Vinyl > Digital on HowStuffWorks, Is their explanation incorrect? Options

[snoozer]

My friend won't give in that he just likes the motions of putting his records on his turntable but he found this website:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound.

From the graph above you can see that CD quality audio does not do a very good job of replicating the original signal. (at 16/44.1)

I referred him to this:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Vinyl_Myths
(http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=85436)

I'm trying to understand the specifics but I'm a little lost. Are these two contradictory? Could someone clear up where HowStuffWorks might be disseminating wrong info?

This post has been edited by Peter: Feb 19 2009, 02:32

Reason for edit: Link now less search engine friendly.

[DVDdoug]

The waveform is a lie (CDs do not output square waves)...

Hopefully, most CD players don't output "square waves". But, two of my 3 computers at work do put-out completely unfiltered stair-stepped waves! And, they still sound better than vinyl to me. (I can't stand the "snap", "crackle", and "pop" from vinyl.)

On the oscilloscope, the waveforms from these 2 computers look exactly like the waveforms on "how stuff works", and exactly like the display in a wave editor. With a 1kHz sine wave, you can clearly see 48 steps per cycle, and with a 24kHz cosine wave, you get a nice square wave! (At a 48kHz sample rate.)