Vinyl vs. top-notch digital

Vinyl is better because it can drive you more crazy for longer periods than digital can.

Because music is MADE from materials as they vibrate,ie the WOOD body of a guitar VIBRATING, the METAL strings of a guitar MOVING,ie woods, metals, how cant a material that vibrates, namely, the materials that a plinth, stylus, cartridge body, , the stylus, the record mat be the IDEAL transducer to IMITATE those materials and THEREFORE real life music? (this has to be HEARD to be understood)

You cant get earthy tones from a laser pick up!

The sphere in which it operates is not mechanical or material sciences dependent, unlike real instruments, therefore it has a weakness.

Harnessing vinyls inherent potential and taking it to the extreme with few or any failings is more difficult than doing the same with digital.

Thats why we can get mixed results sometimes and contradictory reports.

On some days the the differences between vinyl and digital are negligable to me but on days when i want to strive for the best, i instinctively turn to "working" with vinyl.

If i am an extremely passionate winemaker i want to start with the best grapes from the best region and not just buy juice in pails or make wine from a kit, its the same with music playback for me, if i am striving for the best playback i start with the inherently better format and hope that as i process it i get one of the best wines ever, but its no guarantee, things can go wrong but nevertheless the potential is always still there, even if i might have to wait for next years grapes to try again. I dont start making wine from pails of juice because the magic wasnt realized! Wine from a kit has no potential to win any blue ribbons or compete with grapes but yes it can taste good and if theres nothing better you can still enjoy it.

The answer to whether a person should go vinyl is a question each must answer for themselves. It depends on how intense and passionate the audiophile is and whether they enjoy striving,working and chasing after mediums of playback that have their pitfalls and foibles as part of their pleasure!. If you are a audio aficionado of the highest degree you will inescapably pursue vinyl. Its unavoidable in my opinion OR you are not as serious as you might have thought and you prefer convenience over the pursuit of perfection.

If you pick apart what vinyl playback is doing or trying to do you realize that it is 'nature' trying to imitate 'nature' BY 'nature', whereas digital, i believe, is something more 'polluted' or one or two steps further removed from that. What can imitate 'nature' better than NATURE?

Thats my take on the digital vs, vinyl discussion.(june 2011)

Overall...I do belong to the "vinyl is superior" camp BUT there are times when one track, of one record, in one "incarnation" of digital based system will beat the same track, of a particular pressing, in one "incarnation" of a different vinyl based system.

In other words...Judging which sounds better must be done on a system to system , track to track, case to case basis. The heated arguments begin when we make blanket statements about unheard, unfamiliar systems, of unknown cd or vinyl pressings, of which we have no reference to be able to make informative and meaningful discussions and statements just dogmatic statements.

My digital front end is pleasing to listen to. I say this against the backdrop of my vinyl front end listening. But the pleasantness of my digital front end must be interpreted in the context of how each independent system of my system, ie, my tube amp, my preamp, my speaker cables, etc, is contributing to the final "digital" sound i am hearing.

To date, with the best moments of my vinyl playback i have not been able to get the quality of timbre from my digital front end that i get from my vinyl front end. On occasion, if the vta is out or the recording is just ok, then the virtues of vinyl sometimes seem "awol".

To sort through this maze of differences in outcome, i prefer to judge on a case to case basis as listed in the first two paragraphs of this post.