How much do you need to spend to get digital to rival analog?

Looking back, even BEFORE the Loudness Wars started, vinyl generally has higher dynamic range than its CD brethren. No bout a doubt it. You only need to look 👀 at the Dynamic Range Database to appreciate that. The other big advantage of vinyl, at least potentially, is frequency extension. I’d opine it’s extremely difficult to excavate the intricate data that is contained on CDs for a variety of reasons I’ve covered before many times. It’s a shadow of itself, or what it should be. For CDs, without a whole lot of effort, Air, Sweetness and fullness of bass are usually sub par. Even then.....

Except almost all vinyl in the last several decades has been digital right up to the cutting head. Pre-digital, most analog tapes and cutting head amps/systems had bandwidth limitations too, even if the theoretical cartridge limit was higher.


The dynamic range database is purely an indication of the mixing and mastering, nothing about the limits of the format.


Absent any proof, your points about CDs are just conjecture, the overall robustness shown in ability to store data shown in data CDs. The real time nature of audio called for different error correction but data CDs show that putting 650mb of data on a CD (similar to amount of audio data) and recovering it is possible. Either way streaming negates that.

Thanks much for the barrage of logical fallacies. Good job! 🤗 Streaming by most accounts is inferior in sound quality to plain old vanilla CD. But I’m sure you like the convenience, right? Which would make your streaming argument just another strawman argument. 😬 Also, I am not really interested in PROOF of anything, only EVIDENCE. It’s a subjective hobby. Get over it. You sound like Juror #3 in 12 Angry Men, You can’t prove it! 😡

Looking back, even BEFORE the Loudness Wars started, vinyl generally has higher dynamic range than its CD brethren. No bout a doubt it. You only need to look 👀 at the Dynamic Range Database to appreciate that. The other big advantage of vinyl, at least potentially, is frequency extension. I’d opine it’s extremely difficult to excavate the intricate data that is contained on CDs for a variety of reasons I’ve covered before many times. It’s a shadow of itself, or what it should be. For CDs, without a whole lot of effort, Air, Sweetness and fullness of bass are usually sub par. Even then...

I exchanged few comments with the local audio designer. He also has years of experience in studio production. He claims 24/48 which is practically used as a standard for many things today provides a real dynamical range which on a format level surpasses anything a vinyl can produce. As I understand the same is not true for 16/44.1, though.

The real difference happens in production/mastering. Practically anything on the digital side gets compressed when producing a master. There's an attractiveness associated with compression, too - with some music at least it may sound more attractive when compressed, especially on non hi-fi systems. Sad but true. However though compression is used commonly the level of compression is not the same on each record, of course. 

On another level, part of a dynamic nature is associated with reproduction device. Currently I use AD1865 based DIY NOS r2r DAC, and I can tell it made an immediate difference in dynamics of reproduction compared to few modern delta-sigma DACs, which according to their specs should not lack dynamics...

If I had known that analog was so much better than digital I would not have bought my dac and streamer.  I would have spent the money on vinyl!