Having made numerous digital copies of vinyl albums I am inclined to agree will cleeds. As I mentioned above it is difficult to tell which is which.
However in comparing a vinyl album with it's digital download is another issue. It is very easy to distinguish the versions even with a very clean record. As to which one sounds better it is a toss up. I will say there is a consistent quality that the vinyl has across several cartridges that distinguishes it from the digital download and these are all 24/96 or better. The vinyl sounds a bit more distant and (this is hard to describe) you get the sense of an echo or perhaps air around voices and instruments. The digital is more up front with less going on in the background. Given that there is much more going on in the analog signal path to get to the vinyl copy one would have to believe there is additional harmonic distortion added which many of us like. You get this even with vinyl versions of digital recordings. With digital recordings played back digitally you are in numbers immediately and stay there all the way to your DAC. You can do pretty much anything to a digital file without unintentionally adding distortion. Certainly we all try to minimize distortion in our own systems but there is nothing we can do about the process that produced the software. In short, vinyl adds something to the music that is missing in Hi Res Downloads. Call it whatever you want. Sometimes it sounds better. Sometimes not. If I had to guess I would think analog tape and Hi Res downloads have more in common than any comparison with vinyl.
If I did not have a huge vinyl collection would I get started now? You bet. Turntables are cool devices and a tinkerer's dream. A turntable is a record playing tool. I love tools. You can never have enough of them. Holding on to a record cover is so much more fulfilling than a CD box. It is artwork. But as an early adapter I also have 2 terabytes of music on my hard drive. One can never have enough music. Music is a tool for happiness. People who listen to a lot of music live longer. That is an association and not necessarily causation.
However in comparing a vinyl album with it's digital download is another issue. It is very easy to distinguish the versions even with a very clean record. As to which one sounds better it is a toss up. I will say there is a consistent quality that the vinyl has across several cartridges that distinguishes it from the digital download and these are all 24/96 or better. The vinyl sounds a bit more distant and (this is hard to describe) you get the sense of an echo or perhaps air around voices and instruments. The digital is more up front with less going on in the background. Given that there is much more going on in the analog signal path to get to the vinyl copy one would have to believe there is additional harmonic distortion added which many of us like. You get this even with vinyl versions of digital recordings. With digital recordings played back digitally you are in numbers immediately and stay there all the way to your DAC. You can do pretty much anything to a digital file without unintentionally adding distortion. Certainly we all try to minimize distortion in our own systems but there is nothing we can do about the process that produced the software. In short, vinyl adds something to the music that is missing in Hi Res Downloads. Call it whatever you want. Sometimes it sounds better. Sometimes not. If I had to guess I would think analog tape and Hi Res downloads have more in common than any comparison with vinyl.
If I did not have a huge vinyl collection would I get started now? You bet. Turntables are cool devices and a tinkerer's dream. A turntable is a record playing tool. I love tools. You can never have enough of them. Holding on to a record cover is so much more fulfilling than a CD box. It is artwork. But as an early adapter I also have 2 terabytes of music on my hard drive. One can never have enough music. Music is a tool for happiness. People who listen to a lot of music live longer. That is an association and not necessarily causation.