[old tech]

I was having a discussion with a friend who is a true vinylphile. Unlike many, he doesn't make claims of superiority to digital but simply prefers the sound character of vinyl records - except for one thing...

He adamantly believes that vinyl is superior to digital, at least compared to 16/44, in its ability to reproduce music detail and nuances ie resolution. My argument is that a particular album can have better resolution on vinyl if it was mastered better than its digital counterpart but all things equal, 16/44 would have a greater resolution simply because the format is capable of a greater dynamic range.

He contends, and I have heard this many times before on other forums, is that dynamic range is a simplistic measure of resolution. I always thought that resolution is simply the amplitude of a frequency (or a combination of frequencies) and that dynamic range provides a scale in which the medium can differentiate between different amplitudes. His contention is that is only for differences in large amplitudes and does not generally apply to finer differences and that is where 16bits cannot give that 'fineness'. However I understood that that the bits that missing from 16bits is just noise which is lower than the surface noise of vinyl, the implication being that vinyl is the equivalent of less than 16bits.

You probably can tell that I am a novice when it comes to these things, but what then is resolution? How is it measured? Does vinyl exceed what 16/44 is capable in this regard?

Thanks

 

[arnyk]

I was having a discussion with a friend who is a true vinylphile. Unlike many, he doesn't make claims of superiority to digital but simply prefers the sound character of vinyl records - except for one thing...

He adamantly believes that vinyl is superior to digital, at least compared to 16/44, in its ability to reproduce music detail and nuances i.e. resolution.

Thinking something is so does not make it so. He can think what he will!
 
There is a formal definition of resolution which relates to reproducing detail and nuances, and in accordance with that definition vinyl isn't even in the same technical zip code as 16/44 digital.
 
Prior to the availability of digital recording, music for distribution on LPs was recorded and mastered using the far higher resolution analog tape system. LP was well known to offer inferior sonics and utility.
 
16/44 has so much more resolution than vinyl that for about a decade before digital went mainstream with the CD, when recording engineers wanted to make a really good vinyl recording, they mastered and cut it from a digital master.
 
For example The Denon digital system introduced in 1972 was based on 37.25 kHz 13-bit digital recording and was used as an improved mastering systems for better quality LPs.
 
The Telarc Soundstream process first demonstrated in 1976 was based on 50/16 digital recording mastering.
 
The 3M digital recorder introduced in 1978 was based on 16 bits and 50.4 KHz.
 
These were all generally agreed upon at the time to be vast improvements on analog tape which was in turn a vast improvement on the LP.

 

[old tech]

Thanks for that information. The historical development angle is quite interesting.

I never did accept that vinyl could match, let alone exceed, the resolution of say CDs. I own some decent analogue gear on my legacy set up in the spare room, built up over 30years including a Linn LP12, upgraded several times over the decades. Some of my records are more detailed and generally sound better than their CD counterparts but when I compare the best of both formats in the ability to reproduce detail, I really can't see how it is a contest.

So if there is no way to measure resolution then what is the best way to approach this debate in a layman-ish way, without introducing subjective concepts?

 

[arnyk]

Thanks for that information. The historical development angle is quite interesting.

I never did accept that vinyl could match, let alone exceed, the resolution of say CDs. I own some decent analogue gear on my legacy set up in the spare room, built up over 30years including a Linn LP12, upgraded several times over the decades. Some of my records are more detailed and generally sound better than their CD counterparts but when I compare the best of both formats in the ability to reproduce detail, I really can't see how it is a contest.

So if there is no way to measure resolution then what is the best way to approach this debate in a layman-ish way, without introducing subjective concepts?

 
Measuring resolution is easy. One way is to measure the difference between the loudest undistorted signal and the lowest noise level.
 
If you make this measurement on a high quality turntable with the best available test records you generally get a number on the order of 70 dB. Do the same thing on a CD player and the number is more like 93 dB.  Therefore, the CD has vastly more resolution than the LP.

 

[old tech]

Yes, that is what I believed it is, but he, and many others I may add dispute this is valid for the "very fine shades of grey"

Take this guy for example who proclaims to be an expert on high end audio...

http://liquidaudio.com.au/vinyl-vs-cd-is-vinyl-higher-resolution/

 

[nick_charles]

Yes, that is what I believed it is, but he, and many others I may add dispute this is valid for the "very fine shades of grey"

Take this guy for example who proclaims to be an expert on high end audio...

http://liquidaudio.com.au/vinyl-vs-cd-is-vinyl-higher-resolution/

 
 
He does not understand digital audio, nor does he understand the meaning of infinite. It is easy to quantify the limits of vinyl and CD, it has been done many times and the result always shows that vinyl even on a good day is rubbing along at the equivalent of about 13 or 14 bits - each bit doubles the possible range of values that can be described thus the 'fine resolution" of vinyl is substantially cruder than that of red book. If vinyl had infinite resolution it would have an infinite SNR and infinitely low distortion , but we know that it does not. Vinyl's mode is continuous rather than discrete but in fact even this is misleading as when it plays back it is not an infinitely smooth continuous playback as is posited , here is an excellent primer on the nature of vinyl from an actual physics expert digital vinyl Also the reconstruction filter on a DAC nicely recovers a smooth continuous analog waveform which can be verified with analog scopes such as Monty did.
 
None of this stops someone from preferring vinyl but there are only two measures on which vinyl has a measurable advantage to CD (it has some high frequency above 22k though it is far less linear and a long way down on the midrange frequencies that can be recorded and played back and it has faster rise times, an electrical property) but whether these are relevant is at least open to debate. Actual measurements of very high quality TTs and cartridges show substantially more noise/distortion, poorer speed stability, poorer ability to render tones without skirts, less linear frequency response and so on (all easily measurable) , again nothing that you cannot live with if you like vinyl but not superior.

 

[RRod]

   
None of this stops someone from preferring vinyl but there are only two measures on which vinyl has a measurable advantage to CD (it has some high frequency above 22k though it is far less linear and along way down on the midrange frequencies that can be recorded and played back and it has faster rise times, an electrical property) but whether these are relevant is at least open to debate.

 
Side question:
 
Doesn't the higher frequency response imply a faster rise time? I've always wanted clarification on this.

 

[cjl]

   
Side question:
 
Doesn't the higher frequency response imply a faster rise time? I've always wanted clarification on this.

Yes, the two are directly correlated. The "sharpness" of the edge of a signal such as a square wave is directly related to the highest frequencies contained within it.

 

[RRod]

 
Yes, the two are directly correlated. The "sharpness" of the edge of a signal such as a square wave is directly related to the highest frequencies contained within it.

 
Thanks. So the two potential vinyl benefits listed above are really the same barbaloot in different barbaloot suits (sorry, too much Dr. Seuss lately).

 

[arnyk]

Yes, that is what I believed it is, but he, and many others I may add dispute this is valid for the "very fine shades of grey"

Take this guy for example who proclaims to be an expert on high end audio...

http://liquidaudio.com.au/vinyl-vs-cd-is-vinyl-higher-resolution/

 
That article sets up a standard that its author completely controls in accordance with his whims and prejudieces, namely: "Sounds Better" (to him).
 
His favorite medium wins. Everybody who is surprised should grab a pointed cap and sit on one of the stools in the corner!
 
Obviously, not a paragon of intellectual impartiality or honesty.

 

[arnyk]

   
Side question:
 
Doesn't the higher frequency response imply a faster rise time? I've always wanted clarification on this.

 
Take for example, an AM radio. It receives signals up to 1.55 MHz, which is well above the audio band. Does that mean it has a faster rise time?
 
Obviously not!
 
Sound quality is about much more than simplistic things like rise time.  
 
For example low nonlinear distortion relates to better sound quality.
 
So does flatter response, particularly as we move down into the heart of the audio band.
 
The CD format cleans the LP format's clock in both areas, and more;.

 

[jcx]

Shannon-Hartley Channel Capacity Theorem is the Engineering Definition that best allows comparison of analog vs digital "channels" like recording/playback chains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem
 
vinyl does have the ability to record higher than human hearing upper frequency limits - at greatly reduced amplitude - but the practical cutting and playback amplitude limit vs frequency starts decreasing well within the conventional audio bandwidth
 
CD can be and in many cases are mixed much "hotter" than vinyl with close miced feeds delivering high audio frequency content in the human hearing range that never appeared on vinyl recordings
 
Stuart's whitepaper is pretty good for showing human limits and digital audio formats, go to the graphs at the end, scan back for the associated text: https://www.meridian-audio.com/meridian-uploads/ara/coding2.pdf

 

[icebear]

   
Side question:
 
Doesn't the higher frequency response imply a faster rise time? I've always wanted clarification on this.

 
 

 
Yes, the two are directly correlated. The "sharpness" of the edge of a signal such as a square wave is directly related to the highest frequencies contained within it.

 
 

   
Thanks. So the two potential vinyl benefits listed above are really the same barbaloot in different barbaloot suits (sorry, too much Dr. Seuss lately).

 
The frequency range or extension (NOT response), i.e. that frequencies above 20khz are being captured has nothing to do with rise time.
Rise time describes the the way signal impulses are reproduces i.e. how fast the signal voltage is rising and falling for that matter.
Measured in V/ms. Two different things obviously.

 

[RRod]

   
The frequency range or extension (NOT response), i.e. that frequencies above 20khz are being captured has nothing to do with rise time.
Rise time describes the the way signal impulses are reproduces i.e. how fast the signal voltage is rising and falling for that matter.
Measured in V/ms. Two different things obviously.

 
So let me ask this:
System A reconstructs 16/44.1 theoretically perfectly
System B reconstructs 16/88.2 theoretically perfectly
 
Will System B have a better rise time? If so, then it would seem the only way it's doing that is by having higher frequency extension.

 

[icebear]

   
So let me ask this:
System A reconstructs 16/44.1 theoretically perfectly
System B reconstructs 16/88.2 theoretically perfectly
 
Will System B have a better rise time? If so, then it would seem the only way it's doing that is by having higher frequency extension.

Theoretically both systems will be perfect

 
The rise time is independed from the sample frequency or the max. audio frequency captured.
Take a look at impulse measurements e.g. on innerfidelity.
The rise time defines how much voltage swing per time the amp section can deliver. i.e. how steep (or sharp) the impulse signal can rise.