What albums, in your opinion, sound unquestionably better on Vinyl rather than Digital?


So this is not an effort to start a medium-war thread, rather in my view some records just seem to be mastered better on the vinyl record version than the digital version. Three that spring to mind from my record collection:

  • Henri Texier - Varech
  • Tom Misch - Geography
  • JLin - Black Origami (this very surprisingly to me)


I know everyone’s system is different, everyone’s ears are different and everyone’s tastes are different, but for the purposes of this discussion let us assume that YOU are the final arbiter of objective reality!
corvaldt

Showing 4 responses by 2channel8

Carly Simon's Anticipation sounds better on vinyl than MoFi SACD.
I've got a supposedly audiophile Japanese import of Bobby Darin's "That's All". The "Mack The Knife" cut has a lot of over-modulation or some such gunk. The best version of the song I've found so far is on a CD collection, probably because the gunk is less obvious in lo-fi. Other than that, the only albums that I have both a CD and vinyl version of are because the vinyl has been abused.
Red House, Mapleshade, and New West sell very well made CDs, although the artists are quite an eclectic group. Greg Brown's on Red House are especially good. I have not had the opportunity to compare the same releases on vinyl; but New West does vinyl as well as digital.
"Of course everyone’s perception will vary depending on what the album is playing through."

True, dat. I guess that’s where things diverge from Peter’s points. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to get a decent CD playback system than a vinyl one. One component that needs little skill to set up vs a table, a tonearm, a cartridge, sometimes a phono preamp, a bunch of cables of differing properties, a well matched cartridge and a way to set it up, a cleaning system, static control.......
Just to get the conversation back on point, I don't think the  OP's intention was to open another debate on the superiority on one medium over all others or methods of recording, engineering, and mastering. Although I have really learned a lot from reading all these posts and agree with Peter Aczel's comments shared by @cd318, I believe what we are asked to share are specific recordings that sound "unquestionably" better on vinyl so I can go out and buy them and not waste my money or time. I thank you all for your tireless research and for contributing to my future listening joy.

Cheap Jim