Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

Mahgister, you are entitled to think that doing all that stuff to a DAC will make it sound better but that is psychological and solely in your own world. The only way you can make a DAC sound different is by dumping it in the bathtub. However with a turntable all you have to do is increase the VTF a little. There are all sorts of things you can do to a turntable to change its sonic characteristics. Getting a turntable to sing separates the men from the boys. Anybody can get a DAC to play even millercarbon:-)))

Any piece of gear is always an ideal GENERIC design with measured and verified theoretical capabilities, but any piece of gear, to produce a sound or to contribute to produce a sound, must be implemented in a SPECIFIC environment, which will be each time different... This is the reason why reviews have only anecdotal meanings...

A dac like a turntable will sound differently if the mechanical, electrical, amd acoustical embeddings are controlled OR not...

A dac can be isolated mechanically like a turntable, his metal box can be coupled/decoupled in the right way or not, the electric field around the arm of a turntable like the electromagnetic field around the dac can be act upon , and no vinyl on a turntable will be perceived in the same way in different room like any speakers.... You cannot review a dac or a turntable in the same way with the same results in different conditions...

When you throw a dac in a bathtub you change his GENERIC capabilities by introducing it in a new SPECIFIC environtment.... This is drastic change.... The modifications of the 3 embeddings controls do the same BUT in a controlled and subtle way and the dac can continuously work...It cannot in a bathtub....

And by the way spare me the "placebo" accusation....😁 You know better....I hope you know better anyway....🤔

The psychological placebo effect dont work in the same way in audio and in the case when you give unbeknown to someone a pill of sugar, his spirit being directly linked to the body the sugar pill can do miracles because the link between brain and body is a complete unity...

But in audio cumulative materials modifications in an incremental way with an increase in positive S.Q. for many years, after hundred of experiments with my homemade devices, cannot be reduce to be "placebo" only and mainly, because the link between my brain and the perception of sound is MEDIATED in a complex way by different material working dimensions (mechanical, electrical and acoustical) and is NOT direct link like in the case of the spirit and the body.... Miracles are possible in medecine not so much in audio...Except in the nutcase people ready for asylum , and i hope you will exclude me from this case....

Getting an audio system to sing  is what  really " separate the man from the boys" by the way, anybody can tweak a turntable even you .... But to embed rightfully and to win on all S.Q. counts the many elements of an audio system, working on the vibrations and resonance problems, and decresing the noise floor of the system and of the house because they are coupled together indeed, and implementing a complete sets of acoustical passive and active (non electronical) controls in the room acoustic, all that for peanuts money,mthis is what i call separate man and from boys....

Anybody with enough money can buy some S.Q. buying  good electronical devices, but audio begins after that... Not anybody can with peanuts money changing the three embeddings and create an audiophile experience.... I succeed... Call it placebo if it is your only argument and if this contribute to your peace of mind.... 😊 And i dont doubt that you can tweak your turntable without placebo effect in play....Anybody can do that by the way... But almost all people own an under working audio system, not knowing how to embed it especially at no cost....

I wish you the best and Merry Christmas 😌

 If the discussion is  how music feels and all the other stuff? ok here it goes. 454 10.25 compression ratio, 600 cfm Holly , Muncie 4 speed, 4.11 gears  OR  a 375 volt Tesla with 3 batteries. Old school. Talk about openess. First one analog next digital..  IMO.

   Merry Christmas and a happy new year everyone.  HO HO HO

Back in the early cd days, I was anxious to replace my vinyl with the perfect sound forever, zero surface noise discs that were promised. Too anxious, as I dumped well over a thousand albums (some that have never come out on cd), and my turntable (SME tonearm, Dynavector Moving Coil cartridge) before much of what I needed to replace my records even existed in cd form. And I was quite pissed to find out how unnatural acoustic piano sounded on just about any digital sources - almost as if the waveforms had been rounded off.

So now years later, with an Oppo and SACDs, I have the piano sounds I was after 30 years ago with zero surface noise...at $30-70 a disc. Is this progress? Or are the "new" vinyl releases better quality than what we got for $3.99 at Korvettes back in 1976?

“Playing a record is like looking through a window. You're not really there. You're on the other side of a wall, looking through glass. Layers and layers of glass. Some of them clear, some colored, some optically perfect, some wavy as hell. The scene is bent and blurred and colored and far from perfect. But its perfectly clear to your brain. To your brain this is no different than looking at a fish in the stream. Yes the water is wavy, murky, muddy, maybe even. But for all that there is no doubt in your mind, not the slightest shred of doubt, that there is a nice tasty trout in the stream.

When we push play on a CD we get a video on a screen. And the picture we see, it went through all the exact same layers of distortions as the record. Only now in addition to and on top of all that its been converted to video. No matter how sharp the contrast, how vivid the colors, there is never a doubt in the mind, not the slightest shred of a doubt, that we are looking at a video monitor. There is no trout. Maybe never was. Could be really good AI. Who knows?”

Thanks MC, this is beautifully put

Sometimes it’s ok to have things be what they are at an emotional level, not an empirical level.   As others have said, sound is a physical medium.  Hearing is a physical thing.  So there is a natural metaphysical symmetry in thinking that a physical phenomenon sounds better in a physical medium.  So vinyl (and reels) fit that value system better.   If you think that is all mumble-jumble, than you can accept that digital is king.   But to me, analogue is equivalent to painting with a brush.  Digital is equivalent to spray painting.  And (apologies to truly talented graffiti artists), I don’t know anyone that would pay millions for a spray painted painting....