Vinyl

My are not so sensitive either, but it goes very well with my tube amp. 

I've looked thru the Octave catalog and not much interests me so I've not bought any, remember its about the music first!

Octave records run about $50-$75 so he will face some competition from Kevin Gray at $39.99 for a 100% all analog recording using all valve recording gear, mics and mastering gear. A lot of extra processing in the digital world ADC then DAC, on SACD is probably excellent.....but to get to an analog media from digital different story, IMO.

What I meant about CDs is that in general the AADs sound significantly better than the DDDs, even I seem to find some improvement with the newer DDD-CDs.

And clearly, looking at the EQ profile,  you know what the f#@k you're doing.

Can't remember how many times I've seen guys with EQ's where almost all faders are pushed above 0dB.

At first pass it should be used to reduce the problem freq's, then sweeten conservatively.

I have zero issue with records cut from DSD. This is what MoFi has admitted to doing for the past 10-12yrs but never told anyone. LOL Everyone still thought they were cutting from the original master tapes, which they advertised.

I respect what Paul is saying but there are video interviews of Bernie Grundman who will state otherwise, that cutting from the master tapes is the closest you will get to what the musician wanted you to hear. Remember that for DSD to vinyl there has to be conversion from digital to analog, any conversion has the chance of adding noise as well loosing data. You cannot do any mastering (EQing, compression, none of that) in the DSD domain, why?? DSD by definition is 1-bit, mathematically it does not work, you can't change 1 if only 1 exists. Paul talks about this in other videos, so that DSD file needs to be converted to PCM for any mastering to happen, then back to DSD or to a 24bit file or redbook.....A lot of conversions happening. I trust Bernie's ears light years more than Paul's, Bernie has been mastering and cutting records for 50years......Paul has 1yr of recording experience with Octave. Again, mad respect for Paul but for different reasons and products.

But again, I have no issues with records cut from digital files, problem is with the bad engineers you get tons of compression and sucks the life out. The engineers that know what they are doing the records sound great!

But given the choice, 100% analog for me is preferred....YMMV

I used the Rec Out or Preamp Out and Rec In. Used the Monitor button on the EQ to hear what I was changing as it hit the tape heads.