is the sound of vinyl due to the physical process of the turntable?

I recommend if your happy with digital don’t listen to vinyl or tape. Hearing vinyl on occasion probably won’t sway you. But if you spend much time with it your brain gets used to the natural sound and you will then be less likely  to be satisfied with digital. Then you’ll always be trying to get your digital to sound like vinyl. Vinyl listeners don’t seem to be wanting  their systems  to sound like digital. I find your brain can adapt and get used to digital if It wants to and even find it enjoyable. This is just my opinion from my own personal experience of 30 years since my first high end Esoteric CD transport and DAC from 1990. I haven’t owned a digital source in 6-7 years now.

Try not to listen to systems that are better than yours. That will only depress you. Only listen to systems that are worse than yours. That way you can avoid the upgrade urge and the tweak rabbit hole simultaneously. Keep telling yourself, my system sounds fabulous! 🤗

guyboisvert
@theo @mrubey It all starts with recording the actual instruments in studio. Everything is recorded digitally theses days.

Technically, the best medium is digital and by far: Much Higher Dynanics, much better separation, much lower noise, no wear out, no angle error, no medium saturation, no compression, etc etc etc. The Vinyl is highly processed to fit in the physical medium. There is the RIAA EQ Curve applied so it can sound decent on this very poor medium.
And contrary to what you said, there is no "lost information" with digital, it’s simple math theory at work.

All that being said, you are perfectly right to prefer the sound of one or another, digital or analog. Each component has its transfer function, at the end, whatever it is, you are the one who listen and choose.

>>>That may all be true, I don’t know, but I suspect most audiophiles are focused on 👀 and committed to music from an earlier age, back when the recordings were made on tape. Then, staying in the same medium - tape - starts to look very attractive. No chop, chop, chop. Tape is a natural medium. It breathes. That why cassettes and vinyl just sound right. Forget about all the technical arguments. Almost all technical arguments can be disputed anyway. The playback medium is cut from the same cloth ✂️ as the recording.

3 things ...

We have to look at the whole recording process. And we have to look at the limitations of vinyl that give it an advantage, and then finally the distortions of vinyl vs digital.

1. The recording process of vinyl era records is usually great players, in a room, playing mostly together. Vocal takes are mostly live. Engineers were experts and decisions were made in real time, building MUSICAL MOMENTUM. Today decisions are not made in real time by most engineers who are not as experienced, and vocals like everything else are done in pieces and edited together. LESS MUSICAL MOMENTUM. So vinyl era records are INNATELY MORE MUSICAL aka "sounds better" with more real instruments, not in the box instruments. And often the recording was to tape, then to vinyl, never a digital stage.

2. The vinyl media DEMANDS MORE DYNAMIC RANGE. Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove. Digital can be compressed and limited to a pancake of white noise. This means that NEARLY EVERY vinyl record is more punchy than it’s digital counterpart and that "sounds better".

3. The vinyl distortions are in the same family as tape distortions, although different. This is not the family of digital distortions. They are more pleasing. Or "sounds better"
As a mastering engineer I prefer my own work on digital as I grew up on vinyl and I put those vinyl era musical qualities into my digital work, yet I fully understand the appeal, especially with classic records that were built straight to vinyl.
Brian Lucey www.magicgardenmastering.com

brianlucey

... vinyl media DEMANDS MORE DYNAMIC RANGE. Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove. Digital can be compressed and limited to a pancake of white noise. This means that NEARLY EVERY vinyl record is more punchy than it’s digital counterpart ...

That is completely mistaken. An LP can be cut with the same squashed dynamic range as any other media. What can make a stylus jump a groove are large excursions, such as loud cannon shots on some versions of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. If your stylus jumps a quiet groove, there is really something amiss with your setup.