Is vinyl still a "perfect" source?

I would not let the sound quality of today's pressinsg dissuade you from deciding to use vinyl as a source. There are plenty of high quality pressings from Pure Audiophile, Pure Analog and MFSL and a slew of others that are pressing great quality records today. Better yet, there are millions and millions of old records laying around for you to pick from.

In regards to standard re-issues today, pass them up, my luck with any of the later re-issues standard pressings is that they do exhibit a totally digital signature that sounds like crap compared to most the pre 1990 albums. Not all records were pressed using digital electronics pre 1990, it is a crap shoot to actually find and isolate which ones, however, even then, the digital recordings sounded better then they do today.

I guess the best way to describe the signature of the pure digital pressings of today, is that they sound flat, with an uplift in the mid and treble and bass, so you end up with oversaturation of the entire audio band with a flat image, less depth and soundstage that is missing and a totally unatural sound, I can't stand listening to most of the re-issues, my ears can't take it. Skip the Black Sabbath EARMARK pressings, they sound way off the mark compared to the original pressings, in which case you can find for several dollars compared to the $30 or so for the new pressings. As you get into this hobby more, you will notice and realize and find out for your self what sounds better and what vinyl sound you prefer more, don't let my experiences or anyones else's personal opinions dissuade you, just do it. I found that there is a big difference in the sound quality of the earlier pressings compared to after the 90's, with the pre 90's sounding better.

This is a hobby, so like any other hobby, investment in time and money should be considered beforehand. I have been using vinyl as my source since I was 12, I am going on 44 soon. Seen the CD and MP3 revolution, passed it up entirely. Use both for working around the house or traveling in the car. It is fun to go to a flea market and look for older records and pick the ones you want or do the same at record stores. E-bay does sell many records and you can get a look at some prices for records in the Album price guide and some other books. Mostly, if you enjoy tweeking and looking for records, then you should be fine, as your collection grows, you might want to invest in a record cleaning machine to help clean those dirty records you do find.

Good luck,
Audioquest4life

Vinyl never was a perfect source, and we all know the vinyl bugaboos such as static buildup, tracking angle distortion, compression as the groove nears the center, etc.

I'd say a better source would be 2-channel 1/4" audio tape running at 7.5 ips or faster. But nobody makes pre-recorded analog open reel tapes any more, and even when they did, they didn't sound all that good because they used cheap noisy tape and high speed reproduction made them noisier and (I think) more compressed.

For all their faults, LPs can provide a really satisfying playback quality that communicates the emotion of the performance with ease.

As for LP versions of digital recordings, I STILL prefer the LPs over the CD versions. Digital recordings today are made at 88.2 KHz sampling or higher--up to 2.7 MHz for DSD. Many are made at 24/96 KHz or 24/192 KHz.

As Michael Fremer said, which would you rather listen to--an analog master made through a professional quality DAC at full resolution, or a CD dithered down to 16/44.1 KHz and decoded through a mass market DAC?

I can tell that digitally recorded LPs are missing a little something compared to analog-recorded LPs, but they still have more treble smoothness and more body to the melody-carrying instruments and voices than the CD version.

LPs are at their best playing back music that was recorded, mixed, and mastered in the analog realm. A CD reissue of an LP recorded between 1958 and 1985 can't hold a candle to the LP. With albums digitally recorded after about 1990, the difference between the CD and LP is closer, but I still prefer the LP.

Thanks Johnnyb53, where you said, "As for LP versions of digital recordings, I STILL prefer the LPs over the CD versions. Digital recordings today are made at 88.2 KHz sampling or higher--up to 2.7 MHz for DSD. Many are made at 24/96 KHz or 24/192 KHz.", that's some of the information I was looking for.
I had thought that studio digital masters might be made at a much higher rate than 44.1kHz (I assumed 96kHz) and that therefore a well-made vinyl copy should retain more orginal info than a normal CD, but wasn't sure.
Thanks to all for their helpful replies!

Elizabeth, you're right now. Here's a good example. I'm between amps right now so can't play anything (I don't have a CDP). However, I was looking forward to a quiet evening in the basement with some good beer, the radio and cleaning a bunch of records I got two weeks ago. It took me two hours to clean about fifteen records (I do it by hand - steaming, modified hand-held wet/dry vac, etc.) but it was great!!!