The Truth About Vinyl Records

[krabapple]

You need 3 asterisks in your birdie substitute.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I enjoy both vinyl & digital, and digital is hands down better in specification, but vinyl has that special sound quality that I like.

How nice for you.

 

[krabapple]

No doubt digital is great and people have abused it. I also agree for classical you can't beat digital. On the other hand it has been abused so much for a lot of popular music that outside of cost you would be hard pressed to say that it has improved much of anything and may be a regression.

Oh, I don't know . Perfect pitch stability, no wow or flutter. Immunity from pops and ticks and warpage. No added medium noise. Flat FR across the audible spectrum. Perfect channel separation. I count those as major advantages. They accrue no matter what indignities mixing and mastering engineers inflict on the signal.

I notice when people talk about compression of digital music they often say "yea but popular music in analog was compressed too" which is true but only to a degree.

I didn't say otherwise., so no need for the lecture. What I said was, if equivalent analog tools to our digital turbo-compressors had been feasible in the vinyl era, they would have been used.

 

[MattHooper]

Personal admission. Once I learnt that ever time you played an album. You degraded the vinyl and the more you played it the faster it became worse/less quality. This then led to a irrational reluctance to play an album for fear of further degrading the quality. I became a collector of albums I would not play. The collection grew but my listing pleasure decreased. Digital CDs and Streaming set me free of this very irrational, but very real fear of use problem. Strange how a passion for music led me down this path of being trapped by my own reluctance to depreciate my albums by playing them. I can’t be the only person who felt this way. I even had some albums that Never got played. In the end I gave them all away and it was a great relief to have been set free of the Vinyl Trap! Funny now…. We humans do some pretty irrational stuff.

I totally get that.

All such decisions are essentially ways of managing our own psychology. There are people who grew up with vinyl who enthusiastically embrace digital for the ways it solves so many problems they had with vinyl. There are people who have grown up with just digital music who enthusiastically embrace vinyl for the ways it seems to enhance their experience that they weren't getting from digital.

And since we are all beholden to our individual quirks, it's often FAR from irrational to make choices that take those in to account. In fact, it's perfectly rational. But...those rational choices are at bottom driven by satisfying some emotional desire (e.g. to get pleasure out of the way we listen to music in this case).
As I've said: the way some "digital-defenders" want to attribute the vinyl listener's choice to "emotion/psychology" but theirs purely to "reason," as if there were such a fundamental divide in how these people are reasoning, is just a misunderstanding of human psychology, IMO. You see people here all the time enthusiastically describing the benefits of digital media because, of course, how that suits their emotional desire to experience music. Exactly like anyone extolling the characteristics of why listening to vinyl suits their desire to experience music. One ain't "better" or "more rational" or "more based on reason" than the other.

It turns out that methods like digital streaming are the best solution for the majority of listeners.

 

[MattHooper]

Did I say it was *false*? I said his view was blinkered...as in woefully incomplete.

Only by presuming Waxx's statements weren't already in the wider context you think we need to be reminded about.

The vinyl resurgance is still finding its level. Inevitably it will top out at somewhere far below the sales peak of both LPs and CDs.

The rest is just more of your 'feels' argument. Yes, I know that vinylphilia is largely about feels (the young definitely included). Btw what proportion of young music comsumers do these 'young people' comprise? Want to bet a sh*t-ton more young listeners turn to digital media than to vinyl?

If someone replaced your digital set up with a turntable and records...how would you "feel" about that? Nothing at all? You'd be a robot? We can presume you would indeed "feel" something quite strongly about that. Because, presumably, you care about listening to music, have an emotional connection to some music, and the MEDIUM you chose (digital) is the one you feel facilitates your music listening the best. It suits your desires. Correct?

Precisely what someone will say for preferring vinyl.

You aren't different. You really aren't.

And it's obvious by how you are (emotionally) driven to defend digital media.

 

[egellings]

I totally get that.

All such decisions are essentially ways of managing our own psychology. There are people who grew up with vinyl who enthusiastically embrace digital for the ways it solves so many problems they had with vinyl. There are people who have grown up with just digital music who enthusiastically embrace vinyl for the ways it seems to enhance their experience that they weren't getting from digital.

And since we are all beholden to our individual quirks, it's often FAR from irrational to make choices that take those in to account. In fact, it's perfectly rational. But...those rational choices are at bottom driven by satisfying some emotional desire (e.g. to get pleasure out of the way we listen to music in this case).
As I've said: the way some "digital-defenders" want to attribute the vinyl listener's choice to "emotion/psychology" but theirs purely to "reason," as if there were such a fundamental divide in how these people are reasoning, is just a misunderstanding of human psychology, IMO. You see people here all the time enthusiastically describing the benefits of digital media because, of course, how that suits their emotional desire to experience music. Exactly like anyone extolling the characteristics of why listening to vinyl suits their desire to experience music. One ain't "better" or "more rational" or "more based on reason" than the other.

It turns out that methods like digital streaming are the best solution for the majority of listeners.

If you're tracking the records with a 2x4 of a tonearm and a rusty nail for a stylus, I can see how premature wear might come about. If the arm, cart & stylus are competent and correctly installed, then I don't see a problem with record sound quality degrading all that much. I have records that are over a decade old and I play them regularly, and they sound fine. Of course, I do baby the LPs by handling & storing them properly. Granted, records do not have the durability of digital files, but they can last as long as I'll ever need them to. As for the fuss with record handling and care, if you are not a fan of that, then simply pass them by.

 

[krabapple]

If someone replaced your digital set up with a turntable and records...how would you "feel" about that? Nothing at all? You'd be a robot?

More Hooperian silliness. I'd object, because of my 'feels' about the inadequacies of vinyl. Which are objective as well as 'personal'. Which is actually to say, my 'feels' here are my knowledge (and experience) of those flaws compared to digital.

Now if that rascal took my digital setup and replaced it with a nice RTR and a library of tapes....I could get into that.

By all means, keep up the narrative that consumers who overwhelmingly favor streaming/downloads exhibit the same emotional attachment to that medium as vinylphiles do to theirs. I enjoy fiction as much as the next guy.

Who is the Mikey Fremer of streaming/downloads, I wonder?

 

[Leporello]

Nothing Waxx said was false, and it seems most reasonable to presume Waxx is fully aware of the popularity of streaming, and so his comment was made within that context.

It may not have been false but the relevance of it may well be questioned.

 

[atmasphere]

Just to set the record straight (if you see what I did there...), Here are some things that everyone here should keep in mind in this endless debate? whatever it is:
1) LPs have wider bandwidth than most digital files. Whether this is important or not is a different matter, but just so you know just about any mediocre MM cartridge has bandwidth to 30KHz. I know this having measured it, using an old SL1200 in my LP mastering studio. It could play a 30KHz tone with ease. Obviously my Westerex mastering system had bandwidth well beyond that.

2) Dynamic range is often mentioned but really, its not a thing. Most digital files we got for mastering LPs were compressed. This is often the case since the expectation is the music will be played in a car. Compression is an easy thing to do and a lot of mastering engineers use it because producers don't want to spend the money to do the job without it. This is true of both media. FWIW, the lacquer you cut, if the cutter is set up properly, is so quiet that the playback electronics are the noise floor- not the surface of the lacquer. The noise comes in during the pressing process. At least one pressing plant (QRP in Salinas KS) has figured this out and applied damping systems to their pressing machines, resulting in much lower surface noise, also below the limits of the playback electronics. So that old saw about dynamic range being only 60dB or so is so much rumor and myth. More accurately the media itself, if done properly and with care, is easily more like 80dB. As a result, if you spend time on the project when mastering, you don't need to use compression.

A good number of LP mastering engineers besides myself know this, so if they are up on their game will request a non-DSP processed master file if the source is digital for the LP mastering (with perhaps normalization done). In this way they can often produce a final product with wider dynamic range than the digital release.

IOW this is a quality of mastering thing much more than it is a media thing.

3) the limitation of the LP in terms of noise floor, distortion and ticks and pops is on the playback side, not on the record side. A properly set up cutter can make undistorted grooves no playback apparatus has a hope of tracking- that's why you keep a moderate playback machine in the studio to see if your cut is playable or not.

Ticks and pops can occur having nothing to do with the LP surface- they can be caused by high frequency overload of the input of the phono section, due to an electrical resonance that occurs between the cartridge inductance and the capacitance of the tonearm cable. If it goes into excitation it can overload the input of the phono section. For MM cartridges this resonance is at the upper end of the audio band or just above it. If a LOMC cartridge, the resonance can be 100KHz up to 5 MHz or so. The RFI generated by the latter is why many audiophiles use 'cartridge loading' thinking they are messing with the sound of the cartridge itself, when in reality they are detuning that resonance via the paralleled resistance, thus preventing excitation.

Of course the cartridge alignment has an enormous effect on the distortion! There is very little distortion in the record side, owing to a significant amount of feedback that is applied across the entire audio band. My Westerex 1700 system used 30dB. Ask Bruno Putzeys of Purifi fame what effect that much feedback has- if you can keep the amplifier stable.

The bottom line here is most people (including some on this site and active on this thread) simply never hear what is really in the grooves on an LP because they use inferior equipment and/or never have it set up correctly. If you really want to know what digital does better than analog, digital does not place the performance of the media in the hands of the end user!!

 

[Leporello]

Just to set the record straight (if you see what I did there...), Here are some things that everyone here should keep in mind in this endless debate? whatever it is:
1) LPs have wider bandwidth than most digital files. Whether this is important or not is a different matter, but just so you know just about any mediocre MM cartridge has bandwidth to 30KHz. I know this having measured it, using an old SL1200 in my LP mastering studio. It could play a 30KHz tone with ease. Obviously my Westerex mastering system had bandwidth well beyond that.

2) Dynamic range is often mentioned but really, its not a thing. Most digital files we got for mastering LPs were compressed. This is often the case since the expectation is the music will be played in a car. Compression is an easy thing to do and a lot of mastering engineers use it because producers don't want to spend the money to do the job without it. This is true of both media. FWIW, the lacquer you cut, if the cutter is set up properly, is so quiet that the playback electronics are the noise floor- not the surface of the lacquer. The noise comes in during the pressing process. At least one pressing plant (QRP in Salinas KS) has figured this out and applied damping systems to their pressing machines, resulting in much lower surface noise, also below the limits of the playback electronics. So that old saw about dynamic range being only 60dB or so is so much rumor and myth. More accurately the media itself, if done properly and with care, is easily more like 80dB. As a result, if you spend time on the project when mastering, you don't need to use compression.

A good number of LP mastering engineers besides myself know this, so if they are up on their game will request a non-DSP processed master file if the source is digital for the LP mastering (with perhaps normalization done). In this way they can often produce a final product with wider dynamic range than the digital release.

IOW this is a quality of mastering thing much more than it is a media thing.

3) the limitation of the LP in terms of noise floor, distortion and ticks and pops is on the playback side, not on the record side. A properly set up cutter can make undistorted grooves no playback apparatus has a hope of tracking- that's why you keep a moderate playback machine in the studio to see if your cut is playable or not.

Ticks and pops can occur having nothing to do with the LP surface- they can be caused by high frequency overload of the input of the phono section, due to an electrical resonance that occurs between the cartridge inductance and the capacitance of the tonearm cable. If it goes into excitation it can overload the input of the phono section. For MM cartridges this resonance is at the upper end of the audio band or just above it. If a LOMC cartridge, the resonance can be 100KHz up to 5 MHz or so. The RFI generated by the latter is why many audiophiles use 'cartridge loading' thinking they are messing with the sound of the cartridge itself, when in reality they are detuning that resonance via the paralleled resistance, thus preventing excitation.

Of course the cartridge alignment has an enormous effect on the distortion! There is very little distortion in the record side, owing to a significant amount of feedback that is applied across the entire audio band. My Westerex 1700 system used 30dB. Ask Bruno Putzeys of Purifi fame what effect that much feedback has- if you can keep the amplifier stable.

The bottom line here is most people (including some on this site and active on this thread) simply never hear what is really in the grooves on an LP because they use inferior equipment and/or never have it set up correctly. If you really want to know what digital does better than analog, digital does not place the performance of the media in the hands of the end user!!

But how is all this relevant?

 

[MattHooper]

More Hooperian silliness. I'd object, because of my 'feels' about the inadequacies of vinyl.

And...there you go. You aren't just making a choice "not to use vinyl" you are making a positive choice FOR using digital, because of all the ways it suits your desires better than vinyl.

To make the case for choosing digital you will inevitably be providing justifications for why it's a better medium in suiting your desires. Exactly how someone would explain why they like vinyl.

The reason you are resisting laying out your justifications for preferring digital, step by step, is because we will immediately see it is no different in kind from how someone justifies choosing vinyl.

You really can't escape being as human as the next person.

Which are objective as well as 'personal'.

They are no more strictly "objective" than any description of how vinyl works.

Which is actually to say, my 'feels' here are my knowledge (and experience) of those flaws compared to digital.

In the case we are talking about "knowledge" of any facts have no relevance until they are attached to your "feels" which is the basis on which you'll use those facts.

We can talk about objective facts about vinyl or digital, but the choice for either one will depend on how one "feels" about it.

Example: Some vinyl enthusiasts actually like hearing the record noise, the pop and crackle. It makes some feel nostalgic, makes some reminded of it's physical medium qualities. Whatever. But it's an objective fact that vinyl can often have that record noise.

It's an objective fact that digital can totally avoid that type of noise.

So...two objective facts. What to do with them?

The vinyl enthusiast above will choose the record noise because THAT'S WHAT HE LIKES. That's how they want to experience music.

You will choose the cleaner digital recording because THAT'S WHAT YOU LIKE. That's how you want to experience music.

In each case you start with a desire, some way you are seeking pleasure, and looking at facts to determine which actions will satisfy that desire.

Every single "objective fact" you can appeal to for why you chose digital over vinyl will be based on this same logic: how your choice aligns with how you most enjoy listening to music - what enhances and what detracts.

You are no different than the vinyl fan in that regard.

By all means, keep up the narrative that consumers who overwhelmingly favor streaming/downloads exhibit the same emotional attachment to that medium as vinylphiles do to theirs. I enjoy fiction as much as the next guy.

Have you never seen ANYONE here enthuse about how digital relieved them of all the problems they had with previous mediums like vinyl? Have you never seen anyone enthuse about how wonderful it is to now have instant access to millions of albums and artists in a way that was impossible before? How enthusiastic they are about the convenience, the discovery of new artists, etc? I don't see how you could have missed all those "feels."

Your apparent narrative that it's only vinyl users who express enthusiasm for their medium of choice...or that it's only weird when they do it...is bizarre.

 

[MattHooper]

It may not have been false but the relevance of it may well be questioned.

Absolutely. I addressed the question of relevance.

 

[atmasphere]

But how is all this relevant?

It is the truth about vinyl records.
Not nearly as bad as stated in the OP.
And not for the reasons most people say.
Its not that the LP isn't 'hifi'; it most certainly is. But most of the time most people never get to hear what it can do.
Digital is marginally better, simply because its performance isn't so heavily based on how people set up the playback equipment.
It really is that simple.

 

[Punter]

Just to set the record straight (if you see what I did there...), Here are some things that everyone here should keep in mind in this endless debate? whatever it is:
1) LPs have wider bandwidth than most digital files. Whether this is important or not is a different matter, but just so you know just about any mediocre MM cartridge has bandwidth to 30KHz. I know this having measured it, using an old SL1200 in my LP mastering studio. It could play a 30KHz tone with ease. Obviously my Westerex mastering system had bandwidth well beyond that.

2) Dynamic range is often mentioned but really, its not a thing. Most digital files we got for mastering LPs were compressed. This is often the case since the expectation is the music will be played in a car. Compression is an easy thing to do and a lot of mastering engineers use it because producers don't want to spend the money to do the job without it. This is true of both media. FWIW, the lacquer you cut, if the cutter is set up properly, is so quiet that the playback electronics are the noise floor- not the surface of the lacquer. The noise comes in during the pressing process. At least one pressing plant (QRP in Salinas KS) has figured this out and applied damping systems to their pressing machines, resulting in much lower surface noise, also below the limits of the playback electronics. So that old saw about dynamic range being only 60dB or so is so much rumor and myth. More accurately the media itself, if done properly and with care, is easily more like 80dB. As a result, if you spend time on the project when mastering, you don't need to use compression.

A good number of LP mastering engineers besides myself know this, so if they are up on their game will request a non-DSP processed master file if the source is digital for the LP mastering (with perhaps normalization done). In this way they can often produce a final product with wider dynamic range than the digital release.

IOW this is a quality of mastering thing much more than it is a media thing.

3) the limitation of the LP in terms of noise floor, distortion and ticks and pops is on the playback side, not on the record side. A properly set up cutter can make undistorted grooves no playback apparatus has a hope of tracking- that's why you keep a moderate playback machine in the studio to see if your cut is playable or not.

Ticks and pops can occur having nothing to do with the LP surface- they can be caused by high frequency overload of the input of the phono section, due to an electrical resonance that occurs between the cartridge inductance and the capacitance of the tonearm cable. If it goes into excitation it can overload the input of the phono section. For MM cartridges this resonance is at the upper end of the audio band or just above it. If a LOMC cartridge, the resonance can be 100KHz up to 5 MHz or so. The RFI generated by the latter is why many audiophiles use 'cartridge loading' thinking they are messing with the sound of the cartridge itself, when in reality they are detuning that resonance via the paralleled resistance, thus preventing excitation.

Of course the cartridge alignment has an enormous effect on the distortion! There is very little distortion in the record side, owing to a significant amount of feedback that is applied across the entire audio band. My Westerex 1700 system used 30dB. Ask Bruno Putzeys of Purifi fame what effect that much feedback has- if you can keep the amplifier stable.

The bottom line here is most people (including some on this site and active on this thread) simply never hear what is really in the grooves on an LP because they use inferior equipment and/or never have it set up correctly. If you really want to know what digital does better than analog, digital does not place the performance of the media in the hands of the end user!!

You're talking about supersonic frequencies? Why? If you're a male over 40 your perception of frequency is pretty well done by 10KHz so even any reference to the old 20Hz to 20KHz range of human hearing does not have any relevance. People are never going to hear 30KHz on a vinyl LP regardless of the quality of their reproduction equipment because it was never there in the first place if the RIAA equalisation was applied to the master as it was cut on the lathe.

A friend and colleague of mine who recorded live music for decades goes all warm and fuzzy when he remembers listening to the first band he recorded on ADAT. The contrast between the 1/4 inch tape recordings and this digital medium , for him, was transformative. The digital medium eliminated so many deficiencies of analog tape, tape hiss, tape saturation and compromised frequency response.

A properly engineered recording on a digital rig will destroy any recording done on analog tape, the numbers don't lie! As to the thoroughly compromised result that comes off an LP, a properly engineered digital recording utterly wipes the floor with it as a method of reproducing the original sound. As music listeners, we should be profoundly grateful that the will exists in the world to constantly improve the quality and end-to end transparency of music recording and reproduction. Personally, I truly admire the brilliant minds and inventions that made the vinyl LP possible. The fact that a pointy thing running in a spiral scratch on a plastic disc can produce the fidelity that it does is only just short of magic and it has brought me much joy over the years starting from the first album I bought as a teenager (Autobahn by Kraftwerk).

However, the brilliant minds and inventors didn't sleep, they looked for ways to make music recording better and better. We live in an era now where the original sound that hit the microphone is now so close to what we can hear on our equipment that there's almost no difference. How good is that??!!

 

[Newman]

@atmasphere I reckon you are way out on a limb. Focusing on vast irrelevancies (inaudible bandwidth above 20 kHz…oh, and while on that point, how flat is the FR of a typical MM at 30 kHz, and how low is the distortion?) and twisting statements to suit yourself (“most digital files have less bandwidth” — kind of ignores ignores every single A/D digital recording since decades being much wider than 30 kHz… plus again, only interesting to bats…)

 

[posvibes]

Its not that the LP isn't 'hifi'; it most certainly is. But most of the time most people never get to hear what it can do.

Well if that is the case and one must suppose then that it always was the case, then it is a failed state of consumer product par excellence, it would be like producing dog whistles for referees in football games.

Fidelity may have been a mere byproduct and not an aim.

What was the point?

Music loving and fidelity are not the same thing. How are babies and children entranced by the warbling of their parents singing them a nursery rhyme of lullaby?

Taking the technology out of the hands of the end user is probably the ultimate aim of all technology.

I have read of the same debate analogue vs digital in another vital fidelity product taking place, namely hearing aids.

 

[Bob from Florida]

You're talking about supersonic frequencies? Why? If you're a male over 40 your perception of frequency is pretty well done by 10KHz so even any reference to the old 20Hz to 20KHz range of human hearing does not have any relevance. People are never going to hear 30KHz on a vinyl LP regardless of the quality of their reproduction equipment because it was never there in the first place if the RIAA equalisation was applied to the master as it was cut on the lathe.

A friend and colleague of mine who recorded live music for decades goes all warm and fuzzy when he remembers listening to the first band he recorded on ADAT. The contrast between the 1/4 inch tape recordings and this digital medium , for him, was transformative. The digital medium eliminated so many deficiencies of analog tape, tape hiss, tape saturation and compromised frequency response.

A properly engineered recording on a digital rig will destroy any recording done on analog tape, the numbers don't lie! As to the thoroughly compromised result that comes off an LP, a properly engineered digital recording utterly wipes the floor with it as a method of reproducing the original sound. As music listeners, we should be profoundly grateful that the will exists in the world to constantly improve the quality and end-to end transparency of music recording and reproduction. Personally, I truly admire the brilliant minds and inventions that made the vinyl LP possible.

The fact that a pointy thing running in a spiral scratch on a plastic disc can produce the fidelity that it does is only just short of magic and it has brought me much joy over the years starting from the first album I bought as a teenager (Autobahn by Kraftwerk). However, the brilliant minds and inventors didn't sleep, they looked for ways to make music recording better and better. We live in an era now where the original sound that hit the microphone is now so close to what we can hear on our equipment that there's almost no difference. How good is that??!!

I did not get the impression from atmasphere's post that he was saying anyone would hear 30 Khz. The essence of his post strikes me as being quite true. When I think about it - digital does take the vast majority of the playback setup out if the hands of the end user. This makes for greater consistency of playback. It still boils down to the original recording and how it is compressed and manipulated for distribution - for both formats.
So, what was your motivation for starting this particular "truth about" thread? Honest question, looking for an "honest" response.

 

[Dimitri]

A good number of LP mastering engineers besides myself know this, so if they are up on their game will request a non-DSP processed master file if the source is digital for the LP mastering (with perhaps normalization done). In this way they can often produce a final product with wider dynamic range than the digital release.

Unfortunately there is no way to know either way other than listening to the end result

. If you really want to know what digital does better than analog, digital does not place the performance of the media in the hands of the end user!!

Assuming that no "digital mastering engineer" f*&*ed with it by the time it was released to the public - Which is the point you are making above.

What's my point?
When an LP is cut with the involvement of " a good number of LP mastering engineers" that know this, the end product has a better chance of being "better" than whatever "a digital mastering engineer" mangeld up and relased as"Digital" .

The "debate" has never(?) been about the "medium" but the "ease" or "convenience" or "screwing around" with the original master before it's released.

This situation is analogous to what's been going on with software development over the years.
When you had to commit to producing a few thousand floppies for distribution, "someone" had to "do their best" the released software
a) will install b) won't break everything.
Fast forward to online updates....all bets are off. The "best effort" is still there....but the safety .net (!) is there , to release an update as soon as a flaw is discovered. No one has ever said software was better because it was recorded on a floppy. It was better because it was released on a floppy with all the logistical and $ nightmare it involved.

 

[Newman]

With great power comes great responsibility.

 

[Cbdb2]

It is the truth about vinyl records.
Not nearly as bad as stated in the OP.
And not for the reasons most people say.
Its not that the LP isn't 'hifi'; it most certainly is. But most of the time most people never get to hear what it can do.
Digital is marginally better, simply because its performance isn't so heavily based on how people set up the playback equipment.
It really is that simple.

No comercial bias there. Also how people set up the disc mastering. You forgot to mention half a dozen other problems with Lp like speed variations etc. that digital doesn't have.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Just to set the record straight (if you see what I did there...), Here are some things that everyone here should keep in mind in this endless debate? whatever it is:
1) LPs have wider bandwidth than most digital files. Whether this is important or not is a different matter, but just so you know just about any mediocre MM cartridge has bandwidth to 30KHz. I know this having measured it, using an old SL1200 in my LP mastering studio. It could play a 30KHz tone with ease. Obviously my Westerex mastering system had bandwidth well beyond that.

This I think is the singular technical strength of LPs over Red Book. It's a slight advantage over 48kHz and is beaten by 96kHz. However, there's no guarantee that content at these frequencies sounds right:

1. Nobody knows (not even 5 year olds) whether a monitoring system at the mastering lab sounds correct at these frequencies! A frequency tone and meter are not the same as music (NB this is the same for 96kHz of course )
2. There are multiple MM playback tip/stylus resonances at these frequencies and a great deal of rising distortion. You have no way of knowing how good the sound really is at 25kHz. This is not the case for digital at 96kHz!
3. Can such high frequencies be reliably reproduced towards the centre of the LP?
4. How long does this material survive playing before it is no longer reproducible

2) Dynamic range is often mentioned but really, its not a thing. Most digital files we got for mastering LPs were compressed. This is often the case since the expectation is the music will be played in a car. Compression is an easy thing to do and a lot of mastering engineers use it because producers don't want to spend the money to do the job without it. This is true of both media. FWIW, the lacquer you cut, if the cutter is set up properly, is so quiet that the playback electronics are the noise floor- not the surface of the lacquer. The noise comes in during the pressing process. At least one pressing plant (QRP in Salinas KS) has figured this out and applied damping systems to their pressing machines, resulting in much lower surface noise, also below the limits of the playback electronics. So that old saw about dynamic range being only 60dB or so is so much rumor and myth. More accurately the media itself, if done properly and with care, is easily more like 80dB. As a result, if you spend time on the project when mastering, you don't need to use compression.

Certainly most content is sufficiently squidged that LP is adequate for music dynamics as they leave a commercial mixing session. I can easily create content involving lots of wide dynamics and stereo behaviour in the 15 to 50 Hz range that I could ship as a FLAC, but no-one can master as an LP.

3) the limitation of the LP in terms of noise floor, distortion and ticks and pops is on the playback side, not on the record side. A properly set up cutter can make undistorted grooves no playback apparatus has a hope of tracking- that's why you keep a moderate playback machine in the studio to see if your cut is playable or not.

This is an interesting point - you may be able to cut a low noise and distortion lacquer. But playback is flawed as you say. I'll just repeat that for emphasis: playback is flawed, as you say. These flaws don't happen with 24bit files or even Red Book.

Ticks and pops can occur having nothing to do with the LP surface- they can be caused by high frequency overload of the input of the phono section, due to an electrical resonance that occurs between the cartridge inductance and the capacitance of the tonearm cable. If it goes into excitation it can overload the input of the phono section. For MM cartridges this resonance is at the upper end of the audio band or just above it. If a LOMC cartridge, the resonance can be 100KHz up to 5 MHz or so. The RFI generated by the latter is why many audiophiles use 'cartridge loading' thinking they are messing with the sound of the cartridge itself, when in reality they are detuning that resonance via the paralleled resistance, thus preventing excitation.

See my previous point about resonance for MM cartridges being in the upper end of the audio band. But yes, you need a lot of headroom to ensure clicks are not emphasised.

Of course the cartridge alignment has an enormous effect on the distortion! There is very little distortion in the record side, owing to a significant amount of feedback that is applied across the entire audio band. My Westerex 1700 system used 30dB. Ask Bruno Putzeys of Purifi fame what effect that much feedback has- if you can keep the amplifier stable.

Again - playback is flawed, even if a lacquer is great. This is not a limitation with digital playback.

The bottom line here is most people (including some on this site and active on this thread) simply never hear what is really in the grooves on an LP because they use inferior equipment and/or never have it set up correctly. If you really want to know what digital does better than analog, digital does not place the performance of the media in the hands of the end user!!

I think you have not proved this.