First allow me to brag and tell you why I know what I am talking about (if you already believe me, please skip ahead). I’ve been an audio dork for 20 years, producing records for nearly that long. I formerly worked in the top indie mastering house in the country for years, where a $20,000 turntable that literally floats on air resides (you can see it if you master your record with the very wise and amazing Alan Douches, and he may even let you listen to it) and listened to music in that room with a tens of thousands of dollars acoustic treatment and a $100,000 of gear in it. I have heard vinyl as it should sound and how very few people have ever heard it.

I also have a pretty serious system of my own that clocks in around $10 thousand, between all of its elements. I have produced, engineered, mixed or mastered around 1,500 records and about a quarter of them I have heard go from pre-production demos to mixes to vinyl, as well as digital. Because of my job mastering hundreds of records a year (and overseeing their vinyl pressing), I have to do a lot of critical listening. I have gotten to compare tiny nuances, and am able to compare every part of the stage easily with calibrated nerddom that is beyond boring to get into. I routinely listen back to masters, then test presses, then vinyl cuts, and compare them to our original digital masters and mixes and make sure everything is coming out great.

So now that you may be convinced I have a clue, allow me to ruin your good time.

Vinyl Is Not Always Superior To Digital. Whether you like vinyl or not can come down to personal preference of sound. None of these characteristics is better or worse. In fact, some records may sound better to you on vinyl while some don’t. The fact is, vinyl does have specific characteristics, but the constant talk as if every record’s vinyl version is superior to its digital version is a load of bullshit. I have outlined a handful of factors of why your vinyl may or may not sound as good as your digital copy of a record. Also, before we get started - when I refer to digital, I refer to formats like CD, FLAC or high-quality lossless files, not low bitrate MP3s. They’re the worst sounding format in the history of music, and by no means am I defending poorly done digital. Also I am not here to discuss the ritual, commitment of vinyl or how great cover art looks. We all know that stuff rules. I am here to tell you something you probably don’t already know about vinyl.

Vinyl Got Popular Because Of Resolution. When CDs first came out, they sounded terrible compared to the way they have sounded for the last decade. The mastering was done poorly and no one had a clue how to optimize sound for this format. Today, anyone with good ears and the right software can make a great master on a laptop. Because of this initial inadequacy, along with the terrible quality of the first generation of mp3s, the notion that vinyl always sounds better than digital was solidified as “fact,” since it was always competing with a flawed digital format However, things are different today. With 30 years of optimization, 24bit/96khz recording capabilities and advanced analog to digital conversion methods, this competition isn’t as easy to win.

One of the reasons old vinyl in particular sounds so great is the all-analog signal path. Records were made on tape with a huge dynamic range, then mixed to a tape and then transferred from an analog tape to vinyl, with little resolution ever being lost. Preserving this all-analog path was one of the reasons you hear us vinyl nerds talk about the insane details you can hear on vinyl was we were able to maintain this resolution all through the process till it hit your home playback system.

Sadly, today that is rarely the case. Today, even if a record is made on analog tape, it’s often processed in a digital format and then cut to vinyl. Commonly, your vinyl is often cut from a 16bit/44.1 khz digital master or was even recorded digitally at 24 bit/44.1khz. This means all that resolution you are supposedly hearing in your vinyl compared to your digital recording isn’t there, and the “air” that many people like in vinyl was never captured because the digital format never captured it in the first place*. In fact, because of the extra digital to analog conversion your music went through to get to the vinyl, it has actually lost some resolution. Those details you claim to hear on many records today just aren’t there and have been lost, and your digital copy probably has a bit more resolution.

Well done re-masters, like the recent Nirvana, In Utero remaster, take an all-analog path, meticulously kept pure where they test different materials to cut the vinyl (such as copper) to ensure it gets the very best sound possible. There are also many smart folks who are mixing down to tape and/or 24 bit/96khz files and sending that out to cut the vinyl from (this is how I do it) and you can get much greater details by cutting the vinyl this way since these files have much more resolution than the digital files on your CD or computer.

Let me state what should also be obvious here too. If you listen to your vinyl through a USB port, you are adding TWO digital process to your vinyl, most likely through cheap converters, and you have just lost an insane amount of resolution (every time you convert from analog to digital and digital you lose a lot of resolution). Aside from the sound of crackle, most of the benefits of vinyl are basically lost at this point. You have destroyed the frequency span and resolution and added so much crap to the signal, your claim of listening to a “superior format” where detail is present isn’t just scientifically wrong, it’s flat-out not true.

Vinyl Can Smooth Out Treble And Bass. Because vinyl has some limitations digital doesn’t, these limitations can actually lead to a sound that is pleasing to the ear. For some of us, the harsh esses, clank, and tinniness in a lot of cheap recordings can’t actually be cut to vinyl unless they’re tamed. These bursts of sound can make the record jump out of the groove, so they need to be diminished when cutting vinyl. If you are like me and are extremely annoyed by these sounds, this is another reason vinyl can sound great to you. Contrary to popular belief, vinyl can’t reproduce all of the bass that digital can. However, to some ears, this helps “focus” the bass and makes for a more articulate experience.

Loudness And Extreme Bass Don’t Translate Well On Vinyl. The downside of this difference in bass can be most music based on “extreme bass” these days is optimized for digital listening and their vinyl versions can sound downright strange on vinyl. Skrillex’s Bangarang is a very unique record in that it is insanely loud and have very wide bass blasts. It’s a record where much of it’s power comes from loudness and very wide stereo spectrum. It relies on wide bass bursts for much of its dynamics.

Sadly, one of vinyl’s weaknesses is that it can’t handle lots of bass content panned off to the left and right sides. This means much of the calling card of dubstep - the loud, very wide stereo bass drops - is the achilles heel of vinyl, and disables vinyl for this genre from getting a loud cut. Because of this, extreme music (from metal to dance) that gets some (or a lot) of its power from being loud and having huge bass blasts that are panned to the sides need to have their vinyl cut at a quieter volume. This can also mean that the surface noise from the record is then louder and the enjoyment of the dynamics in the record can be diminished when they aren’t in their normally overly compressed form.

However, the inverse can also be true. Some people are greatly annoyed by how loud records are today and if you are one, vinyl can often be a sanctuary. In many well done vinyl masters the mastering engineer will take off the loudness maximiser for vinyl mastering which can allow the dynamics to breathe more. Since vinyl doesn’t have such a hard ceiling of how loud it can go like digital recordings this more expressive and dynamic sound of the loudest parts of a mix can sound more natural and pleasing to many people’s ears. Sadly, many of your favorite punk records have not had this care put into the mastering and whether you own the digital version or the vinyl, you are still getting the same loudness maximised sound.

There Are Absolutely Terrible Pressings Of Vinyl. Some “mastering engineers” make terrible cuts of vinyl that lose much of the resolution we buy vinyl to hear. I have even worse news: if you listen to the bands that get covered on this website, you are getting some of those bad cuts of vinyl. I’ve bought them. Vinyl takes care and knowledge to get a good pressing that really brings out details you can’t hear in digital and sadly many producers, mastering guys and labels don’t put in that effort. As well, some people who charge to “cut and master” records do an absolutely terrible job, let aged equipment function poorly and just put it through a process with little care or concern. This can lead to a limited frequency response on the vinyl (less bass and air in the treble as well as a lack of detail) and many other unpleasant attributes like a lack of presence from controlling the esses on vocals as well as dramatic losses in resolution. Sadly, many of the vinyl releases I have from smaller, lesser known acts usually suffer from some of these qualities.

Let’s also destroy a few other vinyl myths really quickly:

Heavy Vinyl Doesn’t Sound Better - The weight of your vinyl isn’t about sound; it’s about durability. It is about being less susceptible to damage, bending and the grooves being worn out. It’s not a marketing scam, as much as people spread false information that this is what make vinyl sound good. Good sounding vinyl comes from a great process not think wax in the middle that isn’t used in the sound.

If You Like Vinyl, You’ll Probably Like Mastered For iTunes - Let me start off by saying the Mastered For iTunes thing can be a scam and just like vinyl if it isn’t done properly it is a big wash. But when done properly you have a wide frequency range and enhanced dynamics and Apple encourages you to not use a loudness maximizer when mastering. Basically, if you like vinyl for the dynamics and details, you may be best served finding records in this format. I am just weary that not all of the records done for it truly maintain their resolution.

If You Are Listening On Shit, You Probably Can’t Even Hear Most Of Vinyl’s Benefits - If you are listening on computer speakers, a Jambox, Beats products, your laptop speakers, earbuds, etc., you cannot hear a lot of vinyl’s resolution or frequency span. So instead of talking about your superior listening format, it may help to have something to listen to it on that doesn’t pollute, alter or diminish the sound into an unrecognizable form.

*When recording digitally unless you use high resolution sampling rates like 88.2khz and above much of the “air” aka the top of our hearing range is lost. This “air” is often part of the pleasing sound and realism many hear and enjoy in analog recording. Sadly many digital records are still made at 44.1khz and 48khz and this air is lost there. This is also one of CDs shortfalls since they are at a 44.2khz sampling rate.