That's right, with an analog source vinyl will always be preferable. Provided the record manufacturing process doesn't have any intermediairy digital steps, which would throw all the benefits of the infinite analog signal out of the window. With digital sources it's a crap shoot. In most cases, CD's are produced with much compression, while the vinyl made from a digital master may not. In that case the vinyl will likely be superior. All else being equal, which it usually isn't. |
edgewear218 posts02-19-2020 12:17pm ... with an analog source vinyl will always be preferable. Provided the record manufacturing process doesn't have any intermediairy digital steps, which would throw all the benefits of the infinite analog signal out of the window.The "analog signal" on an LP is not "infinite." Not even close. It's a bandwidth-limited signal, and so is digital. |
Nandric, that is a common miss understanding. That is not how DACs work. DACs recreate the analog signal from digital data. If I show you both an analog 100 Hz waveform and one from a DAC they will look exactly the same. There are no on and offs, no steps. Digital has some significant advantages over analog. Once the signal is in digital form you can manipulate the data any way you want without adding distortion whereas in analog every time you pass the signal through another device there is always added distortion. Two recordings stand out in my mind as extremely special. One is Tower of Power Direct on Sheffield records and the other is Chick Corea's Chinese Butterfly which I down loaded in 96/24. One totally analog with minimal intervening steps and the other straight digital from the microphones and instruments to the inputs of my DACs. Frankly I have more digital downloads that reach this level of performance than records. It is much harder to damage a digital signal. It is also a shame that more recording is not done direct to disc. |
