Vinyl sounds better (shots fired)

I wouldn't trade my vinyl for digital for anything in the world I have both, and they both sound good, but vinyl does it for me, especially when listening to classical, jazz or blues. Pop? Digital. Recently produced? Digital. But if it was made in the '50s, '60s or '70s, I'll stick with vinyl. Digital, of course, has the 'numbers.' But this is music. 

When I was learning to play guitar, I listened to a lot of pre war country blues all the way back to Charlie Patton on tape and later CD copied from old 78s. It’s amazing how the performances can sometimes transcend the limitations of those old analogue recordings.

It sure is!

@gbmcleod 

Much popular music on streaming services and CD, etc. is marred by the choices made during mastering. This does not necessarily apply so much to vinyl releases, which often sound better as a consequence.

This is sometimes given as the driving force for the vinyl revival. If you look on places such as the Steve Hoffman Forums, you’ll see a lot of attention given to finding the best versions of albums on each format.

Some people go as far as to say that mastering trumps format. I am not totally convinced that this is the whole story, as I suspect there’s something about vinyl per se that we like.

At the end of the day, if it sounds better, it is better.

The other day, I heard some Michael Jackson tracks on the original vinyl for the first time. I was stunned to hear them as they are meant to sound. People were moved to get up and dance. In all these years, I never realised how good he was and how amazing the musicianship is on his records. I’d thought it was just pop music for kids. How wrong I was.

@newton_john Thank you. That is a very elegant explanation for the differences people hear (if they do!) between music released on vinyl and digital.

@dogberry Analog guys dump on digital on WBF all the time. It happens , but your point is spot on regardless 

No, we don't 'dump' on digital. It's just that many of us read, write and play music and have for many decades, so we say that vinyl more completely produces the sounds of music, which it does. 

If you are listening to classical music, you could easily hear what digital doesn't do, as well as analog. Ambience, for one, is suggested by digital, but it rarely gets the entire ambience of a club or symphony hall correctly, although the better recordinss to a better job of it. (A friend of mine who has a music degree) suggested I listen to a Brucker recording that was done at the Concertgebouw, and that the ambience of the hall was even apparent on his system (I gave him that system, so I know its strengths and weaknesses), which didn't surprise me. But it's not as easily completely outlined in digital, and, before some less-than-mature posters suggest it could be my dac, I want to assure you: that's not it.

The more I've thought about it, the more I'm convinced that most of the people who post snarky posts are completely unfamiliar with acoustic music. Anyone who's familiar with acoustic instruments knows what they sound like. But most of the posters post things like "if-the-vinyl-freaks-heard-good-digital-they'd-be-depressed."

Well no, "we" wouldn't, since "we" already have an excellent digital setup. And I STILL say vinyl conveys the music more closely to what is sounds like in the symphony hall. Now, if what people listen to is pop, rock and all the other music that is filtered, manipulated and sounds that way, then that's their thing. That's why the majority of my music is 50s, 60s and 70s, although I have plenty of '80s and '90s music, due to also being a club DJ during those decades. So I can listen to two records, one made in say, 1975, and one made in 1985. The 1985 disc usually lacks bass (especially if it was pop. The 80s had the worst bass, especially Electra Records), the voices are doubled (or smeared) and the lead vocalist sounds like a real, live human being. There was more manipulation of records in the '80s than in the preceding 3 decades combined! So, if that is someone's diet, no wonder they don't  hear differences in cables, in speaker systems. "Garbage in, garbage out" in music leads to the kind of 'diet' that will not bless you with any kind of hearing acuity.