I often see vinyl fans bemoaning the fact that so much new vinyl is produced from digital masters. Some say "why bother buying a vinyl made from a digital master, doesn't it just defeat the point?"
Not for me.
I buy both old vinyl albums and tons of new vinyl releases. I'm especially a fan of soundtracks, which are getting killer releases on vinyl. But I still buy a band's album if it's out on vinyl, be it surf-rock, folk, jazz, electronica, or whatever.
Even if the master was digital, I get the "vinyl experience" of the beautiful artwork, the tactile nature of the object, owning the music, playing it on the turntable etc. And most of it sounds utterly fantastic on vinyl.
First, it's not like they are just making rips from red-book CD. A good new vinyl album starts with high res audio files, and it's mastered for vinyl. That in itself can make a bit of sonic difference. (And the vinyl can even eek out more dynamic range than the digital release, if the digital release is squashed for 'loudness wars' type delivery).
So the vinyl starts with high res audio, picks up some "flavor" from the vinyl remastering, and then we still have the nature of playback via phono pre-amps and getting the sound from vinyl through the cartridige/turntable. I think that process in of itself results in some of the "vinyl" sound. It certainly seems to in my system, as I still often get a sort of "different" texture and presentation via the vinyl playback of an album vs it's digital counterpart, and I often prefer the vinyl presentation.
So, I have no problem buying LPs just because they may have started with a digital master. I get all the same fun out of the physical aspects of buying the LP version, and they can sound fantastic. It's not like an analog master guarantees good sound quality. A number of my LPs from digital masters sound better than those from analog masters.
