Albedo
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It's obvious he still have a grudge against Stein Pedersen of Prosonix -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgxj-TvsujQ&fmt=35
"the vinyl has been replaced by the CD, largely inferior in quality"
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leeperry
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So, he's whining about the loss of vinyl and the decline of audio quality, and then introduces... an iPod speakerstand?
Nice way to sum up 9 pages, yes
Marlene
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Quote:
Ah, forgive me to intrude here... but you simply can´t know this. The source for the CD and the Vinyl could very well be the same. Maybe both used a master that was produced from 24/44.1. You wouldn´t gain anything by using the vinyl version because the source for both media was brickwalled. Your conclusion is correct however: you cannot accurately compare a CD to the vinyl version - simply because one doesn´t know.
Having said that I can´t think of one possible reason why Monsieur Jarre came up with such a statement: "The redbook standard is the flawed one and has been from the start. So no, I highly doubt that flaws are why vinyl sounds better. The cd is lacking bits = resolution, especially at high frequencies. Vinyl encodes the exact same analog signal as the original; not an incomplete copy. Despite the higher noise .... vinyl has the more accurate waveform" - if he truly means this, it just shows that he has no idea what he´s talking about. Very disappointing.
It´s ridiculous, really. Especially Jean Michel Jarre who should have amassed the most experience in synthesizers, digital samplers, recording techniques etc. over the 30 years he´s making music. And that coming from a man who creates mixes that are really hot dynamically, with lots of digital artifacts resulting from the dynamic compression used on them.
Ah, forgive me to intrude here... but you simply can´t know this. The source for the CD and the Vinyl could very well be the same. Maybe both used a master that was produced from 24/44.1. You wouldn´t gain anything by using the vinyl version because the source for both media was brickwalled. Your conclusion is correct however: you cannot accurately compare a CD to the vinyl version - simply because one doesn´t know.
Having said that I can´t think of one possible reason why Monsieur Jarre came up with such a statement: "The redbook standard is the flawed one and has been from the start. So no, I highly doubt that flaws are why vinyl sounds better. The cd is lacking bits = resolution, especially at high frequencies. Vinyl encodes the exact same analog signal as the original; not an incomplete copy. Despite the higher noise .... vinyl has the more accurate waveform" - if he truly means this, it just shows that he has no idea what he´s talking about. Very disappointing.
It´s ridiculous, really. Especially Jean Michel Jarre who should have amassed the most experience in synthesizers, digital samplers, recording techniques etc. over the 30 years he´s making music. And that coming from a man who creates mixes that are really hot dynamically, with lots of digital artifacts resulting from the dynamic compression used on them.
DJGeorgeT
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vinyl just sounds fuller to my ears, perhaps due to special mastering that is required.
maverickronin
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Its not 'special'. Its just not ruined on purpose...
DJGeorgeT
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ROBSCIX
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I don't think you can directly compare vinyl to CD, they work on a similar mechanism. Round disk..etc. Other then that you have an analog medium compared to a digital one.
It seems some do directly compare them but I think it is a mistake.
Both mediums have their places, I have heard some excellent sounding vinyl systems and some bad CD systems. Some can produce some amazing sound quality out of their gear no matter what the medium.
Vinyl was produced to sound the best it could and use the dynamic range. Many CD's are made to sound as loud as they can... destroying the dynamic range with massive compression and limiting.
Big differences in my opinion.
It seems some do directly compare them but I think it is a mistake.
Both mediums have their places, I have heard some excellent sounding vinyl systems and some bad CD systems. Some can produce some amazing sound quality out of their gear no matter what the medium.
Vinyl was produced to sound the best it could and use the dynamic range. Many CD's are made to sound as loud as they can... destroying the dynamic range with massive compression and limiting.
Big differences in my opinion.
leeperry
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It's also obvious that Boards Of Canada have heard Equinoxe and Oxygène more than once: http://www.google.com/search?q=Poppy+Seed+%28reprise%29+%28Boards+Of+Canada+remix&tbs=vid%3A1
http://www.google.com/search?q=Boards+of+Canada+Sixtyten&tbs=vid%3A1
BoC have such a magical sound, one of my all time fav. bands for sure.
Albedo
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The Jarre records you mention are his best, same thing with nearly all other prog-electro band from the seventies, not counting Brian Eno. But as in the eighties, as now.. cash is tempting.
onef
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For the sake of argument, let's assume sound reproduction accuracy is largely a measure of your success in satisfying an illusion of the original. Now, given the fact the most of have never heard a live studio recording of a favorite band and probably never will, the lower levels of this argument of CD vs Vinyl as far as accurate sound reproduction I believe becomes ostensibly moot and subjective when it comes to individual experience.
As far as "technical superiority" is concerned well, I can say this: The music in the days of Vinyl was recorded/produced to sound good on analog, just as music nowadays is recorded/produced to sound good on digital. Whether or not that qualifies as a more accurate illusion of the original also comes into a sphere of subjectivity; Does the most seemingly transparent reproduction of sound define it as the original, or is it the "spirit"/interpretation of the sound as was originally intended to be heard (I think the first sentence in the post lends itself to the former, but what I'm concerned with here is the latter)?
For the record, if I wanted to hear Pink Floyd in the most transparent and analytical way possible I would go digitally remastered FLAC into a DAC. But if I wanted to hear Pink Floyd the way it was designed to be heard when it was first released, I'd go through all the clicks and pops and shims required. I hope this makes sense. Semantics, nostalgia, bleh. I think I've derailed Sound Science into Sound Philosophy.
As far as "technical superiority" is concerned well, I can say this: The music in the days of Vinyl was recorded/produced to sound good on analog, just as music nowadays is recorded/produced to sound good on digital. Whether or not that qualifies as a more accurate illusion of the original also comes into a sphere of subjectivity; Does the most seemingly transparent reproduction of sound define it as the original, or is it the "spirit"/interpretation of the sound as was originally intended to be heard (I think the first sentence in the post lends itself to the former, but what I'm concerned with here is the latter)?
For the record, if I wanted to hear Pink Floyd in the most transparent and analytical way possible I would go digitally remastered FLAC into a DAC. But if I wanted to hear Pink Floyd the way it was designed to be heard when it was first released, I'd go through all the clicks and pops and shims required. I hope this makes sense. Semantics, nostalgia, bleh. I think I've derailed Sound Science into Sound Philosophy.
Vkamicht
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Quote:
"Designed to be heard when it was first released" ... is that equal what was "designed to be heard" overall? What was intended to be heard? Can we not take into consideration the limitations of technology at the time?
onef
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The technological limitations of the time were/are part of the experience.. Or that's what I was trying to convey, anyways.
Q: Does anyone know of a good reference for finding out which vinyl pressings of a given LP album are the best pressings, and which are to be avoided? I was excited to get a Columbia "half-speed master" of Born To Run, and the SQ ended up being cr@p
Deep Funk
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Oh oh... I am now lurking for a vinyl set up so I will do some research. Sound quality? I guess if it sounds good it is good or is that simply too simple, rhetorics...
Hopefully you will be back Leeperry.
Hopefully you will be back Leeperry.
Quote:
Well it is actually that simple, but the reasons one copy of a given LP may sound vastly better than another are actually quite complicated. BTW, what happened to Lee Perry?
Records are like photocopies, in the sense that the quality degrades if too many copies of copies of the master tapes and/or discs are made. Also the quality of the raw vinyl used to make the records out of varies wildly as well. From the late 1970s through at least the 1980s the vinyl used for many LPs by popular artists manufactured in the US was of notoriously low quality and full of impurities, which created surface noise on top of the generational degradation problems. You can lose entire octaves of bass, get instruments congested during busy/complex passages, and have overall losses of dynamics and detail. This created the market for imports that had higher quality raw vinyl, as well as things like "audiophile pressings" and "half-speed masters".
Additionally, many suspect that there was an industry-wide push during that time period to lower the perceived quality of records in order to get listeners to convert to the newer medium, CD's. Compact discs are non-generational because they are digital, and they were a zillion times cheaper to manufacture even back then. I think that vinyl can be more enjoyable to listen to than digital music, but the quality of the record itself is paramount and becomes even more so the more revealing your playback/listening system is. Digital music is much more convenient, sounds pretty damn good, and has much more consistent sound quality; on top of that the differences people hear between digital and analog can be subjective, so it is easy to see why there may have been a "conspiracy" to accentuate the "improvements" that CD's brought to the table.
I am just "scratching the surface" here
, as I am just getting back into records myself; I'm sure there are others here at Head-fi that could elaborate a LOT more on all of these issues. I do know that there are methods of finding quality pressings if one is willing to spend hundreds of dollars on each and every record, but I am also hoping that some will share their methods of reducing their margin of error while bargain-hunting for vinyl as well.
Also while there are many possible variances of the sound quality on LPs, there have even been some outright marketing deceptions regarding the quality of the re-mixes, re-masters, what generation a particular LP record pressing may be, and the quality of the vinyl that was used for it. With CD's, the variances are limited to the quality of the recorded tracks, of the mix, and of the master recording; the physical medium itself is generally pretty flawless. Now that digital downloads are becoming more popular, the medium itself is becoming almost secondary.
Bottom line: when everything lines up right for vinyl the results can be magic, but beware because YMMV
Well it is actually that simple, but the reasons one copy of a given LP may sound vastly better than another are actually quite complicated. BTW, what happened to Lee Perry?
Records are like photocopies, in the sense that the quality degrades if too many copies of copies of the master tapes and/or discs are made. Also the quality of the raw vinyl used to make the records out of varies wildly as well. From the late 1970s through at least the 1980s the vinyl used for many LPs by popular artists manufactured in the US was of notoriously low quality and full of impurities, which created surface noise on top of the generational degradation problems. You can lose entire octaves of bass, get instruments congested during busy/complex passages, and have overall losses of dynamics and detail. This created the market for imports that had higher quality raw vinyl, as well as things like "audiophile pressings" and "half-speed masters".
Additionally, many suspect that there was an industry-wide push during that time period to lower the perceived quality of records in order to get listeners to convert to the newer medium, CD's. Compact discs are non-generational because they are digital, and they were a zillion times cheaper to manufacture even back then. I think that vinyl can be more enjoyable to listen to than digital music, but the quality of the record itself is paramount and becomes even more so the more revealing your playback/listening system is. Digital music is much more convenient, sounds pretty damn good, and has much more consistent sound quality; on top of that the differences people hear between digital and analog can be subjective, so it is easy to see why there may have been a "conspiracy" to accentuate the "improvements" that CD's brought to the table.
I am just "scratching the surface" here
Also while there are many possible variances of the sound quality on LPs, there have even been some outright marketing deceptions regarding the quality of the re-mixes, re-masters, what generation a particular LP record pressing may be, and the quality of the vinyl that was used for it. With CD's, the variances are limited to the quality of the recorded tracks, of the mix, and of the master recording; the physical medium itself is generally pretty flawless. Now that digital downloads are becoming more popular, the medium itself is becoming almost secondary.
Bottom line: when everything lines up right for vinyl the results can be magic, but beware because YMMV
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