I prefer vinyl,but I listen to cd's in my car,I download
Mp3's and burn them to cd
To me they are all different and useful
I recommend vinyl only if you are a music freak like my self,if listening to music is mandatory in life which I assume it is.expensive indeed,the equipment alone very pricey but well worth it.
Recently I listened to enslaved -vertebra the keyboards sounded very different and more amazing.
Same with Metallica MoP's,I can hear the fingers on the guitars moving never heard this on tape or cd
and of course the bass is more clearer.
A diamond on wax beats a laser on plastic
Vinyl is not for lazy people.
My 2cents

vinyl, Tape and CD but that's not a format I guess then MP3 is for me the best format because of compatibility but that never compares with the original audio

CD audio is a specific digital data format.

I'm a philistine, so I don't notice the difference between lossless audio and a 256 kbps mp3. I love listening to music on my cleverphone using in-ears when I'm going by train etc. I pay a lot more attention to it that way for some reason, and I can make it much louder than when I'm at home.

It seems people will always prefer the format that is easier to store. When vinyl records came out they chose them over cylinders, but cylinders at the time had slightly better sound.

I do think .wavs have better sound than mp3s, and have compared them and it is noticeable. But I admit I would have a hard time to tell 192k from 320k mp3s. Not that I wouldn't rip to 320K if I wanted an mp3. Also, if the master is super-crappy with wads of top-end, it might actually sound better in 128K or lower.

Now with cassettes I agree with what has been said about them going bad after many listenings. I also don't buy them anymore but I have a lot of them. But what I want to say is that there is a noticeable difference between cassettes that were mastered before digital technology was widespread, and later ones from the late 1980s and 1990s (they usually are even labelled "digital mastered" somewhere). The analogue masters are very quiet and don't have a fizzy top end.

I guess I prefer CDs and vinyl. Vinyl is cool, but sometimes CD is cheaper so I'll just get that. CD is easy to rip too, if I want to do that.

I'm not sure what I prefer. I collect vinyl, CD, cassette and files. I probably use them all equally, if you discount using my mp3 player at work. I probably cherish my vinyl collection the most, because it looks cooler. Cardboard sleeves just look and feel nicer than plastic CD cases. That's why I like CD digipacks and digibooks so much - they're card-based. Cassettes are just retro and cool. They fit in your hand nicely. Black Metal on cassette seems a like a natural combination as well, and I have a few BM albums on cassette.

At the end of the day I have more CDs than anything else, simply because they're so freely available, 2nd hand CDs are dirt cheap (unless it's a Mutiilation album!), new ones are cheaper than vinyl, and they're convenient (converting vinyl to mp3 to put on my mp3 player is a pain in the neck).


P.S. It makes me laugh when people try to make a distinction between CD and 'digital'. CDs are digital. It is, however, a bit frustrating that there is no word like digital that is readily available to distinguish a CD from a file. I guess 'files' would do... There. Solved it.


EDIT: Just realised everything I said has already been covered on this very page. Sorry!

Vinyl is superior when it is cheap - I picked up a bunch of class for less than twenty bucks the other day. We are talking 10-12 albums of nothing but quality: Peter Green, Marvin Gaye, etc. It sounds good on my decks, but I wouldn't say it sounds better than CD.

CD is probably my favorite format all-around. They are easy to bring in the car or to a friends house or party, they are easy to store at home, they sound great, I've got an excellent stereo that sounds great, etc.

MP3s rule because when I go for long walks I can take whatever I want with me, and not worry about harming the physical copy or the shit skipping while I walk.

Tapes are cool if they are super cheap or the only way to listen to something. They sound fine, I guess, but an extreme pain in the ass and avoid them whenever possible - which is usually always.

What's a vinyl and what's all this buying shit you guys are talking about?

CDs. I can't really distinguish between CD and vinyl quality (maybe because I'm a pleb, I don't know), but CDs are a bit more convenient. I do have vinyl, but that's mostly because it was the only available medium for the release in question, or because it made for a nice collector's object (the godlike Agatus - Dawn of Martyrdom cover art, for instance, just begs for LP size).

That said, I mostly listen to MP3s (320kbp/s) because I'm lazy.

Mp3's mostly, although I do have a Vinyl player and buy Vinyl and CD's whenever possible. But I choose MP3 as my main format since it's easier to bring anywhere, and it's a lot cheaper.

I prefer CD. Small, cheap, can be played almost anywhere.
Vinyl? Big, clumsy, expensive, hard to find player. But I wouldn't have any problems buying and listening to them if I could afford. I was actually damn close to buy AC/DC's Back in Black on vinyl, but I found W.A.S.P. - Babylon on CD at the same price so I bought it instead.

BUT, I mostly listen to digital files since whenever I'm outside, mp3 player is the only way to listen music.

It depends on the music. I love Vinyl and cassette because I just enjoy the format. It depends on the specific genre as well. I'm not going to buy some pop album on vinyl, it doesn't make any sense in my opinion. However something like noise, grindcore, death metal, punk, old rock and roll etc. sounds good on vinyl and cassette. Metal is more of a CD format in my opinion.

Because it doesn't! It is the exact same thing when the audio comes from the same source. There is no way vinyl sounds better than cds. You would need the exact same needle that created the vinyl in order to reproduce what was recorder. The extra bass feeling is caused by those distortions. So, no. Digital audio is better. A mathematical model of a song is nearly perfect, compared to an analog recording.
What you guys call a pro, its actually a con.

I like vinyl because it can blunt the harsh nasty edges of many less-than-perfectly recorded CDs, especially when run through a vacuum tube stereo and burned to CD-R (vacuum tubes color the sound a bit, it's why people say they sound "warmer").



I don't really think the reasons people like vinyl have all that much to do with technical quality and due to (a) the way many vinyl systems alter the sound being pleasing to many people's ears even if it is less technically "correct", and (b) a lot of CDs sounding like dog shit because of bad mixing and mastering practices (cheap equipment with 8- or 12-bit ADCs in the 1980s, the loudness war today, bad EQing in any era). So yeah, CDs are more mathematically perfect and nobody cares. Vinyls are especially gaining traction now because in many cases the only way of getting the original mix of an old album in good condition that hasn't been horribly mutilated by brick-wall remaster jobs is to buy it on vinyl (<3 my Awaken the Guardian vinyl).

Honestly, and I am the oddball here... I like cassette tapes.

Then CD's (tied with vinyl), then digital. Digital is very compact and easy to play anywhere.

Digital, because I can't afford physical music.

Youtube. no, wait! last.fm! THE laziest way to listen to music. OP would dig that.

(wtf kind of pencil-rewind piece of shit tape player do you have that won't just play the other side automatically?)

Digipak CD all the way.

I buy the CD so the bands get their cut, then I rip the CD in Itunes. Never got the whole Tape and vinyl comeback, I grew up in the 70's-80's and thats all we had back then plus 8 tracks. I'm old and lazy all I want to do is scroll a bit and push a button or two and music.

Digital: Spotify.
Physical: I prefer vinyl for the great sound, the big covers and the dirty old stores.