Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

What is your preferred format for listening to audio

  • I have only digital in my system and prefer digital

    Votes: 17 26.2%
  • I have only vinyl in my system and prefer vinyl

    Votes: 4 6.2%
  • I have both digital and vinyl in my system. I prefer digital

    Votes: 10 15.4%
  • I have both digital and vinyl in my system. I prefer vinyl

    Votes: 17 26.2%
  • I have both digital and vinyl in my system. I like both

    Votes: 11 16.9%
  • I have only digital in my system but also like vinyl

    Votes: 6 9.2%
  • I have only vinyl in my system but also like digital

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    65
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One more point that I didn't see made (apologies if it already has, this thread is very long and I didn't parse it all) is the cost of the digital gear vs analog gear being used in comparisons. In my experience I haven't heard vinyl beat digital $ for $. You could go so far as to apply this to the source material: e.g.: An AP SACD costs ~$30, the same 45RPM LP costs ~$50!

IME: In the lower end (and several year back) my Bel Canto DAC3/media PC (~$3K) was significantly better than my CA Concept TT, CA Maestro cart, Nova Phonomena phono pre + iso base/footers (~$4K). On the higher end, I've heard the TotalDAC full setup which sounds fantastic but was not quite as good as the owner's vinyl setup. In my estimate the vinyl setup was 150% more $. Had they been at price parity... Again, $ for $....

You have a point here. When I compare my own digital to the best analog that I have heard, I compare it with analog that costs around 10 times more or even significantly beyond that (phono stage included). In comparison with that analog, even a dCS Rossini appears cheap ;).

And CDs are cheap, $ 17 at the max or mostly less, or even down to $ 1/pc in some large box sets...
 
vinyl is getting better at a faster rate than digital......in my experience over the last 15 years.

Really .. Mike!

Best DAC circa 2001 (Put any name you want here...) and current TOL today
Rockport Sirius and any current today TOL TT ....
Same gulf?

I doubt it Mike. I sincerely do and I am far from being alone on that.
 
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I regularly buy CDs used on Amazon for $2 or $3. Great stuff can be had very cheaply.
They aren't really $2 or $3, they are $6 or $7. Shipping and handling don't cost sellers $4/CD.
 
One more point that I didn't see made (apologies if it already has, this thread is very long and I didn't parse it all) is the cost of the digital gear vs analog gear being used in comparisons. In my experience I haven't heard vinyl beat digital $ for $. You could go so far as to apply this to the source material: e.g.: An AP SACD costs ~$30, the same 45RPM LP costs ~$50!

IME: In the lower end (and several year back) my Bel Canto DAC3/media PC (~$3K) was significantly better than my CA Concept TT, CA Maestro cart, Nova Phonomena phono pre + iso base/footers (~$4K). On the higher end, I've heard the TotalDAC full setup which sounds fantastic but was not quite as good as the owner's vinyl setup. In my estimate the vinyl setup was 150% more $. Had they been at price parity... Again, $ for $....

reality;

to get the very tip top of PCM digital is very, very, expensive. $50k+....even $100k. maybe there is an exception out there for PCM and maybe there is not.

in my set-up both front ends were above $50k and the vinyl still walked all over the digital.

it's a different story with dsd as the technology to do it costs much less. and I would agree that on the dsd side if you compare it to a like priced vinyl front end it can get closer.

as far as high rez files; they are not cheap. mostly around $20-$40 each; higher for Quad dsd files. redbook is cheaper, but again; unless you go relatively high priced PCM hardware the vinyl should be much better assuming ideal set-up. and there are millions of great sounding used Lps out there that are cheap. and new Lps are not more than hirez files.
 
One more point that I didn't see made (apologies if it already has, this thread is very long and I didn't parse it all) is the cost of the digital gear vs analog gear being used in comparisons. In my experience I haven't heard vinyl beat digital $ for $. You could go so far as to apply this to the source material: e.g.: An AP SACD costs ~$30, the same 45RPM LP costs ~$50!

IME: In the lower end (and several year back) my Bel Canto DAC3/media PC (~$3K) was significantly better than my CA Concept TT, CA Maestro cart, Nova Phonomena phono pre + iso base/footers (~$4K). On the higher end, I've heard the TotalDAC full setup which sounds fantastic but was not quite as good as the owner's vinyl setup. In my estimate the vinyl setup was 150% more $. Had they been at price parity... Again, $ for $....

Amazing how easily Marty's Goldman Studio, used price $2k, used vibraplane price 1 - 2k, his Benz cart (not LPS but lower, though he has recently bought LPS), beats his EMM labs by a long margin, through the ASR Emitter phono, despite going through a room corrector.

With TTs it is more because of the set up than the price. I have heard Kuzma Xl4 with 4p and Clearaudio Goldfinger through a high-end valve phono sound no better than the oppo it was next to, while I heard a lower end Kuzma set up sound much better than another oppo, because different people set them up differently - less to do with the gear. Best way to make out it isn't set up well is it won't sound different from even cheap digital
 
I'm still waiting for the day where i hear digital, any digital, get as much right on a recording of vocals, a standing bass, drum kit, horn, violin, piano, or acoustic guitar as top level analog.

and god knows I've certainly tried my best to be able to attain that with digital.

So am I Mike. The latest digital that I have auditioned is coming closer in terms of non fatiguing digital glare/harshness in the upper frequencies, but it is still challenged by overall resolution and timbral accuracy, and a sense of palpability. But most importantly, the ability to sound natural. The best digital is getting better, but it is still not there. I do alike the convenience and lower noise floor, and the absence of clicks and pops.

This now has me wondering about a new question. If the analog guys are drawn to pleasing euphonic colorations which are inherent in analog (as digital proponents constantly remind us) but they are absent in digital, why is it that some guys like me recognize the improvements in digital sound as the medium matures and its inherent problems are better understood and addressed? Is digital starting to sound more like analog? As it starts to sound more natural to analog guys like me, ie., more like real acoustic music, does that mean that digital also has pleasing euphonic colorations that remind us of real music? Or is it something else entirely?

Someone up thread mentioned that the latest dCS gear was designed/voiced taking into account actual listening panel feedback. To me, it now sounds more natural and like real music. Do the digital guys think that this is a good thing or is it an aberration from perfection and a departure from accuracy? I think it is a move in the right direction and should be celebrated as a major advance in digital technology.

I have heard EMM Labs, Playback Systems, Lampizator, MSB, but not the latest models, and not the Trinity DAC.
 
Really .. Mike!

Best DAC or 2001 (Put any name you want here...)
Rockport Sirius and any current today TOL TT .... Same gulf?

I doubt it Mike. I sincerely do and I am far from being alone on that.

the best digital in 2001 was the Linn CD-12 for CD and the Marantz SA-1 for SACD. I owned both. neither would be out of place in a great system today. I did not get the Rockport until 2002 but it did exist in 2001.

the Rockport Sirius III was very very good. but i'll easily claim that my Wave Kinetics NVS/Durand Telos Sapphire tonearm/Ortofon Anna/Herzan TS-140/dart pre/phono would be enough better than corresponding 2001 cartridges and phono stages you might match with the Rockport compared to how much better you might find the digital.

I had SOTA then and now in both formats and that is my opinion.

vinyl is lots better now. have you ever heard a Linn CD-12?

and I would bet in 5 years that vinyl has again progressed farther at the top of the food chain

with analog/mechanical systems there is almost no end to progress. think race cars.
 
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vinyl is getting better at a faster rate than digital......in my experience over the last 15 years.

That is a very interesting statement, and it must be based on your considerable experience with vintage - Rockport, SP10, etc - and new analog products. I wonder what a vintage guy like David, DDK, would think about this. I have current vinyl gear in my system and very little experience with older turntables, tonearms and cartridges and phono stages so am not qualified to say anything about this subject. Great topic for another thread, IMO.
 
They aren't really $2 or $3, they are $6 or $7. Shipping and handling don't cost sellers $4/CD.

You are correct but with the shipping, they come right to my door. I don't have to spend the time and the cost of driving to a store and still cheaper than a download.
 
+1

So I guess they should have re-written those old ads: "Perfect sound forever...at some time in the distant future if you own a digital front end that costs as much as a new Lexus" :D

Upsampling may move the replay filtering well beyond any frequencies where it can no longer effect the audible spectrum, however upsampling adds it's own colouration in my experience. I have never heard any upsampling that I have been happy with, however I am sure there is gear around that can do it well. I just haven't heard it yet. In any event, none of this gets around the issue that a commercial CD these days is more than likely to have been mastered from a 24 bit, high resolution source, meaning filtering absolutely had to be applied in a brickwall manner in order to resample it down to 44.1 in order to create the CD master file. All of this reduces the quality compared to the original. So there is no getting around the whole problem even though replay (and mastering) has dramatically improved, even over the last few years. I find it quite interesting (and actually not really surprising) that most of my best sounding CDs came from earlier days where there was no resampling, since everything went on from beginning to end at 44.1.

I still think the very best compromise and the best sound overall in the digital domain comes from recording, mastering and replay at 24 bit, 96 KHz or comparable (or better) DSD. The rare recordings I have that sound really great at 192 kHz are just that...rare, however I think this is the fault of the mastering chain hardware not having enough attention paid to mains filtration, power conditioning, noise reduction and impeccable clocking than it does an actual "fault" with such high sample rates. It just makes the shortcomings more obvious in my view.
 
the Rockport Sirius III was very very good. but i'll easily claim that my Wave Kinetics NVS/Durand Telos Sapphire tonearm/Ortofon Anna/Herzan TS-140/dart pre/phono would be enough better than corresponding 2001 cartridges and phono stages you might match with the Rockport compared to how much better you might find the digital.

I had SOTA then and now in both formats and that is my opinion.

vinyl is lots better now.

From the reports on this forum, David Karmeli's old American Sound turntable beats new uber achievers like the Air Force One.
 
@ Mike and Bonzo - the devil is in the details.

Bonzo - Apples to apples, MSRP vs MSRP not used. Also, where is the phono pre type/cost? How about LP puck? Record cleaning machine? anti-static gun? brush,, etc? Other isolation components?

Add everything up to enable playing that record vs playing the CD/SACD and then show the #s. I bet you'll be surprised how much the analog setup really costs.
 
That is a very interesting statement, and it must be based on your vast experience with vintage and new analog products. I wonder what a vintage guy like David, DDK, would think about this statement. I have current vinyl gear in my system and very little experience with older turntables, tonearms and cartridges and phono stages.

Digital is not a vintage thing, it has been improving over the last decade (though not by much, with guys trying to repeat the same old tricks). Vintage guys do argue that investment in engineering and objectives to achieve sonics in speakers and vinyl were higher back then. Vinyl did die for 25 years and has only now come back, with some pressings from digital and made to purely profit. I don't know about TT companies, but Western Electric (bell Labs) had investments to improve their drivers which audiophile companies cannot match today. These were serious movements to break sound barriers and not to just market a product to a handful of OCDed audiophiles. I was born around when vinyl first died, so can't confirm, but from what I have read, the engineers then were more cutting edge because the industry was structured like that
 
The difference is indeed not subtle, but the differences are completely explained by the distortion, added reverb and HF roll off inherent in LP replay.
Finding this sounds better to you is fine, there are a lot who agree.
The problem people seem to have is accepting that they prefer the sound generated by adding some euphony to a more accurate rendition.
I have no problem accepting that I enjoy it and I don't believe in magic, so I am sure that what I am enjoying is the added euphony, not some as-yet-to-be-discovered-by-man superiority.

According to your logic, somehow a medium that was barely listenable for half its existence based on discontinuous values and predicated on a reconstruct with a limited set of numbers that can't exist in high end audio without the so called inferior analog sections is somehow more accurate; and compared to what? What are you quantifying as more accurate?

Continuing your logic that people who find analog more natural and hear more attributes of reality in this medium over digital are distortion junkies, then live music must the same special unspecified distortions otherwise we'd all be CD junkies enjoying perfect sound forever!



david
 
@ Mike and Bonzo - the devil is in the details.

Bonzo - Apples to apples, MSRP vs MSRP not used. Also, where is the phono pre type/cost? How about LP puck? Record cleaning machine? anti-static gun? brush,, etc? Other isolation components?

Add everything up to enable playing that record vs playing the CD/SACD and then show the #s. I bet you'll be surprised how much the analog setup really costs.

Sure, MSRP used. It is still cheap. The reason I mentioned those set ups (high end Kuzma XL4 vs lower end Kuzma - was to indicate it is differences in set ups more than cost. Thing is that Goldmund studio set up will easily best a Vivaldi stack, Trinity, or whatever. For dacs you could also add costs of streamers. I did mention phonos
 
From the reports on this forum, David Karmeli's old American Sound turntable beats new uber achievers like the Air Force One.

So does the Thorens reference and EMT. Unfortunately both Steve and Marty never got to hear the Thorens. There are people who prefer Micro Seikis to many high priced new TTs.
 
From the reports on this forum, David Karmeli's old American Sound turntable beats new uber achievers like the Air Force One.

These reports were based in listening carried in David system and room. We can not know what would be the opinions in other systems.
 
So does the Thorens reference and EMT. Unfortunately both Steve and Marty never got to hear the Thorens. There are people who prefer Micro Seikis to many high priced new TTs.

I heard the Thorens and enjoyed it but not to the extent that the AS and the EMT 927 rocked me. I felt those were truly game changers. I marveled at the EMT how, when turned on it would achieve accurate speed in less than 5 seconds. I didn't hear the Goldmund Reference but to my ears (and I am an owner of the TechDasAF1) the AS and EMT sounded superior to the AF1 and that was with the same cartridge and arm
 
So I'm having difficulty relating to opinions of vinyl's superiority to digital:)

Yes I have heard some really great sounding vinyl at audio shows, the most recent being 2015 RMAF in the GTT Audio Room using YG Acoustics, Kronos, Audionet, and Nordost. And no doubt with top notch audio equipment and stellar LP's, the setup sounded fantastic.

But with the caveat I don't have vinyl to directly compare, I get the same sensation in my acoustic listening room with Raidho, EMM Labs, JRDG, Nordost, and stellar SACD's or digital downloads.

So IMO this discussion has much more to do with great source material, acoustics, and audio equipment.
 
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