As Elizabeth and others have mentioned, when the SS equipment replaced tubes, the problems started. While many studios maintained their analogue capture of sound, the electronics of the tape machines were replaced with SS stuff. I have heard 'pure' analogue sound where the entire chain, recording and playback was tubes, and it defines 'better sound'. Today, digital produced sound on vinyl is an oxymoron.
'80s vinyl sound like CDs?
This is primarily for those of us who agree that vinyl sounds better than CD, and is not meant to restart the vinyl vs CD debate. Is it just me, or have others noted that a lot of the vinyl releases from the mid to late '80s sound more like CDs than traditional vinyl? The soul that usually comes through with vinyl is missing, and to my ear sounds like a high quality (but sterile) CD. I don't think it is just the DDA recording chain, because today's digitally recorded vinyl sounds much better. Is it maybe because the recording engineers were still figuring out how to get the best sound out of digital, or did they use lower sampling rates in the 80s?