Vinyl v. digital curiosity

But wouldn't he still be able to hear the pitch variations caused by the tape machine used to create the digital master? Unless the pitch was corrected after the digital capture, I would think he would hear it on the CD.

 

No, PCM recording does not work that way.

 

Well if we're talking about a digital recording put to CD, then I understand. But if we're talking about a recording that was orignally recorded on tape and then transferred to digital, you would still hear the pitch variations depending how sensitive you are to that type of thing.

 

Technically, there will always be a small phase error between channels but the advantage of almost complete cancellation of the vertical noise upon summing usually far outweighs any minor cancellation of wanted signal. Of course, if the phase error is significant then the wanted signal may be better preserved without summing.

Ultimately, try both and choose the one you prefer.

You are still left with an infinite series of sine functions (no perfect real-world band-limiting is possible) - you can't take something away from infinity to make it smaller, that's what makes it infinity!

 

Ah I see. You're using an analog recording as an example. I thought you meant a digital tape recording.

 

This thread isn't arguing between vinyl and CD. It's arguing that digital audio can faithfully reproduce the sounds you love from your LP collection. If you feel like having some fun, take a record you love that you play often, one that you'd like "backed up" (bear with me - you can't press vinyl at home yet! ) and needle drop that record to CD. Play it back and you will likely find, like the original poster, that it sounds surprisingly like your LP.

This can really come in handy when you want to play your RL pressing of Led Zeppelin II in your car or bring it to a friend's house who doesn't have a turntable. You can still get the aural enjoyment that you get from that LP off of a CD.

Isn't that a good thing?

 

I think I just read the Vinyl vs CD bingo card in one go.

 

Well said... absolutely!!!

 

I was like this once. Bought a lector tubed Italian CD player and started naively comparing my CDS to their vinyl counterparts played back on a ca. 1985 b and o Beogram with an mmc3 cart. Didn’t think at all about the masterings etc. just compared and preferred the CDS through the lector at the time. Sold off 2/3 of my records to buy awesome cd box sets. But then years later I bought back all my old records at twice the price and grew my original vinyl collection by ten times or more. Still have my CDs and box sets too...and I do enjoy both, for different reasons. But I prefer the records now on my modded rega rp6 with Ortofon 2 m black...

 

I'm in the same situation I need to upgrade my turntable side of things and pre amp, better cart. I will eventually I would probably land right in the p6 or equivalent area. I do love my headphone amp and dac setup a lot though. So much so as I have been listening to less vinyl, records aren't going anywhere though and I'm still buying them.

 

I can't really explain fully why the smell of a perfectly grilled porterhouse coming off a Weber grille makes me salivate.

I can't completely articulate the feeling of satisfaction when you get a downshift just right in a 911SC right before you squeeze the throttle and feel the rear push you through a corner.

And I cannot give a really good reason why the sound of good vinyl makes me want to listen all night long.

 

This is my experience as well. Although given both mediums an optimal performance with the best engineers and all I think CD wins.
But Vinyl improves a lot more in sound as you upgrade gear as well. You dont need a super expensive CD player per say.

And not to be a party pooper but I hear that the NEMS Sabbaths are nowhere near as good as the Vertigo Swirls.

 

I can explain it; it's because all are subjective.

 

Well I would be even harsher and say its irrelevant because you cant know exactly why you like something, but why does it matter what you like?

 

I´m not having an opinion on what people like. We like all sort of things, and for reasons that might be known or not known. But all is very largely subjective, meaning it´s not objective; it´s not transferable. E.g. today I have no car, they are totally uninteresting to me.

 

It is an impossible comparison, because stereo is just an illusion - a trick of the way our ear/brain works. There is no way that listening to two loudspeakers should give the level of imaging and realism that it does. And considering classical music, there is absolutely no comparison between listening live, to any reproduced sound, vinyl, digital or pixie dust, of any quality level whatever. It is just totally different - and you have to love it for what it is, like we all do here. But it ain't like live anything!

 

Well, I dunno about that. Live is often also run through mics and speakers of their own. And some recordings can get pretty close with the right equipment. At least I think so.

 

The main rule of thumb to always remember is that in music, its always a case to case basis. The format doesnt matter so much to me as the production of the actual music does and your equipment. If you have the best recording and the best engineers and some of the best gear then you can get pretty close to realism, on all formats.

 

Recorded music isn't supposed to be a substitute for live music, any more than photography is to painting, cinema is to stage etc. Each form has moved beyond the imposed limitations into its own artform.

If you're trying to make your stereo sytem sound like a live performance, you're doing the recording's creator a disservice.

 

Well yes, of course that is true. But the Tektronix 7104 mainframe oscilloscope with 7A29 amplifiers had a bandwidth of DC - 1GHz - in 1978. And even earlier sampling systems went from DC to 14GHz.

Current generation measurement systems from Tektronix and Croy digitize signals from DC to 100GHz, admittedly with only 8-bit resolution. But it will do 80 channels at DC to 36GHz too.

All this is around 5 million times greater bandwidth than audio.

And for a real, hard bandwidth - the number of fundamental particles in the visible universe is about 10^80. So if you use these as your digital basis that is about 800dB dynamic range.

 

Well OK - but I think you are basing that on amplified live music. And I've been to many of those over the years. And apart from seeing a band live, I'd agree that a studio album by the same band can often sound better. Always assuming that the recording engineer knows what he/she is doing.

But note that I was talking specifically about classical music, where there is nothing other than the air between an orchestra or soloists and your ears in a live performance. A recording of any kind sounds nothing like a live performance. It still sounds great - but you have to accept it for what it is. And what it is not is remotely like a live concert. Try it yourself - go and see a large scale work such as, well - Beethoven 9. Then go home and put on the same piece of music on the stereo system. I guarantee you will think WTF.

That is one reason that most artisan labels tend to major in string quartets, solo acoustic guitar or other instrument, or similar small ensembles. Recordings of that type of music seem to sound more "in scale" than big orchestral pieces.

 

Indeed, classical music is especially hard to capture. There such an amount of soundstaging, separation and dynamics that you would have to capture and reproduce that you would require something amazing to get it across. Maybe if we had a listening room the size of a cinema and several channel outputs playing a very well made mix you could get close though.

One thing I learned not too long ago is the importance of volume you play your music and how it varies from piece to piece. Rock on roll of course has to be played loud, but acoustics performances are actually more real sounding if you quiet them down a bit more than usual, at least on my setup. Mostly its about getting the singer to be more human sized, rather than a giant inbetween your speakers. Thats when those micro dynamics are really important to capture, and less so the large scale ones in prog for example. The problem you realize then is when engineers make the voice so much bigger than a guitar lets say, that there is no good middle ground to get both sounding real. Such a dilemma, and maybe one that could be fixed with better gear, who knows.

But as you say, the scale or loudness is a key component in getting a real performance, and not just in 1 way. I often wonder if this is the origin of complain on a lot of MoFi reissues. Since they master more quiet people might not realize and just discard the sound as weak and anemic. That very thing did happen in a comparison I did a while back with participants on this forum. No one really thought to raise the volume on the quieter sample. Except me ;^)

 

I'm not so sure if you can call the CD master as being 100% accurate compared to the post-mixes/pre-masters. The mastering can obviously be done horrifically by brickwalling the sound, generally requested by the artist and/or record label. Though brickwalling can still happen DURING the recording process, depending on the artist's approach. The closest to getting "accurate sound" it is to buy the digital tracks from Pro Studio Masters webstore.

One of the big reasons (and not to mention one of my biggest reasons personally) for going with buying LP's is due to the brickwalled mess on the CD and digital download realm. I personally quite a few records with much, much better dynamic range on LP than on CD.

 

My post will have little value here but since i nearly died in Feb of this year i have changed my view about our hobby. I now love my rig and have no reason to upgrade. I love music and now i dont care if it is on CD orLP. I have always liked both formats as i have no interest in streaming etc. Music matters to me. SQ is very important but i dont want to listen to my rig; i want, and i do, just listen and enjoy music. Some Cds sound great as do some LPs. Both formats have their pluses. I cant get too stressed about it all. Its good to be alive and many of us here are lucky to enjoy a fun hobby. Many folks are lucky if they have time or money to be where we are. xx

 

Except if that creator is Thomas Edison.