Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

3 inch master tape is a fine way to record music but it is going extinct, just like photographic film. I don't think much of it is being made and that which already exists is decomposing. I know that remasters of albums made in the late 60s and 70s have noted that the tapes were "baked" to get one last read off them.

Most music is now recorded to a hard drive or some equivalent and in the not too distant future all new recordings will be made on digital equipment.

So you can rant and rave all you want but the future for recording and playback is digital.

Digital has been improving rapidly and will continue to improve until only the diehards think that vinyl sounds better.

Compression has nothing to do with digital. It is a fashion in mixing. If your records are highly compressed, you're listening to the wrong records.

Again, if you prefer vinyl to digital, that's fine with me. I would lose the hatred of digital, if you have it, though. You're missing out on a lot of great music available only on cd or high-res digital.

i've not read every post above, so forgive me if this has already been said.

to me the issue is which format is most complete. which is different than most accurate. sampling (digital) can be accurate but it's inherently less complete. there are gaps. so at those particular moments when the sample was taken, it may be more accurate. but it turns out that our ears like complete more than accurate.

an analogy i use is "consider a perfectly clean mirror". break it into a million pieces then glue it back together. then look at it. it is accurate. in all the places you see the reflection it shows an accurate refection. but; there are all the areas of the mirror (where you see little cracks filled with glue) without any information; so in the whole it does not look real. then consider a mirror that is dirty, there are not areas which are missing, but the slight amount of dirt is there. it's dirty but it is also complete. the reflection looks real.

i like digital and am not anti-digital. i listen to it often and enjoy it. it does not need to change to be worthy. but in direct comparison to the best analog it comes up short.

MikeL,

I like your assessment and the mirror analogy.

Its a matter of degree though. You could say that the record is made of individual molecules but they fit together perfectly and occur at a scale that makes it insignificant. Similar with digital. It all depends on sampling frequency, sample size, (and accuracy of the device that creates the samples). Gets back to Nyquist Theorem or similar models assuming the minority opinion perhaps that Nyquist does not cut it as teh basis for CD format. I think it is an extremely close call in theory especially for younger better ears (although older ears are better trained perhaps even if not able to hear above 12-14Khz or so in general) but a good one in practice. Plus, as time goes on and technology improves and becomes more affordable, teh bar can be raised further if needed until it finally becomes clearly insignificant, like those molecules.

Digital is clearly improving all the time. Vinyl format stopped getting better probably almost 50 years ago now. The conclusion down the road seems inevitable if not already the case.

Its a matter of degree though. You could say that the record is made of individual molecules but they fit together perfectly and occur at a scale that makes it insignificant. Similar with digital. It all depends on sampling frequency, sample size, (and accuracy of the device that creates the samples). Gets back to Nyquist Theorem or similar models assuming the minority opinion perhaps that Nyquist does not cut it as teh basis for CD format. I think it is an extremely close call in theory especially for younger better ears (although older ears are better trained perhaps even if not able to hear above 12-14Khz or so in general) but a good one in practice. Plus, as time goes on and technology improves and becomes more affordable, teh bar can be raised further if needed until it finally becomes clearly insignificant, like those molecules.

Digital is clearly improving all the time. Vinyl format stopped getting better probably almost 50 years ago now. The conclusion down the road seems inevitable if not already the case.

We had a $72,000 digital system at a recent show. I had heard an earlier version several years earlier and back then it was easily the best I had heard, and this new version was even better. The designer was in the room with us, has an LP system (a good sign), and upon hearing our analog system in the room, turned to me and said 'digital has such a long way to go' and sighed...

Molecules are no comparison to bits, its really not an acceptable analogy.

Analog also continues to improve :) It did not stop at some sort of roadblock 50 years ago. I guess you could say its my opinion that analog is much more accurate. Also, I try to be careful not to assume that one example of the medium, whatever it is, is representative of the whole, just as one playback of such is not either.

Ralph,

Out of curiosity, what was the analog set-up that you had to compare to the high dollar digital playback?