Madman! Digital vs Vinyl


Anyone out there who has a great vinyl setup and a great digital setup, try this!

Bring up Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection Deluxe Edition on Qubuz for digital which includes Madman Across the Water and play it.

 

Then pull out your vinyl of Madman Across the Water and play it.  
 

Please tell me which sounds better on your system and what you have for TT, cartridge and phono preamp.

 

 I won’t bias the results by telling you what I think.

 

 Thanks 

dougthebiker

I have some really great sounding vinyl of Bill Evans, albeit not the original LPs...likely remastered and I do prefer the vinyl over the CDs I have of the same stuff.

I’ve concluded this.  It all depends on how the source was recorded and you need to spend a lot more on your vinyl rig to exceed digital results.  That said I prefer well recorded vinyl!  My vinyl rig is VPI HW-40, Pass x-27, Van Dre Hul Stradivarius.  Digital is Denafrips Terminator Plus w/ Gaia.

whether it’s worth investing in a really good phono preamp or not.

It would of very helpful if you let us know what components you have and which preamps your interested in. A budget would would also be very helpful. Then we can give you better advice specific to your audio chain beyond the general.

Also there are good to bad recordings on both vinyl and digital along with different audio chains, no way to start in the ideal equal.

The general consensus is that  vinyl sounds better than digital, so it isn’t just Fremer. Digital takes samples of an analog signal which when translated back to analog is not better than the original signal. You sometimes hear of DACs touted as sounding like analog, never the other way. As always, it depends on the quality of the audio components and their synergy in the audio chain. Like Fremer and many others, I have both analog and digital audio chains.

Interesting challenge- I’ll give it a shot, however, I’ve always found Madman to be a horribly recorded album. Very dark, almost veiled.