I am truly at a loss as to why we are still arguing about this, but we somehow still are! (See “Retailers Giving Vinyl Records Another Spin.”) Here is the quick answer: digital-audio techniques and media can capture and reproduce sonic events far more faithfully than any analogue technique and medium. Note that the focus of the above statement is fidelity not preference, a distinction that most “LPs versus CDs” debates wrongly blur.

Old news

More than twenty years have gone by since the first time CD sales surpassed those of LPs, and several highly qualified acousticians and engineers have since weighed in on the LPs-versus-CDs topic, outlining in numerous books, scholarly journal articles, and presentations the mathematical, acoustical, signal-processing, and perceptual issues involved. (See the relevant, well-written article on Wikipedia for a partial bibliography. See, also, an intelligent talk on the topic by Princeton University’s Paul Lansky.) Some of these experts have also sent relevant letters to the popular press or have published blogs and other online resources. (See this post by analog-integrated-circuit designer Mike Demler.)

Still, self-proclaimed “experts” and die-hard lovers of popular myths, who seem to approach knowledge almost exclusively through what C. S. Peirce, in the 19th century, called “the method of tenacity” (holding on to one’s already established beliefs at all cost), insist on keeping the analogue-versus-digital-sound debate alive. See, for example, this thread on Audiokarma.org’s discussion forum, which includes a typical example of the types of arguments used by LP advocates: “I know vinyl is better because… it just is” (emphasis in the original!).

I will not waste any time here repeating in detail the arguments for the superior audio fidelity of CDs versus LPs. Interested readers can find more information through a relevant Google search, assuming they know how to weed through the returned results and evaluate Internet resources. (e.g. Does the author identify him/herself? What are his/her credentials? Are the arguments supported by references to credible, peer-reviewed sources? Are the sources of information properly cited? etc.)

I will simply outline the inherent and unsurpassable limitations of analog media, such as vinyl LPs, and highlight an important distinction between fidelity and preference that seems to be overlooked in digital-versus-analog debates.

Limitations of LPs

The mechanical nature of sound-signal capture and reproduction in LPs and the associated issues of inertia, momentum, and interference impose frequency and dynamic response limits (i.e. limits in both the range and fineness by which a signal’s frequency and amplitude content can be captured and reproduced without interfering with adjacent signals) that constitute an unavoidable fidelity bottleneck within the medium. CDs completely bypass these issues thanks to optical methods of sound-signal capture and reproduction, assuming appropriate digitization (sampling-rate and bit-depth choice), storage (CD-surface and surface-coating choice), and handling (CD-surface protection during use to minimize the need for digital error correction).

Fidelity versus preference

Advocates of LPs and other analog sound media often cite the analog sound’s greater “warmth,” “smoothness,” and “fullness” as the main reasons for choosing analog over digital. Interestingly, these subjective sound-quality characteristics are related to acoustic side effects imposed on live, sonic events by the analog media themselves. Preference for such sonic qualities may be based on familiarity and habit (having grown up listening to music exclusively through analogue media, showing a conditioned preference towards the “familiar”) or may constitute a conscious aesthetic choice (intentionally altering a sonic event, through the sound-quality distortions introduced by analog media, to achieve a given aesthetic result). Regardless of the reasons behind some listeners’ preference for the sound-quality distortions introduced by analog media, the fact is that the sound quality carried by such media is exactly that: distorted. Preference for analog over digital and the other way around occupies an inherently subjective, gray area, and discussions on it can and will continue. However, when it comes to sound fidelity (how accurately an acoustic vibration is represented by a sound signal) it’s just black and white, with digital coming out the clear and undisputable winner.