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What albums, in your opinion, sound unquestionably better on Vinyl rather than Digital?

So this is not an effort to start a medium-war thread, rather in my view some records just seem to be mastered better on the vinyl record version than the digital version. Three that spring to mind from my record collection:

  • Henri Texier - Varech
  • Tom Misch - Geography
  • JLin - Black Origami (this very surprisingly to me)


I know everyone’s system is different, everyone’s ears are different and everyone’s tastes are different, but for the purposes of this discussion let us assume that YOU are the final arbiter of objective reality!
corvaldt

Showing 1 response by bassdude

bassdude
459 posts
 
I've always understood that the analog recordings on vinyl and tape are 100% of the signal, subject only to the limitiations in quality of the recording equipment, mastering, and pressing of the recordings. 

While digital recordings are only a sampling of the analog signal (some lesser % of the complete signal), and are subject not only to the same limitiations of the analog recording, but also the drop outs of the incomplete signal of the sample.

So - it is not possible for any digitial recording to exceed the quality, or even equal the quality, of the analog signal of 100%. 

Now... the perceived sound of what you may hear on either format depends on many other factors, including the quality of your analog playback equipment.  So, it is possible that you may prefer the sound of a digitial format of the same recording, because it may have little of the recording artifacts (e.g. pops and clicks, tape hiss, etc.), and the engineer may have compensated for some of loss of the sound quality of the analog format.  

But... all things equal... with truly high quality analog playback equipment, analog format recordings should sound noticeably superior to digital formats.
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