That particular album is an upsample from a 48khz master so I disagree

I REALLY enjoy “This Is The Moody Blues” UHQCD MQA. I hear details on this copy that I’ve never heard before. My only complaint is that it’s really bright. Knowing that the Quad Reel to Reels come with Dolby, I’m suspicious that one would need a Dolby box to hear it correctly.

Another really great MQA recording is “Live and Let Die”, Paul McCartney MQA.

The Elton John and Pink Floyd releases on SACD are also a must have.

Finally, the MFSL A Day At The Races on CD is one of my favorite CDs.

Led Zeppelin and Queen MQA are not that great IMHO. The hi-res PCM releases of the Yes catalogue are also outstanding, but only on DVD-A or Blu Ray.

Power ratings for speakers only means their limit

New record releases are just compressed, equalized noisy copies of digital recordings so they are indeed lower quality. Perhaps playing pure analog records on a better record player and phono amp might sound better to you, but maybe not. I like the album covers too. There’s always the silly case that if electricity ever becomes unavailable, an old victrola could still play your music.

I had a pretty complete collection of classic rock SACD, DVD-A and Pure Audio Blu-Rays that I ripped and sold off. I miss having them though. Not because I played the discs. But I enjoyed having them. The only CDs I miss are Radiohead, since the master isn’t analog or high sample rate so they are the best sound and my MoFi A Day at the Races because I like that mix.

Just move it. Maybe mount a shelf on the wall to hold it near it’s current location

So many people stumbling onto free hifi gear. It’s amazing. I’m not sure why the lucky finders always need to know from Reddit how the gear sounds, when they’re the only ones who have actually heard the equipment

You can never really insulate from your neighbors in an apartment without serious sound insulation and strong, immovable walls, floors and ceiling such as a concrete apartment building with sheetrock inside.

The problem is that the deep bass that you enjoy from your system will transmit, through the air, and make your wood/sheetrock walls, ceiling and floor into resonant diaphragms.

You may be able to insulate your neighbors from higher frequencies with acoustic insulation, but the bass is problematic

iPhone because it just works

iPhone because it just works

To enjoy music. To me this is moving to it’s rhythm, listening to individual instruments as well as all together and, at best, be emotionally affected by music.

A distant second is convenience and not having to make a big fuss to use and maintain it

I 100% think that source is the most important part of the chain and where I always start. This is a change from the days before digital when, effectively, records were the only source. While everyone would invest in a great cartridge, phono preamp, and turntable, one very quickly would get to a point where a lot of money would make minimal improvement to sound. There was the belt/direct drive discussion, and certainly discussions around different cartridges, but most of it was around the same price point. Furthermore, until Original Master Recordings came about, the only possible improvement in software was either a very early or foreign pressing of a record. In those days , upgrading speakers provided the biggest bang for your buck.

With digital, there’s more room for effective improvement per dollar and myriad choices of software to play. The difference in potential fidelity between a cheap, low bit rate MP3, and a record or a 192khz/24bit PCM, MQA or DoubleDSD copy of the same Master is quite different. The DACs required can also make a significant difference in the potential fidelity of the source. So this changes the “speakers are most important “ rule of thumb. Don’t misunderstand me. There is still a point of diminishing returns with DACs and software as well, but it doesn’t necessarily happen at the lower cost like record players.

Ever since the first time I heard and liked a classic rock album at 96k/24bit of a record I loved and a CD I despised, I have always bought music on the best purely analog records and highest legitimate resolution Digital copy along with the best sounding DAC and record player I could afford. I’m so happy I did that because as I gained access to better and better amplifiers and speakers, the better it all sounded.

It wasn’t always the most expensive, either. I love my DAC and its around $500 and I’d have to spend more than $5000 to get only marginal improvements. Same with my record player. I’d have to spend more than $10,000 for only marginal better sound.

Records have now become a challenge too. Back when I bought my OMR of Abbey Road and American Beauty, an OMR almost always sounded more realistic than the OG pressings. They were a bit heavy on bass, but I didn’t mind.

These days though, MoFi and a lot of popular records are from digital masters with some (Radiohead, some U2) that sound like CDs with record noise and more hiss. And, some SACDs, BluRays,and, so-called “hi res” FLAC are from 44.1 or 48khz masters upsampled to DSD or 96/24 PCM. But, its worth the effort to have the best possible copy. It’s almost impossible, in some cases, to know what you’re buying until you buy it and play it.

Because I have the best digital recordings available and have put them on my phone, I can take my iPhone, USB3 camera adapter, USB powered DAC, plug it into any system and audition anything I might want to buy to upgrade my system and can hear what the components might bring out.

If I win the lottery, I absolutely will spend > $100,000 on a record player and >$2000 on an Oppo for surround and MQA DAC as well as pickup a few titles that are expensive so that when I spend the next hundreds of thousands on electronics and speakers, I’ll hear everything I should.

Even before spending money on the rest, the excellent source is worth it on cheap systems like the Bose in my car.

Bottom line is that source, before diminishing returns point, is best bang for the buck.

I wouldn’t say we prefer records though a lot do and I really love records with an excellent playback rig. And, throughout this long answer, when I say “record” I’m referring to those produced from purely analog sources, not digital recordings mastered and produced onto a record like the MoFi records in the scandal. I bought a few of these and, inexplicably at the time, I never liked them. About a year before that scandal broke, I sold them all for more than I paid because I preferred my OG copies even though they were noisier.

If a title is digitally mastered, I always want a digital copy at the native sample rate of the master and not one of the phony upsampled copies that are available.

FYI, this reply is going to bring out some hate from people who can’t hear the improvement in anything different in CD. But, I can’t avoid what makes them apoplectic to answer your question.

I, and many who prefer good analog, find the sound to be more realistic than digital and it can stir emotion more readily. Analog playback frequently elicits a visceral response, like tor tapping, to music that isn’t there with a CD. Digital can be really good but until it gets to DSD or PCM at 88.2/24 and above, it sounds more like a “slightly blurry” facsimile than a live performance.

An excellently mastered recording that is properly equalized and pressed has more potential to sound realistic than anything digital. The only errors in reproduction are the quality of the equipment that etched the vinyl master and the equipment that plays it back. The electrical signal that excellent playback equipment creates is a perfect analog of the signal that drove the etching equipment.

Digital playback at CD resolution has always fatigued me and it took me years to figure out why. From the very first time I heard a CD at a very high end store on an excellent system, I found the sound bright, phony and irritating. I listen to lots of rock music and whenever there are multiple, simultaneous, cymbals, the sound from a CD sounds like a leaky high pressure air hose. From a CD one cannot distinguish tan individual cymbal’s tone or even to hear how many.

Similarly with passages with many different, simultaneous, sounds it’s not possible to follow an accurately reproduced, individual in the cacophony. Even when its just a single acoustic guitar and a singer, there is a false “edge” of noise to the sound of each. When I play a clean record of the same master, it’s more like the artist is playing the song in the listening room. It’s very subtle, but it’s more engaging.

I used to think that the edge and brightness were at frequencies not even audible from a record played on my system. I thought perhaps that high frequency noise is in the analog recording and the attenuation from a record on my system was a good thing because it wasn’t audible.

But now, I think most of the unpleasant brightness and edge are digital artifacts from quantization error manifested at very high frequencies. I came to this conclusion from listening to the same master recordings at higher sampling frequencies. PCM at 96k and even moreso at 192k has much less of this noise and I can follow a single instrument through a crowded passage of many instruments that isn’t a cacophony. Individual cymbals are distinguishable and one can even hear the different tones of each.

All that being said about digital, if I put on the record of the same music, it all sounds more realistic. I don’t have a cartridge, turntable, tonearm and phono preamp that wrings every last detail out of a record, but its not ever a noisy cacophony like a CD. At my local high end store, that record is unbelievably realistic so I hope to get better equipment.

At home, the convenience of digital and the limitations of my record playback equipment make records and 192/24 digital playback a toss up. The records aren’t free of pops and clicks and a little more hiss so the 192/24 digital is quieter. And, most of the cymbal detail is present without much noise from the digital playback that is attenuated from records.

That is a very long answer of why I prefer records most of the time for critical listening but it is, by no means a universal opinion.

This answer will bring out the damaged individuals who are personally offended by my enjoyment of analog and high sampling rates because they can’t hear the difference. They will cite some pseudoscience that misapplies the Shannon-Nyquist theorem to “prove” I’m a gullible idiot because there isn’t a difference. I won’t answer these replies because it will hijack your OP. You’re asking why we like records, not to prove the science. There’s more to the sound quality than only what sampling rate is sufficient to accurately reproduce a single tone.

Listen to a pure analog record at a high end store and see what you think compared to a CD.

I like Onkyo HF player with HiRes pack. Plays everything including DSD over PCM

No

I’ve found music on Qobuz, at least via their iphone app, is always bright. Sometimes excruciatingly so, even compared to Tidal or HDTracks downloads. Vinyl generally doesn’t do high frequencies well without good equipment, but it’s more than that and I share your experience.

You’re opening the door for the damaged to flood replies to your OP with why you’re not hearing what you’re hearing

That is an odd and interesting way to listen. I’m surprised that you can hear the space between each click at that rate.

This is why I held onto my records and try to get high sample rate digital stuff. I noticed my engagement dropped off when I first started listening to CDs, in much the same way as you. But not my cassettes in the car nor my records at home. I enjoyed them as much as ever.

I noticed that passengers in my car would actually listen to my cassettes, but started talking after a few minutes of a CD. My toddlers would be moved to dance to my records but ignored CDs.

IMHO human beings notice the missing bits of low resolution digital. It’s like cats and TV. Cats will watch and engage with images on a 120hz refresh 4k TV, but don’t even look at a CRT.

You may not hear the difference, but DSD, which is what SACD is recorded in, and PCM with high sample rates and more bits per sample as found on DVDA and some BluRay discs, factually has more data which leads to an analog signal that is more similar to the original analog signal as more data (samples and bits) is recorded.

Again, you might not hear the difference, but it’s there. The Oppos are really nice and difficult to beat.

There is a very vocal group of emotional people that trot out pseudoscience that misappropriates actual science who retch when one suggests anything beyond CD sounds better. They like to cite this so-called “scientific proof” video and Nyquist theory but the video is “mock objective” and the application of Nyquist isn’t as straightforward as they want to believe.

Have a listen to the higher resolution stuff like SACD, >=96khz/24bit PCM and decide for yourself. Make sure its not just upsampled from CD and that it’s a good master. If you don’t think it is better, then don’t bother

I have also arrived at 80% as a rule of thumb when the volume of the analog source is adjustable. This is based on my experience that the input to the next device is clipped from being overdriven above that. However, I generally adjust by ear because sometimes it’s too high or to low.

Regardless of what others may say, I’ve found that frequency profile of an adjustable, low level signal changes with the level. In my experience the bass and treble are attenuated at lower levels so I try to set my output to the next device to the highest level possible without clipping.

If, however, it’s a digital link with a level control, in my experience, 100% is the best level as the digital “signal” operates within the available digital dynamic range.

Listen to lots of live music try to follow one instrument, do the same with recordings. Learn to play an instrument.

Oppo 205 would be the pinnacle