People have covered a lot of the non-sonic pleasures of vinyl already.

As for the sound: I have a good digital front end (music server, full res ripped CDs/Tidal streaming to Benchmark DAC2L), and a good vinyl front end (Transrotor Fat Bob S turntable/Acoustic Solid 12" arm/Benz Micro Ebony L cartridge) and I go back and forth between them all the time.

I love the sound of both sources. But if I had to choose I slightly prefer the sound of vinyl overall. It’s a generalization, but on my system, digital is subtly more clean and nuanced and of course free of any extraneous artifacts. But, to steal a description used by loudspeaker designer John Devore, vinyl just seems to paint “a more solid picture of the musical event.”

I think it’s due to the slight accrual of distortions in the process of creating records and scraping that music back off with a needle, but it seems to add a slight thickness and texture which to my ears makes the voices and instruments seem a bit more “solid” and texturally standing out from the mix, a bit more like hearing real sound.

It’s the kind of thing where two people could compare the sound and one would cue on what the digital does “better” and prefer it, and the other person like me cues in on certain characteristics of the vinyl presentation that might impress.

I totally get audiophiles who much prefer digital over vinyl - I was all digital since the 80’s until I got back in to vinyl several years ago. But I’ve never had so much fun with this hobby and with music listening as when I got back in to vinyl!

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Funny you mention that. Yes.

Well, I used to. I was in a Funk tribute band and at one point we had the “Triple Bass Song,” which was three of us slapping away madly, funkily - funk on steroids :-)

Nope.

It still brings in the same issue I was getting at, which boils down to a goal of strict neutrality or not. I mean, sure you might have a loudspeaker that is so small and limited in bandwidth, that in of itself could be why it’s not satisfying with some music.

But most people own speakers that have decent bandwidth.

The thing is you can add a sub, but if you go the ‘tightly reined in for neutrality’ route, in terms of dialing back the sub, then you can end up with the same issue I described, and you may still prefer a less neutral dialing of your bass response.

I have Thiel 2.7 speakers, tower speakers that go down to 35Hz, and I tried adding an elaborate system of subs - two JL audio subs, an expensive JL Audio crossover, room correction for the bass. I ended up with a very linear sound top to bottom. And yet I found it wanting compared to my speakers without the subs, which had a bit more of a upper bass boost and just “Kicked more” with energetic music. I even had my rap-loving son do a blind comparison between subs in, subs switched out, and he preferred the energy of the speakers without the subs.

Now, all of this is ultimately subjective. Plenty of people seek, and fully enjoy totally neutral sound from top to bottom in their system. I’m just pointing out it’s maybe not for everyone, and why some people can find strict neutrality to sometimes be disappointing with genres they love.

Nope.

Over my long journey as an audiophile I learned that my goal for my system was that anything I played on it would be enjoyable.

It’s possible that what you are describing is a symptom of what I think of as “audiophile bass.” One of the first things many audiophiles do is to see “bloated over warm bass” as the enemy. It’s the sign of a low quality system “show room sound.” Many find, as I did, that once you start experiencing more linear, more neutral and tightly controlled bass, more tracks can sound realistic or natural - acoustic music particularly. So you chase ever lower coloration.

What can happen is that a system can sound controlled “too a fault.” Too buttoned down, too wimpy. Some audiophile systems playing Rock or Funk sound like someone too uptight to dance. Bass sort of “stays back there in the soundstage” rather than having real room feel.

I still appreciate a low distortion speaker, and right bass. But there have been times when I could opt for more “audiophile bass” in terns of keeping a tight reign on the bottom end, but I’ve instead opted for a richer sound, which gave me satisfying punch and room feel for rock, funk, electronic music, orchestral etc.