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I for one am not in awe of vinyl

Posted by Robert C. Lang (A) on May 6, 2006 at 15:16:34

In Reply to: I just love this discussion at Vinyl Asylum (link) posted by joyzmantoyz on May 5, 2006 at 12:50:15:

even on top tier rigs. (I do not own a top tier vinyl rig and although it is certainly not the same, I have listened extensively to SOTA rigs at my EMM Labs dealer). To be sure, vinyl has a special character that, at its best, is most involving. One might argue that, at its best, vinyl playback can be “better” than real live music.

I agree that at the dawn of CD my collection of several thousand LPs and 45s sounded leagues better than my first CDs. Or even most of my first 500 CDs. In fact, I was so dissatisfied with the sound of my CDs (even though they got better over the years); by the early 90’s I became a hardcore audiophile dropout for nearly a decade. All my magazine subscriptions expired. I stopped buying music, almost completely. My sound system became unkempt. But that was OK because I returned largely to vinyl listening and that sounded awesome because, in large part, I suspect, because of the sentimental/emotional attachment I had to the music of my youth that was all on vinyl. There was no way that an early vintage CD could compete with the sound (and the emotion attached to that sound) with even a mortally worn LP of Isaac Hayes’ “Hot Buttered Soul” or Earth, Wind and Fires’ “Gratitude”, not to mention the vinyl that I own that is still in excellent condition. Also, during this time I began attending live performances more than at anytime in the past.

Beginning about 10 years ago CD, done at its best, began to seriously close the gap with vinyl to my ears. This is important because it closed the gap despite that I had no childhood/young adult emotional attachment to the new CDs. That is, CDs began to compete sonically with LPs on the “merits” and even though my LPs had an inside advantage.

And to me with SACD the releases began to *consistently* surpass vinyl in terms of quality. The reason I say “consistently” is because I am very aware that, to my ears, there are *selected or hand picked* vinyl, especially direct-to-disc, that are simply to die for. But if I were to take my collection of 400-500 SACDs, warts and all, and compare them to my 1500 or so vinyl collections, warts and all, my SACDs would win hands down in terms of sound quality. Of course, one could argue that if even one vinyl was better than even the best SACD that that would “prove” that vinyl was superior.

But I’m looking at the whole universe of my collection. As a group, my SACDs sound better than my vinyl (except for emotional attachment) as a group. If I cherry picked some vinyl like they do at the high-end salons the results could be different. Which is why I keep getting back to “well done” vinyl and SACDs. Even at only 3500 or so SACDs the universe of those that are well done and are of interest to me, especially classical, far exceeds the vinyl that is well done and is of interest to me.

I think it’s a complicated phenomenon. I have found those who grew up during the golden age of vinyl tend to like vinyl, even average vinyl, over even great digital. This is especially likely if most of the vinyl you listen to is music you grew up with and remember fondly. I believe it may also be genre related, because I enjoy the “in your face” quality of well done non-classical vinyl more than I do of the equivalent CD reissues. (But perhaps if the CD was “done” better perhaps I would like it as much, but I doubt it because it still won’t have that vinyl signature. Or may be if the CD was made from the vinyl instead of from the master tapes it would still retain that signature?)

And as superior that some believe that vinyl is to SACD or CD (I have listened to far more vinyl than CD in recent years) I know of at least one person who has both an extensive collection of vinyl and reel-to-reel tapes. He believes his reel-to-reel, is far superior, particularly in head to head comparisons of the same performances.

Is reel-to-reel king? I don’t think so. One thing that many vinyl devotees have in common, which is a casualty of their devotion to medium, is that they are stuck in stereo. Most are completely missing the boat (many in a cavalier manner) to the virtues of well-done multi-channel SACD, of which there are now hundreds of releases. Like most of us I hold on to for dear life to the technology to which I grew up on. I don’t dismiss technology simply because its old. Most often I’m guilty to hold on to it because it is old and tried. And vinyl *is* improving at all price levels as far as I can see (and hear). But to me SACD multi-channel trumps it so (or can) soundly, including SOTA vinyl systems, that it is simply no longer an issue.

(It is interesting to me that the original poster has the Vandersteen 5s. When I was building my SACD audio system I initially considered starting from scratch and purchasing 5 of those wonderful speakers and calling it a day. But as it was I ended up letting the tail wag the dog in an attempt to match the mains. I actually saved almost no money doing that way, even though my mains were already in place. While I am very satisfied with my end product 5 Vandersteen 5s in a 2ch/multi-channel SACD system would be absolutely world class in my opinion.)

Robert C. Lang

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