Now I don't believe a word of that article.

Hah! I was actually coming here to post this very comment.

FAIL.

Yeah, that got me too. Clueless. But anyone who writes about this stuff without understanding TDMA (where "T" means time) and CDMA (where "C" means code) shouldn't be writing about this stuff.

Interesting that you bring up CDMA and TDMA (and don't forget FDMA, GSM, UMTS, and 1xRTT!). There's a dictum of science publishing that every equation one includes halves the number of book sales. I suspect there's a similar law for acronyms and page views.

Man, I KNEW people would jump on that quote. I LOVE it when audiophiles go nuts over this subject.

Here's the deal: yes, records have the ability to sound better than cds. But generally, you have to spend 1.5-2 orders of magnitude more on your analog sound system before that difference becomes apparent. Which is like saying that a Ferrari is a better car than a Corvette because it can go 5mph faster, never mind the fact that on costs $50,000 and the other costs $500,000.

So: sound nerds, ignore the article. Also, don't get a 3G iPhone. Instead, drop three grand on some crazy, high-end 1G phone and enjoy the mellifluous sounds coming out of your earpiece...

I would be willing to put money on the fact that most consumers with a little time and a lot less money that you quoted could tell the difference between a $500.00 turntable with a good cartridge and a clean record and a $5000.00 CD player.

CD's have missing information that no matter how good the playback they can not reproduce. All the information is there on an LP and the natural compression creates a more realistic sound.

I may be a sound nerd but you don't have to be to appreciate analog.

I love when non-audiophile techies try to impose their John Henry ideas regarding recorded music. Hate to break it to you, but a digital system capable of faithfully representing the FULL quality of a masterfully endoded CD costs more than an analog system capable of doing the same with vinyl. It's not necessary to go high-end to get faithful representation of vinyl... but it helps.

As for the columnist's misguided quote, it's simply inaccurate. In no way is the sound quality of a CD better than that of its vinyl counterpart. There's a big difference between the best representation of sound possible after digitalization and the identical sound, which is what you get with vinyl.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the differences between 2 and 3G phone technology. Apple's just behind the times here. I wouldn't buy an iPhone even if it were available for my carrier and retailed for $20. I hope all the Apple-worshippers are honorable enough to admit their mistakes when they finally realize that Apple's products are not so superior to those of Microsoft and other competitors. Perhaps better in many ways, but by no means vastly superior.

*encoded (obviously)

Wow. Just wow. That being said, CD's last longer, are easier to put on your computer or MP3 player or to carry around with you and most people won't be able to tell the difference on high end systems, but some will and they'll tell you the record sounds better. Analog signals take up a lot more space than digital ones because they are conveying more information. This is so obvious I have to wonder if maybe the Explainer is getting paid by the number of comments in the Fray.

No one has tried to argue that CDs are less convenient than vinyl. The convenience and durability of CDs clearly make them worthy successors. However, in the new age of on-demand digital music, here's hoping that the availability of superior quality, uncompressed formats become (and remain) ubiquitous in their availability to listeners. If we continue to settle for lossy mp3 and Apple formats as the only ones available on-demand, the state of music shall only continue to worsen. With limitless cheap memory now available, one would hope that labels and artists would make available the very best representation of their products, even if they continue also to offer mp3, AAC, etc.

The article was about music, right?

Oh, and I find it hard to believe that "most people" wouldn't detect the difference between vinyl and CD, on any system. Assuming you're using the same speakers, most turntable/analog amp set-ups will sound better than most CD/digital amp combos... to anyone except the hard-of-hearing. Try to remember not to infuse so much unsubstantiated opinion into your posts in the guise of fact.

**** I would be willing to put money on the fact that most consumers with a little time and a lot less money that you quoted could tell the difference between a $500.00 turntable with a good cartridge and a clean record and a $5000.00 CD player. ****

First of all, only a moron spends $5000 on a CD player. Stupid comparison.

Second, a "good cartridge" will run a lot more on its own than your quote of $500 for a turntable.

Frankly I doubt most people could tell the difference between a $5000 turntable/cartridge combination and a $50 CD player.

Oh, and I find it hard to believe that "most people" wouldn't detect the difference between vinyl and CD, on any system.

I do too. But the only difference they'll notice is the clicks and pops coming from the turntable.

It's not "unsubstantiated opinion." In fact it's not opinion at all, but simple fact: people by the millions did the exact comparion you are decribing in the mid 80's to early 90's, when most everyone's system had both. Guess which 99% of them kept, and which they junked.

"People by the millions" did not choose what they believed to be the format with superior sound quality, as you imply. They chose, as already stated, the more convenient and more durable option of the CD.

If you have a problem of clicks and pops, then it's time to change your stylus, or take better care of your records. I have a modest turntable and amp, and more than 700 records that span more than 50 years of music. I rarely hear a pop or click.

CDs are great. They filled the gap wonderfully over the past 30 years. But we have better options available now, finally capable of near-perfect representation of true sound (of which records were already capable many, many decades ago), and infinitely more convenient and more durable than the CD. Its time is at an end.

Let's look at a fuller context of the statement by the author:

This allowed for a much more accurate transfer of information. (Similarly, the use of digital encoding is why CDs have a higher sound quality than records.)

Therefore, what the author is saying is that CDs have higher sound quality than records because digital encoding provides a more accurate transfer of information.

This is patently false. In fact, every single sound on a CD is inaccurate while every sound on a record is perfectly accurate. This is because sound is produced by waves that can only be represented mathematically by infinitely long irrational numbers. Thus each sound on a CD, represented by a finite number, is only an approximation of the true sound.

We can argue about whether CDs might sound better than records on certain systems or with older records, etc., but we cannot argue that CDs sound better because they more accurately reproduce the sound, as the author states.