Diff in recording/reproduction in Analog/CD/SACD

What your asking is difficult to answer. I am absolutely an analog guy but will try to comment without too much bias on the subject.

A dear friend of mine who worked for JVC for several years was heavily involved with the Xrcd stuff. He worked with mastering and quality control and commented to me at CES last year that the JVC digital masters, when auditioned off the studio hard drive, was the closest thing to perfect he had ever heard.

Then he followed with the comment that unfortunately it was "impossible" to move it to another digital media without severely corrupting the sound. For some reason it's fine at stage one and each transfer, save, mix or conversion to SACD, CD, diminishes the quality severely.

An example that I find strange, Alison Krauss is recorded in digital DSD and my analog pressing is absolutely wonderful, much better than I have ever heard the CD, even on fellow audio members systems that have DCS, Audio Note and such. Perhaps as my friend at JVC says, converting directly from digital to analog at the recording studio gets closer than any other way, save an analog original that's done near perfect.

This discussion can dissolve pretty quickly once we begin to discuss recording quality and what era a particular recording came from. Master tapes from the 1940 are no match for those in the 1960's even though both may be 100% analog.

Your question about cartridges is valid. All cartridges imprint their personality on the music they track, as does the turntable, the cables and even the phono preamp. However, there is little doubt that there is big differences in reproduction quality of various digital playback systems as well, as no format is flawless.

Your question "is analog clearly the winner?." My guess is the vote will be split at least 50/50 as members of the Audiogon community seem to prefer one format over the other about equally.

Perhaps the ultimate question is: What do you prefer to listen to?

I think Albert makes a very important point, that I have thought may have a lot to do with the bland sound we hear from CDs and that is that they are "dumbed" down in the process of getting from the master to the final pressed version we buy.

I have experienced this myself, by making my own recordings of live music with a modest recording setup and transfering them to CD. It seems impossible that they would compete with high dollar recording budgets but they do. There is a life there that is often missing with produced CDs. They aren't perfect in all ways, but I generally prefer the sound of my own live recordings to most CDs that I own. My theory on this is the fact that I'm listening to the master not the copy

I am fairly new to analog playback, but I think it is clearly better when you look at sound quality only. I can connect with music on a higher level with viny. The convenience factor is way down with analog, and we live in a convenience driven world, that is why digital wins hands down for most.

Digital is far superior to Analog. This is a well known fact. Why else has digital become a standard for playback and recording? Perhaps those who prefer analog are either nostalgic or have made such a significant investment in vinyl that they are reticent to switch due to the cost.

In theory CD should be pretty close to perfect for playback. Some people claim an imprvement with SACD....certainly a higher bandwidth may have some advantages ofr studios ...but very unlikely to make a difference in playback.