Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

Mapman,
It is feasable that a digitally mastered recording could sound better through an analogue medium than digital because playing back via digital in the case of CD adds another A/D & D/A conversion, and if played back via computer/dac at least 1 other D/A conversion - each conversion being an inaccurate reconstruction of the recording or file preceding it.
The "value proposition" for analogue and digital are quite different. The value proposition for digital is providing a portable transportable medium for music.
The "value proposition" for analogue is to provide an accurate medium for transporting and playing back music.
Digital is simply an approximation of analogue via fundamentally flawed mathematics, no more no less, with the added advantage of easy transportablility or transferrability.
I hope you dont expect MacDonalds burgers to provide you with a healthy diet.

Lets review red book CD for a second. At 44.1 K HZ you get 44 data points to define a 1K HZ wave that is about a foot long. Not exactly high res. At 10K HZ there are 4 data points, yes 4 to define a 360 degree wave. 4 points works for a square?

With the 16 bit sampling size there are just over 65,xxx steps to cover the whole dynamic range. If you want to cover 100 db you need 100,000 steps. So CD is just under 1 db that way?

So you are hoping to hear the hall sound? Not really, maybe a hint, but not really

Think about the complex wave forms that music produces with steep wave fronts, what are the chances that CD captures it right. Its all in the so so odds.

Just like Las Vages has the odds to take your money. Red book has the odds to steal your music resolution.

Then there are the steep filters reqired with CD - "brick wall filters" because the sampling rate is so low. That hurts too.

CD is a "lossy format". Its a fact. It just is. Give it up.

Higher res digital? Well 96K sampling does not improve that much on 44.1. 192K is more interesting but the math is only a little over 4x better than CD. Still not so good.

Going from 16bit to 24 bit is a big jump. 16 bit having just over 65K steps while 24bit jumps to 16.7 million steps. Now that is a move.

Digital needs to improve the sampling rate which I am certain can be done except for the recording companies which are woried about copy rights. So digital is stagnet.

I got back into vinyl nine or ten years ago because I could see that digital progress would be slow for the above reason.

What I discovered is that LP was even better than I thought.

Look 10 years ago I had my old Dennon Dp52F and a Shure V
MR, I think I got that right. I hooked it up to my old conrad johnson PF1 pre amp and it was a little better than my big rig CD player. I decided to upgrade and never looked back. Yes I went big with a VPI Aries 2 and a ZYX Fuji 100 but it blew me away even though I had a lot to learn about set up.

What I have now is big bucks and it is even better. And I will admit that I could likely find a TT, arm, cart set up at half the price that might be just about as good.

I will take the best $4K TT arm cart against any red book CD at any price. So stuff the give me a loan thing. With digital its all about the money with small gains. Do the math.

I hope the mods let this post.

TD

Yes I am recomending current music. I am over 50 so naturally my golden age stuff falls into the so called golden age of music. Perhaps even a little more so if I was 5 or so years older.

To be straight up I am an old rocker. I like some jazz, country or what I like to call it American music.

One example, I found a nice expample of the Doors LA Womman a few years ago. The title song LA Woman is magical. Say what you want to about the subjuct matter. It sounds like you are in a small club with all the atmosphere. Its almost a jazz like feel.

Newer releases tend to be more dense but can still have a really nice sound stage feel. The one thing that kills it it a digitally compressed recording.

Here is an example of an old digital ricording that is damm good. Steve Earle "Guitar Town" I have it on LP and its too bad it was not analog all the way. I read where Steve said that him self.

TD

Vinyl is pretty easy to find these days since the CD is dying.

Mapman, It sounds like you did not understand my posts from your responses! I suggest re-reading them, especially the one in which I mentioned the sweep tones (don't think for a second that that has no bearing on actual audio!).