Why is it that even digitized vinyl sounds so good?

[Skylab]

I was sitting here working, listening to music on my LCD-2's from my Ipod>Wadia>AVA DAC, when immediately my ears pricked up - before my brain even grasped the song, I was like - WOW this sounds good.
 
It was my "needle drop" of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good".  Sounded better than anything that had been on in the last several hours - and it's a needle drop I did myself from my LP.  Admittedly, I did it from a very good vinyl set-up with a very nice A>D converter, but still - there was something SOOOO "right" about the way it sounded.
 
Am I just an old vinyl fuddy-duddy????

 

[gbacic]

Yes, you are
 
I have some 24/96 vinyl rips, but they are not on the same calibre as yours. They are good but they don't give a substantial increase in sound quality over the CD version.
Maybe if I had spectacular ones I'd appreciate it more, but then my DAC would probably become a bottleneck.

 

[edstrelow]

I have had something of the same experience with some of my cd's recorded from my own vinyl. . I think it shows firstly  that many analog recordings were very well made originally , and that the technology of the times was pretty good. But also it shows that the cd medium is not seriously at fault. 
 
The main thing gained by the move to digital was better dynamics but this was hardly needed with rock/pop/jazz and the like where the lp did not pose a limitation.I still have about 800 lp's but most are classical and  while I think vinyl is good with rock/pop/jazz and the like, it is not as good with  classical music through headphones simply because of the greater dynamics of sound on most clasical recordings.  The quiet passages  tend to show surface noise  and very loud climaxes may suffer from some degree of mistracking and/or record wear. But my rock/pop/jazz generally sound pretty good, especially through speakers, and record to cd quite well. 
 
I think there is a real problem with the way record companies made some cd's from analog sources if my modest home cd recorder can do a better job than the pros.
 
That said I have lots of superb cd's which were  digitally recorded .

 

[JaZZ]

It's called euphonic coloration. Harmonic distortion, wow and flutter, warmish sonic balance... can make for or more organic characteristic than the pure original signal – which may be affected by some technical imperfections of the recording equipment or too revealing for the imperfections of the playback equipment.
 
I have digitized quite a few LPs, with a decent turntable system consisting of a Thorens TD 321 with Linn Basik arm with Shure Ultra 500 pickup and a Creek OBH-15 phono preamp with OBH-2 power supply. A/D conversion was done by an E-Mu1212M. The slight basic equalization needed for removing the phono system's (euphonic) coloration made the recordings virtually indistinguishable from CD rips, apart from a slight softness of attacks now and then and of course some noise. Never did they sound better, though.
.

 

[Clarkmc2]

 
Quote:

It's called euphonic coloration. Harmonic distortion, wow and flutter, warmish sonic balance... can make for or more organic characteristic than the pure original signal – which may be affected by some technical imperfections of the recording equipment or too revealing for the imperfections of the playback equipment.
 
...The slight basic equalization needed for removing the phono system's (euphonic) coloration made the recordings virtually indistinguishable from CD rips, apart from a slight softness of attacks now and then and of course some noise. Never did they sound better, though.
.

I have been comparing vinyl and CD playback recently through some pretty nice (and revealing) rigs, both speaker and headphone based. At this point I have to agree. Vinyl often benefits from better original recording and mastering. Even so, critically listening to both back and forth had me feeling the vinyl rendition was "softer," the word I actually used. While the CDs were not more real than real, they did have "sharper" (more precise) information to impart. To me, closer to live.
 
The vinyl heads I hang with always seem to find an x-factor that makes vinyl more pleasant to listen to. On the other hand I have been less than happy with the less precise handling of transients and attack. And downright unhappy with vinyl crapping out at 35hz. I really don't give a hang about imaging as compared to, say, how good the music is. But I find CDs to image as well as vinyl any day, everything else being equal. Great vinyl will best lousy digital every time, but if equal care is taken with recording, mastering and disc manufacturing apples will be compared to apples.
 
So one playing field leveler is using high quality CDs. I find Japanese CDs with an obi to sound superior to the usual product, even when comparing recent ECM titles between Western and obi bearing discs. Another obvious candidate is JVC's XRCD product. A convincing demonstration of how much care is rewarded in the CD creating business is how they do it.
http://www.xrcd.com/tech/xrcd24a_e.html
http://www.elusivedisc.com/xrcdprocess.pdf
 
Bottom line for me, I don't like "more real than real" but I find high quality CDs to have better microdynamics, transients and more natural flow than high quality vinyl.
But I admit that 12 inch 45rpm disks are incredible re: percussion. Just incredible.
 
All this depends on very high quality amps and transducers to hear all this, but that is where I am at at this point in my life. I doubt any of this matters when multitasking listening with other activities, but I don't do casual listening anymore.
 
Ask me next year and I might feel differently!
 
Clark

 

[LFF]

Quote:

I was sitting here working, listening to music on my LCD-2's from my Ipod>Wadia>AVA DAC, when immediately my ears pricked up - before my brain even grasped the song, I was like - WOW this sounds good.
 
It was my "needle drop" of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good".  Sounded better than anything that had been on in the last several hours - and it's a needle drop I did myself from my LP.  Admittedly, I did it from a very good vinyl set-up with a very nice A>D converter, but still - there was something SOOOO "right" about the way it sounded.
 
Am I just an old vinyl fuddy-duddy????

No - you're not just an old vinyl fuddy-duddy. That vinyl LP of Chuck Mangione (and most other Mangione LP's) is mastered extremely well on vinyl. If your pressing is minty and quiet - your in for a real sonic treat.
 
My dad is huge Mangione fan and his favorite LP is "Feels So Good". One of his first requests when I started mastering was to make him a remaster of this album. I had various sources available but the LP killed all of them in terms of tone, dynamics, presence and ambiance. Like you said...it sounds soooo good. Dare I even say that it feels so good.

 
Here is a small sampling of the song from my LP remaster:
 
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2qnupt
 
This is crude compared to what I can do now, but I still think it sounds great.

 

[CSIR]

Top notch Luis is that off the Kendun Master or MFSL?

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Top notch Luis is that off the Kendun Master or MFSL?

Thanks! That is off the regular LP.

 

[JaZZ]

 
I have been comparing vinyl and CD playback recently through some pretty nice (and revealing) rigs, both speaker and headphone based. At this point I have to agree. Vinyl often benefits from better original recording and mastering. Even so, critically listening to both back and forth had me feeling the vinyl rendition was "softer," the word I actually used. While the CDs were not more real than real, they did have "sharper" (more precise) information to impart. To me, closer to live.
 
The vinyl heads I hang with always seem to find an x-factor that makes vinyl more pleasant to listen to. On the other hand I have been less than happy with the less precise handling of transients and attack. And downright unhappy with vinyl crapping out at 35hz. I really don't give a hang about imaging as compared to, say, how good the music is. But I find CDs to image as well as vinyl any day, everything else being equal. Great vinyl will best lousy digital every time, but if equal care is taken with recording, mastering and disc manufacturing apples will be compared to apples.
  
Bottom line for me, I don't like "more real than real" but I find high quality CDs to have better microdynamics, transients and more natural flow than high quality vinyl.
But I admit that 12 inch 45rpm disks are incredible re: percussion. Just incredible.

I have experienced a superior or at least more lifelike sound from a turntable compared to a CD player in the past and enjoyed my analogue system in parallel to the new technology (of which I've been slightly disappointed at the start). It may still predominantly have been a matter of euphony, but after all the CD format and today's digital equipment aren't necessarily the end-all, be-all when it comes to accuracy, so purely analogue reproduction and even the complex and fault-prone vinyl manufacturing/playback process may still have some specific advantages. That said, meanwhile I'm firmly in the digital camp, not just, but also for comfort reasons.
 
However, a digitized vinyl recording can't sound more accurate than a purely digital version of the same recording. Every possible difference is due to inaccuracies.
.

 

[milezone]

Despite the fact that information is lost from a digitized recording on vinyl, the electricity driving your speakers or headphones is analog. It's too hard to determine what exactly happens at the digital to analog conversion though it's certainly a scrambling (the best word I could think of) of sorts which effects the sound for the worse. Nobody (including the top electrical engineers in the business) can provide much more information on the subject. 
 
 
--Side note--
The behaviors and characteristics of electricity in general are pretty much unknown. It's to erratic and fleeting. Scientists have done their best to come up with words and equations to compartmentalize certain observations, but even the accumulated output of all this experimentation is far from understanding. Like any process of creation (in this instance tools for sound reproduction) working with electricity, circuits, etc is always a process of trial, error and adaptation -- rooted in trial and error.
---------------
 
I have yet to hear a dac that sounds better than a high quality analog rig (or low quality analog rig). If you can't tell the difference you're not being analytical enough or your ears lack the capacity. Where CD's have the advantage is simply in the mechanics of the device reading the data (a laser being faster than a tone arm). There are no other sonic benefits that I'm aware of. An ideal scenario would be a frictionless, gravityless, infinitely fast plasma tonearm suspended in a vacuum, outputting analog signals (or going to a concert) which I'm sure will hit the market soon. As someone whose music collection is almost entirely comprised of CD's I can tell you honestly that analog always sounds better than digital.  

 

[CSIR]

I would have to say digital has several huge advantages:
- smaller storage area
- playing over and over on low to mid grade TT can cause wear to vinyl (especially if not high quality)
- can place CD on hard drive without loss of data (or very little)
- if properly mastered the dynamic range can be significantly larger
 
OT I know but for me when you hear AAD at 24 bit 192khz it sounds as good as any vinyl rig I have heard (although I haven't heard the 20K TT hooked up to a nice system so those might be better). 
 
Where vinyl has an advantage is the mastering is controlled more and they can't compress the sound as much or don't tend to anyway.

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Where vinyl has an advantage is the mastering is controlled more and they can't compress the sound as much or don't tend to anyway.

YUP!

 
(Assuming the source mix is great to begin with and that the mastering engineer knows how to properly master vinyl)

 

[jp11801]

Quote:

I have experienced a superior or at least more lifelike sound from a turntable compared to a CD player in the past and enjoyed my analogue system in parallel to the new technology (of which I've been slightly disappointed at the start). It may still predominantly have been a matter of euphony, but after all the CD format and today's digital equipment aren't necessarily the end-all, be-all when it comes to accuracy, so purely analogue reproduction and even the complex and fault-prone vinyl manufacturing/playback process may still have some specific advantages. That said, meanwhile I'm firmly in the digital camp, not just, but also for comfort reasons.
 
However, a digitized vinyl recording can't sound more accurate than a purely digital version of the same recording. Every possible difference is due to inaccuracies.
.

Your final statement is only correct with the added statement of given that the mastering is the same. LPs from the 50s-early 80s for the most part sound better than their CD counterparts. This is almost entirely due to mastering, digiphiles love to point out distortion, channel separation and noise as fatal flaws of LPs and they are correct that these are disadvantages but the MAJOR disadvantage to digital is you can brickwall the daylights out of the signal and not distort it. This has taken the loudness war, already in full swing with analog to a new and sonically horrible level with digital. So I might argue that the ability to brickwall a cd and reduce the dynamic swing to 3 db is an inherent flaw. 
 
Having technical advantages and not using them is not a real advantage. Most of my LPs SMOKE their CD counterpart unless made early on in the digital age or if they are a remaster done by an audio centric boutique label. Digital is highly accurate, we did a recent recording at CanJam at 24/192 that I think will bear that out but it is just really coming into maturity as a format. 

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Your final statement is only correct with the added statement of given that the mastering is the same. LPs from the 50s-early 80s for the most part sound better than their CD counterparts. This is almost entirely due to mastering, digiphiles love to point out distortion, channel separation and noise as fatal flaws of LPs and they are correct that these are disadvantages but the MAJOR disadvantage to digital is you can brickwall the daylights out of the signal and not distort it. This has taken the loudness war, already in full swing with analog to a new and sonically horrible level with digital. So I might argue that the ability to brickwall a cd and reduce the dynamic swing to 3 db is an inherent flaw.

 

[Skylab]

 
Quote:

No - you're not just an old vinyl fuddy-duddy. That vinyl LP of Chuck Mangione (and most other Mangione LP's) is mastered extremely well on vinyl. If your pressing is minty and quiet - your in for a real sonic treat.
 
My dad is huge Mangione fan and his favorite LP is "Feels So Good". One of his first requests when I started mastering was to make him a remaster of this album. I had various sources available but the LP killed all of them in terms of tone, dynamics, presence and ambiance. Like you said...it sounds soooo good. Dare I even say that it feels so good.

 
Here is a small sampling of the song from my LP remaster:
 
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2qnupt
 
This is crude compared to what I can do now, but I still think it sounds great.

Admittedly, what I have is an absolutely mint half-speed mastered LP of Feels So Good - so yeah, it's pretty special