Uhm, yeah. I'm one of those people the prefers vinyl to other formats. I like other formats, but just not as much (vinyl > sacd > blu-ray > cd, buy lots of each). I find this article incredibly insulting, not to mention ill informed. If you actually understood the technology you spend so much time trashing, you'd understand why so many love vinyl and why it's making a come back. Aside from the whole atrocity that is DRM that's being forced down people's throats, the warmth of vinyl simply can't be matched by digital formats. Most CD players produce large amounts of odd-ordered harmonics, which are perceived as harshness by the ear/brain, while vinyl, even though the distortion numbers are often higher, produces even order harmonics, which are perceived as pleasant by the ear/brain. Couple that with the legendary loudness wars, and even though, technically, the digital formats are superior, what you get on the disc is usually an over-produced and highly processed, and therefore lifeless sounding, mash designed to sound good on ipods through cheap ear buds alll while being as loud as possible. Sort of renders the whole "but CDs have > 100 db dynamic range" agument moot when everything is compressed into a 5-6db range. Granted, there are some releases that don't do this, but the majority of releases do.

So, sorry, but I don't and won't discourage those that come over, hear my system as I switch between SACD and vinyl and then proclaim that they're going back to vinyl as well. So rather than killing the audiophile movement, I'm powering it on ahead in pursuit of ever better sound and the ability to enjoy the music.

Everyone is allowed to have their opinion.

Facts are the audiophile business is dying and near dead because Baby Boomers kept it a "smoke a dube while sitting in a dark room" snobby hobby. Don't believe me - go to THE SHOW at CES and see what kind of companies are there selling $10,000 speakers that if you bought them would be worth $1,500 the NEXT DAY on Audiogon. At the same time, there are TENS of MILLIONS of people who love music more today because of iPods and streaming that MUST be taught about HD. Is Apple helping? Nope. they sell crappy resolution music. Are the snobby stores helping? Nope - they sold off their high end demos to try to stay in business. Are the audiophiles helping? Nope - they buy their gear used on Audiogon and out of state in stead of supporting their dealers. This pattern MUST CHANGE.

As for vinyl - it isn't selling in volume. That's fact as much as people want to say that it is up 130%. 130% from WHAT? The FORMAT in the US alone barely sells platinum. Moreover, the S/N ratio is high. Its NOT HD - it kitch. Its old school and I get why people like it but its not the future. Its the past and not viable going forward. HD downloads from Apple is the "killer app". Blu-ray 24/192 discs would help. This is more the future

Well, this article is both hit and miss.

1) The warmth argument some bring is a joke (I'm looking at you Rob), but the dynamic range issue is very true. The problem with CD is we're getting poor masters - and it's unnecessary that we are. Vinyl, and even HD formats tend to offer better masters. For an example of a horrid CD that doesn't understand the meaning of dynamic range look at Death Magnetica. Even the mainstream was appalled.

2) HD downloads for the most part aren't necessary. The differences you hear are usually attributed to a different master. The 24 refers to the dynamic range again, but is mostly used for mastering as listening at the full 24 bits would kill your hearing. The last number refers to sample rate - this one it touchy. Some have noted that up to 60khz sampling is audible, but their tests were done rather poorly. We could use more studies in that area of sampling rate.

3) Local can and most likely will die. More companies are going internet direct for a good reason - middle men can't sell the product with their share of the profits. In this economy it's going to be more true than not. Unless the middle men are able to undercut the price or cover some taxes they aren't going to get the sale. Companies that enforce a fixed price for "authorized" deals will probably lose more support than not in the end forcing price jumps that hurt everyone.

4) The used market is needed for everyone. The used market is the cheapest and quickest way to make a new audiophile. It allows established audiophiles to shift old gear to upgrade which puts more new money into manufacturer's hands. The used gear usually goes to someone that couldn't afford new gear, and may influence them so they will when they can.

Without a used market there may very well be less new sales. There's a few good write-ups on how Amazon was going to kill the book industry by allowing used sales back when they were getting started - the opposite proved true, new book sales generally increased.

5) Lack of scientific reasoning. This one is going to be touchy with quite a few people in audiophilia - and that's probably most reassuring. Most people need a reason to buy a piece of gear, based in reason. If you can't prove a cable is going to make a difference then odds are it's not (most demos are sighted - thus not acceptable). Carver proved that amps that sound different are tuned that way but shouldn't be for accurate reproduction with his difference matched designs to sound like other amps.

Still, the reason one needs to buy an amp isn't explained from a scientific view enough (most speakers dip into 4ohms, thus you need an amp that can support said 4ohms to not clip). Describing how it sounds doesn't mean much, describing how their current HTiB is distorting (and possibly killing their speakers) means quite a bit more.

6) Number five was bringing me to this, but snake-oil needs to be called out. If the industry isn't willing to man up for the consumer then the consumer won't trust them. How can one move an expensive amp when you have more expensive cables next to them? As such the dealer will be seen as less trustworthy by many and he may have trouble moving the amp.

I agree we need less snobbery in audio, but your comments on vinyl are totally off the mark.

15 years ago I no longer owned any vinyl. I was an early adopter of cd and had many cds, but was never satisfied with the sound. I was not an "audiophile" and did not travel in those circles, go to shows, read magazines. I also didn't have any money then and I resolved to upgrade my system once I was out of school and could afford to do so. Also, I missed feeling connected to music, but I always associated this feeling with my crappy equipment.

After school ended, I did some reading about vinyl and concluded that people still playing vinyl were flat earthers and snobs. Instead, I bought into the SACD format. I started upgrading my system and started going to some Stereophile shows and started feeling passionate about music again. I really liked SACD although I found the software titles to be limited. I also found many titles to be hit or miss on the sound - many being DSD transfers of crappy mid-80's 44.1 recordings. But I spent a lot of money on SACDs, many that were marginal titles because I was so desperate for music.

I can't tell you how excited I was when attending the Stereophile show in NYC one year and Sony announced that the Rolling Stones were coming to SACD! Fantastic. Finally we will have both hardware and software support for high resolution audio. Two years later Sony Music had pulled out from the format and Sony Music had been a big producer of single-layer discs, software that would only play on an SACD player. In other words, I was stuck with a bunch of software I couldn't rip and couldn't play on anything other than an SACD player. I realized that was a risk at the time of purchase, but I was surprised that Sony would so quickly abandon the format, especially when it seemed that there was some forward momentum.

Vinyl was therefore the only viable high rez format with a reasonable selection of software. I remember going on ebay and there were hundreds of thousands of lots of vinyl available in comparison with a few thousand SACD or DVD-A titles. I bought a turntable and started buying vinyl. I found out several things: 1) vinyl sounds fantastic; 2) vinyl is plentiful - we have probably 40 years where LPs were the dominant format; and 3) vinyl was a lot of fun and not as difficult as I thought to set-up and play.

Since that time, vinyl has exploded. Yes, vinyl as a percentage of overall sales is not significant. But there is more vinyl now than any time in almost the last 20 years. What this means is that I can buy a reissue of almost any title that I want. Five years ago there were many records for which I wished I could buy a better pressing. Now I can. And the other thing is that my hardware options have doubled, tripled, quadrupled. Just look at the number of manufacturers making phono amps today that were not making such equipment five years ago. How do you explain that? There are also many more turntables at many more price points.

Ten years ago my local record stores were dying. Now we have new record stores. Who cares if they only service a niche. The niche is growing and it is adding to my listening pleasure. And the bottom line? I have a ton of software in music I like and that music is growing every day. It is not going to become obsolete like SACD or DVD-A or any other digital format. I also have tons of hardware choices. So what is not to like about vinyl?

"Replace all of your routers and wireless products with Gigabit capable products."

This is not necessary. Let's work out the math.

The track Won't Get Fooled Again (Who's Next) ripped (from vinyl) at 16x48 in the FLAC format has a file size of about 59 MB. The track length is 8:43. So we need to move 59 MB in less than the course of eight minutes forty-three seconds.

To simplify the math, let's call it 60 MB in eight minutes. A minute has sixty seconds, so it's 1 MB in eight seconds (8 x 60 / 60 = 8). That is about 128 KB each second. If you have a standard 10/100 router, you get somewhere in the area of 10 Mb/s. The conversion from MB to Mb is a factor of 8, so you get at least 1280 Kb of bandwidth each second.

That's an order of magnitude larger than what you would need, and it assumes that your 10/100 router limits each port to 10 MB. In other words, each of ten ports could run that Who song without causing the slightest interference in network bandwidth.

The numbers for full HD (24x96 or even 24x192) would be a little higher, but the basic point should be clear enough: you don't need a Gb router to supply your network with HD audio. I run a server full of FLAC's across my network and I can serve multiple machines (over wireless even) without troubles.

I yearn to be free of CD's, MP3's, and even vinyl) and seek out HD FLAC files whenever I want new music. If only the folks who own the master tapes could be bothered to master decently we'd be in business.

I like vinyl cause it's cheap, and I can get stuff that isn't available anywhere else.... and there is a certain ritual to it that I like...

However, it DOESN'T sound better than CD or SACD or DVD-A .... Never has, never will. This 'warmth' that the snobs 'think' they hear is purely psychosomatic. A mental device to protect themselves from the fact that they have wasted gobs of money on what is basically a motor and a pointed stick. Vinyl died a long time ago, but the snobs won't let it go. This Rob guy with the first comment is exactly what's wrong with the industry. Lets get to work supporting and improving technology that's actually relevant and useful. Analog died for a reason, leave it there and stop beating that poor dead horse.

@drunkenrobot

The problem is most CDs are mastered poorly. SACD and DVDA tends to have better masters, but can have bad ones too. Of course with modern vinyl you may have to worry about poor pressings anyway. Not all of it is crazy talk, some difference are very real and easily measurable. However, as Death Magnetic proved if you compare the Guitar Hero rips to the CD rips you'll find the dynamic range is entirely different. The CD is basically clipping all over while the digital files aren't. Another example of when mastering is the problem.

I will say the good thing about vinyl is it's generally plentiful and cheap if you find it used. Then again that's becoming true of CDs anyway, and it's a lot easier to see the wear on a CD and repair it if it isn't totaled.

As a certified member the psychosomatic warm and cuddly vinyl tribe, I'm a little perplexed at all the hostility towards me. The snobbery I'm feeling is being hurled by the flac-dac-HD-bits-bytes folks who actually do spend gobs of money chasing after the latest greatest codecs and formats. A sub $1000 turntable/cartridge spinning high quality clean vinyl, some nice used tube gear, and good speakers can be far more transcendent than the latest overpriced, boring $20,000 all digital system. And why is a home theater guy preaching to me about hi-fi anyway? Show a kid a gorgeous gatefold vinyl LP played on good gear and I'll show you someone fascinated and engaged. Sorry but FLAC isn't going to do it. And how are you so sure he won't choose vinyl in your blind listening test? I have been ignored in audio shops and I do think your only good idea here is taking down the guys name and reporting it to the companies he's trying to sell. Not that it will get me anywhere, but I would at least try it and then continue buying online. OK, this audio snob wants to get back to his dark room, smoke a dube, and get lost in the ancient, dead, analog warmth of vinyl.

I completely disagree with this article, I can't believe this article could actually get published and foisted on the unsuspecting public. The author posits wide ranging statements that are far off the mark.... "audiophiles get off more on audio gear than the music itself " "the geeks who think that the higher signal to noise ratio and lack of dynamic range of vinyl records somehow sounds "better" than digital audio". Hellooooo, wake up call time buddy..... vinyl does sound better, you just haven't heard it on a decent system yet. I agree Hi rez digital is an improvement over CD, and it has a place, but personally I'll take a 12" record over a CD any day.

The author elicited a response-exactly what he's paid to do. My conscience tells me he cannot possibly believe much of what he utters. But however you slice it--you're still "cutting" the music into itty bitty pieces. Once you CUT or sample that original waveform--its gone and you've lost something. Call it warmth. Call it air. Call it soul. It's not about business models, the past, the future, the dead, the sales figures. I care about a connection to the music. Telling me that high sampling rates are somehow better, hipper and more in sync with today…who cares! My heart and soul connect with analog. Please don't stand on your cool new digital pulpit suggesting that I should cancel my subscription to any magazine that may have written favorably about vinyl or some "ancient" "retro" sound technology. Simply because something measures better on paper, has fewer wrinkles, and is popular with the gullible masses---doesn't make it sound better. Me and my enlightened 2% know what we're hearing and don't tell me its somehow wrong to feel that way.

@hifisoda

After you play a LP even once the original waveform is gone too thanks to grinding it away slowly but surely. If you have a poorly pressed LP you don't even have the original.

You aren't enlightened, very opposite in fact. If you were you would at least know why the vinyl you're listening to is generally better from a measurement stance in practice for a specific reason. If you even read the comments here you would know why.

Also, assuming the author is paid off for making these comments is pretty presumptuous.

@mikeyc

I've heard vinyl on plenty of decent systems myself - both headphone and speaker. I think it sounds great on certain speaker systems, but pair it with an efficient pair of headphones and hello hiss that just can't be ignored. Seriously annoying for late night listening IMO :|

With so much vinyl out there of course some will have hiss/clicks/pops/warps. Just as some CD's sound horrible, compressed, brittle, and boringly sterile. I think we can all agree that unfortunately the "killer app" for most listeners is already here and it's called iTunes. We've been told the killer app would be SACD, DVD audio, blu-ray audio, FLAC, whatever. I think Vinyl is probably more popular and beloved than all of these niche HD formats. The most popular format and whatever niche format has the highest audio quality will never be one and the same.

Jerry, thanks for keeping the faith. You never just rant, you always have constructive and practical solutions. Andrew, thanks for your somewhat different take. Many of the rest of the comments prove you just can't dent the zealots with facts or logic.

I'm no audiophile in the strict terms but I have been listening critically to music for a few decades and what I've always wanted was to feel like I'm as close as possible to being there in the studio, in the room while it's being played; the well-done recordings in an HD format do that, the pop and hiss of 99% of vinyl takes me right out and makes it clear I'm listening to a reproduction, with a format in between me and the musicians. And I always knew that after my virgin listen to an LP that "pointed stick" made sure it would never sound that way the 2nd and 100th times.

Anyone who has spent any time reading Jerry's commentary over the last 14 years or so knows he's owned by no one but his his own conscience. He expresses himself strongly and that sends some into weepy indignation, with rejoinders like "you just haven't heard it on a decent system yet." Really absorbing what they write, how can you possibly think Jerry and Andrew have not heard EVERYthing on systems you've never even dreamed of? It's obvious Mr. D loves music and has spent his life glorifying it. Even when he's saying something you disagree with or don't like, you've got to respect it and pay attention.

@hifisoda

No, I'm saying every LP I use with an efficient set of headphones sounds awful (the hiss is too loud). On the other hand with my Magnepan's they sound perfectly fine with pops on occasion. I've tried multiple headphone amps with no success fixing this, so I can only presume efficiency is the key issue.

However, almost every recent CD will sound compressed because ultimately it IS compressed. That's the issue - dynamic compression means there isn't enough room for music to crescendo - it's all loud.

If more CDs were properly mastered this argument would ultimately be moot - the odds anyone would take vinyl would go down substantially as it wouldn't have the superior mastering.

In my view there are at least 2 types of 'audiophile': there are people who understand engineering and who are interested in high performance AV; and then there are the 'high end' cultists who believe that if it costs more, it must be better, and who follow the fashions in power amps, preamps, etc., promoted by the cultist magazines.

Here are the facts, if anybody is interested:

1. LP is far inferior to CD as a music playback format. A garden variety CD mastered to full 16 bits and proper dithering will always be better than an LP. To quote Dr. Stanley Lipshitz of the University of Waterloo, "A properly dithered 16-bit digital audio storage system with accurate analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters will outperform any analog storage medium in existence..."

2. CD, SACD, DVD-A, and BD music discs are all the same as far as audibility is concerned. They are all transparent to the source and the 'high res' format are audibly indistinguishable from CD. The only advantage of SACD, DVD-A, and BD over CD is that they can hold more than 2 channels( If you doubt this, see Proven: Good Old Redbook CD Sounds the Same as the Hi-Rez Formats", http://www.theaudiocritic.com/plog/(posted Oct 17, 2007) ).

3. The problem of high fidelity music reproduction in the home has been solved beyond the limits of audibility as far as optical media and signal amplification are concerned. In simple terms, a $100,000 Krell behemoth will not sound any better than the amplifiers and output stages in a $300 Pioneer receiver.

4. They only remaining problems in audio engineering( and they're big problems ) are the speakers, the room, and the methods and equipment used in music recording. But the digital vs. analog war has long been over; digital won, and 16 bits/44.1 kHz has not been bettered, and is not likely to be bettered in the forseeable future.

If you want to live in the real world rather than subscribe to an audio religion, focus your dollars, efforts, and time on speakers, room treatments, electronic EQ, and other products designed to affect what you can actually hear. Don't waste money on stuff like a 'special edition' optical disc player which costs more because it has expensive DACs.

It is wrong to feel that way because you're living in dream world if you do.

"vinyl does sound better, you just haven't heard it on a decent system yet. I agree Hi rez digital is an improvement over CD, and it has a place, but personally I'll take a 12" record over a CD any day."

1. Vinyl sounds worse, you just haven't read or listened widely enough or you would undertand that. I have heard CD and LP on very high end systems( Sound by Singer demos, for one ),and there's no contest. The CD always wins.
2. High resolution digital is NOT and improvement over CD( for 2-channel audio ).
3. You may prefer the noise, distortion, limited dynamic range, etc., of an LP to a CD, but that says nothing about LP or CD, but it does say a lot about you: namely that you make snap judgments without knowing all of the facts.

To all of the posters who claim that LP sounds better than CD: The problem I have with that is that it misleads people who may be new to the hobby. They may waste lots of money and time on LPs, expensive, possibly even vacuum tube, electronics, expensive cables, and other such rot, when much better, less costly routes to the same A/V nirvana are available. As for the dyed-in-the-wool, believers, to them evidence is irrelevant, they will continue with their religious beliefs and practices, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

To those who are claiming that CD players produce odd-order harmonic distortion, which is unpleasant, whereas analog( LP ) and tube electronics produce mostly euphonious even-order harmonic distortion, I say: you have to remember a little detail called 'threshold of audibility'. It turns out that the odd-order harmonic distortion of CD players is well below the threshold of audibility. Can the same be said for the distortions introduced by the LP or by tubes?

Just off the top of my head, here is a list of readily audible problems with the LP, which do not exist AT ALL for the CD( To anybody who is a music lover, this is what LP playback is inflicting on your music ):

1. LP surface noise;
2. LP warping;
3. lateral tonearm geometry distortion( for pivoting tonearms, this is unavoidable, even for correctly set-up tables );
4. the effects of tonearm resonance;
5. turntable cogging and speed variation;
6. turntable motor vibration;
7. environmental vibration transmitted to the tonearm/phono cartridge;
8. the effects of wear and age on the LP and phono cartridge;
9. the effects of imprecise leveling of the turntable;
10. acoustic feedback from the speakers to the phono system;
11. the susceptibility of analog signal paths to noise and distortion from external electrical fields;
12. compromised channel separation.

So maybe you should reconsider your misguided preference for the LP vs. the CD? Maybe a little research is in order before jumping on the 'LP is better' bandwagon based on casual( uncontrolled ) listening?

As for me, if this post saves but one reader from 'high end' hell, I will be very happy. As for the 'high end' churchmen and their minions, you have my permission to froth at mouth, go into orbit, explode with rage, etc.; no amount of evidence will ever have any effect on you.

My reply to:

"Me and my enlightened 2% know what we're hearing and don't tell me its somehow wrong to feel that way."

It is wrong to feel that way because you're living in dream world if you do, and you're misleading other people if you post or publish your "feelings".