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Re: Without those experts, charts and numbers...

Did you actually hear how bad early digital was? Many professionals would love to return back to analog and some even do. The fact that vinyl is experiencing a bit of a renaissance should clue you in to the dissatisfaction. Perhaps your system lacks the resolution to tell the difference? It wouldn't be the first time someone is arguing from a point of perceptual ignorance.

People bought the "perfect sound forever" hook line and sinker because the convenience made it easy to swallow and let's admit it, most people had crappy analog playback systems as well. They didn't have good analog sound to begin with. So it was more of a parallel move. Those with good analog playback that got rid of it soon regretted it.

BTW, the best vinyl recordings are "direct to disk", not so far away from the Edison wax cyninder afterall (direct to wax). Going first to tape adds one more veil to the sound. Converting to digital likewise (AD conversion of the analog signal). The best is analog cut directly into grooves or playing back the master tape directly (again only 1 step). If you haven't heard either then I doubt you will understand.

"I'm sure that, if we had had digital first and engineers had then invented vinyl's "perfect sound forever", bashing vinyl would have been the order of the day."

You are assumming that had analog been created second that the devices would have been as crude as Edisons first recordings. Given the number of engineers, modern engineering prowess and the technology at hand I sincerely doubt that. More likely it would be like one of ultra sophisticated designs we have today.

Also, people can hear and at first people swallowed the hype but soon their ears told them something else (at least those people whose ears tell them anything at all!). I think people would hear the superiority and while they might not change over (due to convenience of digital) they would say analog was crap.

Every single non-audiophile I have played records for has preferred the sound to digital (and I have a pretty good digital system). They all say things like, "gee its quieter than I remember" and "man the sound is much more relaxing" etc. etc. They perhaps don't remember how good analog was because likely they never heard good analog just cheap analog.


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