Vinyl - One Word - WOW!!

I spent a few hours today comparing streaming with vinyl.

Vinyl wins easy. The sense of space, air, and speakers disappearing was much better with vinyl.  One record of electronic music by Klaus Schulze sound as good steaming it. But comparing things like Blue Notes records it’s not even close. The sound stage is much more open and reaches out into the room with vinyl. In comparison streaming sounds dry, dead, with all the instruments smaller and stuck way behind the speakers 

Dive in man. The water is fine yet quite deep…..

What's a vinyl?!

Some experience no difference between the sound of vinyl and digital, while others say that vinyl is more open, lively and realistic. Interesting to hear of such opposite experiences. I wish I heard no difference, because a vinyl setup could easily cost 5x what a comparable quality digital setup costs. You could spend $5K to $10K and get a VERY nice digital setup, where you could easily spend that on a phono cartridge, or a tonearm, or a phono preamp... and you still don't have a turntable!

My jaded and jaundiced take is that one day you listen to a record and you are in heaven, smiling ear to ear. The next day not. One day you listen to your very good digital set-up and you again smile ear to ear, the next day not. Some days you try both and nothing. Time to go get a book or hope to find a good movie. With all that said, I am the first to admit that when my substantial investment in my two 'tables sound "on" it is extremely gratifying. The fact that such old and basic technology can touch the soul in a way that digital never does (for me) is magical.