CD-sourced vinyl — myth or reality?

There are a few that are doing it right.
The "Speakers Corner" record label.
They have reissued JJ Cale, Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac, Hot Tuna, Santana, Jazz, Classical ...
From their website -

Are your records completely analogue?
Yes! This we guarantee!
As a matter of principle, only analogue masters are used, and the necessary cutting delay is also analogue. All our cutting engineers use only Neumann cutting consoles, and these too are analogue. The only exception is where a recording has been made – either partly or entirely – using digital technology, but we do not have such items in our catalogue at the present time

 

My question on this topic (great thread, great forum, btw) is:
If any modern vinyl IS actually being sourced from high resolution digital files, why aren't those very files being made available as official digital downloads on the ever growing list of websites selling such? There's a huge list of vinyl but no high resolution titles from the last fifteen years...

 

Some have: see Black Sabbath for instance. There are many others. Usually the vinyl mastering is an adaptation of the Hi-Res master.

What albums had you in mind? If you're looking for Hi-Res downloads, use this: http://www.findhdmusic.com/

 

Why could you even go to the trouble of typing that out without even checking? There are loads of hi res files sold of recent albums. Perhaps not in your musical tastes, but I have quite a number of ECM and Linn albums made in the past 5 years. I am not massively interested in hi res (more in good mastering) and I have a few of these on my music server. See also a load of blue note albums
http://www.bluenote.com/news/astellkern-celebrates-blue-note

 

Indeed, can many adults over 45 hear anything above 16kHz anyway?

The only LP's I am aware of that are cut from 16bit/44.1kHz files (as opposed to higher resolution) are those in the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series "Tell Tale Signs" box. As I understand it this is solely due to the extent of material in that box being originally recorded that way digitally and the decision was made to "homogenize" the sound across the whole set, thus using ALL the files used for the CD's to cut the vinyl. The sound quality could have been extremely variable otherwise.

 

If only...the amount of mastering studios/engineers that I spoke to about cutting my own 1/2" and 1/4" masters for vinyl and keeping them analogue all the way...the response ranged from "what's the point..." to mockery like "you want distortion??". To them digital has always been 'fine', from a 16-bit CD-R or DAT to a WAV file. A pity IMO as many have nice cutting equipment with tube signal paths and vintage lathes etc. Maybe they don't care about maintaining their tape machines...there are more ME's and studios that do care however, it's slowly getting better.

 

So there are artists who claim to be mastering their vinyl releases using analog source. Tom Waits comes to mind and his Anti albums sound terrific to my ears. Is the argument here that what we used to consider an analog transfer in the 80's is not the same as what we're getting today? Or just that a lot of what gets released on vinyl doesn't use an analog source? Just curious.

 

I'm not sure if this Myth or urban legend: Someone correct if I'm wrong.
Years ago I was interning at a Local AOR Radio Station. CD's were just coming onto the scene. I remember the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks CD sounding very bad. The Music Director turned me on to a rumor-
the CD for Hot Rocks was mastered straight from the vinyl because they either could not find the tape or did not want to remaster the collection.
He claimed that vinyl copies were often used as the master on many CD's during the early days.
I recently read that the new Rolling Stones Hot Rocks Vinyl was mastered from the CD.
Which means, if you do the math:

Vinyl to CD back to Vinyl !!!

Not to mention the original vinyl never sounded all that great.
I wonder just how many of these mutants are out there.

 

Excellent thread. This is what's so great about this forum - there's such a wealth of information to be learned.

 

I'm well aware. I own about 400 albums in high resolution. I'll give a specific example to clarify: Ray LaMontagne's Trouble, released 2004 on cd. Released around 2010 on vinyl. No high resolution download available. Here's the question: we know Ethan Johns likes to record analog, so is there a tape master of this beautiful album that was the source for the vinyl? Is the vinyl simply sourced from the cd? Is it a new Redbook mastering? Is there a high resolution version that was the source? No one knows. I sure would like to have a high resolution digital version. It's frustrating not knowing what the highest copy is, because of course, resolution can't be added only subtracted. Luckily we know everything before say 1980 can be transferred in high resolution from tape, and we know more and more brand new recordings are being done in high resolution. But we have this donut hole that unfortunately was a time when a lit of my favourite music was released..

 

I buy lots of records from an online seller that states in their FAQ page that their LP's are most likely from digital files but not all. They just don't want people asking all the time. They haven't changed that answer in all the years I have bought from them. The reason I buy from them is because they have some weird, obscure titles that would be hard to anyway, and many of the records are around $10 each. But sometimes the pressings are warpy or off center but this have gotten much better over the past year or so.

 

It would depend on which Hot Rocks CD. The ABKCO or the London? The latter sounds great and is from tape, no doubt about it.
Either way couldn't he have meant vinyl master as in analogue tape EQ'd for vinyl pressing? That sure was common practice in CD mastering.

 

I had this experience with the first CD I ever bought which was Peter Gabriel's 3rd album and I just thought it was terrible sounding, I kept trying (CDs) and found it to be very hit and miss.
Later on I learned a little about digital and assumed that the early days of CD were just too risky as far as what might sound good or not, because the industry didn't know how to do it right yet.
Only recently have I learned that some early CDs do indeed sound good, mainly because of flat transfers from analog sources or just plain good mastering from the original source.
I buy a new CD maybe once every 5 years, and maybe once a month from thrift stores.

 

Hey, thanks! Great site link! I scour all the high res sites frequently but somehow missed that Paul Simon's early solo records are out now in high res! Woohoo!