Even as somewhat of a "lurker," I enjoy getting involved in discussion pertaining to analog vs. digital. I tend to prefer analog, but there is always room for both.

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I think you misread me. I think CDs sound way better than vinyl.

well ... that's what u may think or hear , but cds actually ONLY sound "clearer" than vinyl , which is indeed A_BIG_DIFF'RENCE_!!! ;-) I fully agree with Oh Jay on this. CDs sound "clearer" because there is no surface noise. However, I personally find that vinyl sounds more "musical."

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Vinyl advocates always seem to be going on about equipment that only exists in some dream world. Actually, I have a very modest turntable at this time (under $300) and when I was finally able to get hold of The Mix on vinyl and compare it to the CD, to my ears, there was an astounding improvement. The CD version of The Mix is quite cold and almost lifeless in comparison. The sound of the vinyl had a much more natural stereo field with greater instrument separation and presence. I would honestly say the differences seemed more than trivial. And again, that is on a standard turntable with a total system cost probably under $2000.

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Seems like the vinyl gave up more high end "timbre" than a boxy sounding CD. 0's and 1's reproduced (stuffed) in CD's seem not to replace the .1, .2, .3, .8, .9's heard in the analog world.

You got it all right buddy :) Indeed! Probably one of the most detrimental processes that occurs in digital audio production is the final preparation for a 16 bit, 44.1 k CD master. That process usually involves a step called dithering which takes higher resolution audio (24 bit or greater) and reduces it to 16 bits - so in essence, not all the data makes it onto the final product. If you've ever heard a 24 bit mix before and after dithering, the differences are quite clear. The first thing to suffer is stereo separation and what might be called "air" Down-sampling is another process that can be detrimental to digital audio (going from 48k, 96k or 192k to 44k). And depending on the quality of the conversion process, the result can be skewed and distorted transients.

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Now almost every piece of music is recorded in digital right from the start so CD (or some of its new incarnations) is the media of choice.

This isn't true. Lots of musicians use analog mastering, and in fact I've heard that some people have abandoned digital equipment completely, *recently*. I can certainly vouch for this fact. Many artists that I personally know not only choose to utilize analog mastering for sonic reasons, but are considering moving back to using more analog equipment in their studio setups. But its really a matter of the personal taste of the artist.

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I heard the difference on a high end system. Seems like the vinyl gave up more high end "timbre" than a boxy sounding CD. 0's and 1's reproduced (stuffed) in CD's seem not to replace the .1, .2, .3, .8, 9's heard in the analog world.

Perhaps. Trouble is, all those little peaks get filed off as you play the record. :) One important thing to point out here (whether one prefers digital OR vinyl), is that both vinyl and CDs are mastered completely differently on different types of equipment. And without a doubt, the mastering process applied will have an effect on the resulting perceived sound quality for better or for worse for either of them.

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Moving on to the Rega turntable, which is less than 1/3 of the cost, the first thing you notice is more AIR, and more rock'n'roll!. Recordings sound much more "real", and the sounds float around in the room very "matter-of-factly". Gone is the "controlled" sound and hello to the "live" feeling.

See, you're moving into the whacky, poorly defined subjective terminology that audiophiles always seem to use to justify their religion. Jumping into to this here, as I mentioned above, I don't have an expensive turntable and I can still hear the sound stage differences between vinyl and CDs quite clearly.

What is "AIR"? What is "real"? I say that CDs sound more real because there is little air involved - at least with electronic instruments no acoustic pickups are needed, cutting that troublesome and distorting air out of the picture all the way until your speakers. The "air" that I believe the previous gentleman and other "audiophiles are referring to is "natural sounding crispness and openness in the sound stage," i.e., space around the instruments (whether that space is artificial or not). When digital audio is processed for CD, that sound stage suffers a great deal. Even synthetic reverb and ambience, which is used to create an artificial sound stage, will be affected.

I also like it when music is mastered direct to CD because it eliminates the annoyances that come with live performances - environmental noise, crowd noise, and mistakes. Mastering direct to disk is not what would eliminate any of these types of noises and flaws. Environmental noise has to be controlled before it ever hits the mixing board stage for any recording. Likewise, crowd noise will leak into ANY recording, direct to disk or not, if not controlled by the engineer. And of course, mistakes in the performance have nothing to do with the recording medium! :-)

I find this hard to believe, and I lack access to the equipment to test it. What we need is to hook a good spectrum analyser up to a vinyl system and a digital system and see which one more accurately reproduces the sound from the studio. Without the original studio final mixes, there would be no way of making this type of comparison accurately. Especially when one takes into account that each medium will have been mastered slightly differently.

Very true! But analog recording systems are also unable to exactly reproduce analog sound because every step of the process introduces a distortion of some kind. I really think that digital instruments fed directly to digital recording devices are the more promising technology, and can offer better approximations. Actually, bad Digital to Analog convertors can really ruin any quality of a digital signal. Because...

Digital clocks are highly accurate - to better accuracy than humans can detect. I can't imagine the source of the problem you're referring to, since everything in a digital system should be driven by a crystal oscillator, and all lags in the system should be constant. On the contrary, NOT all digital clocks have the same level of accuracy. Any flaw in the clock introduces jitter which in the end can ruin a digital signal's clarity, separation, presence, frequency response and other properties. There's a reason why Apogee DAC's are priced so much higher than consumer convertors (especially those found in less expensive CD players and cheap computer sound cards. The digital to analog convertor (and analog to digital convertor when recording) is one of the most important links in the digital signal chain (right up there with bit resolution and sampling frequency)

There is also at least one source of timing problems in a vinyl system: The motor. No electric motor keeps its speed perfectly. A feedback system is used to verify its speed and make adjustments as needed. Can't you hear that happening? Again, the kind of timing "clock" referred to in digital audio has a completely different purpose. A bad digital clock can adversly affect the quality of the signal. Its not be easily noticeable on its own, but when comparing with a convertor that has a *high* quality clock, the difference in remarkable.

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This isn't true. Lots of musicians use analog mastering, and in fact I've heard that some people have abandoned digital equipment completely, *recently*.

Luddites! :) Again, my argument has always been, digital and analog can peacefully co-exist. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks. I use both.

Um, those songs don't exactly push any system to its limits. In fact, I'd say that they contain mainly sounds that a cheap analog system is capable of reproducing reasonably well. Actually there are harmonics in those older albums (done using analog synthesizers) that can't really be accurately produced well on a cheap system (or digitally for that matter if we're talking about 44/16).

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Damn right Oh Jay! But, this is not true for good equipment. A good vinyl player usually sounds clearer than a CD does,

Heh. "Good". Expensive. Whereas a typical CD player sounds better than a typical vinyl system. If I had money to spend on a stereo system, the first think I'd buy would be good *speakers*; they're what really makes a difference. Actually, all the components in the chain are important. Expensive speakers with less than quality speaker cable will almost negate the added expense. Cheap DACs in a cheap CD player will do even more damage. And of course, an amp that is too weak to properly drive the speakers would be of little benefit. So clearly, it's that quest for great sound that turns ordinary people into audiophiles. Bless 'em all! :-P

Actually, good earphones are even better; less air between the wire and the ear. Whoa! Headphones! That's another debate altogether! :-D

Kindest regards, John http://www.efofex.net/