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Does analogue ultimately beat digital?

herb said:
I remember the classical music DECCA LPs before CD which proudly displayed DIGITAL on their sleeves, They were the most dismal sounding LPs being stringy, bleached and cloudy. I avoided them but found that the early CD Mission DAD7000 player sounded just the same but more brittle, Early digital recordings were a joke and in my case ignored for 10 years..
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That's really not my experience. Some of my favourite records are from early 1980s digital recordings.
 
iu
 
Juancho said:
Sorry but this is a huge generalisation. Do you mean with CDs or streaming? What type of DAC NOS, oversampling etc etc. What type of record deck /cartridge /preamp etc etc. I certainly don't get any digital glare with my streaming set up.
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CD and streaming both sound the same to me, bright and harsh compared to vinyl replay. I play both analogue and digital through the same amplifier and speakers. It may be a generalisation to you but from my listening perspective, a valid comparison.
Source is Technics SL1200g and all my digital gets piped through an original Chord mojo at line level. My digital is all at 44k (CD quality). I have heard higher-res, and though it gets nearer to the sound of vinyl, it still doesn’t match it to these ears….
 
JoeJoe said:
CD and streaming both sound the same to me, bright and harsh compared to vinyl replay. I play both analogue and digital through the same amplifier and speakers. It may be a generalisation to you but from my listening perspective, a valid comparison.
Source is Technics SL1200g and all my digital gets piped through an original Chord mojo at line level. My digital is all at 44k (CD quality). I have heard higher-res, and though it gets nearer to the sound of vinyl, it still doesn’t match it to these ears….
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Now you've given it context: the magic words 'in my system.......which is'
 
JoeJoe said:
CD and streaming both sound the same to me, bright and harsh compared to vinyl replay. I play both analogue and digital through the same amplifier and speakers. It may be a generalisation to you but from my listening perspective, a valid comparison.
Source is Technics SL1200g and all my digital gets piped through an original Chord mojo at line level. My digital is all at 44k (CD quality). I have heard higher-res, and though it gets nearer to the sound of vinyl, it still doesn’t match it to these ears….
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My guess is then that you would probably find harshness and glare even in the master tapes the vinyl records are cut from. In other words the copy would be better than the original.
 
Juancho said:
Now you've given it context: the magic words 'in my system.......which is'
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…not really, I’ve heard lots of systems. Loads way higher-end than mine. I can tell digital at 100 paces, it has an unmistakably un-organic and gritty sound….
 
Octavian said:
My guess is then that you would probably find harshness and glare even in the master tapes the vinyl records are cut from. In other words the copy would be better than the original.
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….nope. I’ve done the comparisons….digital is unmistakably inferior to vinyl that’s cut from the same digital master; to either CD or the 44.1k stream. I realise that some music lovers just can’t hear it…baffles me, it really does.
 
nostromo said:
Wasn't jitter a big issue with early CD playback? Only in the last few years has this issue gone away. The whole DAC design has improved well beyond what was available in the early days.
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I think that it became an issue when the DAC was moved to another box. It's not an issue anymore.
 
JoeJoe said:
….nope. I’ve done the comparisons….digital is unmistakably inferior to vinyl that’s cut from the same digital master; to either CD or the 44.1k stream. I realise that some music lovers just can’t hear it…baffles me, it really does.
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Might be something in your system.
 
JoeJoe said:
….nope. I’ve done the comparisons….digital is unmistakably inferior to vinyl that’s cut from the same digital master; to either CD or the 44.1k stream. I realise that some music lovers just can’t hear it…baffles me, it really does.
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Perhaps you are right. But why? Why is your opinion about this more correct than the opinion of many others? Do give us a reason to believe you.
 
Analogue - SME 20/2a + AT 33PTG + Simaudio Moon 810LP
Digital - dCS Rossini DAC and clock + Roon + Synology 420+ NAS

Simple answer to the thread title...

NO
But I like both
 
Octavian said:
Perhaps you are right. But why? Why is your opinion about this more correct than the opinion of many others? Do give us a reason to believe you.
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It genuinely doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not, I can’t lend you my ears to progress this discussion! Lol!! What I hear and you hear, are subjective. These posts can never move on because of that inevitability.

However, music exists in the analogue domain, so vinyl, fm radio and cassette are off to a flying start to begin with…

Anyway, it’s just my personal conclusions after years of listening. So, to the OP, yes; analogue ultimately beats digital.
 
JoeJoe said:
It genuinely doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not, I can’t lend you my ears to progress this discussion! Lol!! What I hear and you hear, are subjective. These posts can never move on because of that inevitability.

However, music exists in the analogue domain, so vinyl, fm radio and cassette are off to a flying start to begin with…

Anyway, it’s just my personal conclusions after years of listening. So, to the OP, yes; analogue ultimately beats digital.
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One can always look for causes of "harshness and glare" elsewhere on the system, particularly if all recordings no matter what provenance have that same quality/defect. Could be the CD player/DAC, the amplifier, the tweeters.
 
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