[ultrabike]

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Just my 2 cents here, but if I have a listen to the same version of Fleetwood Mac's - Rumours album as an eac cd rip, and then as a 24/96 vinyl rip, my ears much prefer the vinyl rip.  Crackles and pops and all.  Vinyl rips simply have a more organic sound, if that makes any sense.  Much more involving to listen to.  

 
I feel an original well done digital master (or remaster) will kill any poorly done vinyl master (or remaster) or any rip from it. If a digital and a vinyl copy of the same master exist, I would go for the digital one for practical reasons and to avoid the reproduction "crackles and pops and all."
 
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Of course many modern recordings are all about loudness and compression.  Sad.  My mind boggles at the fact that many will spend so much money on pmp's and Dr. Dre's (fart cannons lol) and listen to iTunes tracks or worse with them.  
 

 
Not all modern recordings are all about loudness and compression, and not all iTunes tracks are heavily dynamic range compressed (not the same thing as data compression.) I would agree that many are.
 

iTunes = the process cheese-ification of music in my opinion.  256 kbps aac is better than 128 kbps mp3 and all, but nothing compared to a 1000 kbps flac cd rip, and even less compared to a 3000 kbps vinyl rip.

 
Past a certain point (perhaps 320 kbps) there are other factors that affect music reproduction performance more than bit rate. I also don't think vinyl is infinity kbps, it seems is more like 147.4 to 165 kbps (typical):
 
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0909/
 
From the table above reel to reel does go 1170 kbps equivalent. But then DTS, and the Dolby/DTS HD formats are north of 2000 kbps... I still feel quality is much more than just bit rates.
 

 
Even if you choose to listen with Dre's, the difference should be noticeable.  Honestly, if you can't hear the difference, as I've read many say they don't, you have been listening to music way too loud for way too long...or maybe your ears just suck 

 
Now back to listening to those lovely lossless rips.

 
Dynamic range compression (loudness) is not data compression.
 

 
Now back to listening to those lovely lossless rips.
 
Keep on loving the frequencies.

 
 
All those lovely lossless rips played through your audio rig output sound pressure frequencies to your ears, so I hope you keep loving those SPL frequencies too 

 

 
 
Cheers,
-Ultrabike

 

[scuttle]

Quote:

Just my 2 cents here, but if I have a listen to the same version of Fleetwood Mac's - Rumours album as an eac cd rip, and then as a 24/96 vinyl rip, my ears much prefer the vinyl rip.  Crackles and pops and all.  Vinyl rips simply have a more organic sound, if that makes any sense.  Much more involving to listen to.  
 
Of course many modern recordings are all about loudness and compression.  Sad.  My mind boggles at the fact that many will spend so much money on pmp's and Dr. Dre's (fart cannons lol) and listen to iTunes tracks or worse with them.  
 
iTunes = the process cheese-ification of music in my opinion.  256 kbps aac is better than 128 kbps mp3 and all, but nothing compared to a 1000 kbps flac cd rip, and even less compared to a 3000 kbps vinyl rip.
 

]
 
No one can tell a 320 aac/ogg from flac, cd, or vinyl. No one. There was a challenge to try on "trustMeImAScientist"  - actually a blog for and by sound engineers - and even that audience of professionals couldn't tell the difference.
 
The stuff about kbps... A flac is lossless and by definition uses a variable bit rate - literally, whatever it takes to get the job done perfectly. Which is not 3000kbps for vinyl used to store anything approach music!

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Just my 2 cents here, but if I have a listen to the same version of Fleetwood Mac's - Rumours album as an eac cd rip, and then as a 24/96 vinyl rip, my ears much prefer the vinyl rip.  Crackles and pops and all.  Vinyl rips simply have a more organic sound, if that makes any sense.  Much more involving to listen to.  
 
Of course many modern recordings are all about loudness and compression.  Sad.  My mind boggles at the fact that many will spend so much money on pmp's and Dr. Dre's (fart cannons lol) and listen to iTunes tracks or worse with them.  
 
iTunes = the process cheese-ification of music in my opinion.  256 kbps aac is better than 128 kbps mp3 and all, but nothing compared to a 1000 kbps flac cd rip, and even less compared to a 3000 kbps vinyl rip.
 
Even if you choose to listen with Dre's, the difference should be noticeable.  Honestly, if you can't hear the difference, as I've read many say they don't, you have been listening to music way too loud for way too long...or maybe your ears just suck 

 
Now back to listening to those lovely lossless rips.
 
Keep on loving the frequencies.
 
 

 
Cheers,
TBB

 
 
But, how can that be?  If they measure the same, how can they sound different?  

  

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

 
I feel an original well done digital master (or remaster) will kill any poorly done vinyl master (or remaster) or any rip from it. If a digital and a vinyl copy of the same master exist, I would go for the digital one for practical reasons and to avoid the reproduction "crackles and pops and all."
 
 
 
 
 
Cheers,
-Ultrabike

 
 
How about well done vinyl rips?  Have you actually heard any?  How about music actually coming off a turntable?  Have you ever heard that?  I'm actually asking here, those aren't rhetorical questions.  And please don't take it wrong, it's not at all uncommon to discuss these things with people who have never heard analog, or good vinyl rips...

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

]
 
No one can tell a 320 aac/ogg from flac, cd, or vinyl. No one. There was a challenge to try on "trustMeImAScientist"  - actually a blog for and by sound engineers - and even that audience of professionals couldn't tell the difference.
 
The stuff about kbps... A flac is lossless and by definition uses a variable bit rate - literally, whatever it takes to get the job done perfectly. Which is not 3000kbps for vinyl used to store anything approach music!

 
 
Of course this is nonsense!
 
Saying that no one can tell is just as inaccurate as saying that everyone can tell!

 

[DxBecks]

I own roughly 160 Vinyl records and have been collecting records for almost four (holy **** time flies...) years now. I own probably close to fifty CD's with some duplicates between my two collections. I also own a handful of albums from HDtracks. I rip all my music in FLAC and I'm itching to purchase a D.A.C. so I can more accurately determine the difference between 96Hz/24Bit and 44.1/16Bit. As for the Vinyl verse digital debate, I think both are better at certain things than the other. Vinyl is far better at reproducing higher frequencies and on average features better dynamic range, even when compared to albums on CD that were mastered correctly. However digital is better for listening to subtle details in your music. I own Dark Side of the Moon on Vinyl (1973 SMAS Pressing) and the 1994 Remaster on CD. I can notice far more small details that are almost, if not inaudible on the Vinyl just given the nature of how a Vinyl works, and its age. Yet the dynamic range on the Vinyl is far better and the music sounds less constrained. The real reason why I prefer Vinyl to digital is because Vinyl is human, it ages, it has numerous flaws, it demands care and attention. Vinyl boasts a more gritty and raw feeling than digital does, it just features its own unique atmosphere compared to a CD or other digital format.

 

[Theblackbeard]

Quote:

]
 
No one can tell a 320 aac/ogg from flac, cd, or vinyl. No one. There was a challenge to try on "trustMeImAScientist"  - actually a blog for and by sound engineers - and even that audience of professionals couldn't tell the difference.
 
The stuff about kbps... A flac is lossless and by definition uses a variable bit rate - literally, whatever it takes to get the job done perfectly. Which is not 3000kbps for vinyl used to store anything approach music!

 
My ears can certainly tell the difference between many 320 kbps mp3/ogg/aac rips and 24/96 vinyl rips (not just the pops and crackles 

).  If you playback said rips using reasonable equipment or headphones, the difference can be noticeable.  
 
Keep in mind some headphones/speakers are very revealing, some aren't.  Using low-fi gear you may never be able to tell the difference between lossy or lossless rips.  Have a listen to low bitrate rip then afterwards the high bitrate vinyl rip of the same track on a pair of HD650's and the difference between the low bitrate and high bitrate becomes much more apparent.    
 
How any album is mastered can have a large effect on quality however.  I have heard remastered albums sound much worse than the original.  The least amount of steps between master recording and released material is ideal.  When music companies 'reissue' classics, they often end up ruining an artists music.
 
Referencing one blog by sound engineers and audience professionals won't affect my ears and opinion in the slightest.  There are many forums, and blogs, where great debates break out over the issue.  
 
I do have a few friends who can't seem to distinguish any differences, and though the differences may be small and variable based on the quality of the source/rip itself, I have many more friends that will notice a difference right away.
 
To my ears, 24/96 vinyl rips sound better that 320 kbps rips hands down, even if they sound the same to some.  
 
In the end though, listen to any format/quality you want to.  I'll always prefer vinyl/vinyl rips and lossless flac over iTunes downloads or sub 320 kbps rips.  I consider 320 kbps to be the lowest bitrate worth using.  
 
Playing a 24/96 vinyl rip of Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon right now that no lossy rip can match.  You don't have to be a sound engineer to tell the difference either. 
 
Cheers,
TBB

 

[scuttle]

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Of course this is nonsense!
 
Saying that no one can tell is just as inaccurate as saying that everyone can tell!

 
There is no logic to this statement. It is simply an empirical result that people cannot 320 aac/ogg from CD/vinyl in properly conduced blind tests. You don't have to like it, it's simply true.

 

[nick_charles]

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My ears can certainly tell the difference between many 320 kbps mp3/ogg/aac rips and 24/96 vinyl rips 
 
Cheers,
TBB

 
 
All ascertained by carefully controlled level matched DBT ?
 
24/96 is overkill for vinyl as at best it can manage perhaps 12 - 13 bits of SNR (72 - 78 db)  the other 11/12 bits are just wasted. Sampling at 96k will recreate frequencies up to 48K which will be at very low levels on vinyl otherwise the needle would dance out and which you certainly cannot hear, nor do they influence the perceived sound. Back in the 80s Ivor Tiefenbrun (in anti-digital phase) was famously unable to detect the presence of a PCM-F1 connected to the output of a Linn Lp12 and this test has been tried several times since. 16/44.1 may miss some high end frequencies that LP does but it really does not matter...

 

[nelamvr6]

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There is no logic to this statement. It is simply an empirical result that people cannot 320 aac/ogg from CD/vinyl in properly conduced blind tests. You don't have to like it, it's simply true.

 
 
You keep using that word, logic.  I don't think it means what you think it means...
 

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

 
There is no logic to this statement. It is simply an empirical result that people cannot 320 aac/ogg from CD/vinyl in properly conduced blind tests. You don't have to like it, it's simply true.

 
 
Your sample size is very small, do you realize that?  You're referencing one blog that talks about one study.

 

[scuttle]

Quote:

 
My ears can certainly tell the difference between many 320 kbps mp3/ogg/aac rips and 24/96 vinyl rips (not just the pops and crackles 

).  
 

 
You think they can, yes. But so what? People just like you (and for some reason these people always seem to be fans of 70's MOR...) swear by $1000 audio cables and then can't tell the difference between them and coathangers in a blind test.
 
 

Keep in mind some headphones/speakers are very revealing, some aren't. 

 
Ummm, ok. You should go and tell all those professional studio engineers who took the test - this is exactly the sort of insight the recording industry needs. At the moment they're buying their $20,000 studio monitors on how they look - but, gosh, they could be buying the most revealing ones instead. Ummm, gosh.
 
Lots of people believe they can tell 320 from wav/flac/cd/vinyl. But in blind tests they fail:
 
 

http://trustmeimascientist.com/2012/05/05/results-from-our-audio-poll-neil-young-and-high-definition-sound/
 
[size=14.399999618530273px] Last month we presented you with a couple of high-definition WAV files and a couple of contemporary AAC files, and asked if you could hear the difference in a blind test.[/size]

[size=14.399999618530273px] There’s no better audience for this kind of thing than TMimaS readers. You come from a special breed of audio nuts and music lovers. You’re the kinds of people who like to read 3,000 word love-sonnets to classic condenser microphones, histories of esoteric albums, and profiles of seminal producers. The majority of you are audio engineers, professional musicians, and ambitious hobbyists, and I figured that if anyone would be able to tell these file types apart, it would be you guys.[/size]

[size=14.399999618530273px] So, how did you do?[/size]

[size=14.399999618530273px] Well… please accept my warm congratulations to the 49% of you who guessed right.That’s right: even among our readers, the results came out no better than a coin flip. And we didn’t even need a huge sample size to get a result that’s consistent with the tremendous mountains of research already done in this field. Although thousands read the article, those of you with the confidence to actually vote in the official poll barely numbered in the hundreds. What’s especially telling is that those of you who considered themselves “trained listeners” in our quiz did no better than those who self-reported as “untrained listeners”. In a subtle audible distinction did exist, this shouldn’t be the case.[/size]

 
If you flick through the blind tests in this forum and over the Internet then you will find this pattern repeated over and over.
 
In fact, you probably can't tell the difference 192 mp3 and cd - of you'd think the 192 is better. That pattern is repeated to quite a significant degree among self-professed audiophiles who claim to have unfoolable golden ears. There are different theories why - tinnitus, that the  lower quality sounds more like vinyl, reduced distortion products.

 

[Theblackbeard]

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All ascertained by carefully controlled level matched DBT ?
 
24/96 is overkill for vinyl as at best it can manage perhaps 12 - 13 bits of SNR (72 - 78 db)  the other 11/12 bits are just wasted. Sampling at 96k will recreate frequencies up to 48K which will be at very low levels on vinyl otherwise the needle would dance out and which you certainly cannot hear, nor do they influence the perceived sound. Back in the 80s Ivor Tiefenbrun (in anti-digital phase) was famously unable to detect the presence of a PCM-F1 connected to the output of a Linn Lp12 and this test has been tried several times since. 16/44.1 may miss some high end frequencies that LP does but it really does not matter...

 
Only ascertained by my ears.  To me that counts more than any measurements performed and quoted.  I let my ears be my guide.  No disrespect to Ivor Tiefenbrun.
 
Check out the video below, it gives a basic example of a remastered release compared to the original release.  I have had similar experiences with some remastered albums, and that is why I also generally avoid them.  Again, I don't base my experience and enjoyment on audio measuring equipment results, I let my ears be the judge.
 

 
Peace,
TBB

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

 
 
All ascertained by carefully controlled level matched DBT ?
 
24/96 is overkill for vinyl as at best it can manage perhaps 12 - 13 bits of SNR (72 - 78 db)  the other 11/12 bits are just wasted. Sampling at 96k will recreate frequencies up to 48K which will be at very low levels on vinyl otherwise the needle would dance out and which you certainly cannot hear, nor do they influence the perceived sound. Back in the 80s Ivor Tiefenbrun (in anti-digital phase) was famously unable to detect the presence of a PCM-F1 connected to the output of a Linn Lp12 and this test has been tried several times since. 16/44.1 may miss some high end frequencies that LP does but it really does not matter...

 
Throughout the history of our hi-fi hobby, there has always been this school of thought that if there is a difference, we must be able to find a measurement that shows us why.  In many cases we have failed to discover why.  
 
To be sure, we have made some progress.  Before the discovery of jitter's effects, there were those who insisted that they could hear differences between CD players.  There were others, (your spiritual brethren, no doubt) who poo pooed their assertions.  Then jitter was discovered.
 
I can remember Julian Hirsch insisting that there was no audible difference between two amps who measured the same in his tests.  Do you really believe that?
 
I fully expect that we will continue to make progress, but as of right now, not everything that makes a difference can be measured, no matter how vehemently you insist otherwise.

 

[Theblackbeard]

Some insight from a few who know more about recording and mastering than I ever will.  Worth a watch, enjoy.