Re-issue vinyl vs. the original pressing

David: The simple answer to your question is this: by around 1988 virtually all of the cutting rooms in the world doing vinyl started using the Neumann lathes. These lathes utilize a digital delay and digitise the signal just before the master lacquer is cut. So pretty much any reissue done after 1988 is partially digitised, even if its an all analog (AAA) recording.

It's very easy to hear, as many of the above posters have pointed out, when you compare even a high quality reissue to a high quality original. Unfortunate, but true.

The Neumann cutting lathes do not digitize the signal going to the record. Later production Neumann units used extensive microprocessors to control the cutting process, but the music signal sent to the disc was all analog.

Hdm: Not knowing anything about what you say, I'm curious, for what reason would a lathe be equipped with a built-in delay, digital or otherwise?

Perhaps I have posted incorrect information and the newer Neumann's do not employ a digital delay loop to drive the cutting heads. Some recent reading that I did suggested that the digital delay loop at the cutting stage is still employed on all new albums (albeit possibly at a higher sampling rate than was the case in the late 80's); perhaps that is not true.

Zaikesman: I'm not actually sure why the digital delay was/is used, but it obviously is quite a common practice. Some evidence of that is here:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue3/ricker3.htm

in an interview with Stan Ricker.

and here:

http://dongrossinger.com/don/newarchive3.html

If I presented incorrect info about the Neumann, I certainly apologise for that. Perhaps Onhwy61 can elaborate.

Zaikesman, go to this link and scroll down to the section about disc cutting. It's a reprint of an article by Robert Runstein. It will tell you everything you never even imagined goes into cutting a record. It's not that you need a delay, but you need to preview the signal going to the cutting head.