CDs are in every way better than vinyl records. They are smaller, much higher quality audio, lower noise floor and don’t wear out by being played. The fact that CD sales are behind vinyl is a sign that the world has gone mad. The fact you can rip and stream your own CD media is fantastic because generally remasters are not good and streaming services typically only have remastered versions, not originals. You have no control on streaming services about what version of an album you’re served or whether it’ll still be there tomorrow. Not an issue with physical media.
The vast majority of people listen to music using equipment that produces audio of poor quality, especially those that stream using ear buds. It makes me very sad when people don’t care that what they’re listening to could sound so much better, especially if played through a hifi from a CD player, or using half decent (not beats) headphones.
There’s plenty of good sounding and well produced music out there, but it’s typically played back through the equivalent of two cans and some string. I’m not sure people remember how good good music can sound when played back through good kit.
You’re making multiple arguments here and trying to wrap them up into one.
Most of these aren’t universal positives for most people.
Economy of space is not a big concern for me when it comes to physical media. Playing physical media is a ritual more than anything for most folks, and I want to hold that giant 13"x13" cardboard sleeve in my hands while listening to the music, not toss around a little plastic jewelcase.
On audio quality: that has been debated on audiophile forums for decades now and the most political conclusion to it is that: music sounds best on the format it was mastered for. Not all music was (properly) mastered for digital.
The bit about LPs “wearing out” is overstated to say the least and 99/100 times, that degradation comes from poor setups. Other than that, you’re kind of just describing a alluring fault of analog media. The fact that a piece of plastic can change with you over time as you listen to it, at the exact pace you set it to and in an environment you create, humanizes it and helps build a connection in a way that files on a computer don’t really do. Let’s not act like disc rot isn’t a thing, either.
Funny, because CDs were one of the first examples of shitty remasters in the 90s. You can also rip LPs with minimal effort, too.
None of this supports “CDs are better than vinyl records.”
On the rest of your post, none of that really supports CD > Vinyl, either. If you’re talking about how people interact with their music and the equipment they do it through, there’s far more support for analog setups than CD.
With analog, you can actually make real, physical, adjustments to the audio output. On digital, you’re effectively just messing with a bunch of 1s and 0s inside a computer. The whole process is much less authentic.
👊🎤
I remember reading a letter to the editor in Stereophile magazine 30 years ago, when tube amps were coming back into style after decades of transistor and semiconductor amps. The reader pointed out that the language used in a review to describe the benefits of tube amps was ridiculous, and that calling the output “warm” or “intimate” (or dare I say, “authentic”) compared to semiconductor amps was simply an admission that the tube amps were making a change to the audio output that was not part of the original recording.
The function of an audio reproduction and amplification system, the author pointed out, was to reproduce the audio signal as accurately as possible to capture the content of the original recorded signal. Full stop. Anything else is nonsense.