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Several problems digital has that analog seems to not have:

Any LP system has bandwidth to at least 35KHz. Stock cutter systems designed in the late 1950s went to over 50KHz and were usually bandwidth limited at about 40-45KHz; ours is set at 42KHz).

This bandwidth exists in playback- we can easily cut a 35KHz signal and play it back on very modest equipment without distortion.

The second thing is a type of distortion that the digital industry does not like to talk about! This is known in several guises: 'Inharmonic distortion, which is in this case a form of IMD where the spurious tones generated are related to intermodulations between the scan frequency and the actual fundamental tone.

The digital industry does not like to admit to distortion so they call this 'aliasing'. The problem with it is not detectable unless you use an analog source. This is because digital algorithms are designed to avoid the problem!

To easily hear the issue, use an analog sweep generator and set up a slow rising tone from 20Hz to 20Khz. Record; in playback you will hear the spurious intermodulations as 'birdies' (the term coined by the radio industry decades ago).

These spurious tones only occur in analog systems with a serious malfunction!

Since the music usually played by audiophiles is not sweep tones, the spurious tones are not audible as tones- the ear converts them though to the brightness for which digital is traditionally known.

Analog lacks such brightness or any tonality for that matter (those being properties of some recordings but not others- clearly an issue of recording gear, its use and that of the playback as well). Its biggest problem is noise floor, but if set up correctly and if the LP is mastered and pressed with care it has no problem being quieter than the electronics used to play it back.

That does not sound like digital is 'better' to me, the suggestion of such sounds like an opinion that really isn't based on a sound understanding of the issues.


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