I want to love vinyl, but...

When ripping a cd and burning/pressing an exact copy of it, Yes.
But downloading some ****ty mp3, converting it to WAV and pressing the CD gives another result (CDs are also victim of that grey market).

 

A sampling rate has a finite cut off, analog has gradual attenuation.

No need to examine:
analog to digital and back is not linear in electrical engineering terms...period
Sinusoidal ...digital....sinusoidal
0-2 v....5 v....0-2 v
Linear circuit - Wikipedia

noise and degradation does NOT make the analog chain non linear

I never said the 3 axis of signal on an lp is the 3 dimensions of our inertial frame plus time. Only that you have 3 signal 'influences' as opposed to 2.

 

Where isn’t?
Every audiophile/hifi community has been like that for decades, hasn’t it?

 

Quanta vs wave
No duality with audio: analog vs digital are unique

not saying one is better, just different and each with their own strengths and weaknesses

just wondering what accounts for the difference

 

I think you're looking at this incorrectly. Vinyl is a means of listening to anything that is on LP. It quite often sounds better than the CD even if its a digital master due to the reasons I outlined earlier. And it sounds very nice if the master is tape, or direct to disc. It works for all these things because lacquers are nearly as silent as 16 bit digital (easily in the -85-90dB range, the noise floor comes in during the pressing process, but one plant, QRP in Salinas, has a solution for that) and its the widest bandwidth format available. And since the mastering operation likely has a master file not available to the public as well as better digital gear, you can get a better sounding LP.

Of course, not that such means anything. Some cartridges play the groove at one depth while others play it at another.

It can, but it can also record digital artifacts that are ultrasonic, and most turntables/cartridges/phono sections can easily reproduce them. I'm talking about digital noise, not even aliasing, although it can reproduce that as well. This is why the best digital file should be used and DACs that don't have stupid problems.

Digital doesn't have bandwidth. Vinyl does, although tape may not- it might only be good to the mid 20KHz region. Not that there's much information up there, although its been shown that we do respond somehow to information that high even if its also been shown that we can't actually hear it. Digital has a downfall of aliasing, which is responsible for its brightness (in the analog world, we call this 'distortion'; somehow in the digital world it gets a Murphy). The way around that seems to simply record at a very high sample frequency, so not even distortion harmonics can show up to cause aliasing. This eliminates the need for a brickwall filter and so results in a much more natural sounding digital file.

The simple fact that this is a topic of such debate, that vinyl is still around more than 30 years after being declared 'obsolete' should tell everyone a simple fact: If it were really inferior, it would be gone. Obviously that isn't the case. Look how many cars are made with flathead engines; when a new technology appears that is superior, the prior art becomes the thing of museums and dustbins. That's why there aren't flathead engines anymore- apparently overhead valves are simply better. Digital has been around since 1980 or so, and 40 years on this debate still rages?? You don't have to know anything technical to know that digital isn't bringing home the bacon that was promised. But it has gotten much much better, to the point you can buy a $125.00 Topping DAC off of ebay and expect it to really sound pretty good. The problem is that vinyl keeps getting better too. I really do wonder if we'll still be talking about this in ten years!

 

Quantization error amounts to LSB error, least significant bit error. Assuming no dithering (NOT a fair assumption!) that places quantization error smack in the noise level. And if by "not harmonically related" you mean quantization error is random noise, then sure. The non-dithered noise floor of 16 bits is -93dBFS. But all ADCs are now dithered, which basically pushes their ability to quantize signals below LSB jitter by many dB. With dither, quantization errors are below the noise floor.

Human hearing "compresses" based on specific SPL, but it does not generate nonlinear distortion like an electronic system. The brain absolutely DOES NOT compensate for artificial nonlinearites that occur at SPLs skewed from natural hearing compression in any way. In fact, human hearing becomes more sensitive to nonlinear distortions when presented at lower levels. So, 3% THD played at 70dBSPL is more objectionable thatn 3% THD played at 100dBSPL. Most people listen at 70-80dBSPL.

Additionally, there are many distortion mechanisms in analog systems. There is no direct human hearing characteristic that approximates IMD, InterModulation Distortion, a far more objectionable result of analog nonlinear response than simple THD, though there really is no such thing as simple THD either. Unlike certain cases of THD, IMD is not easily masked by music content. Distortion generating mechanisms also exist that elevate harmonics at lower levels. And none of this exists in digital systems, unless you insist on being literal rather than practical, in which case I guess I have to say it this way: none of the same distortions exist in digital systems at levels similar to analogy systems.

And analog nonlinearities include much more than distortion mechanisms, they include time-base problems (wow and flutter), interchannel timing issues (yes, analog systems have MUCH bigger interchannel timing issues than any digital system...See for example tape head azimuth alignment), and you haven't begun to acknowledge the frequency response problems, which are neither small, nor always correctable. An example would be the low frequency response of 30IPS analog tape, which is pretty bad, and cannot be corrected with equalization effectively.

Look, I have no idea where you're getting your concepts. They seem to be based on a smattering of knowlege, not scaled to reality, and misapplied to the real purpose. But keep going, I'll help you out if I can.

 

Digital does its dirty work unseen.

 

There is absolutely no equivalence, if you are only discussing downloads, which I was.

The Green solution is to ban all physical media.

Distribute all music as high resolution PCM or DSD.

 

Digital music may not have saved the environment after all

 

The endless list of outdated DAC, streamers plus the environmental cost of running gigantic server facilities and the internet might disagree with your idea of saving the environment.

 

Wurd!

 

Don't let the facts trouble you.

Since much of the world went into lockdown, and had to rely on the internet, pollution levels have dropped markedly. Air pollution in UK down by 30%.

 

Judging by my mother-in-law’s records we now have in the house, those “whatever kind of record player” players did not necessarily treat the grooves well!

 

What's the connection with music? I guess less cars, less people moving around and factories producing less had nothing to do with it? Whatever you are having must be really good.

 

That’s not quite right. NO2 levels are down by a lot, ozone levels are up slightly because NO2 and other pollutants actual break down ground level ozone, and now there’s a ‘race’ on to find out if fewer hospitalizations and deaths from air pollution-related illnesses might outpace hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 as Canada, the UK and a lot of other countries dive headlong into the next surge of the virus. I feel particularly badly for the west coast Americans who are dealing with the worst forest fire season in recorded history, the worst - and I do mean the very worst - air pollution in history as a result of the massive fires, plus a very high COVID-19 new case count that never really got down to anything manageable before surging again.

The problem with climate change, global warming, a global pandemic, massive forest fires of biblical proportions, and massive deleterious effects of nearly one hundred and fifty years of industrial pollution, all jammed together as they are, is that the small benefits conferred by cleaner air resulting from fewer cars and trucks on the road are all taken away, and worse, by the horrible effects being experienced elsewhere.

Never ever look at local weather as though it’s a barometer of anything but local weather. Any other approach can breed complacency and, in some people, the misguided notion that a few months (or even a few years) of pandemic-reduced car and truck traffic can undo the unstoppable effects of six generations of unbridled global industrial-scale pollution.

 

The whole dropping the needle and hearing the surface noise can add to that nostalgic appeal also. Something that triggers that "transporting one back in time" thing. As mentioned, gaming has some similarities in that it's different leveraging an emulator versus grabbing that original controller / console and playing that game you spent months on, when you were a kid. An emulator kind of reproduces that, but only to a point.

CD's do have some retro appeal too, but the sound isn't one of them as you can replicate it easily with lossless files and it will literally sound exactly the same. Perhaps one day we'll see a faux CD player with fake CD's where you can reminisce on putting the CD in but it just plays music off the cloud instead.

 

A very minor point. Neither will handle even a fraction of an octave above cutoff.

Noise, no, but the analog chain has a highly nonlinear transfer function. Where do you think distortion of all kinds comes from? Linearity, or lack of it?

 

You can see easily enough who I am. So help me (and the rest of us) out and tell us here who you are. You shurely must not mind revealing to us refreceable sources of your experience and book knowladge since you seem to have everything so neatly sewn up when it comes to the superiority of digital audio.

 

What is the frequency range of RIAA correction?

 

[QUOTE="Ralph Karsten, post: 25019190,
Digital doesn't have bandwidth. Vinyl does, although tape may not- it might only be good to the mid 20KHz region. Not that there's much information up there, although its been shown that we do respond somehow to information that high even if its also been shown that we can't actually hear it. Digital has a downfall of aliasing, which is responsible for its brightness (in the analog world, we call this 'distortion'; somehow in the digital world it gets a Murphy). The way around that seems to simply record at a very high sample frequency, so not even distortion harmonics can show up to cause aliasing. This eliminates the need for a brickwall filter and so results in a much more natural sounding digital file.

The simple fact that this is a topic of such debate, that vinyl is still around more than 30 years after being declared 'obsolete' should tell everyone a simple fact: If it were really inferior, it would be gone. Obviously that isn't the case. Look how many cars are made with flathead engines; when a new technology appears that is superior, the prior art becomes the thing of museums and dustbins. That's why there aren't flathead engines anymore- apparently overhead valves are simply better. Digital has been around since 1980 or so, and 40 years on this debate still rages?? You don't have to know anything technical to know that digital isn't bringing home the bacon that was promised. But it has gotten much much better, to the point you can buy a $125.00 Topping DAC off of ebay and expect it to really sound pretty good. The problem is that vinyl keeps getting better too. I really do wonder if we'll still be talking about this in ten years![/QUOTE]


Yes! With you in all of this. Anyone who’s been a critic of music and it’s presentation for long enough knows that measurements are valuable, but the ear always comes first.

 

The RIAA recording curve is made up of 3 time constants. Theoretically, in order to properly achieve the curve, these time constants would have to be left unmodified by any other roll-offs well beyond 20kHz, in fact up to and beyond 100kHz. However, in practice that doesn’t work for a number of reasons. Cutter amplifiers therefore have another set of time constants above 20kHz that prevents the curve from extending indefinitely. Since that’s usually made up of a second order filter, it’s not something that the inverse/reproduction curve can compensate for. Thus, the practical application of the RIAA curve is limited to 20kHz, both for the record and reproduce characteristic, which must be exactly complimentary. The reproduce curve has a similar problem at the low end, where in order to be a compliment of the record curve the low frequency gain must continue to increase indefinitely. This too is impractical, so in the real world there is another set of time constants countering the infinite low end gain.

Not a simple answer, but 20Hz to 20kHz is the range over which the two curves are meant to track.

 

Yes, that is the key to the question of which is best, especially now that a big premium is paid for anything that is vinyl related. Gone are the days of picking up records in perfect condition from the garbage or in a cheap second hand store. Now I pay over $40 in Australia for vinyl -often more- but would not touch the CD version for $10.

 

You list all the possible negatives of vinyl, but you want to rule out any discussion of analog sound quality as compared to digital. Convenient.

 

Been there done that years ago...at 69 years old with my hearing not being what it use to be...I don’t have the inclination to go through the ritual all over again...too much maintenance involved with vinyl.
What has now become my mantra “it’s not the delivery system..it’s the music”

 

In this topic all the negatives and positives facts about vinyl was clearly showed and discussed. All of them.

I mean, we're starting over all again ... I think now it's a question of preference to anyone and for someone a source of information. This topic now it's boring and a waste of time.

My opinion and good listening sessions to everybody.