2. analog
  3. 140184-113812

Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

Long story short, i've just brought home a VPI classic 1 mounted with a Zu-Denon DL103 on JMW Memorial 10.5 with the appropriate heavier counterweight. Had everything dialed in..perfect azimuth, VTF, overhang, with only a slightly higher than perfect VTA. Levelling checked. All good. 

I did a comparison between the VPI and my Esoteric X03SE and it's not even close. The Esoteric completely crushes the VPI in all regards. The level of treble refinement, air, decay, soundstage depth and width, seperation, tonality, overall coherence is just a simply a league above from what I'm hearing from the VPI. The only area the VPI seems to be better at is bass weight, but not by much. 

I'm honestly quite dumbfounded here. I've always believed that analogue should be superior to digital. I know the Esoteric is a much pricier item but the VPI classic is supposed to be a very good turntable and shouldn't be a slouch either. At this point I feel like I should give up on analogue playback and invest further in digital. 

Has anyone had a similar experience comparing the best of digital to a very good analogue setup?

Equipment:
Esoteric X03SE 
VPI Classic, JMW Memorial 10.5, Zu-DL103
Accuphase C200L
Accuphase P600
AR 90 speakers

Test Record/CD:
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing (Redbook vs MOV 180g reissue)



chadsort

Showing 3 responses by cleeds

cleeds
6,086 posts
 
whart
I really don’t want to feed the analog v digital which one is better debate ...  much comes down to the quality of the source material. And despite my life-long love affair with the vinyl LP, I enjoy digital playback immensely.
Well said, and +1. It's often confounded me how for some listeners the analog/digital discussion is either/or. I think they co-exist quite nicely.
cleeds
6,086 posts
 
iamhe

A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy ...  This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.

While this seems intuitively true, it is actually completely false, demonstrably so. See this.

A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost.
But information is lost. That's easy to prove. Ask anyone who has ever made their own recording and then had an LP pressed from it.

Not to nitpick, but a groove is not "carved" into an LP. It is stamped. Only the master lacquer can be considered to be "carved."

I'm a vinyl guy, so I hesitate to correct these errors. But it's important to understand what LP gets right, and where it has limitations.
cleeds
6,086 posts
 
snowdog212
Vinyl is an archaic and noisy medium, requiring substantial roll-off in the lows and highs in order to get to the final medium (vinyl) ...
That's mistaken. It sounds like you're confused about the RIAA curve, which does "roll off" the LF while boosting the HF, only to be restored by the inverse curve in the phono preamp.
Listen to a classical record with a quiet flute part for example - and just the sound of the stylus dragging across a perfectly Mint vinyl record is too loud and audible against the flute itself.
That sounds like something is seriously wrong with either your phono cartridge, your setup, or both.
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