Does Vinyl Last Longer Than Cd

Sales of vinyl records have been soaring although they still represent only a tiny fraction of the music industry s revenues.

Does vinyl last longer than cd.

Cds and vinyl records are both audio storage and playback formats based on rotating discs from different times in music history the cd audio is digitally encoded and read by a laser while analog vinyl audio is physically read by a needle. Vinyl didn t die when jimi hendrix did. Modern classical cds tend to be more true to life than lps ever were even those direct to digital lps. There are built in problems with using vinyl as a data encoding mechanisms that have no cd equivalent.

It s very much alive and is much more preferable than listening to music in a digital format. Cds reflect exactly what the artists recorded in the studio. The cd player or nowadays usually the dvd or blu ray player hides the sound duplication process much more than the record turntable does and pretty much hides the magic too. Comparing compact discs cds to vinyl or gramophone records is the musical equivalent of comparing digital photography with film photography.

By contrast cds will sound the same essentially forever unless you leave them on your car dashboard on a sunny day. On a theoretical level there s just no reason it should be the case that vinyl sounds better. Vinyl records play an analog recording while cds play a digital recording. Vinyl is back no doubt about it.

On the other hand cassettes and vinyl can last for an extremely long time should they be stored verticaly and in the dark when not used. About 2 percent in 2014. A digital recording is a snapshot of the analog signal at a certain rate. Cd s and hard drives degrade over the years and eventually will not be able to work do to scratches data corruption cd rot etc.

So why does vinyl sound better than cds especially since cds are a newer technology.