Why, oh why, does vinyl continue to blow away digital?

I haven't contributed in earnest to this thread, as I generally dislike these type of heated format debates.

Now that things have calmed down a bit, there is the serious question of what are the Achilles's heels of digital that CAN make it so underwhelming. I am coming at this from the position of being a single format digital adherent who has worked through the struggles to try and get decent sound from the medium.

I thought I would list some observations/thoughts I have made over many years as a both a DIY hobbyist and a former mastering engineer.

- digital is great as a storage medium, able to be copied and transferred with no (this is still debatable) loss.

- processing digital data is great in theory, but I believe this is an area where things fall down. In my years as a mastering engineer I would have to convert music across sample rates. In my opinion, the music never fully survived this process and my preference for doing conversions was to convert back to analog, transferring to tape (@30ips 1/2 inch) and then bringing back in at the new sample rate. I also far preferred to go into the analog domain to use physical compression and EQ rather than digital plug ins.

- further to the point above, digital is a medium where numbers and processing have always been important from a both technical and marketing perspectives. 24bit has to be better that 16bit, 192KHz better than 44.1Khz and 64 times oversampling better than 4 times. I question whether this is correct and I believe that it is this processing element that may give rise to the digital sound and perhaps ever more processing power is not the answer to digital utopia.

- people think of digital as steady state 1s and 0s which it is in storage, but when it is being sent to a DAC it is an analog RF stream subject to the influences that all electrical signals are.

- digital is far more fragile that what one might expect. it is extremely sensitive to power supply quality and is even more sensitive to electrical and mechanical vibration. Turntables are sensitive to placement due to footfall and acoustic feedback, to which digital is immune. However the placement of digital equipment on stands/racks can have a massive bearing on the sound.

- as far as physical digital media goes, I believe that the important factors, in order, are: the recording (and the mixing); the mastering; and then the pressing. Unlike what many people think, digital media is subject to the same degradations in the pressing process as analog media. That is, the further away the pressing from the first run on the first stamper, the more degradation - if you like, you can think of this as jitter encoded into the media.

- Although the earliest CDs copped a lot of flack from both enthusiasts and the media, the industry did try hard to put out a quality product with high dynamic range and good tonal quality. One of the early criticisms of early discs was that many were produced from the vinyl production master rather than the first generation master. The earliest CDs were made at a loss because they went to great lengths in the manufacturing process. The early CDs spent a good 30 seconds in the injection mold compared with something like 1/2 a second in more modern discs. I have been collecting the earliest CDs for about 20 years and have many copies of the same recording made for different countries. It is interesting to hear how different they can sound.

My final thought is that digital can never sound exactly like analog or vice versa. Digital can provide very enjoyable sound if one finds a way to get around it's deficiencies/issues, and this doesn't necessitate extreme expenditure.
 
I haven't contributed in earnest to this thread, as I generally dislike these type of heated format debates.

Now that things have calmed down a bit, there is the serious question of what are the Achilles's heels of digital that CAN make it so underwhelming. I am coming at this from the position of being a single format digital adherent who has worked through the struggles to try and get decent sound from the medium.

I thought I would list some observations/thoughts I have made over many years as a both a DIY hobbyist and a former mastering engineer.

- digital is great as a storage medium, able to be copied and transferred with no (this is still debatable) loss.

- processing digital data is great in theory, but I believe this is an area where things fall down. In my years as a mastering engineer I would have to convert music across sample rates. In my opinion, the music never fully survived this process and my preference for doing conversions was to convert back to analog, transferring to tape (@30ips 1/2 inch) and then bringing back in at the new sample rate. I also far preferred to go into the analog domain to use physical compression and EQ rather than digital plug ins.

- further to the point above, digital is a medium where numbers and processing have always been important from a both technical and marketing perspectives. 24bit has to be better that 16bit, 192KHz better than 44.1Khz and 64 times oversampling better than 4 times. I question whether this is correct and I believe that it is this processing element that may give rise to the digital sound and perhaps ever more processing power is not the answer to digital utopia.

- people think of digital as steady state 1s and 0s which it is in storage, but when it is being sent to a DAC it is an analog RF stream subject to the influences that all electrical signals are.

- digital is far more fragile that what one might expect. it is extremely sensitive to power supply quality and is even more sensitive to electrical and mechanical vibration. Turntables are sensitive to placement due to footfall and acoustic feedback, to which digital is immune. However the placement of digital equipment on stands/racks can have a massive bearing on the sound.

- as far as physical digital media goes, I believe that the important factors, in order, are: the recording (and the mixing); the mastering; and then the pressing. Unlike what many people think, digital media is subject to the same degradations in the pressing process as analog media. That is, the further away the pressing from the first run on the first stamper, the more degradation - if you like, you can think of this as jitter encoded into the media.

- Although the earliest CDs copped a lot of flack from both enthusiasts and the media, the industry did try hard to put out a quality product with high dynamic range and good tonal quality. One of the early criticisms of early discs was that many were produced from the vinyl production master rather than the first generation master. The earliest CDs were made at a loss because they went to great lengths in the manufacturing process. The early CDs spent a good 30 seconds in the injection mold compared with something like 1/2 a second in more modern discs. I have been collecting the earliest CDs for about 20 years and have many copies of the same recording made for different countries. It is interesting to hear how different they can sound.

My final thought is that digital can never sound exactly like analog or vice versa. Digital can provide very enjoyable sound if one finds a way to get around it's deficiencies/issues, and this doesn't necessitate extreme expenditure.
If my experience with my 15 years vintage Eera Tentation CDP is by any measure, it's far more responsive to isolation, power cords, grounding etc, than my TT or amps, other electronics etc.
It's a different player going from my Rollerblocked Symposium rack to its current home of Stacore isolation platform, and it performs very differently whether using a Sablon power cord or others I've auditioned.
Similarly really benefits from Entreq grounding, and I'm very mindful to keep it's grounding seperate from the rest of my system.
And that's just a one-box CDP, can only imagine this ramping up for streamers, DACs, re-clockers etc.
Get it right, and this digital ties with my analog across many considerations, LP only absolutely convincing more fully on certain criteria. However those criteria give me the biggest goosebump moments in the hobby.
 
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There's always someone around to say they cracked the digital code as @Mike Lavigne put it, keeps the money rolling into those digital coffers...
 
What are these criteria for you?
Absorption in the moment. We go to live classical all the time, baroque and early music are real joys. As I analyse at the start of concerts how live music reflects vinyl v CD, I realise I'm absorbed in the moment. And for the rest of the concert.
Despite loving my CDP more than every other digital front end I've heard on visits, even on the best discs I never fully disengage from what I hear as music making.
With the best LPs, there's an imperceptibility to the playback that totally draws me in and renders me non analytical.
Throw in the room energising properties of LP sound, again very similar to live, more so than digital.
Now, OTOH, there are more CDs where an above average playback is possible, I certainly have more variability in LP quality disc to disc.
CD seems to be more predictable.
I guess my optimised TT and overall system improvements mean I've banished my previous tonally homogeneous presentation.
The best LP playback takes me to a place CD approximates but falls short.
And streaming still leaves me nonplussed.
 
I can almost guarantee you won't like his digital.
Do snarky one liners contribute anything of value to this forum?

Perhaps the 5 or 6 posters so inclined could create their very own sub forum. Call it something like “Digital Sucks” so the rest of us would know to stay away.
 
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Do snarky one liners contribute anything of value to this forum?

Perhaps the 5 or 6 posters so inclined could create their very own sub forum. Call it something like “Digital Sucks” so the rest of us would know to stay away.

You could simply stay away from digital vs analog debates and only discuss on digital threads.

Analog people apart from having a good sense of realism also have a good sense of humor which when transcribed to digital sounds snarky.
 
You could simply stay away from digital vs analog debates and only discuss on digital threads.

Analog people apart from having a good sense of realism also have a good sense of humor which when transcribed to digital sounds snarky.
Yes, the all digital crowd are less likely to also be Fawlty Towers fans ! :rolleyes:
 
There can be two explanations for preferences:

- each solution is different, and it's a matter of taste

- a solution is superior to another, and if people don't recognize that it's because they don't have the right gear, or because they have poor taste

Since we all have different gear and tastes, the discussion can go on forever.
 
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There can be two explanations for preferences:

- each solution is different, and it's a matter of taste

- a solution is superior to another, and if people don't recognize that it's because they don't have the right gear, or because they have poor taste

Since we all have different gear and tastes, the discussion can go on forever.
Agreed. As with other high end components, such as loudspeakers, one finds a range of solutions: dynamic moving coil loudspeakers, horns, electrostatics etc. These tend to have different areas of strengths and weaknesses. One learns over time to adjust to each approach’s characteristics. Analog and digital reproductions are similar. Each has a characteristic signature.

I’m listening now to a high resolution 24-bit 192 kHz recording of Telemann’s famous Tafelmusik (literally table music intended as background music for aristocrats while they ate supper) via Qobuz. The recording sounds nice and pleasant. Analog sounding it is not. I don’t hear much if any ambience. The soundstage is flattened, it’s a bit 2-dimensional. The instruments don’t sound very natural. It’s a bit electronic sounding. One learns to adjust for these characteristics of modern digital recordings. In fact, an earlier 44.1khz Redbook cd on Brilliant Classics box set of Telemann’s Tafelmusik sounds much more analog like to my ears. High resolution doesn’t translate to high fidelity in my experience, if that is intended to mean concert hall sound quality. Here we are at any rate. I’m pleased, thrilled actually, to be able to stream high resolution recordings of a huge amount of music that I enjoy hearing. But I don’t anymore expect digital to sound like analog. It’s a different medium. It just sounds different, like electrostatic loudspeakers sound very different from horns.

IMG_6279.jpeg
 
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What speakers and amps, and what sorts of records and music does he play
I called said friend today. We chatted about this and that. I asked somewhat pointedly, did he get a big gain moving from one TT and phono stage to the much more expensive TT and a much more expensive phono pre. Instead of answering the question he said, my digital is really good. He likes having 2 very premium sources, but with all the money he put into vinyl, he could have bought a Wadax. Tells you something there. He then went into the more apparent gains he was getting from different speaker cables. And power and interconnect. He seemed more excited about those and what he was trying.

To your question Ked. He doesn't play any classical to speak of. More audiophile type music. Lets say he has premium high power tube amps and very popular dynamic driver speakers. A system the vast majority of people who read these forums drool over. And many have. Last time I heard it, it was dialed quite well. I was impressed. It does some things far better than my system. Its been over a year since I have gotten to his place. I haven't traveled much in the last year.

As an aside, I played a few more tapes and I think I need to adjust my R2R tape outboard preamp. Its a stand alone NAB/IEC to a Schiit Valhalla 2 to boost the signal. The Schiit is holding it back. A little dirty. A little noisy. It needs to be cleaner and maybe SS. I have enough tubes in my system already. My tape is still a stand out amazing source. Limited material to play. But darn its good.
 
To your question Ked. He doesn't play any classical to speak of. More audiophile type music. Lets say he has premium high power tube amps and very popular dynamic driver speakers.
I asked because I had already guessed this answer. He should stick to investing in digital.
 
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I think each of you is projecting your own biases and preferences into Rex's friend's non-answer. A non-answer is a non-answer. It should not be presumed to support silently one's position.
 
I called said friend today. We chatted about this and that. I asked somewhat pointedly, did he get a big gain moving from one TT and phono stage to the much more expensive TT and a much more expensive phono pre. Instead of answering the question he said, my digital is really good. He likes having 2 very premium sources, but with all the money he put into vinyl, he could have bought a Wadax. Tells you something there. He then went into the more apparent gains he was getting from different speaker cables. And power and interconnect. He seemed more excited about those and what he was trying.

To your question Ked. He doesn't play any classical to speak of. More audiophile type music. Lets say he has premium high power tube amps and very popular dynamic driver speakers. A system the vast majority of people who read these forums drool over. And many have. Last time I heard it, it was dialed quite well. I was impressed. It does some things far better than my system. Its been over a year since I have gotten to his place. I haven't traveled much in the last year.

As an aside, I played a few more tapes and I think I need to adjust my R2R tape outboard preamp. Its a stand alone NAB/IEC to a Schiit Valhalla 2 to boost the signal. The Schiit is holding it back. A little dirty. A little noisy. It needs to be cleaner and maybe SS. I have enough tubes in my system already. My tape is still a stand out amazing source. Limited material to play. But darn its good.
You just need a better tube preamp than a Schiit Valhalla…tubes done right don’t ever sound dirty…
 
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Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friendly to one, and enemy to none.
Benjamin Franklin

Which forum was Ben on
 

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