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

completely understand your reluctance to allow actual listening to intrude on your nice neat world view. it does require a bit of effort.

I'm nowhere near Seattle but I would be more than happy to listen in a controlled blind test and see the preference of all involved. It might be vinyl but it still doesn't change reality. 

You should now understand that the terms ‘analog’ and ‘digital’ are based on idealisations. Real systems and signals will show a mixture of analog (smooth continuous) and digital (quantised) properties. Although it's often convenient to assume a signal/system is one thing or the other, this mixed behaviour is an unavoidable consequence of the way the world works.

My nice neat world view is kind of messy.

I'm nowhere near Seattle but I would be more than happy to listen in a controlled blind test and see the preference of all involved. It might be vinyl but it still doesn't change reality.

simply tell us the hardware and media to be played. we can all judge for ourselves in our own way. i have less than zero interest in a discussion of DBT.

Oh well,  wouldn't want to intrude on your nice neat world view.

Who on Earth still has nice neat world view? Can I get into your world, please? Mine is kind of crappy these days.

It's not a nice neat world Mike, it is having access to all the pieces along the way and knowing what comes out the other end, and knowing what is there and what is missing. It's having had access to the people making music and listening to what comes out and their comments. 24/192 digital in it's pure form, has far more "information" than is possible by any measure on 15ips tape, and way more than vinyl. When you strip away what happens in mixing and mastering and just look at what the format is capable of, 24/192 digital is unmatched, and 24/96 is not too far behind for practical purposes. Vinyl definitely colors what passes through, and even tape will create colorations. Digital is pure, it's detailed, its busy, everything is there ... and maybe that is too raw for most people. Musicians say it sounds truest to what they hear coming from the instrument, but they don't say it sounds the most pleasant. Throw in the cross-talk of vinyl and you have some other interesting psycho-acoustic effects unmatched by other formats.


Strangely enough, a really low noise floor (white noise), may even be a detriment. As Raul alluded, the at some level quantized aspect our auditory system coupled with its non-linear nature means that signal detection can be improved in some instances by adding noise. It's called Stochastic Resonance.


I have absolutely no doubt that high-res digital carries significantly more information than vinyl or analog tape. I have no doubt on a macro level that it is more true to the original sound.


What I have doubts about it whether digital/high-res digital is optimized for getting information into the brain

mikelavigne1,557 posts06-29-2020 3:45pm

Some may prefer vinyl but it can’t hold the information that a digital file can it’s impossible. If a square wave won’t play then something is wrong. No such thing as " all analog".

i completely understand your reluctance to allow actual listening to intrude on your nice neat world view. it does require a bit of effort.