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The muddy waters of Analogue vs. digital today

With new technology, everything is changing so fast it is hard to keep up with new recordings. I have had a turntable all of my audiophile life, although I admit I played mostly CDs for many years. It was only since I upgraded my analogue system to a certain degree in the mid-nineties, that I could hear that records sounded better than CDs. It wasn’t a very expensive upgrade, a used Rega 3 with glass platter, new Sumiko Bluepoint Special, and a floor demo ARC PH-3. Probably somewhere around $3K. Mid-90s remember.

Now my system is very upgraded and I can hear more differences between vinyl and streaming at high resolution. CDs have kind of been left in the dust. 44.1 resolution sounds kind of tinny and flat. I listen if that’s my only choice, but I can easily hear the difference. I credit myself with a decent ear after doing critial listening for 30+ years. My ear is not as good as most reviewers, but you'll understand why it’s good enough to write a forward to this thread.

I won’t go through the differences I hear between analogue and digital, because you’ve heard it all before. What I want to talk about is my confusion in this new recording landscape. 

I had purchased Roberta Flack’s "First Take" when it came out and I’d kept the record for more than forty years when I realized it had really seen its better days. Basically, it was unlistenable, even after a few washes in the Degritter. I looked at near mint copies of the record and they were quite expensive. Then I saw that there was a new pressing for a reasonable price.

I was listening to the new pressing of "First Take" a few days ago when I realized it sounded overly compressed at the high end. I asked my new audiophile friend chatgpt if the record was pressed from an analogue source. Nope. I was basically listening to a digital recording pressed into vinyl. Chatgpt says that most records made after 1980 come from digital sources. So, I found a reasonablly priced orignal pressing of "First Take." My grandaugher in college can have the digital one.

Today I was playing a fairly new recording of Gustavo Dudamel and Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini. I live in L.A. and have been lucky enough to see Dudamel live many times and Yuga Wang several times. It’s a beautiful recording, wide and deep and detailed and musical. I pronounced it the best classical recording I owned. But it was put out recently. So, I checked with my audiophile buddy chatgpt. The record is from a very high resolution digital source. Chatgpt says that digital can sound more analogue on vinyl because the engineers roll off the high end a bit.

So, now things are more than a bit confusing. Do I buy a recording from before the 80’s on expensive vinyl or might it actually sound better streaming at 192 kHz? If you listen to Patricia Barber’s "Clique" at 172 kHz, it sounds pretty good. So good, i have not bothered to go out and buy it on vinyl.

Does anyone else feel a similar confusion in this modern market, and do you have any suggestions for negotiating it?

audio-b-dog
audio-b-dog's avatar
audio-b-dog OP
782 posts
 

@nitewulf 

I do agree that I've heard some excellent sounding CDs at 44.1/16, All of Diana Kralls CDs sound good. I think it has to do with recording engineering, as well. I don't know anything about the "mastering" of CDs. I assume the source is a digital file. I spent years listening to CDs, some quite good and others not so good. That's pretty much all I listened to for more than a decade. And we must remember that almost all recordings released after 1980 were on digital files. A lot of it compressed and made to sound good on car radios, but awful on good home stereos. I still listen to CDs and 44.1/16 streaming files.

All that being said, however, I--remember I'm just speaking for myself and I wish that everyone else would, too-- have never heard any recording better than a well produced and mastered vinyl album.

There you have it. There are a wide range of recordings, and I have listened to and enjoyed them all. But, when done well, nothing beats a vinyl record. And, although I don't always believe audio engineers, there is a scientific basis for what I hear. I've explained it so many times in this forum, I won't bother to do it again. 

But, you are all welcome to your own opinions. I never questioned the sound of CDs when they were all I listened to. Now I listen to vinyl as well as digital, and I enjoy it all, because I enjoy music. But, on the whole, all things taken into account, I enjoy vinyl more. One other caveat, I have invested in a good turntable, cartridge, and phono preamp. I have a decent digital front end, but it has cost much less. 

nitewulf
453 posts
 

@audio-b-dog , I get it, I have a 10K turntable, my analog front end is much more expensive than my digital. But what I’m saying is, largely the differences are due to production and engineering. I have a collection of Blue Note mono originals produced by Rudy Van Gelder, nothing modern comes close to those recordings. That kind of talent is generational. I just don’t agree with black and white statements about one better than another because things are not that simple.

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
1,058 posts
 

+1 nitewulf.

@OP - I've been reading Mr Fremer's reviews for as long as he's been writing them. He has built his journalistic career by promoting vinyl reproduction and by dissing digital. He may or may not have a good ear and he certainly knows a lot about analogue vinyl, but he knows a lot less about digital.

BTW, I have a very large collection of vinyl LPs and a pretty high end vinyl reproduction system (At least $50k for the turntable / arm / cartridge / phono stage - probably quite a bit more, actually). The digital side of my system is to the same standard. So unlike Mr Fremer, I have two dogs in the race - and they generally finish in a dead heat.

audio-b-dog's avatar
audio-b-dog OP
782 posts
 

@nitewulf 

Have you ever compared those Blue Note mono originals to CD copies? Probably all or most of your jazz albums are available on CD. Or on streaming. It would be interesting to hear your observation.

inna
8,240 posts
 

While not having read Fremer much, I did read enough. I have an impression that he's got a very good or better ear. That's one reason, I believe, why his interest in digital is limited. And he did a lot to keep analogue alive. 

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