is it possible to make digital audio sound like vintage vinyl

Michael Fremer has been making digital files from records for years. Very few of us ever will hear some of the super high end cartridges he reviews. But we can hear them via digital files. He's played them for many people at many shows for many years now and always easy to hear the differences in the cartridges. 

Digital certainly is good enough to be used to compare like this. But, indistinguishable? Let's not get carried away.

millercarbon

Michael Fremer has been making digital files from records for years. Very few of us ever will hear some of the super high end cartridges he reviews. But we can hear them via digital files. He’s played them for many people at many shows for many years now and always easy to hear the differences in the cartridges.

Digital certainly is good enough to be used to compare like this. But, indistinguishable? Let’s not get carried away.

Before you become too certain, I can only suggest that you try it for yourself.

Remember, I’m an analog guy. I’ll always be an analog guy. But it isn’t that difficult to make a digital copy of an LP that is indistinguishable from the original. I understand that it pains some vinylphiles to acknowledge that truth. After all, I’m one of them!

To be clear, you’ll need hi-res digital for this to work. 16/44.1 won’t be sufficient.

@cleeds

You’d be surprised! I can make hi-res digital copies of an LP - played back using a very "high level vinyl playback system" - that are indistinguishable from the original. No special skills are required.

I know that can be a disturbing thought; it was a discovery I found difficult to accept. But it’s true. Feel free to try it for yourself.

no, i would not be at all surprised.

i have over 1000 2xdsd rips of my own vinyl, none of which measure up to a direct comparison of my vinyl. and many hundreds of high rez tape transfers from the same tape as my vinyl.

i enjoy those digital transfers all the time. they can be and mostly are excellent. but when i pull out my vinyl it’s another level when compared directly. happy to demonstrate this for anyone interested.

my digital source is top level as i do mostly listen to digital. it's really fine. but.......the best of vinyl is just another thing.

mikelavigne

i have over 1000 2xdsd rips of my own vinyl, none of which measure up to a direct comparison of my vinyl. and many hundreds of high rez tape transfers from the same tape as my vinyl.
i enjoy those digital transfers all the time. they can be and mostly are excellent. but when i pull out my vinyl it’s another level when compared directly ... the best of vinyl is just another thing.

I'm not familiar with your system and have no reason to doubt what you say you hear.

I'm going to ask you a question that often annoys me when it is asked by others, but I'm genuinely curious and sincere about this: Do you know what quality of LP playback renders a digital copy audibly inferior? In your opinion, where would digital have to improve to overcome that limitation?

I usually ignore questions like that and wouldn't blame you if you do, too.

I’m not familiar with your system and have no reason to doubt what you say you hear.

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615

Do you know what quality of LP playback renders a digital copy audibly inferior? In your opinion, where would digital have to improve to overcome that limitation?

for over 20 years i’ve been posting and talking about why the best vinyl sounds better than the best digital. what i find is unless i can get someone into my room and we can listen together it becomes such a circular discussion. then when we listen together; it’s like bringing a pencil to a gun fight. not even a knife. and that’s because really having a top level vinyl reference is not trivial. for my own self, i have chased digital music reproduction perfection with the same degree of commitment i’ve given to vinyl. and it’s got lot’s better over the years. but so has my vinyl improved too.

i’m not a techie. i have my own views of the components of what vinyl does better. a digital copy lacks the nuance and completeness of the music. it lacks capturing the ambiance and breath of the music. it can’t get the same musical weight, timbre, density and tonal complexity. it misses the sparkle and fire. it falls short in flow and energy projection. these things all are present in digital, just short by degrees. but these degrees bring vinyl across a threshold of realism digital cannot cross.

and unless i show you, i have no illusions you might change your mind. it’s an experiential thing.

i do think that converting music to numbers and back to analog that a degree of reality does get lost. and the analog tape or direct to disc technologies are able to preserve what the number crunching loses. not that analog recording is perfect. this is just what my ears seem to tell me.

IMHO digital would need a format created that does not yet exist to get to the level of vinyl. and really........digital is fully satisfying to me as it is. it’s only when someone drags this old idea out that we then do this familiar dance again. there is no music delivery market demand or commercial reason to create a new higher format.......a ’Holodeck’ sort of techie break-thru. maybe the movie or gaming or defense industries throw money at the question and something new gets born. like Bell Labs and telephones and later the computer age and how hifi rode the coattails of those techie break-thrus to where it has come.

follow the money.......and right now there is no pot of money to go after for a higher format.