[Wiggy Fuzz]

when i see that i see death magnetic. though apparently a guitar hero version is much better...

 

[Sherwood]

Unfortunately, Death Magnetic is a case where the vinyl is the same lousy master as the CD. The only good version is the guitar hero rip.

 

[MikeJ138]

I'd be careful saying the word "better". Vinyl sounds different than CD. No better. Just different.

 

[Sherwood]

I don't fear absolutism nearly so much as I fear relativity. I'm happy to listen to whichever master of a particular recording sounds better, the vinyl or the cd.

 

[robm321]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeJ138 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'd be careful saying the word "better". Vinyl sounds different than CD. No better. Just different.

Why be careful? It sounds better to me and has for years now

I don't clean records, clean the stylus, do all the crazy cartridge and TT set ups, turn the record over, etc, etc, etc to be nastalgic or because it just sounds different. I do it because it is worth it for the increased listening pleasure and IMO increased sound quality over CD.

It's fun reading the arguments, but at the end of the day vinyl sounds consistantly better than CD, SACD, DVD-A HDCD. If you don't agree then you are lucky because you can avoid all the hastle and added expense and just press play on your CD player

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robm321 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why be careful? It sounds better to me and has for years now I don't clean records, clean the stylus, do all the crazy cartridge and TT set ups, turn the record over, etc, etc, etc to be nastalgic or because it just sounds different. I do it because it is worth it for the increased listening pleasure and IMO increased sound quality over CD. It's fun reading the arguments, but at the end of the day vinyl sounds consistantly better than CD, SACD, DVD-A HDCD. If you don't agree then you are lucky because you can avoid all the hastle and added expense and just press play on your CD player

Preference is a strange thing no doubt. I find CD sounds preferable to me and has done so since 1984, in those days the players and media were (relatively) expensive and the selection was limited.

I went through the achetypical vinyl path in the 1970s/1980s. As I upgraded each step just showed me how technically flawed vinyl really was, the lower rumble on the better TTs allowed me to hear surface noise , end of side noise, mistracking and all sorts of grunty better. By 1984 I could bear it no longer.

From CD I get extra enjoyment from the lack of extraneous noise, the rock solid speed control (handy for solo piano) and the utter silence between tracks is an added bonus. I just hit play and relax knowing that I am hearing an accurate rendering of the recorded material. Which to me is what sound quality is all about, ymmv.

 

[ffrr]

really though.. digital is superior, spec wise, analogue is what it is..

but why the "either or" sort of talk?? noone has to choose.

I have vinyl, cds, and FLAC files. (just no lossy sources)

enjoy them all..

 

[ffrr]

most , if not ALL studios use some sort of hybrid approach..actually, let me take that back../



all studios have digital implemented in some way or other. maybe they record in the analogue domain and mix digitally , maybe they record digitally and back out to analogue through a analog summing buss.... id venture to say that there are NO all-analogue studios. Most engineers recognize the superior SNR, flexibility , and storage potential of digital, and use analog gear for colorations in the signal..lets face it, analog gear/tube gear adds distortions that some folks like.

Neumann and Schoeps have all digital microphones now... digital is going to keep driving on and on, analog will become smaller and smaller...





Quote:

Originally Posted by deltaydeltax /img/forum/go_quote.gif It might be interesting to find out how many studios still have an analog setup. Have a good percentage of the major studios gone digital? So, a singers voice is being picked up by an analog microphone, run through some ADCs into a mixing board, then stored on digital media such as a PC? If so, then aren't all of our records now "digital" in a sense? I like vinyl more than anything else, records coming out now may not actually be a true analog source though. Does anyone have any definitive proof of this? I lost my contacts in the recording world a long time ago as I lost interest in recording.

 

[Sherwood]

I recoded a track in all-analogue a few years back. We even had tape splices by little machines. It was agonizing.

Usually we'd just lay down drums and bass on 1/2" tape, then track everything into protools. Sounded great, and it was a lot easier.

 

[robm321]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif Preference is a strange thing no doubt. I find CD sounds preferable to me and has done so since 1984, in those days the players and media were (relatively) expensive and the selection was limited. I went through the achetypical vinyl path in the 1970s/1980s. As I upgraded each step just showed me how technically flawed vinyl really was, the lower rumble on the better TTs allowed me to hear surface noise , end of side noise, mistracking and all sorts of grunty better. By 1984 I could bear it no longer. From CD I get extra enjoyment from the lack of extraneous noise, the rock solid speed control (handy for solo piano) and the utter silence between tracks is an added bonus. I just hit play and relax knowing that I am hearing an accurate rendering of the recorded material. Which to me is what sound quality is all about, ymmv.

I wasn't into anything high end in the 70s and 80s. I was busy being a kid and teenager, but I have heard that the high end LP equipment back then was pretty bad compared to the 90s and beyond. I wonder if this has anything to do with it?

Also, all the cracking and noise you hear could be just bad records. When going to vinyl I had to realise that bad records sound worse than bad CDs, and if a record was in bad shape with cracks or old, then I'd pass on it. At $2 a pop not a big deal. New records shouldn't have those issue - old records should be bought, then recycled except for the ones that stand out.

When it comes to high priced cartridges, it isn't worth listening to badly recorded records like it is with CD (no wear). It's a different way of thinking but makes sense to me.

That being said, I don't think anyone can go wrong with CDs. I don't agree that it is more accurate than LPs. By the way, master tapes and live studio feeds on the radio even trump vinyl, so I am pretty far from feeling that CD is the ultimate ideal for accuracy.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif This IS amusing.

Glad you are amused. Always a pleasure to brighten someone's day.


Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif Apologists for CD often claim it wasn't the format but the incompetant mastering engineers back in the early days.

Perhaps incompetant isn't the correct word or a fair description. In the early days, there was necessarily a learning curve, particularly for engineers accustomed to working with vinyl or tape as a target medium.

It's my understanding that the job of the mastering engineer is to optimize the sound of a recording for a particular medium. Unless you contend that CD and vinyl sound identical, it seems reasonable to argue that a recording optimized for vinyl is not going to sound identical when pressed to a CD. It also seems reasonable that engineers just starting out with CD would not necessarily produce the best results.

This is not an original idea; it's something I read repeatedly over the years in the audio press. [Insert anticipated disparaging comment about audio writers here.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif But nowadays many claim that they are seeking out those exact same early pressings to get away from the over compressed CDs you hear today from the latest generation of incompetant mastering engineers.

That latest generation of audio engineers know exactly what they are doing. They are responding to pressure from radio stations, car stereo users, and users of cheap portable and shelf systems.

If some people prefer early CD pressings to current, heavily compressed versions, that doesn't mean the earlier pressings sounded great. But it could easily be argued that massive dynamic range compression sounds even worse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif mmm....so by this logic when exactly were CDs any good?

They were, and are, when a talented engineer masters a recording with clean sound and without squashed dynamic range. This has been technically possible since the CD debuted, and has been happening, sometimes, ever since.


Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif and has anyone ever met a competant mastering engineer? I mean logically they must exist right?

Nah.

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif So you've obviously never heard a Nakamichi, Tandberg, Revox, Studer or top B&O cassette deck which have superior bandwidth to redbook? not nearly as good as reel to reel agreed, but you'd need to be using DSD or top spec PCM , leaving the matter of distortion aside, to equal that right?

Cassette, at it's absolute best, could sound quite good. I knew someone who had a Nak Dragon, as part of a very good system. Using quality recordings on high-bias cassettes, the combination was excellent.

But cassettes, and cassette decks, were complex, mechanical devices. Head alignment and other adjustments were critical to getting good sound. So was maintaining the tape heads, via periodic cleaning and demagnetizing.

The odds of all those planets aligning at the same time were slim.

I would have to see documentation of the "superior bandwidth" of cassettes, even high-end decks, over Redbook CD. Not doubting your word; I'm just skeptical of that claim.

 

[jp11801]

ok first off the master tape is tape a mastering engineer uses to creat the master for the medium they are working on. Many early cds were pretty much straight transfers from these tapes. That meant little post mix compression also not much pumping of the volume and no use of the dreaded 'no noise' that eliminates tape hiss but also cuts top end information with it and can make a recoding sound dull and lifeless.

I'd argue that many of today's engineers are hacks in the rock studio world. This is not entirely their fault as move to pro logic has has created some of this. Know any fool with a PC/Mac and a few grand think they are recording engineers. I'd argue that in years past studio engineers knew more about mics, room acoustics mixing for a balanced sound and not recording so freaking hot that it is difficult to listen to. There are still great people out there but they are few and far between.

Mastering engineers are not responding the car audio enthusiasts ... they are responding to the artist and label that want a record as loud as the competition. It is pretty easy to demonstrate earlier pressing dominance just page back to the post with the 2 versions of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms the early one has huge dynamics the second is much louder and as a consequence has less dynamic range and compression. Too much of that and you'll get a headache.

So if a master tape contains a proper mix from the studio recording engineers and cds are flat 20-20k then a direct transfer should be fine.
CDs were being produced for a few years by the time the rock and pop catalogs were being released. I'd say its a hell of alot easier to master for CD than LP.

Cassettes were designed for voice transcription and adopted to audio. It never was a great medium but did ok with every freaking once of potential squeezed out of it. It is the meduim that general present the hard stop on bandwidth not sure if cassette can capture that range, it's either on the tape or it isn't revox or nakamichi can't produce what is not on the tape.

mastering wars example

http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/wallofsound.htm

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jp11801 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Mastering engineers are not responding the car audio enthusiasts ... they are responding to the artist and label that want a record as loud as the competition.

Absolutely true. But why is that? Could that be because when you are driving around in traffic in your Hummer or your pickup, or some other ridiculous dinosaur vehicle, you can't hear soft passages over the ambient noise? Could it be that these CDs are being mastered with a particular listening environment in mind?

Could it be that lifestyle trumps quality?

 

[jp11801]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif Absolutely true. But why is that? Could that be because when you are driving around in traffic in your Hummer or your pickup, or some other ridiculous dinosaur vehicle, you can't hear soft passages over the ambient noise? Could it be that these CDs are being mastered with a particular listening environment in mind? Could it be that lifestyle trumps quality?

sorry car audio has nothing to do with although radio in general has alot to do with itl, artists have always wanted their track to be as loud as or louder than the competition. Road noise is not the reason for loudness.
loudness wars started years prior to car audios heyday it started with jukeboxes and 45s, the louder a 45 the more plays it got no matter how great a song is if it is too soft the kids played it less.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jp11801 /img/forum/go_quote.gif sorry car audio has nothing to do with although radio in general has alot to do with itl, artists have always wanted their track to be as loud as or louder than the competition. Road noise is not the reason for loudness. loudness wars started years prior to car audios heyday it started with jukeboxes and 45s, the louder a 45 the more plays it got no matter how great a song is if it is too soft the kids played it less.

I have no damning evidence that would contradict your point; I could very easily be wrong. But when I listen to the levels of sound pumping out of the vehicles that go by me on 1st Ave (and wake me up from half a block away in the middle of the night), I have to think that this is part of the problem.

Again, I have no concrete evidence of this. But...