The Resurgence of Vinyl, From CPM to Business Intelligence & Analytics: A Full-Fidelity Experience

As a music lover in today's digital era, I can claim a fairly extensive collection, including several hundred CDs and well over 2,000 digital tracks on my devices and online.  And while I thoroughly enjoy the wide range of titles and artists, and the portability and convenience of digital music, I have a confession to make - I've developed a love affair with vinyl.  Albums.  LPs.  A record. A big honkin' piece of vinyl that can only be played on a turntable, at a speed of 33 RPM. One of those things your parents listened to long before Pandora, Rhapsody, Spotify, and iPods.

Sure, when listening to the digital version, I enjoy the clean, crisp sounds of the vocals and instruments with no imperfections or distortions, and being able to hear even the slightest nuance of sound, like the "whoosh" of the brushes on the drum sets. But even when listening to a vinyl album in mint condition, and hearing a bit of hiss on the playback, it is clear that the recording is not as sanitized, but does have a fuller, richer and warmer sound than the digital version. 

I wanted to know why there was such a remarkable difference, so I talked to sound engineers and did some research. Apparently, digital music can be incredibly accurate in terms of replay, but because digital music is frequently engineered for higher and higher sound volumes during playback, and to provide smaller and smaller file size to allow for more efficient storage and streaming, this leads to what one engineer explained ...