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Personally, I consider CDs to be retro tech, after all they go back to 1977. Though not perfect, they are the ideal audio format - uncompressed, high resolution

Personally, I consider CDs to be retro tech, after all they go back to 1977. Though not perfect, they are the ideal audio format - uncompressed, high resolution, excellent dynamic range, DRM-free, and compact enough to reduce space while being large enough for at least some artwork. I do enjoy the “experience” of vinyl records more, but after years of messing with finicky turntables, expensive cartridges, and preamps to achieve marginally better sound, I realized CDs had perfect sound in the first place with no fuss aside from the occasional scratched discs. One of the problems I have with vinyl is that with every usage you’re degrading it. For that reason I’ve stopped playing some of my most valuable and treasured vintage records for fear of making them unplayable. I typically make a high-res recording of the vinyl and listen to that instead (and yes I realize that defeats the purpose of the all-analog signal chain, but my ears can’t tell the difference).

matheusmoreira 6y ago
> that defeats the purpose of the all-analog signal chain What is this purpose?
- User23 6y ago
  Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. Theoretically at least, any digitalization in the signal chain involves a significant, if not perceptible, loss in signal information content. Personally I'm borderline tone-deaf so I can't tell the difference, but I'm not going to call the people who say they can tell the difference liars.
  - fsh 6y ago
    It is a misconception that digital is lossy but analog is not. In digital recording, the finite bit depth of the sampling process effectively adds a small amount of white noise to the signal (the difference between the sampled value and the true value). In analog recordings there are also plenty of noise sources, for example the grain size of a magnetic tape or the surface roughness of a vinyl. The difference is that the sampling noise level of a CD is way lower than what is physically possible for any analog medium. This is why we hear "tape hiss" and "vinyl crackle" during quiet parts of the music, but we don't hear "CD hiss". On top of that, nonlinearities anywhere within the analog signal chain introduces distortions that don't exist for a digital signal. Overall, a signal reproduced from a CD is much closer to the true signal than any analog medium could ever achieve.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >but I'm not going to call the people who say they can tell the difference liars. They're not liars, there are just 2 cases: (a) They confuse harmonic and other types of distortion (e.g. from tube amps) or the extra compression applied to vynil as better than cleaner signal. Which, subjectively, might be. (b) They are delluded (as opposed to liars), and wouldn't be able to perform their "tell the difference" in a blind A/B test.
    - tuatoru 6y ago
      On (a), the distortion arising from electromechanical systems tends to be mainly second harmonic, which people don't seem to mind. It gives a sine wave some "body" or "warmth". Badly designed DACs tend to produce third harmonic distortion, which sounds "harsh" or "bright" (= like a cafe with lots of hard surfaces and people crashing their cutlery around). There are very few badly designed DACs being manufactured any more, but the loudness wars have made music sound both bright and "lifeless" (lacking in dynamic range). So yeah, (b). (B) has been found to be the case even among people who make audio equipment for a living. People hear what they expect or want to hear, just like with vision. Edit: main reference: Floyd Toole, Sound Reproduction. Toole worked in an acoustics research lab for a Canadian government, and then ran Harmon Kardon's research lab for many years.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. Analog loses even more information. First, something being "continuous" doesn't make it an accurate representation of the original continuous signal, or a better than digital representation. Among many factors, how deep/heavy the head goes into the groove for one affects the fidelity of the signal and how much DR you can have (that's why heavier vinyl is for more expensive/premium releases). There is other loss of information between the signal (e.g. voice) and its transfer to the vinul, more so than with digital. Vinyl also has more compression and more equalization thrown in to cut frequencies (heavy bass can make record player heads skip, so it's cut at mastering). Cassete tape also has more compression (loss of signal dynamic range), more noise (loss of signal), than CDs, plus wow, flutter, etc. It's not even comparable, despite being "analog". Also, contrary to popular belief, and simplified "layman" posts, digital doesn't produce "square-ized" versions of waveforms due to quantization. If you digitally sample a pure sine wave, it comes out as a pure sine way when you play it (you can check that on an oscilloscope). What vinyl does offer better than CD/streaming is lack of convenience (I consider it a pro: it forces more focus and dedication when listening), better tactility, better collectible value, better sentimental value (patina, etc), and extremely better showcase for the cover art.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      > Also, contrary to popular belief, and simplified "layman" posts, digital doesn't produce "square-ized" versions of waveforms due to quantization. I've known musicians who think this way! So it's not just layman. Anyone who thinks this should look up the Nyquist–Shannon Theorem.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. No. Digital audio with 44.1 kHz sampling rate is capable of perfectly reproducing all sound waves in the human hearing range. If any information is lost during the conversion from analog to digital, it is due to the quality of the recording hardware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
  - kilburn 6y ago
    Other people have replied, but if you really want to understand why they are right I cannot recomend Monty Montgomery's explanation/videos enough. Unfortunately they seem to be down at the moment, but wayback machine to the rescue: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202124704/https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200202124704/https://people.xi...
- mdoms 6y ago
  Being pretentious.
- antfarm 6y ago
  I for one don't care about all-analog. My 1980's Dual turntable is connected to a phono preamp that has a bluetooth interface.
- rob74 6y ago
  Can't speak for the OP, but if you buy records for the physical experience of taking a record from its sleeve, putting it on a turntable and then watching it play, being forced to use a digital recording instead for the records you play most often sure sounds like a bummer...
  - wiredfool 6y ago
    If you like the spinney bits, there's always the Rega Planet. > Playing discs on the $795 Rega Planet is a lot like playing LPs: You can read the CD label as the disc sits inside the player, and you can see the disc spin as it plays. https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/634/index.html https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/634/index.html
- temporallobe 6y ago
  I’m not an audiophile, but many of them think that keeping all parts of the signal chain completely analog, regardless of the particular format, is more “pure” because apparently digitized audio misses information because of how it’s “sliced”. Technically this is true, but with a sufficiently high sampling rate, such as the Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem inspired rate of 44.1Khz, the original the signal can more or less be perfectly reproduced.
notRobot 6y ago
They are retro tech, just not cool retro tech (yet?).
- will_pseudonym 6y ago
  My prediction is that they will be by the next generation. In Guardians of the Galaxy for example, the obsolete-but-nostalgic format is the cassette tape and Walkman. The CD and Discman will fulfill that role in 20 years, if not sooner.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    I think the problem with Discman is they didn't stay fashionable for as long. My first Walkman was my dad's old one from high school. And they didn't really fade completely until the 2000s. The early model of Discman skipped really bad, so anyone listening to music while doing some physical activity mostly stuck with Walkman. It wasn't until memory was cheap enough that they could have decent buffers that people started using CD players more, but not long after that, MP3 players started to become popular. CDs were more of a car thing. Everyone at my high school had those big ass books of CDs in their cars, even if they all also Rios for personal listening. Then the big 20GB HDD-based MP3 players came out and that's what everyone had.
d13 6y ago
As a child in the 70s I would buy lps but then immediately record them to cassette, and then only listen to the cassette.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> that defeats the purpose of the all-analog signal chain What is this purpose?

User23 6y ago
Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. Theoretically at least, any digitalization in the signal chain involves a significant, if not perceptible, loss in signal information content. Personally I'm borderline tone-deaf so I can't tell the difference, but I'm not going to call the people who say they can tell the difference liars.
- fsh 6y ago
  It is a misconception that digital is lossy but analog is not. In digital recording, the finite bit depth of the sampling process effectively adds a small amount of white noise to the signal (the difference between the sampled value and the true value). In analog recordings there are also plenty of noise sources, for example the grain size of a magnetic tape or the surface roughness of a vinyl. The difference is that the sampling noise level of a CD is way lower than what is physically possible for any analog medium. This is why we hear "tape hiss" and "vinyl crackle" during quiet parts of the music, but we don't hear "CD hiss". On top of that, nonlinearities anywhere within the analog signal chain introduces distortions that don't exist for a digital signal. Overall, a signal reproduced from a CD is much closer to the true signal than any analog medium could ever achieve.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >but I'm not going to call the people who say they can tell the difference liars. They're not liars, there are just 2 cases: (a) They confuse harmonic and other types of distortion (e.g. from tube amps) or the extra compression applied to vynil as better than cleaner signal. Which, subjectively, might be. (b) They are delluded (as opposed to liars), and wouldn't be able to perform their "tell the difference" in a blind A/B test.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    On (a), the distortion arising from electromechanical systems tends to be mainly second harmonic, which people don't seem to mind. It gives a sine wave some "body" or "warmth". Badly designed DACs tend to produce third harmonic distortion, which sounds "harsh" or "bright" (= like a cafe with lots of hard surfaces and people crashing their cutlery around). There are very few badly designed DACs being manufactured any more, but the loudness wars have made music sound both bright and "lifeless" (lacking in dynamic range). So yeah, (b). (B) has been found to be the case even among people who make audio equipment for a living. People hear what they expect or want to hear, just like with vision. Edit: main reference: Floyd Toole, Sound Reproduction. Toole worked in an acoustics research lab for a Canadian government, and then ran Harmon Kardon's research lab for many years.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. Analog loses even more information. First, something being "continuous" doesn't make it an accurate representation of the original continuous signal, or a better than digital representation. Among many factors, how deep/heavy the head goes into the groove for one affects the fidelity of the signal and how much DR you can have (that's why heavier vinyl is for more expensive/premium releases). There is other loss of information between the signal (e.g. voice) and its transfer to the vinul, more so than with digital. Vinyl also has more compression and more equalization thrown in to cut frequencies (heavy bass can make record player heads skip, so it's cut at mastering). Cassete tape also has more compression (loss of signal dynamic range), more noise (loss of signal), than CDs, plus wow, flutter, etc. It's not even comparable, despite being "analog". Also, contrary to popular belief, and simplified "layman" posts, digital doesn't produce "square-ized" versions of waveforms due to quantization. If you digitally sample a pure sine wave, it comes out as a pure sine way when you play it (you can check that on an oscilloscope). What vinyl does offer better than CD/streaming is lack of convenience (I consider it a pro: it forces more focus and dedication when listening), better tactility, better collectible value, better sentimental value (patina, etc), and extremely better showcase for the cover art.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    > Also, contrary to popular belief, and simplified "layman" posts, digital doesn't produce "square-ized" versions of waveforms due to quantization. I've known musicians who think this way! So it's not just layman. Anyone who thinks this should look up the Nyquist–Shannon Theorem.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > Analog is continuous and digital is discrete and that implies a loss information. No. Digital audio with 44.1 kHz sampling rate is capable of perfectly reproducing all sound waves in the human hearing range. If any information is lost during the conversion from analog to digital, it is due to the quality of the recording hardware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
- kilburn 6y ago
  Other people have replied, but if you really want to understand why they are right I cannot recomend Monty Montgomery's explanation/videos enough. Unfortunately they seem to be down at the moment, but wayback machine to the rescue: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202124704/https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200202124704/https://people.xi...
mdoms 6y ago
Being pretentious.
antfarm 6y ago
I for one don't care about all-analog. My 1980's Dual turntable is connected to a phono preamp that has a bluetooth interface.
rob74 6y ago
Can't speak for the OP, but if you buy records for the physical experience of taking a record from its sleeve, putting it on a turntable and then watching it play, being forced to use a digital recording instead for the records you play most often sure sounds like a bummer...
- wiredfool 6y ago
  If you like the spinney bits, there's always the Rega Planet. > Playing discs on the $795 Rega Planet is a lot like playing LPs: You can read the CD label as the disc sits inside the player, and you can see the disc spin as it plays. https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/634/index.html https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/634/index.html
temporallobe 6y ago
I’m not an audiophile, but many of them think that keeping all parts of the signal chain completely analog, regardless of the particular format, is more “pure” because apparently digitized audio misses information because of how it’s “sliced”. Technically this is true, but with a sufficiently high sampling rate, such as the Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem inspired rate of 44.1Khz, the original the signal can more or less be perfectly reproduced.

notRobot 6y ago

They are retro tech, just not cool retro tech (yet?).

will_pseudonym 6y ago
My prediction is that they will be by the next generation. In Guardians of the Galaxy for example, the obsolete-but-nostalgic format is the cassette tape and Walkman. The CD and Discman will fulfill that role in 20 years, if not sooner.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  I think the problem with Discman is they didn't stay fashionable for as long. My first Walkman was my dad's old one from high school. And they didn't really fade completely until the 2000s. The early model of Discman skipped really bad, so anyone listening to music while doing some physical activity mostly stuck with Walkman. It wasn't until memory was cheap enough that they could have decent buffers that people started using CD players more, but not long after that, MP3 players started to become popular. CDs were more of a car thing. Everyone at my high school had those big ass books of CDs in their cars, even if they all also Rios for personal listening. Then the big 20GB HDD-based MP3 players came out and that's what everyone had.

d13 6y ago

As a child in the 70s I would buy lps but then immediately record them to cassette, and then only listen to the cassette.