Just wondering how many prefer CDs over LPs or LPs over CDs for the best sound quality. Assuming that both turntable and CDP are same high end quality.
dyna says "
"Confirmation bias" is not a "strawman argument," Elizabeth, it is a psychological reality"
"Reality" is a bit strong here, but I guess that could be true if one has a problem being honest with him/her self. Not everything I try in my system stays there. If it isn't an improvement, it's removed plain & simple.
And another from dyna: "Additionally, because audio memory is so extremely perishable, without an instantaneous comparison, a high end upgrade could sound like anything....marginally better or worse but you couldn't tell....couldn't remember"
That is not my experience. Without audio memory there would be no standard at all to judge sound quality by.
With Magi phono ($1000), Grado Gold ($260), Clear Audio turntable with arm ($1200), the total is under $2500 which is close to Arcam FMJ 23CD player ($2000). This setup is much less expensive than my more expensive setup (Grado 301 + Ortofon RMG 309 + SPU Gold Reference), and its sound is not as good, but still sounds noticeably better than CDs. Again, my comparison is on well recorded HiFi LPs vs their counterpart CDs. The thing is, not all LPs are recorded really good. Most of them, especially those produced in early 70s+ are actually pretty bad, and I doubt that they are any better than CDs. Things may differ though with SACDs and good SACD players, which I have not tried on my system yet.
In my case, SS or tube amps don't matter much in determining which source is better. Both clearly showed LPs are far better than CDs. I've had BAT tube power/pre amps and now have Plinius SS power/pre amps. In both cases, LPs sound much better. The cartridge does not need to cost so much. $100+ cartridges like Grado Gold, Shure M97xe would be enough to reveal the difference. I've used those, and also Denon 103R, Audio Technica 150MLX, and low output Ortofon cartridges like MC20, SL15e, and SPUs. Of course, the preamp should be good. I am using a hand built Magi phonomenal tube preamp. A phono card on BAT preamp and phono section on Plinius M16P preamp were all enough to show the better sound than CDs. On my mediocre amps and receivers, however, there is not much difference. Same thing on my mediocre speakers. My Apogee Diva and Tyler Lynbrook reveal a big difference between LP and CD if paired with good amps and phono section, while there is virtually no difference on my $100~$200 speakers. One more thing is, the difference is only for well recorded HiFi LPs. LPs with poor recording quality does not sound any better than CDs. Sad thing is, even some new artists produce LPs these days, but most of them don't sound any better than their CDs or streaming sound. I have a few albums with both CDs and LPs: among others a few of them on top of my had are LA4's Just Friends, Nora Jones' Come Away With Me, Bill Evans' Waltz for Derby, and Janos Starker's Bach cello suites. Even somebody remotely interested in audio quality can readily tell the difference of the sound in just a couple of seconds.
Clearly LPs over CDs. Well then, my LP gears (phono preamp, stylus, arm, turntable) are much more expensive than my CD player, costing about $7K vs $2K. The most expensive stylus I have had is Ortofon SPU Gold Reference, which is about the same price as the most expensive CD Player I've ever had, Arcam FMJ CD23. I wonder if $5000+ CD player would come close to my LP gears, but so far, I have not tried any CD players that cost that much.
"Confirmation bias" is not a "strawman argument," Elizabeth, it is a psychological reality. When you spend a lot of money on an audio upgrade, you disconnect the old crap and hook up the new stuff. You typically have neither the time, interest, equipment or capability to leave the old crap hooked up so that you can do instantaneous A/B comparisons with the new stuff. Additionally, because audio memory is so extremely perishable, without an instantaneous comparison, a high end upgrade could sound like anything....marginally better or worse but you couldn't tell....couldn't remember.
But know this. If you spend enough money, the new stuff will sound better. Guaranteed...pretty much. Not a bad thing if, in the end, it makes you feel good.
Also know that confirmation
bias
can lead to the experimenter interpreting results incorrectly because of the
tendency to look for information that conforms to their hypothesis, and
overlook information that argues against it. It is a significant threat to a
study's internal validity, and is therefore typically controlled using a
double-blind experimental design.
No REAL audiophile does, nor will he believe the results of, contradictory double-blind experimentation.This is why Joe Nobody hooks up a $2000 power cord to his Oppo disc player and reports that the new playback is now "Jaw Dropping!"
Confirmation bias is funny. It was a lot funnier the first time someone stated it though... I listen to and enjoy both redbooks & vinyl. Wouldn't want it any other way.
One last opinion. In comparing analog vs digital, cables, power cords, components, AC plugs and the like; in the world of high end equipment, the one that will sound the best to the listener is very often the one he wants to sound best.
Hahaha! Yes, confirmation bias is the at the root of most subjectivist high end audio conclusions.
Well, it is my opinion, that vinyl can sound very pleasing. That combined with the whole experience (cool looking turntable, album cover and sleeve, setting the record on the platter, cuing up the tonearm, etc.) makes if certainly very different. There is no way to scientifically demonstrate that analog vinyl technology (even at it’s best) can be better than redbook digital...in fact, Sony and Phillips engineers and scientists built that technology specifically to be a better medium than analog.
Can LPs sound good to the ear? Sure they can. Can they sound better to YOU that digital? Sure they can. Does that make the LP a "better" playback medium? Not a chance. Just because YOU like it better (and I’m glad you do) doesn’t make a turntable a better sounding reproduction device. And that is before you even consider the convenience of digital.
ME? I sold all my LPs in 1991 and have never looked back. Would I get a turntable again? Maybe. But it certainly wouldn’t be because I was looking for a better quality listening experience. Probably because it looks cool...like the Garrard Zero-100 turntable I owned in the mid 70’s.
Not trying to change your mind at all. But I would recommend you state your preference as an opinion...which is exactly all it can be.
One last opinion. In comparing analog vs digital, cables, power cords, components, AC plugs and the like; in the world of high end equipment, the one that will sound the best to the listener is very often the one he wants to sound best.
I’ll bite I’m saying analog done right will blow digital at any price point out of the water I’ve listened to many very expensive digital systems although they sounded nice they didn’t give me that lifelike experience. Right now I’m listing to a esoteric DV-60 / bat/ Wilson wp6 in my family room it’s nowhere near my anolog system. Digital is easy analog is for a more lifelike experience,btw a digital player made in 80s sure doesn’t sound like a new DCS digital placer or maybe you will ( debunk) that to saying they didn’t make cds in the 80s hope you get it.
My point was to debunk your assertion that a "record" over 100 years old sounds better that current technology...which I assume is digital recording. That is the silliness I was referring to.
If that is not what you meant then you stated an opinion but expressed it as if it were a fact.
1877 Thomas Edson invented the phonograph that’s over 140 years if you don’t believe me look it up . Today’s analog is also mechical look at the inner working of a cartrage. It’s the same principle back then as is is today just more refined based on mechanical vibrations.
I agree that getting excellent sound from vinyl costs more and takes more time and fiddling to attain. The low level signals from the cartridge are prone to interference and lots of cable dressing and such to eliminate hums can be necessary, and if you have the wrong phono preamps etc. you can have issues that can sometimes only be solved by replacement.
You can attain a good sounding digital rig for a fraction of what the analogue front end costs you, and that added to the convenience factor (I listen to almost all my digital from FLAC files on a server) means that analogue will remain a minority pastime.
When a well recorded album is played on a properly set up analogue rig, it can sound very good indeed and it can be pretty much silent in the background. I recently played the 1971 Neil Young at Massey Hall LP to a find who works in pro audio and he asked if it was a CD as the background was so quiet. One shouldn't condemn all vinyl just because your records came from a garage sale and you don't own a decent record cleaning machine.
If the recording chain is less than perfect, it doesn't matter much whether it is analogue or digital - crap is crap and I have listened to quite a few relatively recent remastered digital releases that are inferior to older releases of the same material.
This is all an interesting discussion, but I don't think it leads to any conclusions. Some analogue is excellent and a lot of digital is as well (more today that in the early days, for sure). You can choose to champion one or the other exclusively, or you can choose my course, which is to enjoy both without any set preconceptions going in.
Lps vpi tnt sme309 and here’s the key van den hull colibri xgp it digs things out of that piece of vinyl that HAVE ALLWAYS BEEN THERE if you don’t believe me come on over I’ll show you . It has allways has amazed me analog that was created 100+ years ago sounds better than present technology. By the way I went from a Benz ruby to the corlibri and was baffled by the change.
I feel like we are blessed to have all the different types of media at our disposal. We are in a golden age of audio. CD has a lower noise floor and superior attack for sure but it's an error by omission format. Vinyl costs allot to execute properly and forces you to be involved in the presentation therefore it errors on the side of commission. I love streaming for it's convenience and discovering new music....what a great thing it is but at the end of the day I gotta go with CD.
I have LPs pressed in the early 1950s that play just fine too. One example (Benny Goodman) is 65 years old and still plays fine.
The Library of Congress did an archival study in the mid 1980s that suggested that laminated media like CDs would last decades while amorphous media like LPs and LP stampers would last centuries (all heavily dependent on quality of storage of course). I think I would be bored to death of the cut by then though.
Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn’t actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin.
I am sorry, but this is complete BS.
Many people think you just need enough gain and EQ for a phono preamp. They are wrong- there is more to it than that.
I was quite surprised when I discovered this to be the case about 30 years ago. Any engineer knows that you use something called ’stopping resistors’ to stabilize a circuit. Otherwise you can get oscillation. If the circuit is on the verge of oscillation, as you see in nearly all Japanese designs used in receivers and integrated amps from the 1960s-1990s (none of which have stopping resistors whether tube or solid state), ultrasonic defects in the surface can set off short term instabilities in the equalizer, resulting in little ticks. This is not a feedback or passive EQ phenomena, nor is it related to solid state or tube as we have seen a good number of solid state phono preamps that are also free of ticks and pops. The other problem is overload margin, which can also induce ticks and pops. The reason this shows up is the cartridge is an inductor and the tone arm cable is a capacitance, together forming a tuned resonance which can be active at ultrasonic frequencies in the case of MM cartridges and RF frequencies in the case of LOMC cartridges. The resonant peak can be 30db higher than that of the signal in the case of the latter! If the preamp isn’t alright with that, ticks and pops occur.
Ralph, I don’t want to have this discussion. That’s why in my first post I said:
The CD vs LP debate is about preference, not who’s right or wrong. I hope we can get past that old argument someday. Both formats are capable of very good and very bad sound.
Many do see it as a preference. I see it as an engineering problem and a direct conflict with how the ear hears vs how spec sheets are created.
The ear/brain has certain perceptual rules and that is what the debate around CD/LP and tubes/transistors is all about. If you are engaged with the Emperor’s New Clothes, you will think the spec sheet is real and that is what you want to hear. If you know about human physiology (IOW how the ear/brain system works) then you find the spec sheets troubling because its obvious that they are intended to look good on paper while ignoring how sound is perceived.
Here’s an example: all forms of distortion are perceived by the ear as a tonality. We all know about the ever-loving 2nd harmonic that makes tubes sound rich. But what is less well-known is that the ear uses higher ordered harmonics (5th and above) to gauge sound pressure. This is probably because sine waves are very rare in nature where our hearing was developed. BTW this is very easy to demonstrate with simple test equipment.
The industry likes to see very low THD numbers (looks nice on paper) so we use feedback to get rid of those pesky harmonic distortions. The problem is that feedback makes distortion of its own, and because its entirely higher orders, inharmonic types and IMD associated with the feedback node, we easily perceive it as hardness and brightness even though it might only be 0.005%. This is what I mean by the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Aliasing works the same way- the ear perceives it as harshness and brightness. Because this tonality is caused by distortion, turning down the treble to make it go away doesn’t work. My beef with digital is that this is built into the recording. It is very rare to find a digital recording that lacks this form of coloration.
In the analog world this form of distortion is called ’inharmonic distortion’ because it relates to harmonics surrounding a certain frequency. In a tape machine this can be caused by harmonics of the audio signal interacting with the record oscillator. In a digital system, these inharmonics are centered around the scan frequency, and essentially are an intermodulation. I don’t think most people realize how serious a problem this actually can be; intermodulations may not look like much when its only two frequencies, but when a number of them are involved it gets very complex very quickly! This is why intermodulation distortion is so audible and a recording system that has this as an inherent fault is bound to have controversy around it, so its no surprise that nearly 30 years on, these debates are still common.
Ralph, I don’t want to have this discussion. That’s why in my first post I said:
The CD vs LP debate is about preference, not who’s right or wrong. I hope we can get past that old argument someday. Both formats are capable of very good and very bad sound.
Not complete BS! I upgraded my phono amp. a few months ago and one of the biggest differences is the reduction in surface noise, both pops and ticks. They are there but reduced in impact. The surface noise is detached from the music unike when I tried a "budget" phono amp. No going back!
Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn't actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin.
Atmasphere 10-10-2018 ... aliasing is highly audible in small amounts where harmonic distortion is not.
And likewise timing jitter is highly audible in small amounts. Which depending on the design of the specific equipment that is used can be introduced during A/D conversion in the recording process, and during D/A conversion in the playback process, and in the latter case regardless of whether a one-box CD player or a transport/DAC combination is used. And that in turn can be affected by the condition of the disc. In a thread here a few years ago one of our particularly knowledgeable members, Kirkus, described experience on the test bench in which he regularly observed noise generated by disc tracking servos finding its way to the point of D/A conversion in CDPs and thereby contributing to jitter, to a degree that depended on how "hard" the servos had to work to track particular discs.
So all sorts of subtle hardware and disc dependent effects can be among the "wide range of variables" you referred to.
Glennewdick 10-10-2018 Why do we have to be in anyone camp lets have a foot in both...
OK Ralph, you're right. There's no such thing as a not very well built
or poorly set up turntable or cartridge, no damaged vinyl, no dirty
records, no off center spindle holes, no poorly recorded LPs.
Everything
in vinyl land is just as good as it can be. Every playback of every
LP is indistinguishable from live musicians playing in the room. I
don't know what got into me that I forgot all that for a minute. Thanks
for correcting my thinking.
Yeah, and no poorly built CD players, no damaged CDs, no dirty CDs, none that simply won't play, none that are poorly recorded?? The problem here is conflating the media in general with individual results, notwithstanding the fact that nothing in this world is perfect, not digital and not analog.
But if we are going to have this discussion, its helpful to work with facts. When someone posts LPs specs that might have been true in 1962, its not the same as saying that's how it is now. I've had people do that to me- claiming that there have been no improvements in cartridge or tone arm tech since the early 60s- then expecting me to take that hand waving for real!
So here are a few facts. CD/digital noise floor is usually limited to the room in which the recording was made and the electronics chain used. LP noise floor is variable from about -60 to the same above. The LP mastering system has arguably more headroom than any other operation in audio.
The results of either are highly variable and depend largely on the producer and the care taken by the recording and mastering personnel.
Distortion amounts are not vastly different, but the nature of the distortion is. LP distortion is less audible because its mostly harmonic as opposed to inharmonic. IOW aliasing is highly audible in small amounts where harmonic distortion is not. The LP is at a disadvantage due to poor setup resulting a large amount of distortion.
Bandwidth of digital is variable due to scanning rate and the need for record side filters. Sometimes exceeds 20KHz. LP is *usually* bandwidth limited to about 50KHz in record but can go much higher.
Ticks and pops can be on the surface of the LP, but far more of them are caused by poorly designed phono equalizers that are unstable, resulting in a tick or pop that isn't actually on the LP. About 95% of ticks and pops have this origin. Otherwise, the LP is fragile and should be treated with care. CDs don't have ticks and pops, but can have dropouts and can get 'stuck'. The surface is fragile and should be treated with care. Music can be streamed, but bandwidth can cause the music to stop, and provenience issues can cause your music to simply not be on the cloud where you left it. (For this reason I prefer disk storage with ample backup)
Analog storage is a pain in the ass. Digital storage usually is easy, until it isn't and then its enough to make you cry if you lost your entire disk or the like. In a nutshell, LP is usually more pleasing while digital can have a bit less noise, individual results depending on a wide range of variables on both sides.
Anyone interested in the more out-of-the-way classical repertoire.
An anecdote. My last trip to audition speakers. Most stores have now gone over to streaming. The first two tracks I habitually use are from a recording called "Crye" done by the Concordia consort of viols on Metronome of English music for viols. It's an excellent recording, beautifully played, and very revealing of many aspects of speakers. Was it anywhere on the database? No!
Fortunately, the salesperson was accommodating enough to lug a transport in from another room.
CD's who buys CD's anymore? Hehe. That said I like both digital and analog I don't see the need to be in anyone camp as there is great music available on both.
I have about 2k vinyl records in my collection not a huge collection but big enough, so I have no reason to buy those records again. reality is I stream digital now more then anything else. I have box's of CD's I have not played in years but I still enjoy digital through streaming Tidal.
Why do we have to be in anyone camp lets have a foot in both...
OK Ralph, you're right. There's no such thing as a not very well built or poorly set up turntable or cartridge, no damaged vinyl, no dirty records, no off center spindle holes, no poorly recorded LPs.
Everything in vinyl land is just as good as it can be. Every playback of every LP is indistinguishable from live musicians playing in the room. I don't know what got into me that I forgot all that for a minute. Thanks for correcting my thinking.
You need to add "to me" or "to vinyl afficianados" to make this
statement correct. To anyone with a decent system, digital no longer
has to sound bright.
The best digital system I've heard to date is the StahlTech, which sounded smoother and more detailed than MSB, dCS, Modwright modified Oppo; the latter three being some of the best I've heard. The designer of that system was in my room at RMAF; we were playing his system with a server as a source. The cut was from Massive Attack on Mezzanine, something we both liked. I mentioned that I had that on LP and he was interested in hearing it. After only 5 seconds he turned to me and said 'Digital has such a long way to go'. It is my opinion that his pragmatism in this regard is why his DAC is one of the very best. It had better be- it retailed for $37,000.00.
So I'm going to flip this one around- the better your system, the easier it is to hear digital problems compared to LP; Mike heard it in only 5 seconds.
Cheaper systems tend to have so much higher ordered harmonic distortion that its difficult to tell if a CD is brighter than LP or not- and likely the owner has done something to tone down that brightness caused by distortion brought on be inferior gear.
It’s more than just harshness in CD playback, it’s an unnatural aspect to the sound in general, including bass frequencies, that’s always evident in any CD system that hasn’t been carefully tweaked. Of course, room acoustics is a big subject and also contributes greatly to the sound so it’s difficult to separate variables. Nevertheless, the CD and treating the CD player can go a long way to getting the typical bland and irritating CD sound much more analog-like. A few examples: seismic isolation of the CD player, careful leveling of the transport/CD, dealing with background scattered laser light. Another big issue with CD playback is the worsening situation regarding overly aggressive dynamic range compression in CD mastering.
This is why digital still sounds bright, even when used with a super high end DAC.
You need to add "to me" or "to vinyl afficianados" to make this statement correct. To anyone with a decent system, digital no longer has to sound bright. I strongly dislike overly bright sound and I listen to a lot of cds without problem.
The CD vs LP debate is about preference, not who's right or wrong. I hope we can get past that old argument someday. Both formats are capable of very good and very bad sound.
Maybe the next round of digital will be better, and the LP will finally go away.
Ralph, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around DSD, but it’s not exactly “consumer-friendly”. Do you see any improvements on that front? Do you think DSD will become the digital utopia that we wanted the CD to be?
No amount of money spend on beefy turntables and complex tonearms will produce the dynamic range of which the LP is incapable.
??
Signal to Noise Ratio: LP 50db, CD 90db Frequency Response: LP 20-20kHz, CD 20-22kHz (a tie) Total Harmonic Distortion: LP 1-2%, CD 0.003% Stereo separation: LP 25db, CD 90db
This bit is inaccurate. So much depends on the actual recording!! First- most CDs **including classical and jazz** are compressed, for the simple reason that they might be played in a car.
Second, I put that first quote up there for a reason. LPs are capable of much wider dynamic range and noise floor than presented here. And the typical LP bandwidth extends to 40KHz in both record and playback, even though microphones, tape and digital don't. Our cutter head (Westerex 3D) was made in 1960 and our cutter electronics are bandwidth limited to 42KHz. We don't have any problems recording at 40KHz and playing back on a Technics SL1200 (an older one) with a Grado gold, through an H/K 430 receiver! IOW the bandwidth thing is a myth, plain and simple- the bandwidth has been there in record since the 1950s and in playback since the 1970s (cartridges lagged well behind the capabilities of the cutters).
Regarding noise and dynamic range: when a lacquer is cut, if the mastering engineer did his setup homework, the lacquer is so quiet that when you play it back, the noise floor is that of the electronics, not the media. Quite literally the you wonder if the darn thing is on, then music blasts out of nowhere. This implies a noise floor in the neighborhood of -90db or better. The surface noise comes in during the pressing process, but at least one pressing plant, QRP (owned by Acoustic Sounds) has done something about that, by damping their pressing machines so they don't shake and vibrate during the pressing process. This results in a good 25 db improvement in the noise floor. Modern LPs can do quite a bit better than -55db!
The actual distortion is another misnomer. How was that measured? In all likelihood that number was taken from a website or older document in which the homework was not done. For example, if a high output cartridge was used, what sort of loading was applied? If a MM cartridge is used and it was not loaded, the distortion is quite a bit higher! That's not so much a problem with the media as it is the reproducer, and if you want to point an an analog problem:
The largest negative for vinyl is the equipment choice and setup. IF one
has the skills, or a really good tech person to chose the right
cart/arm combo, then set it up. At this point I would say almost no one
has a person really skilled to do it. Most are half way guessing and
klutzing to 'good enough'.
-then this is actually the biggest problem, although I disagree with the 'almost no one
has a person really skilled to do it' bit, as I don't seem to have any troubles setting up an arm and yet no worries getting it to perform; I don't see myself as any arm setup expert...
IOW the distortion is not so much in the *media* as it is in the **playback**. This is quite the opposite of digital, where the distortion (aliasing; the digital industry does not like to call it by its name, but make no mistake, aliasing is distortion, known in the analog world as 'inharmonic distortion', which is a special form of IMD, which means its really audible) is built into the recording, brick wall filter notwithstanding. This is why digital still sounds bright, even when used with a super high end DAC. When the distortion is in playback as on the LP, it becomes solvable and one way to reduce it is to simply use a low output moving coil cartridge, since their distortion (caused by ringing) is so much lower. Or just get the MM cartridge loaded right...
But as I pointed out earlier, if digital was really bringing home the bacon, there wouldn't be any LPs being made. But there are- and pressing plants are 6 months backlogged. Maybe the next round of digital will be better, and the LP will finally go away. I'd love that- I have over 6000 titles and its a pain in the rear to store it and move it.
I started collecting vinyl in the 60’s. In the early 80’s I bought a Teac reel-to-reel, dbx 224 noise reduction unit, and dbx 3bx dynamic range expander. If you’ve never heard a good reel-to-reel recording, you are missing a real treat. My recorded vinyl sounded better than the original album, to me. Back then, I had about 10 cases of reels.
In the 80’s, I moved to CDs because they were supposed to better. My moderate collection of 1,200 vinyl albums went pretty much unplayed for a very long time. Between my CDs and reels, I had all the music I needed for a long time.
Recently, I purchased a Technics SL-1200G w/ Ortofon Black cartridge and a Zenith MKII CD ripper/streamer. I often play the same album on my turntable and a ripped CD on the Zenith, and switch back and forth between them to compare the music. Of course the Zenith has a little more dynamic range, the sound is clear and very musical, but I still prefer vinyl over CDs (ripped or not). Vinyl sounds more natural to me, and aside from an occasional pop or click, the vast majority of my albums are in mint or near mint condition - because I rarely played them once they were recorded. The SQ with the 1200G is really, really good.
In a dealer’s showroom, I heard a $25K turntable with $10K tonearm and $7K cartridge (all toll about a $250K system) that sounded better than ANYTHING I’ve ever heard before. When its all said and done, I’m thinking "better" in this case depends on the equipment used, and to a large degree is a personal preference.
I completely agree that the performance, recording, and mastering are more important than the medium. But ceteris peribus, an LP will be better than a 78, and a CD will be better than an LP.
Both CD and LP are capable of extraordinary performance. And at their best, they sound very much more alike than different.
Signal to Noise Ratio: LP 50db, CD 90db Frequency Response: LP 20-20kHz, CD 20-22kHz (a tie) Total Harmonic Distortion: LP 1-2%, CD 0.003% Stereo separation: LP 25db, CD 90db
The
largest negative for vinyl is the equipment choice and setup. IF one
has the skills, or a really good tech person to chose the right cart/arm
combo, then set it up. At this point I would say almost no one has a
person really skilled to do it. Most are half way guessing and klutzing
to 'good enough'.
Agreed! And that is supported by what many people post here, and the tools they are using ... it's clear they're not precise enough to get the alignment spot-on.
Then the cleaning of
LPs. Really it has gotten to a new level, but I have not made that leap
to an ultrasonic cleaning machine.
Both CD and LP are capable of extraordinary performance. And attheir best, they sound very much more alike than different.
@cleeds - thank you for that perfect voice of reason. You are absolutely right. The mastering is not a factor - I work with mastering engineers and when they are mastering they don’t master significantly differently between the two formats.
So then the format you prefer comes down to other questions: - the nostalgia value you place on vinyl - the value you place on the convenience of CD - whether you are bothered by inevitable vinyl crackles - the joy you feel on the ritual of playing vinyl - the pleasure you get from messing with the more HiFi ’bits’ aspect of vinyl: the choice of deck, arm, cartridge, phono amp, playing with alignment, isolation and the rest. CD is generally a one box decision (and isolation, though that’s not as significant as with a record deck). - the breadth and value of CD catalogue vs vinyl - the storage differences and your personal preferences
but then when we move into the world of digital storage, streaming and playback and a whole new can of worms is opened. This makes the component options for vinyl feel like a walk in the park.
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