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Where vinyl beats digital, hands down

I'd like to go off on a tangent for a moment, and set aside the issue of sound. As a hobby, vinyl is simply a lot more fun than digital. It takes only a moment of reflection to see it: who do you think has more fun with their systems, SACD enthusiasts with their high tech boxes, or vinyl enthusiasts fussing over their precarious mechanisms?

With digital, you have lasers tracking impossibly small tolerances with sophisticated servo ICs, Reed-Solomon ECC encoded data passing through signal processor chips, etc., truly the stuff of high tech. For all of the tweaking that audiophiles love to do, the nature of the technology is such that they are several steps removed from how the music is generated. And when wonderful sounds are made, it comes as no surprise and indeed there is an expectation that all of that technology should produce it.

With vinyl, it all comes down to a needle scratching across a piece of plastic. When such a crude mechanism produces wonderful sound, it is unexpected and there is a sense of magic about it. It comes together precariously -- anything will affect the sound: cleaning the record, adjusting the tracking weight, etc. "Doing" vinyl is like driving a car as opposed to riding as a passenger. Which is more fun? There is also something seductive about working with a finely tuned mechanical device. A classic mechanical Leica camera stirs emotions in a way that no digital camera can. One can have an appreciation for a modest Rega turntable even while owning the very finest digital system.

The argument over whether vinyl or digital playback is superior will probably never go away. I wanted to point out that for some, an attraction of vinyl is that it can be a fun and satisfying hobby. And if you think that vinyl sounds like crap, you may be right (a matter of opinion), but the vinylphiles are probably having more fun than you.


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