Digital is far better than vinyl

This is great. There seems to be two groups here. One that only read the title and the group who read the whole post.

For those who only read the subject. This was a joke.

I admit it is pretty funny to see a post get serious as opposed to going off the rails.

I’m glad many of you got the joke ... but I was also kinda surprised to see how many did not. I thought the irony was quite obvious ... I put very little money and almost zero thought in building the analog system. It would be absurd to think that the outcome would have been any different. And yet, we see this absurdity on display on these forums almost on a daily basis. Not a day goes by when some vinyl aficionado spends next to nothing on streaming setup and is quick to claim victory for analog. There is this perception that since it’s all ones and zeroes, streaming doesn’t deserve the same level of respect or investment both in terms of time and $$$.

Just in case someone is wondering, I do not think even for a minute that vinyl is inferior than digital. A well thought out analog rig has its own strengths and charms. But that result is a labor of love and passion .... you don’t just stumble upon great analog systems by chance. I just don’t understand why the same people turn into hopeless luddites when it comes to streaming. It is just mind boggling to see posters make ridiculous statements like DACs or streamers or better switches don’t matter since it's only ones and zeroes. Sadly, these are the same posters who have never bothered to try a better DAC or streamer, but that doesn’t stop them from spouting uninformed nonsense.

If you read these forums, you will see many people like @ghdprentice or @lalitk who have (or had) amazing analog systems. But they also gave the same respect to digital and can rightly claim that digital is on par with analog. I mean what’s not to like when you can play pretty much any music ever released for less than $20/month .. especially when technology has improved to the point that digital is just as good as vinyl.

And, by the way, there is absolutely nothing wrong with affordable streamers like BS Node. I have one in my second system and it continues to give me a lot of joy. The comparison is not meant to offend or belittle the experiences of those who are happy with Node or other streamers in that price bracket. But it simply cannot be used as a benchmark for what streaming is truly capable of in 2022, especially when compared to analog systems costing many thousands of dollars. If you are going to make comparisons at least bring some parity between the systems.

I wish we could stop seeing it as an either/or proposition and realize that both formats can perform at the same level in 2022. Peace!

when i was listening to vinyl it was only to transcribe it onto tape, and i’d use various black boxes to remove clicks and hiss and rumble, dehissers/autocorrelator to suppress hiss, and another box to stereoize mono recordings, and EQs to notch out things like hum and correct for deficiencies in the bandwidth/frequency balance of old recordings, and went so far as to use an old fashioned editing block [razor blade and grease pencil] to physically edit out loud POP!s that made it past the declicker. if a record had tracing distortion, into the trash it'd go. i have gone years before finding a good [not warped/off-center/worn/distorted] replacement for a few of them. i don’t miss those days one iota. digital is as far superior to analog, as analog tape was to edison cylinders.