2. analog
  3. 143717-116562

CD Got Absolutely Crushed By Vinyl

No comparison, CD always sounds so cold and gritty. Vinyl is so much warmer, smoother and has better imaging and much greater depth of sound. It’s like watching the world go by through a dirty window pane when listening to a CD. Put the same LP on the turntable and Voila! Everything takes on more vibrancy, fullness and texture. 
128x128sleepwalker65
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
1,219 posts
 
Not true at all , if you have a good recording and a Good quality
digital playeror dac, with good cables , digital can better a record in several ways that are excellent. Vacuum tube dacs sound rich
and detailed ,as well as top solidstste units..
A record is only capable of12 bits,digital more then double that.  SN ratio not even close, dynamic range is at least 30 dB betterthen any record, as well
as well as low Bass response. Any record player that is decent will cost over $5k with cables, with  a good quality cartridge. Digital in a similarpriced comparison is every bit as good or better, please 
remember the new records are are well mastered.
buy a mobile fidelity digital master , or MQA master digital recordings  you have excellent quality music, and digital keeps getting better and better.
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
1,219 posts
 
Sleepwalker 65 , you didnot mention what your digital setup was and cost ,and cables, as well as your record player setup.
we want to know what you are comparing to see how you came to that conclusion .i owned a Audiostore ,and they both can sound 
excellent ,the latest digital has several inherent advantages.
SN ratio, Dynamic range , 2x the musical information on the given
disc,or recording, as well as much lower Bass response.
that is the mechanical limitation of records, and every year digital
continues to keep getting better and I donot miss having to clean ,
de static, the pops  and clicks. Cartridge,needle upkeep. No I just 
pull out my tablet play a few CDs in any order I want and just enjoy 
them .
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
1,105 posts
 
@sleepwalker65,

I know you have not caught up to digital streaming so I will spare you the tech talk. Your shortsightedness and ignorance is clearly evident when you say, 

“digital has a long way to go before it can fully integrate into traditional systems with both a recording (archiving) and playback (streaming) function in one product that can stand alone or optionally interface to a PC”. 

BTW, you no longer need to rely on run of the mill consumer laptop or PC to enjoy state of the art digital streaming. You can look into Aurender, Innunos, Lumin, and Antipodes brands to start your journey into the world of digital streaming....until you do you would never know or understand how far digital streaming has come.
sleepwalker65's avatar
sleepwalker65 OP
486 posts
 
@lalitk 

Your shortsightedness and ignorance is clearly evident when you say, ..... BTW.... until you do you would never know or understand how far digital streaming has come. 




I may be impatient, but not shortsighted. I’ve been watching for something so obvious it’s painful that the industry hasn’t delivered on yet: an unencumbered way to take one’s existing (and possibly massive) media collection of all kinds (LPs, CDs, SACDs, tapes...) and archive it to 2xDSD or 4xDSD on a media server running on a PC or Mac or NAS elsewhere in the home. This is simply not possible without dragging in a PC and connecting up USB cables and an ADC in addition to the DAC / network streaming device required to listen to it. Internet radio and Roon are not enough. Give me the ease of use of a tape deck, albeit with the ability to title each track and group into albums. I don’t think that exists, or maybe I’m looking in all the wrong places. 
mikelavigne
1,274 posts
 

@mikelavigne OTOH maybe you need to find yourself better digital playback if you are open minded enough to consider it?


You raise a good point, but digital has a long way to go before it can fully integrate into traditional systems with both a recording (archiving) and playback (streaming) function in one product that can stand alone or optionally interface to a PC. The variants of DSD have the performance potential, but have not reached a level of consumer-friendliness to go mainstream. That’s not to say that the mainstream even cares, but the products need to be more operator-friendly from an interface and functionality perspective.

@sleepwalker65, if you check out my system page....

http://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615

......you can see that i have been open minded and have found myself ’better digital playback’, which I’ve compared with my vinyl and RTR tape and found it comes quite close and is not humbled by the analog.

of course, we all have our own viewpoints on what ’better digital playback’ might be and my view is just my own. maybe you have investigated what ’better digital playback’ which can come close to vinyl and could share that information with us?

my only point was to say that digital playback certainly exists that approaches the musical performance satisfaction of vinyl, but depending on the vinyl it might cost a pretty penny to acquire.

and I do have 7+ terabytes of dsd files, 1xdsd, 2xdsd, and 4xdsd, and assure you it’s very mainstream these days with most dacs. I listen to it often.

have a great day and we likely agree more than we disagree.

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