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New take on CD vs Vinyl vs CD

What if I digitize a vinyl record, and compare that CD to both it’s rebook CD, and the actual record?

1. Clean record (using a VPI HW-17)
2. Put vinyl on turntable (Ortofon Blue cart)
3. De-magnetize vinyl using a Furutech Destat III
4. Record vinyl using a Harmon Kardon CDR 20

My Parasound Halo integrated allows nice A/B/C comparison.

I used 2 CD players: Sony CDPXA7 ES, and XA 20 ES

I put the song on (‘We got the beat’ Go-Go’s) all 3 sources at the same moment (using all 3 of my hands)

Though the turntable and it’s mediocre cart is the weakest link, it sounded pretty nice. I then switched back and forth and forth a few times till I had a winner.

By far the digitized copy of the vinyl sounded best. Not the outcome I expected.

I then A/B’d both CD players, with the result remaining the same.

Can anyone explain this, besides my psychologist?

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Showing 1 response by alvinnir2

alvinnir2's avatar
alvinnir2
103 posts
 

+1 dinov. I went the same route as you with a Bluesound node and then up the food chain with an R2R DAC and Auralic G2 streamer. Sold my turntable and phono stage for more than what I paid for it and all my vinyl also at top dollar to one person ( only had about 300 albums). Never looked back.

So many posts about what format sounds better. In my experience it is more dependent on the recording than the format. However, being able to access so much music on demand via streaming has, at least for me, put the fun back in music playback. I guess I'm a music lover first, and an audiophile second.

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