[arnyk]

The fact that there's at least one potentially better master tells me enough: that the master can be potentially better.

 
Technically speaking one can't tell much about the recording used to master a LP because the LP process mangles the master that badly. One thing for sure - if the LP has better technical properties than the digital versions, they were, for lack of a better term, intentionally sabotaged.
 
In contrast, you can tell a great deal about the recording used to master a CD, FLA, AIF or WAV digital file because they are probably a bit-perfect reproductions of it.
 
Recordings used to master perceptually coded (MP3, AAC, MP4) file aren't exact representations of their masters, but they are usually far closer than the LPs.

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Rational reasons to love vinyl

 
because you can put some tunes on and relax without being pestered to death by demands you share. love, add to yet another bloody playlist, watch the sodding video, wait while we share a few choice words with our sponsor, pay for an in tune addon upgrade, upload to the cloud or any of the rest of all that old bollocks.

 

[arnyk]

   
because you can put some tunes on and relax without being pestered to death by demands you share. love, add to yet another bloody playlist, watch the sodding video, wait while we share a few choice words with our sponsor, pay for an in tune addon upgrade, upload to the cloud or any of the rest of all that old bollocks.

 
Sorry you weren't around for the good old days of the CD.

 

[judgmentday]

  BTW, is it bad if I just can't stand the noise and crack of vinyls? Don't get me wrong, I understand the sentimental value of them, but I just can't stand listening to it. Is the improvement of audio quality (at least of the recording) enough to really compensate for the crackle and noise? Maybe I just need a better turntable or something.

Interesting! You cannot stand the pops, needle drop and background noise of a LP in no so good shape, but you can stand the brightness, no space, bad separation, loudness and thin sound of the CD?
I'll take the needle drop and background noise any day, but I'll be listening to the closest and faithful live music performance available (if well mastered & recorded), enjoying: bigger piano notes, cymbal sound with extension, real presence of claves, conga drums, bass drum, snare, very well-tuned drums, bigger vocals, a tenor sax sounds like a tenor sax and not like a sopranino sax or an alto sax, better presence of the background of violins, violas, harp, cello, double bass, xylophone, chimes, etc.
To each its own, not too many people are good musicians and much less not everybody has a great set of trained ears.  For a meticulous audiophile with a two channels home stereo in the thousands of dollars, vinyl is still king. For most people a 128kb mp3 sounds good enough, ha, ha, ha

The AMG Viella 12 turntable $16K
 
Have you listened to something like this baby?
You will burn all your cds after you listen to this music experience
Read about it here:
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/amg-viella-12-turntable-and-tonearm/
HD & 24bit/96kHz are put to shame compared to this baby. Ha, ha, ha.

 

[jnorris]

Interesting! You cannot stand the pops, needle drop and background noise of a LP in no so good shape, but you can stand the brightness, no space, bad separation, loudness and thin sound of the CD?
 
 
Let's get something straight.  Yes, there are CDs that suffer the above issues - especially of certain genres.  But there are records, many of them as a matter of fact, that are lacking bass or treble or both, crackle or waggle side to side due to poor pressings, ride up and down like a roller coaster due to warpage, and, if the record was released during the petroleum shortage years, are pressed on vinyl with high quantities of grundgy-sounding filler added.  Add to these "features" the fact that most nooby vinyl-heads are listening on Teac or Ion turntables with junk, low-end Shure or A-T cartridges through phono pre-amps of questionable quality and equalization accuracy (or worse, those awful ceramic cartridges that required no pre-amp), and which are mounted on stereo "cabinets" that provide no isolation from low-frequency feedback - assuming there are any low frequencies.  I'll bet less than 1% of these people have even bothered to align the cartridge correctly so they are probably listening to massive amounts of inner or outer groove distortion.
 
On the other hand, how many of us can afford $16,000 for a turntable (not including cartridge, by the way), as well as the time and/or expense of correctly setting it up?  Even if you could you would still be playing through the same defects that I mentioned earlier.
 
Do records sound better than CDs?  They can, but all too often they don't. 
 
Now if you want to talk about the warm-and-fuzzy process of lovingly cleaning a record, placing it on the turntable, and gingerly setting the tonearm down on it, versus tossing a CD into the tray and pressing play, I get it 100%.

 

[jcx]

 ...bad separation,...

you have to be kidding - you do realize vinyl LP is mixed to mono at low frequency - and that its hard to find any phono cartridge specing channel separation - at best a vauge "better than 35 dB"
 
another fairly established objective spec correlation that most believe would be that the audibility of "better presence of the background..." would be better with higher signal to noise and  lower intermodulation distortions - both of which good digital audio, even RedBook CD, gets orders of magnitude better than vinyl
 

listening to the closest and faithful live music performance available (if well mastered & recorded)

there no question that recording, mastering and production for release are often different for digital vs vinyl - but studio engineers, many audiophiles do hear the digital as far more accurate to the mic feed than vinyl playback
 
the list of manipulations to make music fit the cutting lathe limits, the stamper mother-daughter replication errors, stylus, tonearm tracking, tracing error.. the list goes on - for hundereds of pages documented in the pro trade journals during the heyday of vinyl
and a good fraction of the people that mastered that knowhow - maintaining, calibrating the analog tape machines as well as the vinyl production machinery, processes are now retired or dead of old age
 
even analog magnetic tape is in even the highest end studios today most often considered a deliberate, sound altering processing step - you would bounce the digital to tape for the "taste" - but do everything else in digital
 
 
ever try a  hi rez digital recording of one of your beloved vinyl needle drops - can you tell the difference?

 

[jnorris]

Oh, and by the way, that $16,000 turntable/cartridge combo was reviewed while connected to a phono pre-amp and line stage that cost $13,000 each.  That's $42,000, not including an amplifier or speakers.  And the records are still warped and grungy.

 

[judgmentday]

  Interesting! You cannot stand the pops, needle drop and background noise of a LP in no so good shape, but you can stand the brightness, no space, bad separation, loudness and thin sound of the CD?
 
 
Let's get something straight.  Yes, there are CDs that suffer the above issues - especially of certain genres.  But there are records, many of them as a matter of fact, that are lacking bass or treble or both, crackle or waggle side to side due to poor pressings, ride up and down like a roller coaster due to warpage, and, if the record was released during the petroleum shortage years, are pressed on vinyl with high quantities of grundgy-sounding filler added.  Add to these "features" the fact that most nooby vinyl-heads are listening on Teac or Ion turntables with junk, low-end Shure or A-T cartridges through phono pre-amps of questionable quality and equalization accuracy (or worse, those awful ceramic cartridges that required no pre-amp), and which are mounted on stereo "cabinets" that provide no isolation from low-frequency feedback - assuming there are any low frequencies.  I'll bet less than 1% of these people have even bothered to align the cartridge correctly so they are probably listening to massive amounts of inner or outer groove distortion.
 
On the other hand, how many of us can afford $16,000 for a turntable (not including cartridge, by the way), as well as the time and/or expense of correctly setting it up?  Even if you could you would still be playing through the same defects that I mentioned earlier.
 
Do records sound better than CDs?  They can, but all too often they don't. 
 
Now if you want to talk about the warm-and-fuzzy process of lovingly cleaning a record, placing it on the turntable, and gingerly setting the tonearm down on it, versus tossing a CD into the tray and pressing play, I get it 100%.

I have only 2 high resolution CDs out of all my cd collection:  Diana Krall "Live in Paris" track #3 Deed I do (live) and the Rebecca Pidgeon "The Raven" track #12 Spanish Harlem and like you say, I just put in my Delta Transport and plays fine but still there is lots of brightness and thin sounds. Guess what reproduces the better sound?  of course, everybody agrees, the LP version.  CD $7.00 LP $70.00. Who in their right mind is going to spend 7 times more money for something that would have inferior quality sound? Plus having all the inconveniences of vinyl caring vs. just putting a CD in a player if CD was a better sound?  Even a 3k turntable gives a hard time to any CD setup, imaging a 16K plus? LP is already an analog signal just needs the right amplification, CD and other digital machines only get samples of the real music.  Vinyl is a constant signal, transistors are turning on and off devices that only translate 0s and 1s in analog signal to give an idea of real music.

 

[judgmentday]

 
Oh, and by the way, that $16,000 turntable/cartridge combo was reviewed while connected to a phono pre-amp and line stage that cost $13,000 each.  That's $42,000, not including an amplifier or speakers.  And the records are still warped and grungy.

NO! you will not dare to put a $3 worn, dirty or scratched LP on this very expensive setup. Just 160, 180 and 200 grams audiophile grade vinyl.  You don't want to put a $50.00 used tire on a 1/2 a million Lamborghini.

 

[jcx]

do the ADC-DAC bypass test from your phono preamp output - avoids the "poor mastering" excuse - even dual layer SACD/CD have been found with obvious mastering differences making the CD layer on the same disk sound different
 
people will be happy to make any excuse to take your money - "higher quality" in any particular dimension isn't guaranteed by higher price, greater inconvenience - but those factors alone seem to be a big part of the sell in high end audio
 
 
and this is the "Sound Science" subforum - you should expect naive gushing assertions to be met with skepticism - pointers to logical flaws and possible false correlations you are apparently embracing instead of examining

 

[nick_charles]

 
I have only 2 high resolution CDs out of all my cd collection:  Diana Krall "Live in Paris" track #3 Deed I do (live) and the Rebecca Pidgeon "The Raven" track #12 Spanish Harlem and like you say, I just put in my Delta Transport and plays fine but still there is lots of brightness and thin sounds. Guess what reproduces the better sound?  of course, everybody agrees, the LP version.  CD $7.00 LP $70.00. Who in their right mind is going to spend 7 times more money for something that would have inferior quality sound? Plus having all the inconveniences of vinyl caring vs. just putting a CD in a player if CD was a better sound?  Even a 3k turntable gives a hard time to any CD setup, imaging a 16K plus? LP is already an analog signal just needs the right amplification, CD and other digital machines only get samples of the real music.  Vinyl is a constant signal, transistors are turning on and off devices that only translate 0s and 1s in analog signal to give an idea of real music.

 
 
Mostly all you are presenting is preference, which is fine,  but does not speak to any underlying superiority of the medium, nor does different mastering dictate the limits of what can and cannot be done. If a given LP is better mastered than a given CD that is not a measure of the underlying technical capabilities. 
 
What we do know beyond a doubt is that in the audible spectrum in all important areas of reproduction the humble CD does significantly better (Noise, Distortion, Speed stability, timing errors, dynamic range, consistency from start to finish) , the LP is lucky to return an SNR of 80db (so 13.5 or so bits max), cannot do stereo bass at all below 80 Hz, has to have the levels dropped drastically towards the center and so on. 
 
The laws of physics do not care how much the TT/preamp costs the limits are well known and there is no range within the audible spectrum where the capability of even immaculately produced vinyl gets close to the capability of CD. CD will happily reproduce full scale bass down to 4 Hz try that on any TT or try a full scale 20 Khz tone at the center of the LP surface. 
 
What anyone prefers is of course up to them
 
On another note you spend $16K+ for the player and $70 for the medium and still have to listen to noise - that is hardly rational ! 

 

[jnorris]

 
I have only 2 high resolution CDs out of all my cd collection:  Diana Krall "Live in Paris" track #3 Deed I do (live) and the Rebecca Pidgeon "The Raven" track #12 Spanish Harlem and like you say, I just put in my Delta Transport and plays fine but still there is lots of brightness and thin sounds. Guess what reproduces the better sound?  of course, everybody agrees, the LP version.  CD $7.00 LP $70.00. Who in their right mind is going to spend 7 times more money for something that would have inferior quality sound? Plus having all the inconveniences of vinyl caring vs. just putting a CD in a player if CD was a better sound?  Even a 3k turntable gives a hard time to any CD setup, imaging a 16K plus? LP is already an analog signal just needs the right amplification, CD and other digital machines only get samples of the real music.  Vinyl is a constant signal, transistors are turning on and off devices that only translate 0s and 1s in analog signal to give an idea of real music.

 
 
Vinyl is a constant signal, transistors are turning on and off devices that only translate 0s and 1s in analog signal to give an idea of real music.
 
Sorry, judge, but statements like that blur your credibility
 
Guess what reproduces the better sound?
 
In your opinion!  Perhaps someone else thought that the CD sounds more like the original master, whereas the record adds euphonic coloration.
 
LP is already an analog signal just needs the right amplification,
 
Both analog and digital music go through massive amounts of processing between the time the musicians played it in the studio and your speakers play it in your home.  Both processes include phase and time-delay shifting equalization, and compression.  Processing for records includes manipulating low frequencies towards the center, equalizing to and from RIAA standards, and compressing peaks so as not to send the stylus into the air.  Digital processing includes ADC-DAC conversions, high-frequency filters, bass boost, treble boost and volume boost "just because we can!"

 

[jnorris]

  NO! you will not dare to put a $3 worn, dirty or scratched LP on this very expensive setup. Just 160, 180 and 200 grams audiophile grade vinyl.  You don't want to put a $50.00 used tire on a 1/2 a million Lamborghini.

 
So I'm going to pay all that money for a turntable on which I can only play the scant collection of music available on audiophile grade vinyl?  To use your analogy, that would be like buying that Lamborghini and only driving it in the driveway.

 

[judgmentday]

you have to be kidding - you do realize vinyl LP is mixed to mono at low frequency - and that its hard to find any phono cartridge specing channel separation - at best a vauge "better than 35 dB"
 
another fairly established objective spec correlation that most believe would be that the audibility of "better presence of the background..." would be better with higher signal to noise and  lower intermodulation distortions - both of which good digital audio, even RedBook CD, gets orders of magnitude better than vinyl

I agree with you here.  This is to show that specs don't say anything but real world reproduction of the music. I often question myself, tubes are so noisy, yet why tube amps sound much better than solid state amps? LPs have their negatives for an audiophile yet still sound so great. A tube headphone amp sounds much better than a solid state amp even though could be noisy at times.

 there no question that recording, mastering and production for release are often different for digital vs vinyl - but studio engineers, many audiophiles do hear the digital as far more accurate to the mic feed than vinyl playback

Part of the big problem now days with mastering and recording of the music are the studio engineers that to me are completely deaf. They don't have any talent at all. Anyone who can put a pair of headphones on his/her ears is a studio engineer. There are some recordings that they have the channels inverted, ha, ha, ha

 

[judgmentday]

   
So I'm going to pay all that money for a turntable on which I can only play the scant collection of music available on audiophile grade vinyl?  To use your analogy, that would be like buying that Lamborghini and only driving it in the driveway.

It's true, yet people buy those expensive toys.  You and me may not afford it but I pursue it. One enjoys what he/she can have. What I don't like is that the digital industry lied to all of us.  Phillips & Sony made billions of dollars selling us the CD as the ultimate format for high end music and simply is not true, then they tried with  the SACD and we all know what happened to this format, recently they are selling us the blu-ray that is supposed to have the same quality of sound as of the original recording.  Does is it really?   I don't think so.
However, an entry level turntable about $1k ~ 2K will sound a lot better than a $5k ~ $7K Transport/DAC setup.  I listened to the $15K Audio Research Reference DAC and was not impressed.  The problem with this expensive DACs is that even if you can afford it there is no recordings well mastered or recorded because the mastering engineers are deaf and you end up with a bright, thin, loud and harsh sound.  You feed trash to an expensive DAC you get trash.  You are still limited to a few well done recordings just like in the case of the very expensive turntable with a few audiophile grade LPs.  Mmmm, guess what? I'll try to get into the mastering and recording business, ha, ha, ha.