Are Digitally mastered LPs any better than CDs?

Probably the best way to listen to a digital master is with a vinyl LP. Digital is a brittle, lossy medium that doesn't transfer well to the home media, in spite of the "bitz is bitz" claims. Digital becomes drier, edgier and more jittery the further it gets from the masters, whereas analog retains warmth and fullness even with generational losses. I have a couple of LPs that sound quite a bit better than their CD counterparts, even with digital mastering and mixing.
Some LPs from the early to mid 80's can sound like crappy CDs, but a lot of digital LPs are quite desirable, such as the Philips classic digitals and the GRP label associated with Dave Grusin.
Try getting a hold of one of Billy Cobham's GRP LP releases, that sound like they have very little if any compression. You will probably not inherently object to digital mastering in and of itself after hearing one of those. The GRPs can have very quiet surfaces and wide dynamics.
One of the most prominent of the "digital LPs" is Dire Straits "Brothers at Arms". I don't hear many analog lovers complaining much about that one.

don't be too sure vinyl is hi-rez. Much of it is not, call some pressing plants and see what they usually get, you will find a lot of vinyl comes right from a cd master at 44.1. There are not rules of course, but i think this idea is being spread around and quite often it is not the case. This is no comment on the sound quality, of course.

>> 09-01-08: Mothra
>> don't be too sure vinyl is hi-rez. Much of it is not, call some pressing plants and see what they usually get, you will find a lot of vinyl comes right from a cd master at 44.1.

It'd be great if there was a way to trace a particular vinyl album's recording lineage to see if the master was analog, hi-rez, or 16/44. Could devote a whole website to the topic.

It'd be great if there was a way to trace a particular vinyl album's recording lineage to see if the master was analog, hi-rez, or 16/44. Could devote a whole website to the topic.

OK, I'll start: It's my understanding that the LP version of Brian Wilson's "SMiLE" was mastered from the 88.2/24 source, and sounds better than the CD.

The liner notes on the Diana Krall "From This Moment On" LP state that she still records in analog.

Although all of Mapleshade's music products are CD, he records in very high-res, lo-noise analog. Perhaps we could prevail on him to cut some LPs of his most desirable titles?

Anybody know the source/mastering of Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full" LP (I have it)?

There was an interview in last year's TAS analog issue with one of the major mastering engineers. He mentioned that the LP of a hi res digital master has an octave more info than the CD. I didn't completely understand this - perhaps referring to brickwall filtering?

Either the same article or another said most of the time the high res digital master is what is that engineer sends to the LP mastering session.

BUT - the big issue here is what kind of analog rig is it being played back on? I think you need to achieve a certain level of LP rig and setup to extract the most from LP without it's inherent limits.