[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller That is not true, one of the diasadvantages on the vinyl is precicely the bass, nowadays they remove that problem, going to 45 rpm and duplicating the media in order to get the same playing time than before, and getting though the double of real state, but in the past in order to get more music and more time into an LP, that initially was only around 45 minutes, they reduced the size of the grooves, and that considerably modified the bass response, to the point that in some cases EQ was the only solution to the problem...

That's one mouthful of a runon sentence there!

You're overstating the problem. Vinyl doesn't have bass extension down to 20hz in the loudest passages, but neither do speakers, and amps would have trouble pushing that kind of sound out too. A lot of CDs push the low bass and cut the upper bass, making it sound thin on top. This is just a "taste" thing with engineers nowadays. Vinyl sounds like it has better bass because generally speaking, the mastering was done with a balanced response, giving a fuller sound without so much of the low bass thump. It's like people who have those bass blaster things in their cars... To me it sounds like one frequency band being blown way out of proportion, but I guess some people like it.

See ya
Steve

 

[Sleestack]

Vinyl has better bass? Whoever thinks that needs to listen to a CD played through a speaker system that can actually do bass right. With vinyl, you don't get the low end extension nor the coherence at the low end that you can get with digital. This could be product of the recording rather than the medium, but I have yet to hear any vinyl setup that can replay Bjork and her love of lower frequencies better than a digitally corrected system. I think at the national meet, I need to do a small bus tour to my house so people can understand what the combination of digital, advanced room correction and killer speakers can do.

I'm all for people loving vinyl and prefering its sound... and certainly the availble library. But, I think when people start talking about the technical superiority of vinyl and the deficiencies of digital, they are speaking more from the heart and basing opinions on limited experience than fact. Either that, or they need to get some better CDs.

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot That's one mouthful of a runon sentence there!

Sorry, better now?

Quote:

You're overstating the problem. Vinyl doesn't have bass extension down to 20hz in the loudest passages, but neither do speakers, and amps would have trouble pushing that kind of sound out too. A lot of CDs push the low bass and cut the upper bass, making it sound thin on top. This is just a "taste" thing with engineers nowadays. Vinyl sounds like it has better bass because generally speaking, the mastering was done with a balanced response, giving a fuller sound without so much of the low bass thump. It's like people who have those bass blaster things in their cars... To me it sounds like one frequency band being blown way out of proportion, but I guess some people like it. See ya Steve

I have some CDs burned professionally from LPs, and honestly the sound leave a lot to be desired in comparison to the CD release counterpart...period...And not only down to 20Hz, far above that they do have problems, I have heard a few of very good vinyl setups, and non of them had convinced me otherwise of the opposite, sorry to disagree, of course weare talking of good recordings, in a poorly done one anything could happen, but that doesn't have to do anything with the media in question, but with the process before

 

[Zanth]

Wow, this thread has turned interesting over these last few months.

Two things from me:

1) I buy both RBCD and Vinyl (LP + 12")

2) I prefer vinyl overall for the tactile experience, cover art, and overall better sound (I say overall, because I feel that CD's have a higher variance in mastering requirements)

That said, I would like to comment on this better bass stuff. From my experience, vinyl smoked CD in the bass department on the systems I have been lucky enough to hear both.

My boss owns a very nice system (Martin Logan Statements, Classe Omega SACD, Pre, Monos) and the sound is quite spectacular. Not exactly what I look for in my playback, but nonetheless awe inspiring. That said, when I heard the same albums on vinyl on a much less expensive system though equally awe inspiring, the vinyl sounded just so much better, bass was more forceful, palpable, with much better attack and better decay.

Perhaps then, what is happening here is simply this: system setup and component matching. In my system, bass is better with my vinyl rig, but my vinyl rig is quite a bit better than my cd player and my cd player is nothing to scoff at. Perhaps then, given the best setups for each, both formats will be able to reproduce on a scale that will blow anyone away. This makes sense, as state of the art in each should be pretty close. Maybe lower down the scale, vinyl take it at certain price points, and cd at others etc etc. Still, I like both and will buy both, but I still like vinyl better. Some of the covers are breat taking. totally worth my $.25. Oh didn't you know? Fantastic sounding DIRT CHEAP vinyl is abundantly available

MP3's need not apply

 

[Jbucla2005]

I've collected a shelf full of vinyl in the last few months, since I restored my turntable. It has been very exciting, and I'm also convinced the sound is superior to digital. I am going to get a tube DAC to improve the sound of my cd's on my pc, but I doubt it will come close to the sound of the vinyl. As has been mentioned, a record in good shape is not noisy. As for the bass, I can understand where people are coming from about the quantity of bass and dynamics in the digital format, but the quality of the bass is much better with vinyl. And yes, there is a great deal of music out there on LP that never made it to cd! There is so much stuff easily accessible stuff that I would have to order on-line to get on cd and maybe pay more. And some CD's are so horribly mastered, my own vinyl to pc recordings sound better! I really love vinyl and really wish I could get new vinyl like I can get new cd's - like it was in say, in the 70's (pretty much before my time, I was born in '79) where all the music stores had was vinyl and it was being manufactured new - that would be incredible! To me the vinyl is worth much more.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller Sorry, better now? I have some CDs burned professionally from LPs, and honestly the sound leave a lot to be desired in comparison to the CD release counterpart.

Use a different transfer engineer next time. There's no reason an LP that's in good condition should sound bad. I've done many transfers that after a little judicious declicking are indistinguishable from CD mastered music.

See ya
Steve

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot Use a different transfer engineer next time. There's no reason an LP that's in good condition should sound bad. I've done many transfers that after a little judicious declicking are indistinguishable from CD mastered music. See ya Steve

I was not expencting it to sound even close to the CD quality, given that it was a transfer from some recorded media, and not from the original analog master tape. But the result left a lot to be desired, bass is lacking, noise in those particular cases is not an issue, as the material itself, was recorded in an studio, and the mikes were open all the time, so the original included the ambience noise as well, people talking, cups clicking, people laughing, etc...So given that it is not a completelly black background, the surface noise get masked in the majority, but the bass is really weak in comparison to other CDs I have, and also have a little weird soundstage, like while you apply those horrible "ambience" or "surround" filters in mid-fi audio, not sure if it was a result of crosstalk, or an effect, but I recall to have heard the 1/4" tape recoding, the reel to reel one, and it was a lot better balanced...

The recording I'm talking about was the Brian May and friends EP "Starfleet Project" and honestly if someone can make me a better copy I really appreciate that, this is an album that I really miss in my collection...

 

[Jbucla2005]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller I was not expencting it to sound even close to the CD quality, given that it was a transfer from some recorded media, and not from the original analog master tape. But the result left a lot to be desired, bass is lacking, noise in those particular cases is not an issue, as the material itself, was recorded in an studio, and the mikes were open all the time, so the original included the ambience noise as well, people talking, cups clicking, people laughing, etc...So given that it is not a completelly black background, the surface noise get masked in the majority, but the bass is really weak in comparison to other CDs I have, and also have a little weird soundstage, like while you apply those horrible "ambience" or "surround" filters in mid-fi audio, not sure if it was a result of crosstalk, or an effect, but I recall to have heard the 1/4" tape recoding, the reel to reel one, and it was a lot better balanced... The recording I'm talking about was the Brian May and friends EP "Starfleet Project" and honestly if someone can make me a better copy I really appreciate that, this is an album that I really miss in my collection...

It's really dependant on your recording setup/vinyl rig I think. I use a Luxman tube phono stage and pre-amp and Headphile silver interconnects, older Linn/Ariston Audio TT with Audio-technia cart to record from turntable -> 1212M using ASIO. I am getting close to cd quality results, although it is a little warmer and rounder sounding. A clean record has tad more noise than a cd but its very close.

 

[Garbz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller snip

Doubt it would be crosstalk. Vinyl only has 30db of stereo separation. The lack of bass would indicate that whoever did the transfer had no idea what he was doing. The last time I transfered something from vinyl it sounded every bit as good as the turntable itself. (which has more bass than my digital sources).

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Doubt it would be crosstalk. Vinyl only has 30db of stereo separation. The lack of bass would indicate that whoever did the transfer had no idea what he was doing. The last time I transfered something from vinyl it sounded every bit as good as the turntable itself. (which has more bass than my digital sources).

Or maybe it was a poorly done vinyl copy, or a really bad cartridge, or a horrible phone preamp, the copy i ahd in LP, sounded pretty good, but later on I order that one in CD, hoping to get a decent transfer. The copy was at least in excelent shape, and noise is minimal, present but minimal, but the bass response is horrible...
On that particular one I have no way of comparison as it was never released in CD, the other copies I had from other albums, a couple more, they were released, they were done in different places, and the same problem again, so I'm discounting the human factor, as not everybody is going to do the wrong thing...that was a long time ago, and unfortunatelly I do not remeber the places where I order those two other, to get the info on what they used, all I recall is that the Brian May was from a dealer that was selling those copies in GEMM, claiming to be done prefessionally and in a recording studio, so I fell for it....


Oh no, while I mentioned the crosstalk, was becasue that weird effect in the soundstage I feel, but not because the bass lacking, it sounds too wide, like those "ambience" selectors you find in those horrible boomboxes or gethoblasters from the past...but I know that the bass problem could be due to some other thing or a human factor as well....

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller Or maybe it was a poorly done vinyl copy, or a really bad cartridge, or a horrible phone preamp, the copy i ahd in LP, sounded pretty good, but later on I order that one in CD, hoping to get a decent transfer. The copy was at least in excelent shape, and noise is minimal, present but minimal, but the bass response is horrible... On that particular one I have no way of comparison as it was never released in CD, the other copies I had from other albums, a couple more, they were released, they were done in different places, and the same problem again, so I'm discounting the human factor, as not everybody is going to do the wrong thing...that was a long time ago, and unfortunatelly I do not remeber the places where I order those two other, to get the info on what they used, all I recall is that the Brian May was from a dealer that was selling those copies in GEMM, claiming to be done prefessionally and in a recording studio, so I fell for it.... ....

Sounds like you got ripped off alright. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get as good or better bass from a record. In fact it's usually the other way round, I have found especially in cheaper CD players. A lot of it also has to do with matching the amp and source.

Certainly one of the main skills to master in cutting a record is getting the bass as deep and loud as possible without running into the previous groove and spoiling the cut.You can actually watch the cutting head doing this on a microscope monitor.

Also it's not that uncommon to master a CD from vinyl where the master tape is degraded beyond being usable.

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool Sounds like you got ripped off alright. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get as good or better bass from a record. In fact it's usually the other way round, I have found especially in cheaper CD players. A lot of it also has to do with matching the amp and source. Certainly one of the main skills to master in cutting a record is getting the bass as deep and loud as possible without running into the previous groove and spoiling the cut.You can actually watch the cutting head doing this on a microscope monitor. Also it's not that uncommon to master a CD from vinyl where the master tape is degraded beyond being usable.

That is not a problem of getting ripped off, I was trying to say that maybe the copy they get was not so great sounding to begin with, though the result, they did thebest they could maybe, I know that the one I had was good sounding, but if the one they got was not that good there is no much you can do about...

I have heard a lot of bass lacking LPs along my almost 15 years of using them, and as you wisely pointed out, that is one of the main goals of a good cutting, to make the grooves wider, and deeper, but most of the times simply is not possible because of area restrictions problems, and space needs, so as it is not easy to get that, what they indeed do most of the times, is cutting the bass freq to get smaller grooves, easier to accommodate in more quantity in the same area, and this way increase the playing time as well....don't forget that the maximum playing time on an LP is around 45 to 50 minutes maximum, right now we have albums of 70-80 minutes plus, in a single CD, "Frampton comes alive" is now in one CD, while originally it was two albums, just to mention one example, how to accommodate them in a single LP??? Impossible, unless reducing the groove size...

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller don't forget that the maximum playing time on an LP is around 45 to 50 minutes maximum, right now we have albums of 70-80 minutes plus, in a single CD, "Frampton comes alive" is now in one CD, while originally it was two albums, just to mention one example, how to accommodate them in a single LP??? Impossible, unless reducing the groove size...

Yes 45's are definitely louder and generally sound better for exactly this reason. The worst offenders would be people like K-Tel and Telstar who squeeze so much onto an LP the quality suffers badly.

It's a related issue that one of the key reasons for the resurrection of the 7 inch format in recent years is that it's duration was what originally defined what a song was in pop music. Many bands coming up now have wanted to press 7 inches for this reason alone.

The same is true of albums. 45-50 minutes or 8-10 songs was what defined an album.

The whole industry is still geared around this in most respects not least legally in contractual terms.

Having slightly longer playing times on CD and now pretty much unlimited playing times feasible with MP3 and the Itunes Music Store model of downloadable music hasn't really changed this yet but I'm sure it will over time.

What happens when the technology that defined an art form is superceeded?

 

[bigshot]

The LP format is perfectly capable of reproducing bass in normal situations with absolutely no compromises.

The bass on LPs isn't cut at all to allow for groove width unless 1) they are trying to cram 30 minutes or more on a side; or 2) they have a ridiculously big bass spike, like the bass drum hits on some early Telarc digital LPs.

See ya
Steve