(Top) When it comes to listening to recorded music, violin teacher Theresa Britt prefers the “three-dimensional” sound of the classic LP record.

(Bottom) Larry Nevels keeps around 500 vinyl record albums in his collection. Photos by Phil Houseal

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Digital or Analog?

by Phil Houseal
Oct 13, 2010

Are you digital or analog?

In this age of iPods and iTunes, I thought the world had abandoned vinyl records in thrift store bins alongside cassettes and 8-track tapes.

But I couldn’t ignore the evidence in our violin teacher’s studio. Theresa Britt just moved from Lubbock in August to teach local string students. Her studio looked as one would expect for a music teacher - instruments, stands, music books.

But - like they sing in that Sesame Street song - there was something that did not belong. There, on a coffee table, sat a stereo. With a turntable. To play actual records.

Records albums lined the shelves along one entire wall. I flashed back to my college dorm days. What was someone from Generation X doing playing LPs?

She grinned. “I just like the sound of them. I like the whole concept of a record album.”

What was going on here? Someone embracing the sound of records - probably some of the same records I had sold at garage sales in favor of the new digital technology?

I turned to Larry Nevels, writer of Classic Monday, a weekly missive that celebrates songs and songwriters from the age of classic rock. Like many of us, Nevels grew up listening to the music of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. He estimates he still owns around 500 record albums.

“Remember that all sound starts out analog,” he explained. “Then it is transferred into digital, basically 1s and 0s. When you play it, there is an attempt to recreate the analog sound again. With a vinyl record, the sound is recorded analog and plays analog. What you are getting is exactly what was recorded.”

Then there is a whole other argument that has nothing to do with quality of sound. Unlike iTunes downloads, the classic record album lent itself to a concept. Think of albums. From Sgt Pepper by the Beatles to the Red Headed Stranger, by Willie Nelson, a record had a theme, complete with artwork, liner notes, and two sides that had to be played in order.

That experience is what appeals to Britt. “I really like being able to go in and take the album out (she even has them alphabetized). There is the cover art that was very carefully chosen, with the design that goes into it. You open it up and here’s this big black piece of vinyl that you throw on the record player. Then you get to look at whatever is in there, and sometimes it’s awesome pictures. It takes you back in time - to a time when people looked different, wore different clothes, and had different ideas about esthetics.”

Nevels agrees there is a strong emotional component in your preference. For those who swear that vinyl reproduces the best sound, maybe you are suffering a little selective remembrance. “It is a little bit like that memory of what mom’s fried chicken used to taste like versus KFC.”

So, where do you fall? The warm, lush sound of analog, or the crisp, scratch-free reproduction of digital?

Nevels is diplomatic.

“If you have old records that have been scratched, and don’t have a good sound system, then digital probably sounds better. But if you kept your records dust-free, and haven’t used them as coasters, then to me analog sounds better.”

Britt lines up on the side of analog.

“I think it sounds better,” she said. “I know people who argue the science of it, but I notice it has a more three-dimensional sound. With CDs, they just sound flat.”

There is also the financial component. It’s hard to ignore the fact you can buy an entire album for the cost of one song download. “You would be surprised at what you can find,” Britt said. “I found a record of Schlomo Mintz playing Paganini’s 24 caprices for violin for 27 cents! You can’t get Schlomo Mintz on a CD for 27 cents!”

Britt did have one reservation about “going vinyl.”

“The only time I find owning records is not as cool is when you are putting them in boxes to move,” she said. “Then I prefer CDs.”