Thanks Paul. I really like this fair answer; indeed, yours is the best down-to-earth answer I have ever heard. I grew up with vinyl, and I worked under some great engineers in the digital recording teams of Telarc and Naxos in my youth. I have enjoyed both the digital and the vinyl media. I would characterize that they have different souls: they "distort," sound, and feel differently. They both can be magical in their own ways. One point I may add is that the compression we have to do when mastering a vinyl can be good for home listening. A full symphony orchestra's real dynamic playing Mahler is likely to overwhelm most listening environments at people's home. Compression in a CD, esp. the ones during the "loudness war," is often done very poorly in comparison. That, in my view, is what gives the digital medium a bad name even till today because many of those masters or CDs are being ripped into streaming servers.

I have both formats and can enjoy both! But I have more fun tweaking my turntables/tonearms/cartridges! And an LP is a beautiful thing to behold!

Crest Factor. In digital, it is typically abused these days by things like compressors, limiters, and boat loads of effects that expand/reduce the dynamic quality of audio, all so that someone's record is louder than the next. Bass has to be reduced and distorted to accomplish this - and sadly, people have become "ear blind" to what that sounds like, and because A LOT of music is released this way (distorted), a lot of people follow and continue to release their own music this way. When Vinyl was the preferred format, Mastering Engineers really only had to worry about that format's inherent noise floor, and making sure the audio output was loud enough to "drown out" the surface noise of vinyl (depending on the grade of the vinyl). After that, the lateral/vertical method of cutting the record restricted how loud you could cut things like bass, so don't think that chasing loudness wasn't a thing back when vinyl was all there was, it was a thing, but the limitations of the vinyl format prevented the kind of "dynamic range abuse" that is typical in digital audio today. Can Digital have the "soul of vinyl"? No. Can Digital have its own soul? YES! If people start to treat dynamic processes like it was salt and use it sparingly, and perhaps also remember that these days there are affordable DACs, amplifiers and speakers of amazing quality (in comparison to price performance ratio of equipment in the 70s and 80s), Digital can have amazing depth, and it would start with having most of the people involved in making music to take a giant step back and realize you don't need to reduce the dynamic range of audio very much to make that point come across.

CD's could sound just as good as vinyl, but many modern CD's do not because of a bad mastering job. What happens in the studio is the most important, and when it comes to what has been pressed on the vinyl 9/10 better mix.

Can we all just go back to wax cylinders and be done with this debate?

I'm new to the channel Paul, but not new to great audio. Back in the day (in the 1980's) as a single young man with no one to say how I could spend my income, I was able to purchase some reasonably great audio equipment including tube preamps etc. After marriage and some audio equipment failures do to age etc over the last 37 years, changes to my systems are barely adequate to my preferences. Thanks for your channel, it is rekindling my interests in devoting more time to the audio passion.

If people love vinyl so much why don't they just capture the output and digitize that? BOOM, digital with the "soul" of vinyl!

Paul, you did a great job of walking the very thin line in this discussion. You never mentioned the RIAA compression. Or the dynamic range difference between to the two formats. Puts a RIAA curve on my face. Nice job.

I think there is also this tangible factor in it. In server digital, you scroll through, choose a selection or individual file, and play it. It feels empty and too spoiled for choice. When going to tangible digital media you go to your shelf, choose the media you want to play, like say a CD, take it out of the case, insert it in the deck and press play... All a little more involving. With a vinyl, you flick through the albums, choose which you want to play, take it out of the sleeve, check to see which side is which and that it is clean, place it on the turntable, select the correct speed, carefully pick up the arm and place it in the correct position, you also have the putting away after, maintenance of the stylus, preamps, etc., all of which make it more a ritual that is all a build up to enjoying the music, and that in itself can peak anticipation and increase the enjoyment. Within digital one format I enjoy is Minidisc, especially recording them. I could always use a NetMD system to digitally pass the music along, but the ritual of preparing the source, inserting the disc, adjusting record levels, cutting the tracks, editing any errors that might have been made, naming the disc and tracks... It makes the experience more enjoyable, and subsequent listening to that disc too, as I remember what went into making that disc, eventhough the NetMD option may have superior sound quality.

People talking about pops and noise from there vinyl should take better care of them ,A good styles is most important

If you record vinyl into a DAW, on playback it will sound exactly like the record in the way in - It’s not like it changes audibly once it’s in a digital format. As long as you have good preamps and analog to digital converters. So digital absolutely can capture every bit of soul that vinyl has. If you want digital to sound like like vinyl, have the recording mastered for vinyl.

Lifelong technology enthusiast here. I grew up on analog during the 1970's and was impressed by the capabilities of digital sound, such as the compact disc digital audio format officially released to the public during 1982. Both analog and digital can excel with sound quality, but in different ways. Analog has what's known as a warm, mellow sound, while early digital had what was described as a cold and harsh sound.. Improvements were made to digital technology, such as in audio output filters over time and the two can peacefully coexist together in modern times. It was audiophiles who kept vacuum tunes and vinyl records alive after the compact disc digital audio format first shook the world of audio technology back in 1982.

Fun fact: most music on vinyl nowadays are edited and processed on digital

I don't miss the hassle, the noise and most of all the wear that occurs with each play. I understand the romantic notion of vinyl and I used to love getting a new LP and immediately transfer it to a master tape saving the LP for special occasions. I'm not even going to get into the decayed performance with each generation of recording, you guys know all that! Paul I love this video series, thanks!

I like Paul's final answer here. BOTH Analog Vinyl AND Digital sources, (especially CD or better, or other totally UN-compressed online digital audio streams, which are pretty rare actually), can BOTH definitely have a "soul" to them, but they are also definitely different sounding... One important thing to know about Vinyl that not everyone realizes, is the *reverb effect* of when listening to a record, where the actual sound in the listening room and that's being output from your system's speakers, is also being reflected or bounced back onto the needle, stylus, and cartridge of your turntable and then that sound vibration, (being added to/mixed with the music signal that the needle reads directly from the record grooves), being amplified through the system again in an endless, *millisecond delayed* loop... That very specific thing is one of the major components of vinyl's unique, warm, reverberant sound that you actually hear... That's also the main reason why that if you listen to vinyl ONLY through headphones it sounds totally different and slightly more "sterile" or "flat" than when it's played back through actual speakers in the same room as the turntable is... In addition, and as Paul mentioned, Vinyl has to be properly *mastered* also, *for the vinyl format specifically* , where the bass and especially the LOW/SUB bass is reduced slightly and almost completely cut off below 16Hz, and the overall level of *dynamic range* between the very loudest and softest passages of the music be compressed slightly, (and then later upon playback, fully recovered by a proper RIAA phono preamp!), and NOT just where a totally unmodified digital audio source gets recorded directly onto a vinyl record, as many NEW release albums nowadays apparently often are! That's one of the main reasons that many of the "new" records that are being released now, especially ones of totally new artists, are of a seemingly worse sound quality than a lot of the good older stuff from the 70's and 80's, for example. It's really kind of unfortunate that vinyl has mostly come back into popularity as such a "new fad" for the younger generation, just because they think it's "cool", but yet the *art* of truly proper *mastering FOR vinyl* has been mostly lost over the decades since its major heyday back in the 70's, etc... I guess time will tell what happens with that and if it gets better again.

I deal with music amplification. It makes the music where as this stuff deals with playing it back with a flat response. There is nothing (yet) that duplicates analog, tube amplifiers. Much of this is the “its good enough” generational thing. Digital modelling amps, with myriads of circuit boards and components have tried to duplicate what 50 individual components did in the 50’s and 60’s. The same is with playback gear. Like B.B. King once said, its the clicks, pops and scratches on vinyl that makes the blues, the blues. Its a part of the music. The best example of really good, warm analog sound is the Greatful Deads, “Touch of Gray” and their wall of old, 70’s JBL d120 speakers. Old school just has a depth to it that is missing today. Don’t get me wrong, I have tried to embrace it.

With respect, many of us can set up our turntables properly, even though we've all attended/viewed one of Mr Fremer's seminars.

As a 56 yr old music lover who has lots of vinyl and digital (CD) and three sons I get this asked endlessly by them and their friends. And, this answer is a great way to explain the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Excellent response, Paul! And you didn't go off topic this time, haha.

Turntables are very tricky tools. The groove is subject to so many degrees of freedom that the medium adds itself to the sound. There will be a tiny percentage of the time that the stylus addresses the groove at the perfect angle, in the perfect fit. The recording will have gone through so much before arriving at the terminal pins and then will go through so much before vibrating the air at the listener’s ear. The soul might well be the billions of variations in the many degrees of freedom in the variables that took us from the recording to the reproduced sound. It is a miracle that all of the statistical uncertainty makes such a sonically compelling case for itself. Digital is good too. You have to preserve the signal integrity in the digital domain as long as possible and then you get purity and that is compelling. Both take a lot of work but the ultimate parting shot is that the brain has to interpret the sound and it looks past the imperfections and uses the information, memory and intelligence to reach the performance. Good systems of either type present the information well enough for the listener to accept the illusion of performers and performances. The brain can work with very flawed reproductions because it can interpret and even anticipate and compensate. The sound actually happens in the brain and is shaped by knowledge, experience and expectation. As for deciding whether we like it or not, we are spoilt for choice between excellent and fantastic.

Just listen and experience both and pick the format that you like most. As long as you are enjoying the music there shouldn't be any problem.

The sad truth I feel is that most folks have never heard a properly set up analogue OR digital system...!

I just got into vinyl and love it I think it can easily co exist with digital long term.

How should your selection of an amp or speakers meant for vinyl differ from what you would use if CD's were your primary audio source?

Hey Paul, I have been watching your video's since I recently(past few months) got into vinyl. I have a good Audio-Technica player(lp120) and have it set up properly after much tweaking. However, I use a yamaha (middle of the road quality, I would use my Denon but its hooked up to my PC). I was wondering if a good stereo receiver is a good substitute/replacement for a combination of a standalone DAC/AMP combo. I dont have much more money to spend as I have 3 seperate 5.1 stereo setups, several bluetooth speakers for outside use and travel. I was wondering your thoughts on having the receiver vs the amp/dac's sound quality difference and what format is better to listen to music on. I mostly listen to classic rock, metal(early metal not today's stuff), rock, industrial and classical music. Some examples are Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Metallica, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Zeppelin and Floyd(of course lol). I am still building my vinyl collection but the wifey says I have to limit my spending to 2 records per paycheck. I have been trying to get 180 gram records and was also wondering if the weight of them helps sound quality. I apologize about the text wall I am putting up for you here but I didnt know where else to post this question other than Head-fi.org(theyre the best for any kind of headphone questions and much more). Thanks for reading this if you made it all the way to the end lol. I hope youre able to help with this. The biggest issue is that of the Receiver vs a dedicated AMP/DAC and how much I could expect to spend for a good one for home use.

I really enjoy these presentations, from a dyed in the wool expert in the field...

With vinyl ,you know every pop and scratch on the record . Music is a picture that should be painted in front of a background of silence .

It is a strange thing for myself too: I have been on the CD-side for a long time. It was only when I got a turntable with a vintage audio set and startet putting vinyls back on again, that I realised what it was all those people were raving about: Vinyl colors music in the way sheer black stockings cover women's legs: they show and they hide at the same time. It's that thin 'stocking' of mild noise that people have rediscoverd after the reign of the 'naked', true sound of the CD. And some genres of music have more benefit from that stocking effect then others, especially music with lots of guitars, like rock, heavy metal, punk... the noise gives something extra to the music and eventough that extra was never ment to be there, from an engineering perspective, it gives something adorable to the sound.

Perfectly said. I grew up loving the "sound" of broadcast radio, which was a combination of audio compression and Amplitude Modulation or Frequency Modulation (to a lesser degree despite its greater accuracy). Do I enjoy the sound of radio? Yes. Would I ever claim it was more accurate? Not hardly!! I can see the appeal of vinyl, but as you said, it will never be as accurate. It is a physical reproduction, a "carving" of the soundwaves, not a recreation of the soundwaves, as digital is. That said, I have had some records that I enjoyed the sound of tremendously. Some distortion, we can enjoy on a personal level, but that distortion makes the sound wave less accurate to the performance every. single. time. That doesn't mean you should stop enjoying it, just understand the differences.

'Paul from Harrogate'. What a great town! World famous Betty's Tea Shop and the Spa baths. I'd go back tomorrow.

Paul , you are amazing !

I have a Linn LP 12, Ekos, phenomena preamp, and Benz Glider Low Output MC and I have NEVER heard a digital playback system EVER reproduce the proper timbre of a cymbal...digital will ALWAYS fatigue you Paul!! Eventually...

The best answer in history of HiFi on topic. Regards Mr. Paul from Serbia.

That was very helpful. I do not aspire to high end, not when I have to deal with delicate tone arms, clean the vinyl every time blah-blah, a man got other priorities. So ease(-iser) digital is for me. I may insert a tube in there at some point to warm things up but that's about it for me and this hobby.

DSD at quad rate 11.2mhz is almost exactly like listening off the mastering tape deck. And if you want a more analogue colored version of that there is Lampizator who use chip-less tube designs for DSD playback. The only drawback are that there are so few DSD releases available and they are all at single rate 2.8mhz which is a bit dark and compressed. However, you can get a lot closer to that sound by upsampling your PCM sources to DSD with software players like Audirvana. This bypasses the digital filters in the DAC chip, and sounds faster, more three dimensional, punchier and generally more enjoyable. High rate DSD on a good system reveals the standard tropes about digital and analogue audio to be mistaken. You can have the "soul" and three dimensional quality of an analogue source with a massive dynamic range, without any distortion, any wow, flutter, pops, mechanical sounds, etc. The idea that the PCM/vinyl comparison is one over distorted and colored format vs a totally clean and accurate one is incorrect, because vastly better than PCM/CD sound quality exists without measurable coloration or distortion. This reflects poorly on standard digital sources because like analogue, they have their own tradeoffs, in particular using drastic and unnatural processing to produce a clean image that has no depth or spatial quality.

Perhaps Paul could explain the difference between a cable suitable for vinyl versus a cable suitable for digital?

generally agree. I "mastered" live performances on cassette, Dolby B, TDK SA90's in the early 80's... no EQ, no mixer, a live recording. I remastered these 15 years later to CD at a studio. As a college choral performance, the cassette sounded Great! but copies did not. Now that I have a digital copy with EQ and on one added reverb, it sounds just like you were there. TODAY, so many "studios" sound exactly the same with the same "effects" and they don't look so much at the little things like they used to (some do) compared to the 'oversampled' even clipped peaks and no dynamics... even Dolby B had 65dB s/n with 6db headroom... etc.

Mr McGowan knows whereof he speaks. His cheap transistor preamp had no trouble competing with the Audio Research SP-6 tube preamp, which cost 10x as much. (I worked in a store that sold both.)As for myself, I'm not listening for any particular "sound". To the extent that neutrality can be judged, I want equipment that is neutral, neither adding nor subtracting.

I am curious how one goes about choosing the right synergy for vinyl and digital. How do you know what component will be better for each media? I have a feeling it comes down to personal taste and maybe there is no "right" or specific component in a system that tailors specifically to vinyl or digital. Correct me if I'm off base. I'd welcome the chance to become enlightened. I am also curious on set up and room parameters for each.

All depends on the bandwidth of each medium. If the vinyl would speed, RPMs', up it would have a better bandwidth but it would not be commercial because it would have one song on each side of an LP. Same with magnetic tape it depends on the tape speed. On a CD you have a sampling rate; however, if you can increase the rate it will have better resolution. This is not commercially sound because the commercial decoders would not be able to read the increased sampling rate. Markets and trends are the ones that impose limitations. We can't purchase different playback equipment for every idea that different manufactures have. That is called STANDARDS and hence the limitations.

Digital can reproduce the range of human hearing perfectly, this has been mathematically proven and PS Audio knows this. You use DSPs to get the "soul" of vinyl. Sure digital mastering and analog mastering are completely different, but the inherent restraints of analog audio can be reproduced perfectly in a digital environment. The answer should have been "yes, if it's mastered as such".

Digital sounds better hands down. Some people just refuse adapt. It’s almost like an argument between VHS and for 4K media.

I've found the best of two worlds is A/D/D or A/A/D ( if it was mixed A a long time ago), with the last D at the higest resolution possible, without upsampling unless the full amount of information goes along with the upsamp.

the "soul" is not in the medium. After hearing my first CD I never played another record. Then after setting up my recording studio and hearing 24bit 192kh it opened up an entire world of spaciousness. The soul comes only from the performer, the reason you don't hear the soul on digital recordings is because the soul was replaced with perfection, something digital is good at. Engineers can fix just anything without diminishing the quality of the recording. Pitch and timing errors, squeaks and instrument noises and on and on. We need to leave in the bass player being behind the drummer in timing for 30 seconds, we need to leave in the imperfect pitch of the singers and instruments. Then if you wish to add hiss, distortion, hum and noise to the digital floor we will have one medium we can all love that does not wear down and out after the 10th play.

What are you talking about when you suggest that analog vs digital-sourced audio would require different cables?

Better ask Paul!

This is actually very interesting. Yes, vinyl has physical limitations as to what can be recorded on it. Loud low bass that would cause the needle to jump out of the groove and high frequency low level signal that can drown in the inherent noise of a diamond scraping against a wall of plastic at around 1.9 km/h (in the outer groove of a LP). It's not really completely drowning because it is detectable but still... and it sounded more dramatic than it is. So..... the RIAA compensation was invented to decrease the level of lower frequencies and amplify higher frequencies before the audio is cut to vinyl. The inverse RIAA compensation is then applied to the signal from the cartridge in the phono preamp. I don't know at what stage the RIAA curve is applied but it would make sense that it is applied after Mastering (post processing stage?) and I'm not surprised if there could be differences in a mix for vinyl compared to a digital media. It doesn't have to be but it's likely the case.... or at least let us assume so. The analog (analogue for those outside the US/Canada) signal controlling the cutting needle is most definitely different from the source written to CD due to RIAA. A vast majority of new recording are done in a DAW and will have to be passed through a DAC before being cut to vinyl. The opposite is true for music recorded with old school analog studio equipment. It has to pass through an ADC before being printed to CD. Nothing new about this but I guess here is where the so called 'analog soul' comes in (as much as I hate the term). Assume that this 'soul' comes from the imperfections in the process of cutting to vinyl and imperfections in reproduction stemming from the cartridge and RIAA correction in the phono stage. Everything past this point can be made identical. It doesn't matter if the source is a CD/SACD/DVD Audio or a LP. An amplifier is not a living breathing creature with a mind of its own. It reacts only to the signal frequency, signal level and source impedance connected to its input. It doesn't 'know' and can not 'care' where the signals come from. But here is the kicker! Technically there is absolutely nothing that prevents the master mix with RIAA applied to be written to a CD. Technically it is then possible to feed the signal from the DAC in the CD through a RIAA compensation stage with the caveat that the output signal level from a DAC is at least 1000 times higher than from a MM or MC cartridge. Some of the 'sparkle' and 'sheen' from an analog RIAA pre-amp could be recreated. It would be possible (but pretty stupid) to attenuate the signal from the DAC to MM/MC signal levels (mV range) and then re-amplify the signal in a RIAA pre-amp of your choice. For example the one sitting next to the turntable in your HiFi. The stupid part of this is that you would beat a perfectly fine high S/N ratio signal down closer to the noise floor and then amplify the inherent noise in the system + the signal itself back up to line levels going to the power amplifier causing unnecessary noise. Apart from the stupid part above have this ever been tested? A CD with RIAA applied... imagine the exotic and fancy Class A tube and/or MOS-FET amps that can be designed and produced just for the purpose of getting some analog 'sheen and shimmer' back. And yes, if anyone see this idea here first and want to make tons of $$$ making an 'AnalogueSoul CD'™ , the message is screencapped, saved and dated. ;) hahaha (and also soon enough be scooped up by google crawler bots).

When the compact disc digital audio format was released back in 1982 and I learned of all the large improvements over vinyl records and magnetic tape, I thought vinyl and magnetic recording tape would come to an end. I was wrong.

I got rid of my vinyl collection a long time ago and never looked back.

Your age is showing, you are accessing memories and the way the brain works, old memories that have romantic times attached to them make you think that vinyl is more romantic and "better" The new generation has a different view of vinyl for the most part and now with 1- bit 2.6Mhz or more sampling or bitstream, digital is sounding more analog due to the physics and math of the bitstream format, it more accurately represents analog or natural sound by the very nature of the way it is sampled. Just like Am and FM are being put out of business slowly by digital radio so it will be with vinyl, after it's latest "romantic" comeback is over for good. Besides except for direct to disc recording, all vinyl recordings are magnetic tape recordings. i used to own quite a decent Dual Brand turntable with a sure V-15 or something cartridge. I loved it, I still loved it when digital first came out, then they started getting better at digital. Soon they will be able to edit bitstream recordings and when that happens PWM and Vinyl are gonners. Just my humble opinion.

The hysterical thing here is that vinyl aficionados have spent many years holding up reference recordings that they were told were pure analogue and using this to demonstrate how much superior vinyl sound was. Turns out a great many of these recordings were actually from digital masters which destroys their arguments about digital recording having no soul. I suspect that many a system built for a record player will be quite 'lean' of character so that the system doesn't sound too warm, as the distortion vinal records produce is a nice warm lift that most people find pleasant. Introduce a digital front end into such a system and they complain its harsh and cold, usually because they can now hear what their system synergy actually sounds like. I still have my excellent Roksan Xerxes turntable and have always enjoyed the sound it produces. But I hear things with some good high res masters or DSD recordings that I could never hear on a vinyl plater and sound much more like what I hear in the studio. I've built several London studios (albeit 30 years ago) and had extensive 'training' in audio engineering, so I'm lucky enough to have a reference to compare to home audio. I still love and listen to vinyl and still appreciate the way its distorts the original sound. But there no way I could ever state its higher fidelity when its clearly lower fidelity. At the end of the day people should listen to what they like, and for many, they may not like true warts an all fidelity. The quality of the recording and the music you are consuming is so much more relevant to how much you will enjoy it and I've had just as much fun listening to a beat box in a park with some friends as I can have listening at home on my ref system. If I'm after hearing the best 'fidelity' I will seek out a reference digital DSD recordingas this is clearly the closest to the studio sound - if that's what you want.

As soon as someone makes the perfect DAC, I'll retire all my vinyl gear. Who wants to deal with cartridge and medium degradation, time consuming set-up, and heavy boxes of albums taking up space? I'm still waiting though... and from the looks of things, I'll be spinning these large plastic disks for some time to come.

Yes. IMO Oppo; early SA-CD very 'dark', even 'syrupy'. Though, not the 'air' & 'shimmer' of a VG or > wax rig. ModWright heavily mod'd Oppo 95* w/'56 valves. 95, only heard mod'd, very accurate & involving from the get go. Only after Tube Rolling extensively; was the 'detail' matched w/'warm' tones. Bout, grand for 95, three grand for mods and accessories, & like two grand in tubes. * Oppo 95 fan noise, may bother some, YMMV.

I would humbly say that my Vitus SCD-025 Mk2 cdp with Jorma Statement cables playing through my Vitus SIA-025 amp is very analogue sounding, to the point for me, it rivals a good tt setup such as a fully loaded VPI Prime Signature. Would it beat an AMG Viella V12 or Kronos Sparta with a nice mc cart like a Miyajima Kansui? No, but it gets close enough to the AMG playing a well recorded XRCD24, Ultra HDCD, DXD or SHM Platinum cd that I don't care.

I think digital can only have the “spirit” and and not the “soul” of vinyl. But Paul is working on it.

I agree. Besides, most people will never have a system capable of the playing the difference. On a standard retail level, there is no discernible difference. If you have an audiophile $250k+ setup in a special listening room, that might be a little different. There is nothing like the artist performing live before you - As they intended for you to hear them. I'm an artist, and played with The Foundation. As Paul said, the engineers change the way it sounds, to suit the media, from what the artist originally made. That is the first degradation. The second is the media itself which loses more. The third degradation is the playback format equipment, and the fourth is the surroundings of the playback. Even under the best circumstances, you are removed 4 times from the artist, and the original performance has been degraded 4 times. There is no way to overcome this. Sometimes the music sounds even better after it's reformatted. So degradation may not be a bad thing. Music is an expression. If it gets changed for the better through what Paul does, I thinks it's great. I don't mind it a bit. I just play and hope people find it enjoyable. If they enjoy it more by tweaking it.... cool.

If you compress it, add some noise, reduce dynamic range and screw with the tone, for sure

Yes it can. If you're willing to pay for an Audio Research tube cd player. It will blow your mind. I could easily live with cds only if I could afford one. For the moment i'll stick to Rega RP8 😬

it's not about these boring 96 dB - sound is much more complex. is that a studer R2R behind you? then you should know!

Paul, if vinyl systems are using media specifically mastered for vinyl media, then isn't digital systems using media specifically mastered for digital media??? and, i has also sent a "ask Paul" question through the PS website asking you about your thoughts and the science behind "Stereo Dimensional Array" used in suck speakers systems as Polk Audio and others. would really love to see a vid on that subject. thanks, Jerry in Muncie,IN.

All the things that Vinylophiles like about vinyl records are either: 1/ noise introduced by the process of a stylus gouging through a vinyl groove (yuk), or 2/ defects in the sound recording introduced specifically to enable the sound recording to be cut onto a disc, or caused by the mechanism to transcribe two audio signals into a single groove, or 3/ defects in the sound reproduction mechanism/process (wow man!). All the things that vinylophiles hate about CDs are either: 1/ digital distortion caused by careless engineering (definitely worthy of hating that), or 2/ an excessively wide dynamic or tonal range (and I'd have to say I agree - excessively wide dynamic range is annoying in a home listening environment), or 3/ a lack of noise from the reproduction mechanism.

Best audio ever is my smartphone speaker & spotify

it is like script or fonts give it a feel, imho

I like them both, often for different reasons.

Good point!

i think lp's sound different for some music like pink floyd if the turn table cart is nice they can sound better . That being said i've heard some nice vintage turntables like the 1229Q against a mid rage cd player .

When you look at a painting do you take scrapings and anylise the quality of the atoms of the paint. Or do you stand there and dream and wonder? Is all this a brain or soul experience. Music is something intangible and i believe our souls are under attack.Geoff37 S sounds part machine.

Well this debate will never come to a conclusion and each of us has to hear for ourselves which format sounds more like real music, is more natural, and most importantly more involving. For myself and many well respected engineers I know as well as long time audiophiles analog tape and vinyl still produces the most enjoyable reproduction of music. But with that said these days you really need both formats. Why ? Well depending on how the music was recorded and mastered onto each format effects the sound significantly. So sometimes it was mastered better onto vinyl and vice versa. So in order to get the best sounding version you need both formats. But I’m surprised Paul prefers digital. I think it’s more of a factor of the inconvenience that Paul experiences when playing vinyl. Turntable setup, taking the record out of the sleeve, cleaning the records etc. go to any high end trade show and take note to what source is being played, and 90% of the rooms are playing vinyl or,master even master tape. No one sits and listens to digital seriously.

The involvement with your listening does matter. With Vinyl records, your involvement towards the listening is much more than that of digital.

The problem with vinyl is that every time you play the record it is worn. So the following playbacks will be degraded every time you listen. There are great videos on KZfaq that show microscopically the needle crashing down through the groove, no matter how light a touch your Koetsu cartridge and tonearm has. The static discharge can't be removed only ameliorated so I agree with Geoff37 S about the subjective term "soul".

This is so much better than Fremer's absolutism on this subject. He's right about early CD's sounding bad. But he's not bothered to advance his thinking in 30 years.

soul just means more mids and lows. obviously, digital captures the full spectrum and that vinyl sound can be recreated

I have a device that gives you that "soul of vinyl" with digital accuracy. The feel of a mastered source right out of the studio without any digital noise or poping sounds of analog. The device enables you to hear what went on in the studio during the recording, you hear all the micro details. I hope one day i'll be able to market this. My preference is digital but can relate to the soul of vinyl. I agree with you, digital and Vinyl are very diffrent overall.

Of course it will. That's a silly question. I believe the issue is that digital recordings are so capable that it's harder to deal with the full recording capability vs the limitations of vinyl and tape, limitations that favor their use.

Neither vinyl nor digital has soul. They have performance parameters. I too grew up with records. It was hugely expensive to play records. They would show noticeable wear after just a few playings. A good moving coil cartridge cost hundreds in 30 year ago money. And then there was the dust and warps. But, some people like antiques and have developed a fondness for low performance just like they love the old beetle.

Difference listening difference choice ?????

The soul of vinyl is hearing scratches, rumble and hish. I go for de cd format. Has enough soul for me.

With analog, there exists more user friendly tweaking (adjusting) of sound that doesn't exist with digital.

As a career sales person I am in awe of the way that the marketplace has restored interest in vinyl.

I personally compare a record with a painting... It might not be as perfect as its digital counterpart but it just feels more natural... More connected to art... I valorize a painting more than a picture but that doesnt mean that you can't like both...

Describe "soul" in context. I enjoyed the last great tail end of vinyl before compact discs more or less took over. But It's not as if I long for scratched vinyl, pre and post groove echo, ticks & pops, and a medium which physically wears out with repeated use. Film cameras also have "soul." I had a handful of old film cameras, including medium format. But I much prefer digital photography these days.

I listen to you all the time Paul vinyl is a thing of the past i throw them away and sold the turntable

I disagree with what you say about customizing a system for a source be it vinyl or digital. What about open reel tape ? I believe in making a system the best it can be for any source. My system is customized by me through modifications to work best with my other components and cabling.

I agree with the narrator.

Answering this question without referencing the loudness wars seems rather deceptive. Yes, digital is better but until we can get minimally compressed DSD transfers of everything off the master tape vinyl will always have its place. And building a system for digital or for vinyl seems counter-intuitive. I for one enjoy both formats and want as flat a frequency response as possible from my equipment. I would want to avoid coloring the sound as much as possible.

"Soul" = "Warmth"

If that's not an answer designed to not piss off either half of a fanbase I don't know what is lol. The mastering aspect was a good addition to the argument though, a restricted canvas for art produces a much different result than a boundless canvas.

Here's my beef with audio, vinyl, CD, whatever. What is actually being mastered? The 1st generation master tape? Yeah, right. You'll never get that, so vinyl's audio is already blemished. And, yes, you can say the same about CD audio. Short story, you may remember Roberta Flack. I found one of her hit CDs, listened, and quickly shelved it. Who knows, someone may have used it to compare vinyl to CD (what sounds better). And when I least expected it, two songs on Roberta's Very Best Of CD compilation, the audio boggled my mind!! Anyway, I take Feel Like Making Love song, and attempt to improve the audio via digital audio software, some call it DAW, I don't. Anyway, I attenuate the lower frequencies and increase the higher frequencies and now my Sony Headphones and 15 year old Acer laptop suddenly sounds like HQ audio gear, really. What I never, ever heard in that song are the chimes, the tambourine, and maracas. I mean, why would someone record those sounds if they were never meant to be heard? Why I feel people in the remastering world are a dime a dozen, and, yes, including Steve Hoffman.

I use to capture peoples vinyl to digital which capture that "soul." I use to perform blind tests between vinyl source and vinyl captures to properly produced pcm and the people could not tell beyond guessing. Sounds exactly the same when played by through their equipment. (even crappy dacs could not be distinguished without guessing unless it was so bad it introduced additional noise) Oh those were fun times.

I have to say my thoughts on this. Vinyl has a WARMTH that a CD pretty much never will. It can be close, but VINYL WINS! Just my thoughts. GREG

I'm sure we could create a digital filter that would emulate the core characteristics of vinyl from a digital source.

hey guys i'm an oldie but goodie who has been doing this music stuff for 40 years so hear me. U guys are leaving uut several things on the digital vs vinyl. vynil sounds great because most vynil is old. old like me!! therefore they are the original pressings from old vintage gear to TAPE!! there is where the magic is. it's not the vynil it's the old gear that we all lust after and tape running at 15ips. there is your SOUL! Go back and listen to your old cd's that were made from the original master tapes and see for yourself. Peace!

I believe some vintage portable CD players (90's) sound as close and as good as any analog sources. Nowaday they seem to sound way too digital. In the late 80's and 90's they seem to have built DACs that are true to analog.

I’ve seen Fremer setting up a turntable. It was embarrassing. Look it up here in KZfaq. The comments are disabled for a reason

I have CDs from Telarc that sound as good or better than any analog I have heard.

soul meaning compressed, distorted and frequency limited ??????

Am I one of the few that thinks vinyl sounds bad? Like, why would I want to fuck with the source?

soul,soul i thought that was a flat fish from dover jeff .. uk englands

I was selling digital and analogue since 1983, when CD came out to around 2014. This stuff about warmth etc I do not agree with.You can't have the Stones singing Sympathy for the Devil live sounding "warm". I've never bought a CD player and never got into digital because it lack presence compared to good vinyl. Sure, plenty of vinyl systems out there that sound shit and the same with Digital ones.

You go from vinyl to digital (cds) and skip right over cassette tapes. 🙈