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vinyl versus digital redux

Has anyone compared the sound of vinyl with the sound of digital converted from a vinyl intermediary ?

I am referring to 'rips' of vinyl made with high end, high quality vinyl playback systems, with
conversion to high resolution digital.
I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the two results.
The digital rip of a vinyl record sounds identical...or very nearly so...to direct playback of the vinyl.

If one has 'experienced' the foregoing, one might question why digital made without the intermediary of vinyl sounds so different from vinyl.   A detective story ?

We are talking about vinyl made by ADC (analog to digital conversion) of an amplified microphone signal and re-conversion to analog for output to the record cutting lathe, or from analog tape recording of an amplified microphone signal, and then....as above...via ADCl and back to analog for output to the cutting lathe.

Of course vinyl can be and is 'cut' (pressings made from 'stamper' copies the 'master' cut in lacquer) without digital intermediary.  Such practice is apparently uncommon, and ?? identified as such by the 'label' (production)

Has anyone compared vinyl and high resolution digital (downloads) albums offered by the same 'label' of the same performance ?  Granted, digital versus vinyl difference should diminish with higher digital resolution.   Sound waves are sine waves....air waves do not 'travel' in digital bits.    A digital signal cannot be more than an approximation of a sine wave, but a closer approximation as potential digital resolution (equating to bit depth times sampling frequency) increases.

If vinyl and digital well made from vinyl intermediary sound almost identical, and If vinyl and digital not made via vinyl intermediary sound quite different, what is the source of this difference ? 

Could it reside....I'll skip the sound processing stages (including RIAA equalization)...in the electro-mechanical process imparting the signal to the vinyl groove ?

Is there analogy with speaker cone material and the need for a degree of self-damping ?
Were self-damping not to some extent desirable, would not all speaker cones, from tweeter to sub-woofer, be made of materials where stiffness to weight ratio was of sole importance ?

Thanks for any comments.
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Showing 2 responses by ericseaberg

ericseaberg's avatar
ericseaberg
3 posts
 
I was mastering lacquers for vinyl in the late 70s to early 80s and my current turntable is a ReVox B791 tangent tracking system, playing vinyl EXACTLY as it was cut... straight across the middle. No groove distortion or side-to-side phase errors. 
I use a Ortofon VMS20e cartridge I purchased in 1985 and have a store of new styli as needed. 
Preamp is by Graham Slee feeding an RME interface where I transcribe into ProTools at 96kHz/24bit minimum. Conversion is done to 44.1/16bit for my old clients that have lost master tapes, allowing the to do CDs as needed. 
There is something magical that happens between the groove, stylus and preamp that is hard to compare with digital transfers of the master tape. In many cases, I will purchase 96k or higher files of albums even though I have a great vinyl copy... and they do sound different. 
Just my $.02. 
ericseaberg's avatar
ericseaberg
3 posts
 
I am asking about LP's made decades ago from analog tape...whether these lp's preserve sound...particularly high frequency sound...better than does the tape itself.
Regarding possibly 'misleading commercialization', I refer to 'high resolution digital transfer'...ie transfer from tape... and 'digital re-mastering of tapes recorded decades ago....before high resolution digital recording became available.

When I was recording to tape in the 70s to late 80s prior to Digital, our multitrack tape machines were capable of HF response above and beyond 23-24kHz, with SN ratios approaching 70dB, depending on tape format and speed.  

One of the projects I did in the mid-80s was mixed to ½" analogue tape at 30ips as well as DAT tape 48kHz/16bit.  There was NO comparison to the sound and we stuck with the analogue tape, transferring it to DAT once the final mixes were edited & assembled for mastering. 

Many of the early CDs were mastered using what was called an EQ COPY of the master tape, taking into consideration EQ and processing for mastering to vinyl and NOT from the original master tape.  It took several years for companies to REMASTER for CD using the original tapes and not use EQ copies.

That being said, since there was a limitation of HF response on tape, purchasing anything above 96kHz of an original analogue album is a waste of money.  Even finding something at 48k/24bit is going to sound as good as the original tape... the extra 48k sampling (for 96k product) is just leftover, in most cases.  
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