Quote:
you still have left a major logical flaw - there really are no records cut with exactly the same signal as recorded in the digital source distribution
if there were the cutting/stamping/turntable/tonearm/cart/preamp signal chain has plenty of "clearly audible" errors/differences which give your amp a way different electrical signal input than playing the digital distribution through a DAC
the most practical "fair" test is to take the analog output of the "audibly superior" vinyl rig from the RIAA preamp and then insert a SOTA ADC/DAC digital path to compare with in bypass mode
when hi rez formats have been similarly compared with a inserted CD resolution path the difference hasn't been heard with music signals
"the numbers" for the latest, SOTA studio quality ADC/DACs leave so little technical room for errors in converting/reproducing audio analog signals that ascribing preference for "vinyl sound" to "something bad digital does to the sound" is moving into anti-scientific "vitalism" theories
this wasn't true at the beginning of CD audio - DACs, ADCs have benefited from hugely accelerated technical development riding on other multi Billion $ markets, the technical demands of some markets like Medical Ultrasound Imaging are now driving ADC performance beyond Audio demands - until ~ the beginning of the last decade Audio ADC/DAC was one of the most demanding combinations of sample rate, relative bandwidth, S/N and linearity requirements with enough $ to spur new chip development
vinyl may be the more reliable source of good "musical" sound studio recording/production/mastering practices - but that's not due to limitations and faults of the best digital Audio is capable of
Well you are right of course that at the end of the day, vinyl and CD can't effectively sound the same EXACTLY, and that is my point from my previous post I suppose. Those that enjoy vinyl and have found vinyl to sound different or better or what have you, at least those in this thread, what they don't want likely (in the realm of offering input/advice) is for someone to sell vinyl short and not even give it a chance, given some notion that CD or other digital formats are de facto
better.
The original post posed the question: why spend big bucks on gear? An answer is: big bucks CAN provide one with a different experience from cheaper gear, particularly in the analogue realm, and many interpret these differences as superior to the experiences offered up by cheaper gear. This is not a universal truth; it isn't absolute for all humans, nor for all gear. However, it does seem, all things being equal, as one moves up the ladder of price points, certain achievements are made. This could be due to tolerances, or over building (particularly with power supplies) etc. With digital, many feel that major dollar differences don't really offer enormous improvements to justify massive price hikes (except usually when really robust power supplies are used). In this case, it may be truer than for instance with vinyl. With analogue, it seems climbing the ladder does offer up more audible differences and therefore is a good answer to "why bother with all this $$$ equipment."
Quote:
Because if everyone believes "hi-rez" is audibly better, then SACD can become a viable format and everyone will go and buy their collections in a new format, just like they did with vinyl to CDs. The music industry cash in, the manufacturers of audio gear cash in, I hear even iTunes is going to be marketing "hi-rez" as a way of re-selling the same digital files again. Of course if the people originally bought the tracks form itunes at 160kbps they will hear a night and day difference, exactly as they would have if they upgraded to plain old FLAC or 320kbps LAME. What a perfect scam.
Type "the myth exploded" into the search engine here and read why it is not even a matter of opinion that there is no audible difference - it is scientific fact.
People often say "but I heard a hi-rez album and it sounded much better than my CDs". Yeah well I have many CDs that sound much better than my other CDs - they have been masterfully produced and mastered - they are better recordings than the others and that has nothing to do with the medium it is carried on.
Cash grabs are sadly a major issue in the music and audio industry, perhaps more than in many other industries. High resolution software is likely not going to come our way in droves any time soon, but it will happen if only because labels will hope to cash in again and again on selling someone yet another copy of DSOTM
That said, SACD, DVD-A, Blu-ray Audio, high res files... they offer, or are said to offer better sound than CDs. Is this possible? Sure. Is is possible that this is not absolutely true? Absolutely
In fact, early in the SACD production, many users were finding that the SACD layer sounded exactly like a CD of the same album (with same mix and master). Why was this? Some companies were just throwing on the 16/44 music on the SACD and calling it high res. Cash grab 101. Some excellent threads at sa-cd.net and stevehoffman.tv go into great detail focusing on various releases that did have this happen and the outcry from the customers who felt they had been had.
Other threads concentrate on sonic differences (with various DBT testing) between various formats and all things being as about equal as possible, the high res seemed to get more votes on sounding better.
Other tests where vinyl and reel to reel were thrown into the loop found that vinyl was getting more votes. Why? There are threads discussing it. If vinyl can offer something novel, be it better or simply different, is it not worth recommending to someone interested in this hobby of ours? Certainly. If someone were to be a vinyl zealot (condemning all things digital), and there are such people, then I could understand a backlash against posts of "vinyl is better." But if/when a music lover, who owns multiple rigs to play multiple formats and they continually declare, on average, they prefer vinyl, that is something worth noting and not scoffing at.
There are some interesting threads that focus on needle drops of vinyl recording on CD which sound better, more music, more natural, than the retail CD. Why is this? What is it about the needle drop that sounds better? Plenty of threads on various forums discuss this phenomenon. Again, this is something worth investigating and again, something that if one found themselves agreeing, perhaps may also feel that spending $$$ on a rig that provides MORE of that good stuff, well then, it becomes money well spent.
Quote:
I'd love to know if the people advocating vinyls subjective qualities can verify that they are in fact listening to pressings of the exact same master. There's many out there, and I'm sure a quick google will result in something. There's even vinyl (modern metal for example) that are pressed directly from CD (Boris comes to mind). I dont think anyone is going to sit down and say a better mastering job (which, as I already said was due to physical limitations) is going to sound worse than a bad mastering job between these two formats, but when advocates say "Analog is king" or "Vinyl is the best", they're making fundamental errors about the actual media. More correct would be to say "<X> is better on vinyl".
What you're assuming here is that people are looking for subjective qualities in sources like you would in say, a headphone (eg, the HD650). The ultimate source component is 1:1, and that's not even close to being debatable.
A CD gets closer to 1:1 than vinyl does, if we're pushing the absolute limits of the media
On the subject of pet peeves, one of mine is the people who talk about quantisation noise without the understanding of how small each quantisation point is, and indeed that we do not receive "blocks" of sound when listening to digital sources - because that would require an infinite velocity from a speaker.
This is a good point. Take Icky Thump by The White Stripes. The CD was horribly mastered, brickwalled to death. The vinyl was very well mastered and has dynamics unlike most any rock album pressed in 30 years. Why? Time, care and passion went into the mastering of the LP. Marketting decisions dictated the mastering of the CD. Too bad because folks who have only heard the CD are missing out!
So then, how can one experiment without knowing about hte mix and mastering? They simply can't and I'd side with anyone saying it is impossible to come to any meaningful conclusions based on ignorance of the chain. A well mastered CD will sound better than a poorly mastered LP of the same album no matter what the playback system. Garbage in, garbage out reigns supreme. BUT! There have been tests conducted by folks who have the means of comparing directly to the master tape, cut or pressed to all formats. The end result? The collective opinion of this group was that vinyl sounded best. Again, no one there had any reason to indicate anything other than their honest opinion, so why lie? If they aren't lying, again we are presented with something interesting: why do many people enjoy vinyl more? Is it worth investigating and spending some money to discover this? That is a personal choice but something that anyone who is really into this hobby shouldn't be denied and/or lead to believe that those that have come to that conclusion are somehow delusional.
I make no money from anything in the music or audio world. I would actually prefer saving money on music and not throwing down bigger bucks on LP releases of the same album, but time and time again I've enjoyed vinyl of the same albums pressed to even SACD. A perfect example are many of the Analogue Productions Jazz remasters. I own plenty of the LPs, but of some of my favourite albums, I picked up the SACD too. Same music, same chain all the way down to the end point. My SACD rig is quite good and capable, but I prefer the vinyl. My analogue rig, by pure numbers, is pricier and higher end than my CD or SACD rig, so that could be it, but I've also listened to these albums in a system where the SACD player cost 3 times my vinyl rig. Still, I preferred the vinyl. Is this always the case? No, but all things being equal as far as possible I do prefer the vinyl.
As for quantization, I won't argue your point but one interesting point is that we as humans effectively hear not as a pure continuous wave but rather as a flow of signals pushed down a line in a quantum fashion.
Quote:
I do not have an agenda either, but to say vinyl surpasses digital is insane and very misleading. Like I said before, the sound quality of pressed vinyl is always going to be inferior to that of a reel to reel tape recorder : a vinyl record made from a tape master will always sound worse than the original. And if the vinyl record was mastered from a digital master, be it 24 bit or 16 bit, it can never be as good as the original. Before the lacquer get cut, the master tape has to go through an EQ (which get counter EQed by the phono amp during playback) to boost the high frequencies and lower the low frequencies, without the EQing process, a 33.3 rpm 12' vinyl record would probably only have a playtime of 10 minutes per side and have so much background noise that one could hardly hear the music. Depending on the length of the recording, the sound level of the original master gets attenuated (or compressed during post-production) to limit the dynamic range since the signal to noise ratio of vinyl records is only 60dB at best (70dB with a virgin direct cut), compare to 1/2" tape at 70dB (80dB with Dolby A) or digital at 96dB (or 144dB with 24 bit). If you prefer the sound of vinyl, it probably means that you like the added distortions during the transferring process, from digital to analogue, and all the post production that needed to be made in order to cut the lacquer master, and not because the sound quality is better.
One can't throw words around like always, never etc etc. You are using absolutes which is clearly impossible when subjective appreciation is thrown into the mix. If one wanted to analytically example wave forms, we might be able to mathematically plot out similarities and differences but in the end one can't definitively say: A is better than B. One could say: A is closer to X than B is based on these criteria and the analyzes conducted.
That's it that's all.
Quote:
SACD has long since passed it's opportunity to become a widely available product.
Agreed. I know many hope Blu-ray will go where SACD failed to go. It won't happen. At best, if Apple is serious about releasing high res files (as indicated last week), then there is a chance for high res files at a premium price. Perhaps we will see 24/96 or 24/192 downloads of mainstream music before the end of this decade. For now we must either needle drop from vinyl or get our true digital files from HDTracks, Reference Recordings, Linn etc.
I'm of the opinion that whatever can sound best to me is what I want to buy into. For now all music is not available in all formats, so I pick and choose as best I can so that I can maximize my enjoyment of recorded music.
Consistently, the music I find on vinyl has had more care put into the entire chain, particularly the mastering, than CDs I am interested. A win then for sonics in the vinyl camp. The problem with vinyl (as has always been the case)? Poor pressings. Warps, scratches, clicks and pops. I have plenty of super quiet vinyl, so quiet one would be hard pressed to declare it anything other than digital, but I also have plenty of vinyl that has been awful straight out of the shrink wrap.
For the subject of this thread, such quality control issues may be enough to turn someone away from spending $$$ on vinyl. For others, the crap shoot is worth the payoff when the payoff is grand.
