Ah this old
chestnut. I must admit I'm not a
zealot for either side in this debate, but I have some experience.
I have a
general interest in
hifi, that is, I try to keep up with the news, and like to think I can appreciate the good stuff. I myself own a Nakamichi
Soundspace 8, which although made by
Nakamichi, is a 'lifestyle' system. I use it mainly to listen to CDs, and record them onto
minidisc (via an
optical cable to my
Sony MZ-R90 portable).
I personally think CDs sound great. I personally think
Minidiscs sound great.
Maybe I don't have so called '
golden ears', or even decent hearing, but they sound just dandy to me. Conversely, my job has required me to examine and test many of the
MP3 players on the market. I've listened to high
bitrate MP3s on all sorts of portables, and through a decent sound system on the test PC. And I can hear the difference. It simply doesn't sound as good
in my opinion.
As a contrast, my job has also required me to attend hifi
trade shows, where many hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of hifi gear was mine for the fiddling.
I remember attending a demo in an
Audio Freaks booth of some
turntable or other, that looked like a prop from
Wild Wild West (it was covered in bits of piping .. bizarre) and cost something like twenty grand.
This was hooked up via
cables that looked like they belonged at the bottom of the ocean to a set of speakers so impressive I
wept. Even though they were playing
Dire Straits of all things, I had to admit I was blown away.
I heard many absurdly priced CD decks that day as well, including the
Linn range, and the simple fact is that the
vinyl sounded
better.
But like I said before, I can't really hear the difference between a CD and a Minidisc in a
blind test, so maybe I'm not the best
authority on this.
I guess my point is that I won't buy an MP3 player because I can hear the difference, whereas I'm perfectly happy with my Nakamichi and Minidisc. In truth the Nakamichi is 'too good' for my ears, it's more than I need, but dammit I got my grades at
A level, and that was my reward to myself.
If you are unhappy with the
sterile sound of CDs, fine .. buy vinyl. There's enough of a specialist market in
DJs and
audiophiles to keep 'em coming for the forseeable future, so buy them, and quit whining .. I prefer
SNES games to most PC games (it's the graphics .. ) but you don't hear me preaching ..