Home Critic's Corner

Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Critic's Corner ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Re: The point I tried to make, but apparently without success...

The question of digital vs. vinyl, as the principal recorded music medium, has already been decided by the marketplace -- digital won. So there's no point in talking further about it.

What Fremer did -- and deserves credit for doing -- is to argue strenuously against the "perfect sound forever" mantra that accompanied the release of digital into the consumer marketplace in the mid-to-late 1980s. I do think he is to be commended for pointing out the relative strength of vinyl, especially as compared to digital in the first 10 years of its life. Consequently, enthusiaists kept their record collections and people continued to work on improving all aspects of vinyl playback -- turntables, cartridges, tonearms and phonostages. That's a good thing, because there's lots of material on vinyl that is not available in any digital medium. I feel confident in saying that today, some 20 years after the advent of consumer digital, vinyl playback is better than it ever has been. Lots of people deserve credit for that, and Mike Fremer is one of them.

Going forward, I have no idea what the future will bring. Hi-rez digital formats, (SACD) sound clearly superior to RBCD to me. But there seems to be a question as to whether there will be enough 'indie' software to keep the format alive and to keep manufacturers building players. RBCD is a mess, made worse by the after-the-fact efforts of record companies to build in some sort of digital copy protection (SACD has copy protection designed in). I can certainly envision a future where the mainstream recorded format continues to be RBCD -- with all of its problems -- and where there is no hi-res digital. In that event, it seems entirely possible to me that vinyl may end up being the "audiophile" format of choice. Obviously, the huge amount of "legacy" software and the small stream of new releases is sufficient to support the hardware side of vinyl.

So, if that's where we end up, the Fremer and others will have done us all a service by keeping vinyl alive.

As far as the technical arguments go, the distortions that exist in vinyl playback by and large don't exist in RBCD playback; but RBCD playback introduces new distortions. The question is which set is more objectionable to your ears.

My own experience, at the sub-$1000 price point suggests that, in certain ways vinyl is superior. When I revived my vinyl setup, I dragged out from storage a 1980s vintage Dual turntable, bought a new stylus for the vintage Audio Technica MM cartridge that was installed and bought the original Lehman Black Cube phonostage. In comparison to my Stereophile "Class B" Ultech CD player, on certain types of recordings, in particular acoustic piano, the vinyl won hands down.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]