Why 180g Vinyl Is Better

These audiophile grade albums demand high prices at record stores.

Why 180g vinyl is better.

Are thicker and heavier records actually better and if so why. It s very much alive and is much more preferable than listening to music in a digital format. That doesn t mean there are no benefits to be gained from 180g or even 200 220g vinyl lp s. Are 180 gram vinyl records inherently better than standard pressings.

The truth about vinyl vinyl vs. Vinyl didn t die when jimi hendrix did. 180 gram vinyl has been the subject of much debate among record nerds. The words 180 gram vinyl have been the cause for many misunderstandings and debate among the audiophile and vinyl records community.

Heavyweight 180g vinyl can reduce the amount of wow and flutter audible on a record the larger mass enables the platter to move at a more continuous speed. So why do people prefer heavier vinyl. A vinyl record is an analog recording and cds and dvds are digital recordings. Take a look at the graph below.

Many new vinyl record releases tout their selling feature of being pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Why vinyl s boom is over the wall street journal jul 22 2017 vinyl set to outsell cds for first time since 1986 nme sep 7 2019 history of the gramophone vinyl record youtube part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4. While some misconceptions exist there s nothing really noteworthy about heavyweight vinyl. We explain the benefits of 180 gram vinyl to see if they are worth the premium price.

Unnecessarily so i would say there is nothing magical about heavyweight vinyl and certainly some myths float over those shiny 180g stickers on the record covers but that doesn t mean there are no benefits from pressing 180g or even 200g vinyl lp s. Before weighing vinyl s ahem good and bad sides it helps to know how records are made. Original sound is analog by definition. In brief an engineer such as gonsalves receives mixed recordings from the studio or even a band s laptop.

A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate for cds it is 44 100 times per second and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy for cds it is 16 bit which. Perhaps simply because it feels better it s a weightier product and feels more substantial. 180g vinyl sounds better than standard vinyl.