By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

If you freeze bread and then toast it, the results are marvelous. Crunchy on the outside and soft and pliable on the inside. Try reversing the process and the results are more than disappointing.

I wish I understood more about one-way streets. Why some things work best in one direction but not in another.

Make a side-by-side recording using a digital recorder and a vinyl cutting lathe.  It doesn’t take a pair of golden ears to hear the digital audio capture sounds nothing like the vinyl.

Yet, we can make near-perfect digital captures of vinyl records.

I have long suspected that this one-way effect is due to digital audio’s greater resolution and dynamic range capabilities than those of vinyl. It’s easy enough to put a pint of water into a gallon bucket, but the opposite doesn’t work.

What’s troubling to me is that as we move Octave Record releases into the realm of vinyl, we find that the one-way street argument falls a bit short. Direct vinyl masters from the DSD masters seem to sound more dynamic and musical than the original DSD files.

This has me scratching my head.

The sound of vinyl may remain an unsolved mystery that in my lifetime never gets resolved.

It’s a one way street to confusion.

For more on this story go to: PS AUDIO