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.

 

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 :