Analogue vs Digital Recordings

[admin_exported]

On recently purchasing the Raconteurs "Consolers of the Lonely" on 180 gram double vinyl, I was awestruck at how much better this record sounds in comparrison with the CD version.

This album was allegedly recorded on 2" tape so the audio logic decrees that it should sound good on vinyl as nothing much is going to be added or taken away from the original signal.

Conversley, at the risk of opening a can of worms, is it true to say that therefore anything recorded in the digital realm in the recording studio sounds better on cd than on vinyl?

Looking at my music collection I generally prefer the CD's that are recorded digitally, and vinyl that has originally been recorded in an analogue environment.

Am i the only person to now feel that this is generally the case? Is it my system? Is it my ears? Is it that so many engineers, producers and mastering studios do a bad job? Or am i just tying myself up in knots at the danger of my head disappearing up my nerdy posterior?

 

[fatboyslimfast]

Well, I've got a few "digitally mastered" Beatles LPs, and TBH they don't sound that great.

I tend to agree - the minimum amount of re-processing (A to D, D to A etc) seems to work best.

Vinyl sounds best on older (pre 80s) recordings, while CD has the edge going forward.

What you've probably found with the Raconteurs recording is as they have used 30ips tape, the producers cared far more about how it sounds than "other" recordings - and this is showing the inherent superiority of vinyl at it's best.

Please don't read into the above that I feel Vinyl is always superior. Only that a perfect vinyl recording should sound better than a perfect CD recording. Lots of vinyl (esp 2nd hand) can sound awful!!!!