SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
While we agree on most things it seems, I have a couple of different issues with this statement.I don't think anybody was making that comparison. With both players connected to the same system, a high end record player sounds better than any CD player (provided the source sound for mastering the record was not 16 bit digital audio itself).
1) Define "better". On what quantitative scales by what definitions is one "better" than the other. I'm not saying that CD is better than vinyl, nor am I saying the opposite. I'm saying that I have no idea other than personal subjective opinion on just what that judgment is being made.
47) If a digital pre-master will not sound better mastered to vinyl than it will mastered to CD, then that kind of punches a hole in your conclusion that vinyl is "better" than CD. I'm sure your reasoning is something along the lines that 16-bit pre-master has to make no format changes to go to CD, giving the CD the advantage in that special circumstance.
When you flesh it out, though, that argument doesn't work. If vinyl were a superior format, it would sound better than CD regardless of the source, because the implication is that the distortions of vinyl are more pleasing than the distortions of digital, which would mean that imposing vinyl distortions on a digital pre-master would improve the sound whereas the CD would not add the more pleasing distortions.
There's only one reason why some folks prefer the sound of vinyl over CD. Because that's what they've been brought up to believe that reproduced sound "should" sound like, that somehow analog distortion is "better" distortion than digital distortion. It's no different than those that claim that 35mm film looks "better" than digital video.
The reality is they both are distortion - or if you prefer, inaccuracy in reproduction - that takes the viewer/listener away from reality, and to say that one is "better" than the other has no meaning outside of expressing a personal preference.
G.