Those of you on J.R. Boisclair's mailing list will already know about this, but it is an interesting discussion of what might lie ahead:
Has vinyl playback technology gone about as far as it can go?
- Thread starter Dogberry
- Start date
No, we have yet to listen to a turntable completely made up of non-metallic materials that pose no eddy current-related sonic problems for a magnetic cartridge
These days very few recordings are done in analog unless it specifically says so in the liner notes. CD was new in 1982, now it has become quite good in 2025.
Records released nowadays are recorded digitally and pressed and sold. Sonically my records sound better in the analog domain, including the type of recording method used.
So yes, records from 1983 sound better than records of 2025. Just my opinion.
To me digital recordings require no loudness switch or mono switch, certainly no tone controls. Analog needs availability of a mono and loudness switch because I have some recordings on LP that are old and need some help to sound their best, like The Mills Brothers or The Carter Family for example.
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the best part of 1983 for vinyl was 1983-1993 great pressings could be acquired cheaply. then the reissue craze and vinyl reawakening kicked off around 1994 and the cost of desired pressings skyrocketed.
the hardware part being better in 1983 than now is more muddled as far as 'better'; cases can be made both ways. if we had a time machine and had the opportunity to buy vinyl stuff from 1983 i think most serious vinyl people of today would be thinking pressings, not hardware, to begin with.
I was a late adopter of CDs. I waited until 1989. In direct comparisons I preferred my vinyl. I bought into CDs in 1989 for the convenience. CD changers could be loaded with 6 CD magazines and played for dinner parties, or even in the car. I added a changer to my 1990 Lincoln Town Car and it was great to play a magazine for 4 to 6 hours straight.
I am constantly impressed by how much musical information managed to get pressed into vinyl records using the crude electronics and materials of the day. 
Look at the pre-transistor electronics, the flawed cabling, the primitive transducers and monitors, those run of the mill fuses, etc. Using that stone age gear, how did that information end up on the records that we can now plumb, and that some/many still find superior to the most modern digital formats?
We pat ourselves on the back, but we are still struggling to get as much out of records now that was placed into the format 60+ years ago.
Fascinating, to me.
Look at the pre-transistor electronics, the flawed cabling, the primitive transducers and monitors, those run of the mill fuses, etc. Using that stone age gear, how did that information end up on the records that we can now plumb, and that some/many still find superior to the most modern digital formats?
We pat ourselves on the back, but we are still struggling to get as much out of records now that was placed into the format 60+ years ago.
Fascinating, to me.
You touch on something else as or more important than format and that is the recording method. To carry vinyl further I think we need recording engineers like those who pioneeerd stereo recording. People like Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine with their two microphone technique at Mercury, the left-center-right microphone set-up (mixed down to two tracks) used by Lewis Layton and Richard Mohr for RCA's Living Stereo, and the tree microphone configurationn refined by Decca's Kenneth Wilkinson. From today's perspective these simpler approaches gave us some of the most impressive recordings we know.
Record producers need to use top quality vinyl without plasticizers. The oil crisis of the mid-70s gave us a lot of lousy sounding records. In the 90s when people starting switching to CD and a lot less vinyl was sold, producers turned to cheap re-cycled vinyl for a better return. There are but a handful of manufacturer's making record-quality PVC pellets and there is not always consistency in their products. When Butch Hobson was making Classic Records re-issues he was constantly switching companies for quality lacquers
Deutsche-Grammaphon just released a new classical LP in AAA -- their first since 1981. I suspect the success of their AAA The Original Source remasters taken from tape told them there is a market for such. And now Decca is introducing 3 AAA remastered LPs. We shall see.
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I bought my first CD player in 2006. It was a McIntosh MCD201. Later I got a MCD500 in 2010, and finally I have a MCD12000 as my final player.
I sold my first LP12 in 2005, so I was without a turntable for about 5 years. During that time I bought quite a few CD's so I was acclimated to the sound. I bought a new LP12 in 2010 so I compared my records to CD's on my table that was set up.
Overall I was glad that I choose to use tubes for digital because the tubes , I suspect because of even order harmonics, the sound of my CD's were too bright on solid state but sounded pretty good with digital and the sound was not as bright sounding. I could definitely hear differences between records and CD's. I was late coming to digital but glad I decided to get into now with my newest CD player and Bluetooth Transceiver.
I had thought so, but then about a year ago I heard a turntable, built to admittedly extreme limits and cost, that extracted as much information from the grooves as I had heard before, but it presented that information in the most natural and calm way I had yet heard. This was an ultra high mass thread drive table with refinements to the motor controller and to energy management.
I guess the limits have been approached, but I continue to be surprised by the new things I hear. There is an incredible amount of information embedded in the grooves of the best vinyl records. It is a matter of extracting that information and presenting it with a little corruption as possible. Of course, the rest of the system, the set up, and the room have to be able to support the presentation too. I think the biggest challenges going forward are in bringing down the costs, in motor and controller improvements, in producing worthy new recordings, and in more enthusiasts learning the skill of proper set up. Set up may be the single biggest challenge holding back top playback.
The best playback technology of the past and present is very good IMO, but I remain optimistic that a few obsessed lunatics will push it even further.
I guess the limits have been approached, but I continue to be surprised by the new things I hear. There is an incredible amount of information embedded in the grooves of the best vinyl records. It is a matter of extracting that information and presenting it with a little corruption as possible. Of course, the rest of the system, the set up, and the room have to be able to support the presentation too. I think the biggest challenges going forward are in bringing down the costs, in motor and controller improvements, in producing worthy new recordings, and in more enthusiasts learning the skill of proper set up. Set up may be the single biggest challenge holding back top playback.
The best playback technology of the past and present is very good IMO, but I remain optimistic that a few obsessed lunatics will push it even further.
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