Cds have more dynamic range than vinyl?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by thegreenmanalishi, Jan 27, 2015.

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  1. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    It's funny. The OP asked a simple question, for which there is a very simple answer. And here we are at page four and the chatter has become heated.

    I could ask if today is Wednesday and probably start a flame war here.
     
  2. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    In the sense of perception
     
  3. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    I'm in China right now so we may not see eye to eye on whether or not it is Wednesday. It's Thursday here
     
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  4. The Good Guy

    The Good Guy Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Your side picture has the 12 in of Bela Lugosi Dead. Compare that 12 in vinyl single to any CD cut of the same song. I know what sounds better.
     
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  5. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    Digital quietness has often come at a serious expense. The world is not so quite. When i listen to classical recordings that have a dead silent background I find it very unnatural. Classical music happens in concert halls. They are never dead quite. Something is missing. Often a lot is missing. Silent backgrounds are often one symptom of very very bad digital.
     
  6. I never understand anyone complaining about vinyl noise unless their LP's have been treated like c**p. All my LP's are free from noise, clicks, pops, ticks etc. Most people would think I was playing a CD when my LP's are spinning as there is no noise even between the tracks. As for pure "natural" sound I am referring to how a good Lp conveys human voice and instruments in a very natural and lifelike way. CD's tend to sound less convincing and more like a digital reconstruction of the original master. Digital distortion is far more intrusive than analogue distortion and therefore to your ears an LP should sound more "clean" and distortion free.
     
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  7. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    On the basis of what I know of your "subjectivist" (used in a non-pejorative sense here) thinking, I'm not surprised that you would say this, but even if one acknowledges the validity of subjectivist assessments (as I do, up to a point), this response is misguided. To say that vinyl sounds, for example, "better" is one thing, but to apply terms such as "pure" and "clean" to the sound of vinyl is, in my view, an abuse of the language.
     
  8. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    That noise is not what my question was alluding to, nor was that noise relevant to the statement of yours that I quoted.

    You've moved the goalposts: your original wording was "the pure clean natural sound of a good LP", which indicates—unless there's some alternative "natural" LP sound that is impure and unclean—that the sound of an LP is pure and clean and natural, i.e., three distinct qualities. I made no mention of your use of the term "natural". So, again, I would ask, in what sense can the terms "pure" and "clean" be applied to the sound of vinyl?
     
  9. tomd

    tomd Senior Member

    Location:
    Brighton,Colorado
    I have a 12" of Bela Lugosi's Dead and believe me it trounced the cd remaster (which itself wasn't bad at all)
     
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  10. Dennis0675

    Dennis0675 Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Ohio

    I was a loaded question.
     
  11. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I wouldn't presume to use those descriptors to the sound of "vinyl" in general, but to return to the example that I suggested to another poster, the vinyl of Black Sabbath's 13 sounds a heckuva lot more "pure" and "clean" than the CD version, in that it doesn't sound like squashed noise. But of course, not all CD's and LP's have such a dramatic disparity from one another.
     
    Scott Wheeler likes this.
  12. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Imagining that a recording on CD has more dynamic range than the same recording on a record is perfectly acceptable.
     
    Grant likes this.
  13. Halloween_Jack

    Halloween_Jack Senior Member

    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    Blame the modern mastering for that... Record that same 12" through a decent modern ADC at 24/96 and dither down to 16/44.1 with a decent resampler and you'll retain that core sound.
     
    Grant likes this.
  14. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    How so? what if that is exactly the quality (subjectively speaking) of what one hears? I have several examples of vinyl that produce a sound quality on my system that is virtually indistinguishable from live acoustic music. How would it be an abuse of the English language to describe such qualities as "pure" and "clean?" OTOH nothing would be more misguided than to describe audio playback as "pure" or "clean" in any objective terms.
     
  15. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Scott, I acknowledge and appreciate that you included the qualifier "often" when you say that digital silence has come at a serious expense.

    However, that said, your statement that the less-than-silent background noise of vinyl is somehow equivalent to - or at least a reasonable substitute for - the hall ambience and whatnot of a live classical performance seems like more than a bit of a stretch. Each of us hears what we hear and feels what we feel (and likes what we like), but I doubt most people would ever make this equation you are making.

    In addition, the extreme level of digital quiet you are referring to sounds to me like what we hear with NR'd masterings - not what we get from a properly recorded and mastered production. Even a classical performance recorded in a studio (rather than a concert hall), with no distant miking, will pick up some room ambience. I suppose someone could record a small chamber ensemble in a super-padded, super-dead room, using only close-miking techniques - but even so, the resulting weird background silence would have nothing to do with whether the recording was digital or analogue. And if you played it back in vinyl form, it wouldn't sound more "live" or "real": it would sound like an awful, unnatural recording with a little bit of surface noise.
     
  16. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    Where did I make the statement that "a less=than-silent background noise of vinyl is somehow equivalent to- or at least a reasonable substitute for- the hall ambience"? If we are going to have any kind of meaningful conversation on the subject of noise it won't happen if you are going to completely misrepresent my position on the subject.

    It may very well sound like that to you but the sort of digital silence of which I speak is commonly found on DDD CDs.

    My experience tells me otherwise.

    again IME playing back the most sterile sounding digital recordings on vinyl goes a long way towards making them sound more "real" and "live." Your experiences may be different but that is *my* experience and I am not going to argue with anyone about the validity of my experience. It is quite valid to me. And, unlike most subjectivists" I do an awful lot of critical listening and comparisons under blind conditions.
     
  17. rhubarb9999

    rhubarb9999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    There isn't.
     
  18. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    If the vinyl playback is truly "virtually indistinguishable from live acoustic music", those two terms would not represent an abuse of the language, but given the coloration---a quality that analog aficionados often embrace---of the sound associated with vinyl, it's not clear to me how vinyl would be "virtually indistinguishable from live acoustic music".
     
  19. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    I guess you have not experienced it. I have. Whether or not it is clear to you *how* it can happen does not change the fact that it does happen.
     
  20. Nielsoe

    Nielsoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Aalborg, Denmark
    I do not understand the technicalities of this, but my ears agree 100% with you.
     
  21. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Evidently my phrasing obscured my point, so I'll rephrase it. If the sound has been colored, then how, as a matter of logic, can one claim that that sound is "virtually indistinguishable" from the original, live acoustic performance of that same music.
     
  22. Nielsoe

    Nielsoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    Aalborg, Denmark
    Whenever I (attempt) to explain why I prefer vinyl to cd I often say that it's not the dynamics as such, rather "the way
    in which they are presented". Don't know if this makes any sense...
     
    Dennis0675 likes this.
  23. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    two points.
    1. Please be careful in reading what I said. I did not say ""virtually indistinguishable" from the original, live acoustic performance of that same music." did I? I said "I have several examples of vinyl that produce a sound quality on my system that is virtually indistinguishable from live acoustic music." This is twice now that you have misrepresented my position. Honestly it is getting tiresome.
    2. The very nature of recording and playback makes it impossible to ever claim "that sound is "virtually indistinguishable" from the original, live acoustic performance of that same music." That is true regardless of whether we are talking about digital or vinyl playback. If that is the standard by which one can call anything "pure" and "clean" then one can never call any audio playback "pure" and "clean" regardless of the recording or playback media.
     
  24. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    What is that 'straight forward technical explanation' to Your subjective view?
     
  25. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    I would have thought that the dynamic range superiority of a CD over an LP would not be controversial.

    We can (and do) argue each format's strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to other components of sound reproduction, but I'm a bit baffled how the particular quality of dynamic range is debatable. Listen to any LP, and then listen to any orchestral CD from Telarc.
     
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