Tonight I am spinning some vinyl, and without getting long winded
(well scratch that), as good as the digital has been getting on
my digital journey, tonight I simply crushed it into the dirt. My vinyl rig on a great sounding record is a force to wrecken with, giving the tape machines a situation where they must perform at 110% to be noticeably any better.
I played a record that a new customer sent to me by the band Enoch Light and the Light Brigade... titled "Big Bold and Brassy" (c) 1960 and if you've ever watched the cartoon Tom and Jerry, this record distorted my reality in a similar way. The highs almost broke glass but in the most satisfying way... Truly audiophiles are forgetting what dynamics really are, as there is nothing on streaming services that will touch this. RCA Dynagroove is another mind numbingly good series of recordings that will make your stereo sound like someone brought over a new amplifier or speakers. Actually what it sounds like is the big band came by your house, put your stereo out in the yard, came in the house, set up a live gig and showed you what it was suppose to actually sound like.
After listening to that I went for a new/old re-release on vinyl from "The WHO", titled Tommy. It sounded like someone removed the tweeters from my speakers by comparison -- Such a joke.
There has been many times when listening to various DACs that I have thought, "this is better than my vinyl rig", but it wasn't. The way the vinyl rig makes the music explode into the room on the right recordings goes well beyond the window I have heard digital CD's and hi-res downloads and streaming achieve. The contrast is so much larger than it is with digital, or is it?
I guess the way to settle the debate is to ask yourself how many times while listening to vinyl did I think it sounded better than digital vs. the other way around... and there you will find your answer.
Soon I will have a new holy grail DAC and will embellish it with a great tube preamp and anything else it might want to try to lessen the gap.
It would be so great if recordings weren't mastered different for each format, so we could actually tell which one was really better... ; )
Picture another planet where digital has been the technology for over 2.3 million years... someone created a phono cartridge - a fine jewel of magnatism that takes the music and creates a conduit for consciousness to breath into it changing the sound from real good, to real real.
Literally I have seen the faces of artists that I didn't know on stage with my eyes closed in front of this vinyl rig only to look it up on Tidal and see them for the first time nearly the same as I pictured them. I have almost smelled the music.
Side note, if this happens to you and the music sounds like shit, consider it a red alert that something is amiss.
Steve