The tone of this article is incredibly obnoxious. This would be slightly (but only slightly) easier to swallow if I wasn't nursing doubts throughout about the a

The tone of this article is incredibly obnoxious. This would be slightly (but only slightly) easier to swallow if I wasn't nursing doubts throughout about the author's knowledgeability. For example: > Early Beatles music was specifically mastered to sound good on crackly AM radios and craptacular Dansette record players. I have news for you: vast swathes of popular music are specifically mastered to sound good on low end equipment. That's as true today as it was in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and noughties. As an example, Michael Jackson's Thriller, along with plenty of other albums in the late 70s and 80s, was mastered using Auratone 5C Super Sound Cubes. These sound absolutely awful, but they give you useful information about what your mix is going to sound like on low-end equipment. A modern equivalent would be something like the Avantone MixCube, which I highly rate even though it also sounds horrendous. If your music only sounds good on audiophile level equipment, that's obviously fine, but you have to be realistic about how that's going to limit your potential market. Similarly, the digs at vintage turntables also smack of ignorance. Again, most "hi-fi" equipment throughout the decades has sat at the low end of the quality spectrum because that's where the biggest market is. Most people are perfectly happy with sound systems that have passable playback quality, which is absolutely fine. However, certainly since the late 1960s, it's been possible to buy higher end equipment if you crave better sound quality. And, on that note, as others have done I would also highly recommend picking up used hi-fi equipment rather than new. There are some real bargains to be had and it's relatively straightforward to build a great sounding system without breaking the bank. It's also quite fun and rewarding. (Finally, on sound quality, whilst CD is objectively better than vinyl, and has for example significantly higher dynamic range, it is quite possible for a vinyl recording to sound better than a CD. An example of where this might be the case is for albums that were remastered for CD during the loudness war era, which can introduce serious clipping issues[0] and significantly reduce the dynamic range of the CD master relative to the vinyl original. In this kind of situation - and, of course, it does depend on having at least half decent gear - it's entirely possible for the vinyl version to sound better than the CD remaster, even though CD as a format is capable of noticeably higher quality and greater dynamic range than vinyl.) [0] This often results in harsh sounding recordings that are quite tiring to listen to, particularly at higher volumes. If you have the option of patching a graphic equalizer into your signal path you can use it to somewhat take the edge off recordings like this, although it's obviously not ideal. I generally prefer listening with EQ bypassed but sometimes I find I have to use it. You can also use EQ to compensate for a less than ideal listening environment.