[bigshot]

I think some of the preference for vinyl comes from people with systems with high frequency response imbalances or spikes. I've found that listening fatigue is directly related to response. I know my ears are very sensitive to high volumes in upper ranges. LPs roll off the top frequencies, so my guess is that without those frequencies present, the imbalance problems don't exist. They make up for it with a little forwardness in the midrange. If someone prefers a warmer sound with some midrange punch, it is drop dead easy to do that with an equalizer.

It's harder to fix when the problem is the condition of the masters. Legacy titles with 40 year old master tapes might sound better on LP simply because the tapes have aged and become damaged. Also, mixes get monkeyed with by revisionist engineering. But none of this has anything to do with the vinyl format itself.

The quality of LPs varied greatly. I had a late period Capitol pressing and it sounded terrible. Then I got a white vinyl UK pressing and it sounded great. The CD sounded OK to me. But now I have the multichannel blu-ray, and that sounds better than the album ever sounded. It all depends.

 

[iridium7777]

anyone that buys a newly issued vinyl album that was recorded and mastered in digital to begin with:

1. is a poser
2. has no discerning knowledge about vinyl to begin with
3. is a fool parted with their money

any vinyl collector that's worth anything would only collect albums that were analog masters to begin with.

 

[Audman71]

anyone that buys a newly issued vinyl album that was recorded and mastered in digital to begin with:

1. is a poser
2. has no discerning knowledge about vinyl to begin with
3. is a fool parted with their money

any vinyl collector that's worth anything would only collect albums that were analog masters to begin with.

You know, that was more or less my initial thinking going into this thread, but after reading many of the responses people have said, my opinion has changed drastically. There’s more to it than what you just said.

 

[iridium7777]

then just run everything through tubes with some vintage speakers and you're 100% there without being a poser and hearing the creaking and popping.

if you bought your turntable at urban outfitters and along the latest "record" of cold war kids and claim that you hear this phenomenal vinyl sound -- you're not.

You know, that was more or less my initial thinking going into this thread, but after reading many of the responses people have said, my opinion has changed drastically. There’s more to it than what you just said.

 

[bigshot]

It's analogue... the more noise and distortion, the better, right?

 

[iridium7777]

no worries, Sony solved it for the people, just get the WM1A and run everything through the Vinyl Processor setting: Vinyl Processor “recreates the warm, rich playback of a record on a turntable.” Once you go to the screen for this effect, you will see an image of turntable and a drop down box with 4 types of the effects, Standard, Arm Resonance, Turntable Resonance, and Surface Noise.

crazy good i tell you.

It's analogue... the more noise and distortion, the better, right?

 

[Audman71]

then just run everything through tubes with some vintage speakers and you're 100% there without being a poser and hearing the creaking and popping.

if you bought your turntable at urban outfitters and along the latest "record" of cold war kids and claim that you hear this phenomenal vinyl sound -- you're not.

Let me clarify: I stand by my thoughts about the irony of listening to vinyl pressed from a digital source.

What’s changed is that I assumed in the beginning audiophiles want the best, most natural sound quality possible. After reading through this thread it seems that the type of person who would buy vinyl even from a digital source, audiophiles included, is because it colors the sound, not because it sounds accurate.

 

[old tech]

no worries, Sony solved it for the people, just get the WM1A and run everything through the Vinyl Processor setting: Vinyl Processor “recreates the warm, rich playback of a record on a turntable.” Once you go to the screen for this effect, you will see an image of turntable and a drop down box with 4 types of the effects, Standard, Arm Resonance, Turntable Resonance, and Surface Noise.

crazy good i tell you.

No IGD effect?

 

[bigshot]

You could create a playlist for an album side for that. There should also be crackly distorted 45s too.

 

[megabigeye]

I hear Astell & Kern are coming out with a DAP that will melt if you leave it in the sun. And FiiO's next been thing can be played on a Fisher Price.

 

[iridium7777]

i'm not a vinyl collector so i don't know, but i don't think original vinyl pressing would offer the most neutral sound quality? i take back all my comments actually, i don't want to piss in anyone's cheerios and if somebody thinks that running a digital pressing of a vinyl is the most amazing sound ever and it makes them happy then i'm happy about them enjoying their music in such a fashion.


to me, the digital pressed vinyl is equivalent of an oil painting that got digitally scanned and then "printed" on a canvass 1 billion times and sells anywhere from 50-200$. but again, there are a lot of people that buy these and hang these in their house and it makes them happy.

Let me clarify: I stand by my thoughts about the irony of listening to vinyl pressed from a digital source.

What’s changed is that I assumed in the beginning audiophiles want the best, most natural sound quality possible. After reading through this thread it seems that the type of person who would buy vinyl even from a digital source, audiophiles included, is because it colors the sound, not because it sounds accurate.

 

[bigshot]

Vinyl is not neutral. It's colored. The sound goes through RIAA decoding. The response isn't as precisely flat. There is distortion, wow and flutter. Digital is direct 20 to 20 with no audible distortion.

There are two advantages to LP records... the covers are larger and have more readable graphics, and there is a lot of music that was released on LP that never got released on digital. That is it. There is no sonic advantage inherent to the format.

 

[stonesfan129]

I don't know if I would so far as to call them posers... I think it's more accurate to call them ignorant. There is a whole slough of scientific research that suggests digital audio can recreate the original audio more accurately than any analog format can. I think people simply prefer the distortion/inaccuracy that vinyl imparts on the sound. I notice a lot of people (especially older people) enjoy the hobby of building up a system (kind of like restoring old cars). The real advantage I guess to vinyl is that the sound has not been destroyed by dynamic range compression like it has been with some CDs. But then my opinion is that cassettes on a quality deck would give you better sound than a vinyl LP.

 

[old tech]

I don't know if I would so far as to call them posers... I think it's more accurate to call them ignorant. There is a whole slough of scientific research that suggests digital audio can recreate the original audio more accurately than any analog format can. I think people simply prefer the distortion/inaccuracy that vinyl imparts on the sound. I notice a lot of people (especially older people) enjoy the hobby of building up a system (kind of like restoring old cars). The real advantage I guess to vinyl is that the sound has not been destroyed by dynamic range compression like it has been with some CDs. But then my opinion is that cassettes on a quality deck would give you better sound than a vinyl LP.

Yep, good quality decks from around the 1980s on, using high bias tapes typically outperform even the very best turntable/cart/pre-amp/vinyl record combinations. The problem though is finding good quality pre-recorded cassettes - MFSL did some for a while but they are fairly rare - so you only get to appreciate the capabilities from live recordings or recordings from a CD.

 

[stonesfan129]

Yep, good quality decks from around the 1980s on, using high bias tapes typically outperform even the very best turntable/cart/pre-amp/vinyl record combinations. The problem though is finding good quality pre-recorded cassettes - MFSL did some for a while but they are fairly rare - so you only get to appreciate the capabilities from live recordings or recordings from a CD.

I think the vinyl pressing quality isn't what it used to be either. There are a few exceptions, but a lot of the vinyl they make now is noisy, poor pressing quality and digitally-sourced anyway.