arnyk
Repeatedly defended arguments with personal attacks.
- Joined
- May 30, 2015
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So, here's my take on the most pervasive "reasons" why vinyl is so attractive to some (many?). Not always "rational", but I'm tossing these out there for further debate.
1. Nostalgia. Retro-cool factor of TTs and vinyl.
2. Vinyl playback (like tubed amps) tends to produce low-order harmonic distortion, which is apparently much less objectionable than high-order harmonic distortion.
3. Tactile and olfactory pleasure centers in our brain are better stimulated than with CDs. The "ritual" theory of vinyl: handling the LP, positioning the tonearm on the disc, jacket art, etc.
All of these (and more) likely stimulate the emotional centers of the human brain, especially the ventral tegmental area (source of dopamine) and perhaps even the amygdala (processes fear and emotional memories). Perhaps CDs don't stimulate these as much as vinyl, in some individuals.
(2) is an audiophile myth. Any nonlinearity that produces low-order distortion also creates aharmonic (that means non-harmonic) IM.
The low order harmonics are at the same frequencies as the harmonics that are naturally generated by the musical instrument and are thus masked and are thus relatively hard to hear.
The IM products fall at all sorts of odd frequencies all over the audio band, are far less likely to be masked, and are likely to sound ugly.
You can't have one without the other unless you are listening to music composed of a single pure tone - sort of like listening to a test oscillator or a theremin.
(1) and (3) are not technical effects but instead are about preference, and of course that is up to you.