Digital recordings on vinyl

I've recently switched to listening to vinyl, after decades of playing only digital formats. Upon switching, I found my listening enjoyment improved in a very significant way, despite the inconveniences of putzing around the turntable, LPs, etc.

Last weekend I purchased Amy Winehouse on LP ("Frank" and "Back to Black") and spent several very enjoyable hours listening to her amazing songs. Last night a buddy of mine came over for a listen, and got really excited about the sound quality of those LPs. He then asked me if I could play the same albums on CDs. I did that, we sat back and listened, comparing side-by-side the vinyl and the digital sound. We both agreed that vinyl beats the CD, as it offers more coherent presentation, warmer, fuller, more liquid sound, less glaring highs and deeper, firmer, more rounded bass.

But then, after my friend left, I came to the realization: wait a minute, we are comparing a recording that was taped, mixed and mastered digitally. How much can a digital recording improve when it gets transferred to the analog medium?

To my mind, it would only make sense to compare an old school LP, something that was recorded before we had digital technology. For example, a Beatles LP. Comparing the sound of the Beatles LP to the sound of the Beatles CD would make sense. But I'm not sure if comparing the sound of a digitally recorded and produced track to the sound of that track pressed on vinyl could make any sense.

This then made me question our perception -- did we really hear an improvement of Amy Winehouse music on LP, or were we just imagining things?

 

I've never really listened to Amy Winehouse but the CDs of her albums do apparently have a low dynamic range so in this particular case you may not be imagining things.

 

Nostalgia will do that. I sometimes play my original Beatles UK records for ****s & giggles, but always revert back to iTunes. Same thing when I play the Beatles Capitol recordings. Do it for nostalgia reasons, but again always revert back.

 

Different masterings. Although there are exceptions, I find the CD equivalent to sound "hard" and more in your face than the vinyl pressed version.

Bought John Mayer's "Continuum" and it's a world of a difference. On CD, there's no air, it's compressed like crazy, but on vinyl, it sounds glorious.

 

Yup. Vinyl mastering and digital mastering are not the same thing. Lots of digital recordings are mastered too loud to be pressed directly onto LP, and have to be remastered first.

 

I don't really think that's the case, though I've seen others say the same thing before. Is there a source for this info? What would happen if the same digital source files were used to master the vinyl? I've got some vinyl releases that don't sound any better or more dynamic than the highly compressed CD.

 

Remember that the D/A converters at mastering studio like Abbey Road, Bernie Grundman mastering etc are far superior to anything the majority of us will ever have. Therefore, digital can sound better on vinyl but depends on where it was mastered and by who. Digital formats also suffer more commonly from compression and, in some cases, are brickwalled. Vinyl therefore has better dynamic range generally, as you cannot compress the sound to the same degree. Lastly, it depends on your setup.

 

I've wondered about this to varying degrees since I got into vinyl about 10 years ago.

One concrete factor we can point to, however, is sampling and bit rates for CD, vs. what most "digital" vinyl is ideally mastered from.

CD specs are 44.1 kHz sampling rate, with 16-bit depth. This is down-res from what is now possible with current technology—most studios today record at 88.1 or 96 kHz sampling rate, and 24-bit depth.

Because of a CD's limitations, they down-res from those specs. But vinyl from digital recordings ideally is made from the higher resolution files. I say ideally, because some vinyl is cut from CD-quality specs, which is frowned upon greatly on these boards.

So the vinyl started from higher quality digital files.

Yet another factor, though, is indeed your audio system. I've heard people refer to a tone arm, cartridge, cantilever, and stylus as a "resonant system." The quality of these mechanisms working together can sweeten or sour the sound that eventually comes from your speakers.

So potentially, a vinyl record made from digital can receive this sound-sweetening if you have a good setup.

But of course, digital vinyl doesn't hold a candle to vinyl made all-analog. If you're curious about all-analog vinyl of new music, it's rare, but it's out there.

One great example of this is all of The White Stripes vinyl, and all of Jack White's solo project vinyl. I'd bet that most Third Man Records releases are all-analog.

I highly recommend any of those releases, for further insight on the issue. Maybe other posters know of all-analog vinyl of contemporary music. I'd be curious to hear of it.

Finally, high-res, 96k, 24-bit digital files are available for purchase from some outlets. If you want a real comparison of digital vs. digital vinyl (with both starting from an equal footing, digital resolution-wise), you'd have to buy some of those high-res digital files, and compare with the vinyl release of the same music.

 

Which CD version of B2B was compared to vinyl? As noted in the attached thread, there are different sounding CD versions.
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black Deluxe Edition - different mastering......

 

Hmmm, digital versus analog. Cds versus the vinyls. Interesting topic. Curious to see where this ends up.

 

Regular CD, nothing fancy.

 

It's easy to explain. The "warmness" of vinyl is really an effect of some of its shortcomings. The vinyl playback process inserts distortions that sound pleasing to many people. It adds harmonics that aren't there in the original recording, it rolls of the highs, and it adds some phasing errors between the stereo channels, all of which make it sound "warm". Of course that works just as well with a digital source. Vinyl basically acts as an audio processor. A DSP with an appropriate programming could do the same, and there are machines out there that can do just that. For example I have a Panasonic bluray player that can simulate "tube sound", even though it's a pizza box full of microelectronics that has no tubes in it.

 

If you check the link in my post, you would see a precious discussion about that album here on SHF.

 

With all due respect, the Jack White releases are hardly a good insight into what a good analog record can sound like. They sound pretty average imo, i have many digital records that sound superior to these. Lazaretto, in particular, sounds pretty poor. They are mastered at Nashville Record Pressing, which is not one of the best mastering studios in my opinion. However, Icky Thump is one exception and is pretty amazing on vinyl mastered by our host and Kevin Gray. I would consider this a good place to start. I dont think much of the White Stripes vinyl mastered by Wes Garland at NRP though....

 

Good generalisation but John Mayer's Continuum sounds mighty fine through my CD Player

 

I believe in the "pleasing distortion" theory but I also think the amplifacation of a vibrating needle is a more natural and pleasing sound.

I certainly dig AAA recordings but a digital master and analog playback can combine both pleasing elements of those technologies.

 

If possible, I'd check who mastered the CD and the vinyl. If they were mastered by different people that may explain the difference. Mastering really is one of the key factors. I've plenty of both formats that don't sound great because the mastering has been poorly done.

 

Have you listened to it on vinyl?

 

I consider that digital source files, however compressed, can be pressed to vinyl without remastering provided the level is lowered to the appropriate amount.

Which would explain that phenomenon. If the label doesn't want to invest in a proper vinyl release, this would be a corner easily cut.

 

From what i read if mastered properly hi rez digital files sound better on vinyl than CD. Supposedly because like others said its not compressed. You can store more information on an LP. And the way its mastered

 

The digital is converted to analog before cutting the vinyl laquer, so level is set to whatever it needs to be for best signal to noise ratio and other factors. I'm not sure what you mean about lowering the level, but I was mainly just wondering where the info in your original post came from about not being able to make records from highly compressed masters. It doesn't seem right, but I could be wrong.

 

The compression is not really the issue, rather that loudness and compression often go hand in hand.

Assuming you're converting a digital master to analog, you have to convert it at a level that doesn't clip your analog equipment. Furthermore, that loud master has to fit on LP and physically play through. My point was that you can either do the minimal amount of adjustment to facilitate that, or a full remastering.

Of course, I could be wildly wrong also. I know little to nothing about cutting records, but this makes sense in my head. I know my way around a digital recording workflow, but the black art of actually cutting LPs I'm afraid I'm likely to young to know anything about

 

I am a new comer to vinyl too, so am really curious about this CD v. Vinyl debate. Based on comparisons I have performed:

Jazz audiophile (Music Matters, AP, MOFI) vinyl reissues versus CD. Vinyl destroys CD. This is the main reason I will always have a turntable.
Jazz regular reissues versus CD. CD sounds the same without the noise. In fact, some CDs are better (thinking John Coltrane, Giant Steps CD versus reissue LP). Much prefer the CD.
Nonesuch records vinyl versus CD (I used to buy both formats for comparison purposes ): Allen Toussaint, Brad Mehldau, Rhiannon Giddens, Connor Oberst albums. The CD and Vinyl records sound close, but the vinyl records sound more open to my ears. Slight preference to vinyl (I stopped buying the CD).
BN Exclusives -- tie. But since the BN exclusive has a different cover or color vinyl, I get the vinyl .

 

Well, in this context, they are really the same, compression (and further limiting) is used to lower the peaks so that the average signal level can be made closer to maximum. Loudness is just some goofy term we started using in the past to describe the CD situation, since there is a fixed maximum level that can be encoded on CD (and digital in general), and so you have to keep adding more and more compression and peak limiting in order to boost the level, or it will just be completely clipped. Just a totally silly situation with no rational reasoning behind it. But still, I don't think vinyl has any built-in limitation regarding the amount of compression a signal can have, some of those singles many of us love from the 60s had near zero dynamic range too.

 

Colorization from your stylus or phono stage.

Which is fine by me, btw.