Vinyl dynamic range questions

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by SergioRZ, May 26, 2010.

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  1. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    Just a slight clarification here. A 16-bit file actually uses one bit for the sign of the number(+ or -) so in reality, there are only 15 bits available for audio data, meaning the true theoretical dynamic range is only about 90.3dB (6.02dB/bitx15 bits). It's nitpicking, I know, but it's still valid. On the other hand, proper dithering extends the theoretical DNR to about -115dB, but that's a whole other argument.

    Plus, you can't forget that the decibel is a logarithmic unit of measurement. Therefore a level of -36db is only using 9 bits. A level of -72dB is only using 3 bits! While it's true that if one looks at a static sample, all you need to represent it is that handful of bits. However, audio is not static, it's in constant movement. So if you have a reverb tail fading out, the number of steps between levels exponentially decreases as the tail fades. Yes, I know, in theory, Shannon-Nyquist dictates that you should be able to perfectly reconstruct the original waveform and filtering will smooth all those steps. However, filtering is not perfect.

    As an avid needledropper, I can say, as can some of the others participating in this thread, that most of the sound of quality vinyl playback can indeed be reproduced by the lowly redbook CD. Heck, even the MP3s I make from needledrops to bring to work on my portable player sound better than commercial CDs in many cases! Still, there is some subtle yet obvious improvement when I actually listen to the LP playback, a sense of realism and punch that simply does not translate to a digitized recording. The logical left-brain types would simply dismiss this as some placebo effect, easily discredited by slavishly submitting to controlled double-blind testing.

    After all, dynamic range isn't everything. Put a needle down into an empty vinyl groove while checking your level meters. What do you see? -25dB? -30dB? Geez, look at all that noise! But when the music starts, it sounds great!

    I'd rather just enjoy the music!
     
  2. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident




    Heres a much newer one......


    Smashing Pumpkins ""Melloncollie and the infinite sadness"

    Huge dynamic range and on cd and its from the 90s. If fact its one I use to showcase wide dynamic range. There are a handful of tunes on this that effectively use most of the dynamic range of CD quite well!

    Im talking about ear-splitting loud down to very mild quiet parts.
     
  3. PhilBiker

    PhilBiker sh.tv member number 666

    Location:
    Northern VA, USA
    :righton:
     
  4. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Listening in total silence

    It's not so much that I have some "pretty frustrating experiences with piano recordings on LP", it's that I have a lot of experience with pianos and piano recordings—period.

    I'm one of those ideal LP consumers who ended up with ten different complete sets of Beethoven's piano sonatas. I wasn't looking for SOTA pressings, I was looking for pressings that I could listen to from one end to the other without throwing up. By the way—I used to buy those SOTA LPs during their heyday in the late seventies—direct to disc, all-tube, Japanese vinyl, the whole nine. A SOTA pressing of a technically SOTA recording is no substitute for a SOTA musical performance.

    What Wheeler is talking about is describing a system's performance at its absolute peak. This is ridiculous. You describe a system's performance by its average, its mean. All vinyl has self-noise, just as all microphones and all amplifiers have self-noise. The level of self-noise of the physical LP is usually higher than the self noise of the microphones, the mike preamplifier, or the recording medium. That's if we are talking about the average quality of LPs. If we are talking about the self-noise of an LP then you have to fold the periodic bursts of noise into the measurement. I know it's more likely that one can tune out low-level clicks and pops on an LP than one can tune out that coughing music fan with the cell-phone who's sitting next to you in Avery Fisher Hall. But once you get used to good all-digital reproduction of piano those clicks and pops get louder and louder.


    After 50 plays? As LPs are played, peaks on pianos are among the first things to go. A pop record with its built-in dynamic haircut can have more plays with less audible wear.

    There's plenty of factors that result in a listening experience with LPs that you don't get with CDs or SACDs, certain timbral qualities that impose very pleasing colorations on piano sound. My DGG set of Wilhelm Kempff's mono recordings of the Beethoven sonatas have that sound—the combination results in a piano sound that's beautiful and plausible. Recording is an art, and these LPs are works of art.

    All recordings screw up piano sound by smoothing out the very steep initial attack of the note. You don't get in the neighborhood of real piano timbre on any recording because the sound exceeds what microphones can capture. I'm sure some will disagree, but once you hear microphone coloration it's hard to pretend that it's not there. I remember hearing Peter Serkin warming up with some Bach before a performance and realized that there were tone colors he was producing that I've never heard on any piano recording.
     
  5. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I like a lot of what you say in this thread, however I am not sure this is any longer true. Modern microphones can capture a wide range of the piano's sound. If you follow James Boyk then you will see there are ultrasonic frequencies created by the piano which had to timbre accuracy. You can get really close with a good microphone and higher sampling rate on digital.

    Admittedly still not perfectly capturing the sound but it can be damn close as some of Peter McGrath's works demonstrates. Actually the piano on some of the Yarlung Records discs is mighty fine as well.
     
  6. SergioRZ

    SergioRZ Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Portugal
    Thanks to you all for helping me understand the Dynamic Range on Vinyl issue. :righton:

    Leaving the theoretical and mathematical aspects aside for a while... what does your listening experience tell you about vinyl when compared to CD regarding Dynamic Range only?

    When listening to vinyl, do you often find yourself thinking that the record does not have enough DR?

    My experience has been quite good regarding dynamic range on vinyl... I seriously have no complaints, quite on the contrary, vinyl improved the average dynamic range when listening to music in my system.
     
  7. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    A well-mastered, well-pressed vinyl pressing always sounds more realistic and punchy to me. Their CD counterparts sound slighter flatter and more constricted. Obviously, the mastering comes into play here and there are very few instances where I know the mastering is identical, but where it is, the vinyl has a subtle but notable edge over the CD. I think it's more related to timing than anything else. I played around with some of those transient enhancing plugins a few months ago and noticed that with the right adjustments, they seemed to impart an almost analog quality to some digital recordings, restoring the sense of "focus" I hear in both hires recordings and vinyl playback.

    I really believe that mastering being equal, the biggest factor is the quality of the playback equipment and not the medium. If you have a decent vinyl rig, then vinyl will sound better. If your CD playback rig is better then, CD will be the winner. Mind you, tiny details like the sense of "focus" I mentioned above due to better timing might require a really good CD player, something in the $1-2k range.

    However, the factors of mastering and pressing quality (for vinyl) play a much bigger role.
     
  8. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Hey—there's good sounding piano records out there. I know about James Boyk, must have heard one of his records but obviously it's not sticking to my brain. What I hear is that there's always something that gets squashed by microphones. It's just like Zeno's Paradox—you can get closer, but you can't get there. Once someone cooks up devices that can capture sound without any moving parts then we'll all notice what we've been missing all along.

    By the way, piano music is amazingly dynamic.

    Here's my oddball theory—this is a clear case of measuring the wrong thing, as least as far as music is going on. I don't think that a 192khz sampling rate is audibly better because we have the hearing capabilities of our cats, it's because the midrange is so packed with information that accurately reproducing mid-range sounds requires a high degree of precision as regarding timing, particularly as regards phase. Piano, with its steep transients and dense self-reverberation would be an ideal instrument to demonstrate the advantages of very high sampling rates.
     
  9. ROLO46

    ROLO46 Forum Resident

    Analog mixer Sonosax SX6
    MKH20/MKH30 MS rigs
    Digital Nagra VI and Sound Devices 702 recorders, polyphonic 88.2Khz /24B.
    Recording for the composer as a premiere piece
    Doing another one next day in a lovely Saxon church ,also for the composer

    http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/music-2010/milos-karadaglic/
     
  10. Baron Von Talbot

    Baron Von Talbot Well-Known Member

    All recordings screw up piano sound by smoothing out the very steep initial attack of the note. You don't get in the neighborhood of real piano timbre on any recording because the sound exceeds what microphones can capture. I'm sure some will disagree, but once you hear microphone coloration it's hard to pretend that it's not there. I remember hearing Peter Serkin warming up with some Bach before a performance and realized that there were tone colors he was producing that I've never heard on any piano recording.

    Not at all. There were experienced classical buffs in Vienna (si) eople who go to the Musikverein every week since they were kids and had piano lessons ..now they are their 40ies, 50ies 60ies etc. and all of those were completely buffed when they went to that demonstration of TACET CD vs the real thing.
    Behid a curtain the pianist was playing a Fazioli and then the same piece by the same player on the same piano just recorded a few months before at the TACET recording facilities. Then they had to tell what happened behind the curtain. The fact that there still were more correct than incorrect choices might have to do with the different acoustics in the shop vs the space chosen during the recording process.
    What counts in the end is that there is that one label that really had that breakthrough in the standard of recording a piano_
    The first thing I noticed when listening to classical music and esp. Chopin was that the average overall reproduction os the piano lets a lot to be desired vs a good piano sound on a Steve Hoffman remastered Elton John or Leon Russell album or even Joni Mitchell's Blue. That piano sound might not be 100 % real, but sounds much nicer than 75% of the classical piano recordings. there are some who got it right most of the time - Emil Berliner with DG of course and esp. Hyperion with their recordings at the Wyndham Hall There are some here and there that sound good too, but many don't , no matter the medium....
    TACET jumps ahed in that regard . Really true ; unless you haven't heard Koroliev's Bach piano recitals or some before that - Don't recall the name of that player i n Vienna was about 2 years ago. Best check TACET.DE for info.
    I was shcked I had a Yamaha grand piano in one of my flats and know how thta sounds i a medium szed room like mine - So close simply REVOLUTIONARY !
    Best is the gear usd to get that sensational sound is basically the same RCALiving Stereo used n the 50ies. Just with more care and better tube technic modified Telefunken M%%% rel to reel special made valve pre and power amps and of course NEUMANN U59 Valve micophone vzut al analog with a nEUMANN cutting head - the am RCa had back in the days, but the result is much better now and I can't say that for bout 99% of all new cassical CD's..

    www.tacet.de
    But all this talk has not much to do with LP vs Cd and dynamic range. If you are the type to play a piano LP 50 times a CD is better for ou. The average person plays an LP 5 times in the first year and once a year later on... Maybe that is why used classical LP's are either mint-y or wrecked... The mint-y are by those who never played them cuase they don't like cassical music and the others tried to play the parts over and over again and teared the rills from the wax..LOL

    That's why I don't buy secod hand LP's and esp. not classical !
    The way I use my albums make them playable nice as log as I live. Not every CD can hold up that long; but that is another topic.
     
  11. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Depends on the age of the recording and/or genre you listen too, i.e. pop, rock, jazz, classical, etc..

    So much of our 'older' music (pre-digital era) was cut to an LP then when CDs came out - often a copy tape or some other tape source was used, so any chances of 'better' or increased dynamic range would have been limited to whatever was on the tape or recording to begin with.

    I prefer the sound of my vinyl in most cases by a fair margin - not that I don't love many of my CDs too.

    In one case where dynamic range is an issue, McCartney & Wings 'Venus & Mars' LP; when 'Rock Show' kicks in the mastering engineer turned the volume down 'too much' for the original vinyl cutting (and subsequent CDs have this too). Steve - when he did the DCC CD - left the range intact which is really impressive. That's not really a 'media' issue however but one example of where a particular CD shines for a rock recording.
     
  12. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    :righton: Mp3 compression doesn't bother me nearly as much as a bad CD mastering. I'm shivering just thinking about the tinny, no-bass sound a lot of them have.
     
  13. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Most LPs do have better dynamic range because they were mastered that way. So I prefer vinyl in that sense most of the time. But that is in no way inherent to the format itself, it's a coincidence that the better mastering happens to appear on vinyl most of the time. But IMO trying to argue against math and science is silly.
     
  14. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Dude,

    Are you kidding me with this? Coincidence? Really?
     
  15. GreenDrazi

    GreenDrazi Truth is beauty

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    For classical music, especially large orchestral recordings, the clarity, attack, low bass and lack compression of CD playback is simply unmatched with vinyl.
     
  16. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

    Location:
    ---------------
    Well the subject of the thread is about the dynamic range of vinyl so we are talking about sound here not performances. SOTA LP playback is an issue in this discussion.



    You quote me twice, once out of context, go on to veer completely off thread topic and then rant about idiocy? Let's try to focus on the subject. maybe things will seem a little less idiotic. My points are in the context of the thread subject. The thread subject is not about availability of your favorite titles on vinyl.

    I hate to bust your chops here but it aint SOTA unless your livingroom is up to the task. How does it compare to the great concert halls? But anyway, I don't recall claiming that LPs sounded better than live music. What you seem to be lacking is reference for SOTA piano *on LP*. So it's hard to take your comments on *that* without a grain of salt.
     
  17. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    What's your point? The loudness war? I said that for the purpose of the point I was trying to make, I think you took it too literally and out of context, so maybe ironic would have been a better choice of words. I meant that it's coincidental that while the CD provides an opportunity for a larger dynamic range, it's coincidental that the format with the smaller dynamic range contains the mastering with the larger dynamic range.
     
  18. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    Also lots of harmonic content that go ultrasonic. Piano is not the only set of sounds that is harmonically rich, nor the only challenge for dynamic range. It certainly is the acid test for quality Lp sound IMO however. It has enough of all of the tough aspects to get right packed into one easy to follow form.

    I've got much of the Telefunken pressing of "Das Kantantanwerk" of Bach which contains piano, harpsichord, and choral on various discs. The harpsichord recordings are amazingly realistic. The piano can challenge the playback system perhaps more than the recording, mastering, cutting, or pressing, yet all of those do matter. The fact is that the major studios and pressing facilities have the funds and equipment to make great products. That doesn't mean that they always do. It goes for CD as well as Lp, you tend to get what you pay for. Vinyl is significantly more expensive than CD these days, so it is even more challenging just to find someone who is willing to make that sort of "investment" in the process.

    I'll say that my listening is mostly via Lp for home enjoyment of music as I have mostly Lp and have been collecting for years. I also have a modest, yet accurate system for playing them back which doesn't hurt in the least. I do listen to and enjoy other formats but none more than Lp and while some Lp recordings do seem to have excellent dynamics, others are seriously lacking. Just last night I listened to some Shubert violin and cello works followed by some Benny Goodman "big band" music. The recording and range of the classical string Lp was excellent. The recording of the swing band was rather poor and had really weak and noisy sound, also the mic placement was poor. I can't blame it on the medium though. Despite the poor recording, the music was still enjoyable.
    -Bill
     
  19. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I see, sorry.

    Too painful to read this entire thread. Too much science vs. pseudo-science talk, not enough actual hands on talk..
     
  20. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    It's all good. I can see in some other posts that people are starting to take this debate personally. I've said all I have to say on that article that dude posted so it's time for me to peace this thread anyway before I start having to go in circles repeating myself.
     
  21. ducatirider

    ducatirider Member

    the bryston bda-1 has oversampling on the fly. i have heard the oversampling turned off and on many times and much preferred non oversampling. you can easily do this with software as well on a music server using SRC and Foobar. the music ends up sounding softer and less dynamic.
     
  22. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Then it's never gonna be SOTA because microphones aren't up to the task of capturing the dynamic potential of a piano in any room. Seriously, I've recorded pianos in rooms regarded as first class places to record piano. I am speaking from experience, of hearing what's on my tapes and the tapes of others at recordings sessions. I'm pointing to piano music as a good example of what can and often does go wrong in audio recording and playback. As KT88 points out, it's the acid test for LP SQ. If I expand on the topic beyond the parameters of what you regard as the point of this thread, well all I have to say is I thought this was really supposed to be about the music after all is said and done. I am pointing to classical piano music as a musical genre that has been ill served, sonically speaking, by LPs. Which is, after all, why it is the acid test of LP SQ.
     
  23. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Last fall we recorded Dr. Christopher Sarzen, a well-known local pianist in a decent church hall at 24/176 playing Mozart and Chopin for the Pro-Mozart Society. We did very little editing and did a fairly imho good recording job. Mic technique was AKG 414 BULS in ORTF 8 feet away and 8 feet up in the air, centered on the piano wires.

    We then used a quality downrez program to create the CD with no further manipulation except two small edits and a level adjustment, all done with the hirez file in 24/176.

    We make both 24/176 DVD-Audios for us and select musicians who care and 16/44.1 versions for most of the musicians. The CD just sucked all of the life out of the performance. Was the DVD-Audio version close to what we heard? yes, but not quite as good. Still very dynamic and you could hear more of the "hall."

    Now Nyquist would suggest the two recordings should be the same in the audible range but that's never been the case for any of our hirez recordings.
     
  24. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    I've had the best luck with something described to me as a tail shot, a pair of small diaphragm omnis spaced about 21 inches apart, somewhere a foot or two above the soundboard of the piano with the mikes aimed into the far edge of the harp, near the pianist, about a foot from the piano's tail. The sound is fuller this way than in ORTF, the middle voices sing.

    But yeah—Nyquist doesn't explain why your DVD-Audio discs should sound so much better than the downsampled CDs. I've got this sneaky suspicion that a direct-cut lacquer made at your sessions would sound even better than the 24/176 recordings, at least if you limited yourself to ten minutes a side. But that has nothing to do with dynamic range, that has to do with something else.
     
  25. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

    Location:
    ---------------
    Compared to the Sheffield Labs and Reference Recordings LPs?
     
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