text: Here's the short and sweet answer-"worst of both worlds".
  - 14 posts total
  - 14 posts total
  Humorous responses you received.... From one turntable owner to another, I recommend buying any clean-copy digital Lps that interest you. In my experience they've been remarkably better than their CD counterparts in areas of hall ambience, environmental cues, quickness and authority in the bass, low-level info, and a sweeter, if still relatively dry, high end. We're lucky that digital lp's, at least in Europe were pressed up until '89. |
  Some of the very early digital recordings were made with a 3M system that people still swear out performed Redbook standards. I believe the Ry Cooder "Bop 'Til You Drop" and possibly Donald Fagen's "Nightfly" fall into this category. Both are superb sounding records. Throughout the 90s it was a common production trick to run digital recordings through either an analog tube processor (usually an EQ or compressor/limiter) or to copy to a wide track analog tape format before final mastering to CD format. To make mattesr even more confusing many pop/rock recordings contained both digital and analog recording tracks which may have then been mixed using both digital and analog mixing consoles. Excellent recordings as diverse as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Brian Wilson's "Presents Smile" are of this type. The recent remasterings of Jimi Hendrix's first 3 albums were all mixed digitally and produced outstanding vinyl editions. As mentioned by others above it really depends on the skill and dedication of the engineers rather than any specific technology. Regarding why some people actually prefer vinyl version of all digital recordings, I think it's because of the distortion components added in the vinyl cutting process. The cutting process introduces channel crosstalk, phasiness, low end non-linearities and subtle compression effects that can be interpreted as added spaciousness and warmth. It's not particularly accurate, but it can be quite pleasant sounding. |