Michael Fremer defends Hi-Res digital while chewing out Gizmodo

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by violetvinyl, Jan 25, 2015.

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  1. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    It amazing that it works to be honest. Those movements in the needle induce currents. But as Scott Wheeler said, it's not easy to relate it to digital and bit rates. But the actual physical structure of the groove limits the dynamic range (and the frequency range). Digital is only limited by the ability of processors to handle the info. You could theoretically have any sized digital file. But comparing to vinyl to digital is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. They are so different, it is difficult to draw any meaningful results from a comparison. In many ways, I agree with both Art Garfunkel and Neil Young. Art for his love of the format. And Neil for his desire to have a perfect recording.
     
  2. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    A 50kHz signal has nothing to do with it. And for the sound quality, it will only depend on what we like. I like playing records more depending on that I to 90% only play old records, many of which the record is the only choise. I have of course for myself a clear picture of the differences in SQ between various formats, but I find these differences normally rather unimportant.
     
  3. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    Yes of course the surface itself, but also very much what is pressed into the grooves which should not be there, which is always rather much. And of course the friction needle/vinyl which is difficult to reduce. And the cartridge and needle itself. Anyway, what we prefer is only depending on our preferences.
     
  4. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    Your record is what it is. Try Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with the canons.
     
  5. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    God, the sense of deja vu here is like, whoa, deja vu!

    So many nails got hit on the head with your post you could've put front doors on an entire apartment block.
     
  6. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
  7. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan

    Location:
    Atlanta
    You can't really translate bit depth as easily between LP and hirez like you can sampling rate. But it's very obvious that LP is at least 24/96 in quality if you listen.

    Jeff Joseph from Joseph Audio played a VPI Prime at the show that was as dynamic as most thing I have heard. There is nothing lacking between LP and 24 bit hirez.
     
  8. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan

    Location:
    Atlanta
  9. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    I think he has seen what he claims. Below is what I think is an example of what he has claimed that I found when researching audio software.

    If you look here, you can see a test showing a 3-second digitized 24/192 and redbook sample taken vinyl LP. The harmonic overtones appear to extend well past 50 kHz on the 24/192 dub:

    http://www.channld.com/vinylanalysis1.html

    From the webpage:

    "Though the extended frequency response of the vinyl might seem incredible at first, consider that properly calibrated, professional, studio quality analog tape machines were essentially ruler-flat at high frequencies to at least 20 kHz. The roll-off rate above that frequency was dependent on the recording bias setting used, but ranged between just 6 to 12 dB per octave, much gentler than the unnatural CD "brickwall" filter. The upper frequency limit also depended on the tape speed used for recording, and the characteristics of the tape recorder heads, but even a fairly wide 0.25 mil recorder head gap permitted recording signals to over 100 kHz at 30 ips tape speed. The tape recording bias signal doesn't appear in the frequency plots as it is above the 96 kHz A/D converter bandwidth; professional recording studio tape machines used bias frequencies above 100 kHz and up to 432 kHz (for the Ampex ATR-100 deck). Also, the vinyl cutting lathe used in vinyl mastering usually used a 50 kHz 6 dB/octave lowpass filter to limit the cutter amplifier power at ultrasonic frequencies. A roll-off corner frequency at 50 kHz also can be discerned in the above graph of the 192 kHz version of the test recording."


    Here are screen captures from the webpage -- 24/192 first, redbook second.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  10. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    I haven't heard the latest, and I think he only listened to the original TL (I could be wrong). Both TL and RL sounded pretty pleasant. John Kellogg from Dolby came by one day with his Chicago DVD-Audio discs, plus a mix of The Black Crowes live which sounded great but I don't believe was ever released. He thought the sound in the RL matched what he had mixed. However, the 5.1 imaging in the TL was incorrect if you put in an imaging test disc as he and another coworker of mine did.

    People slag Bose so much, but I once drove a 1st generation RL to Vegas and back and enjoyed the Bose system's sound quite a bit.
     
  11. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    You got something to back up these assertions, apart from your ears? My ears, and those of most people I know, say otherwise. So it gets back to technical factors and boring old metrics.

    An LP is not "hi res", 16/44 exceeds the capability of vinyl let alone 24/96. Looking at it in another way, a 24/96 download can be a bit for bit perfect copy of the master, 16/44 can also be a bit for bit perfect copy bound to the limits of human hearing, it is not technically possible for vinyl to be a perfect copy of anything. So, on what measure does the LP match, let alone exceed that of a humble CD, let alone 24/96? And don't say frequency response, because we can only hear up to 20khz (that is, a health very young adult) and more importantly is the linearity of frequency response - where is an LP at 18khz compared to a CD?

    The Joseph Audio session may have been the most dynamic you have heard, but consider that 16bits encodes a wider dynamic range than what is technically possible with an LP, have you ever heard a digital recording which makes use of this dynamic range? I am willing to bet that in a proper DBX test, you'd be struggling to hear a difference between a CD and 24/96 (see the earlier paper I posted) but would clearly hear a difference between the LP and the 24/96 master. Why have the classical genre been an early and most enthusiastic adopter of the digital genre? What then comparing signal to noise ratios, stereo separation, or total harmonic distortion? These cannot be wished away.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2015
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  12. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Mmmm, WHEN in real life? At what price of equipment? With what quality pressing after how many plays?

    That's the thing about vinyl that digital is better at-quality of vinyl playback varied hugely and inevitably degraded over time. Digital playback if functioning delivers high dynamic range, freedom from clicks and pops, very low wow and flutter, flat frequency response, even at low price points.

    Since there are a lot more factors in a vinyl chain, and a lot more transduction, you need a lot more money for the best implementation. Even then, commercial pressings were often just crummy-I once returned a Jimi Hendrix title 3 times and gave up, they were awful.

    So if you compare people's average experience, the sound from CD was superior I'd think the vast majority of the time, as far as what most people would hear as "sound quality." Of course, everyone's ears and hearing training differ. The analog systems wouldn't pre-ring and could have a gentler high frequency cutoff, which on good enough systems might tilt some listeners in favor of a vinyl system. Others (like me!) still just hear clicks and pops and stuff which bug us...while at the same time I can hear mix abortions like Kansas' Point Of Know Return and The Who's Tommy both clearly dumped from an LP-EQ'd master.

    Well, as noted before it is probably not possible to do this apples to apples. All the stuff has been messed with too much. It would be interesting to do this if you had complete Direct-T0-Disc and PACM and SACD systems all in parallel, but I'm not aware of any available releases like that.

    In the end, it doesn't really matter whether we listen to vinyl or DVD-A or Spotify streaming, as long as we are ENJOYING the music!
     
  13. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
    If you mean the Telarc DG-10041 pressing from 1978, that glorious piece of vinyl was a Soundstream digital recording at 50 kHz. I had it when it was new. It had an "airy" and very like-able sound.
     
  14. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
    If we listened to music instead of to numbers, there wouldn't be threads like this one. :)
     
  15. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    Interesting points. Another claim made by some is that LPs, or analogue tape, are more natural because it is analogue without stopping to think deeply about it. Firstly, this claim ignores that the signal recovered by a DAC are pure analogue sine waves. Fremer, notwithstanding, it can be demonstrated through a magnified oscilliscope that the DAC will render a more perfect sine wave than what is possible with an electro/magnetic/mechanical device which has to convert the signal through three different physical states.

    Secondly, is the sound stored and recovered from an LP (or tape) truly analogue? Well, no - in the real world sound has both continous and discrete characteristics. The terms "analouge (continous)" and "digital (discrete)" are idealisations of real world phenomena. Take that picture posted on the record's micro groove. At that level the stylus does not and cannot accurately track the groove (assuming the pressing is 100% accurate which it never is) due to the fine scale and angular momentum. What it means is that there is error when the needle moves through the spiral where it touches the sides on and off, producing a discrete signal like a digital signal resulting in a quantisation error and noise. However as this occurs below the noise floor of vinyl there is no need for dither.

    Likewise our hearing is not entirely analogue either. Sound is continuous from the ear drum to the cochlea, but after that the hair follicles fire nerve impulses as either off or on - ie discrete - which is interpreted by the brain as sound. Even sound itself is not pure analogue. At the molecular level, sound waves face resistance in the atmosphere which sets up discrete movements within the waves. So what's the meaning of all this? It is just another illustration that slogans often do not equate with how things actually work in the real world.
     
  16. Chooke

    Chooke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Perth, Australia
    Or, alternatively, if we listened to music how we prefer it without resorting to erroneous technical justifications, there wouldn't be threads like this one.
     
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  17. Metralla

    Metralla Joined Jan 13, 2002

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I have heard people say some amazing things in my time, but this is way out there in fantasy land.
     
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  18. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    I agree with @Chooke here. Let me be clear: Folks who want to argue for the superiority of vinyl certainly don't have to talk about bit depth or sampling rate.

    However, those are by definition parameters of digital formats, not analogue. So if someone is going to say something like, "vinyl is at least 24-bit if you listen," that person is the one mixing apples with oranges, and cannot reasonably complain if people like Chooke respond with some obvious (and justified) counter-claims.

    As others have noted, bit depth = theoretical maximum signal-to-noise ratio. There's a whole other massive, often annoying thread here where we all argue about whether digital noise-floor capabilities are (A) actually achievable, and (B) relevant to digital vs. analogue comparisons, so I won't get into that.

    But as a matter of fact- and yes, it is a fact - 24 bits allows for a noise floor significantly lower than vinyl as a medium. It doesn't mean digital is better, nor does it mean that this fact is an important fact - but it remains a fact nonetheless, and therefore it's simply factually incorrect to claim that "vinyl is 24-bit or better if you listen to it," unless by "24-bit or better" you mean the much vaguer and more subjective term, "really good sounding."

    As for sample rate, I have no problem believing that some vinyl records can contain frequencies well above 20kHz. But the ability to reproduce ultrasonic frequencies is not the purpose of high-res sample rates in the digital realm. The purpose of high-res sampling in digital is to enable the use of ultrasonic filtering that eliminates - or at least greatly reduces - the "pick your poison" choice between aliasing and nonlinearity in the higher frequencies. In other words, the thinking goes that the farther away the Nyquist frequency is from 20kHz, the easier it is to implement gentle antialiasing filters that don't produce phase shifts/timing errors in the audible portions of the frequency spectrum (particularly the upper frequencies that are closes to the filters' effective frequency bands).

    So the claim that vinyl is "high res" or "better than high res" simply because a piece of test equipment can detect harmonic energy at 50kHz coming from a vinyl playback setup, is a nonsense claim: the evidence does not support the claim.

    Again, let me be clear: I am not saying this means vinyl is not as good or better than high-res. I'm simply saying you can't make the comparison between vinyl and digital using a concept like sample rate.
     
  19. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Please, if there is a creator, make this thread end.
     
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