What is the “World’s Best Cartridge”?

Absolutely. The resurgence happened in response to the unending disappointment in the CD. But at last digital… both CD and more importantly streaming has reached equal or better (high Rez streaming) sound quality in many component combinations and will continue advancing. Without the sound quality advantage vinyl just becomes nostalgic.

Well... The LP has continued to advance as well. QRP (Acoustic Sounds) sorted out that vibration was the primary cause of surface noise in LPs and so installed damping to reduce it- and makes vastly quieter LPs as a result, rivaling the noise floor of Redbook in that the electronics become the noise floor rather than the LP itself.

Then there have been advances in amplifiers; before I sold off my LP mastering system I was really thinking of replacing the original mastering amplifiers (which were state of the art in their day) with some class D modules, perhaps our own, as they are more stable, more reliable, lower noise and lower distortion.

Finally the real limitations of the LP are in playback, not record; tonearms and cartridges have continued to improve. So while this is all incremental, saying the LP doesn't have the sound quality is a bit of a stretch- its still got potential just as digital does.

Dear @mijostyn  : " my own purchases it is about 50/50 LPs to digital files.  "

What does that say? , its says what you states.

Mijo, there are different contexts where any one could be rigth.  Normally audiophiles aroun sites as Agon, wbt, ve,  ak and the like bougth digital LP re-issues and some ( the smaller ) new realeases and normally we buy through: ed, md or as. You can go to all those sites and read that the people that buy LPs normally are re-issues.

USA is only one of de world countries and belongs to one of five world continents. I want to put an example of wht'a happening in my country where exist around 35KK of young people and where just does not exist LP stores and the audio dealers you can count with the fingers of your hands and nothing more. The majority of those people not even know of the existence of vinyl and almost all use streaming to listen the MUSIC they like. You can see in the subway or in the street those young gentlemans listening MUSIC through they cell phones through apps as tiktok, spotify, prime amazon and the like.Do you think that in the countries of Africa exist " hundreds " of LP stores? however the KKK people there listen MUSIC through streaming/apps digital and you can go around other world Continents and you will see.

Well the majority of the population in the world are  those kind of people that does not cares about analog rig but only " listen " and they does in that way. Along that there are thousands of " hackers " that listen by free as many world plattforms where you can listen by free and no suscription at all.

In that whole context my post is not false in any way. Period.

Nothing is exactly as Billboard says.

In reality I don't care on that issue because from some time now, like it or not, digital is the King no matters what.

R.

@atmasphere 

Well... The LP has continued to advance as well. QRP (Acoustic Sounds) sorted out that vibration was the primary cause of surface noise in LPs and so installed damping to reduce it- and makes vastly quieter LPs as a result, rivaling the noise floor of Redbook in that the electronics become the noise floor rather than the LP itself.

That might well be the case but there's absolutely no denying that there were some fabulous sounding LPs made back as far as at least the 1950s.

The best sound that I have ever heard came from one such LP.

It had that spooky 'Is it real?' soundstage that I've yet to hear from any digital.

I would love to see digital finally fulfill its potential on commercial releases, especially regarding dynamic range and transference of classic analogue masters etc, but I'm resigned to the fact that market forces will never allow such a thing to happen.

The demand for sonic excellence just isn't there, and I suspect the suppliers have no stomach for putting out reference quality digital recordings of vintage material out there either.

Why would they, when they can continue to milk that cow indefinitely?

For me, as things stand, digital only really displays its forte with formats such as audiobooks where it reigns supreme.

Everywhere else it's only merely acceptable.

That might well be the case but there’s absolutely no denying that there were some fabulous sounding LPs made back as far as at least the 1950s.

The best sound that I have ever heard came from one such LP.

It had that spooky ’Is it real?’ soundstage that I’ve yet to hear from any digital.

 

I would love to see digital finally fulfill its potential on commercial releases, especially regarding dynamic range and transference of classic analogue masters etc, but I’m resigned to the fact that market forces will never allow such a thing to happen.

😀 If I want to demo the dynamic range of a stereo, the LP I put on is the RCA Soria series Verdi Requiem, side 1 track two, Dies Irae. Not a CD and not some digitally recorded LP.

The simple fact is that the LP has a lot more dynamic range than most people think. It may not be as much as the CD, but if you want to talk about undistorted high resolution dynamic range, it has more. I know people are likely tired of hearing stuff like this, but you have two phenomena for why this is so:

The first is that recordings made for digital release have a high expectation of being played in a car (unlike the LP). So due to that industry expectation, which has nothing to do with genre BTW, the digital release is usually compressed.

The second is that if you really want to hear 16 bit digital (Redbook) at its best, the recording should be normalized so that the loudest part of any track is 0VU. As the signal strength goes down, more and more bits have to be turned off. So when you get to -45dB (which is pretty quiet) there’s not enough bits for the signal to be undistorted (which, in digital parlance, is usually referred to as ’less resolution’). So to get maximum resolution the recording is normalized.

Of course the LP has noise so its a bit of a tradeoff. Anyway, that Soria series recording goes from a whisper with which the noise floor competes to putting your amps in danger of extreme overload if you try to play it at a lifelike level. Lots of fun- big bass too 😁

@atmasphere

Sure, vinyl advances… but it is a loosing battle. Increasingly it becomes a question of your playback choices… and a question on your time frame. Adding the convenience… more and more people will put their money into digital… especially the MP3 folks… they will try better digital before attempting analog. All this amounts to a diminishing market for analog.

If I had an extra $100K right now I would definitely throw a good portion of that at analog. No question that will buy me the best playback… but I am 70 years old. If I was 45 years old or younger… I would invest in digital… it will just keep getting better and not require me personally collecting stuff that takes up space.