CD's vs Vinyl - Finally hear the difference

I agree with Dgarretson. I just had Jim Smith voice my system. He did not want to do any serious listening until his DAC had been plugged in and powered on overnight and was quite warm. He even had it charging in the car ride from the airport.

My CDP does sound better when warmed up for a few hours. So do my Pass amps which I turn on two hours before I listen. My preamp and phono amp are always on.

I have also found that my analog front end sounds better after about 30 minutes or 1-2 sides. This is the cartridge suspension getting loose. Heat and humidity also have an effect. At least in my system, all of these things seem to make a difference.

The „problem“ with analog reproduction is, it is a chain of components which have to be linked together with one goal: No loss of detail.
It is mechanical and there is no standard made for it, every manufacturer can and will do whatever he wants. Just a simple example, you listen with Phonostage A and a setting of 200Ω, later you switch to another one with the same 200Ω and you will get a total different result.
In the early years when the records were made, they did it in a way, were they tried their best (it stopped fast when they discovered Dynagroove or stopped the dynamic range to protect the cutter heads..), but the vinyl still has so many „reserves“ that it can amaze us even 60 years later with the amount of stored information. Analog was always underrated and the world was waiting for a „superior“ product. CD.
Digital started with merits, which it never had. The absence of tics and pops linked with a remote was enough for the listener to rate it as superior. In a way it is, it is simple.
The Laser reads the information and the output voltage is strong enough for even the worst designs (amplification for a 0.25mV without sounding dead, lifeless and flat is still a task today and most fail). Since I met Digital in the 90‘s, it was always a sonic revolution from one DAC Generation to the next. Nothing changed, when I read the latest news from EMM (for example) about their latest unit I think, digital reproduction in general is minimum 1458x better than live now (digital reproduction in general now).
The Vinyl pressing in the older days were more or less filled with a lot of information which will show us even today new details, digital mastering is more or less a product of cost reduction, sound quality was always a problem, it always reduced the output (reclocking of the laser burners and so on) of discs in the factory. It is entertainment for the masses.
Based on this „chain“ and these endless problems with degrading the signal it is no problem to listen to analog combinations which aren‘t anything special, expensive or not, brain counts and this was and is always a problem (the „what-is-responsible-for-what“). There are a lot of overpriced units out there because analog can be done cheap and the profit can be done in a way to feed all who are in that business. Digital is a bit different, you need the latest processors and they always had and have their price. But the software can‘t go on with it. We have 0 & 1, that‘s it.
It is like a discussion between a blind and a deaf man about the right direction.
The discussion will never end.

THink about back in the golden age of vinyl (50s-70s), the % of what vinyl lovers on this site would have considered good playback rigs in peoples homes. A fraction of a % I would guess. Most records sounded like crap on most peoples systems back then and the quality of the vinyl product tended to fall overall to that level over time when the novelty wore off and mass marketing set in.

SO the god news is that there were many sonically fascinating recordings on vinyl, especially in the earlier stages, that sound better than ever now on a modern high quality system more due to improvements n speaker and amplifiers more so than any major advancements in phono playback gear.

Good point Mapman! Quality vinyl recordings from back in the day coupled with our recent developments in playback systems, tho IMO with inclusion of TT advancements, together achieve the pinnacle, to date.

I consider my system mid-range from a price perspective. I have a dedicated room so I guess that most of my listening other that in the car is "serious listening". I have been into the audiophile thing about 15 years. I started with CD and had a CD only system (several different CDP's and DAC's) until about 3 years ago. My first year with vinyl in my system my CD/LP listening was 50%/50%. As I moved up the analog learning curve (which was frustrating at times) my analog playback sounded better and better to the point where I now listen to LP's almost 100% of the time. I have not analyzed why one sounds better than the other or the specific differences but when I listen to music (limited to about 5-10 hours per week) I want to put on an LP. It is pretty simple, I just enjoy it more.