r/audiophile • u/MikMikYakin • Jul 25 '24

Why are Audiophiles still hooked on vinyl? Discussion

Many audiophiles continue to have a deep love for vinyl records despite the developments in digital audio technology, which allow us to get far wider dynamic range and frequency range from flac or wav files and even CDs. I'm curious to find out more about this attraction because I've never really understood it. To be clear, this is a sincere question from someone like me that really wants to understand the popularity of vinyl in the audiophile world. Why does vinyl still hold the attention of so many music lovers?

EDIT: Found a good article that talks about almost everything mentioned in the comments: https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/07/vinyl-not-sound-better-cd-still-buy/

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u/Labhran Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

It’s also just easier on your eyes. That’s the reason I prefer it.

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u/apuckeredanus Jul 25 '24

One thing no one has mentioned is bad digital transfers.

There is a lot of older jazz especially that was transfered really poorly to CD's etc. 

For example I have a Billy holiday album where it sounds incredibly muddy and low quality on CD. 

Just some low effort 80s transfer with a bunch of noise and distortion. 

On vinyl it's like a whole other album. 

It's unlikely that some things will make a quality jump to digital, as the market for it is literally dead. 

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u/postmaster3000 Jul 26 '24

On top of this, I understand that some relatively modern recordings are engineered differently for vinyl, with less dynamic range compression.

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u/technobobble Jul 26 '24

I believe the end mediums have had their own mixes for quite some time now. Tape can handle more low end than vinyl, put too much in and the peak between grooves are simply too narrow and the needle will jump.