Old vs. new

Cooder heard about the new recording format, digital, and, being a fanatic about the recorded sound of his incredible guitar tone (he's a master), gave it a try on his Bop Til You Drop album. He hated digital! Back to analog he ran

That's too funny. There were many stories like that in the early days.

Only listening to un amplified life music is the real analogue Master but this is a one time event because of location / room characteristics. 

When a sound engineer or recording engineer lays his hands on music to put in on tape or store in a digital format it is already a representation of “real” .  

The vintage ears from then are not the ears from now. I like vintage sound but do not relate to it as beter but different.  

Bad engineering wil kill good sound. Maybe that’s the case? 

@richier31 

The vintage ears from then are not the ears from now. I like vintage sound but do not relate to it as beter but different.  

Really? Simply compare original pressing of some properly recorded LPs from the 70s to modern reissues of the same albums made today from the digital copy. Sometimes even if the master tape was the OG they can't compete to the good old pressing. Cutting engineer is very important person in the process of vinyl pressing. BTW all the pressing machines, cutting lathes... are all vintage, they can modify it with new parts, but these equipment is no longer made. So you can imagine how good it was back then, when all these machines were brand new, when the vinyl was main media format in the world.   

@chakster  The cutting engineer is indeed very important. Harry T Moss did some fabulous work with the Beatles original LPs.

So far, I don't think anyone has quite matched him in their subsequent transfers. At least to my ears, there's something very lacking in the 2009 CDs.

I’m always surprised at how good bop til you drop sounds, given that it’s supposedly the first digital LP. It doesn’t have that shimmery flourescent sound I associate with so much 80s era recording. Maybe a lot of the bad digital sound of the early days really does come down to poor or lazy mastering, or otherwise inadequate implementation