Why do records made from digital sources sound good?

I came to the conclusion that it simply comes down to:

1. The mastering quality.
2. A personal preference for the additive distortion components of various phono cartridges, step-up devices, and phono stages.

There’s nothing magic about vinyl itself; it’s actually an extremely difficult media to work with. But for various reasons, it’s been positioned as the "high fidelity for the masses" medium during both its salad days and the more recent revival. CDs, unfortuately, were shoved pretty quickly into the "car and portable" majority use case, and their typical mastering quality reflects this. The culture was shifting very fast at that time.

Early CD reissues of older material suffered from poor understanding of mastering techniques for digital. Then very quickly, the audiophile was no longer its main use case. And at some point, the original master / recording tapes for older material either degraded or were lost. Through all of this, older pressings of vinyl enudred, in all their glory.

With new pressings of new material - I agree some of it (actually, a LOT of it) sounds great on vinyl. But it can sound equally great on digital too! They can make these sound a lot alike, if they choose. For what it's worth, I have a few "all analog processing" pressings of modern material, and they still sound the best. Can't fully explain why, but they do (probaby, I like the added warmth of the master tapes!). And a well-done 45 RPM 12" always sounds a bit better, too. 

The digital quantization and DAC conversion process was NEVER at fault. As you discovered with the Suger Cube, these processes are actually VERY transparent. I’ve even piped my high-end vinyl sources into a Meridian 808i DAC/preamp - which digitizes on input and the DAC-converts on its outputs - and the output sounds 99% the same. The quality of mastering / engineering is the greatest arbiter of sound quality.

And yes, I DO like the sonic quirks of certain cartridges and phono stages. They have their own personalities, just as we all do. I am NOT in the "absolute sound" or objectivist / measurement audio camps.

The character (distortion, if you want to be technical) of the analogue chain (cartridge/arm/turntable/phono stage) is dominant... so I'm not surprised you like it more, if you like it. I personally don't.

So can someone explain this to me? 

@billstevenson Yes. FWIW, I ran an LP mastering operation for about 15 years.

When we got in a project that used a digital source file, we would talk to the producer to see if we could get a copy that didn't have all the DSP stuff that digital source files often have. In particular, most digital releases are compressed so they can be played on the radio, in a car or ear buds in a noisy environment.

LPs are likely not getting played in a car So they don't need the compression. So we would get a source file that didn't have it. LPs have a lot more dynamic range than most digifiles care to admit. It certainly makes the LP more interesting to listen to. We found that if we spent enough time with the project we could identify any problem areas (like out of phase bass, which can knock the stylus out of the groove) and see what we could do about them without resorting to extra processing (such as mono bass for out of phase bass). By doing this we never had to do any extra processing.

I know I'm not the only mastering engineer to figure this out. But usually the producer doesn't want to spend the cash for the engineering time, hence compression, limiting and mono bass processors. But an experienced mastering engineer usually can spot problem areas and deal with it in short order without using processing. In these days of most recordings being digital, I suspect getting a source file without DSP compression is a common practice.

On this account, LPs can often sound better than the digital releases, having nothing to do with LP or digital performance and everything to do with industry practice and the desire to make the digital release as accessible as possible.

Atmasphere,

Thank you.  That makes sense to me.  I always knew that mastering engineers are wizards!  Great insight and much appreciated.  I had given up hope.

Bill