CD vs. Vinyl

Whoah......a 7 figure system...let's hear about that!

I was just thinking about the cost of the system and has to be over $500,000, but likely not an actual seven figures. It's at a local audio store and is anchored by the Focal Utopia Grande speakers. Thankfully, they are always happy to sit down and listen. It's strange to listen to Focal 706v speakers that retail for about $650 on this system, at least I know what they are fully capable of under perfect conditions. They just changed a bunch of the equipment out so I think the Krell amplifiers are now Asthetics.

Honestly, the equipment is so far beyond my means that I just enjoy listening to it and leave it at that. I've listened to several different speakers on the system ranging from $650 to $180,000.

Sorry for the exaggeration...and misspelling.

When you think about the physical compromises required of the stylus and arm along with RIAA contouring you might expect vinyl reproduction to introduce its own coloration. As with tubes, some prefer the resulting sound, a sound they can more or less manipulate with cartridge selection, tracking parameters, and phono stage selection. An original analog recording is more likely to be on tape rather than vinyl.

With digital, you have sampling decisions, but those are quantified. Unpacking digital requires another conversion process, and again quantified decisions.

db

7 figures??
Does that include the decimal point?

There is one factor that the vinyl vs. cd argument cannot ignore - a tremendous amount of music is, and has been, released only on cd, and will never be available on vinyl.

If you are only interested in sound reproduction, this argment will not matter to you, but if you are a musical omnivore you have probably learned to live happily with cds over the last 25yrs (and they did start to sound a lot better in the early 1990's).