Originally Posted by
Sherwood
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