[SunJ]

Hi I cant stand CD clipping but CD's are easier to maintain, while vinyl sounded great but it does some gating, needs cleaning & are big llike 7 inch, what can I do, I tried Googleing on CD reviews that will tell if an album is cliped how heavily but to no avail, what to do?

 

[Baxide]

The best thing is to have both. Most stuff on CD is not available on vinyl, and visa versa.
But as far as clipping goes: what makes you believe it is from your discs, and not from your DAC/amp/speakers?
 

 

[SunJ]

My gear list:

Denon DCD-510AE
Straight Wire Symphony II IC
Cambridge Audio Azure 351A
Aiaiai tma-1

 

[kingoftown1]

Quote:

The best thing is to have both. Most stuff on CD is not available on vinyl, and visa versa.
But as far as clipping goes: what makes you believe it is from your discs, and not from your DAC/amp/speakers?
 

It's not unusual for the mastering on an album's CD release to be more compressed and hot than its vinyl counterpart.

 

[akash neagi]

This is what I do.....
I have CDs for newer albums and vinyl for older ones......
Don't get me wrong I still do have vinyl dubstep and some linkin park but most of the newer songs are only released in cd format......
I don't bother to get the remastered vinyl of old albums cuz they sound c*** compared to the original ones.......
Do remember when buying second hand LPs to check for scratch and if you can play them cuz it is usual to get LPs that got destroyed due to using heavy ceramic cartridges and this damage can't be seen with the naked eye........

 

[Baxide]

Quote:

Do remember when buying second hand LPs to check for scratch and if you can play them cuz it is usual to get LPs that got destroyed due to using heavy ceramic cartridges and this damage can't be seen with the naked eye........

You can actually see if a vinyl record has been played too much and is worn down. But it does take a fair degree of experience.

 

[SunJ]

Thanks.

 

[akash neagi]

There is the worn out and there is the thing that i am speaking of......
I recently got a copy of Layla and other assorted love songs....
If inspected with the naked eye or a high power magnifying glass I can't see the damage that is normally present in worn out  LPs but there was a huge amount of crackling.........
The guy I got it from was a friend and luck favored me as he had another copy so I got it exchanged.......
After I did some digging I found out that the LP he first gave me had come from India and there it is very common to find LPs with this sort of damage and it is said,
although I don't know for sure.......
this is caused by ceramic styli and/or a heavy tone arm setting.........
But on the fact can "worn out" LPs be caught with the naked eye, yes it can like you said with experience.....
I have spent a lot of money and time in various garage sales and used LP stores to gain that experience.......

 

[SunJ]

Respected vinyl member !, now all you need to do is publish a video tutorial on YouTube, also what cheap LP has a flat/empty side for anti skating adjustments ?

 

[akash neagi]

My dad had an old single sided LP I use that one......
Never really looked for a flat sided one.......

 

[akash neagi]

I saw this site where a guy uses a laser disk....
same size so you can try that.......
or same principle try a CD............
smaller and will take a longer time but you will be able to get anti-skating correct

 

[SunJ]

Hi I just had the opurtunity to buy some old 1996 CDs at cheap price $1, I noticed that they are not even close to how hot/clipped/flat today's CDs are, so its not my rig but its the CDs. So sad at how they master tracks today ! Ridiculous. Also can you tell me if its worth buying these k2hd CDs?

 

[akash neagi]

My opinion is get original vinyl as much as possible, I prefer not remastered ones as when albums like Dark Side of the Moon were recorded they were recorded AAA no analog to digital conversion......
If remastered the audio quality is compromised.....
If vinyl is not available I say get the best quality CD available...........

 

[StudioSound]

I have never heard a vinyl from the same master as a CD - which is common practice today - that has sounded better than the CD; it has always sounded worse.

CDs are always mastered loud today - but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's trivial to master so that your peaks are at -0.1dB without having any clipping now. Back in the early days of CD production that wasn't the case, so discs were mastered much quieter. If you use a player such as JRiver Media Center which has ReplayGain built in, it will normalize the volume of the loud and quiet discs so that how loud/quiet they were mastered is not a factor. Of course a lot of music is also run through a compressor, but it doesn't have to be.

A good indicator of mastering quality is the unofficial dynamic range database.

And I did pick up one of those K2HD discs a few years back (I think just as the format was launched) as I wanted to have a really good reference disc: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=5781 It was very expensive though - whether it's worth it is up to you. I only bought the one.

It's not unusual for the mastering on an album's CD release to be more compressed and hot than its vinyl counterpart.

That's not the same thing as clipping though. If a lot of CDs are clipping, that suggests to me that something else is wrong in your setup. (perhaps a digital EQ that is doing an additive correction rather than a subtractive one)

 

[kingoftown1]

I'm simply suggesting that many cd masters (especially some current albums) are more dynamically compressed than their vinyl releases.  The first example that comes to mind is M83s "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming."   The CD version always sounded more congested to me...and this is coming from someone who isn't a vinyl fan or analog freak.  Of course this isn't always the case, but it does happen (and no, I'm not making any rookie EQ mistakes

).