Why Buy Vinyl?

So why buy vinyl? Read on for my reasoning.


A lot of people ask me why I buy vinyl for listening to music (not scratching or sampling) as opposed to CD's or digital. To many, the first obvious answer would be sound quality. A well maintained turntable and needle with a good speaker system playing an analog recording should have better quality than a CD player or computer (playing the same songs through the same system), without a doubt. A turntable can output the raw analog audio signal whereas a digital recording (whether it be on CD or computer) mimics the signal but does not match it exactly. Analog plays best on analog, period. But if an album is recorded digitally, as lots of music is recorded today, then does it matter? I compared listening to analog recordings and digital recordings on multiple formats: vinyl, CD, and "cheap" MP3 (most digital music are poor quality, heavily compressed MP3's which by definition are of lower quality than CD's). While the analog recordings sounded best on a turntable hands down, I could not notice a difference between vinyl and CD. The cheap MP3's obviously sounded terrible in comparison to the other two. So if an album is recorded digitally, is there any point in buying it on vinyl? Some people argue that listening to vinyl gives you that nice, comfortable, "homely" feeling, to which I say, "you're full of it," but hey, everyone has their reasons (I was told the bass vs. treble outputs of vinyl creates a nice "warmth" sound, which I have not investigated). I still maintain sound quality as my main reason due to the fact that a vinyl pressing will be the rawest form of the recording no matter what. This is most likely the case with CD's, too, but there have been times where labels burn an overly-compressed version of the recording which sounds much more contrived. If you know your labels (which I don't), and are aware of which ones release top notch quality for their CD's, then buying a digital recording on CD will not be a problem. I am not a sound engineer, and therefore cannot give you scientific reasoning. I can assure you, though, that a mixing engineer would speak very highly of music played through vinyl. Also, I don't have "super-ears," so when I say I hear a difference in sound quality, you probably would, too.

I'm going to go ahead and attack digitally purchased music since I have no sympathy for it. The music you buy on iTunes is 256 kbps AAC, which is pretty much the same as 256 kbps MP3 in quality. Both are terrible, and even people who would not describe themselves as audiophiles or don't care about sound quality would tell you there's a difference between them and to CD/lossless quality. I always buy CD's for music I want that's not available on vinyl. Even though lossless (like FLAC) files are of similar quality, I don't buy digital just because I don't think it's worth it, unless that's the only format the album is available. I compared 320 kbps MP3 vs. FLAC and while I could not hear a difference, I would never buy anything lower than CD quality or lossless just because if I wanted to have it in MP3 format (for the smaller size and increased compatibility), I could just downgrade the original. 

Now for the alternate reasons:

1. Album art: Digital files have little pictures, CD's have small, shiny jewel cases often complemented with scratches, and vinyl LP's have large, beautiful displays of art. It's a no brainer that vinyl LP's show album art the best.

2. Value: When you buy digital you are buying a file. That's it. When you buy a CD you get that file on a nice CD with it's own case. When you buy vinyl, you get a one-of-a-kind, unique format you can't get anywhere else. You can easily pirate music and put it on a CD, but unless you have the equipment to press your own vinyl, a vinyl LP is irreplaceable. As far as tangibility goes, the physical feel of CD's aren't even half as good as how vinyl feels in your hand. The experience of pulling a record out of a sleeve and putting the needle down is almost as good as the enjoyment from the music. Many people would say that's not really a reason, which is why I combined it with value.

3. Master cut: You're not only getting the crème de la crème, but also everything else. Want a high quality digital copy? Get a turntable that can connect to your PC and record one (or an adapter for your existing turntable). You then can proceed to burn those files to a CD. You can get the best of all worlds as far as format goes.

Which format to dedicate to? All of them. It's ridiculous to limit yourself in any way. I made this blog so rap fans could know which vinyl to get for the best value. Most of my music is digital, which might seem sort of hypocritical but really I have a ton of music, but wouldn't want to own a ton of it (tangibly, of course). I listen to a lot of artists who I don't even like that much, but they're good for working out to or just background bumping. I am going to admit right now that I have illegally downloaded (for example, I illegally download every artist I buy an LP or CD from, I could get their music onto my PC using these formats but I'm too lazy). I have a decent sized CD collection, as well. I made a little diagram thing (not sure what they're called) on how I buy music:

Obviously, there are two ways of obtaining music digitally. I'm not going to say which way you should go, but I will say this: very few musicians rely on just sales (tours/shows usually make up for most revenue these days), but if you want your independent musicians to eat and make more music, you know the right option. As far as big labels, they don't deserve your money and the artist usually doesn't get a significant cut anyways.

Final note: Listening to vinyl is only worth it if you go the extra step as far as turntables and hi-fi systems go. I won't go on to name the best companies and models right now, but I'll just say that you should definitely get some high quality speakers and a reasonably good turntable. Otherwise, the whole medium is near pointless. Do your research.

View my Voices article (pretty much the same as here).