Aldermog,
A quality classic system. Your kit takes me back to my college days. I was constantly on the upgrade route. As I recall, the ultimate was between Pink Triangle and the LP12. Both too much for me back then. Explored dbx records and ended up converting to CD's as players started to sound less digital. Still have the kit, but now I'm a Spotify convert.
Both cd and vinyl use different forms of compression to get the music into the allowable space. In simple terms vinyl has to compress the mid and bass end of the sound spectrum, if not the needle would jump out of the groove, and this is done through mechanical engineering trick in the cutting of the master and this is reversed during playback by the design of the needle/coil, the better the design and usually cost the better the sound output. Vinyl sound reproduction is reliant on the accuracy of the original master disk and when the vinyl was cut from it, as more are cut the pressing will become less accurate.
Digital technology compresses across the spectrum of sound, it creates a sound wave by creating lots of steps like a curved staircase. In this case the smaller the steps in the staircase the closer it is to recreating the original sound, therefore as it has become possible to store more data a less cost and as chip speeds have increased digital quality of sound reproduction has improved, however CDs have a design limitation inherently built into them, which is the amount of physical data that can be stored and read from a disc. Now a key point with digital data/music needs to be understood, mp3 or AAC files are effectively the same just different names, at their highest frequencies or maximum allowed of data able to be stored they purport to be lossless in sound quality, this is not true. If you look at the physical amount of data stored for the same piece of music on a cd and that of lossless mp3 or AAC you will find it to be about 1/4 to 1/5 of that of the CD, by definition something has been lost. This actually is done by using a trick, actual bits of physical music are lost and in fact rely on your brain filling in the gaps when you listen to it. This works to an extent, however if you suddenly listen to an piece of music on mp3 using instruments you have never heard before or even a style of music you will not necessarily hear it as it was recorded or intended. In fact some recording engineers actually mix music deliberately to try and adjust for this loss in accuracy to allow for the compression impact. So in simple terms what you hear on mp3 or AAC may not be what was intended or at least an untrue rendition.
In respect of the digital medium I ditched all mp3/AAC files and then digitised CDs to wav file format onto a media server, effectively keeping the same level of digital information, this allowed ease of replay from a media server. I do still listen to CDs and SACDs on a Meridian CD player or SACD to get the best from the medium, or I get FLAC files of favourite music which is the highest quality currently available and about 5-6 times the amount of information as a cd and is effectively the quality used in the recording process in a digital recording studio.
In all of this there is something to consider, if you are listening casually in a car or while on the go then mp3 or AAC is probably acceptable for most, but if you want a high quality or true rendition of a recording then you need to consider CD's or and equivalent as a minimum, and obviously the quality of the sound system and digital to analogue converters will have a direct impact on the sound produced.
Whether Vinyl or Digital music is better is a matter of opinion, they both have pros and cons, but each will impact what you hear from the original recording in some way, as will the recording and mixing that was done originally.
I have tried to explain the impacts as simply as possible and I am no recording or musical expert, but I hope for those interested in listening to music it may prompt you to think about what and how you choose to listen to your favourite music.
