Analogue from Digital

I also see no point now in buying any new vinyl. It’s almost all digitized now and notice the vagueness where most new pressings now never say it’s all analogue. This is because I have found out that the cutting lathes are driven digitally. So even if great care was taken keep it all analogue the final “mile” of the signal going to the lathe is often digital. 

the sound of most new vinyl including reissues is antiseptic, loud, and flat. The original vintage vinyl may not be as in-your-face loud with every instrument overhyped as with the new (digitized) pressings. But I typically find the older vintage pressings are more liquid and musical with depth, warmth, and ambience 

dacs have improved greatly and continue to improve. Buying new or new reissue vinyl means you are stuck with whatever digital converter they used at the cutting lathe. 

I continue to buy vintage vinyl but will no longer spend on new pressings. Been disappointed too many times with loud antiseptic flat grainy sound. 

• The correct answer nobody wants to give is vinyl always sounds better because even if all you do is drag a stylus through it this at least is analog, and analog beats digital, full stop period.

I get the sarcasm. But the appropriate answer is more nuanced.   I have just added a high end clock to my all digital system.  It is very revealing and my take from listening to it relates directly to this point.  

I feel that it is not really relevant what the source of the new recording was, digital or analog (leave aside extreme cases like direct to disc).   The real difference is in home replay.

Digital studios (all studios nowadays?) generally use excellent clocks and most listeners (in my opinion, all listeners) would not be able to tell the difference between the two types of masters in the studio - if anyone ever made that experiment. 

Digital signal reconstruction is difficult to time and without a high accuracy clock (even a good TCXO wont cut it) in the digital stream prior to conversion in home systems, analog is going to win most times.

The fact that digital mastering makes sense in so many other ways is neither here nor there.  Give psychoacoustics its credit - it was only in its implementation in the home digital process over the last 40 years where things went wrong, i.e. market considerations and the belief that all consumers are idiots.

But now very good quality digital clocks for home systems are cheap.  How long before this permeates into the audiophile collective unconscious? 

Best wishes
Aubrey

@mikelavigne  I agree.  I have 28,700 LPs/7,000 CDs/7,000 78s.  I stopped purchasing jazz LPs (so many great but expensive recordings) and substituted CD versions.  So many are absolutely wonderful.  I have good quality audio gear and a great room so that's my advantage.   I intend to eliminate about 8,000 LPs and 2,000 78s over time (I've sold 18,000 records over the years) as I am a listener and not a collector (hence like @millercarbon, I listen to music almost always absent doing chores, just in the listening room).  

Like it or not most analogue vinyl records are made from digital files. I have always tried where possible to buy LPs that came from tape - ie closer to the source. On the whole they just sound better and not in a hifi way just more immediate and musical. I read this podcast from 'the Part Time Audiophile' about how LPs are made and was shocked when the expert guy said 'it was easier' (for him) to use digital files than tape to make the LP. This attitude will be prevalent imho in this dumbed down world we inhabit https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/10/14/how-records-are-made-the-occasional-podcast/

Digital transfers are done in High Res, 24/192 or better. This is invisible.
Nobody that I have done that AB testing with has been able to repeatedly identify the vinyl or it's 24/192 copy that I made with the Pure Vinyl program. But, since I can not make a record I can not go the other way. All I can do is compare commercial Vinyl and digital versions of the same piece but as Mike L indicated you are now dealing with different masters so all bets are off. Here are some very recent examples.
Little Feat, The Last Record Album, the vinyl sounds positively dull with too much bass and no treble. It does not even out at high volumes. It is obviously a terrible mastering job. The Digital is gorgeous in comparison. I chucked the record. Next is Jethro Tull, Heavy Horses. Vinyl is excellent the digital has almost no bass. Another obviously terrible mastering job. I chucked the file. Next is Stevie Wonder's Hotter than July. The vinyl is a MoFi release. These two are close. The MoFi is a little more dynamic but the digital has these beautiful black spaces between the instruments and voices. They are both good in their own way but I lean towards the digital. It is impossible for me to know if the vinyl was from a digital master but my intuition is that vinyl sounds like vinyl and that a record from a digital master is going to sound like vinyl. I have many recent recordings that I know were recorded digitally and the records are great as long as the pressing is decent and an unfortunate number of them are not, even the 180 gm "Audiophile" versions. That is certainly one thing you do not have to worry about with digital files.