

It is very up to the individual what they prefer and for whatever reason, but I must say that the difference between digital and vinyl is not big enough to say that one is terrible. Fact is that it's almost the same to the regular person and only audiophiles could make a choice of which is best. But "vinyl is much better than digital" is actually an amputated sentence, what should be said instead is "vinyl is a tiny bit better than digital to me personally" which is also what people are really saying, it just doesn't sound as convincing.

As WhiteTime said up there "Digital is awful for certain genres" which I think is a huge exaggeration for anyone to make, cause it's all high quality and comes from the same master recording and the same mixing. Not that I don't agree that rock music is enjoyable on vinyl, but not to a point where it really matters.

[WhiteTim]

It is very up to the individual what they prefer and for whatever reason, but I must say that the difference between digital and vinyl is not big enough to say that one is terrible. Fact is that it's almost the same to the regular person and only audiophiles could make a choice of which is best. But "vinyl is much better than digital" is actually an amputated sentence, what should be said instead is "vinyl is a tiny bit better than digital to me personally" which is also what people are really saying, it just doesn't sound as convincing.

As WhiteTime said up there "Digital is awful for certain genres" which I think is a huge exaggeration for anyone to make, cause it's all high quality and comes from the same master recording and the same mixing. Not that I don't agree that rock music is enjoyable on vinyl, but not to a point where it really matters.

What I meant by the digital is awful for some genre is digital recording and analog recording

Digital recording doesnt capture all the sounds analog captures everyone from Butch Vig to Bob Ludwig testifies to that...

If you cant tell the difference between analog format and digital format A) have a cheap and crappy system B) grew up in the digital world C) tone deaf

But cd's are alot more convenient that's for sure and alot better than mp3's

[lbsf1]

Guys, just to be devils advocate here but you say digital is bad because it has a bitrate as a limiting factor for the detail you can have in the music. However surely vinyl has a limiting factor and that is the number of grooves/bumps you can have in a certain area. If it pass's over 20cm of groove in 1 second and you can only have 1 bump every 0.01 mm (this is pushing it a little bit) then that is 20,000 bumps a second, if you compare that to a CD recording which is of 144kbs that is 144,000 binary digits of data per second, so on cd quality you can have 7.2bits of data for every bump on a vinyl. So therefore you would have to question whether there is really and lost data or whether the smoother, less "perfect" analogue sound is what you really like.

Another example of how are ears and brain arn't perfect at processing sound.

DfJa3IC1txI

[WhiteTim]

Digital compresses information analog doesn't

It's like blu ray and laserdiscs LD was the only true format for the public that didnt compress video nor audio which is why one side could only hold 30-45 mins of a movie while blu ray and "hd movies" doesnt compress as much as the dvds did it still gets compressed from the original format (at least the transfers of the old movies and those filmed on film)

Really vinyl and cds boils down to what you like to hear...

[lbsf1]

Digital compresses information analog doesn't

It's like blu ray and laserdiscs LD was the only true format for the public that didnt compress video nor audio which is why one side could only hold 30-45 mins of a movie while blu ray and "hd movies" doesnt compress as much as the dvds did it still gets compressed from the original format (at least the transfers of the old movies and those filmed on film)

Really vinyl and cds boils down to what you like to hear...

But vinyl isn't a perfect copy of the original analogue signal, you have to compress information to put it on vinyl because of the limiting factor of space you can put the ridges.

[Sarcasm]

Unless you have the proper gear, you won't notice any difference from FLAC to 320 MP3.

[Jude O'Reilly]

I just prefer Vinyl myself but not conversations from vinyl I mean the actual thing. I just find them so much nicer to look at and display and overall much for collectable. I'm sort of a vinyl fanboy in that regard I guess.

[greendepent]

Well, having more information in the vinyl, is clearly better than a conventional CD.

[BCap]

I have only a couple of vinyls (three 45s, to be exact - two Bouncing Souls EPs, and a single of Clint Eastwood covering the song "Burning Bridges" from the movie Kelly's Heroes). I can't sing for shit, but I'm not completely tone deaf (I can tell if someone is horribly off-key, and I am sometimes even able to hear clipping [usually in my car]). I can hear a difference between digital and vinyl, though - it's not much of a difference, but vinyl does sound a teensy-weensy bit richer. I'm getting to be a bit of an audiophile (I'm a movie buff, and I'm really picky about the DVDs, Blu-rays, and videotapes that I get - I need the director's preferred cut on the disc/tape with the best-looking transfer of the movie, in widescreen). I've begun to get a bit picky with the audio in movies, and that's helped me appreciate vinyl a bit. To be fair, I still buy all my albums on CD (I never buy the vinyls or even the digital downloads), but if vinyl were less expensive, I might consider it (since my father has a turntable and can rip stuff from vinyl to a CD or computer). iPod for portability/convenience, CD for cost/ease of use, and vinyl for savoring good music.

[J&TheNight]

Unless you have the proper gear, you won't notice any difference from FLAC to 320 MP3.

By proper gear you must mean basic headphones, right? The difference between a 320 mp3 and a lossless file (not just FLAC) are huge. I'm using $15 headphones and that alone is enough to show the difference quite easily. Of course it's not the ideal way to hear the quality difference, but it gets the point across.

Now if one is using a pair of earbuds well they won't hear a difference. Everything sounds so muddied and cluttered through those.

[Sarcasm]

By proper gear you must mean basic headphones, right? The difference between a 320 mp3 and a lossless file (not just FLAC) are huge. I'm using $15 headphones and that alone is enough to show the difference quite easily. Of course it's not the ideal way to hear the quality difference, but it gets the point across.

Now if one is using a pair of earbuds well they won't hear a difference. Everything sounds so muddied and cluttered through those.

source of my statement. you're welcome to google translate that, but heres the idea. A bunch of people with good experience in audio were given high end headphones, listened to FLAC and 320MP3 only to conclude that lossless is useless.

Most people I know that are addicted to flac are victims of the placebo effect. I never noticed any difference with my headphones, they cost me 140$ just a week ago. AKG Quincy Jones.

[WhiteTim]

Yeah flac is really not that much better than mp3's wav according to Bob Ludwig are the only true lossless file format the general public has

[OneSongInFrench]

I'm a recording engineer and I rip all of my albums I buy in .wav. I don't use FLAC myself. Only downside is the amount of space ripping lossless takes up is astronomical, but it does make a difference. Any time you listen on an iPod or computer speakers you're getting way less than perfect audio, but trying to keep lost data low will help especially when you go to normal speakers at least.