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Forget resolution, just enjoy the music

I don't think there is a universally accepted definition of "resolution".

And specs such as dynamic range and THD are useful only up to a point.

Most systems struggle to provide more than about 60dB effective dynamic range (ambient noise in a typical living room is 50dB, most systems struggle to generate above 110dB SPL - you do the math), which makes discussions on dynamic range of LP vs CD rather moot. Also, most CDs these days are dynamically compressed which means they have less effective dynamic range than even "bad" LPs.

And many people are conditioned to interpret harmonic distortion as "good" (ie., "warmth", "air", "rich") - for example a common mixing technique to "fatten" the sound is to *deliberately* add harmonic artefacts - such as simulating the effect of a tube amp or even a "harmonic exciter".

The reality is: both vinyl and CD is probably not as good as their proponents seem to think, but a lot better than their detractors criticize them for.

There's lots of music available on LP that has never been released on CD, and likewise many albums on CD have never been released on LP. So if you are truly in it for the music (as opposed to childish format debates), listen to both.



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  • Forget resolution, just enjoy the music - Christine Tham 06/20/0616:42:24 06/20/06 (1)
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