Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

At CAF, I heard a demonstration at the Command Performance main room of test pressings of a new album by the Tedeschi Trucks band. I was astounded by how different tonally the sound was from different vinyl compositions. 

Folks, vinyl is not a reference material. Vinyl records may sound pleasing, with a warmth that is often not found in the digital version (this is true of vinyl records pressed from digital files, as the Mobile Fidelity ruckus showed us).
 

People whose ears I respect have an opinion that vinyl records, with all their compromises and tweakiness in playing, are more resolving than their digital counterparts. But the level of vibration control and noise reduction to achieve this is astonishing in its cost and complexity. My Aurender N200/Yggdrasil OG/Quboz combo crushes my Ariston RD11S/Grace 707/Benz Ace/Hegel V10 combo in resolution and musicality despite being somewhat equivalent in inflation adjusted dollar cost.

Sometimes you feel like making a martini. Sometimes you feel like popping open a beer.  One is not more valid than the other. 

@rbstehno 

Whats comical about these digital vs analog posts are that the vinyl lovers have a nice analog setup but then use cheap crap for their digital stuff and they wonder why digital sounds like crap.

I have followed a similar path to you over the past couple of decades, However, that is a nonsensical straw man argument. I know plenty of people with excellent streaming setups who also enjoy vinyl - some even prefer it. 

In any case, the OP did say specifically that this topic is not about sound quality. 

With vinyl you will always have the maintenance issues, the wear issues, the lack of vinyl of your favorite artists, the need to get up to skip a track, on and on, plus the BEST sound from an album will always be the last time you played it because of wear.

It's all part of the charm 😉

Newton-John, did you read the original post? He stated: “Yes, the red plastic cup is cheap and convenient, just like streaming.” This tells me that his streaming setup is cheap and if you go cheap, it’s going to sound bad, then no matter what your other source is, it will sound better than the cheap digital. He also compared the sound of his cheap streaming setup to some vinyl,  so unless he’s comparing the color of the pieces, he is judging sound quality.
 

Setup an MSB dac for $100k, dsc for $200k or a wadax for $200k, then have him compare the sound quality. I have friends with $100k vinyl setups and they like the sound of vinyl over their $20k digital system. If they bought a better dac, the difference in sq between the 2 would be closer where they could be more equal or 1 would be a little better. Btw, I didn’t like his dac sound so I would have probably gone with his analog sound quality too.

I would also state that you would have to spend 3x or much more on vinyl to get vinyl to sound better. Say you have a nice $10k dac setup with the best cables, streaming software and components, you would have to spend at least $30k or much more to get the same sound quality. The cartridge alone would be $5k - $10k or more, arm $3k - $5k or more, tt base, cables, phono preamp, and a nice preamp. Digital system you can go directly into the amp without a preamp.