Writing for the website digitaltrends, John Higgins deconstructs the notion that the analog recording process produces better (“warmer”) sound than digital recording, noting that “apart from perhaps a few rare instances, there’s no such thing as a purely analog production chain. At some point, even if you’re listening to a vinyl record, that audio signal was digital.” Unless the vinyl record was produced before the advent of digital recording.
Higgins, helpfully describes recording production chains in reasonably accessible terms for those of us who aren’t audio-tech nerds who already knew that DAW is the acronym for digital audio workstations. “Unless expressly put together to avoid all digital technology, a modern recording studio will include a DAW, a console that includes digital elements, digital instruments, digital effects modules, and digital controllers,” he writes.
“Mixing is done in the digital realm. Mastering is done in the digital realm. Even reissues and remasters of classic recordings that were originally fully analog are mixed and mastered from masters that were transferred to digital, likely years ago. It’s unavoidable.”
The renaissance of vinyl records is more tactile than audial: “I appreciate the ritual. Holding the record sleeve, admiring the art and design, sliding the LP out, carefully flipping it in my hands to select the side I want before placing it on my turntable and dropping the needle, it all satiates a need for appreciation.”
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/time-to-admit-to-vinyls-dirty-secret/
(via http://artsjournal.com)
One not-so-dirty secret of vinyl that Higgins doesn’t mention: It remains the most durable medium for recordings. Aged or stretched cassette and open-reel tapes are usually beyond rescue. A damaged or defective compact disc is a coaster. A corrupted digital file is lost and gone forever. A worn, scratched, even somewhat warped, vinyl record can still be played, although playing it does your stylus no favors.
Letter V 