Vinyl sounds better (shots fired)

@grislybutter 

@atmasphere 

Gris, love the chart. Perfect.

atmasphere, love your input. 

@billpete 

Vynil introduces a level of distortion that is pleasing to the ears of many, whereas other people prefer otherwise.

@squared80 Actually vinyl has extremely low distortion- much lower than any of the 'tests' show. The reason is because of how much feedback is used in the mastering process. My Westerex 3d system using the 1700 series electronics employed 30dB of feedback between the cutter head and the mastering amplifiers, which had a fair amount of feedback of their own, nested within the 30dB feedback loop.

If you've read any papers by Bruno Putzeys then you know the significance of that fact.

IOW the distortion comes in during playback; hardly any of that is actually on the LP. That distortion is highly variable depending on the playback equipment (starting with the platter pad, and uncontrolled variable in all the 'tests' and 'studies' I've seen) and its setup. All the so-called 'studies' over the last 50 years ignore this simple fact. As LP playback equipment gets better and the more care is taken to setup, the playback distortion goes down.

My point here is the use of 'Vinyl' in your post above renders the statement false since that isn't where the distortion is coming from.

@newton_john  That modest PC/DAC combo I spoke about is actually quite good and illustrates the unfair advantages that digital has over vinyl.  

The thing that makes the most difference in your sound is always the loudspeakers.

@russbutton

I don’t doubt your PC/DAC combo is quite good, but so would be a turntable of similar cost.

Although the loudspeakers make a big difference to the character of the sound, it is the source that makes the most difference to the sound quality.