Diff in recording/reproduction in Analog/CD/SACD

Dopogue,

I respect that your $3000 turntable may sound nicer to your ears than a $150 CD player on a particular recording...I see this as a question of taste and not a measure of performance. I respect that some people love vintage cars too...and there is nothing wrong with prefering an unreliable gas guzzling beast with an old carburator, drum brakes and solid rubber tires....but even those who adore these vintage cars would not argue that they outperform modern vehicles. ( I do not mean to compare your $3000 turntable to an old car...certainly high quality turntables do a handsome job at sound reproduction much better than an old vintage car verses a modern car...but you get the idea even if the differences are less extreme)

Certainly the quality of source material as affected by the mix or mastering studio/engineer, which can have a big impact. Indeed some original vinyl recordings are better soundingthan the CD version despite all the distortion that the vinyl analog source introduces....this is because the orginal recording may have been better mastered or mixed on to the vinyl than it was to CD. It is also possible that old recording studio masters were mixed by an engineer intending it to be played back on a turntable...and therefore the sound was mastered for this medium....playback on a turntable will then be closer to what the engineer/artist originally intended when compared to a CD straight from the same master tapes (assuming they have been adequately preserved, which is unlikely).

This does not change the fact that the majority of the recording industry use Digital... and I doubt this majority have hearing deficiencies or that there is a conspiracy against Analog.

Digital is undeniably better in terms of performance but I will admit that high quality Analog can sound extremely good and may actually sound better for some particular older original recordings.

I don't even have a vinyl rig, but am the first to admit that sonically, it is far superior to digital.

As an example, I own what I consider to be a reference level CD player - a Granite 657. Playing the same Sonny Rollins "Way Out West" SACD against the record on a bone stock $550 Music Hall MMF5, the vinyl is at least 2 - 3 steps better. We've done this in two different systems. Of course, you need a clean record, but the vinyl rig can outdo digital that is more than an order of magnitude more expensive. I'd welcome a list of CD players that outperform a turntable here in this thread. And, again, this is coming from someone devoted to digital.

In the last sentence in my post above I meant .."Clearaudio master solution is clear standout. Clearaudio Maximum solution should even be better". I always get mixed up between these two ;-)

Shadorne says >>Digital is undeniably better in terms of performance<<

LOL. For a moment there, I thought you were serious.

Shadome, it's my SACD/DC player that originally cost $3,000, NOT the record player. My most expensive turntable cost less than half that much. No way is digital "undeniably better in terms of performance." As I said, give me 30 seconds and you won't likely repeat that statement again. Dave