It s very much alive and is much more preferable than listening to music in a digital format.
Why do people still like vinyl over mp3.
But there is a downside any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static.
People have been listening to mp3s for more than a decade and when they listen to vinyl records for the first time they can tell there s something slightly different with the sound quality.
Vinyl can still push music to the limits of its dynamic range 55 70db but it often shies away from doing so in order to maintain sound quality.
And yet last year digital music sales took a dip for the first time since itunes.
Still as artists and labels hop on the vinyl trend some new vinyl releases may be mastered from cd quality audio not the high resolution formats audiophiles and folks like neil young adore.
Sales of vinyl records have been soaring although they still represent only a tiny fraction of the music industry s revenues.
Other physical media like cassettes or vhs tapes degrade over time as the tape wears but the same isn t true of vinyl.
When most people argue that vinyl is better they often go straight to sound quality.
About 2 percent in 2014.
This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate and that can be heard in the richness of the sound.
For example amazon now includes free mp3 versions when you buy a vinyl version for more than 11 000 records.
Records have a more omni dimensional sound that really fills the room a lot better.
Here s one vinyl lover explaining why he likes the vinyl experience.
What vinyl can t do a nice explanation of some of the challenges of mastering vinyl.
Sites like depop and ebay make it easy to sell your old or unwanted items.
You can also use sites like craigslist to buy and sell used items online.
For those people who do care about these things online stores like hd tracks offer audiophile quality downloads.
So since records tend to keep their value if you need to free up space at.
Vinyl didn t die when jimi hendrix did.
There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often.
That s why snare drums cymbal splashes and other loud instruments have so much more punch in vinyl recordings.
On a theoretical level there s just no reason it should be the case that vinyl sounds better.
Terms like warm full and lossless sound are used with listeners either nodding or rolling their eyes.