Vinyl / High qual analog tape / High-res digital -- One of these is not like the other


One common theme I read on forums here and elsewhere is the view by many that there is a pecking order in quality:

Top - High Quality Analog TapeNext - VinylBottom - Digital

I will go out on a limb and say that most, probably approaching almost all those making the claim have never heard a really good analog tape machine and high resolution digital side by side, and have certainly never heard what comes out the other end when it goes to vinyl, i.e. heard the tape/file that went to the cutter, then compared that to the resultant record?

High quality analog tape and high quality digital sound very similar. Add a bit of hiss (noise) to digital, and it would be very difficult to tell which is which. It is not digital, especially high resolution digital that is the outlier, it is vinyl. It is different from the other two.  Perhaps if more people actually experienced this, they would have a different approach to analog/vinyl?

This post has nothing to do with personal taste. If you prefer vinyl, then stick with it and enjoy it. There are reasons why the analog processing that occurs in the vinyl "process" can result in a sound that pleases someone. However, knowledge is good, and if you are set in your ways, you may be preventing the next leap.
roberttdid
Dear @djones51 : Thank’s for the very good links. Here one posted by @cleeds in other thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

Problem with LP audiophiles is that are severely biased with the " nice " developed distortions/colorations and with the true missed recorded signal that never can be recovered.
Many of them are only sound lovers but not real MUSIC lovers as they think are.

They always speak of that " warmth, swetness, nuances " and the like adjectives that just do not exist in a near field live MUSIC that is the position where recording microphones are.

Several times I already explained step by step facts that impede the cartridge stylus tip can pick up all the recorded information and in the other side explained all the distortions developed at each single link in the LP playback process that’s is a nigthmare for say the least.
I explained all what happens at microscopic levels between the stylus tip ridding the grooves but almost all are " deaf " not even try to understand it " things "/facts that are just common sense. No they insist that digital is the experience that is missing a lot of information and developing distortions they do not like.

I tell those audiophiles that they need to listen a trumpet player seated at 2-3m. from him or with a piano player seated nearfield where the players been playing at live event SPL and then they will learn that MUSIC is all but warmth or sweet or the like: MUSIC has natural agresivenees, natural brigthness, dynamic power, even strident, with full rythm, wake up every kind of feeelings/emotions, , etc, etc.

What in true are missing those fake MUSIC lovers with digital? they are missing all the LP developed huge distortions ( read: warmth, swetness, etc, etc. ) and listening the recorded information they missed with the LP playback process.
Well, all of them are accustomed for 20-40 years to listen those " nice distortions ", they brain tells that if in digital does not exist those " nice distortions " then is wrong.

Bass range is the MUSIC foundation and no LP analog bass can compare with the digital true bass kind of sound.
MUSIC is and means accuracy ( not analythical. ), its notes has an accurate " order " as it has too its harmonics. LP experience is totally non-accurated it can’t be accurated when in all pivoted tonearms exist a tracking error that precludes per sé accuracy about and the inverse RIAA eq. can’t mimic the RIAA eq. from the recording process but not only that becaiuse in a CD there is no RIAA and the recording and playback processses are accurate. In digital does not exist the skipping of the stylus tip during grooves tracking.

Coming back to the bass frequency range, the better this range the better the overall listening experiences and analog can’t compete with digital in this sole characteristic.
Even with digital recorded LPs we can listen the difference in the bass range and its superiority over the non-digital recorded LPs.

Years ago I was exactly as all them till I had my first near field live MUSIC event, I learned from that very first time and followed learning attending to more nearfield seated live events..

I’m not biased to digital I’m biased to the MUSIC and listen MUSIC through LPs or digital alternative.

We don’t need scientific studies to understand the digital/analog differences in favor of digital, what we need is just common sense in an open non-biased brain/attitude.

Easy.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

I forgot on that bass range this thread I started several years ago:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/do-you-think-you-need-a-subwoofer/post?postid=310058#310058


@raul
My first nearfield live music event was years ago when I played trumpet. Now I just fool around with a mountain dulcimer.
Live events and a live instrument is one kind of experience; a cd or a vinyl are other experiences....Is it necessary to preach with engineering numbers the sacred truth of  the digital gospel? Is it realist to ask a cd, a vinyl, or a files or a tape, to reproduce the lived event totally? Each one will do his job with his own means and biases.... 


For me I accept the differences, and I live with them for what they are , a world in itself, not reducible, with his positives and negatives....



I listen to an organ opus of Bach right now, it will be different with a cd, a files, a vinyl, or with Tidal, with various tape recorder, or in a church live on a particular organ.... Why debating about the "truth" ? There is no truth here, except the particular advantages of each experiences.... My grain of salt.... :)


Electronical components and materials and mediums are not sounds, and sounds are not music, they lack the consciousness living the musical experience that will interpret these sounds, recreating them in the mind-body in the form of a synesthesic complexes of gestures, movements, emotions, ideas and perceptions....

Music is the relation between sounds and these synesthesic complexes....Music is not the faithfulness to an alleged " objective truth" about the reproduction of sound....

Too many concrete factors are also implicated to debate that seriously....Never mind the electronic components used, vinyl or tape or cd etc, their embeddings plays the more fundamental role in the final listening experience... Not one audio system sound the same....Is it then possible to decide the "truth" in the abstract, with only engineering numbers to take the decision? Asking the question is the answering.... :)


A final note: Someone can decide for himself, with his own system, be it very refined, but at the end his testimony is an interesting fact with which we can partake or not.... But this is a relative truth not an absolute truth....Mikelavigne for example has spoken about his own experience and his particular audio system in his particular house, and this gives matter to think...But anyone of us live with other system, other houses, and other tastes, and other past experiences etc....



I own close to 15,000 records, and I currently use three turntables.  I also have an SACD player and a music server.  If I was a record producer, and I wanted the best sound, and money was absolutely no object, I would record in digital.  That’s how good the current state of the art is.
mahgister
Live events and a live instrument is one kind of experience; a cd or a vinyl are other experiences....Is it necessary to preach with engineering numbers the sacred truth of the digital gospel? Is it realist to ask a cd, a vinyl, or a files or a tape, to reproduce the lived event totally? Each one will do his job with his own means and biases....

>>>>>While a great many audiophiles consider live acoustic music to be the sine qua non of sound quality and that “live music“ should be the absolute yardstick for measuring our home systems’ performance I believe that’s a logical fallacy. For one thing all venues where live music is performed sound different. Even one’s location at a venue sounds different from others. So how can they ever be an ideal sound? There can’t. Second, we should be striving to reproduce whatever was Encoded on the CD or Record or tape. Live music is a red herring.