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Vinyl / High qual analog tape / High-res digital -- One of these is not like the other

One common theme I read on forums here and elsewhere is the view by many that there is a pecking order in quality:

Top - High Quality Analog TapeNext - VinylBottom - Digital

I will go out on a limb and say that most, probably approaching almost all those making the claim have never heard a really good analog tape machine and high resolution digital side by side, and have certainly never heard what comes out the other end when it goes to vinyl, i.e. heard the tape/file that went to the cutter, then compared that to the resultant record?

High quality analog tape and high quality digital sound very similar. Add a bit of hiss (noise) to digital, and it would be very difficult to tell which is which. It is not digital, especially high resolution digital that is the outlier, it is vinyl. It is different from the other two.  Perhaps if more people actually experienced this, they would have a different approach to analog/vinyl?

This post has nothing to do with personal taste. If you prefer vinyl, then stick with it and enjoy it. There are reasons why the analog processing that occurs in the vinyl "process" can result in a sound that pleases someone. However, knowledge is good, and if you are set in your ways, you may be preventing the next leap.
roberttdid
glupson
7,842 posts
 
geoffkait,

"Yes, I know what you’re thinking: what about this? What about that?"
Wrong again. I was thinking how Michael Green and you are very similar in your unrelenting convictions.

By the way, asking what about this or that is how the world progressed. Well, there has to be balance in the Universe. Me for exploration and learning, you for solidified three topics. Cavemen unite!

Now, to be fair, you do learn. If that is what copying my ideas and words could be called. If you could only do it sooner than a month after I post it, you would earn straight Cs.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Gee, I didn’t see that coming. It’s endless drivel.
glupson
7,842 posts
 
geoffkait,

"...I didn’t see that coming."

Help is on the way 🧐.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Grow up, pea brain. 
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,197 posts
 
Even if not all people like mikelavigne system, I think it is largely resolving enough for most people to decide for themselves the difference between vinyl and digital...

Like he said and I think the same, in most case we enjoy digital  all of us, and never mind, most system dont have the resolving power to be a fair judge, without speaking about all the other synchronisations and sources problems to compare...

We can enjoy music on any medium, this is wise words, they will not end this debate tough, that for me is futile and unessential, because too much factors are at play for an experience to be convincing, except in exceptional case with a top audio system like the system of mikelavigne...

The key problem in audio, exceeding all the others, is how to embed any systems, mechanically, electrically, and acoustically....All the rest is arguing without final answers and even with no possible final answers in some case.... 
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