CD v.s LP - When comming from the same MASTER

The LP version would suffer all the degradations and distortions that are inherent in that medium--no stereo bass, limited dynamic range, surface noise, etc. But some of those distortions actually sound good to people, so it's quite possible that the LP will sound better.

Just to clarify, I was talking about starting from a digital master. A CD should sound exactly identical to that digital master. An LP won't, and the difference is, quite literally, distortion. (And I like the sound of some of those distortions myself.)

Sorry, Sean, but I must disagree. A 24/96 master tape does indeed have higher resolution, but on a practical level that means only two things: greater dynamic range and wider frequency range. The latter is only important if you believe that people can hear sounds above 20kHz. As for dynamic range, I've never heard of a master tape with a dynamic range greater than 90dB, which CD can accommodate just fine, thank you. And even if you find such a master tape, you'd have to compress it MUCH more to make an LP, which can only offer about 70-75 dB of dynamic range.

As for the sonic differences, they are not subtle at all at any price range. I'd say the difference between a CD player and a turntable at price X will be greater than the difference between CD player at price X and CD player at price 10X.

None of this is meant to bash vinyl, which I love as much as the next audiophile. I'm not arguing that one medium is better or worse than the other--just different. Better or worse is up to your own taste.

No, Cmk, it has nothing to do with set-up. There isn't room on an LP for two channels reaching all the way to 20 Hz--at least not if you want more than a few minutes of music per side. So it is standard practice to sum deep bass to mono. Same thing with dynamic range. It's inherent in the medium.

Cmk: I mentioned summing bass as an example of the alterations (distortions, if you will) necessary to cut a vinyl record. I agree that it is not audibly significant in most cases. By the way, the reason bass often sounds directional is because we aren't listening to pure tones, and sonic components that are higher in frequency can provide directional cues. It also helps to know that back left is usually where the bass drum is.

Sean: I'm not arguing that CDs can theoretically reproduce sound perfectly. They can't. I'm arguing that, practically, they come close enough. Yes, there is jitter, but all the research I've seen suggests that the level of jitter in a typical (and I do not mean high-end) CD player is an order of magnitude below hearing thresholds. DACs and anti-aliasing filters have improved since the early days, and I haven't heard or heard of a bad one in the last 15 years--except at the high end, where occasionally a designer is too busy being innovative to get the basics right.

The proof of this is in the listening. Remember that this thread started from the premise of a digital master tape. I would argue that you would have to listen very hard to discern a real difference between that master tape and a CD played on a $100 DVD player. Whereas it would be relatively easy to discern a difference between master tape and a $10,000 vinyl rig. That tells me that the implementation of digital, while still not perfect, is pretty darn good.

And, to get back to the original point, that means it's probably not the flaws in digital, such as they are, that are responsible for the fact that many listeners prefer the vinyl version. It's more likely that the technical flaws of vinyl are, counterintuitively, part of what makes that medium sonically appealing.

Albert: We're talking about different things. You are saying that LPs usually sound better to you than CDs. A lot of audiophiles agree (including me, sometimes). What I am saying is that if you start from a 24/96 master, a CD will sound closer to the master than an LP. (You may still prefer the LP, however.)

Also, even when LPs are made from digital recordings, it's unlikely that the LP and the CD will be made from the same master. So you aren't making apples-to-apples comparisons of the two media, in any event.

If the master was something higher than 16/44.1 and a lot are 24 bit word length and up to 96k, then CD cannot capture all of that data, so in theory the LP will have the edge...

Except that the LP can't capture all of that data, either. In theory, it can capture some of the energy above 20kHz--but there isn't much, and very few people making LPs even try, for obvious reasons. As for dynamic range, LPs have a much higher noise floor and much lower dynamic range than CD, so the LP loses even more data than the CD does.

Bottom line, a CD will always come closer to a hi-rez digital master tape than an LP will.