Vinyl sounds better (shots fired)

vinyl is highly processed in order to keep many issues at bay. and interestingly enough many people like the sound of that.

@stealthdeburgo This statement is false. Vinyl often gets some processing (such as mono bass for a few milliseconds at a time) or compression to reduce the engineering cost of the project. When I was running our mastering operation, I found that even with out of phase bass, if we simply spent enough time working on the project we could find a way around the issue without any processing at all. None of the recordings we turned out had any other than the normal RIAA pre-emphasis.

FWIW a typical LP mastering cost is about $500/hour. So you can see that anything to reduce the engineer's time could be valuable. All this comes down to the producer of the project; what sort of quality he's after and how much he's willing to spend to make it so.

Dear friends : In my last post I  posted about  ".fine tunning " room/system.

Even that no one of you makes any comment on that critical room/system characteristic  I think that maybe almost all the  vinyl oriented/biased  audiophiles have their room/systems fine tunned to vinyl and if this is true then could be the explanation or reason why biased to vinyl and not only say for example: digital is sterile with no " emotions "down there.

How and why the room/system is fine tunned is way important when analizing audio subjects as the one in this thread and obviously that subjectivity is the oter main reason.

Maybe we need a better equilibrium between objectivity and subjectivity, at least could help to all of us one way or the other.

R.

@rauliruegas

Yes, it’s possible that some systems may be optimal for either vinyl or digital formats. However, it can’t be the whole story. I find my preference for vinyl is not system dependent. It’s there with both budget and high end set ups and all points in between.

I prefer vinyl on a Linn Exakt system that many all analogue audiophiles would turn their noses up at because it is digital throughout much of the chain with DSP. You can’t get much more optimised for digital than that, yet vinyl still sounds great.

I suspect that it is the differences in mastering that are the most significant factor.

Of course, it’s only a preference, albeit it quite a big one. If others favour streaming or CDs, that’s fine by me. As always, it’s a matter of balancing the pros and cons - there are no absolutes here.

I suspect that it is the differences in mastering that are the most significant factor.

@newton_john One difference is that many LPs have less compression than the digital release. This is because there’s no expectation of the LP being played in a car, whereas there is with the digital release. This isn’t universal, but many producers will send an uncompressed tape or source file to the LP mastering operation on this account if they are quality conscious. When I was running my LP mastering operation we always would ask the producer if such was available.