CDs Vs LPs

You need to add "to me" or "to vinyl afficianados" to make this statement correct. To anyone with a decent system, digital no longer has to sound bright.

The best digital system I've heard to date is the StahlTech, which sounded smoother and more detailed than MSB, dCS, Modwright modified Oppo; the latter three being some of the best I've heard.
The designer of that system was in my room at RMAF; we were playing his system with a server as a source. The cut was from Massive Attack on Mezzanine, something we both liked. I mentioned that I had that on LP and he was interested in hearing it. After only 5 seconds he turned to me and said 'Digital has such a long way to go'. It is my opinion that his pragmatism in this regard is why his DAC is one of the very best. It had better be- it retailed for $37,000.00.

So I'm going to flip this one around- the better your system, the easier it is to hear digital problems compared to LP; Mike heard it in only 5 seconds.

Cheaper systems tend to have so much higher ordered harmonic distortion that its difficult to tell if a CD is brighter than LP or not- and likely the owner has done something to tone down that brightness caused by distortion brought on be inferior gear.

OK Ralph, you're right.  There's no such thing as a not very well built or poorly set up turntable or cartridge, no damaged vinyl, no dirty records, no off center spindle holes, no poorly recorded LPs.

Everything in vinyl land is  just as good as it can be.  Every playback of every LP is indistinguishable  from live musicians playing in the room.  I don't know what got into me that I forgot all that for a minute.  Thanks for correcting my thinking.

CD's who buys CD's anymore?

Anyone interested in the more out-of-the-way classical repertoire.

An anecdote.  My last trip to audition speakers.  Most stores have now gone over to streaming.  The first two tracks I habitually use are from a recording called "Crye" done by the Concordia consort of viols on Metronome of English music for viols.  It's an excellent recording, beautifully played, and very revealing of many aspects of speakers.  Was it anywhere on the database?  No!

Fortunately, the salesperson was accommodating enough to lug a transport in from another room.

OK Ralph, you're right. There's no such thing as a not very well built or poorly set up turntable or cartridge, no damaged vinyl, no dirty records, no off center spindle holes, no poorly recorded LPs.

Everything in vinyl land is just as good as it can be. Every playback of every LP is indistinguishable from live musicians playing in the room. I don't know what got into me that I forgot all that for a minute. Thanks for correcting my thinking.

Yeah, and no poorly built CD players, no damaged CDs, no dirty CDs, none that simply won't play, none that are poorly recorded??
The problem here is conflating the media in general with individual results, notwithstanding the fact that nothing in this world is perfect, not digital and not analog.

But if we are going to have this discussion, its helpful to work with facts. When someone posts LPs specs that might have been true in 1962, its not the same as saying that's how it is now. I've had people do that to me- claiming that there have been no improvements in cartridge or tone arm tech since the early 60s- then expecting me to take that hand waving for real!

So here are a few facts.
CD/digital noise floor is usually limited to the room in which the recording was made and the electronics chain used.
LP noise floor is variable from about -60 to the same above. The LP mastering system has arguably more headroom than any other operation in audio.

The results of either are highly variable and depend largely on the producer and the care taken by the recording and mastering personnel.

Distortion amounts are not vastly different, but the nature of the distortion is. LP distortion is less audible because its mostly harmonic as opposed to inharmonic. IOW aliasing is highly audible in small amounts where harmonic distortion is not. The LP is at a disadvantage due to poor setup resulting a large amount of distortion.

Bandwidth of digital is variable due to scanning rate and the need for record side filters. Sometimes exceeds 20KHz. LP is *usually* bandwidth limited to about 50KHz in record but can go much higher.

Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn't actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin. Otherwise, the LP is fragile and should be treated with care.  CDs don't have ticks and pops, but can have dropouts and can get 'stuck'. The surface is fragile and should be treated with care. Music can be streamed, but bandwidth can cause the music to stop, and provenience issues can cause your music to simply not be on the cloud where you left it. (For this reason I prefer disk storage with ample backup)

Analog storage is a pain in the ass. Digital storage usually is easy, until it isn't and then its enough to make you cry if you lost your entire disk or the like.
In a nutshell, LP is usually more pleasing while digital can have a bit less noise, individual results depending on a wide range of variables on both sides.