2. analog
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Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

I have always been curious about vinyl and its touted superiority over digital, so I decided to try it for myself. Over the course of the past several years I bought a few turntables, phono stages, and a bunch of new albums. They sounded fine I thought, but didn't stomp all over digital like some would tend to believe.

It wasn't until I popped on some old disk that I picked up used from a garage sale somewhere that I heard what vinyl was really about: it was the smoothest, most organic, and 3d sound that ever came out of my speakers. I had never heard anything quite like it. All of the digital I had, no matter how high the resolution, did not really come close to approaching that type of sound.

Out of the handful of albums I have from the 70s-80s, most of them have this type of sound. Problem is, most of my music and preferences are new releases (not necessarily in an audiophile genre) or stuff from the past decade and these albums sounded like music from a CD player but with the added noise, pops, clicks, higher price, and inconveniences inherent with vinyl. Of all the new albums I bought recently, only two sounded like they were mastered in the analog domain.

It seems that almost anything released after the 2000's (except audiophile reissues) sounded like music from a CD player of some sort, only worse due to the added noise making the CD version superior. I have experienced this on a variety of turntables, and this was even true in a friend's setup with a high end TT/cart.

So my question is, is vinyl only good for older pre-80s music when mastering was still analog and not all digital?
solman989

Showing 3 responses by dover

dover
2,318 posts
 
Raul,
I am absolutely astonished by your post on bass above and its importance to reproduction. Do you only listen to bass ?
Given that your room is not large, the analogue gear sits between your speakers, the miss-match of multiple drivers and amplifiers, I cannot see how your system can possibly deliver coherent musical timing. If it does it must be a complete fluke.
dover
2,318 posts
 
Although I prefer analogue by a long way, I agree with Mapman, it is going to come down to the quality of the implementation.
To me the biggest issue for analogue is the inability for most people to set a turntable up correctly. I can listen to simple music on digital, but anything with multiple instrumentation, eg orchestral, for me, digital cannot cope, and my digital reference system is way ahead of anything commercially produced.
With regards to bass performance, amplification/speakers/room will have a bigger part to play than which medium you use.
As my best mate says - "Nothing wrong with digital, it's only a little bit out all of the time" .
dover
2,318 posts
 
Mapman,
It is feasable that a digitally mastered recording could sound better through an analogue medium than digital because playing back via digital in the case of CD adds another A/D & D/A conversion, and if played back via computer/dac at least 1 other D/A conversion - each conversion being an inaccurate reconstruction of the recording or file preceding it.
The "value proposition" for analogue and digital are quite different. The value proposition for digital is providing a portable transportable medium for music.
The "value proposition" for analogue is to provide an accurate medium for transporting and playing back music.
Digital is simply an approximation of analogue via fundamentally flawed mathematics, no more no less, with the added advantage of easy transportablility or transferrability.
I hope you dont expect MacDonalds burgers to provide you with a healthy diet.

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