CD v.s LP - When comming from the same MASTER

Sorry, Sean, but I must disagree. A 24/96 master tape does indeed have higher resolution, but on a practical level that means only two things: greater dynamic range and wider frequency range. The latter is only important if you believe that people can hear sounds above 20kHz. As for dynamic range, I've never heard of a master tape with a dynamic range greater than 90dB, which CD can accommodate just fine, thank you. And even if you find such a master tape, you'd have to compress it MUCH more to make an LP, which can only offer about 70-75 dB of dynamic range.

As for the sonic differences, they are not subtle at all at any price range. I'd say the difference between a CD player and a turntable at price X will be greater than the difference between CD player at price X and CD player at price 10X.

None of this is meant to bash vinyl, which I love as much as the next audiophile. I'm not arguing that one medium is better or worse than the other--just different. Better or worse is up to your own taste.

I disagree with Pabelson's assessment of the LP having "no stereo bass, limited dynamic range". Quite possibly the LP playback system is not properly setup if one experiences these problems.

No, Cmk, it has nothing to do with set-up. There isn't room on an LP for two channels reaching all the way to 20 Hz--at least not if you want more than a few minutes of music per side. So it is standard practice to sum deep bass to mono. Same thing with dynamic range. It's inherent in the medium.

When the master is digital, the inherent advantages of the analog recording is not there, and therefore I see no advantage to the LP in that circumstance.

The sound was already limited at the digital master stage, so it can't be made "better" later.

In my experience LPs from a digital masters are usually notably better sounding than the CD. There are exceptions like Nora Jones first release where the LP sounds no better than the CD. I have a great sounding Phillips classical CD where I found the corresponding digital LP. What a dissapointment. The LP was considerably worse.

I think that there is more to the story than just differences in the medium. The path between the Master and the signal that feeds into your preamp is a long one with plenty of opportunity for distortion and grunge, regardless of the medium (LP, CD, SACD...).

From the original master recording (digital or otherwise) separate CD and LP masters are created. They include the obvious stuff like separating into tracks with fade in/out and inter track silence. At this step it is typical for bunch of equalization and compression to be done. The munging of the signal at this point is customized for the medium and how good or bad depends on the skill and ears of the mastering engineer. In addtion the quality of the equipment used for the mastering process may be different for different mediums.

There is a lot of nonsense about digital being a perfect medium without distortions. It is true that digital information can be replicated and transferred without degredation or distortion. However, distortions unavoidably introduced for both the capture (A to D) and the playback (D to A) conversions. Distortions introduced from a digital process are different than those in analog. But it is nonsense to assert that digital does not have distortions. The distortions from digital are more difficult to measure but I would assert that they are easier to hear and more harmful to musical content.

So getting back to the topic LP and CD are two different methods of recreating the signal from the original recording. Both create distortions. Those distortions are different and to my ears LP provides the playback that is the most true to the original.

LPs made from digital masters are no doubt compromised but I find that they still sound quite good and often benefit from analog on the playback side.