[Baxide]

 
I still don't get it.  Sure there are some bad digital recordings as there are good ones. 

That's assuming that you are describing the recording. But more often than not, it is describing the equipment, and more often than not it would be the DAC.

 

[old tech]

  That's assuming that you are describing the recording. But more often than not, it is describing the equipment, and more often than not it would be the DAC.

I often hear it used in the context of the recording eg "that is a good CD, it has a very "analogue sound".  To me that is meaningless because any sound we can hear is analogue so the context it is being used is subjective to an individual.  The worst offenders I find are those that get more into vinyl records but they only seem to use this term when describing good digital recordings when that term, in this instance, presumably also applies to vinyl recordings so well mastered vinyl is then "analogue sounding" but the term is never used in this way.  I suppose it would complicate things, for example what about poor vinyl recordings - are they "not analogue sounding" or something else?
 
With regard to evaluation equipment or DACs it is weirder.  Analogue sounding in this context would mean noticeable noise, artefacts and non-linearity.  Why is that something worth striving for as opposed to say "digital sounding" to mean accurate, imperceptible noise and minimal artefacts?

 

[Baxide]

 
I often hear it used in the context of the recording eg "that is a good CD, it has a very "analogue sound".  To me that is meaningless because any sound we can hear is analogue so the context it is being used is subjective to an individual.  The worst offenders I find are those that get more into vinyl records but they only seem to use this term when describing good digital recordings when that term, in this instance, presumably also applies to vinyl recordings so well mastered vinyl is then "analogue sounding" but the term is never used in this way.  I suppose it would complicate things, for example what about poor vinyl recordings - are they "not analogue sounding" or something else?
 
With regard to evaluation equipment or DACs it is weirder.  Analogue sounding in this context would mean noticeable noise, artefacts and non-linearity.  Why is that something worth striving for as opposed to say "digital sounding" to mean accurate, imperceptible noise and minimal artefacts?

I know it is difficult to see the tress through the woods with so many leaves blocking the view. But you'll get the jest after a while. Don't take thing literally, so to speak.
As for vinyl: that's the reference source for the analogue description. Digital music strives to be just as nice sounding to the ear. The kind of noises you get from digital music when there is an error cannot be found in an analogue only system. So you won't find jitter in a vinyl system.

 

[castleofargh]

I use analog vs digital to make it clear which output I'm talking about on a device. or which part of a the design of a DAC I'm talking about. most subjective uses of "analog sound" are IMO erroneous ways to say "euphonic" while implying some passive aggressive hatred toward digital processing(usually also for erroneous reasons).
 
 
Quote:

 

 
I often hear it used in the context of the recording eg "that is a good CD, it has a very "analogue sound".  To me that is meaningless because any sound we can hear is analogue so the context it is being used is subjective to an individual.  The worst offenders I find are those that get more into vinyl records but they only seem to use this term when describing good digital recordings when that term, in this instance, presumably also applies to vinyl recordings so well mastered vinyl is then "analogue sounding" but the term is never used in this way.  I suppose it would complicate things, for example what about poor vinyl recordings - are they "not analogue sounding" or something else?
 
With regard to evaluation equipment or DACs it is weirder.  Analogue sounding in this context would mean noticeable noise, artefacts and non-linearity.  Why is that something worth striving for as opposed to say "digital sounding" to mean accurate, imperceptible noise and minimal artefacts?

I know it is difficult to see the tress through the woods with so many leaves blocking the view. But you'll get the jest after a while. Don't take thing literally, so to speak.
As for vinyl: that's the reference source for the analogue description. Digital music strives to be just as nice sounding to the ear. The kind of noises you get from digital music when there is an error cannot be found in an analogue only system. So you won't find jitter in a vinyl system.

no it's not, digital music has long since outperformed vinyls in fidelity, if you don't like that sound, blame the guys recording and mastering, not digital music. nobody is trying to make a digital media that sounds like vinyls, that would require to add so much noise/disto/crosstalk/EQ that it would make no sense on a media aiming at fidelity.
about jitter.... between the fact that temporal errors are so much more massive on vinyls, and the fact that typical jitter values are yet to be showed audible in usual consumer products, I suspect you've created in your head a relation between what you dislike in CD music and jitter that doesn't really exist.
and about the "kind of noises", vinyls have tremendously more and way louder "noises" than a cd.
 
I don't mind having preferences for vinyls, but please don't try to justify them with false objective reasons. taste is taste, fidelity is fidelity. vinyl doesn't even reach CD in fidelity so it's not by adding more bits or whatever that you'll get a sound closer to vinyls. if anything you should objectively suggest the opposite.
anyway, vinyls and CD aren't usually the same masters anyway, so I wonder how much of the media you're blaming for what are really mastering choices?

 

[Baxide]

  no it's not, digital music has long since outperformed vinyls in fidelity, if you don't like that sound, blame the guys recording and mastering, not digital music. nobody is trying to make a digital media that sounds like vinyls, that would require to add so much noise/disto/crosstalk/EQ that it would make no sense on a media aiming at fidelity.
about jitter.... between the fact that temporal errors are so much more massive on vinyls, and the fact that typical jitter values are yet to be showed audible in usual consumer products, I suspect you've created in your head a relation between what you dislike in CD music and jitter that doesn't really exist.
and about the "kind of noises", vinyls have tremendously more and way louder "noises" than a cd.
 
I don't mind having preferences for vinyls, but please don't try to justify them with false objective reasons. taste is taste, fidelity is fidelity. vinyl doesn't even reach CD in fidelity so it's not by adding more bits or whatever that you'll get a sound closer to vinyls. if anything you should objectively suggest the opposite.
anyway, vinyls and CD aren't usually the same masters anyway, so I wonder how much of the media you're blaming for what are really mastering choices?

Oh, the irony of it all.
Vinyl reproduction is only inferior than digital in the area of possibility of having a lower signal to noise ratio. Much of the illnesses you attribute to vinyl is really down to the turntable/arm/cartridge and the phono stage. As far as musicality is concerned, vinyl still reigns supremely.  

 

[RRod]

 
Oh, the irony of it all.
Vinyl reproduction is only inferior than digital in the area of possibility of having a lower signal to noise ratio. Much of the illnesses you attribute to vinyl is really down to the turntable/arm/cartridge and the phono stage. As far as musicality is concerned, vinyl still reigns supremely.  

 
If people want to debate vinyl, start a thread (or resurrect an old one) and provide counter-arguments to this.

 

[gregorio]

  What does one mean by an "analogue sound"?  I thought all sound is analogue, otherwise we wouldn't hear it.

 
All sound has to be acoustic otherwise we wouldn't hear it. Of course, all recorded sound (inc. digital) goes through two or more analogue stages but usually, "analogue sound" refers to the artefacts introduced by analogue recording/mixing; treble roll-off and mid-bass emphasis (as you mentioned) and tape saturation for example. Some audiophiles use the term incorrectly though, essentially as castleofargh mentioned, instead of "euphonic": Analogue is intrinsically "warm" and therefore nice, digital is not and is therefore not nice. This leads many of the more extreme audiophiles to erroneously assume that digital wants to be like analogue and even that analogue is higher fidelity.
 
Quote:

  [1] Vinyl reproduction is only inferior than digital in the area of possibility of having a lower signal to noise ratio. [2] Much of the illnesses you attribute to vinyl is really down to the turntable/arm/cartridge and the phono stage. [3] As far as musicality is concerned, vinyl still reigns supremely.  

 
1. Vinyl reproduction is inferior to digital in EVERY area, except possibly one, how easy it is to create/add distortion.
2. "Much" but by no means all. And, if you eliminate the turntable/arm/cartridge and phono stages, how are you actually going to play your vinyl?
3. I take it this is some sort of audiophile usage/abuse of the term "musicality"? I want my audio equipment to be as aurally invisible as possible because the "musicality" put there by the actual musicians/artists is what really reigns supreme! Again though, I realise this is not the case with some audiophiles who are not really interested in listening to the music, just the sound of their audio equipment.
 
G

 

[nick_charles]

   
If people want to debate vinyl, start a thread (or resurrect an old one) and provide counter-arguments to this.

 
 
There is also a very interesting and mostly non-ideological description of the physics of vinyl playback from Jim leSurf at St. Andrews University

 

[old tech]

   
1. Vinyl reproduction is inferior to digital in EVERY area, except possibly one, how easy it is to create/add distortion.
2. "Much" but by no means all. And, if you eliminate the turntable/arm/cartridge and phono stages, how are you actually going to play your vinyl?
3. I take it this is some sort of audiophile usage/abuse of the term "musicality"? I want my audio equipment to be as aurally invisible as possible because the "musicality" put there by the actual musicians/artists is what really reigns supreme! Again though, I realise this is not the case with some audiophiles who are not really interested in listening to the music, just the sound of their audio equipment.
 
G

 
Back in the early 80s, before my first CD player, I bought a laser turntable.  That reproduced sound better than my Linn TT (as it was back then) but it was a pain to use due to its extreme sensitivity to dust and static.  I spent more time cleaning a record than playing it. 
 
I can't vouch for the veracity of this story, a late friend of the family who was an executive for Sony's Australasian operations once told me that in the 70s the company was at one stage seriously looking at a new LP format, based on a smaller diameter version of the analogue laser videodisc introduced by Pioneer.  It would have combined the advantages of the laser player with a better approach to the vinyl record.  However it would have required the record industry to invest heavily in a new LP format at the time when digital audio was making progress.  The introduction of the CD killed that idea permanently.
 
I agree that the statement "vinyl is king" in regard to sound quality is misinformed as there are no objective analogue measurements to support such a claim - subjectively though YMMV.  There is a reasonably dispassionate youtube video in the link below which discusses this aspect.
 
The other thing which I find strange with some audiophiles that prefer analogue recordings/playback is why then worship vinyl when there are better analogue formats?  A good rtr will beat vinyl and so too would a hifi VCR recording in audio mode.  I had an early Pioneer hifi VCR and when recording CDs to it, it was difficult to tell apart the CD from the tape.  As far as I am aware, of all the consumer analogue equipment it was the hifi VCR which came closest to CD analogue metrics.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnxexlHRY2E

 

[castleofargh]

clearly, high fidelity analog doesn't sound at all like vinyl. to decide that vinyl is the front runner of analog sound to the point of replacing "vinyl sound" by "analog sound" in posts, is in itself demonstrating a massive misunderstanding over what analog sounds like.  so there really isn't anything to discuss. as long as people decide they can bend reality and misuse words to fit their taste, nothing real will come out of it. and real is supposedly what we're looking for in that section.
if vinyl was objectively offering something better, I figure we would have heard of it by now. so please let's go back to digital resolutions.

 

[christian u]

MQA;

 

MQA: ON THE THRESHOLD

Blog​

by
 
Robert Harley
 | Jan 14th, 2016

Categories:
 
Music servers and computer audio

Regular readers know that I’m enthusiastic about the potential of Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), the new digital encoding and decoding system that delivers better-than-hi-res sound quality at approximately CD bit-rates. I first heard this technology as an unnamed work-in-progress two years ago at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show. In a closed-door listening session at this year's show, I heard some remarkable comparisons that showcased just how good MQA can sound.

MQA appears to be on the threshold of becoming a commercial reality. MQA announced at CES partnerships with the giant smartphone maker HTC, along with Bluesound, Auralic, and Aurender. New software support comes from the audiophile record label 2L, along with 7digital, a company that powers several download and streaming services, including onkyomusic. The list of companies slated to introduce MQA-capable DACs expanded to include Berkeley Audio Design, dCS, and others. These brands join Meridian Audio, Mytek, Pioneer, and Onkyo, which have previously announced MQA support. A number of other prominent manufacturers told me that they are also working on MQA-capable DACs.

It seems likely that the streaming service Tidal might begin offering MQA files soon. I saw a new version of the Tidal app and several integrated versions that incorporated MQA support. Back in March 2015, Tidal’s Strategic Partnership Manager, Pål Bråtelund, said that Tidal was already working on encoding in MQA its library of more than 30 million songs.

Concurrent with these announcements, MQA has posted on YouTube a series of short videos explaining what MQA is and how it works. We’ve posted links to those videos attheabsolutesound.com.

In the listening session, I heard comparisons between original high-resolution recordings and the MQA files created from those recordings. I also listened to a 44.1kHz/16-bit recording converted to MQA, plus an MQA file with a bit-rate of  1.3Mbps that had been created from an original DXD recording at 27Mbps. Finally, I listened to MQA streamed via Tidal over the hotel’s WiFi network. The playback system was a Meridian 818 Controller/DAC feeding a D’Agostino Momentum stereo amplifier, and Wilson Sasha 2 loudspeakers, all wired with Transparent cabling.       

    

The listening session lasted about 45 minutes one morning before the show opened. MQA co-architect Bob Stuart and Wilson Audio’s Peter McGrath (who also happens to be one of the world’s finest classical-music recording engineers) were on hand. We first listened to one of Peter’s spectacular opera recordings (Tosca) in the recording’s original 88.2kHz/24-bit format. Then, seconds into the MQA version, my jaw dropped—literally. MQA’s dramatic superiority made the original high-resolution file sound like a pale imitation of the performance, a view shared by Peter. Before the music even began the hall sounded larger, with the acoustic better defined. A glare was stripped away from instrumental textures, leaving behind a gorgeously liquid rendering of timbre. The positions of instruments on the stage, and of the musicians within the acoustic, were precisely defined. Even the applause at the end (it was a live recording) was vastly more realistic. Now consider that the original file had a bit-rate of 4.237Mbs, and the MQA file a bit-rate of 1.4Mbps—low enough to be streamed.

 http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/from-the-editor-mqa-on-the-threshold/

 

[sonitus mirus]

Since we are apparently posting old links:
 
http://www.avsforum.com/schiit-audio-explicitly-rejects-mqa/

 

[christian u]

Thanks. I had not read that. That is putting mqa in a different light. pheww....

 

[Mifi]

 We first listened to one of Peter’s spectacular opera recordings (Tosca) in the recording’s original 88.2kHz/24-bit format. Then, seconds into the MQA version, my jaw dropped—literally. MQA’s dramatic superiority made the original high-resolution file sound like a pale imitation of the performance,

How can a compressed file sound better than the original?

 

[DecentLevi]

Because although the MQA format is compressed, it's of a completely different codec which still has more bits / resolution than the 88/24khz format