Recommendations for a jazz record which demonstrates vinyl superiority over digital


I have not bought a vinyl record since CDs came out, but have been exposed to numerous claims that vinyl is better.  I suspect jazz may be best placed to deliver on these claims, so I am looking for your recommendations.

I must confess that I do not like trad jazz much.  Also I was about to fork out A$145 for Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" but bought the CD for A$12 to see what the music was like.  I have kept the change!

I love the jazz in the movie Babylon, which features local Oz girl Margo Robbie (the film, not the jazz).

So what should I buy?

128x128richardbrand

This week I bought an album on the ACT label - whose recordings are superbly engineered. Call this one A.  Listening to it, I felt the sound quality was not as good as the previous album on ACT that I listened to - call this one B. Different artists but both female vocals / small ensemble. When I checked the release date on A it was 2017. In both cases I was listening to CD. Likely cause - better adc/dac's for the recording.

Vinyl / CD comparisons are futile because both technologies are different and both are continuing to evolve. Though I would argue that they are are converging in terms of sound quality - which is what happens when you reduce distortion and noise.

If an album was mastered in 16/44, which almost all are, it never sounds better upsampled to 24/96. Listening to 24/96 and higher is a waste. 

Vinylshadow, that hasn’t been my experience. In general I have found that sampling is a good thing. Also, you leave out SACD. I find that music recorded as SACD and played back as such is far superior to RBCD; whereas older recordings reproduced on SACD are not noticeably superior to the original RBCD. I really cannot enjoy RBCD except as background when I don’t feel like playing LPs, for reading a book or at parties. I don’t care how good or expensive the RBCD player is reputed to be.

@jsalerno277 …” I would only add that I find some very early digital masters suffer compared to vinyl.”

Yes! Wow, there are some really horrible recordings as studios converted over to digital. I actually have a couple of Deutsch Gramophone albums that are simply horrible. They sound like tin. For a company in the 6070s and 80s that produce such great recordings, I can’t believe they even released some of these.