The superior sound quality of vinyl records is largely a matter of expectations

Vinyl as Fine Wine: The Role of Expectation on the Perception of Music Format. Rickard Enstroem and Rodney Schmaltz. Front. Psychol., May 26 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.873517

Abstract: While vinyl, compact discs, and even eight-track tapes were traditionally promoted to consumers as producing superior sound, the introduction of compressed digital music, such as mp3s, was markedly different. Initially, one of the primary selling features of digital music was convenience and portability rather than sound quality. Recently, vinyl music sales have experienced a substantial resurgence. Waveforms from vinyl represent recorded music more accurately than compressed digital formats and have the potential to produce better sound. Even so, most music listeners do not reliably listen to music on audiophile quality high-end equipment. For this reason, we believe one aspect of vinyl sales is the expectation that vinyl quality is superior. In this study, we sought to isolate the contribution of expectation to perceived sound quality. Participants were asked to listen to a selection of music on either vinyl or mp3. Some participants were told that they were listening to vinyl when the musical selection was an mp3, while others were told they were listening to an mp3 while actually listening to vinyl. A multivariate analysis through a Canonical Correlation Analysis established that expectation of music format quality drove post-listening evaluations.

Discussion

A multivariate analysis through a canonical correlation model demonstrated that expectation plays a pervasive and salient role in judging vinyl and mp3 recorded music formats. That is, the experience of listening to music is impacted by expectation and not due to sound quality alone. Our results can be interpreted through a Bayesian lens regarding the interplay between prior expectations and sensory evidence. Our results suggest that for vinyl, the expectations in terms of sound quality are so firmly established that participants rely at least partially on the prior expectations rather than the sensory evidence.

In our analysis, the three aspects of sound quality that emerged with prominent effect sizes were CLARITY, SMOOTHNESS, and FULLNESS. As defined in our study, CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS are strengths primarily associated with the digital sound, while FULLNESS is a distinct advantage of the vinyl recorded sound. Our estimations show how the respective expectations of vinyl and mp3 sound qualities operate on participants’ judgement by lessening and strengthening the perception of the underlying music format in the direction of vinyl vs. mp3-related sound qualities. Specifically, we found negative expectation effects of mp3 and vinyl upon the mp3-played format in that the expectation of mp3 made the perceived sound quality even lesser related to the vinyl quality of FULLNESS and that the expectation of vinyl resulted in a lessened relationship to the digital sound qualities of CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS. Similarly, we established positive expectation effects for vinyl and mp3 upon mp3 as the vinyl expectation resulted in a strengthened relationship with the vinyl quality of FULLNESS, and the mp3 expectation enhanced the association with the digital sound qualities of CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS.

These results should be conceived in the context that the participants could tease out the mp3-played song from the same song played on vinyl. Mp3s are a lossy music format, with the highest encoding possible at 320 kbps and the lowest at 32 kbps. As a comparison, A compact disc is encoded at 1,411 kbps. That the mp3 was encoded at the bitrate of 192 kbps makes our results even more compelling; even for this medium bitrate, and presumably wide gap in sound quality between vinyl and mp3, the expectation effect is found.

While it is true that analogue recordings may provide more accurate representations of recorded sound, the average music consumer does not necessarily have the audio equipment nor command the expertise to detect and gauge differences in nuances among the analogue and compressed digital formats. Despite this, there is a widespread belief that vinyl sounds better than other music formats. The takeaway from our results is that it is not the actual sound quality of vinyl alone that drives the preference, but rather the knowledge of vinyl’s better sound that impacts sound perception for the average music consumer. From a consumer judgement and decision-making standpoint and information processing dilemma, the knowledge of vinyl’s superior sound quality likely forms a salient heuristic that is easily accessible to the consumer and impacts the listening experience.

High-end equipment will most certainly produce a different listening experience between vinyl and compressed music formats. While the focus of this study was the average music consumer, a worthy extension is to explore the role of expectations on audiophiles. Based on previous research on expectation and wine tasting (Plassmann et al., 2008), we expect expectation to play a less salient role on audiophiles than the average music consumer. Beyond the person’s audiophile orientation, the results may differ depending on music interest and genre. In this exploratory work, we did not include contenders of lossless streaming music. Estimating the effect of brand expectation would yield additional insights into how expectations regarding factual vs. non-factual differences in sound quality operate.