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Not a fair comparison

If you want to transcribe that worst case digital to analog, you mount your cartridge without any alignment tool, same for VTA, set antiskating to zero (or maximum), VTF according to the phase of the moon etc.

Even in a top notch system which has been set up with great care you have several percent of distortion because you can't get rid of tracking error, except for the null points, you don't know the exact amount of VMA (vertical modulation angle), so you can't set VTA exactly, you can't compensate skating force to 100% except for the null points, and you don't simply know how well designed the cartridge is. You still have the trackability thing.

The lowest max. value for tracking distortion for my arm is above 1%. And that value is valid only for records of 58 mm inner recorded groove diameter. Setting the cartridge for different groove diameters will induce a rotation of the cart around its horizontal axis on warps, and warps are everywhere, so azimuth goes down the drain.
I don't bother setting VTA for every record, adds another 2-3 %.

A correctly built top notch digital system has none of these problems. Error correction will correct errors to 100%, jitter will be below audible values. There's nothing to set or mount or align.

Also vinyl knowns jitter, but it's cartridge dependent, so you don't know whether or not it's there.


Klaus

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