Digital LP’s

There's still loads to unpick in this interesting discussion.

The vinyl production process is different to that for CD because on top of the choices made by the mastering engineer, the cutting engineer has to make a set of additional choices over and above those made by the mastering engineer as and between bandwidth, dynamic range and running time. So most of the time, the sound of what goes on to the final analogue reproduction medium can never be the same as what goes onto the digital.

By the way, I have very high resolution CD/SACD, Vinyl and Streaming front ends and I'm not biased towards any one of those. However, if I am going to purchase a digital recording, I'll do so on a digital medium rather than having that recording put through an additional step in being transcribed to vinyl.

I have a BMG record club LP of Pat Metheny's Still Life (Talking) from 1987 and the CD version.  The digital record, mastered by the great Bob Ludwig, has sounded better in some respects when I've compared it to the CD.  It's been a while since I did the comparison, but IIRC the bass ostinato on "Last Train Home" was more articulate on the LP than the CD, which surprised me.  I'll be getting a new cartridge soon, and I'm using a different DAC now, so I may repeat the comparison.

With analog-recorded albums, I have some where the CD sounds better and some where the LP sounds better.  It probably does come down to the mastering of each, as others above had said. I think Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star was one which sounded a little better on CD, not surprising given how each LP side is about 30' long.  Granted, that is a rather poor-sounding recording to begin with, but I love the music anyway.

Today's recordings are all high-res digital masters. Releasing them on vinyl format isn't meant to improve the sound quality at all. From the artist's and label's standpoint, vinyl releases (limited or standard) is to make a higher profit margin per unit sold. The sound quality of vinyl, even today's vinyl won't be as good as the high-rez digital recording because vinyl has medium format limitations. This is why recent vinyl remasters and even new releases will have a compressed dynamic range to fit the format or the producer's remastering goals.

CDs don't suffer from the same dynamic compression issues that vinyl does because the format can hold more information.  A caveat to this is when you have a double vinyl release that has 2 or 3 songs, max per side of vinyl. In this case, they're allowing the vinyl the opportunity to show its potential as a music format.

I also think one has to be aware when buying either vinyl or CDs, of the time period in which the original recording was released. Pre-CD ear, many albums sound better on vinyl, post CD-era when vinyl releases were going away, the original CD release will sound better than a post-CD era vinyl re-master. 

Then there are examples of my recent digital purchases of high-res recordings when I buy the CD. I've listened to both and they sound identical in soundstage, dynamic range and clarity.

My recent vinyl purchases tend towards completing an artist's catalog in my collection or original used 1st/2nd pressing vinyl. I don't prefer any particular format over the other because when I'm critically/purposefully listening to an album, I listen in the best format that I have. 

“Has anyone noticed that LP’s made from digital sources don’t sound as good as actual CDs.”

Not true entirely…MoFi fiasco proved that records made from digital files not only sounds great but also indistinguishable from records made from master tapes.

It’s not the format…it’s the original source and mastering technique that ultimately matters as to how a recording will sound in your space.

@rvpiano   Thanks for opening this thread.  I have had the same question for years.  I have not  knowingly bought a digitally recorded vinyl album since the 80's.  The question for me has always been, what is the point of putting this digital recording on vinyl?  At this point I think the answer, from a sound quality point of view, is there is no reason. 

The only possible reason I could ever come up with is that the physical act of the stylus dragging through the groove somehow creates some good distortion.  Kinda like a tube does.  Probably not.