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

[Kingrex]

Old people with great record collections are dying every day, their kids and spouses sell of everything!

And those records have sat for 40 years with greasy fingerprints that have melted the vinyl. Thank you for making my point that the old original AAA that is coming on the market is damaged and inferior. Not worth playing. Throw it out and chalk it up as anothet lost $40 on Discogs trying to find vintage media that is quality.

 

[Kingrex]

Can you name some recent well recorded Jazz albums? Thanks!

You can lead a horse to water.

 

[wil]

The threads always end up discussing preferences and differences, and basically the sides agree to disagree. I do see claims from vinyl listeners that they think the format sounds more “convincing” or realistic. I rarely see that opinion from the digital listeners. What I do read is that digital has improved and is now highly satisfying and enjoyable.

Do those who listen to digital believe the format sounds more realistic and convincing?

I’m not concerned with comparing digital and vinyl. My digital sounds wonderful with good recordings. I’m happy.

I’m currently listening to Andras Schiff play Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas on ECM New Series. The performance is great and I really can’t imagine how the sound quality could be much better. Might it be marginally better on some well set up vinyl rigs? Maybe, maybe not. I currently don’t feel the need for the music to sound better, so it’s not an issue.

 

[wil]

Can you name some recent well recorded Jazz albums? Thanks!

Just for a start, Check out the ACT and the ECM labels. A lot of recent well recorded and excellent music you could spend a lifetime exploring.

 

[jazdoc]

Can you name some recent well recorded Jazz albums? Thanks!

Off the top of my head here are some nice 2024 releases

Ill Considered “Precipice”
Charles Lloyd “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow”
Francisco Mela “Music Frees Our Souls, Vol 3”
Luke Stewart “Unknown Rivers”
Anthony Wilson “Hackensack West”

 

[exupgh12]

The threads always end up discussing preferences and differences, and basically the sides agree to disagree. I do see claims from vinyl listeners that they think the format sounds more “convincing” or realistic. I rarely see that opinion from the digital listeners. What I do read is that digital has improved and is now highly satisfying and enjoyable.

Do those who listen to digital believe the format sounds more realistic and convincing?

Peter,

People who advocate for digital sound argue that its lower error rate means it more accurately represents the "real" sound. However, I've never encountered a digital or analog manufacturer claiming their products sound more digital. They always use analog as the reference. This could be marketing hype, but it's a consistent trend.

Anyway, I enjoy both formats and what they have to offer.

 

[tima]

And some will even argue that Digital sourced LPs are digital recordings, and that someone like me who only has a record player actually listens to Digital when playing contemporary vinyl.

It is certainly one of the drums that a certain someone constantly beats. I think that only goes so far. There are no 1's and 0's on a vinyl record, the lathe that cuts the vinyl master is an analog machine and the stylus travels in a continuous physical groove. An element of production may be digital but reproduction is 100% analog. Our ears do not hear 1's and 0's. There are analog elements to digital production -- I could be snarky and say that is why digital is tolerable but I'm not saying that. Yes, with the DG TOS records we can compare an ADA example from the 70's with a contemporary AAA example of the same performance and hear a difference in the analog wave form coming from our speakers using our analog ears -- ears not dissimilar from those of the mastering engineers who evaluate their own work. Claiming there is a digital element in the production of a vinyl record is not an argument against analog reproduction.

 

[Rexp]

I’m not concerned with comparing digital and vinyl. My digital sounds wonderful with good recordings. I’m happy.

I’m currently listening to Andras Schiff play Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas on ECM New Series. The performance is great and I really can’t imagine how the sound quality could be much better. Might it be marginally better on some well set up vinyl rigs? Maybe, maybe not. I currently don’t feel the need for the music to sound better, so it’s not an issue.

Although a different performance, I actually think this youtube recording sounds better:

 

[Rexp]

Just for a start, Check out the ACT and the ECM labels. A lot of recent well recorded and excellent music you could spend a lifetime exploring.

I'm familiar with ECM, I think the digital version of some of their analog recordings like the 24/96 recording below sounds good. Their recent DDD stuff, not so much.

 

[morricab]

Can you name some recent well recorded Jazz albums? Thanks!

Most stuff on ECM and many on ACT.

 

[Al M.]

Peter,

People who advocate for digital sound argue that its lower error rate means it more accurately represents the "real" sound. However, I've never encountered a digital or analog manufacturer claiming their products sound more digital. They always use analog as the reference. This could be marketing hype, but it's a consistent trend.

Anyway, I enjoy both formats and what they have to offer.

I've seen digital marketing that says it sounds like music. Anyway, when they say it sounds like analog, they cater to audiophiles who compare everything to analog.

I personally have learned a lot from listening to vinyl at friends' homes as to what should be possible in terms of reproducing the sound of unamplified, real instruments and what my digital, and system, was lacking at the time. Yet I have never felt that my digital should emulate the sound of vinyl. I wanted it to sound like live music, and now it does to an extent that I am satisfied with, even though of course it's never perfect. I would not anymore prefer vinyl to that.

 

[Rexp]

Most stuff on ECM and many on ACT.

One DDD ECM recording please?

 

[Al M.]

It is certainly one of the drums that a certain someone constantly beats. I think that only goes so far. There are no 1's and 0's on a vinyl record, the lathe that cuts the vinyl master is an analog machine and the stylus travels in a continuous physical groove. An element of production may be digital but reproduction is 100% analog. Our ears do not hear 1's and 0's.

Indeed, reproduction heard from a DAC -- used in both regular digital and for the production of digital sourced vinyl -- is 100% analog, a continuous analog waveform. Our ears do not hear 1's and 0's.

Digital sourced vinyl is still digital to the extent that digital is digital.

 

[bonzo75]

And some will even argue that Digital sourced LPs are digital recordings, and that someone like me who only has a record player actually listens to Digital when playing contemporary vinyl. That’s fine too. I won’t argue with them that I can then directly compare analog to digital in my system.

Whether digital sourced LPs are not as good sounding because they are digital or because they are done in an era where there are very few good sounding LPs will not be clear. Some digital LPs sound better than analog represses, or modem first editions. The early presses that are good quality are from a different era, and then there are some reissues in the modem era that are good

 

[Rexp]

Talking of ECM, here an analog recorded 24/96 album that might just sound better than my vinyl copy:

 

[bonzo75]

Why I don’t jump into such Digital Vs analog arguments, here is an example of analog guy gets convinced by digital guy to make the jump to the “upgrade” streamer and digitally sourced LPs. Digital guy can’t recognise real, thinks all is (Ana)log

 

[rDin]

I love my vinyl. But I have no doubt if I spent some more time fiddling with my digital, I could surpass my vinyl again.

This should be trivial if digital really is solved...

 

[Salectric]

Off the top of my head here are some nice 2024 releases

Ill Considered “Precipice”
Charles Lloyd “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow”
Francisco Mela “Music Frees Our Souls, Vol 3”
Luke Stewart “Unknown Rivers”
Anthony Wilson “Hackensack West”

All of the recent Charles Lloyd albums are excellent.

 

[RCanelas]

The threads always end up discussing preferences and differences, and basically the sides agree to disagree. I do see claims from vinyl listeners that they think the format sounds more “convincing” or realistic. I rarely see that opinion from the digital listeners. What I do read is that digital has improved and is now highly satisfying and enjoyable.

Do those who listen to digital believe the format sounds more realistic and convincing?

This thread seems to be quite lopsided, against the best of my efforts to propose that the battle field is artificial and stems from lack of taking a bit of time to read up and really think about this. So, against my better judgement...

I have recordings in both formats that sound better in different formats. At this point, probably more towards digital releases. By better I'm including more convincing, it is part of my aims.

It is very rare nowadays to find baroque music better in vinyl releases than in digital ones. The digital typically just sounds more tonally correct, no speed issues, no artificial micro inflections, better decay and provides a better leading edge to the attack of the instruments. It is more in line with what I perceive live listening to baroque ensembles in various settings, more energy, control and subtlety. Simple example would be Henning and Jacobs' Stabat Mater from Pergolesi. An 83 french copy sounds phenomenal. The 2000 cd sounds better IMO. The 2013 from Lezhneva & Jaroussky is miles ahead (especially as a music first person) and you have no analog release, so too bad if you don't even consider it.

The same for large classical pieces. Rattle's Beethoven 1-9th at the Berliner from 2016 sounds glorious on lp. It sounds more composed, with better purposeful separation, looser and meatier but with taut restraint in the 96/24 release. It is better.

I can make the opposite case for many other releases. They sound better on vinyl. More visceral, real and focused.

So, is it the release, the format, the gear, the recording? I've tough about it a lot, I researched it, developed products and traveled around to speak with the most informed people I could meet, and after all of that, if my life depended on that, I still couldn't give you a simple or definitive answer. All I can do is go back to the fundamentals: they are both encoding schemes, neither of them is more 'natural', 'continuous' or implicitly 'better' than the other one. Any talk on that direction is just waisted calories IMO.

The sharpness of the opinions here is truly fascinating. If we go to some other forum, it will have the same type, just mirrored: people with no analog with very strong opinions about it being obviously worse.

 

[Carlos269]

This thread seems to be quite lopsided, against the best of my efforts to propose that the battle field is artificial and stems from lack of taking a bit of time to read up and really think about this. So, against my better judgement...

I have recordings in both formats that sound better in different formats. At this point, probably more towards digital releases. By better I'm including more convincing, it is part of my aims.

It is very rare nowadays to find baroque music better in vinyl releases than in digital ones. The digital typically just sounds more tonally correct, no speed issues, no artificial micro inflections, better decay and provides a better leading edge to the attack of the instruments. It is more in line with what I perceive live listening to baroque ensembles in various settings, more energy, control and subtlety. Simple example would be Henning and Jacobs' Stabat Mater from Pergolesi. An 83 french copy sounds phenomenal. The 2000 cd sounds better IMO. The 2013 from Lezhneva & Jaroussky is miles ahead (especially as a music first person) and you have no analog release, so too bad if you don't even consider it.

The same for large classical pieces. Rattle's Beethoven 1-9th at the Berliner from 2016 sounds glorious on lp. It sounds more composed, with better purposeful separation, looser and meatier but with taut restraint in the 96/24 release. It is better.

I can make the opposite case for many other releases. They sound better on vinyl. More visceral, real and focused.

So, is it the release, the format, the gear, the recording? I've tough about it a lot, I researched it, developed products and traveled around to speak with the most informed people I could meet, and after all of that, if my life depended on that, I still couldn't give you a simple or definitive answer. All I can do is go back to the fundamentals: they are both encoding schemes, neither of them is more 'natural', 'continuous' or implicitly 'better' than the other one. Any talk on that direction is just waisted calories IMO.

The sharpness of the opinions here is truly fascinating. If we go to some other forum, it will have the same type, just mirrored: people with no analog with very strong opinions about it being obviously worse.

As I have mentioned many, many, many times before over the last few decades, the dominant factor when it comes to the reproduction of music with home audio systems is neither the format (analog or digital) nor the equipment…..it is the Mastering of the source material that matters the most and what dictates the resultant sound quality to the greatest extent.

This is easy to prove to oneself:make a decision of which of two home stereo audio systems is superior. Take two separate mastered versions of the same recording, with one being readily noticeably superior to the other. Play the superior mastered copy, in whatever format on the “inferior” stereo audio system and the inferior mastered recording, in what ever format, on the stereo audio system deemed to be “superior” and you will hear that the higher resultant playback quality of the music follows the superior mastered recording. Easy theory to the test and derive conclusions from.

In other words, the sound quality of the source material governs the resultant sound quality of the reproduced sound during playback.