[Carlman]

For newer records, are they pressed based on a reproduction of the digital mastering tapes?

Or, whatsay David Gray records his music on a Mac, takes it to an engineer for mastering, then it's decided to make a record out of it.

Or, if Beck records an album in a studio, is it put on tape first then mastered to LP?  

Just curious how this works and whether the vinyl is basically the product of a digital to analog conversion.  Then I can obsess about what DAC the engineers used to make the pressing!

[beat]

Really good question. From what I've witnessed in the industry, Its all but digital 24bit and alot of tubed gear up front. So in my estimation, quality is very contingent upon the DAC used in the studio. It is also my understanding that the Apogee is thought of as the holy grail of dacs in the industry. They are totally SS but really fat and smooth. I've always wondered how the white stripes put their stuff together for the reason that they use tape somewhere along the line...I think it is only in mastering. I am sure that is very very uncommon these days. The new Beck album is sooo smooth and big I would love to know how they did it.

[SWG255]

There are many digital mastering effects and/or plug-ins available to the serious hobbyist and mastering engineer which are designed to make a digital track sound "analog", especially to have such tracks have the sound of saturated analog magnetic tape. I've used some of these plug-ins myself in Wavelab from Steinberg, and when used judiciously, they do impart the soft highs and warm mid-bass often associated with older analog tape recordings.

Back when I had a vinyl setup, I recall buying several of the Telarc LPs which were obviously recorded digitally, and commenting how wonderful they sounded. Some other digitally recorded LPs of the time were shreeky and just plain nasty.

Like so many of these debates in Audiophile-land, it's the actual execution that matters most, not the medium, media or whether the recording is analog or digital.