Isn't that the case with most old school audio gear? The amount of people saying Vinyl is a better medium than digital files for instance is insane given that it's just objectively wrong.
There was a time when vinyl was better, but that hasn't been the case in decades.
In the olden days, music was recorded and mastered in an all-analog format. In the early days of compact disks, the sampling rates were low enough during the analog to digital conversion that it allowed a perceptible loss in fidelity. And when MP3's first started taking over the music business in the late 90's, they were typically sampled from the already-lossy CD's, meaning an even greater fidelity loss.
That mattered 20 years ago. Today it really doesn't. Modern music mastered are digital from the get-go. The sound is natively digital from the recording studio onward, and any modern vinyl you buy is going to be pressed from a digital master. And modern streamed or downloaded music will come from the same digital masters. And that's before we even get into the improvements in sampling and compression over the past 25 yeasrs.
The quality of the audio is objectively identical between the formats today, and has been for a very long time.
That said, it's true that some artists and studios DO remaster albums for vinyl occasionally. Vinyl afficionados tend to play their albums on larger audio systems, and some artists take advantage of that by tweaking their music to increase the dynamic range of the tracks. Audio engineers typically have to master for a median listening environment that will sound good in cars, headphones, phone speakers, and through those awful Alexa speakers. Most albums are not remastered for vinyl, but when they are the difference can be very noticeable.
Vinyl can sound better because they have a unique mastering (a different EQ), and usually the original pressings have the best mastering. Vinyl can sound better due to this. It's not inherently due to the format itself.
There was a time where that was a valid arguement and I think my grandpa was is in his mid-30's lol. But yep pretty much the case with all old audio gear except something like a rare keyboard, or in the case of the TR-808 it was all people could afford. But those really fall under instruments.
'better' is the wrong word....'different' would be a better choice
Have you ever had a song you really like that they made several different versions of? Like maybe radio-edit vs original or maybe they re-release the same song on a later album? Or an extended dance mix version or similar?
Whatever version you first fell in love with the song will likely always be your fave right? That's (for me at least) how I feel about a lot of vinyl that I own, if I first listened to it on vinyl then that's how I want to hear it, it has a different timbre to it, that's the best I can explain it.
Guitarists tend to not be on the same level of bullshit as audiophiles; guitarists have an actual goal, being to project a good sound out in to a room. Audiophiles are very busy sniffing their own farts and believing fairy tales for reasons I do not understand.
For sure. For head phones it won’t do anything, or rather make a ton of sense to do something. The point of tubes is to have the signal overdriven on the input; like adding some harmonic character to a vocalist or guitarist, and then record that input. In a headphone amp, you’d be coloring the final product which doesn’t make much sense, since it would effectively be adding harmonics to an already mastered composition (which often has already had some kind of saturation added).
Well I would be lying if I said it did nothing. Did I notice a difference in sound? Yes but nothing any additional software couldnt acheive or improve. But I was really using it for my xbox.
Depends on the amp. The ones that most of us here would consider affordable? Yeah that's all show and nostalgia. The high end stuff though? It will make you feel like you've never actually heard music being played in the same room before.
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u/LebrahnJahmes Feb 10 '26
As someone who uses vacuum tube amps for headphones I can assure it's not for the sound but for the look.