I read an article about 5-6 years ago where sony built the best, 24-96 digital recorder they could, and they took it to oceanway studios. In short, the analog tape still won out. There are more posters here that would know more about that than I would.
There are meny ways to view the differences/superiority of cd's and records, but for sound, the record will always beat the cd provided the playing field is equal.
The first reason is there is a LOT more information that can be stored on a typical lp than a 16-bit cd.
The second is that the technology and cost involed for accurate reproduction of a cd is more complicated and costlier than a record.
For 100$ or 200$ it is probably hard to find an anolog rig that would sound better to most people than a cd player of that amount. But I could easily put together a record player for 400$ that would outclass a 400$ to 1000$ cd player. There are many record playing systems out there that cost 2500$ that no 16-bit player could touch in terms of sound quality at any price, that sounds so obviously better that it is not a matter of opinion.
The reason cd's get a reputation for sounding harsh the way you desribe is because when things go wrong in a cd player, or rather, things in the design are a limitation to sound quality, that is the first thing to happen with the sound quality. Vinal is the opposite. But you can easily have a record player that sounds harsh and nasty and metallic. For me, it is usually a struggle to get my cd player to sound as clean and detailed as my analog.
Consider this- a speaker is a magnet, with a coil, and produces sound by means of a varying electrical input. A microphone is a diaphram that has a magnet, a coil, and produses an electrical output. A tape head produces a signal through a coil onto magnetic tape. Do you see it? All processed the same way.
A cartridge is like a microphone but replaces a diaphram getting soundwaves from the air with a needle that gets signal from a hard surface. So it is pretty easy to understand that a record playing system can ultimately be so capable of a high level of fidelity.
There is a lot more that has to happen in a digital playback system to produce a signal to listen to. And that signal, which started from a magnet/coil has to end with a magnet/coil.
Sure, there are a lot of things/alterations that can, and do happen to the signal that make sound quality suffer in a record player, but a lot of these same things also apply in degragading the sound quality in a cd player. They just have a different effect on the sound quality. The same rules of preserving the integrity of the signal still applies.
If you don't believe me, (extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof), try spending some money on analog the way you spend it on digital. It's quite honestly hard to say how much, because the more you have spent on a cd player, the less of a percentage of that you would have to spend on a record playing system, But you could go to your local dealer, and say, "my digital system cost me 'x' amount of dollers, and if that analog system for the same amount sounds better than my cd, I'll buy it, and eat my shoe".
If it doesn't, e-mail me and I'll give you 10 bucks.
