Diff in recording/reproduction in Analog/CD/SACD

Shadorne please stop the nonsense. I have a modest TT setup compared to my digital, and my the TT just destroys it for musical enjoyment. Digital was chosen by the industry for ease of storage and it was a new medium that could be sold to the consumer who was willing to buy the crap about perfect sound. I for one was one of them, and I went back to vinyl because it just sounds better not only to my ears but to everyone that listens with their ears. Believe me it all made so much sense when cds first came out. They were read with a laser, no more pops,clicks,ticks, then finally it filtered in. This sounds horrible like a transitor radio. Oh sure digital improved greatly but it still sounds coarse, hard, and fatiguing to the ear, with vinyl I can listen for a long time.

And so the discussion plummets into the abyss.

Personal opinion is that a top notch analogue set up is more involving and does give me a better illusion that there are musicians in front of me.

To get such a set up is prohibitively expensive for most people though. A high quality vinyl rig can easily cost ten times what a comparable (though not better) digital rig costs. Add to that the convenience of CD's or WAV files and you have a clear winner in the mass market race. Plus a high quality record with a couple of irremovable pops will squash the illusion pretty fast for me.

As far as different playback means imprinting their own signature we could start a similar debate on tubes v. solid state. Albertporter makes some valid observations above.

As far as any empirical "best" we all know that this hobby is about seeking the finer shade of gray. Measurements on paper do not always translate into a better playback tool.

:)

Many things come to mind here. I wonder what those lasar read vinyl's sounded like. Anyone know?
My limited experience is that vinyl can't get as clear and airy as CD and CD can lack warmth. Imagine a guitar made of non resonant material as bad CD and one made of no hardwood as vinyl.
"Follow the money" regarding studios, they are *not there for our enjoyment over money, but money through our enjoyment and will often only press or hold standards that we support. So studio standards are not to be held as paramount in that light.
Also, blindfold tests are really the only listening vinyl/CD; because bias runs deep.

My favorite description of the difference between analogue and digital is that
Analogue is as approximate to perfections as it gets
Digital is the perfection of the approximation

Or there is always something lost in translation

I can believe that Albert's LP playback system, heard through his superb amplification and speaker system, and using well cleaned new audiophile vinyl is probably very close to the master tapes, and what more could you ask? He has stated that cost-no-object digital sources are, in his system, inferior. I cannot dispute this, because I have never experienced a system like his, and probably never will. However, I have auditioned some fairly high end vinyl playback equipment, just barely within the budget that I could consider, and I still hear problems which would annoy me, that are absent in even moderately priced digital sources.

If we consider only audio quality (neglecting convenience, and the potential of multichannel, where digital is a runaway "winner") I think that the answer depends on the price range of the equipment in question. Specifically, IMHO, a digital player costing about a grand, and playing a well engineered SACD or DVDA, will produce a signal suitable for all but the most costly amplification and speakers. I don't think that the LP can achieve this at the same price point (including, don't forget, the record cleaning machine that the experts say is essential).