Vinyl Vs Mp3 Quality

Let s take a trip to a record store and i ll tell you the four reasons why 12 vinyl records are better than digital mp3.

Vinyl vs mp3 quality.

The results may surprise you as they did us. We are working out some algorithms that will try to improve low quality mp3 so it sounds closer cd. Writing for the wall street journal neil shah reported in his article why vinyl s boom is over that. Cd quality sits somewhere in the middle with 44 100 samples per second at 16 bit accuracy.

There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often. Vinyl didn t die when jimi hendrix did. That s why snare drums cymbal splashes and other loud instruments have so much more punch in vinyl recordings. But the majority of today s new and re issued vinyl albums around 80 or more several experts estimate start from digital files even lower quality cds.

Bitrate has a direct impact on sound quality. Vinyl can still push music to the limits of its dynamic range 55 70db but it often shies away from doing so in order to maintain sound quality. It s very much alive and is much more preferable than listening to music in a digital format. Digital music as source for vinyl.

It is why mp3 with relatively few samples is so poor and hi res audio with far more is the closest we have to a studio recording. As compressed mp3 files and digital streaming services from youtube to pandora have become the norm for music listening vinyl sales have skyrocketed from under a million in 2007 to potentially. Dvd audio discs and players are rare right now but they will become more common and the difference in sound quality should be noticeable. See our youtube debate.

To take advantage of higher quality dvd audio discs however you will need a dvd player with a 192khz 24 bit digital to analog converter. Most dvd players only have a 96khz 24 bit digital to analog converter. When an original recording is compressed into an mp3 file a lot of information is lost. The quality of a digital reproduction is dictated by how many of those samples of the original are made.

Check out our listening results. We don t try to compensate for in the loudspeaker system for deficiencies in the mp3 or vinyl.