Technically, digital audio provides superior more accurate
by Duke Camaro (2018-12-11 21:28:02)

In reply to: Without question.  posted by mocopdx

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sound. Digital recording methods provide more technically accurate sound reproduction with greater tonal depth. Digital audio playback, in essence, can perfectly reproduce this without any degradation or loss of fidelity.

The problem with digital, is that it is often highly compressed. To wit, the songs you hear on Spotify or even iTunes downloads are highly compressed from their original recordings to make the files smaller. Even CDs are compressed somewhat (though far less than mp3/aac files). For example, most digital recordings are done at 192 khz and 24 bit depth. CDs max out at 44.1 khz and 16 bits. MP3s/AAC/are far below this, with streaming even further below.

Usually, when people say that analog vinyl produces "richer" or "fuller" sound, what people are hearing is actually analog noise that "thickens" the sound but is further from the original sound source (similar to how pumping the bass can make a song sound "better" but is not necessarily accurate).

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