[bigshot]

  My records are mostly 70s and after. I can't *get* the B-52s on early vinyl, or Talking Heads, etc.

 
Back when I was into that kind of music, I would always go for the colored vinyl limited editions, half speed mastered audiophile pressings, and the Japanese imports. Someday someone will come along and offer me some bucks for these old disks and I will gladly take it.
 
80s vinyl in the US was ATROCIOUS. It sounded like scrambled eggs. I would return the same record to the store three or four times to find a copy that wasn't warped. The absolute worst was David Bowie. His whole catalog sounded like crap on RCA. I had to buy all the Mobile Fidelity and imports.
 
I mostly collect 50s and 60s vinyl now. BIG difference. It often sounds better than the equivalent CD release because the masters weren't beat to hell and the pressings were lavished with care. You can't really know what an LP can sound like if you just listen to New Wave and Prog Rock.

 

[UltMusicSnob]

   
Back when I was into that kind of music, I would always go for the colored vinyl limited editions, half speed mastered audiophile pressings, and the Japanese imports. Someday someone will come along and offer me some bucks for these old disks and I will gladly take it.
 
80s vinyl in the US was ATROCIOUS. It sounded like scrambled eggs. I would return the same record to the store three or four times to find a copy that wasn't warped. The absolute worst was David Bowie. His whole catalog sounded like crap on RCA. I had to buy all the Mobile Fidelity and imports.
 
I mostly collect 50s and 60s vinyl now. BIG difference. It often sounds better than the equivalent CD release because the masters weren't beat to hell and the pressings were lavished with care. You can't really know what an LP can sound like if you just listen to New Wave and Prog Rock.

My best were Deutsche Gramophon, and they were good, relative to what else I had. Still, they were those really thin vinyl pressings, fragile.

 

[UltMusicSnob]

  Well, I think the music industry has realized the fascination audiophiles have for vinyl, and its been turned into a new cash cow.
 
Take for example the recently released Daft Punk's RAM.  The vinyl has sold quite a few copies, and the vinyl rip sounds better than the CD. The reason being its been mastered differently, and has a higher DR (12dB)  than the CD (8dB).
 
It could've been done with the CD just as easily. 
Its a typical example of marketing ploy. Deliberately limit the lower tier models in performance, so the customer tends to go for the higher end models. The vinyl sells for a lot more than the CD.

Hmm. This is the audio version of Intel's budget chip strategy. Design a perfectly good CPU, then cripple it in various ways, call it 'Celeron', and segment the market by price. Economically smart. Didn't make a lot of friends in the build-you-own-box crowd, but I doubt most consumers noticed.
  To be fair, Daft Punk went to [apparently] enormous lengths to get live material, recorded to analog, into their usual loops/vocoders style. It is a rich sound, but the musical style doesn't impress me nearly as much as 'Discovery'.

 

[bigshot]

My best were Deutsche Gramophon, and they were good, relative to what else I had. Still, they were those really thin vinyl pressings, fragile.

Back in the vinyl days, us rekkid collectors knew where everything came from... Those thin DGG pressings came from Canada. We would look at the copyright markings on the cover to determine if they were true German pressings, or the flimsy Canadian ones. Those Canadian DGGs were OK, but they weren't as good as the RCA shaded dogs or six eye Columbias.

 

[proton007]

  Hmm. This is the audio version of Intel's budget chip strategy. Design a perfectly good CPU, then cripple it in various ways, call it 'Celeron', and segment the market by price. Economically smart. Didn't make a lot of friends in the build-you-own-box crowd, but I doubt most consumers noticed.
 

 
Yeah, similar in many ways. Pretty common as well.

 

[dizzyorange]

   
How is ripping vinyl different from digitizing the output of the phono pre?

 
It's not different.  I meant that ripping for the purposes of preserving your vinyl is different from buying vinyl for the sole purpose of the higher quality of vinyl sound and then ripping it digitally (which definitely removes the analog magic)

 

[dizzyorange]

   
On numerous occasions myself and others have indicated to you that a digital capture of the analog output can be transparent. This was tested as long ago as 1984 when Ivor Tiefenbrun was challenged by the BAS to prove he could hear the degradation caused by (1) any digital transmitter in the same room (they chose a digital clock) and (2) the effect of digitizing the analog output from one of his Linn LP12 turntables. The digitization was done using an early Sony PCM-F1 (which is nominally 16 bits) Tiefenbrun was singly unable to detect any degradation caused by the digitization.
 
This experiment has been repeated many times since including by the matrixHiFi Spanish audiophile society, who are vinyl lovers by the way, they found the same inability to detect audible degradation due by digitization. The experiment has also been replicated by several members at Hydrogen Audio.
 
That you persist in believing the myth of something magical about vinyl that cannot be transparently captured despite being provided with numerous sources to the contrary begins to look like an Idée fixe

 
I don't necessarily think you are wrong.  I certainly haven't looked at the evidence.  By the way I only made 2 posts on this topic (your post makes it sound like I've been beating a dead horse for ages).  And only one person has replied to me, and they didn't provide any evidence or links.  So I appreciate your more detailed response, but I think you may be confusing me for someone else.
 
My only point is that when I download 24bit vinyl FLACs, they should like ****.  But when I play my own vinyl, it sounds great.  I have pretty lousy vinyl equipment so it shouldn't be that.  I've compared the same albums, playing it "live" and playing someone else's vinyl rip.  The vinyl rip sounds like 56kbps mp3, while the real vinyl sounds alive like vinyl should.  It is true that I've never ripped my own vinyl, but again my vinyl gear is so lousy that I didn't think there would be a point.

 

[jaddie]

   
....The vinyl rip sounds like 56kbps mp3, while the real vinyl sounds alive like vinyl should.  It is true that I've never ripped my own vinyl, but again my vinyl gear is so lousy that I didn't think there would be a point.

Perhaps just the slightest exaggeration here?  Ever actually heard a 56kbps mp3?   Unless the vinyl were ripped to a 56Kbps mp3, there's actually no way it could sound like one.  But it does sound like you need to get control of the ripping process.

 

[jaddie]

   
It's not different.  I meant that ripping for the purposes of preserving your vinyl is different from buying vinyl for the sole purpose of the higher quality of vinyl sound and then ripping it digitally (which definitely removes the analog magic)

 
O......k.....wellll... I guess until someone removes listener bias with a real double-blind test, we are really just flogging the demised equus ferus.
 
Oh, wait, I did that once.  The test, not the flogging.   Posted about it here, even.  But <heavy sigh> I don't think anyone cares, so I'm going go do something more productive than hunt down the post.  Like bake cookies.
 
I bought a 1 oz bottle of Analog Magic on eBay.  Sprinkled it on everything I own, and it's now all analog.  And magical. 

 

[bigshot]

My only point is that when I download 24bit vinyl FLACs, they should like ****.  But when I play my own vinyl, it sounds great.

Not to flog a dead horse, but what makes you think that you are hearing the same mastering on both? Perhaps it isn't the format you're hearing but the mastering!

 

[UltMusicSnob]

   
O......k.....wellll... I guess until someone removes listener bias with a real double-blind test, we are really just flogging the demised equus ferus.
 
Oh, wait, I did that once.  The test, not the flogging.   Posted about it here, even.  But <heavy sigh> I don't think anyone cares, so I'm going go do something more productive than hunt down the post.  Like bake cookies.
 
I bought a 1 oz bottle of Analog Magic on eBay.  Sprinkled it on everything I own, and it's now all analog.  And magical. 

I need a bottle of that. If I sprinkle it on my digital synthesizers, they will multiply in value by a factor of at least 20. Of course, they won't stay in tune, and they'll break down about every 30 minutes of operation---but man, that analog sound!!

 

[dizzyorange]

Again, I'm not trying to discredit your opinion, just giving my own based on my own experiences.  
 
What I don't understand is: if ripping vinyl digitally preserves all the magic of vinyl, then why don't studios burn their final mixes onto vinyl, rip it, and then distribute that on CD?  What is the point of making or buying vinyl at all besides nostalgia?  People on these forums go to greats lengths comparing DACs, some costing a few dollars and some costing thousands.  Unless all these people are crazy (which is possible), then DACs do change the sound.  So how can passing a vinyl signal through an ADC, then back through a DAC not change the sound at all?  
 
I don't think there is an analog secret sauce or anything like that.  But based on what you guys are saying, the vinyl medium is just a filter, like a fancy EQ or something.  If that is the case then wouldn't it be possible to just EQ a digital source and have it sound exactly like vinyl?

 

[UltMusicSnob]

wouldn't it be possible to just EQ a digital source and have it sound exactly like vinyl?

Just on this one point: maaayyybee....if we're talking about multi-band EQ (like, 30+ bands), each band sidechained individually with a signal split from the master bus band-passed to that band's range, and probably some more non-linear stuff I can't work out how to do.
 
So far as I know, there's no such plug-in--but it would be awfully cool to have.

 

[manbear]

People on these forums go to greats lengths comparing DACs, some costing a few dollars and some costing thousands.  Unless all these people are crazy (which is possible), then DACs do change the sound.  So how can passing a vinyl signal through an ADC, then back through a DAC not change the sound at all?    

I'm talking beyond my experience here (aka straight out of ass), but I imagine the claim that digitizing vinyl preserves all of the "vinyl magic" only works if the ADC and DAC are completely transparent. Meaning expensive. Even so, all of the equipment used in regular vinyl playback also has a sound. People write reviews comparing how different cartridges, turntables, preamps, speakers, everything that's present during vinyl playback changes the sound, so vinyl with no digitizing is subject to a similar criticism that you just made. Do all of these different sounding analog components preserve the same "vinyl magic"?

 

[UltMusicSnob]

 
I'm talking beyond my experience here (aka straight out of ass), but I imagine the claim that digitizing vinyl preserves all of the "vinyl magic" only works if the ADC and DAC are completely transparent. Meaning expensive. Even so, all of the equipment used in regular vinyl playback also has a sound. People write reviews comparing how different cartridges, turntables, preamps, speakers, everything that's present during vinyl playback changes the sound, so vinyl with no digitizing is subject to a similar criticism that you just made. Do all of these different sounding analog components preserve the same "vinyl magic"?

Conceivably, the laser playback for vinyl could answer everything up to the point of the preamp. Interesting to see it done, if anyone has 16 grand laying around they don't know what to do with.