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Another Analog v. Digital Thread? Not Really

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. The premise is this: If the highest compliment that can be given to digital is that it sounds analog, why bother with digital? I would never have posted this question, but the other week something happened. After owning my Oppo 205 for about a year and a half, I decided to sell it given the fact I wasn’t that crazy about it and the selling prices were quite good, although I posted mine for significantly less than many others are asking. BTW - In the last month I owned the Oppo, I found it tremendously improved by placing a Vibrapod 3 under each foot.

So a nice young man comes by for an audition and he likes the Oppo very much and purchases it. He is into 4k and all that stuff, but also wants some better audio quality. So that’s that.

Before he leaves, he asks to hear a vinyl record played on my Basis turntable. It’s a nice table - 2001 with Vector arm and Transfiguration Orpheus. I would rate it as the low end of the high end. Well the guy’s jaw just dropped. After sitting for an hour listening to the Oppo, he says that everything is so much more "alive" was the word he used and he couldn’t get his mind around the fact that he was listening to the exact same system with everything the same except the source.

I was considering replacing the Oppo with something like a Cambridge transport and Orchid dac because I have to play my CDs, right? But then I starting thinking why I had to play CDs anymore at all. It’s not so crazy when you think about it. Many of us gave up vinyl when CDs started getting decent, so what’s so strange about going back in the other direction?

So I asked myself - if analog is so much better, why would I even bother listening to CDs anymore?
Convenience? Well, sure, but I don’t really consider putting on a record very inconvenient, so that’s not really it.
Many titles on CD that are not on vinyl? I think that argument may be largely dissipated nowdays. It seems that virtually anything I would remotely want to listen to is available on vinyl, either new or used. You have thousands of CDs? OK, but if they don’t sound as good as a record, why would you want to listen to them just because you have them. I know it seems like a waste, but it happens sometimes.

Let me just finish with this, so there’s no confusion. If you have some insane high-end digital rig that you believe outdoes analog, this is not directed to you. But, for anyone who believes the best compliment you can give to digital is that it sounds analog, why bother? Also, to you streamers out there, the freedom from having a large quantity of physical media in your home is definitely a good argument. We all collect too much stuff and it’s nice to get rid of some.

Hopefully, this will be taken in the spirit it’s given, but I doubt it.
Merry Christmas, really.
chayro
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
What I’m curious about is what makes LPs sound better to so many people, given that the vast majority of LPs are digitally mastered these days. Is it that most digital playback systems just aren’t up to the level of the gear used to produce the recordings, or is it that a good analog system adds a quality to the signal that can’t (or hasn’t yet been) replicated in the digital domain?


Well first of all in my experience its not so much "so many" people as nearly all. That’s based on years of playing records and CDs and the only ones who didn’t express that its flat-out no contest were, sad to say, audiophiles. Precisely zero non-audiophiles prefer CD. Wives of audiophiles have come up and told me privately how amazed they are. As one said, "I could listen to this all night!" Which I thought was the idea.

Its not the level of the gear. That’s not it. When my wife first noticed how much better records sound she didn’t even know she was listening to a record. Simply heard the music, asked what sounds so good? She was used to CD. As far as she knew it was a CD. She had no way of knowing I had dug my 30 year old Technics out of a cardboard box in the garage and hooked it up. So mull that one over. 30 years old. Patch cords. POC power cord. No shelf. No nothing. Versus brand new California Audio Labs CDP with Synergistic interconnect and power cord and sitting on BDR Cones. Should be no contest. Well, it was. But the other way. Its just not even close.

Except, remember, among audiophiles. So maybe the question should be What is wrong with audiophiles? Heh.

or is it that a good analog system adds a quality to the signal that can’t (or hasn’t yet been) replicated in the digital domain?


We report, you decide:

Jennifer Warnes, in an interview found somewhere on the web, is asked about the digital recording and mastering of Famous Blue Raincoat. Four master tapes were compared, three digital, one analog. The analog master was identical in all respects except the analog tape deck. Famous Blue Raincoat is supposedly an all-digital recording. Reading this interview I learned it is not. Warnes, the producer, and I’m forgetting if it was Cohen or who the other two were, but the four with approval all preferred the analog master.



jaytor's avatar
jaytor
762 posts
 
@millercarbon - that may be (likely is) true but it doesn't answer the question. Why do LPs sound better when the recording was mastered digitally and never converted back to analog before making the CD? It's my understanding (which may be incorrect) that this is the way almost all music is produced now and for the past 15-20 years.

There are, of course, exceptions, but that's not what I'm asking about. I can completely understand how an analog master will sound better transferred to LP than to CD. I absolutely loved the sound of the Sheffield Labs direct to disc recordings I had in the 70s and 80s and, despite the fact they weren't always the greatest musicians/performances, the sound was amazing. 
jaytor's avatar
jaytor
762 posts
 
The only thing I can postulate is that the surface noise on LPs is masking the digital artifacts that we find most offensive and letting the beauty of the music come through. But if that is the case, it seems like it would be easy to add this kind of noise to a digital source (although it would obviously make the device measure must worse). 

I suspect that even if this is a factor, it's not the only thing that makes analog front-ends sound the way they do.
audiozenology
362 posts
 
But they were converted back to analog ... DAC in the cutting machine. This is the dirty little secret it appears no one wants to address in threads like this.


Why do LPs sound better when the recording was mastered digitally and never converted back to analog before making the CD? It's my understanding (which may be incorrect) that this is the way almost all music is produced now and for the past 15-20 years.


Can't say I know many younger audiophiles who have the view of the OP, which was really not a question at all, just begging the question fan-boy vinyl. Maybe it is just old ears or old brains that prefer vinyl?

I have been a tolerable musician at times in my life. I have heard very good vinyl system, and very good digital systems .... have them myself, and the best mastering is usually the one that wins for overall presentation, but when it comes to realism, a good digital system wins for me every time. Let's not forget, that almost no record, live recorded or not sounds much like what you hear live. Microphone positions, mixing, etc. are not remotely like what Joe audiophile in seat B13 is hearing.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

No serious music lover is going to choose one format over another. I have lots of LP’s that have yet to be released on CD, and lots of albums that are still available only on CD. You think I’m going to let the available format of any given recorded music determine if I will obtain and listen to it?!

Superior sound quality is a bonus, not the point. Some of my favorite music is available only in far-from-great recorded sound quality. Toscanini’s Beethoven Symphonies, Glenn Gould’s everything, Hank Williams’---the Hillbilly Shakespeare---songs of longing, Howlin’ Wolf’s primal screams, Little Richard’s and Johnny Burnette’s insanely great Rock ’n Roll masterpieces, Louis Jordan’s Jump Swing band, the list is very long.

You listen to your great sound, I’ll listen to my great music.

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