# Vinyl (analog): BETTER than digital for large-scale works (orch., symphony, etc.)?



## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

If you own (and_ regularly_ listen to) classical music on _both_ analog (vinyl, open-reel tape) and digital (CD, streaming, SACD) playback formats, think about what format you "gravitate" to for large-scale works (orchestral, symphony, concertos).

Do you have a preference?

Do you prefer the sound of analog playback, but more often opt for digital because of convenience?

For your hi-fi system, maybe you have better equipment for _either_ one or the other format (but not both). If such an "asymmetry" exists in your hi-fi system, please say so.

*Why I raise the topic:*
In the "high-end" audiophile community, it has sometimes been reported that digital (CD) tends to sound congested for large-scale works (orchestral, symphony). That opinion dates back to the very early days of CD (early to mid 1980s). 
The situation may have changed over the past decade. 
Note the following comments from John Atkinson (senior editor, Stereophile magazine). [They are from an April 2009 review of a $17,000 Meridian CD player/processor ]
https://www.stereophile.com/cdplaye...re_reference_cd_playerpreamplifier/index.html



> It is a truism that our choice of system dictates our choice in music. You tend to focus on recordings that benefit from the system's virtues, not ones that reveal its flaws. Over the past few years, I have found myself playing fewer and fewer recordings of large-scale classical orchestral works. It's not that I'm falling out of love with the music-though I must admit that, as I get older, I'm increasingly attracted by the intellectual challenge of chamber music-but that the scale and drama of orchestral music is not as well served by the CD medium as it is by LP. Consider, for example, Vernon Handley's 1990 performance of Bantock's A Celtic Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic (CD, Hyperion CDA66450). Engineered by Tony Faulkner, this is perhaps the most natural-sounding recording of a string orchestra I have heard, with an enormous dynamic range (footnote 3). But at levels approaching what I would hear in the concert hall, the midrange becomes congested, the mid-treble hardened. Decreasing the volume minimizes these problems, but then the scale of the music is also minimized. The SACD medium better serves the sound of an orchestra in full song, but while I have built up a reasonable collection of SACDs, most of my favorites are still available only on CD.
> 
> So when I began returning the CDs to their cases and noticed how much orchestral music I'd been playing since hooking up the Meridian, it was apparent that something special was going on, even with early digital recordings. I had been playing: Bernstein's Mahler 2 with the LSO, recorded in England's Ely Cathedral (CD, Sony Classical SM2K 47453); Kurt Sanderling's set of the Brahms symphonies with the Dresden Staatskapelle (CD, RCA 130367); George Szell's Beethoven Symphonies with the Cleveland Orchestra (CD, Sony Classical SBSK 48396; transfers, like the Mahler and Brahms, from analog masters); and, from Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia, Sibelius' Symphony 5 (CD, London 410 016-2, digitally recorded in 1981) and Symphony 1 with Karelia Suite (CD, London 414 534-2, digitally recorded in 1985). With all of these, the Meridian got the scale right, without the usual midrange congestion or treble hardness intruding. It also got the soundstage depth right, with, for example, the brushed on-beat cymbals in the first movement of Karelia set well back yet without any smearing of the image.


P.S.
Apologies for kind of suggesting a response in the thread title (the title was meant to capture attention, not bias a reply).


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Since my listening harkens back to the early days of digital, I'll mention two things that I noticed immediately when the digital era came in: It change the sound of the sudden and loud percussion and it changed the attack of the piano. Both were hardened, as I felt that the digital technology could not handle them naturally; both sounded much more natural to me on analog reproduction. I have heard some great digital recordings but I’ve never been an overall fan of it. I have solve the problem for myself by listening to digital recordings through an analog tube headphone amp. It’s heaven because I don’t have to replace my digital library with analog LP recordings. I have the best of both worlds and I heartily recommend hybrid/tube amps to others. It’s a blessing to bring some measure of analog sound back into your listening. I also recommend that listeners get an audiophile set of headphones, to have that as an option, because that can rival a sound system the costs many, many thousands of dollars, and you can hear absolutely everything in great detail without blowing out your hearing and without disturbing others.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Like Larkenfield, I use a tube headphone amp - somehow tubes do sweeten the sound, take the hard edge off of some digital recordings. Some early cds did have harsh, steely sound, but that's not the norm anymore. For my ears, the benefits of CDs over vinyl is overwhelming. No more ticks, pops, scratches, warping. Distortion on loud passages mostly gone and the dynamic range is vastly superior to LP. Yes, there are some crappy sounding cds, and every now and then one comes up that skips, or has other flaws. And the bronzing of cds from some manufacturers was a problem.

With SACD, listening with just a decent surround sound system can be revelatory. Even wider dynamic range and a sense of spaciousness. Unfortunately, that format didn't catch on much and the number of sacds seems to get smaller each year. Blu Ray disks offer comparable sound and astonishing length, but other than a few London, Decca, DG releases I don't think it's going to catch on, either.

What's really scary is that so many younger people today have no idea of just how good a well chosen and set up sound system can be, how much it can bring out the beauty of music. Instead, they seem happy with low powered amps in their phones driving ear buds. And the manufacturers have taken notice: many have bailed out of the home stereo market. Bose used to make wonderful all-in-one sound systems, but have stopped. Buying a reasonably priced cd/sacd player that has great sound is almost impossible.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

One important feature of the CD format, as the orig. specs were finalized in early 80s, was the total time per side (yes, two-sided CDs were possible, as DVDs are). The spec. was based on Beethoven Symph. 9 (about 74 min)
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/the-cd-is-30-years-old-today
https://gizmodo.com/5729864/why-the-cd-is-74-minutes-long

_Rumor_ has it Herbert V. Karajan had a role in the time spec. as he was friends with CEO of Sony (one of the co-developer of the CD format). This, specifically, may or may not be the case. But long symphs seem to have been an important determiner.










I do consider uninterrupted listening an important contribution to the emotional impact of classical music, especially long symphonies and operas. 
LPs, regardless of their sonic fidelity, do "disrupt the party" for all their extra handling time.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Since my listening harkens back to the early days of digital, I'll mention two things that I noticed immediately when the digital era came in: It change the sound of the sudden and loud percussion and it changed the attack of the piano. Both were hardened, as I felt that the digital technology could not handle them naturally; both sounded much more natural to me on analog reproduction. I have heard some great digital recordings but I've never been an overall fan of it. I have solve the problem for myself by listening to digital recordings through an analog tube headphone amp. It's heaven because I don't have to replace my digital library with analog LP recordings. I have the best of both worlds and I heartily recommend hybrid/tube amps to others. It's a blessing to bring some measure of analog sound back into your listening. I also recommend that listeners get an audiophile set of headphones, to have that as an option, because that can rival a sound system the costs many, many thousands of dollars, and you can hear absolutely everything in great detail without blowing out your hearing and without disturbing others.


We're getting a little off-track when talking about digital *recording* -- recall in the OP, I noted "*playback* formats ". But I should've been more emphatic!

That said, I do have LPs in my collection that were digitally recorded. E.g., Telarc, Denon PCM, etc. And they all sound excellent on vinyl. I don't really hear any major flaws in early digital recordings. What I do hear flaws in are the first two generations of consumer-grade (mass-market) CD players. I think the comments by John Atkinson (in the Meridian review) reflect this ... that thru the Meridian, early digital recordings sound better.

BTW: My preamp is tube/solid-state hybrid. My amp is MOS-FET (which are some times called solid-state tubes because of their sound charac.)


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## Guest (Apr 19, 2018)

Generally speaking, I prefer LPs derived from analog tapes. Phillips's recordings in the 1970s come to mind--so realistic! To my ears on my rather high-end stereo, pure analog has sense of body and reality that eludes all but the very best digital recordings. I do have some high-resolution FLAC and DSD files that sound remarkably good, though. Bottom line, for convenience digital wins in all formats, but for sound, pure analog wins for me most of the time.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

There are so many variables when the vinyl vs. digital is discussed. Early digital recordings were often harsher/shrill because the recording electronics that were used had been constructed and calibrated to accentuate the high end to counteract the high end limitations of vinyl. Once the recording process took into account the high end capability of digital, the end result was a softer sound.

A true double blind comparison of vinyl vs. digital is almost impossible because no matter how good the system you wil almost always be able to detect vinyl and once you do, individual subjective bias intrudes. Anyway, so much of what people say about the whole subject is anecdotal, including the tube vs. transistor issue.


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