I am NOT fond of any digital vs. vinyl spat. I have good gear for listening to both, and because of convenience and availability of material, I listen mostly to digital media at home (exclusively digital in the car and at work). Very little in the way of current issue classical, is available in vinyl, and so much of current issue popular music is actually recorded digitally, so listening to digitally sourced material is, for me, inevitable.
I really love the convenience of a music server and the ability to put together a wide, and unusual program of music for an evening with much less effort. I like being able to scan a large collection of music (so far, I have ripped 3,700 CDs to WAV files), which helps me find long-neglected items in my collection.
Still, when it comes to "showing off" the music that is most stunningly realistic and exciting to hear, it is MOSTLY records I turn to. I have no idea whether there is some, as yet unquantified, and inherent, superiority of vinyl, or if it is a case of better mastering (or deterioration of original masters used for the digital reissue) or any other reason, but, really good vinyl delivers better dynamics and a sense that real bodies producing sound occupy the space in the soundfield. I do find that clicks and pops too often intrude in the playback of classical music, and so I don't do that much listening to classical on records; with all other genres, I find vinyl to more often sound better than the CD issue. High resolution files can sound really good, but, the amount of material issued remains limited.
I really love the convenience of a music server and the ability to put together a wide, and unusual program of music for an evening with much less effort. I like being able to scan a large collection of music (so far, I have ripped 3,700 CDs to WAV files), which helps me find long-neglected items in my collection.
Still, when it comes to "showing off" the music that is most stunningly realistic and exciting to hear, it is MOSTLY records I turn to. I have no idea whether there is some, as yet unquantified, and inherent, superiority of vinyl, or if it is a case of better mastering (or deterioration of original masters used for the digital reissue) or any other reason, but, really good vinyl delivers better dynamics and a sense that real bodies producing sound occupy the space in the soundfield. I do find that clicks and pops too often intrude in the playback of classical music, and so I don't do that much listening to classical on records; with all other genres, I find vinyl to more often sound better than the CD issue. High resolution files can sound really good, but, the amount of material issued remains limited.