Vinyl vs. digital: what am I doing wrong?

The Shelter/Rega are far from an ideal combination.

That turntable deserves much better.

Just my two cents, I had two records of Norah Jones (Come Away with Me)one in 200gram Classic Records and 180gram Blue Note Record. Both records sounded inferior to the CD version. So if you're judging your vinyl setup against your cd setup using Norah Jones as the source, you're not fully hearing what your vinyl rig can really do. The Norah record versions on my system sounded somewhat flat, distant, too laid back and not as precise in soundstaging, very withdrawn. The CD version is much better in all areas. I have a hunch the recording/masteering of this vinyl was not up to par.

Also, I never felt that one format is superior than the other, it really depends on the recording. Both formats can sound awesome if only each format was mastered/recorded well to begin with. So choose your recordings, not the format.

Wow, interesting indeed.

The vinyl versions of Nora blow away my CDs on my system. (Pro-ject RM10 with Sumiko Blackbird cartridge into a Rowland Continuum 500 amp). I liked the first one so much that I bought everything else I could find by her on vinyl.

Dave

I would suspect a mismatch between the cartridge and step-up stage or loading in the phono pre.

I have found about a 75 to 80% in the win column of Vinyl vs. the same CD… That means a few can in fact just be good, and mostly this really depends on the music being played, or how good the pressing on vinyl is that you have… some vinyl are dud's so don't kid yourself, and some CD's are pretty dynamically superior in few cases due to all the time and money went into mastering the CD at the time the piece was recorded and the vinyl was an afterthought. By the way I have pushed systems in the past to be nearly identical sound quality via vinyl or CD, Where they both would do it nearly as well as the other matching up.. Again you are not really comparing the two devices of a Turntable vs. a CD player, but a Recording vs. a Recording, you will have to Expand your Vinyl testing to some other things vs. AUDIOPHILE only recordings and you will most definitely start to find some Vinyl cannot be touched by the cd no matter how many DAConvertors or Transports you put behind some recordings.