LP's are specifically mastered to accommodate the physical issues of vinyl. These vinyl cutting specialists are sometimes incredible engineers who will 'tweak' the mix while running it through some really good hardware. Could be that last bit of magic is missing from the digital releases?

I've got records that sound pretty different to the later digital reissue.

I've a lot of this guys cutting work which is recognised internationally, here he highlights he adjusted tracks https://detroiteq.com/ron-murphy/

 

Last edited: Feb 11, 2026 at 9:39 PM

people read what they want to.

When a vinyl ripped to wav is not perfect is when compared to a digital export directly from the DAW. You have the mixer, the cartridge, the needle, tonearm, the RCA cables out of the turntable, and the audio interface analog to digital conversion before you get audio back to the wave editor or DAW where it is recording. There is no chance it will end up the same as a file that stays digital. It can't be better, because any improvements made to the vinyl rip file are just as wrong. When you look at a variance, both positive and negative differences count.
Therefore, the digital-only file is considered higher fidelity, because is closer to the original recording.

 

I'm a millenial and I really loved vinyl. I often bought new vinyls from indie bands, just for collecting the albums, and most vinyl releases had a card with the download code to download the album in 320 mp3.

Many vinyls you can buy still have the mp3 offer. Thats really nice.

But I can understand, thats a different or even better feeling to hear an album on vinyl.

As an example i have the whole beatles albums on CD or digital on my PC but i think its just more fun to hear the beatles albums on vinyl.

 

BOOOM!
If all people here would read this article, would clean at least many doubts about the myths.

Why?

 

Absolutely looking forward to this mate. You 're most welcome.
Cheers.

Like which myths exactly mate. The article concludes that opinions differ between each individual.
Lemme just add that we have been this through 100 mil times, especially here. There is no definiive answer, listening even by the ones considered as experts, will always be subjective.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2026 at 2:06 PM

What i call "quality loss" doesn't mean BAD.
It is just a technical fact, not subjective / listening.

Fact : vinyl dynamic (and so noise ratio) will ALWAYS be lower than any digital solution.
it is not related to "listener experience" or whatever : it is a technical fact.
And no one cares about what you or me "think about it" : it is a technical limitation, whatever way you take it.
Like CD uses sample slices and "round them" with filters afterward (and those filters can be crappy ...), low cut and high cut too.
Like it or not, it is a fact.

On my side, i love tape compression. Even cassette.
I totally remember when a friend of mine made me a cassette from his trance goa CD.
Cassette was sounding better to me than the original CD , probably because the original CD used too "sterile" and "raw" sources.
Even if we all know cassette is (one of) the worst support technically.

Take a guitarist example : alnico
Alnico loose his power when driven hard. Meaning less dynamic, less transients spikes, less high frequency definition ...
But as a result, it compresses the sound in a pleasant way.

So technically, it is a dynamic loss, transients loss, high frequency loss...
But on player/listener side, it will sound better.

Alnico magnets are still used on guitar pickups and speakers to this day.
And frankly, i hate those "new" guitar neodymium speakers
Highs are horrible.

Technically better is a fact, musically better is totally subjective.
some ppl like neodymium guitar speakers

PS : it was this classic album, driven HARD on cassette :

 

I agree that everyone has opinion of his own, but do you know how many times I heard "vinyl has a better dynamics than CD?" Fcking everyone whom I discussed about music reproduction.
This till at least 15 tears ago, nowadays with infos promptly available on internet someone began to think that they were wrong, but... sparingly, maybe it's a digital conspiracy.
And the noise? I always hated it but I couldn't do anything no matter I cleaned and rubbed with anti static rags the record (beside that crappy Dolby B or C and just to record in crappy cassettes) till digital came around.

Of course you know that terms "spatious" or "direct" or any other like "warm" don't mean anything if not a pure subjective unidentifiable feeling.
Ethan Winer about the Myth-information and the flowery terms (The Audio Expert):

I passed many years (since 96) digitizing my vinyls, but because I despised noise I applied strong noise compression, resulting in a pretty indecent artifacts so after I decided to leave crackles and hiss.
Now I'm replacing all tracks with downloaded flac/mp3 depending based on the importance I assign to audio.

Yes it's a nice experiment. However I think you know that dynamics is for both tape and vinyl are no more than 75dB (the same for Karajan tapes), while DSD is immensely higher, around 120dB.
Then beside your ears, which measurements and instruments and comparison methods you'll use?

Someone would say that facts are subjective and indeed you can easily see.

 

Interesting article – THANKS FOR THAT – however, only sound engineer Guy Sternberg says a few words about a direct qualitative comparison between analog and digital:

"On the technical side alone, it seems that the digital format is far superior: no noise, very high dynamic range (especially with 24-bit recordings), and a large usable frequency range (at high sampling rates like 96 kHz). But in reality (at least in my experience), analog formats, especially the combination of tape and vinyl, have a more musical, vibrant sound."

The other two just spout generalities... ;)

 

THAT is an interesting argument - THANK YOU!

 

Yes, of course. Because the dynamic range of the Karajan tapes will have a maximum of approximately 75 dB, neither the analog (vinyl) nor the digital (HiRes) reproduction can realistically offer more dynamic range...and this is confirmed when listening.
So far, I've only used my ears for comparison—I'm a musician, not a sound engineer... ;-)

 

Exactly.

 

Another curious question on the topic:

Could it be that the analog continuum of the sound event in space, when digitized—which is a sequence of temporally sequential measurements—can only lead to a representation of the event that differs from the original, because it doesn't actually represent a continuum, but only "describes" it?

During digital-to-analog conversion, an analog construct is created from the measurements, which can only approximate the original sound event.

Could this be a reason why the spatial resolution ("soundstage") suffers—but DSD formats produce a representation closer to the analog original because they use a much higher sampling rate??

 

Ask your question to the Grok AI: https://grok.com

 

I think there's lot of misunderstanding about the sampling theorem and digital audio in this thread, it is difficult subject and I also have hard time wrapping my head around it sometimes. Anyway, all recording systems reduce reality to a finite, bandwidth-limited signal (digital, vinyl, tape, microphone). Digital sampling does not uniquely introduce that limitation. In digital audio sampling theorem says that the band limited signal can be reconstructed perfectly from the sample values, as a continuous signal again so comparisons to movie "snapshots" for example are inherently wrong ... Even though intuitively it is easy to think that.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2026 at 7:05 PM

Hi PulseWave,
You wrote within the parallel thread:

That's really interesting; I'm watching this right now...answers some of my questions.

 

No, because your thesis is wrong.
That your soundstage suffers is, because it is not my soundstage. My soundstage always has the same quality. That's one of the big advantages I have in comparison to others. If I hear it again in my room, it all stays in the same quality day for day and year for year.
Super reliable.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2026 at 7:27 PM

Digital mixes are mastered -6 to -10 LUFS while vinyl mixes are around -18 to -20 LUFS, and the vinyl mixes have to have strict low end and high end roll of to keep the grooves correct, thus preserving the songs dynamic range. That's why the song difference is real from CD to vinyl.

I just had this mix experience for a new song coming out where I had digital and vinyl mixes to meet the format requirements.
I prefer the vinyl mix FWIW.

 

People like what they like and will only ever take the advice of someone if they already considered it and could see themselves doing it.
Well, intelligent people who make up their own minds anyway.

....from Monty Python 'The Life of Brian': "You're all individuals........ I'm not".

 

If you want to get off on the wrong foot, call it the “digital audio sampling theorem.” It’s Nyquist theorem, and it’s straightforward: sample at twice the highest frequency, and you can fully capture any band-limited sound. That’s why 44.1 kHz gives you 44,100 samples per second, 48 kHz gives you 48,000, and the Nyquist frequency is half the sample rate. The highest frequency you can represent accurately without aliasing.

Someone saying “snapshots” really isn’t wrong. It’s just a ton of snapshots taken fast enough that your brain reconstructs the continuous sound.

 

There's some good articles discussing how violently the needle can be effected by the low end - the physical science aspect is fascinating. That wasn't strictly my point though, sometimes these guys are also known for adjusting the mix in a few different ways as part of this cutting pass. Pushing it through rare eq's, rebalancing mid, boosting stereo width etc.

Its at the discretion or request of the artist obviously, but this might make the OP's vinyl release more spacious sounding? I think its more likely than some infinitesimal difference between analog and digital signals.

Beyond the practical top and bottom eqing, I can vouch vinyl mixes can feel quite different, especially 12's (which makes up most of my collection) which are louder than album pressings and have deeper/better fidelity grooves.

Hell, I wouldn't put it past a modern label to spice up the vinyl masters to make them sound 'different' and thus more profitable. There was the 'not actually analog masters' scandal a while back

 

Last edited: Feb 13, 2026 at 8:42 AM