LP made from a digital master recording...


The digital vs. analog thoughts, even debates I can understand...when the analog LP is from analog masters.  When an LP is pressed using a digital master recording as the source, does that LP still have an analog advantage?   
whatjd

Showing 2 responses by rossb

This is not an analog vs digital discussion, or even a mastering discussion.

It is a question of whether a compressed, equalized, distorted recording of a digital file can ever sound better than the digital file itself. 
I love vinyl, but there is no way listening to an LP from a digital master will be better than listening to the digital file. That is, unless your turntable and phono stage are adding so many colourations that you prefer the coloured version to the original.

When you listen to an LP from a digital master, you are still listening to a dac - and it is whatever dac they use in mastering the record - which may not be all that good - which is then recorded, dynamically compressed and subject to massive equalisation . Then there are the distortions inherent in playing the record - groove noise and inner side distortion... It’s amazing an LP sounds anything like the original. But it certainly cannot sound better than the digital file from which it is copied.

Now, a pre-1980 LP from an analog master produced by a good mastering engineer ... while it still has some inherent problems, a true analog LP retains something special that digital still has not quite captured. But listening to digital recordings on LP is just an exercise in self-delusion.