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Digital is far better than vinyl

I have invested a decent sum of money into my digital setup, including a decent streamer (Innuos Zenith MK3), a very good dac (Denafrips Terminator 2), Eno filter, and good cabling. But after being told by many here that vinyl is vastly superior to digital, I thought let’s build an analog system and see what all the fuss is about. So this is what I did ...

I picked up an Audio Technica TT from Amazon for around $299. I then used one of the older integrated amps with a built-in phono, which I believe I paid around $500 a few years ago. And, finally, just to even out the playing field I bought the cheapest possible cables from alibaba. Since I didn’t have extra rack space to put the TT on, I got a couple of bricks and built a DIY platform for it.

So after listening to the analog setup for a few days, I can proclaim without a shadow of doubt that digital is far, far superior than vinyl on any given day, and twice a day on Sunday.

What has been your experience? And please, don’t mention your gear or any special. cartridges, isolation, etc. Not interested in your system details. I just want to make sure you guys understand that digital is far, far superior than vinyl.

128x128arafiq
sns
3,003 posts
 

I'm with above! If I didn't have well over 3k albums I wouldn't bother with vinyl. I do like the art, physical stimulus and feelings of nostalgia playing records brings, but I'd not bother if I had lets say only 500 albums or so. I'd sell those off along with all vinyl equipment, streaming would be my sole reference source.

 

As for sound quality face offs, vinyl vs cd's or streaming. This has been back and forth battle for years. I can't determine some hard and fast rules in regard to cost differentials. I can say sound quality generally correlates to expenditures, gonna cost big time for both at the top end. My experience is optimizing streaming far more complex than vinyl optimization, far more variables what with networks, rendering schemes, music player software, linear power supplies, ethernet vs optical, local file implementation, must be forgetting something!

audiom3
137 posts
 

I have ~$10k into my VPI Classic TT, Ortofon Cadenza Blue cartridge, Pass XP-17 phono stage and cables.  But more than double that into my digital setup (PS Audio DS DAC, Intel i10 NUC, NAS, EtherRegen, etc), LPS's for every single device, switches, media converters (fiber optic LAN), router, cables and on and on.  So that's at least a 2:1 ratio, digital vs analog and I wouldn't say my digital setup sounds any better.  Just different.

drbond
395 posts
 

@gte357s

I personally found that digital far exceeded vinyl at a vinyl set up of 10k or less: i.e. 10k digital is far superior to 10k analog. However, in my experience, at the upper echelons, analog is superior. Vinyl probably begins to exceed digital around 15k.

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