When and how did you, if at all, realize vinyl is better?

Actually to be honest, this thread has gotten me thinking again about improving my digital setup. Much as I love the Chord Hugo DAC, it’s not that user-friendly as home stereo component. Too small and travel-oriented. So there’s a lot of music going unlistened-to on my server. Maybe I need me one of them Tabletop Hugos... (he says while looking around to see what he can sell).

And another down side of vinyl: as I improve my analog system over time, I’ve come to realize that much of the vinyl I buy - maybe even a majority - just doesn’t sound that good. Either it’s poor recording or mastering, or it’s an old and trashed record that looked fine in the store. Cheap software is a key part of the equation for me, so this is kind of a PITA.

I will admit that ON AVERAGE digital files may be better than analog, because digital sources eliminate this whole issue.

Better? Than CD, presumably?

As soon as I learnt how CD worked, I knew it was two steps forward and three back. Just not enough resolution.

Actually listening to them (waaay back, before they were even for sale) confirmed my fears.

It was introduced before both AD/DA conversion and optical disc manufacture were mature technologies.

Had it waited a decade, for PCM resolution at least three or four times higher, and a disc able to  to accomodate the same 74 minutes (or more) of this increased amount of data, it might not have been the disaster it was.

I will admit that ON AVERAGE digital files may be better than analog, because digital sources eliminate this whole issue.

I've not found that to be the case! The fact that there are a lot of poor recordings out there has been going on a long time and digital, if anything, exacerbated that as there are so many more recordings done on laptops and the like with severe budget restraints.

The recording industry wanted digital to happen as the recording cost is so much lower- almost non-existent in many cases. Analog requires that you spend a fair bit on the tape for the multi-channel machine; 1" and 2" tape that only goes for 1/2 hour gets to be a hefty cost in very short order! But if you have a laptop and some cheap microphones you're in business with digital and a lot of such recordings have made their way into the marketplace.