New take on CD vs Vinyl vs CD


What if I digitize a vinyl record, and compare that CD to both it’s rebook CD, and the actual record?

1. Clean record (using a VPI HW-17)
2. Put vinyl on turntable (Ortofon Blue cart)
3. De-magnetize vinyl using a Furutech Destat III
4. Record vinyl using a Harmon Kardon CDR 20

My Parasound Halo integrated allows nice A/B/C comparison.

I used 2 CD players: Sony CDPXA7 ES, and XA 20 ES

I put the song on (‘We got the beat’ Go-Go’s) all 3 sources at the same moment (using all 3 of my hands)

Though the turntable and it’s mediocre cart is the weakest link, it sounded pretty nice. I then switched back and forth and forth a few times till I had a winner.

By far the digitized copy of the vinyl sounded best. Not the outcome I expected.

I then A/B’d both CD players, with the result remaining the same.

Can anyone explain this, besides my psychologist?

128x1281111art

Showing 1 response by wesheadley

I use a Sugarcube SC2 made by a company called Sweet Vinyl. It records in a number of formats including 24bit flac, does track breaks, and uses Discogs to lookup and match the record you’re recording. It is super easy. It also removes ticks and pops from the recording-- in the digital domain-- flawlessly.

I feed it from one or the other of two turntables; a MoFi Ultradeck with a MasterTracker cartridge or a SOTA Star Sapphire VI with Soundsmith Hyperion cartridge, both into a ’VINYL’ phono preamp from Musical Fidelity. I audition them on a 4 piece set - Genesis III’s + Genesis Servo-12 subs. My vinyl recordings tend to sound much better whenever I’ve compared them to an all digital version like, say, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories-- a very fine recording. No doubt on paper the specifications for vinyl don’t compare to digital specs, but, like others here have said, the ears like what they like.