Can digital compete in sound quality with vinyl?
 

Can an audiophile digital system compete in sound quality with an audiophile vinyl system?

Excuse the dust pop sounds, and the pain of recleaning them, or the inconvenience of listening to an entire album to hear that song. While more convenient, digital has its own problems.

On the same flagship Mc system with a Mt5 and streaming tidal from a MB100, the analog is more clean/clear/more realistic sounding. When A/B side by side, digital sounded fake and compressed.

I thought I loved ARC because the salesman always plays vinyl, and it's exciting and realistic. I thought it was the ARC sound. He'd use a streamer on that system and it was always sounds flat. I had to hear vinyl on another system to know. I don't know if I love arc the same anymore, but now I blame vinyl for my recent OCD.

Well, have you heard digital win on a side by side test using the same album/songs? Tidal is great quality for streaming, but is analog better than digital because of the format? Or is Tidal handicapping the digital SQ will HD music like FLAC bridge the gap?

Absolutely, just be prepared to spend an awful lot of money to surpass vinyl. Specifically, 5~10 x more, YMMV.

I have the opposite issue. I have tried a few turntables in my system, up to $10k cost, and never heard anything that matched my digital set up. Plus there is too much cleaning and fussing and I still can’t get the noise floor down in vinyl.

Good digital is coming down in price annually, while vinyl price/performance has plateaued.

My Stereophile Component of the Year Benchmark DAC3 HGC sound almost as good as my vinyl rig.

But my vinyl rig weighs in at 8x the cost of the Benchmark and is tweaked to perfection with great setup tools.

Also I'd add that in digital the cables, streaming source, and power conditioning make a huge difference in sound quality. The people who state that digital is just 1's and 0's and so cables and power don't matter - well they are uninformed*

Tom

*This is a family forum so I didn't say what I really meant.

Same ol', same ol', same ol'. . :boring:

The answer is YES!
 

Yep - there have been thousands of threads on this topic.
The answer is always ‘it depends’.

I think the value in these threads lies in understanding everyone’s experiences in their own homes with their own gear, be it analog or digital, with their own media, whatever it’s providence.

I still think these are “the good old days” with great sounding analog AND digital sources available with unprecedented quality. I do not have to choose a favorite because the answer to “which is best” is always BOTH!

"Yep - there have been thousands of threads on this topic.
The answer is always ‘it depends’."

it depends on what the meaning of "is" is...

:scratch2:

I am also in the 'IT DEPENDS" camp.
Prior to my latest digital bit of gear I would have said vinyl held a small edge. Then I acquired a Marantz SA-10 and the digital held the edge.
The most recent gizmo, a used Threshold FET10 phono box (which was refreshed and some capacitor updates by Jon Soderberg in 2014 and given a larger, better power supply for both the FET 10 phono (and matching FET10 linestage which I also have) The vinyl is again up there equal.
I am certain the vinyl could top the digital if I only would splurge on a Ortofon Cadenza Bronze or Black. (Soon enough, when the current cartridge is ready to retire)
So it goes.
To me, they are just different, with neither one really inherently better. They both sound pretty good.

?