[bigshot]

They usually go back to the original master, not the LP era submaster. No compromises in the original session tapes.

 

[Digitalchkn]

They usually go back to the original master, not the LP era submaster. No compromises in the original session tapes.

Do they use compression on LP submasters? I imagine they have to since the dynamic range of vinyl has got to be fairly limited and they the dynamics are very smooth and soft. Why can't this soft compression be applied to digital masters? Why the drive to sound until you are practically hearing square waves.

 

[jaddie]

  Mastering for delivery on vinyl meant taking into account all sorts of physical conditions of the record material that just don't apply any more. The spacing of the grooves is not constant, for example--this is why you can see the bands of material when you hold up a record  and let light bounce off its surface--some are dense, the quiet passages; some are further apart, the louder passages. A treatment called the RIAA equalization curve was used (in part) to limit the required size of grooves, allowing more playing time per side on LP's.
 

What's being referred to here is called "pitch control", and was automated by using a preview head exactly one disc revolution in advance of the actual cutting signal.  The system monitored level and adjusted the lathe pitch to allow for higher levels of low frequency modulation.  Pitch control did directly affect how the disc was mastered audibly, however, it just prevented groves from colliding with each other.  The RIAA curve, on the other hand, needs to be accurate both in recording and with the exact inverse applied during play.  Getting those two curves to be exactly reciprocal through the entire system including the cartage is often assumed, but usually isn't right.
Quote:

  A CD does not care how loud the material is. It holds a Redbook CD's worth of data, period. CD's also have some track flexibility here, but the main point is that the amplitude of the signal does not affect playing time on a CD.

What's important to note here is what about the LP's capabilities would affect how it was audibly mastered.  The LP has a maximum record level that varies with frequency...a lot, and also varies with pan position.  One of the reasons kick and bass are usually mixed center is that a center signal results in lateral groove modulation, which has a higher maximum than a L or right dominant signal, which would result in a vertical groove modulation component.  The vertical limit is cutting a groove so shallow it won't hold a stylus, or cutting it so deep the cutter stylus slams into the aluminum substrate.  High frequency limits are there too caused by the maximum cutter velocity.  Move the cutter stylus to fast and the back facet digs into the groove wall just cut be the front facet. The HF limit is level and frequency dependent, i.e., the maximum level that can be cut is lower at higher frequencies.  This caused many mastering engineers to employ a high frequency limiter, which definitely affects the sound, or simply reduce high frequencies with an equalizer.  The myth conflict here is that analog vinyl has such a wide bandwidth it goes into the ultrasonic range.  Simply not true. 
 
But note that these limitations of the LP medium are all related to high levels.  If you don't master for maximum loudness, these factors are less important, and it is in fact possible to master without anything other than proper RIAA eq and pitch control, without regard for the mix.  The LP is essentially a flat medium below its maximum limits.  There have been numerous direct-to-disc recordings made directly to the lathe without any of the typical mastering processing other than some basic mix decisions and manual pitch control.  They sound gorgeous. 
 
The CD is a flat medium that will record and reproduce the same maximum level regardless of frequency or pan position (the exception being those using pre-emphasis). 

 

[gjfs]

So, can you actually hear any benefits of the larger (48dB) dynamic range offered by 24bit? Unfortunately, no you can't. The entire dynamic range of some types of music is sometimes less than 12dB. The recordings with the largest dynamic range tend to be symphony orchestra recordings but even these virtually never have a dynamic range greater than about 60dB. All of these are well inside the 96dB range of the humble CD.

 
Most of your post is right, but this bit is wrong.  You're confusing musical dynamic range with signal processing dynamic range.  No one listens to music with a white noise floor of -12 dBFS, that would sound awful.  By this definition of dynamic range, "music" consisting of a single sine wave tone would have 0 dB dynamic range, right, because the level never changes?  It could therefore be reconstructed by any converter, even 1 bit, right?  No, obviously not. The recording still has a large dynamic range, due to the noise floor at other frequencies than the sine tone. A sine wave with lots of hiss in the background vs a sine wave with little hiss in the background.
 
But the overall conclusion still applies: recordings made with real analog equipment can't have a dynamic range above 120 dB, and therefore noise-shaped 16-bit is sufficient to reproduce them.
 
Quote:

I know that some people are going to say this is all rubbish, and that “I can easily hear the difference between a 16bit commercial recording and a 24bit Hi-Rez version”. Unfortunately, you can't, it's not that you don't have the equipment or the ears, it is not humanly possible in theory or in practice under any conditions!!

 
Often they hear a difference because the recordings were mastered differently.    They're not actually comparing the same recording.
 

2 = The concept of the perfect measurement or of recreating a waveform perfectly may seem like marketing hype. However, in this case it is not. It is in fact the fundamental tenet of the Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem on which the very existence and invention of digital audio is based. From WIKI: “In essence the theorem shows that an analog signal that has been sampled can be perfectly reconstructed from the samples”. I know there will be some who will disagree with this idea, unfortunately, disagreement is NOT an option. This theorem hasn't been invented to explain how digital audio works, it's the other way around. Digital Audio was invented from the theorem, if you don't believe the theorem then you can't believe in digital audio either!!

 
Largely true, but don't get carried away.  Nyquist-Shannon is mathematical theory, based on impossible devices like ideal brickwall lowpass filters (real-life filters cause aliasing, so the reconstruction can never be perfect), and this discussion of quantization actually isn't part of the theory.  It deals with discrete-time analog, not digital.  Non-linear quantization error, etc is not included in Nyquist-Shannon.

 

[marone]

Not much point in arguing with an objectivist whose belief system is that all that is measurable can be heard and all that you hear can be measured with current technology. Same types made the same arguments 10, 20, 50 years ago.

Heck, they said it about 16 bit in 1978 and how I cannot hear the difference between the $20 gear on my desk with different chipsets and how I cannot hear DSD as better than whatever.

I see no point in engaging people like gregorio. He has his bias, which he puts forth as not being biased.

On to better topics:
Vinyl rips converted to FLAC definitely sound better, more natural mid-range, than the ripped CD of same. I actually prefer ripped vinyl over the CD. Only versions that sound as good are very high bit master to FLAC or DSD not PCM for CD but the higher desk bitrate mixdown before any other consolidation is made.

Then you get to a point where the vinyl is bettered.

 

[gjfs]

Heck, they said it about 16 bit in 1978 and how I cannot hear the difference between the $20 gear on my desk with different chipsets and how I cannot hear DSD as better than whatever.

 
Every difference you hear is either imagined or measurable.  The way to distinguish between imagined and measurable differences is by doing ABX testing.  There is nothing else.

 

[stv014]

Have you ever tried to convert a "high resolution" file (like a vinyl rip to 96/24 FLAC) to 44.1/16 format, then convert the result back to the original format (96/24 or whatever else), and compare it to the original with an ABX comparator ?
 
Your vinyl rips will of course sound obviously different than the CD version which is from a different master (if it is newer, it is very likely more compressed/clipped).

 

[xnor]

Not much point in arguing with an objectivist whose belief system is that all that is measurable can be heard and all that you hear can be measured with current technology. Same types made the same arguments 10, 20, 50 years ago.

Heck, they said it about 16 bit in 1978 and how I cannot hear the difference between the $20 gear on my desk with different chipsets and how I cannot hear DSD as better than whatever.
I see no point in engaging people like gregorio. He has his bias, which he puts forth as not being biased.

 
Not much point in arguing with somebody who doesn't bring forward factual arguments but discards facts because he doesn't like something about the person making them.
 
Such ad hominem are boring and just show that you have no real arguments. Let me guess: you invested a considerable sum in high-res stuff so what you always believed to be true has to be true, right?
 
 

Vinyl rips converted to FLAC definitely sound better, more natural mid-range, than the ripped CD of same. I actually prefer ripped vinyl over the CD. Only versions that sound as good are very high bit master to FLAC or DSD not PCM for CD but the higher desk bitrate mixdown before any other consolidation is made.

Then you get to a point where the vinyl is bettered.

What a complete non sequitur. If such logical fallacies are what you base your opinion on then better not spread it.
 
 
(I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but I got inspired by your post.)

 

[UltMusicSnob]

Do people have far better vinyl than I've gotten in my purchases? I *still* play all my vinyl records, and I enjoy them, but I would never say they were better than digital, just on the surface noise and pops and clicks alone. The best pressings I own are by Deutsche Gramophon, and they're excellent. For years I religiously cleaned vinyl surfaces before playing. With the best that I could do, with the equipment I could afford (mid-fi Technics direct-drive and Audio-Technica cartridge with an *expensive* hyperelliptical stylus, I still got nowhere near the noise floor of digital.
  Perhaps there's some level of pressing quality and playback quality that makes a vinyl rip worth it, but I never once heard that level in years of meticulous LP purchasing and playing.

 

[nick_charles]

Not much point in arguing with an objectivist whose belief system is that all that is measurable can be heard

That is not the objectivist position which would posit that you can measure stuff that cannot be heard

and all that you hear can be measured with current technology. Same types made the same arguments 10, 20, 50 years ago.

[size=x-small]Our knowledge of psychophysics is incrementally improving but some objective thresholds of hearing are pretty well [/size]defined[size=x-small] such as the Fletcher-Munson curves and the thresholds for detecting particular types of artifact/distortion - if you choose not to believe in them that is your choice they are entirely disinterested[/size]

Heck, they said it about 16 bit in 1978 and how I cannot hear the difference between the $20 gear on my desk with different chipsets and how I cannot hear DSD as better than whatever.

Can you point to peer-reviewed papers that substantively contradict that opinion, I can point to papers from bodies like JVC back in the late 70s that were able to define the requirements for audio transparency. Regarding DSD vs PCM you need to read Blech and Yang who empirically tested subjects ability to tell them apart, using trained expert listeners including Tonnmeiser students they found that over 97% of subjects could not tell them apart

I see no point in engaging people like gregorio. He has his bias, which he puts forth as not being biased.

Everyone has bias including you  and me, however if you state facts that are facts and not just opinions then these are facts even if you are particularly attached to them, opinions without empirical backing are just opinions 

 

[nick_charles]

  Do people have far better vinyl than I've gotten in my purchases? I *still* play all my vinyl records, and I enjoy them, but I would never say they were better than digital, just on the surface noise and pops and clicks alone. The best pressings I own are by Deutsche Gramophon, and they're excellent. For years I religiously cleaned vinyl surfaces before playing. With the best that I could do, with the equipment I could afford (mid-fi Technics direct-drive and Audio-Technica cartridge with an *expensive* hyperelliptical stylus, I still got nowhere near the noise floor of digital.
  Perhaps there's some level of pressing quality and playback quality that makes a vinyl rip worth it, but I never once heard that level in years of meticulous LP purchasing and playing.

 
 
Vinyl is just inherently noisy, it was especially annoying to me back in the 80s trying to listen to quiet passages in classical music, all the imperfections were easily apparent, with headphones it was positively painful. But some recordings are not out on CD and once the music gets to a certain level the noise is drowned out. I still remember my first encounter with CD in Charing Cross Records in 1984. I was in the demo studio and heard the opening bars of Mahler's 1st (Solti/CSO) played back on a Marantz CD63 and there was no noise whatsoever - it was a revelation.

 

[bigshot]

Do people have far better vinyl than I've gotten in my purchases? I *still* play all my vinyl records, and I enjoy them, but I would never say they were better than digital, just on the surface noise and pops and clicks alone.

Clean copies of records pressed before the oil crisis can sound very good. In the mid 70s, they started recycling vinyl and quality took a nose dive.

 

[ferday]

analog has limits which cannot be overcome
 
digital has limits which can theoretically be overcome
 
preference for either...is just that.  throw audibility of these limits into account, and that's where the blurred lines are...

 

[bigshot]

Thesholds of audibility aren't that fuzzy. Establshed thresholds can get you in the ballpark, and a simple DBT can nail it down nicely for your own particular ears.

 

[ferday]

  Thesholds of audibility aren't that fuzzy. Establshed thresholds can get you in the ballpark, and a simple DBT can nail it down nicely for your own particular ears.

 
agreed
 
but there aren't any (valid) arguments from the subjective camp regarding measurements...only about the validity of the ABX/DBT.  it was my political answer to call those blurred lines LOL