[okareaman]

I had a lot of album's in the 70's so I get the appeal - to have a 12 by 12" object to hold with artwork and liner notes to look at. It adds another dimension that digital audio lacks. You can't touch, feel and smell a web page that has the same material, nor see them all on the shelf to admire.

My question is, do people actually listen to the vinyl tracks or do they listen to the much higher quality digital file while holding the album?

[magnetowasright]

That’s a really interesting question! Anecdata n=1, I buy vinyl and spin it! I do it a lot more with working from home. (I use an iPod classic otherwise.)

It didn’t even occur to me that people would buy vinyl and not actually use it until an artist I like finally restocked their discography on vinyl and fellow fans on reddit said they don’t (and won’t) own turntables but were excited to buy the records anyway. The records don’t offer anything over the CDs (same booklets, etc) except their physical size. Kinda frustrating having to compete for limited copies with people who don’t even own turntables. Wish they’d reprint, there’s clearly demand.

Lorde’s newest album is released on vinyl, but not CD (to reduce waste, I believe?) To cover off the ‘see them on the shelf’ aspect of CDs, they’ve made a ‘music box’ that’s printed with the album art and has all the stuff you’d get in the CD case except the CD and gives a download code instead. I thought that was an interesting way to sell something to fans in the age of streaming.

Anecdata aside, this is a really interesting question and I’d be really curious for some data. I’m curious for how well Lorde’s thing sells, too.

[okareaman]

I remember a lot of people wanting to keep the album in pristine condition, so I bet those types are not spinning them. Spinning used to have surprises, like you'd fall asleep to an album and the artists would know this, so they put a bunch of blank time at the end followed by a burst of music to wake you up.

[neetrain]

I didn't think digital files have higher quality than vinyl. Do they?

[cryptResonator]

Digital has a far greater dynamic range and precision, especially if you include high bit-width or double floating point & high sample rates. There is no limit. You could model any sort of 'analog distortion warmth' which is often what is appealing about analog sound. On the other hand, someone who is willing to put the effort and money into printing vinyl will likely have it mastered specifically for vinyl. So my feeling is that there is a lot of low-effort digital music pushed out into the world that is just shite. And maybe overall, vinyl music has good quality just because people are more careful? I'm sure it also depends what you are listening to. Soundcloud rappers don't even need quality if they've got Gucci shoes.

[tuatoru]

Yes. (I say as someone who mainly listens to vinyl, because I own it.)

Intrinsic limitations of the medium mean that it's more or less impossible to get a signal to noise ratio of more than 75 dB, channel crosstalk under -45 dB, or THD+N under 0.1%, or a frequency response of about 30 Hz to 13 kHz plus or minus 1 dB

Even a mediocre CD player will do 80 dB, -70 dB, 0.01%, and 20 Hz - 20 kHz plus or minus 0.5 dB respectively. Most of them are better than those numbers.

And once you get to or above 192 kSa/s MP3, let alone more modern CODECs, you can do better still.

Can you hear the difference? Absolutely. Many people prefer vinyl because it sounds "warmer", or because the hiss and crackle bring on (movie-induced?) nostalgia for their childhoods.

[okareaman]

The vinyl owned by me had scratches and pops because I'd buy many used