Unpopular Opinion

6394 readers

7 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

237

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] 9point6 40 points 4 months ago

You're mistakenly thinking people are buying vinyl records for sound quality, and there may be a few misguided people out there, but the vast majority aren't.

For many it's about simply supporting their favourite artists, and getting a cool item to enjoy. I'd say most vinyl record gatefolds often have a load of extra interesting stuff going on compared to a CD jewel case release. It also lends itself to forcing you to be more deliberate about listening, you need to pay attention to flip the record, you need to physically interact with the thing—I imagine the majority that still buy CDs end up just ripping them to another device and then basically never open the case again. Which I'd say encourages entirely different kinds of listening experience. Neither are invalid ways to engage with an album.

I guess that leads onto the other thing to point out, which is most of the modern records I buy come with a code to download FLACs of the album, sometimes even at higher quality (24-bit/96khz) than a CD release (16-bit/44.1khz). This is also more convenient for increasing numbers of people that simply don't have a way to play CDs at all any more, let alone on a hi-fi or something.

I'll agree though that most people are listening with mediocre equipment. But FWIW, there are fantastic quality "ear bud" style IEMs out there (I like Shure's range) that'll blow a lot of non-professional headphones out the water.