Vinyl vs. top-notch digital

Vinyl is better because it can drive you more crazy for longer periods than digital can.

Because music is MADE from materials as they vibrate,ie the WOOD body of a guitar VIBRATING, the METAL strings of a guitar MOVING,ie woods, metals, how cant a material that vibrates, namely, the materials that a plinth, stylus, cartridge body, , the stylus, the record mat be the IDEAL transducer to IMITATE those materials and THEREFORE real life music? (this has to be HEARD to be understood)

You cant get earthy tones from a laser pick up!

The sphere in which it operates is not mechanical or material sciences dependent, unlike real instruments, therefore it has a weakness.

Harnessing vinyls inherent potential and taking it to the extreme with few or any failings is more difficult than doing the same with digital.

Thats why we can get mixed results sometimes and contradictory reports.

On some days the the differences between vinyl and digital are negligable to me but on days when i want to strive for the best, i instinctively turn to "working" with vinyl.

If i am an extremely passionate winemaker i want to start with the best grapes from the best region and not just buy juice in pails or make wine from a kit, its the same with music playback for me, if i am striving for the best playback i start with the inherently better format and hope that as i process it i get one of the best wines ever, but its no guarantee, things can go wrong but nevertheless the potential is always still there, even if i might have to wait for next years grapes to try again. I dont start making wine from pails of juice because the magic wasnt realized! Wine from a kit has no potential to win any blue ribbons or compete with grapes but yes it can taste good and if theres nothing better you can still enjoy it.

The answer to whether a person should go vinyl is a question each must answer for themselves. It depends on how intense and passionate the audiophile is and whether they enjoy striving,working and chasing after mediums of playback that have their pitfalls and foibles as part of their pleasure!. If you are a audio aficionado of the highest degree you will inescapably pursue vinyl. Its unavoidable in my opinion OR you are not as serious as you might have thought and you prefer convenience over the pursuit of perfection.

If you pick apart what vinyl playback is doing or trying to do you realize that it is 'nature' trying to imitate 'nature' BY 'nature', whereas digital, i believe, is something more 'polluted' or one or two steps further removed from that. What can imitate 'nature' better than NATURE?

Thats my take on the digital vs, vinyl discussion.(june 2011)

Just enjoying these astonishingly-mellow responses. All I'd add is that "the work," involved in vinyl playback seems just a touch overstated: cleaning the record, setting it on platter and dropping need takes literally a minute. With regard to the "interruptive" necessity of turning a record over, I can report symphony orchestras often re-tune between Symphonic mov'ts, so it's a "tie" there. : ). Tics and Pops? I listen to Classical and was able to put together a pretty large collection that was oh, 98% "digitally" silent. What I've not seen vinyl enthusiasts point out is that--however incredible vinyl's reproductive capacity--the last 1/3 of records are audibly compromised.

"the last 1/3 of records are audibly compromised." Huh?

If you can find me a turntable/cart combo that makes "O Fortuna" (of Carmina Burana) sound that same both in the opening grooves and the last grooves (the piece opens and closes with the same material), please tell me about it. Maybe a linear tracker?

Or take the spectacular closing of Boito's Mephistopheles Prelude: huge orchestra, chorus, thunder machine, pipe organ, off-stage trumpets, floor-rattling percussion, (gives me goosebumps just thinking about it); it's all just too much for those last grooves.

Yeah, and then there is the cannons. "yawn" I don't know where you live but if you can get over my way I'd be more than happy to take you up on your challenge.

This theory that there is an inherent flaw in tracking the inner grooves of vinyl is an urban legend propped up by less capable equipment and/or setup skills.

Hi-rez, that which we can reasonably purchase for our homes, still does not give me as good a presentation as vinyl.