Quote Originally Posted by StevenSurprenant View Post
Personally, the vinyl side of my system sounds a great deal better than the digital side. I did record some records before, using a different phono preamp and my AT120E at 24/196 and I couldn't tell the recordings apart from the original vinyl. Well anyway, it was very close. When I reduced the bit rate to 16/44.1 the sound went flat. It sounded just like the rest of my CD's. It was this way playing from the computer or from a disk in the CD player. So, I figure on getting a FLAC player or some other way to keep these files in tack. Perhaps a music server? I really prefer to use disks, but we'll see.
You aren't the first person to say that a good digital rip from LP sounds identical to the original. IMO, this is pretty much proof that the problems with digital aren't the medium itself but the production approach that recording engineers choose to use for CDs.

Again IMO, the majority of recordings are too bright, (at least true for classical music). I use a digital equalized, (another advantage of digital playback), to ease off highs starting about 4kHz and going down to about -6dB at around 10kHz. Even so many recordings are very sharp, especially in the top highs, e.g. string and brass instruments. But NOT ALL CDs sound harsh or too bright, only some.