[nick_charles]

 
I agree with you.  My Xonar Essence STXII has 124dB of SNR even so, when compared to my Alpha DAC, this old 16bit DAC beats the Xonar in reproducing much better sound. Specs don't always say the reality of reproducing the music. Lots of vintage turntables beat hands down lots of good modern DACs but all the CD sellers deny that.

 
 
Um, you have almost completely misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was merely pointing out that vinyl has a couple of technical areas in which it is superior, not that I consider vinyl an audibly superior medium, which I do not 

 

[nick_charles]

How many direct to disk LP recordings are there out there compared to those whose source was analog tape?

se

 
1970s Quadraphonic recordings used what 30K (?) carrier so technically LP can carry frequencies way above 20 Khz, how often it actually does this and whether it makes any material difference are other questions

 

[Steve Eddy]

Seriously  though, tell me about what is he talking about in the video.  Is he talking about birth control, about Obama's healthcare system, about gay & lesbian rights or perhaps about diet for women?
Can anyone else please tell Steve about what this guy is talking in this video?  thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7RcMBeWtXo&feature=youtu.be

What, you didn't actually watch the video? Or did you only watch it and not listen to what he was actually saying? Or did you only listen to selective portions of it?

First, he says, quite rightly, "From a technical point of view, a Compact Disc smokes an LP any day of the week, in terms of frequency response, separation, wow & flutter, noise, sibilance, anything you can think of."

But then he also states that his LPs were pressed before "...hyper compression and micro editing in Pro Tools..."

In other words, THINGS THAT HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING INHERENTLY TO DO WITH COMPACT DISC ITSELF!!!

How can you legitimately compare LP vs CD when you're bringing things into the discussion that have nothing inherently to do with CD?

Compact Disc IS A MEDIUM. You can no more blame CD as a medium based on the recording, editing, mixing and mastering decisions of record companies any more than you can blame books as a medium because book publishers choose to publish lousy stories.

If you're incapable of grasping this basic concept, then there's simply no possibility of an intelligent discussion with you.

If the YouYuber truly wanted to compare LP to CD, he'd compare the LP to a 16/44 needle drop of the same LP, preferably without peeking. If precedence is any indication, he wouldn't be able to distinguish the two.

se

 

[Steve Eddy]

1970s Quadraphonic recordings used what 30K (?) carrier so technically LP can carry frequencies way above 20 Khz, how often it actually does this and whether it makes any material difference are other questions

I'm talking about analog tape. Unless you were cutting direct to disk, the source was analog tape. How much is there above 20 kHz on analog tape that isn't little more than noise and distortion?

se

 

[BeatsWork]

Had to reread this thread from the top and floored at how wound up people can get. It's like trying to argue the technical superiority of an expensive mechanical watch vs. $10 Timex. The Timex would likely beat the $3,000 mechanical in accuracy, reliability and function but that completely misses the point.....

 

[nick_charles]

  Had to reread this thread from the top and floored at how wound up people can get. It's like trying to argue the technical superiority of an expensive mechanical watch vs. $10 Timex. The Timex would likely beat the $3,000 mechanical in accuracy, reliability and function but that completely misses the point.....

 
If the point is to tell the time accurately then the Timex wins, if the point is to show off how much money you have or how much you like bling then the expensive watch wins..
 
Also nobody ever got mugged for a $10 Timex afaik

 

[jnorris]

Had to reread this thread from the top and floored at how wound up people can get. It's like trying to argue the technical superiority of an expensive mechanical watch vs. $10 Timex. The Timex would likely beat the $3,000 mechanical in accuracy, reliability and function but that completely misses the point.....

 


Yes, it is getting ugly in here...

Good analogy, by the way.

 

[jnorris]

I'm talking about analog tape. Unless you were cutting direct to disk, the source was analog tape. How much is there above 20 kHz on analog tape that isn't little more than noise and distortion?



se

 


There is plenty above 20K on a good record. Cymbals, violins, percussion and other instruments often create sounds up there. I can't hear them, but I can see them on a spectrum analyzer. On the other hand, I can't attest to missing these frequencies if they weren't being reproduced.

 

[judgmentday]

A casual terrible singer may say the same words of the same song performed by a professional singer using the same microphone and all the equipment associated for singing but the professional singer will beat the casual terrible singer any day of the week.  Simply there is no comparison.

 

[dazzerfong]

  A casual terrible singer may say the same words of the same song performed by a professional singer using the same microphone and all the equipment associated for singing but the professional singer will beat the casual terrible singer any day of the week.  Simply there is no comparison.

And what's your point?

 

[judgmentday]

  And what's your point?

I have not listened yet to a CD, SACD or HD 24bit/96 file that sound as good as a LP.  All digital stuff sounds bright, thin, soft, dry, edgy, no space, sterile asss to me. I have auditioned all formats and nothing beats the LP. I have listened to $10k ~ $70k setups and digital cannot hold a candle to LP.  You digiphiles can argue for a million years but to me LP still is King. Now, go listen to your iTunes, be happy and enjoy your music.

 

[dazzerfong]

 
I have not listened yet to a CD, SACD or HD 24bit/96 file that sound as good as a LP.  All digital stuff sounds bright, thin, soft, dry, edgy, no space, sterile asss to me. I have auditioned all formats and nothing beats the LP. I have listened to $10k ~ $70k setups and digital cannot hold a candle to LP.  You digiphiles can argue for a million years but to me LP still is King. Now, go listen to your iTunes, be happy and enjoy your music.

You still don't understand: this is a preference. Perfectly fine: however, it's not because the CD/digital file isn't capable of doing it, but because whoever recorded it on the LP put a better track on it or that same recording doesn't exist on a CD. We're talking about the exact same thing planted on a CD or vinyl. That being said, of course there are tracks on vinyl that sound better on it than CD: after all, it's not even the same thing on a CD because nothing identical was made for CD.
 
And man, you really gotta stop being a dick. I'll do whatever the hell I want, and that doesn't involve iTunes.

 

[judgmentday]

  You still don't understand: this is a preference. Perfectly fine: however, it's not because the CD/digital file isn't capable of doing it, but because whoever recorded it on the LP put a better track on it or that same recording doesn't exist on a CD. We're talking about the exact same thing planted on a CD or vinyl. That being said, of course there are tracks on vinyl that sound better on it than CD: after all, it's not even the same thing on a CD because nothing identical was made for CD.
 
And man, you really gotta stop being a dick. I'll do whatever the hell I want, and that doesn't involve iTunes.

You asked what was my point and I gave you my point.  No pun intended though. There are some companies that still do analog mastering and recordings. I don't want any digital processing in my vinyl.

 

[Steve Eddy]

There is plenty above 20K on a good record. Cymbals, violins, percussion and other instruments often create sounds up there. I can't hear them, but I can see them on a spectrum analyzer. On the other hand, I can't attest to missing these frequencies if they weren't being reproduced.

Sure, there's "stuff" up there, but how much is actually content and not just distortion and noise? And again, short of direct to disk cutting, the source is going to be coming off an analog tape machine which presents a variety of limitations of its own.

se

 

[arnyk]

There is plenty above 20K on a good record. Cymbals, violins, percussion and other instruments often create sounds up there. I can't hear them, but I can see them on a spectrum analyzer. On the other hand, I can't attest to missing these frequencies if they weren't being reproduced.

 
Above 12 KHz or so the ability of the vinyl LP format to cleanly reproduce music at high levels falls into a deep hole because of the inherent nonlinear distortion associated with the geometry of trying to reproduce the audio signal by dragging a too-large rock through a too-soft soft plastic trough.
 
Analog tape has a completely different set of audible problems at those frequencies and higher. Unless you have everything lined up about perfectly, inconsistencies in how the tape passes over the tape head cause audio signals to waver and jump around. Just about anybody can hear 12 KHz tones, and if you try to record and play them back on anything but the most high quality and highly tuned analog tape machines, it sounds like a mess. The reason why this is not a stick-in-your eye problem with music is auditory masking.
 
It was long known that above 10-12 KHz both analog tape and the LP were in deep trouble that couldn't be helped due to the inherent limitations of the technologies, and that is what spurred the development of digital. Digital doesn't have audible problems unless they are forcibly induced by bad mastering.