Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

Lacee, my 60's dylan first pressings are some of the most impressive recordings i have in my small collection. I have heard many "incarnations" of the playback of these same lps... change... as my system goes through it's changes. I have a record in my head of the several different ways i have these lps sound and can compare them with each other. Some were more romantic and colored and some were more neutral and clinical.

RE***I once had a debate on this forum with someone who flat out told me I didn't know what I was talking about, because I said that early 50's and 60's jazz lps sounded more "real" than most of todays recordings did.
He said we have progressed and a lot of advancements have been made.***

I'm not surprised. From the little experience i have in this area i would probably take your side and agree with what you have said. It seems today everything is overproduced and over processed? I'd like to see a return to simple analog tape recordings, with sparse tracks and limited manipulation.

I think at the heart of the problem of "hifi" is the myriad of variables that exist both from a recording standpoint and from a playback standpoint.

That is...you can't build a system that will play all the types of recordings that exist out there equally well? You can dial in your system for certain types of recordings but then once you've done that you fail to serve the other types of recordings.In other words, just when you've set the ball up and are ready to kick, you look up and the goal posts have been moved! So basically, it seems that "hifidelity" is a futile exercise in so far as if one sets their goal to have all their software sound perfect.

When i started out, i was very naive, romantic and idealistic.

Lately, as i have reflected, i have almost come to the conclusion that the term "hi fidelity" was probably a term originally coined simply to sell the "snake oil" of "great sound". Which essentially means that they have hung the billboard of "hifidelity"... when the stuff in the bottle has no power to heal! And we all bought some! (I laugh)

Sorry if my outlook is a bit bleak but it only comes on the heals of that romantic idealist that was full of hopes of an attainable ideal and who has become to some degree disappointed! Where i have arrived and where i set out to go are not the same thing.

But...I can't complain. Some of the promises of hifi are being delivered, i guess, i just need to lower my expectations.

Maybe the ideal is to build the system that is between midfi plus and below state of the art.

I think i might put together a system that is just a glorified getto blaster. (smile)

Don't give up Vertigo,and please don't regress.

It's is a bit of a shock when you hear a really superb system and discovering how great all the music sounds,but that the system is revealing all the flaws as well.

But this is the direction that I want to travel further towards, and as I've said ,doing things about the power to my gear and treating the room, really has gotten me closer.

Not closer to reality, but closer to the reality of the recording and playback process which if you really think about it is reality.

It's all an illusion, but the better the illusion, the more I enjoy the music.

Somefolks don't enjoy this type of realism, and rather enjoy systems that cover up some of the nasties of the recording chain.

To me if it sounds like a bad recording , then that is what it is,I don't want it to mask the impefections,because if a system is good at that it is also masking great recordings.

It's like grading all the smart kids and the less smart ones, lumping them altogether and giving the class one big C .

If I have some grade A recordings I don't want them reproduced at a C level.

Sure everything sounds alright, just like all the kids get a pass, but is that the way we want things to be?

It's just breeding mediocrity, and sorry for the preaching, but this seems to be where society is at.

But why settle for it if you don't have to.

Assembling a truthful system isn't hard or even that expensive to do, if you pay attention to a few things that some folks describe as snake oil.

Well snake oil to them is nirvana to me, if it gets me a system that is revealing of everything there is about a piece of recorded music.

I'll take my music, warts and all, over music that's rendered all sweet and gooey.

But that's they way I like it, it's not the way you or anyone else has to like it.

And from all that I've been reading on forums and in reviews, it seems the goo is the more popular.

I guess I am a coffee black type and the others are triple triple lovers.

In the end we are still listening to the music and that's what matters,no matter what it's played back thru.

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RE***Don't give up Vertigo,and please don't regress.***

Appreciate the encouragement. Thanks, fellow audiophile sojourner...

I liked your "school grades" analogy.

I appreciate your response but i wonder if you have really understood my points? The reason why i wonder if you have understood my points is because i am having trouble understanding why you would encourage me not to regress or give up since the reality is....that the goal is unattainable?

So, it is not that i am a pessimist, rather it is that i am a realist! I like to think that i am able to see things as they are.

I haven't reached a definitive conclusion on the question but i have to ask myself ...why strive for an impossible goal if striving FOR that goal only leads to the displeasure of frustration? I thought the goal of hi fidelity was pleasure and satisfaction? (i smile) The other questions i have to ask are... what's the goal? Deriving pleasure from "FIDELITY" that is only available to a select number of recordings on a system that has been specifically dialed in for those recordings or deriving pleasure from a broad number of recordings on which the focus is "catching the value of tune" and actually achieving that!!?

What really is the truth about the relationship between pleasure and "hi fidelity"?

(for me) It depends on the day... Some days i am deriving pleasure from the PURSUIT of attaining fidelity and some days i am not, some days it has the opposite effect. Some days, i just want to listen to all kinds of music and recordings that are simply euphonic and that's just fine with me cause euphonic equals pleasure. (but i know to those who are seeking hi fidelity "euphonic" can be a dirty word!)(smile)

re***It's is a bit of a shock when you hear a really superb system and discovering how great all the music sounds,but that the system is revealing all the flaws as well.***

In light of the above statement and some of your previous posts how would you reconcile your "paradox of high resolution systems" with your above statement that (paraphrasing) "the superb system makes "all" the music sound great"?

My guess would be that you still are able to derive pleasure from "poor sounding recordings"?

It is difficult for me to make blanket statements about "poor sounding recordings" since i prefer to comment on a case by case basis but generally i feel the "warts" detract from "the original point of the song" on a "hi performance system" that has been dialed in with a certain bent toward certain recordings and therefore i suspect in some cases a midfi system(or a system with a different "bent") would serve certain types of recordings better and serve the "songs" better.

This brings me to a point i alluded to in my previous post but perhaps i failed to clearly communicate.

It was the "moving goal post" analogy.

Make adjustments to your system so that recordings of certain well regarded recordings sound sublime then play other perceived "lesser" recordings and the system shows up the lesser recordings for supposedly what they are ("poor recordings") relative to the better recordings BUT if you were to focus your system adjustments for some time on those so called "poor recordings" i argue you can make those sound better than you believed they could. Once you succeed at making those lesser recordings sound better than you thought now try those well regarded recordings, now they sound worse than how you remembered they could sound.

See how you can't win? This is what i mean by "the goal posts are constantly moving and shifting" Which is the part of "hi fidelity" that i perceive is absurd and a exercise in "expensive futility".

So, what i mean to say is that to some degree it is an oversimplification to say recordings are objectively better or worse in regard to "serving the music" because there is no standard by which to measure this. ?? Alot of how a recording will sound has to do with how you've dialed in your system.

One might mistakenly CONCLUDE a record is a poor recording but is it in fact a poor recording simply because it sounds bad on your system compared to a "better recording" because your system has been dialed in for that kind of a recording? Those with midfi system's might not understand the level of the kind of nuances i am talking about which can compliment a certain type of recording to the alienation of many others(unfairly so). As you "go up" in hifi the double edged sword gets sharper and sharper.

If you tried that "poor record" on a system that was considered great in the 80's you might really enjoy that record the way it was INTENDED for that time and that period and change your opinion about the quality of that recording.

So, with this context added and if all this is true then i hope folks can i understand me when i say that at the very least, to some degree ..."hi fidelity" is an exercise in futility and "snake oil" since the myriad of contingencies keep the goal posts constantly moving. Once we make the "good recordings" sound great by dialing in the system for those, now the perceived "poor recordings" sound worse then they really should. Once we've made the "poor recordings" sound much better than we thought they could, now the perceived "good recordings" sound only mediocre or poor.

I'm not saying i'm right...I'm saying...i think i'm right...this is how i see it.

Remember sisyphus in greek mythology and his boulder(not the amp, no ...the rock)?

I remember the sound of one of my previous systems it was...systemdek turntable with humble profile arm, with denon 103, manley stingray, lehmann audio black cube, nautilus 805's , cardas golden reference interconnect.

Hey, this was a very musical system! its worth about 5 grand used. Now, just the arm i own is worth just about as much as that whole system.

Does the system i have now sound better than that one? From my memory of the two sounds i would have to answer sometimes yes ...and...sometimes ,no and maybe some times..."different".Some 80's and 90,s stuff, i think, in a general way could maybe bring more pleasure on the old system because the resolution was lower and because that old system found better synergy with those types of records. That old system has no where near the clarity,neutrality,timbrel fidelity and transparency of my current system but from my fuzzy memory i remember some recordings "serving the music better" than they currently do on my system even though it can be said in a certain sense my present system should sound better.

That old system could sound bright,colored and grainy but it was a toe tapper. Overall i think i much prefer the virtues of my present system, things sound real, but that other system could be alot of fun too! The old system was like a fun toy my present system is more like a sophisticated instrument? Its all very interesting.

I guess deciding to regress or not will come down to which way i finally, prefer to listen to music.

RE***Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?***

It has to be decided on a case by case basis, from track to track, from system to system, from quality of set up to quality of set up, from player to player, from cartridge to cartridge, on and on the list can go.

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It's hard to be happy with too much focus on "flaws" no matter what because they are always there, and not just in audio.

The unrelenting pursuit of perfection is a sure road to eventual unhappiness. The ability to wean pleasure out of most any decent hand you are dealt is the key.

Its a dilemma. You have to strike a realistic balance between both. Neither seeking perfection nor accepting imperfection alone is enough.

If I might add a couple of more views.

The joy of discovery is what moves me.

I would presume it to be akin to the archeologist,who after painstakingly rubbing off thousands of years of dirt and debris,discoveries a treasure that was hidden behind all that muck.

Well I like to discover all there is to be discovered in a recording, even if the object of my attention isn't perfect afterall,I can live with that if the object or the music is something I enjoy.
Or in other words, I don't need two arms to fully apreciate what a work of art the staue of Venus is.
That should pretty much sum it up about accepting the warts and all scenario.
Because I am also a musician and realized years ago that I will never achieve the ultimate replica of the live event in my room(I have a constant working reality of how live music sounds)I quit striving for that elusive daydream.

Perhaps this hasn't been presented by me clearly enough.
Perfection for me is the warts and all presentation, and the closer to that the better I feel my system has improved.

If I can't tell the difference between my great recordings and the lesser ones, then my system isn't at the level that it should be.But for others this is just fine, if it lets them enjoy the music.

But who said I am not enjoying the music?
The music is just as enjoyable,poorly recorded or not.
The music doesn't change, just the quality of it's reproduction.

A Jeff Beck solo still knocks me out, even if the recording isn't a high end type of recording.
Talent and musicianship can't be destroyed by a flawed recording process.
When it's there it is there.

I would prefer a poor recording of Jeff Beck than a superior recording of someone several steps below his level of ability.
What good is a great recording if you never want to listen to it because of mediocre playing or talent?

But what is really great is when you have a super musician like Jeff Beck who has been recorded with the utmost care to preserve as much fidelity as possible.
Why would I want to settle for a system that is unable to make the distinction between the two?

If everything sounds great, then what really sounds great has lost it's meaning and importance.
Quality(as it has for the most part in modern recordings)becomes less and less important when you dumb it down and compress it for the sake of being louder than the next guy.
If it sounds good enough in MP3 on earbuds, then what else matters?

I hate to harken back to the old days(yes before I got into music or HiFi)the less they had to work with made for some spookily real recordings.

And when you listen to great systems that reveal even the tape hiss from the recording session,that is a flaw that tells me I am hearing it the way it was and as close to the event of the recording that there is.
IF I can hear the tape hiss, this isn't a flaw to my ears, it's a big bonus, because I know that little else from that recording session is hidden from me.

The decay and ring of the cymbals will shimmer away as they did when captured by the mic,and I will enjoy that right along with the tape hiss.

So for me there is no downside to having a highly resolving system.
It's what keeps me in the hobby , the quest for components and accessories that more finely hone the resolve of the system.

To go the opposite way and settle for less is the road to mediocrity.
Why go there if you aren't forced to?

Why settle for 3/4 of the music you've paid for just because it's easy on the ears in a compromised system?
What about the other 1/4 that is MIA?

Even if that missing 1/4 reveals that the recording isn't the best ever,for me it's just as important as the other 3/4.

Maybe more so.

Why not want to hear it all?

The way it really was,in all it's sonic splendor or inspite of it?

Why does reality, warts and all, have to take a back seat
in this hobby and why has the focus shifted to how listenable the sound is as opposed to how accurate it is?

None of the highly resolving systems that I have experienced ever gave me listener fatigue.

Just the opposite, they lead to extended listening sessions and the quest for more music.