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

@cerrot, What exactly is that "analog sound"?


- compression?
- noise?
- high crosstalk?
- non flat frequency response?
- subdued bass?
- softened transients?

Can you explain this analog sound in more detail please in case I missed anything?

@cerrot I try to get my turntable to get what I associate with digital - clean background - speed accuracy - fast deep bass. I got a warm valve output CD player that’s fun.
@audiodesign I agree to an extent with what you say - despite that to me analogue is still more satisfying. The article perhaps touches on one very valid aspect (unintentionally perhaps) but it is psychoacoustic. My analogy - Digital is like a healthy salad with a Lean protein that is good for you - vinyl is a full fat 3 course meal... I love that the article was put on this forum as everyone has utterly dissected it - 🤪 

I do a mix of vinyl and digital @lohanimal , tending towards vinyl for rock/pop, and digital for most other things. That is far from a hard/fast rule.  A lot of it is just conditioning. The vast majority of audiophiles on this site I am going to guess are older, probably most north of 50, or way north, and they have decades and decades of conditioning for a particular sound.  There are articles out there that show the younger generations when comparing, will prefer digital. I do get a laugh at the mental twists and turns that people will apply to vinyl, tape, and "analog", without making that simple leap that they prefer it, not because it is more accurate, but because it is less. How often do people take their photos and manipulate them to create less accurate, but more pleasing versions without giving a thought to it?

When I am right I believe Nyquist is not important at all when it comes to the overall quality of listing. Put it is way: if Nyquest would be wrong than there would be only one more reason to blame digtal for. But Nyquest works, I believe this without being able to unterstand in complete the mathematic behind.
When there is a problem that it must be before it reaches the Nyquest calculations or after. If I am at a concert and listen to an instrument my InEar Nyquest calculation works perfektly as well, with one difference to the digital process: the data coming, arethe right data and the data coming in come in the exact time.
Now we go to digital: Assuming a CD. When a CD is produced pits and lands are graved it (at least on of these). But I am shure that on another CD producing machine they are graved in with slightly differently. So when at the end the 2 CD are read by the CD player at home some of the pits and lands are interpreted different at least in time. That means your beautiful Nyquest does not get the exact signal which was recorded once. That is why JPC wanted a complete perfect recording and manufacturing process once, but Sony wantet the more cheap one. And they succeded.
0 and 1 is a data format. For data calculation it is perfect. There is no doubt about the values stored. But it is a not very satifying way to use this as a kind of music data. Because when you read or transport the data you always have to not only interpret the value coorectly but in time as well. Noteasy for all this capacitaors, coils or resitors. Different electronic will do a different job. This means additional: your perfect Nyquest might perform different because again the values may not be what they have been at the recording.
And what about transporting your data. Errors might happen again.
And in the Generation of voltage or current (not sure what comes out) there might be problems again
What I mean is that even Nyquest theorem does not touch the problems of using a computer storage format as a musical transport format where time is important.
Additional there might be 2 things which have even further consequences: the unability of digital to recognise if the data is a real data or if it is error data. In Analog it is much easier :-)And where in Analog the errors are kind of linear, in digital it is stange. It makes an difference it the wrong data of for exmaple 16 bit is a low bit or a high bit. The calculated value of his is very different.
Just some thoughts. I might be wrong, but my main argument is that I am sure that the problem with digital is not if Nyquest workes or not. But I believe it is very hard to make digital right. The process is to awkward. The main advantage of digital is storage and manipulation. Outside where time kicks is is where it gets difficult for digital. Analog cicuits do not like to have to deal of interpretation of tons of values to exact times.

It might be that some people have more problems with digital errors as with analog erros. I am one of those. I cannot stand digital. I wish I could!

But most of all: Enjoy music.

Jim Smith in his book "get better sounds" said something about the recording he did once. It was a classic concert and he startet to record a few seconds before the maestro came on stage. He used an tape recorder and a digital recording maschine. There were 2,3 women talking very quitly before the concert startet.
After the concert he checked both recordings. The whispering of the women could be heard on the Tape, slightly, as the tape noise was almost as high. But there was no signal at all on the CD recorder. Of course it was an older older digital technique, maybe in the 90th, this problem might be fixed nowadays.
But again it is no Nyquest processsing is to blame in this instance.

I would love to have a digital processing where I could listen as long as to my analog rig.
But in my case it might be of no use. I mainly listen to music before the 80th. All music of that time was recorded analog.