Word.
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When it comes, this will, no doubt be like pronouncements from our Respective World Leaders.
This is all very amusing because in the late 1970s and early 1980s many of the best recordings were digitally mastered and issued on vinyl. Now when we have fantastic digital playback people ask is it better than analogue? Would that be analogue mastered vinyl or digitally mastered vinyl?
So this was digitally mastered and was Gramophone Record of the Year in 1986, and sounds marvellous. I have the vinyl, which surely sounded better than the CD played on a CD player at the time.
Skip forward to 2020 and the final digital issue in the series sounds astonishing and was one of the records of the year.
It’s a bit like comparing Rod Laver and Roger Federer - pointless. I play records and digital and don’t waste time questioning whether I’m using the better format, however you measure “better”.
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Jeebus you is demented, man. And very amusing in your own right as well. And fully entitled to be so. Still enjoying your cast off SHL5+'s though 
Always have the feeling that you just got done consulting Wikipedia or whatever.
Not sure where wiki comes in to it. I have one of the Japanese Denon PCM vinyls from the 1970s that I keep for old times sake. The Josquin is loaned to my dealer as it is a famous reference recording he does not have.
Cool
The digital Telarc recordings are probably much better known in the USA. I think Telarc was set up in the late 1970s specifically to record digitally. I had a few of them. Although recorded digitally, they were considered reference vinyl recordings.
DMM was I think started by Teldec in Germany and I had quite a few. Still have this German digital DMM vinyl from 1987. They do sound a bit digital, whatever that is.
Top right on this back cover it refers to a track on the CD version missing from the vinyl. It was a big issue in digital v vinyl that you could get more music on a CD. It was not just about sound.
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JSYK - Didn’t actually mean “cool” - was just humoring you. Not that it matters. 
I find most discussions of analogue vs digital would be best placed under the auspices of the Circumlocution Office
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My friend and I always have a good laugh er “conversation” when it comes to my Ted Smith DAC compared to his Holo May DAC Kitsune Edition. I’ve heard his DAC and was able to compare a Denefrips Terminator to the DSSr. in my Headphone Rig. The Terminator equalled the DSSr. on most music but there were some tracks I played where the Windom loaded DSSr. edged out the Denefrips either in Treble extension, better midrange/midbass, and even Bass extension on certain tracks. But damn, those r2r ladder DAC’s have come a long way since the Philips 1541 days.
I know back in the day there used to be a problem with RoHs solder whether done on a SMT machine or Wave Solder where after a short period of time, the solder would actually grow and create short circuits if components were placed to close together.
I mention this only when I see all those 0402 package SMT resistors packed so tightly that shorts could be inevitable. But the what do I know 
.
Is this still a problem in the industry ? I’ve been out of Electronics Manufacturing for so many years now.
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While I wouldn’t see it the way of the first paragraph and while a sound quality related recommendation from the 70‘s/80‘s in my experience has very limited validity today (furthermore the focus of those records of the year is rather interpretation than mainly sound), I agree that surprisingly some (definitely not a majority) digital recordings on vinyl of that era sound quite good. I personally liked some of the „Soundstream“ recordings (on Delos and ProArte) and I have the one or other digital Decca LP’s and others which still sound nice and just have a certain less vibrant and a bit flat digital signature of the era which is tolerable.
One example where the assumption of the relevance of digital or analog production processes comes into mind again, is my often cited and favored vinyl release of Järvi‘s Beethoven cycle (music and sound wise). In opposite to the SACD release they mixed and mastered the LP version analog. The result is a much better sound of the LP set and one of the best sounding classical LP releases generally (although from hires digital source). Another nearly as good example is the digitally sourced LP set (mastered by Kevin Gray) of Tilson Thomas Mahler cycle compared to the SACD. But both are quite new digital recordings, not from the 80‘s.
I’d forgotten about Decca Digital. I don’t know if they just started doing digital recordings because it was the thrill of relatively new technology, easier, cheaper, and I don’t recall any stand-out discs.
The thing about the Joaquin, The Tallis Scholars set up their own record label, Gimell, to produce the finest recordings possible using the best available technology. Their first record, shown above, was Gramohpone record of the year and they were the first independent label to receive the award label of the year. That LP was issued 3 years after CD was launched, I don’t think it was issued on CD, but there is a digital version available to purchase online. The Sixteen did the same, their label is called Coros, and the recordings are magnificent.
I think we agree that there is a grey area between digital and analogue and it is more a matter of how good engineers use the tools at their disposal.
It reminds me of one of the best looking films I’ve seen in years, Phantom Thread, which was shot on 35mm film with a haze added. I don’t know if this analogy applies to audio.
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The Soundstream recording process used a 16 bit, 50 kHz system which was transferred to DSD through the dCS 972 Sample Rate Converter using custom software.
Interesting. Not sure whether the problem you’re describing is really specific to RoHs solder, but tin whiskering (whiskers that literally grow over time) has been a known serious issue in aerospace electronics for some years. It has caused costly failures. There are now very stringent restrictions on maximum allowable tin content in components, solder in particular, to avoid tin whisker failures. I work in aerospace, which why I’m familiar with the most recent materials standards. There is a new workmanship and materials standard now being imposed on aerospace electronics with limits on tin content in solder being one of the restrictions.
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“The Soundstream recording process used a 1bit, 50 kHz system”
That don’t sound right?
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50kHz, 16 bits.
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What you are referring to is exactly the issue we noticed in the early 2000’s. Good for the environment but bad for circuit boards.
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There are mitigation strategies to avoid dendritic growth. Minimum spacings, layout and conformal coat. Humidity will increase the growth. Lots of contracts require Sn Pb solder with at least sufficient lead. and approval by engineering that includes a mitigation approach. If current is high enough it will vaporize dendrite shorts. So that is one strategy to use lead free solder.
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Typo. Thanks for catching it. Corrected.
For CD release, 50 kHz had to be resampled to 44.1 kHz. This was not an issue with SACD;s which may be one reason, good as the CDs sounded, the SACDs sound better. When Telarc closed shop I purchased over 40 of them for under $9.00USD@. Though most weren’t recorded using the Soundsstream system (Telarc eventually moved to a proprietary 20-bit system, using a Meridian 607/18 20-bit A/D converter, later to 24-bit recorders before finally settling on 1-bit Direct Stream Digital (DSD) encoding) they all sound very good.
Typo. Corrected. Thanks Ted.