When you buy from iTunes is that lower quality than CD?

[gretschdrummer]

Sorry, but that's just not true. Both methods give the 20 - 20,000 hz range that's considered normal for a person with decent hearing.

Wikipedia isn't the answer for every question, but I just had a look at this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_analog_and_digital_recording

and it seems good to me.

I've been involved in sound since the monaural tube days of the fifties. McIntosh, Thorens, AR -- I had them all, and more.

I don't think there's much to choose re. frequency response, but back in the analog days I hated rumble and clicks and pops from vinyl and all the other noises that crept in. Dust bug. Other cleaners. I will say that I miss the look of my Shure/SME arm, though.

And long ago I was in the field with Uher and Tandberg reel-to-reel recorders. What a pain. Trying for 7.5 ips on D-cells. I can't remember how many the Tandberg Model 11 needed -- 6 or 8, I think, and this was in a place where the nearest store was 70 miles and 14 unbridged rivers away.

Sunday I was doing field recording with 24 bit sampling. Not a pain. Four little AA batteries.

However, digital has its pitfalls. On Sunday I was talking with the sound guy, and he said that he mistakenly recorded a concert in MP3 at 48. And of course it was awful and he couldn't recover and the clients were angry.

With analog tape I suppose the equivalent mistake would be to record at a slow tape speed -- what was the slowest? 1 7/8 ips? I forget. At least if you made that error you could see the reels were turning too slowly.

I'm not saying that vinyls are better than CDs. I'm saying that vinyls can have a better frequency response than CDs, but it's not always like that. Of course I'd rather choose to listen to a CD in this day and age to avoid all the crackles.

The frequency response of audio CD is sufficiently wide to cover the entire normal audible range, which roughly extends from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. (Hearing varies among individuals, and some can hear frequencies slightly beyond these limits.) Commercial and industrial digital recorders record higher frequencies, while consumer systems inferior to the CD record a more restricted frequency range. Analog audio is unrestricted in its possible frequency response, but the limitations of the particular analog format will provide a cap.