SH Spotlight Vinyl vs. master tape?

Good observations, Tom!

I have to admit, I like the colorations of tubes back in the day. But when it comes to playback carriers, I like the CD and I expect it to be closer to the real truth, and it does take me back when the mastering/source is right. Put the colorations into the music itself, and play the CD back accurately.

Since the vinyl devotees are gung ho on "accurate sound, I wonder if they are playing audiophille pressings, recent recordings, or the old, regular major record company stuff from the 60, 70, and 80s, including 45s, like I am.

I don't listen to a lot of jazz but my main focus is pop/rock soul. A lot of 70s and 80s soul music I listen to never made it to CD so since I want the convenience of the CD I transfer them to CD-R.

 

Dave,

Steve's LPs and CDs probably sound closer to one another than anything elso you can buy, because Steve takes such care in the mastering process. However, I don't think he's ever said they sound IDENTICAL, although he HAS said they should sound TONALY the same and ALMOST identical barring colorations introduced by the playback system. Here's what Steve said in this thread:

The way I read this, the CD and the LP have the same tonality (as would an EQ'd reel-to-reel safety master), but there is a QUALITATIVE difference in the way the music sounds on his home equipment. Otherwise he'd just play the CD all the time because it's a lot easier to play a CD.

This qualitative difference Steve hears may come from his Joule Electra Phono Stage, but I hear the same thing on a $400 turntable. The LP version may not have the detail of the CD (you can't get that kind of detail out of a B&O turntable), but it has SOMETHING the CD doesn't have, which you can describe as warmth or air or depth or any of the other words people use to describe the difference they hear in CDs and LPs. It may be I just like the colorations my turntable introduces, and that everyone else that hears a qualitative difference between CDs and LPs just likes the coloration THEIR turntable introduces. However, ever since CD came out, with each generation of players and converters, people have been claiming that NOW CDs sound more like analog. And the new high res formats sound more like analog than ever. Even Neil Young, the original I HATE DIGITAL poster boy, thinks DVD-A sounds like the original analog sound.

Well, my 1989 player sounds a lot more like analog than the player I bought in 1984, and I'm sure if I buy another player today it will sound even MORE like analog. Even some of the golden ears Stereophile type reviewers, who claimed for years that NOTHING would ever sound like an LP have been changing their tunes in the last year or two. SO: If every improvement in the digital format brings it closer to the sound of real high-end analog (which it does), logic dictates that digital MUST have been missing something originally, i.e., if CD sound was as perfect as they claimed it was in 1984 there wouldn't have been such dramatic improvements in sound quality, and no need for high res digital because no one would be able to hear the difference.

Steve has said mastering makes all the difference, and it does. Steve gets sound onto a CD that no one else seems to be able to match on ANY kind of regular basis. Steves's CDs are the best I've ever heard, and his CDs and LPs ARE fairly close in sound quality. I PLAY the CDs. Sadly, CD sound turned me off to buying new music for a number of years, so I was kind of out of the loop and really had no idea who Steve was until a few months ago. I had a few DCC CDs and LPs that sounded incredible, but I didn't realize the same person mastered all of them. Now I'm into a mad scramble to find DCCs before they're all gone, like everyone else on this board seems to be. However, I STILL hear a qualitative difference between the LP and CD versions, which I don't think is entirely due to equipment. But if Steve can get THAT kind of sound out of 16 bits, I hope the SACD-DVD-A competition ends soon and the high res format makes it, so Steve has a few more bits to play with.

 

dwmann,

I can't really say one way or the other until I'm able to do a side by side comparison on a neutral as possible system. Next life perhaps

I don't understand the kufuffle over vinyl, as I'm a digital only kind of guy. When I first heard Steve's Nat King Cole's Greatest Hits it took me back to child-hood memories of my father playing his 78's.

For now, I'll take your word on it, but I still find it hard to believe.

 

Now if I *really* want to be taken back to my childhood, they would have to include surface noise, mechanical hum, and clicks and crackle on those CDs!

The reason I asked about exactly WHAT people play on their TT is because much vinyl in many people's hoses are not clean and that well-preserved. Again, I fail to see how anything with clicks, pops, and sufrace noise can add to the enjoyment of the music.

I prefer the CD, end of story. My only use for vinyl is for what I can't get on CD, of which is a helluva lot of 70s and 80s music!

 

Grant,

Mechanical hum? For real? Come on. Turntables have improved immensely since you've stacked a pile of 45s on that old rim-drive BSR. Clicks and crackle happen because people don't take care of their records. Surface noise is not a huge factor if you know how to clean a record. It's worth the effort. I have many many LPs that aren't available on CD, or have been very poorly mastered on CD. Rather than putting down one medium vs the other, I prefer to get the most I possibly can out of them all. That way, my music collection does not suffer for my prejudices (and we all have them). And you learn an awful lot that way too.

 

Like Grant, I'm a huge fan of 70's soul. On my system, to my ears, the orginal LP's of titles like "Let's Get It On" are more natural, and have a greater sense of depth and palpability, than the current Deluxe Edition Remaster (which is very good, and better than the previous CD).

Until recently, the only tubes in my system is in the phono pre (CJ Premier 15 Series II) which folks such as Stereophile review as clean, and "non-tubelike". Pre and Power Amps were reference solid state Spectral gear.

CDs are great, vinyl is great. Especially clean, well preserved vinyl -- orginal pressings, or audiophile reissues. Best investment I ever made was in a VPI 16.5. Couldn't listen to vinyl without it -- new or used. An LP with excessive surface noise, especially pops or ticks, will get returned or sold.

Some of my favorite discs are 45rpm 12"s:

- Isley Brothers "Caravan of Love"
- Prince "Purple Rain"
- Mellencamp "Small Town" with a haunting acoustic version on the flip
- Gabriel "Don't Give Up"
- Barry White "Practice What You Preach" -- destroys the CD, which sounds fabulous in it's own right.

All of these vinyl biscuits all sound as clean, and noise-free, as a CD. Definitely not as convenient, and more prone to wear, but glorious none the less. For me, I'd listen to the LP version before the CD version.

BTW: I'm a firm believer that musical enjoyment, and Tom Port's Musical Truth can be achieved on an audio rig regardless of price. I do feel, however, that as the system increases in performance and resolution (which usually, but not necessarily, equates to more money) that differences in format, cables, tweaks, etc. become much more pronounced and evident. And they are VERY system dependent. The right cable in someone else's system, may act as a huge tone control or impedance mismatch in mine.

Tom H

 

Of course I know TTs have improved immensely since the 60s. BTW, we didn't own a BSR changer! Mechanical hum was a factor in that 1961 vintage stereo console. You guys keep forgetting that most people were not audiophiles! Not everybody had audiophile gear. Too many audiophiles live in such a vaccum!

Anyway, clicks and pops happen no matter how well an LP is taken care of. I have peeled off the cellophane from brand new copies and found clicks and pops. I do know how to clean a record and I still cannot tolorate surface noise.

 

Grant,

Personally, I own a total of eight audiophile LPs - three DCCs and five MFSLs out of about 3000 LPs. All were bought as cut-outs. Most of my LPs are late fifties to early seventies American first pressings. When JEM records began importing LPS in bulk, (about 1974-5) and selling them for $1 more than the American counterparts, I began buying European imports, because American companies were switching to recycled vinyl, and tended to use the stampers to make so many discs that after the first pressing you could pretty much forget it. From the mid-seventies on (and sometimes before that) most USA second pressings, when compared to the first pressings, sounded like completely different records, not just second pressings. they had no life or dynamics and everything sounded like it was recorded inside a tin can. Also, I don't think American companies made any effort to compensate for the fact that LP sides were getting longer, and a lot of stuff from tat era had runout problems. So most of the stuff I have from the mid 70s and 80s is English or German.

Most American LPs made after about 1978 were junk. I used to go through 5 or 6 copies to find one that wasn't 90% surface noise, until the sales clerks started avoiding me, and refusing the returns. I never got into the early MFSL stuff, because I thought a lot of the imports sounded better, and they were a lot cheaper. If they had been selling DCCs back then, I might have bought them. They are excellent. The three I own are the only ones I've ever seen.

If you're listening to a lot of late 70s early 80s music pressed on recycled vinyl, you probably DON'T think much of LPs, but I wouldn't worry about it. You have to be a real fanatic to get into vinyl these days. New records cost more than CDs, if you can find them, and you can find a lot of cheap old vinyl running around, but most of the early pressing still cost $$$. Be glad you prefer CDs. HOWEVER, a good vinyl pressing DOES have a qualitatively different sound that is better than what you can get out of the best CD, IMO. Why else would people order Steve's new CCRs at $25 each? But you can figure that anyone paying $25 for a audiophile reissue of a CCR album is going to play it on a high end system. As a rule of thumb, CDS DO sound better on modern solid state equipment unless you go high end. Then they don't anymore. Because high end equipment makes whatever is missing from CD sound VERY noticable. And badly mastered discs sound REALLY BAD.

 

Well dwmann,

It just so happens that most of the stuff I can't get on CD for one reason or another rests on the vinyl of the 70s and early 80s.


I have neither the time, inclination, or money to sift through multiple pressings just to find a holy grail. This is where cleaning up the vinyl on a computer helps. When you clean up things you allow the music come through. So, the music IS usually on vinyl, you just have to extract it. Simply playing the LP won't do it. As far as taking away the music is concerned, if one is careful and uses the right software and tools, that not need be a concern. Software has improved over the last few years.

Believe it or not, the WEA group put out some good vinyl during the late 70s-early 80s. A lot of the stuff I like wasn't immensely popular on a national scale (read: Billboard top 100) and maybe only had one or two pressing runs at most. Some titles have shown up on CD but suffer from bad mastering or bad sources, so I do my own transfers from the original LPs.

It again should be coming through loud and clear that I like the convenience and clarity of the CD format. I am old enough to have lived through and collect tons of vinyl, but that just makes me appreciate the CD more when properly done.

If a CD title doesn't sound like the LP, that is NOT a reason to dump the CD as I don't use the LP as the defacto sound standard. But, it shouldn't deviate too much from my memory of it as it was.

I have exactly THREE audiophile LPs in my collection because companies just don't make any titles I would want bad enough to try out on vinyl.

Let me know when Cameo (the R&B/funk band), Earth, Wind, & Fire, Slave, Joe Tex, Rick James, or Teena Marie all get the 180 gram virgin vinyl treatment. That IS part of the main thing, none of this stuff will ever show up on good vinyl. Here, the remastered CDs usually work.

 

I have a 2nd hand Yamaha linear tracking turntable (pd under $200) and a low-end Ortophon cart I cannibalized from a tag sale find (only bought a new needle for it). Don't play that audiophile snobbery game with me. As for your console, if you had torn it open, you'd have found (more likely than not) that it was a rim drive unit. Same issue, same basic design as the BSR. So I am right on track then. You need to look into a belt or direct-drive unit and then you'll never hear mechanical hum again. That is, unless you're listening with no record on the table, with the platter just spinning, with headphones on, and the volume up to 11! Then maybe you'll hear something.

You're still letting your experience in the past dictate your listening preferences now. I hate (REALLY HATE) noisy vinyl. I don't have much of it. I have many many many LPs that I find quiet enough to really enjoy, and so many of them beat the pants off their CD counterpart. Take every Bob Marley LP I have for instance. No contest on ANY of them. And I only have a UK copy of "Live". Everything else is domestic (probably 3rd gen tapes or worse). And yet they still kill the CDs. And I paid $1 to $4 each for these. Is this not a no-brainer?

 

Grant
The answer to your question of which kinds of LPs I have is originals, imports and audiophile reissues. Trial and error and trusted friends are the only way to go about finding the best pressings. You may not have the time, inclination or money to do that. Some of us do. Excellence rarely comes easily or cheaply. Web pages like these might help people in their search for the best sound. It has helped me.
And as for cleaning them I have a Nitty Gritty machine. Ticks and pops and surface noise do not add to the quality of the sound. They detract from it. That is why we clean the records.

 

Yes, a musical performance is what it all stems from, but we were talking about the sound quality of a RECORDING. I don't sit around thinking 'this sounds like a master tape'. I do, however, enjoy recordings that sound good, and would like that recording to more accurately reflect what the original artists and producers/engineers envisioned and then put on that master. Isn't that why we buy DCC and MoFi products? I have stated from the start that it is understandable to me that people who grew up listening to records may prefer that sound to anything else, but when that preference turns into bashing other formats and claiming ultimate superiority of LP over CD, I have to STRONGLY disagree. No, I don't tap my feet more listening to CD's over LP's or whatever format, because I enjoy MUSIC. I tap my feet if a hear a good tune coming over a cheezy one speaker cassette player, but that doesn't mean I enjoy the way it sounds.

No one here has yet offered me any hard cold facts to support any claim that LP's are 'better' than CD's. Just subjective things like 'tapping your feet'. Fine. If LP's make you tap your feet more then, good for you. That does mean, however, that they are 'better' than CD's. I just cannot agree with you.

 

Goldenboy what facts would you be looking for here? What facts can we give you on a message board that would mean anything. You have to experience it. Spend some time listening to a comparison between state of the art LP playback vs. state of the art CD playback then give us your opinion.

 

No, technical merits are not my only benchmark. I know what I HEAR. After spending many years listening to LP's AND CD's, I prefer CD's. After many years of recording masters and hearing what vinyl does to them, I prefer CD's. They are more accurate and therefore more lifelike. Maybe they are 'cold and hard' to you, but I would just have to go back to one of my previous statements and say that you have just become conditioned to hear music played back in a certain way, and either cannot or will not accept any other format, even if it is superior or not. CD's may be 'cold and hard' to you, but I would hardly use that description when speaking of Steve's DCC Gold releases.

'Vinyl is fully capable of reproducing the the full frequency spectrum and dynamic range of any recording - pop, rock, jazz, vocal, classical, etc.'

No, it is not. If there are frequencies rolled off, how could it be? And, as far as S/N, a certain amount of noise is tolerable, I tolerate it everytime I hear tape hiss on a CD. I tolerated LP's for many years (and still do when I playback some of my old AND new LP's) because that was the best the labels had to offer, but when the CD came out, that tolerance went away. If you, on the other hand, prefer Rice Crispies mixed in to your playback, well, good for you. I don't.

'they sound more real, more natural, more lifelike'

More subjective arguments, just proving my point that it is conditioning.

 

Very well put, Grant. Very well put.

 

Again, Grant, I have to agree with you 100%. It just seems funny to me that many audiophiles on here speak of seaking 'accurate' sound and 'pure' sound and sensitive systems than can detect these small variations in sound, but then when you get into the CD vs. LP debate, they come out of the woodworks screaming about 'openness and airiness' and talking about 'cold hard truth' isn't what they're after and this that and the other thing. It all jsut seems so contradictory to me.

 

Golden Boy
Just what are you listening to when you claim sonic superiority of CDs to LPs? My LP playback system clearly plays back far more musical content than any CD player I have ever heard. I've listened to quite a few. The cold hard sound of CDs isn't the truth. The warm beautiful sound I get off my LPs sound far more truthful to the sound of live unamplified music. No one who has ever made the comparisons over here in my home has heard anything to the contrary. Many freinds have come over with their CD players and CDs only to be amazed at the superior sound of LPs. My claims will only seem contradictory if you don't pay close attention to what I am saying and read into my words what you want to. So please tell us what highend turntable seet up are you listening to that your CD player is outperforming?

 

Scott,

I already have spent the time, and I already have offered my opinion. When I state facts of specs like S/N, dynamic range, frequency response etc. to support those opinions, I get accused of paying more attention to technical merits than my ears. What more do you want? In fact, I have spent many hours/months/years in front of various CD players, TT's, speakers; etc. listening to LP's, Cassettes, CD's, MiniDiscs and DAT's. I have mixed and I have mastered to different formats. I have heard other people's master tapes transferd to LP, CD, Cassette and DAT.

Fact: when I play LP's I hear surface noise.
Fact: when I play CD's I do not.
Specs support this.
Fact: people have mistaken my and my uncle's CD playback for live instruments.
Fact: they have never done the same for our LP playback.
Specs support this.
Fact: LP's have frequencies rolled off.
Fact: CD's do not.
Fact: This translates to me not hearing the full sound spectrum on LP.
Fact: this translates into me hearing the full sound spectrum on CD.
Specs also support this.

Opinion: CD's, SACD's, DVD-A's, DAT's are superior to LP's. My ears and the specs confirm this.

 

Well, I don't know about you, but IMHO, pops and cracks and other inherent noises and distortions and slight speed variations inherent in vinyl, as well as rolled off frequencies, regardless of how 'high-end', your turntable may be, just don't add up to live sounding to me. When I listen to live music, I don't hear surface noise, and I also don't hear rolled off frequencies.

If you must know, At the moment my TT is a Numark TT 100 professional TT. I can't tell you all of the other TT's I have heard because I don't neccessarily keep track of the brand, but if you want, I can ask my uncle what his TT is, (as his would be the high-end system I have heard the most outside of mine and any of my other freinds and aquaintences) and get back to you on that one.

All of this fuss over what TT people are listening to is a little ridiculous to me though. If you have a quality TT and a quality CDP, what difference should it make? How great can a format be if you have to spend a king's ransom to coax a decent sound out of it anyway?

 

Goldenboy
here some facts you may not be familiar with

Fact. no CD player has ever made CDs sound more like live music than my turntable here in my home

Fact. You have not heard my turntable and made these comparisons

Fact, freinds who have never heard highend playback are easily impressed. I have had numerous friends claim that my system sounds exactly like the real thing and could not possibly be improved. I know better. You should also know better.

Fact: For all we know you are just making unfair comparisons between a CD player and a crapy turntable with a misaligned cartridge. You never answered any of my questions about what tables of quality you have actually compared to CD players.

Fact. Unless your friends are blind they cannot actually "mistake" the sound of your CD player with the sound of live instruments while actually in the room. I hope the lack of an actual live musician in the room would be a dead give away for your friends that there is no live music going on there.

 

As long as people insist on listening to bad sounding turntables their vinyl will indeed sound bad and CDs will sound better. But the choice to listen to crap tables and failure to listen to excellent tables and make comparisons based on that experience hardly proves CD superiority. Not a single person claiming CD superiority has sited a single decent sounding table that they have listened to.

 

Well, perhaps because I myself am a musician, one could assume, if not actually seeing me and hearing the music, that I may be playing my guitar or my piano, especially if I happen to be holding my guitar.

Like I said, I don't keep track of brand names of other people's equiptment, so I can't tell you all of the 'high-end' TT's I have heard, but like I told you, I'd be willing to get back to you on at least one of them. Maybe I have heard your TT, maybe I haven't. I told you what TT I PERSONALLY own, if you want to assume that it is crappy and misaligned, then that is your perogative.

Fact: most of my friends are musicians, recording engineers and audiophiles. They are not easily fooled and they know what live music sounds like.

Fact: I neither have the time or the resources to track down and listen to every TT ever made to make a comparison between every CD player ever made and I don't know any people that do. But, if that's what it takes to 'come around' to vinyl, I have to bow out.

Why do all vinyl-philes always insist that unless one has heard vinyl on this turntable or that turntable then one hasn't really heard what it has to offer? If I listen to a 'decent' turntable and a 'decent' CDP, why should I not be able to make a valid comparison? You don't hear me telling anyone they haven't heard CD's played back on this player or that player or MY player.

 

If the format is so ultimately reliant on one spending a fortune for it to sound good, then how good is the format? Who cares what TT's people have heard. I don't see LP advocates siting a whole long list of every CD player they have ever heard. And even if they did, one could always pull the LP advocate argument and say, well you haven't heard this player or that player played through this system or that system.

 

So let me get this straight. On a few occaissions you were playing air guitar and your friends, musicians. audiophiles and engineers and the like, were listening to your CD player and mistaked it for you playing the guitar?

I have no idea whether or not your cartridge is misaligned but it probably is. Most are. I have heard a few Numarks and they were universally awful. Sorry. I'm not trying to trash your equipment but that is my experience.

I don't expect anyone to listen to every CD player or every Turntable in the world. The fact still remains however that no CD player that I have auditioned and they are numerous has even come close to sounding as good as my turntable.

Lastly, If your musician, audiophile and engineer friends cant tell the difference between live unamplified music and you stereo you indeed have something special there. Since no one I know of has any stereo that sounds just like live music and I've listened to what most people in the industry would consider contenders for state of the art.

It also seems that you now want to change the subject to comparisons between decent CD palyers and decent turntables. That really isn't what we've been discussing so far. It is another point of contention but not the subject at hand. Im not interested in decent sound and not as well versed in decent sounding equipment. I am interested in the best sound I can get.

Until you can site a fair comparison you have made between a state of the art CD player and a state of the art Turntable I'm afraid I can only presume you are argueing about something with which you have no experience. When the French and Californians agrue who makes the finest wines they don't compare their 5 dollar groccery store brands to settle things.