My most recent vinyl setup consisted of an Oracle Delphi 2 turntable with Sryinx tonearm and Monster Genesis 2000 cartridge. This was driven with a Conrad Johnson Premier Nuvister tube head-amp into various preamps. As a vintage 1987 setup, it was no slouch. I’m sure it would still produce that magical vinyl sound even in today’s environment. I sold my record collection about 3 years ago, followed by the phono set-up. I have not looked back.
I started my audiophile career with a Dual 701 and Signet cartridge in the 70's. I enjoyed the sonic beauty of the first great moving coil (Supex) and shortly after changed to a Denon AC direct drive with a Grace 707 tonearm. Moving through the years, I’ve had the Magnepan tonearm, Linn Ittok, and many others that I forget. I've owned a Linn LP12, Ariston, and other high-end tables. I found the Dennessen metal protractor to be my alignment tool of choice. In other words, the history lesson is only to give you an idea that I was a vinyl junkie, and I knew how to properly set-up tables and tonearms. I would have argued as late as 2000 that the turntable still sounded better than the CD. I had many identical records and CD's to argue this fact. Trouble is, there are no identical CD's.
Even though I had identical vinyl and CD samples like Mobile Fidelity copies of Supertramp "Crime of the Century", Japanese copies of Fleetwood Mac "Rumors", Joe Sample's "Rainbow Seeker" and the Crusaders "Chain Reaction", the comparisons weren't fair. This has much to do with the date of the original master tape. As we all know, tape degrades - sometimes rapidly. A vinyl recording pressed close to the original production date has a severe advantage over CD's pressed from that source 20 years later. The proof can be readily heard in the comparison of Rainbow Seeker. That CD sounds absolutely horrible. The comparison between vinyl and CD in this case is laughable. More proof of this problem lies in the comparison of vinyl alone. The U.S. pressing of Rumors if purchased within 3 months of original release sounds heads and tails above ones pressed 2-4 years later. I know this because I burned through many demo vinyl copies in my store. I also owned up to 5 copies at home including (2) US, (2) Japanese, and (1) German 192gram bought in 1995. The original U.S. pressing was superior to the rest. You don't find this to be the case when you purchase and compare Japanese to US records within 2 years of original release. The Japanese are always much better. We can argue that this may have to do with the number of pressings made off the metal master, however, it is my contention that these incidents have more to do with master tape degradation. It is simply unfair to compare an older vinyl collection to the same recently recorded material on CD.
This brings up some other issues. There are remastered copies of some great originals that do hold their own against their vinyl counterparts. In fact, because of having no surface noise, the CD may get the nod. I find this far more prevalent in comparing classical music. The other main issue is proper equipment comparison. Let’s face it, the camp arguing that vinyl has that special sound, realness, presence, and dynamics that can't be heard with CD many times are not comparing cost vs. cost. The proper "goosebump" vinyl setup surpasses $5,000. Let’s make sure that we are using the same in digital equipment. The most recent digital high-end entries that will price out in this category will give vinyl a run for the money. And I qualify this statement by saying that we must compare recently recorded CD's to their vinyl counterparts for a fair comparison. You will find that CD will in most cases outperform vinyl in this atmosphere. The one most vinyl-prevalent item that I yearned for in CD was dynamic impact and transient attack. The best CD players now outperform vinyl in this area. Other areas that are improved are quietness, inner detail, and timbre. It seems that there is much emphasis now in the audio press about having a "black background". It's difficult to have the blackest background if there is surface noise present. My player, although modified, is analogue in nature (if you want to put it into those terms).
I believe my current system creates that “analogue” sound and then some. Unlike my record collection, more than 75% of my CD’s could be used for demonstration purposes. I think this speaks volumes for the format. I remember being very careful buying albums because you just never knew whether the recording was going to be good enough for the system. Granted, the recording process has become better, but since the variety of music is no longer available on album, direct comparisons have become difficult.
I hear and understand why most would hold onto their records for life. There are recordings that will never be converted to CD and those that will never sound close to vinyl. I just got to a point where I wasn't listening to the older recordings that I could not replace. When replacing many of the classical selections, I found the presentation far more appealing due to the lack of noise. I truly feel my current set-up is better than vinyl and is certainly as musical. I enjoy my listening sessions more and listen more often. My selection of listenable music is far greater. We really have moved forward with this format.
