Quote Originally Posted by Sherwood View Post
I am a late convert to digital. In the early days much if not most digital sounded dreadful (to me). I reluctantly adopted digital out of necessity: working overseas and travelling extensively, it was far easier to transport my music on a hard disc, and vinyl is not suited to hot, humid and dusty environments.

I have been interested in recent comments about the "variability" of digital sources and the perceived differences in the quality of different streaming sources. In recent years, I have switched from Spotify to Tidal, having briefly tried Qobuz. I am very pleased with the quality of Tidal and have had no real problems with any recordings.

However, it strikes me that many people have forgotten about the variability of vinyl. Most of my vinyl was acquired in the 20 year period from the mid 70s onwards. I was born and raised in central London so in the early years, most of my records were purchased in the large HMV, Virgin and Tower Record stores in the West End. Even though these stores carried a lot of stock, it was often difficult to find a pristine copy of an album in the racks due to the heavy handed attention of "browsers". Even when a decent copy could be found, it was not uncommon for the pressing to be warped or to sound very poor. Fortunately, most "naff" pressings could be returned for a replacement, though often the replacement sounded as bad if not worse than the original copy. When my studies and job took me "Up North" I would often find great difficulties in finding a good pressing as the shops were much smaller and carried less stock. Some stores would only put the covers out on display which rendered them much more vulnerable to creasing and other mistreatment. More annoyingly, many stores would play the vinyl for sale on dreadful turntables with sales staff leaving greasy paw prints over the discs. These smaller stores were also much less inclined to replace a faulty disc.

Digital has come a long way since the mid 80's. I still find it difficult to reconcile myself how good modern DACs and streamers are and how affordable they have become.

Geoff
Unfortunately a lot of this grief with vinyl quality still exists, I've actually had more hassle in recent years with brand new reissues than with stuff bought from second hand vinyl stores. I've had the same record back from Amazon three times and given up.

Much of the problem back then could have been sorted if people had been equipped, as many more enthusiasts are now, with decent record cleaning equipment - the issue was sometimes pressing but more often the fingerprints and general bad handling you mention, plus dust acquired in the retail process.

But in the classical world, where the dynamic range tends to be higher than other genres, duff pressings make more of an impact in the quiet passages and it's unsurprising that it was the classical market that drove early digital. (Contrary to the experience in 1980s hifi stores where it sometimes seemed that Phil Collins, Sade and Dire Straits made the only CDs ever to be issued).

Having said that, it's long been my experience that good clean vinyl on a decent system still shows a clean pair of heels to - essentially - ANY digital for engagement and enjoyment, but only above a certain level of vinyl performance. There's no doubt that for the same money you can acquire a digital system that will outperform vinyl by quite a margin and the entry point for decent digital continues to plummet in price.

It's certainly not a given that vinyl sounds better, indeed I've had a couple of non-hifi mates decide to get back into vinyl from having been all digital after visiting my place, only to be disappointed. I haven't the heart to tell them what it costs to emulate what they just heard.