this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024

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Unpopular Opinion

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CDs are better than vinyl and most people listen to music on systems that sound dreadful (lemmy.fwgx.uk)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/unpopularopinion

178 comments fedilink hide all child comments

CDs are in every way better than vinyl records. They are smaller, much higher quality audio, lower noise floor and don't wear out by being played. The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad. The fact you can rip and stream your own CD media is fantastic because generally remasters are not good and streaming services typically only have remastered versions, not originals. You have no control on streaming services about what version of an album you're served or whether it'll still be there tomorrow. Not an issue with physical media.

The vast majority of people listen to music using equipment that produces audio of poor quality, especially those that stream using ear buds. It makes me very sad when people don't care that what they're listening to could sound so much better, especially if played through a hifi from a CD player, or using half decent (not beats) headphones.

There's plenty of good sounding and well produced music out there, but it's typically played back through the equivalent of two cans and some string. I'm not sure people remember how good good music can sound when played back through good kit.

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[–] homesweethomeMrL 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Library of Congress prefers vinyl because CD’s don’t last as long (with proper care).

At best a CD will remain uncorrupted for 20-30 years. In a climate controlled space-station like environment, maybe 100 years, but unlikely. Then it’s gone.

[–] RickRussell_CA 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I have many 30 year old CDs. They’re fine. They’ve just been kept in a typical home storage environment. I just ripped a Toad the Wet Sprocket CD I bought in 93.

[–] homesweethomeMrL 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Very good - the stamped ones should last longer. Most of my cd-roms from that era are showing some bit rot.

[–] RickRussell_CA 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So I'm getting a bit fascinated by this question, because I can do practical tests -- I've owned CD-Rs since the format was invented w/ the original Pinnacle SCSI CD writers circa 1994.

I don't think I have any CD-Rs that old any more, but I definitely have many from that era. Just for the heck of it, I popped an azo CD-R in my drive that I wrote in 1998, and I happen to have a hard drive copy of these files that I've carried forward on hard disks since that time as well (the CD-R was a backup).

I think the files are still in perfect condition -- was able to copy w/ verify all 360MB of MP3s (and yes, before you ask, I was making MP3s in 1998 using the Fraunhofer DOS command-line encoder), and compare them to my hard drive copies which show matching SHA512 hashes.

If I'm still around 25 years from now, I'll try again :-)

[–] homesweethomeMrL 1 points 4 months ago

On one hand, it’s not a question of “if”, right, it’s only a question of “when”. Same for hard drives. The failure rate is 100%, eventually.

With analog media, one of the trade-offs is so long as the physical media is maintained, the information will be maintained. (Such as it is - another trade off is analog isn’t bit-for-bit true-to-source.)

Storage mediums like crystal and DNA are fascinating for that reason as well. A “permanent” digital storage doesn’t exist afaik.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Same. I recently fucked up a server migration and lost my entire digital library, so I'm going through my CD collection and re-ripping them. Haven't had a single problem, and many are over 20 years old.

[–] RickRussell_CA 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You claim induced me to do a little tidying on my CD collection. I just copied the oldest data CD that I own: the Hugo & Nebula Anthology 1993. It copied & verified no problem.

Unfortunately, that's probably the oldest proper test I can do. Although I was using CD-ROMs as early as 1986, e.g. in libraries, I didn't own any music or data CDs until about 1990. I could re-rip some of those old music CDs, I suppose, but I'm not sure it would tell us much as I'm not sure how to do a bit-for-bit comparison and I certainly don't want to listen to the files.