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.
I mean… CD sales are only behind vinyl because vinyl has become collectible, while CDs offer no practical advantage over stored files on a hard drive or high-quality streaming.
And before you say, “but what about compression?”, the fact is that even lossy compression is good enough that most audiophiles can’t tell the difference. Audiophile publications started doing blind comparisons back in the 90s, and it quickly became clear that somewhere around 192kbps MP3 the ability of humans to statistically discern the compressed vs. uncompressed versions started to disappear.
Yeah if you drop a 256-320kbps mp3 (storage is so cheap so why not ) alongside a FLAC file (which some people will swear is the only way to listen to music) no one will know the difference. Anyone who discerns them correctly is probably just guessing right.