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Does Anyone Think CD is Better Than Vinyl/Analog?

I am curious to know if anyone thinks the CD format (and I suppose that could include digital altogether) sounds better than vinyl and other analog formats. Who here has gone really far down both paths and can make a valid comparison? So far, I have only gone very far down the CD path and I just keep getting blown away by what the medium is capable of! I haven’t hit a wall yet. It is extremely dependent on proper setup, synergy and source material. Once you start getting those things right, the equipment gets out of the way and it can sound more fantastic than you can imagine! It’s led me to start developing a philosophy that goes something like this: Digital IS “perfect sound forever”; it’s what we do to the signal between the surface of the CD and the speaker cone that compromises it.” 
So I suppose what I’m asking for is stories from people who have explored both mediums in depth and came to the conclusion that CD has the most potential (or vice versa - that’s helpful too). And I don’t simply mean you’ve spent a lot of money on a CD player. I mean you’ve tinkered and tweaked and done actual “research in the lab,” and came back with a deep understanding of the medium and can share those experiences with others.

In my experience, the three most important things to get right are to find a good CD player (and good rarely means most expensive in my experience) and then give it clean power. In my case, I have modified my CD player to run off battery power with DC-DC regulators. The last thing that must be done right is the preamp. It’s the difference between “sounds pretty good” and “sounds dynamic and realistic.”
128x128mkgus
russbutton's avatar
russbutton
429 posts
 
Oh boy...

I have about a dozen recordings in both vinyl and digital.  There things about each medium I like better than the other, so I would say that neither is superior.  They are different.

The big downside to vinyl is that it is expensive to get done right and digital costs a tiny fraction of that.  It's not the CD player that is important.  It's the DAC you're running through that counts.  CD players all buy their transports from the same very few vendors, so obsessing about transports is foolish.  The difference in cost between one CD player and another is in the DAC and the appearance of the cabinet.

I've been running a Peachtree DAC-iT for years now and I'm very happy with it.  I got a chance one day to do some serious comparisons between it, a Schitt Yggy and a PS Audio DirectStream.   Half the listeners that day actually liked the Peachtree best.   I preferred the PS Audio DirectStream a bit, but not $6000 more.  The Schitt sounded like...  Sorry Schitt lovers.

I run a pro grade Tascam CD-200 player and take an optical feed from it to my Peachtree.    I also have ripped all of my CDs to flac format and play them off of a laptop PC into the Peachtree.  Sounds identical, as it should.  Exotic digital cabling is totally BS.  The benefit of digital is that it's just data and is either transmitted or it's not.

My recommendation is to do as I do and run a pro grade CD player with optical output to the DAC of your choice, which can switch to USB from a laptop PC.  You can either rip your CDs to wav or flac format and play off the PC, or just stream directly off the Internet from a service like Tidal.

As for vinyl, I recommend getting into it unless you're already deep into it, in which case you're already doomed.   I bought my first record back when Lyndon Johnson was president and have far too many records to pitch 'em all out, aside from the many I love which are not available on digital, so I have to have a good turntable.   

Good luck!
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
dhite, I would have to say your choice of digital equipment might be...not great. I have plenty of Hi Res digital files that are as good or even better than anything you will get out of vinyl and I use very particular electrostatic speakers. I love records, but totally dissing digital program sources is incorrect. You are cutting yourself off from a great way to collect music particularly modern digitally recorded music. I prefer to keep older analog recorded music analog and newer digitally recorded music digital but I do have some amazing 24/96 downloads of older analog stuff that is wonderful. There is so much stuff out there presented in so many different ways that making generalizations is a big mistake.  
audiogeorge
3 posts
 

Dear Mkgus:  The Real Reason Some People Prefer Analog To Digital

There’s a problem that has been ignored by the entire music industry which I believe is really important for music-lovers that I think you my want to investigate, the greater pitch accuracy, higher signal to noise ratio, and higher dynamic range of digital notwithstanding. Approximately 35 years ago when digital media was introduced to the music consuming public as a media with “Perfect Sound Forever” the music industry made a huge screw up when it got the playback polarity of digital music on CDs and later DVDs, etc. in reversed (inverted polarity).  On a purely random basis that means that digital media and files are heard in the wrong polarity approximately 85% of the time and either 92% wrong or correct when audio systems are set to a fixed playback polarity.  

The result is that the music played in inverted polarity sounds harsh and two-dimensional. And that’s probably the major reason that some music-lovers still believe (without knowing the real reason) that analog sounds better than digital.  Analog media plays in the correct polarity over 99.9% of the time but also sounds bad if played in inverted polarity. It’s difficult if not impossible to make meaningful comparisons of the fidelity and musicality of media and audio components when they aren’t playing in absolute polarity.  The better the playback system the easier it is to hear the differences in polarity. Confusion over polarity may cause music-lovers to expend needless time and money trying to smooth out the irritating and flat sound of digital media when the real problem is music played in inverted polarity.

This should be an object lesson on how an entire industry with its experts and electrical engineers can get it wrong and not do anything about if for over 35 years and counting! So it should be an object lesson that the entire industry that creates recorded music and is based upon scientific principles continues to mostly get polarity wrong.

I've written two monographs that go into great detail about the problem at: http://www.AbsolutePolarity.com and http://www.PolarityGeorge.com. If you or anyone you know might be interested in developing The Perfect Polarizer™ that will detect and correct polarity in real-time, then please forward this email to them/encourage them to contact me, because I believe it could be accomplished with AI/App. Now, do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?”

Respectfully submitted,

George S. Louis, Esq., CEO

Digital Systems & Solutions

President San Diego Audio Society (SDAS)

Website:  www.AudioGeorge.com

Phone:  619-401-9876

1573 Kimberly Woods Dr., El Cajon, CA 92020-7261

P.S.

MQA has repeatedly failed to respond to email questions from myself and other audiophiles about how they treat the polarity of the original recordings, i.e., whether or not they correct the polarity when the original CD/media plays in inverted polarity on approximately 92% of CD players/playback devices.  Their lack of any reply whatsoever doesn’t inspire confidence that they correct it.  And I know audiophiles who’ve played MQA music and found its polarity to vary.   Shame on them!




audio2design
1,351 posts
 
2nd post, me thinks @audiogeorge2 has an axe to grind. You know that most vinyl is digitally mastered?

dhite71
318 posts
 
@mijostyn....being a newbie in the digital realm, I fully acknowledge there is much to learn. I am trusting multiple reviews that the DAC in my integrated is of quality(Audio Research GSi75). My understanding is that the streamer is not significant for SQ if coming out digital into an external DAC.  I therefore have not been inclined to pursue other streamers.  I am only a couple weeks into this arena so there's that too ; )


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