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Vinyl VS Digital

After 20+ years I broke out my turn table from the 70's again.  I have been mostly listening to CD and streaming music for the last 15 years on higher end gear in a dedicated and treated home theater room.  I also have a dedicated two channel system in the same room.  

All the hype surrounding analog has prompted to me to purchase a dedicated preamp so that I could once again hook up my TT.  I also purchased an Aurlic Aries to compare.  I'm ready to upgrade my old Technics SL 1600 MK2 running a Grace Cartridge.  But I have concerns.  

I could care less about the additional hiss, crackle and Pop thats not in digital.  I think its cool to put on an album and just listen to my 30 year old small collection from when I was a teenager.    

I started doing A/B comparisons by switching between the TT and the Aries (FLAC).  I even bought new vinyl to do so.  The thing keeping me from going "All In" is the imaging.  No matter what I do with (aligning the cartridge), I cannot get the imaging to match that of digital.  Specifically, voice and instrument that stems from center stage with digital cannot be reproduced with the TT as source.  One might say the stage is wider but its too wide to point where definition is lost.  Don't get me wrong it still sounds good but is it right?  Is it my TT or is it in the recording.  Or is this the difference I am suppose to be hearing?


  
ap_wannabe
ap_wannabe OP
15 posts
 
I guess my thinking is most of what I have is CD and even more in FLAC.  I enjoy Roon which does a great job merging my FLAC collection with Tidal. Probably 90% of all listening time is either spent looking for new tracks or playing the playlists I spent so long creating.  Spending the digital first makes sense for me.   

I also figure if I spend on analog I am also going to want more records which of course means more money and more clutter.  My wife already thinks I'm crazy, after all she could be going on a cruise with this spend, right?  

If I had 4000 records, I would surely be "all in" on analog and long ago.  

ejr1953
542 posts
 
ap_wannabe,

I've had a DirectStream DAC since they first came out, and one thing I've learned about digital is that the quality of the AC power makes a significant difference to the level of detail and the sound quality.

I used to have a PS Audio P10 Power Plant, and just took advantage of The Music Room's upgrade to the new P15 unit, am happy that I did.

Back in the day I had a part-time job at a recording studio and I remember the engineers mastering for vinyl, having to reduce the bass on some tracks, place the bass in both channels, reduce the dynamic range (so they wouldn't ask too much of the cutting head), and sometimes reduce the intensity of things like drum hits, so the music would "fit" on a disk.  I think I do appreciate why so many audiophiles enjoy listening to vinyl, I just find that, with the PS Audio stuff I own, that most digital (to me) sounds better.
basement
245 posts
 
EJR1953:

That's a valid point, however, just because something exist on a format, doesn't mean it exist or makes it to the speakers or system. 

For example, components that publish specs often show they can reproduce bass and treble and such, but upon listening, they don't deliver. The difference between resolving the complexities of music and a simple signal. A CD player or record player may be able to measure deep bass, but still miss the deep bass in the drum whack completely. 

In my experience, the information available from digital compared to the information available on vinyl is a big gap. Trying to extract as much info and fidelity from 16 bits (or less) requires effort, and doing the same with vinyl is less effort, and with a higher standard that surpasses it more definitely. 

By the time a system is capable of resolving enough detail to hear the compression done at the mastering level to make a difference, you are WAY past what digital is capable of.
ap_wannabe OP
15 posts
 
I am not going to get into a debate about sound and what sounds better or why because its too subjective.  But, I'll argue all day about which formats are capable of delivering more dynamic range and frequency response.  It's clear by every scientific measure that digital is the winner here.  I think the loudness wars did a great disservice to digital in terms of what it could deliver to a highly resolving system.  Recording Engineers were/are too worried about making music sound good for cheap ear buds and cheap electronics.  Having to compress the dynamic range of original recording to appease mainstream (those who are uniformed) is a shame.    

   
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
4,946 posts
 
I would agree that early CD copies played back on my $25 1986 Pioneer cdp sound much better, less forced and compressed than newer copies played back through say the OPPO 95 in the ht rig.

As I said I appreciate the strengths of each media.
I also do spend a lot of time searching new to me music on Tidal/Deezer and the sq is nearly always excellent.

But the other side of me just returned from a trip to our LRS with a bag full of new to me vinyl which is spinning right now and sounding very nice indeed.

Imho you cannot and really should not even compare the two.
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