A very good ENGINEERING explanation of why analog can not be as good as digital..

I do not want to convert any vinyl people to cd or ask any digiphobes to listen to digital. I have no problem with anyone listening to vinyl exclusively or part-time. Same goes for digital.

What I would like to assert is that both analog and digital can sound very good and very bad. So can systems assembled to play one or both of the formats. People hear differently and have different tastes. So there are no absolutes. In the real world of our listening rooms, not theory, vinyl doesn’t always sound better than digital and vice versa. It’s a matter of a combination of specific recordings, systems and people.

You know that Stereophile has a feature each year called, "Records to Die For" or R2D4. Each writer contributes two recordings that excel both musically and in sound quality. Now, IMHO, Stereophile leans vinyl in overall tone, but I think many people would be surprised at how many of the recommendations are cds year after year. These are people who make their living listening to music.

So I think that it’s true that both formats can sound very good or very bad and we don’t have to argue about which is better. We should listen to the format(s) we enjoy and let the other guy listen to what he enjoys, without condescension. I have a funny feeling that that won’t happen though.

"In the real world of our listening rooms, not theory, vinyl doesn’t always sound better than digital and vice versa. It’s a matter of a combination of specific recordings, systems and people."


Amen.

Actually you can find an explanation somewhere for whatever you want. Analog is more accurate than digital, digital is more accurate than analog. What have you. But this all overlooks the many serious problems in digital playback systems, not to mention the horrendous dynamic range compression that has been going on for the last twenty years. Maybe things will be different some day. Sigh!

Of course, sound quality notwithstanding, the sheer joy in finding old collections of records, cleaning the promising ones with my ultrasonic RCM, and cueing them up is often just so amazing. 

As kind of a known audio-guy and owner of a busy bakery/cafe, sometimes customers will just give me their old record collection. If I was a digital only guy, due to digital’s better specs, I’d never have discovered so much obscure music. I challenge anyone to find “The Sounds of the Loon” in any digital format. But the 45 or so minutes of this old monophonic record were a delight. The narrator explained all about the behavior of the Loon with lots of really well recorded audio. 

So so the debate for me is moot. I love it all.

~Oran