GETTING HOOKED ON COMPACT DISCS

CD OR NOT CD? Compact discs are the biggest thing to hit the audio world since stereo. At least that’s what millions of Americans think. They’re turning away from traditional vinyl records in favor of these small plastic-and-aluminum discs that hold up to 74 minutes of music ... and deliver it--proponents say--with incredible clarity.

The technology involves a laser beam in the CD player that translates digitally encoded “pits” on the disc. Since no stylus touches the disc surface, there’s no wear--and little chance of unintended pops, clicks or skips. You can also program the discs to play the selections on an album in any order.

But are CDs really as good as advertised?

Terry Atkinson, who writes the Home Tech column for The Times, says yes. John Voland, a hi-fi enthusiast and frequent contributor to Calendar, says no way.

I didn’t even want a compact disc player. But I felt that I had to buy one, to keep up with the music business and new ideas and technologies. Now I’m hooked.

CDs weren’t welcome in my house for several reasons.

Remember that old Lenny Bruce routine lampooning “hi-fi nuts”? That’s how I’ve always felt about people who focus more attention on sound equipment than on music. Sure, truly snooty high fidelity is great if you can afford the stack of sophisticated gear you needed before the CD to get it. But some of my favorite musical experiences have come while listening to pop songs on a pool-side transistor radio, or when enjoying my collection of ‘20s jazz, recorded long before fi was hi.

Besides, I already had a pretty decent stereo system. I didn’t see the need to invest at least $200 more in a CD player. And what if the darned thing turned out as wonderful as its proponents claimed? Feeding my new toy $15 meals seemed like a great way to wind up without the rent money. Plus, everyone was telling me I’d need super-duper (and super-expensive) speakers to fully appreciate the CD bass response.

Also, I’d heard people complain that CD sound was cold and clinical. Some said it wasn’t even really as good as old-fashioned analog.

Many of my worst fears have been realized. I want better speakers now, and--most of all--I want a roomful of CDs. Hang the cost! But any doubts about the sound went out the window when I heard my first few discs.

Not every CD is a winner. I bought one disc by a favorite group (the Cocteau Twins’ “The Pink Opaque”) that didn’t sound any better than the record when it was brand-new.

I bought an I Musici version of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” where the solo violin passages seemed too bright, to the point of slight aural pain. And another CD (a Japanese pressing of Black Sabbath’s “Master of Reality”) even had distortion on loud and high-range parts.

The sound of every other CD I’ve heard, however, has been marvelous. Almost every desirable aspect of the sonics seems enhanced--signal-to-noise ratio, dynamic range, lack of distortion and stereo separation among them.

Rock treasures, even though almost always digitally remastered from analog recordings (thus retaining some tape hiss), have a new brilliance and impact.

Classical recordings--many of them available in hiss-less all-digital-recording CDs--are often overwhelming. Even monophonic recordings from the early ‘50s, like my Beethoven Seventh and Eighth Symphonies conducted by Furtwaengler (on one CD) can be greatly enhanced by digital remastering.

But there’s something about CDs that may be even more valuable: They don’t have vinyl’s snap, crackle and pop.

New LPs are notorious for their vinyl defects, and only the most extraordinary measures keep more from developing as the records are played. Compact discs deliver what’s on the master tape without all those surface-noise “bonuses”--and they stay that way. The sound is just as good on the 50th playing as the first.

CD players provide a surprise pleasure, too: Programmability.

After hearing my most-played albums innumerable times, I can now re-experience the songs in any order I wish. Or just hear the tracks I want to hear, sounding better than ever. The CD player always places the laser in the right place--no more fiddling with that stabbing needle. And audio scan enables you to find specific passages with ease.

This sudden love affair has sent me back to the CD detractors to try to figure out what’s bugging them.

Harry Pearson, editor and publisher of the Absolute Sound, a New York audio journal, wrote an anti-CD article for the Washington Post last February, dismissing its alleged superiority as “poppycock” and “myths.”

Like many CD haters, he bases much of his argument on a dislike for digital sound, claiming that his audiophile ears are offended by the system’s flaws. Here’s a typical statement: “Unlike analog, where one can hear a sound even below the inherent noise threshold of audio tape, a sound below the digital threshold simply isn’t recorded.”

Below the inherent noise threshold of audio tape?!

Other music critics have practically swooned over compact-disc versions of the great classical works. And might not inaccurate sound be more likely the fault of a conductor or an engineer than the technology? Still, there is that I Musici CD I mentioned earlier. I think it is quite possible that digital recording is not perfect--that it may not reproduce a few sounds as well as analog.

But is this justification for the vehemence of the attacks on compact discs? After all, if a CD doesn’t sound quite right, it may be immediately correctable. With the I Musici disc, for example, I simply made a slight adjustment on my equalizer--a reasonably priced gadget that anyone serious about hi-fi sound should have.

The other sort of CD adjustment will have to be made by electronics engineers, experimenting with filters, other components and new processing approaches (such as the promising FDS system) that could correct deficiencies in digital sound. As Pearson himself points out (while forgetting the positive implications): “What you really have to remember is that both the laser playback system and the digital encoding technology are in their infancy.”

So why all the caterwauling over the recording industry’s prodigious baby? Audiophiles have spent years and fortunes building up an analog/vinyl pile of gear. Now along comes the compact disc player--costing less than some phonograph cartridges, for goodness sake--and it suddenly enables the average slob to take an audio leap over the average snob. No wonder the mere thought of CD sends certain analog/vinyl-attached sorts poking around for negative subtleties in digital sound.

The CD will survive them, easily. Even veteran classical/Broadway producer Thomas Z. Shepard, though expressing dismay over the quality of some digital remastering jobs in a recent Billboard article, said: “No question about it, the CDs sound good, they wear well, they have no intrinsic discernible noise level, they have extended dynamic range, and they are cute and friendly. . . .

“They are comparable in quality to master tapes. . . . CDs also give an added dimension to remastered historical recordings, particularly monaural, and the more primitive stereos that might now be lovingly revived by current musicians and technicians. “

So let’s stop this silly grumbling, end our vinyl fetish, and bid the analog past a fond adieu.