Yep.
All that matters is listening to that which one enjoys.
jazznut saidBut I t’s interesting that Mastering Guru Steve Hoffman stated . . .
Have you followed this topic on his forum? You will find a lot of support there for whatever he utters. If you are unfamiliar with his forum, do not post. Steve and his acolytes allow no dissent.
palerider saidBut I have a very high confidence factor that the digital system I have [feeding analog electronics and electromechanical speakers] is revealing that recording far more accurately and completely than the vinyl system.
It certainly all depends on the vinyl setup you take for comparison. It can’t be generalized. In my opinion a vinyl setup that in an analogy equals the tubed PSA gear should be used, not one that equals the all tube amp you chose for your analogy. Some years ago Paul might have judged tubes within amps like you judge vinyl or all-tubes and now PSA gear uses tubes although they are in obvious suspect to color sound. The vinyl setup has to be quite straight sounding to compare with digital IMO. Anything else is cliche.
Nothing against the fact that you have a different guess what sounds more accurate to the masters than Hoffman tested and found out for himself.
Surely he’s also just one of us human beings with differing taste. I just mentioned that he’s probably one of the very few who not only guessed and has an own taste, but had the chance to really compare.
Aside of that nobody can ever speak against he fact that what one likes counts. I fully support this…no need of further discussion actually. Just if it wasn’t fun and interesting to discuss about it, we all wouldn’t have done it, right 
Elk saidjazznut said But I t's interesting that Mastering Guru Steve Hoffman stated . . .Have you followed this topic on his forum? You will find a lot of support there for whatever he utters. If you are unfamiliar with his forum, do not post. Steve and his acolytes allow no dissent.
That’s another story
But isn’t it a bit the same in any forum, even here Opinions are mostly quite streamlined to the host. Talking vinyl here also is a bit like talking about church in a Hells Angels club
Try to talk digital in Fremers forum…
You feel you have been treated unfairly, have been personally attacked, or your opinions and thoughts disallowed?
I find this forum one of the uncommon few that embraces dissent, engages in respectful discussion. You perceive this differently?
No absolutely not! I exaggerated.
This forum is better than others! However I think you also don’t get personally attacked at Fremer’s.
There’s just a flavor or smell at all such forums, also here, but that’s no problem, I like it here!
Vigorous argument is fair game. But I find disturbing the numerous reports that on Hoffman’s forum (and some others), dissenting posts are deleted, the posters receive attacking PM’s, etc.
We previously had a moderator here who deleted posts the content of which he did not like - they merely disagreed with his position. I have no patience with this type of behavior.
This story of an in some extreme respects censored forum has two sides afaik. The other is that Hoffman got seriously attacked in an unfair and business damaging way himself, which may have to do with his personality and maybe also business behavior, but is bad anyway.
If it develops like that, there might be some action required. People get sensible if they get seriously criticized in their business in the public. Good for any manufacturer and service provider if this doesn’t happen as it’s hardly controllable.
So his personality, his work and his forum are different things I’d say and his forum is certainly a rougher place than this forum, but still ok and very interesting especially in terms of mastering topics, as Hoffman’s not the only engineer posting.
There’s a lot of amateur or end-consumer talk around in this respect … or silence…except of his place. I often didn’t like his style and he sometimes seems to be more than vigorously with his opinion, but he’s a professional and not ignorant and blinkered, that’s not self-evident and it’s important and maybe the only thing he has in common with Paul.
jazznut said Hoffman got seriously attacked in an unfair and business damaging way himselfAd hominem attacks are always inappropriate. If he was libeled, those posts should be deleted. On the other hand, if the criticisms are true and valid, I expect him to be a big enough boy to answer them.
But this is entirely different from deleting posts merely because one does not like the on-topic opinion expressed by another. This is always wrong and undermines discourse.
Unfortunately, this is what occurs on Steve’s site. He has the right to do this (there is no First Amendment rights on a private website) but it remains abhorrent and despicable. Instead, take them on fairly.
Agreed.
I’d be interested which kind of postings get deleted, as I read some distinct critics of even his mastering work which were left online.
But I’m with you, he’s big enough to be able to take all opinions.
Phono cartridges have its cantilever wrapped in a form of elastic/rubber. That right there sweetens the sound. Its like adding some extra thickener to a sauce. The cables that carry the low level signal will color the sound in various ways. Tone arms also color the sound. Anti-skate forces and cartridge angle have their own effects as well. Even the casing of the cartridge (which effects damping) will color the sound. Platter surfaces can color the sound… and phono preamps can color the sound. But? The collective effect can sound euphonious.
If anyone does not believe what I said about what rubber surrounds do to a cantilever? Try a Decca London cartridge. It eliminates the rubber surround completely and … Interesting how it will sound closer to what we hear with digital.
I am a musician. Others here may agree with what I have to say… Digital can sound like a real instrument that has been recorded up close. Records do not duplicate that reality, though records can sound good. For that reason digital demands accurate transfer of signal that TT does not require to sound its best. Digital has its own set of problems with electrical noise when its injected into the mix. Certain IC chips can also cause problems with noise. Interconnects who’s wires within the cable are not individually insulated (strand to strand) will also add a certain noise to the sound of music. Same holds true to speaker cables.
If we want digital to meet its potential? It will demand and require getting things just right. TT sound can be very forgiving where digital will not, but analog will never be able to sound like actual real instruments live. Analog will sound nice just the same. In certain ways, analog can sound better than real instruments because of how it alters the sound we hear. I used to sit right in front of the amplifiers and drums and knew that what I heard up close did not sound like music heard from an audience… violins up close can also sound surprisingly harsh. Close mic’ing in recording has obstacles to overcome to get the music sound its best in digital.
In order for digital to sound great will be more demanding, requiring precision and exactness in speaker placement. Music generated via analog inherently sweetens what is heard. But, it can not lock in like an accurate digital record can to present reality in your room.
Of course… that is only my opinion. 
My opinion that has been formed after about 47 years of audio experience. … I used to sell what was called at that time high end when I worked in the audio world. Learned many a valuable lesson in those days from various people in the industry.
Welcome, Genez! Great first post.
Thanks for the excellent post @genez . Good points. Reminds me of laborious cartridge, tonearm, and mount builds and modifications I went through in the 70s and into the 90s. I built tonearms when I was in school. Then I ran across Van Alstine’s modified Grados, and was amazed what he did with a very inexpensive cartridge. Built plinths and independent platforms for the table and the tonearm. Dismembered more than one TT. All in an effort to get at something that was always changing. I fully understand that people may love the elements that Genez describes. I like the “lock in accuracy” of the digital chain myself, and the different challenges it presents.
Genez:
I think you are quite right with what you say. Digital from pure logic must be more accurate, more true to the signal (CD must have been that perfect already, even if its limitations are well known, also against vinyl). And vinyl must add effects within the process of (re)generating a final sound. Given that, its outcome should sound much worse and wrong than it actually does.
From your academic observation and your mentioned experience I conclude you not only prefer digital theoretically, but also like digital better than vinyl in your setup (or generally). I also prefer it in various cases, sometimes more, sometimes less often. Probably in contrary to that you’re more fixed in a preference of a technology as I am.
One point I can only follow theoretically: that only digital can sound like a real instrument and lock in to present reality in a room. This is a kind of generalization I didn’t experience, especially not in a noteworthy extent, more a give and take. But I think I know what you mean…digital must reproduce an instrument more accurately due to our initial diagnosis, nothing wrong with that.
The reason why I’m not approaching the whole subject in an academic and theoretical way, but listen what comes out at the end is, because I think neither digital nor vinyl, played back over a more or less extreme setup catches an instrument or an orchestra etc. fully. It’s always something different. Too big, too small, too thin, too rich, different sound field, less relaxed sound at similar dynamics etc. Simply but not only due to the fact that microphones can’t catch every instrument (piano, voice, cymbals bass drum) perfectly at the same time as we hear it live.
What I think is maybe best explained with an analogy:
Think of a landscape with a sundown in the evening and various colors of the sky. You can’t catch what you see. Not with the best and most accurate and true digital camera, not with the biggest projection of the picture, even if this camera exactly reproduces a certain color on a test sample. If at the end you look at a purely neutral picture, you don’t see what you experienced live in terms of color shadings etc.
You might get a bit closer to reality if you carefully use photoshop. It’s still not the truth by far and it’s altered, but it can compensate a bit for the limitation a neutral picture still has compared to the live experience.
That’s the reason why the pure neutrality, accurateness and truth to the signal of digital is no argument for me. Because what I hear at the end when comparing it with vinyl should either match a live experience better or an instrument my focus is on, should have better resolution, dynamics, tonal colors, ambiance, soundstage or just simply be more enjoyable to me.
Even the also academic example I cited of the mastering engineer comparing masters with SACD and laquer, stating vinyl sounded closer to the master is only little more relevant to me (because it evaluates the outcome, not the process), but still my own pleasure and experience in front of the loudspeaker counts. The main aspect of relevance to me in this case was that even if we take this only as one opinion of a mastering engineer with own preferences, the alterations of the finally reproduced signal by vinyl can’t be that huge as the aforementioned various effects imply, if it still sounds so close to a master, that there are different opinions in terms of what matches better digital or vinyl.
Also my experience as a musician is different than yours. I didn’t recognize or ever test if digital more closely reproduces an instrument. For me, both are on a similar level able to do that, given the distance to reality. What I experienced is mainly the remaining difference between live and Hifi generally. Among various differences the one, that live although more dynamic, mostly sounds more euphonic than Hifi (also more euphonic than vinyl) is my main observation, especially when in the audience (which is what a recording usually samples) and not close to an instrument.
Finally all that is certainly depending on the compared setups. To me vinyl never was more pleasant, rich or euphonic sounding than digital generally, it can even be the opposite, depending on the digital/analog choice. Like your mentioned DECCA cartridge, also a normal cantilever setup can sound very close to digital accuracy with certain other differentiations.
At the end it counts, what would happen if the participants here would sit in front of a setup and compare. What I say is, that it’s often so obvious which sounds better (can be the one or the other), that no discussion would arise (all theory set aside). And often it can hardly be distinguished at all.
I haven’t read the Hoffman post, other than what was quoted, but if I understand correctly he was comparing vinyl and SACD to the master tape.
Well, if we are trying to compare it all to the live performance, the tape would already have influenced the sound. I am not into classical music, so of the hundreds of concerts I have been to I think they have all been amplified. With one brief exception, when I saw Brandi Carlile at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee. Brandi and the twins (her bass and lead guitarist) came to the front of the stage. With just a ukulele, they sang a song. I was in the last row about 6 seats to the right of the soundboard. I could hear everything clearly, it was quite impressive.
I have heard and own many live recordings, depending on the venue, they can sound better than the live performance, crappy seats, etc. But that is strictly based on audiophile criteria, you can never match the dynamics, the visual experience, and the fact that you saw/heard something that can never will be duplicated.
And getting into the discussion (I’ll say discussion, rather than debate) of vinyl vs SACD vs CD, there are usually so many variables that a true comparison is seldom possible. Compare a vinyl release to a CD, we seldom know if they used the same source. When CDs were first being released, they weren’t always using the original master tapes, it could be a safety copy or a second or third generation tape.
All the music I grew up with was pure analog, now a days, it might be tape or digital. That is where I think vinyl often still sounds better, even if on paper digital measures better. A perfect example is Sinatra and Ellington’s “Francis A and Albert K”. While the CD and the vinyl transfer to digital at 24/96 sound very good, the dynamics of the vinyl is superior.
Then there is the final variable, the playback gear. Phono preamp, turntable, tonearm, cartridge vs the various means of hardware and sample rates. I think we are lucky to have so many options and that we can enjoy them all.
While Redbook is technically sufficient, 24/96 would have been better just for the fact that the brickwall filter could have no influence on the sound. Well that is my opinion.
jazznut said At the end it counts, what would happen if the participants here would sit in front of a setup and compare. What I say is, that it’s often so obvious which sounds better (can be the one or the other) . . .Assuming this is true, it typically will be because we are not comparing apples to apples - different mastering, processing/mastering added by the cutting engineer, etc. This is not comparing formats, but rather what happens to be on two different recordings. This is not comparing media types.
And then there is the question of what is better? Warmer? Better S/N? Greater dynamics? Greater ambience retrieval? More powerful bass? Greater stereo separation? Each of these characteristics favors one format over the other.
jeffstarr said I haven't read the Hoffman post, other than what was quoted, but if I understand correctly he was comparing vinyl and SACD to the master tape.yes, here's the link:
And you’re right, live also often sounds much worse in terms of hifi aspects than recorded music, but in terms of dynamics and the fact that inspite of these dynamics, nothing sounds annoying, dry or harsh etc., it’s always better and what I call still more euphonic at the same time. Also a question of the size of the room certainly, but even played in the same living room as the stereo setup, this is apparent.
Elk saidjazznut said At the end it counts, what would happen if the participants here would sit in front of a setup and compare. What I say is, that it’s often so obvious which sounds better (can be the one or the other) . . .Assuming this is true, it typically will be because we are not comparing apples to apples - different mastering, processing/mastering added by the cutting engineer, etc. This is not comparing formats, but rather what happens to be on two different recordings. This is not comparing media types.
And then there is the question of what is better? Warmer? Better S/N? Greater dynamics? Greater ambience retrieval? More powerful bass? Greater stereo separation? Each of these characteristics favors one format over the other.
It’s important that I really speak of comparing the same masterings, no different ones.
I agree, that the most difference is between masterings, this shouldn’t be confused with a proper comparison of same masterings.
And you’re right, depending on the aspect, we’re hearing or hearing to, the one or other wins. There are many recordings, where the major advantage of the one or other has no impact because it’s not utilized, not relevant. This leads to the fact that sometimes whole categories of music (with certain exceptions) are favored by the one or other format.
Aside of that, for me the main advantage of vinyl is, that more superior masterings (and originals) are available (especially golden era Jazz and some classical old and new) compared to what’s available in digital format (which has nothing to do with a superiority of a playback concept). Here a comparison leads to easy judgements.
On the other hand I could never pass on digital with it’s much more available newer recordings in great quality. I love both.
But again, this is not comparing formats, but rather comparing the quality of recordings which happen to differ on the different formats.
This does not answer the question posed by the topic title “Is Vinyl better than Digital?” Instead, it answers questions such as, “Of the zillion recordings of Kind of Blue which recording, including both digital and vinyl, sounds the best?”
Back on topic:
Truly direct comparisons of identical masterings with no changes in cutting the LP are exceedingly rare. Even then, what we prefer is more likely going to be based on the respective vinyl and digital playback systems.
The same recording sounds very different on system A and system B, even when A and B are either both digital or both vinyl. Adding vinyl and digital as an additional variable between A and B makes any meaningful determination of “better” near impossible
I just tried in the post before to separate comparing formats and comparing quality of masterings and what I wrote was meant as comparing on one and the same setup, certainly no different setups
I think here we have to take care that we don’t declare everything as non-comparable.
I’m fully with you that we don’t speak of a format comparison if we take different masterings of i.e. Kind of blue on vinyl and digital (MFSL, Classic Records, Speakers corner etc.). We also don’t speak of format comparison if we talk of the same recording, mastered by the same company for vinyl and SACD, but with especially more care and effort taken in the vinyl mastering process (like for the Järvi Beethoven cycle).
But we do speak of format comparisons if i.e. an Acoustic sounds series of Recordings of Blue Note or Fantasy labels were mastered by the same engineer for vinyl and SACD (i.e. by Hoffman/Grey), even if there’s mentioned that Gus Skinas additionally “edited” those for SACD (whatever this means). Simply because even if there is always a special different step necessary in mastering vinyl or SACD, it is inherent in the process always. We can’t compare without it, it’s attached to the format.
So I think we really can compare MFSL reissues done for SACD and Vinyl, Acoustic Sounds reissues done for both, ECM recordings, Blue Coast, Chesky, Audio Fidelity, ORG, Tacet etc. many of those done for both formats by the same engineers.