Audio Quality Rankings - Page 3

lol

Dunno. Information content for this estimation is determined by bandwidth and SNR. If the faster 45rpm has more bandwidth or greater SNR then info content goes up. In tape technology faster tape is generally better, I do not know if same is true for vinyl or if it is a linear relationship ?

Have time to burn?
Comparing Digital sources with Analogue and listening to High Resolution Material - Analogue Capabilities in Audio

Here's my list:

1) Low-generation Tape
2) The rest


no matter the technical merits of every format, there is something very special about having a copy of music that is only 2 generations away from the master, utilizing very precise copy methods. though a technically limited format, and a PITA to use with any regularity, this tape is truly king.

I find that recordings mixed and mastered entirely in the analog domain sound spectacularly better than those done digitally (99.9% of them). with these recordings, why listen to a DVD-A 4-5 generations away from the master? not only has the recording degraded with each successive copy, but all the fairy-voodoo analog juice will be lost during the ADC.

You get an improvement in quality by increasing the speed. I used to use reel to reel tape for FFT analysis in the 90's. You double the bandwidth by doubling the tape speed e.g. 1"/sec 0-25KHz , 2"/sec 0-50KHz.

We should include playback speed when discussing the audio quality of analogue Vinyl and Tape (with the exception of cassette tape). As this can be changed on most playback equipment for this medium, without this information any discussion of its sound quality worthless.

BTW Does anyone remember VHS Hi Fi in the eighties, that was a real breakthrough in home audio sound quality at the time until CD's became more widespread, and it was recordable.

By sound quality, assuming good masterings, all else being equal:

1. LP (a good reel tape may edge this)
2. Close second is Hirez PCM and SACD (FLAC at 24/96)
3. Close third is CD and Apple Lossless
4. AAC and a bunch of compressed formats I don't listen to.

Sir, as a recording engineer, you are saying LP, which always have defects such as pops, clicks, uneven weight distribution on vinyl, surface noise, etc, is the best sound quality we can ever get in 2010?

Do we hear pops and clicks during original, real performance?

Or how about the process of making those black disks after masters from your studio went to the factory? Do you understand the differences in "vinyl pressing" and "CD pressing"? Do you know the indications/implications from the whole process?

Assuming you understand things above, can you still say vinyl disc brings the best sound quality for us?

Only thing that might can be perceived as advantage of LP over CD is being able to reproduce higher frequencies, which is in fact nothing more than defects and noises from the pressing if wear has not eliminated such information(??) after several runs. Not to mention this whole "can bring higher frequency" thingy is not even true in the first place.

30ips, 1'' should suffice

Several misunderstandings here:

Modern vinyl and analog rigs don't really have pops and clicks. I have a VPI record cleaner and that really keeps the LPs quiet. A good cartridge helps. I have a Grado Sonata which I really like-great sound and terrific tracking.

Vinyl has more resolution than 16/44.1. You hear more detail, things like reverb in the studio and the like. It's really on par with hirez digital either in PCM or DSD form.

Record wear is minimal as long as you use a good stylus and clean the record and stylus properly. LPs have many hundreds of plays in them before they degrade.

Most old classic rock and jazz albums were recorded on analog tape. Vinyl masterings can keep (and the best ones do) the music entirely in the analog domain. No A to D and D to A conversions like CD. Those conversions degrade the sound quality.

I should mention we also record on reel to reel and that is competitive with our 24/176 recordings. You would really be surprised how good analog tape sounds. There are ways to get 1:1 dubs on tape of analog masters. The sound is breathtaking. Some audiophile labels will record in digital and analog tape. Chesky did this in the 90s.

From my experience, a listen to vinyl from my friend's house, with new LP he bought, I still hear noises and sometimes clicks. No different from a nearby hi-fi store with really stunning setup (by the way, that Sonata you mention alone, I believe, costs 600$.)

And your merely saying "Vinyl has more resolution than 16/44.1" does not answer my serious question about the process. (nevermind about all of noise problems and distortion problems already degrade the resolution to irreversible level) There is no way information from master can survive without butchered and massacred by mechanical faults/imperfections on all stages of the manufacturing. With such process it is rather silly to say all of high-frequency information of vinyl is coming from record.

Even further, after being delivered to the house, already altered information on this black disk meets even more mechanical imperfections and faults from turntable because so many components are moving mechanical components, everywhere. And then, another possible alternation occurs on phono stage.


In contrast, manufactured disks can be checked to see if there is error on information contained unlike Vinyl pressing process (even before mentioning that the whole process for CD has fewer faults thanks to advance in Chemical engineering.) This ensures the integrity of the information inside of the CD, which analog just cannot do.

And that's assuming that human being us can hear such high frequency sound, which we don't in reality.

After CD is inserted, a mechanical device (and only mechanical device on digital path) will read the information. Good thing is that any error possibly occurred by mechanical faults can be corrected with various methods. Jitter can be avoided by reading entire disk in one swoop, which all of modern CD-drives do. And then, it goes to DAC which will add errors from quantization and filters. For me, analog path is much more complicated and open to many imperfections and faults, from manufacturing to end-user playback.

But, the most annoying thing for me in analog is that there is NO WAY to check to see if the format (say LP, tape) has been altered/degraded/broken, nor to correct mistakes if happened to be discovered, ensuring that the signal I receive is never be even near perfect to original (or information intended to), while there are some ways to fix this problem in digital path. I assume there will be a lot of data loss already occurring during recording/mixing. Do we need to lose further during distribution and end-user playback?



I want "accurate": intended sound, not just "good" sound. And analog is the worst way to get "accurate", and even "good" is debatable.


I listen music everyday, and with my listening habit (listening same song over and over again sometimes) there is little doubt that LP will degrade rather quick IMO.

And there is no way Vinyl has more resolution than CD PCM.


1. Treble is usually dramatically reduced during Vinyl process because treble content stress the machine (give cutting heads for making master disk) and many mechanical imperfections during manufacturing also do not help. Not to mention cartridges also attenuate treble information further, final result is low as I mentioned on one of earlier posts.

2. Dynamic range, Vinyl at average is 50 db, good one is 60 db and rarely go above 80 db. CDs can easily achieve 90 db and can go as far as ~110db if it is well made. No contest.

3. No possible error detection/correction for Vinyl and any other analog. While with help of EAC and other software you can achieve bit-perfect copy for digital path.


Vinyl is the format which is polar opposite of high-definition.

Pending "confirmation", lol:

0.1 45 record!
1. LP (a good reel tape may edge this)
2. Hirez PCM and SACD (FLAC at 24/96)
3. CD and Apple Lossless
4. compressed formats

But I see FLAC and ALAC as exactly equivalent; they're both lossless formats, the only qualitative difference is that one is proprietary. But the above listing may be considered subjective on many levels

What is that, 2" tape? No substitute IMHO!

No, 8 track is even better.

Funny thing is I said several times that lossless formats do not have their "own" sound quality, quote myself here...


And yet he separated lossless codecs as different beings.

I wonder if he knows that ALAC (apple lossless) can be recorded as 24/96, and there will be ZERO difference when compared to FLAC 24/96 other than file size...

Oh, and if you don't know, WAV also can be high resolution (24bit, etc), surprisingly too many people know WAV as exclusive to CD format, which is not even close to truth......



Plus : Correctly *some* *very old* (I mean, the ones like coming from 1993) lossless compressors do not support high resolution. Shorten comes to mind (this is the one came out at 1993 for unix system)

14khz and above is not usually heard with turntables even in the 2 to 3000 dollar levels so its either vinyl lovers are stuck in the past, don't care for extended highs, or have some $100,000 and up turntable that can play highs like a cd can hehehe