Has anyone been able to define well or measure differences between vinyl and digital?

Other issues emerge in this conversation such as phase shift pre echo vs pre ringing, and so on. I’ve always wondered how bass interacts with our hearing to subdue and enhance the listening experience. Good bass (whatever that is) seems to support subjective listening and hearing of music as if it carries the whole tune, although in many live situations it doesn’t carry so much as it supports yet remains individually separated.

System synergy for one or the other source is a new insight for me.

And noise itself, which may be frequency related or across the board can surely have differential effects, on hearing and listening. For those sensitive to clicks and pops an absolute distraction from the vinyl listening experience at times.

On paper, digital has it all in spades, but there’s no denying, that vinyl can  have a truly inviting sound.

A long time ago I read a couple of different articles about differences in dynamic range as well as separation and after that I gave up. 

The variability in mastering, not just from LP to CD or SACD but from release to release was so great.  Some tests showed CD's having markedly reduced separation, or SACD being deliberately manipulated.  It is possible that benefits to LPs today are in the hands of the ME's.  Maybe they know the vinyl lover is pursuing a different sound than the MP3 downloader?

At best, I think we could tell there was a trend with mastering engineers to get as loud as possible when CD’s hit. We’ve barely recovered from that in pop culture music.

By all means, play what you enjoy!

Thanks Eric and all others here.

There is an almost immediate recognition but probably not foolproof double blind test differential between these two formats, isn’t there? The apparent open spaciousness and feeling of lightness airiness not on all tracks probably but in general to vinyl that isn’t the same in digital.

These are instantly recognizable at least in enough cases that some here have agreed with the proposal. Not better, just different. Like was said earlier, better is a judgment of experience and that’s not my point here.

Its trying to describe and understand the differences.

Of course direct comparisons between tracks with same version is probably as close and discernible situation to hear those differences in. I’m sure there are YT example and experiments you can do at home. [Youtube limits aside, obviously]

One of my reasons for asking is to poll our knowledge on this topic and hear the common and different perspectives of this topic. I see some common and divergent knowledge already.

Depends on the quality of the recordings. Way too many variables to make a logical comparison. Cables, cartridges, preamp, setup, room acoustics but mostly, quality of the recordings (or lack thereof).