Slowrider
STOP Voting!
Have to agree!
peopleperson
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, VIVA LA BOB!
I'm tellin you guys. Find some recordings by a band called Deerhoof. You will be astounded at the sounds. I promise you.
I'm tellin you guys. Find some recordings by a band called Deerhoof. You will be astounded at the sounds. I promise you.
MadAudio
Damned if I do
I got to record them live for Pancake Mountain. They kinda quirky, but I like 'em. I still have the multrtrack files from the shoot on my computer.peopleperson said:
T
Tim Gillett
Banned
I thought it was accepted these days that both analog tape and digital are capable of excellent audio recording. Any issues with digitally remastered albums would be more due to other human decisions down the line, lack of skill, or maybe original tapes damaged or lost.
Sure the Redbook standard is an audio compromise but all things considered, is CD demonstrably worse than vinyl or pre recorded open reel or cassette? and I mean when the analog gear is set up to perfection. In any case, is repeated playing of that vinyl, cassette or open reel tape really an option? Not if we want to preserve it.
Most people think CD's are great. I agree. How many people have been clamouring for "better than CD sound"? I think that audio CD's are an excellent distribution and user medium. I dont have great problems listening seriously to commercial CD's because of the limitations of Redbook. How long they will last as an archival medium is another question. Maybe in 200 years vinyl copies will have outlasted them all?
Like the fate of the term, "hi fi" many years ago, "digitallly remastered" seems to be becoming a meaningless tag that people trying to hawk their products feel obliged to emblazon on CD covers. That's a shame because though I dont listen to a whole lot of remastered stuff, what I've heard from the reputable companies generally sounds pretty good and, dare I say it in this thread, better than my old vinyls of the same albums, even allowing for vinyl wear and tear.
The thing is , to properly remaster from analog to digital requires a good understanding of both analog and digital systems. They are not the same. But they can both be excellent. IMO, digital remastering when done well, with little or no extra processing, brings me closer to the original analog master tape, and the intentions of the artist/producer, than I could have had in the days of analog distribution.
What I dislike most is ham fisted attempts to "enhance" original analog tapes to make them sound like they had no tape hiss and give them noise figures of CD's. It's impossible. As already said on this thread, it would be better to do a good clean transfer to digital and leave it pretty much at that.
Tim
Sure the Redbook standard is an audio compromise but all things considered, is CD demonstrably worse than vinyl or pre recorded open reel or cassette? and I mean when the analog gear is set up to perfection. In any case, is repeated playing of that vinyl, cassette or open reel tape really an option? Not if we want to preserve it.
Most people think CD's are great. I agree. How many people have been clamouring for "better than CD sound"? I think that audio CD's are an excellent distribution and user medium. I dont have great problems listening seriously to commercial CD's because of the limitations of Redbook. How long they will last as an archival medium is another question. Maybe in 200 years vinyl copies will have outlasted them all?
Like the fate of the term, "hi fi" many years ago, "digitallly remastered" seems to be becoming a meaningless tag that people trying to hawk their products feel obliged to emblazon on CD covers. That's a shame because though I dont listen to a whole lot of remastered stuff, what I've heard from the reputable companies generally sounds pretty good and, dare I say it in this thread, better than my old vinyls of the same albums, even allowing for vinyl wear and tear.
The thing is , to properly remaster from analog to digital requires a good understanding of both analog and digital systems. They are not the same. But they can both be excellent. IMO, digital remastering when done well, with little or no extra processing, brings me closer to the original analog master tape, and the intentions of the artist/producer, than I could have had in the days of analog distribution.
What I dislike most is ham fisted attempts to "enhance" original analog tapes to make them sound like they had no tape hiss and give them noise figures of CD's. It's impossible. As already said on this thread, it would be better to do a good clean transfer to digital and leave it pretty much at that.
Tim
cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
I can just imagine an old fart, his ears having lost all of its high end due to age or a young punk who's ears have become well worn and dulled due to being continually exposed to the harsh highs of modern mastering, sitting down with some classic analog masters from several decades back and "remastering" which inevitably leads to boosing excess highs, mids and such .... 
krhall
New member
CD's in my eyes are unreliable. Scratches can ruin a whole disk. Even on my computer i backup all my files to DLT tape. CD's i will only use for temporary storage if that. I try and use tape wherever possible and try to avoid cd's.
I have never liked cd's. I get far better audio results from tape than ANY cd i have ever heard.
If you have an ear for precision recording and sound quality then you will know what i mean.
And also look at the capacity of a cd
It is pitiful compared to a tape reel.
80mins is nothing compared to a tape reel
Keith
I have never liked cd's. I get far better audio results from tape than ANY cd i have ever heard.
If you have an ear for precision recording and sound quality then you will know what i mean.
And also look at the capacity of a cd
It is pitiful compared to a tape reel.
80mins is nothing compared to a tape reel
Keith
peopleperson
I'm so sorry.
MadAudio said:
Wow. Yeah, they are indeed cooky. I like them as a band, but not as much as I like the way their studio recordings sound. It's analog heaven.
SteveMac
New member
Like alot of others I didn't like CDs when they first came out. I always thought tapes and records sounded way better. Over time I bought into it because of the convienence of it and kind of forgot how vinyl sounded. Records sound like crap after they've been played a hundred times or have been abused. But nothing beats a new vinyl record. Plus the actual effort and care you take to listen to a record makes the whole experience that much more.
M
MCI2424
New member
krhall said:
How, exactly, do you copy a bad sounding CD onto Tape and have the sound come out better?
Analog is a good sounding format, and a format that 99% of this board is USED TO, but it surely cannot perform miracles.
M
MCI2424
New member
Tim Gillett said:
True digital remastering is a process done by mastering engineers. The standards for EQ'ing are totally different and headroom, noise floor levels are different. The "bad" sounding CDs can get away with saying "digitally remastered" because, technically, a master is just a source where we derive copies, and just recording any format to CD is making a master you intend to copy digitally. That is why the bootleg/low cost CDs sound like shit. They are not truly remastered, juist copied from somewhere, and copied badly (like from vinyl with the wrong EQ)
krhall
New member
Copying from CD to Tape Reel
I record from cd to computer.
Then from Computer to tape
ok.... so you will never get the feeling of the original recording from a cd
but my methods of recording that way filters out the high pitch acoustic background noise you get from some cd's (ie: high pitch sqeeling barely noticable at low volume).
The results i have achieved by recording cd's this way is very good
i use Goldwave to process the tracks once they have been recorded to my computer.
And i have my computer rigged to my external amplifier as well as my external speakers.
Keith
I record from cd to computer.
Then from Computer to tape
ok.... so you will never get the feeling of the original recording from a cd
but my methods of recording that way filters out the high pitch acoustic background noise you get from some cd's (ie: high pitch sqeeling barely noticable at low volume).
The results i have achieved by recording cd's this way is very good
i use Goldwave to process the tracks once they have been recorded to my computer.
And i have my computer rigged to my external amplifier as well as my external speakers.
Keith
T
Tim Gillett
Banned
MCI2424 said:
Yes, "digital remastering" can simply mean a tape was converted to a digital format. That was my point. The term has become almost meaningless. I was also saluting the good digital remastering that I've heard on some of my favourite old 60's and 70's vinyl records. Yes I understand that the signal could be processed to accomodate the limitations of vinyl but we werent talking about that. My point was that assuming the original 2 track tape is still available and in good condition there would seem no good reason to do much "tweaking" of it, unless there really were production faults in it originally.
In the case of a good master tape even with the best mastering facility available, what else needs to be done? The dynamics are good, the overall EQ is right, the channel balance is good, there's little background noise. Headroom? We're talking about a finished, mixed down tape. Sure, you must not clip the signal when recording it to digital or at any point after that but I hardly think that would be difficult. More of an issue when mixing multitracks where levels are additive.
I dont understand what you mean about "the standards for EQing are totally different" Totally different from what?
"Headroom, noise floor levels are different" Again, different to what?
Sure, 24 bit is very quiet and even 16 bit CD for the old timer analog guys seems like heaven so what does that have to do with digitally remastering analog tapes from the 50's and early 60's which didnt achieve anywhere near those noise specs? Digitally remastering those tapes, assuming they were made well and still sound great on a good mastering house's gear, should be a cinch. An easy day at the office, I would have thought.
I was objecting to the attempt to make those old tapes into something they never were and never will be. Most people dont seem to mind a bit of tape hiss on an otherwise good, well produced recording.
An example of bad remastering I once encountered was an old Groucho Mark You Bet Your Life radio transcription disc remastered to vinyl. Listening to the vinyl, you could tell they had used gating to reduce the noise of the original transcription disc. Hey,the transcription disc noise was not too bad. But the severe gating had now pushed the quiet passages so low they were now buried under the surface noise of the vinyl! Grouch and the contestants were now swallowing their words!
If the remastering had been to CD it would have still sounded awful but at least the much better noise floor of the CD would have meant the quieter passages were at least not buried in noise. And it was noise they were supposedly trying to reduce!
(This only underlines the point that remastering old recordings to digital ought to be a cinch. You have such a relatively quiet medium that both digital clipping and digital noise just shouldnt be an issue. It's luxurious.)
Again, all would have been well if they'd just left well alone! But almost certainly this was a low budget rerelease and they had employed someone who didnt have a clue. Your point, I take it, and I thoroughly agree.
Tim
cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
Good points Tim G. Yes, that was the original assumption and thanks for bringing this up. We're not talking about transferring "as is" from vinyl nor from a tape which has lost its frequency response or is in bad shape overall but from well preserved 2 track masters. In the case of problem tape, it'd definitely be a good idea to remaster these to its original sound but nothing beyond that.
B
Beck
Guest
krhall said:I record from cd to computer.
Then from Computer to tape
I do something similar -- record all my new CDs to reel-to-reel and back to CD with a stand-alone burner. I prefer the sonic character to the original CD. It takes the edge off.
littlesongs
New member
i think mister zimmerman might not have harped on the biggest issue... the problem is alot less about technology and more about imagination... digital allows even the least imaginative of us to sound clearly out of ideas...
even though david gilmour has the coolest studio floating gently in the thames, pink floyd did their best work when they had less toys... country music has gone from live radio to the ipod, but willie nelson still doesn't need a drum machine to be a genius... i think that if one were to explore the margins, one would find that music is alive and well... but... relying on a handful of huge media companies for entertainment of quality is like asking mcdonalds for food chock full of vitamins...
if you are ever digging through a stack of old magazines, look for a bitterly good article by neil young that ran over ten years ago in harpers' (i believe)... his reaction to warner brothers' butchery of his cd reissues was well reasoned and made many great arguments from the technical to the aesthetic...
even though david gilmour has the coolest studio floating gently in the thames, pink floyd did their best work when they had less toys... country music has gone from live radio to the ipod, but willie nelson still doesn't need a drum machine to be a genius... i think that if one were to explore the margins, one would find that music is alive and well... but... relying on a handful of huge media companies for entertainment of quality is like asking mcdonalds for food chock full of vitamins...
if you are ever digging through a stack of old magazines, look for a bitterly good article by neil young that ran over ten years ago in harpers' (i believe)... his reaction to warner brothers' butchery of his cd reissues was well reasoned and made many great arguments from the technical to the aesthetic...
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
wow ...... I like this forum.
I'm a vinylholic ...... when I moved here to Florida a few months ago I had to haul my collection (over 6000 albums ) and it filled 51 of those regular sized U-Haul boxes. Over at the other place I said something about how good vinyl sounded and had a zillion folks jump down my throat about how I
m a geezer who doesn't want to let go of his old sucky technology.
But redbook has been pretty well demonstrated to not be quite sufficient. That's why in a decision last year the Library of Congress decided to continue to archive audio recordings to tape because they felt (and you know they've got some experts available) that CDs weren't a satisfactory medium.
Recent articles I've read seem to say that if they had made the standard 20 bits and sat 55k sampling rate .... that would have indeed been sufficient but the 16bit 44.1 wasn't . One of the big problems is the "brick wall" filters that are required to cut off anything above 20 k. A lot of studies have been done that show that even though we can't hear that high or higher ..... the presence or lack thereof of ultrasonics affects how we hear the freqs we can hear.
I have a Masterlink so that's a decent burner. And on delicate recordings (acoustic or vocal .... that sort of thing) I can clearly hear the difference between the source and the CD I burned of it.
Don't get me wrong ... I listen to CDs all the time but for really serious listening ..... for me vinyl wins virtually every time.
Of course you have to have a good 'table. It can't be one of those plasticky direct drive cheapos.
I'm a vinylholic ...... when I moved here to Florida a few months ago I had to haul my collection (over 6000 albums ) and it filled 51 of those regular sized U-Haul boxes. Over at the other place I said something about how good vinyl sounded and had a zillion folks jump down my throat about how I
m a geezer who doesn't want to let go of his old sucky technology.
But redbook has been pretty well demonstrated to not be quite sufficient. That's why in a decision last year the Library of Congress decided to continue to archive audio recordings to tape because they felt (and you know they've got some experts available) that CDs weren't a satisfactory medium.
Recent articles I've read seem to say that if they had made the standard 20 bits and sat 55k sampling rate .... that would have indeed been sufficient but the 16bit 44.1 wasn't . One of the big problems is the "brick wall" filters that are required to cut off anything above 20 k. A lot of studies have been done that show that even though we can't hear that high or higher ..... the presence or lack thereof of ultrasonics affects how we hear the freqs we can hear.
I have a Masterlink so that's a decent burner. And on delicate recordings (acoustic or vocal .... that sort of thing) I can clearly hear the difference between the source and the CD I burned of it.
Don't get me wrong ... I listen to CDs all the time but for really serious listening ..... for me vinyl wins virtually every time.
Of course you have to have a good 'table. It can't be one of those plasticky direct drive cheapos.
T
Tim Gillett
Banned
Well yes and no is my response.
Vinyl is fine IF it's not scratched, or dirty, or been played with a worn stylus or just played too many times with a good stylus. With pop and rock type music it's fine because there's usually very few quiet passages.
But for classical? Unless everything is right the quiet passages which can go on for ages have to compete with the surface noise. The only recording remedy was to artificially drag the orchestra volume up in these quiet sections. Orchestras were actually instructed to limit the dynamics of their playing so the vinyl could handle it more easily. Was THAT natural?
16 bits not good enough? Do you know what vinyl equates to in bit (ie: noise) terms? Neither do I exactly but it's a whole lot less than 16 bits. In db terms it's about 65db from memory on a good 'table. Redbook 16 bit is in the 90 db's. So if you are complaining 16 bit is not quiet enough, you're already trashing part your own argument for vinyl. If 20 bit is the mark (your argument, not mine) then vinyl doesnt even get a look in. It's far worse than 16 bit.
It's too easy to lump bitrates and sample rates together as one. They're totally different things. One is, put simply, signal to noise and the other is effectively frequency response.
Archiving is a separate issue again. There's talk CD discs may not last that well in the long term as an archive medium. Be that as it may, it has nothing to do with sound quality on CD's now.
If we're talking about the supersonic frequencies I'm not sure that vinyl was that good at those anyway, especially on the inner grooves and at high cutting velocities levels. The highs are already boosted seriously on vinyl to try and get above the background hiss and the further you push the cutting levels, the more you risk distortion, which IS audible, and horribly unnatural again.
On stereo vinyl if the bass notes go too much out of stereo phase, the stylus risks being catapulted out of the groove!
If vinyl is so good, why for many years have the vast majority of buyers abandoned it for CD? A conspiracy maybe...?
I think in any comparison like this, you have to look at ALL the factors that influence people's choices, not just quote a bit of an argument that SEEMS to be supporting vinyl (or just analog) indirectly by saying the LOC is still using tapes for archiving. BTW The LOC is also on the verge of a huge change to their massive Talking Book system It is going digital.
To get a bit more personal, I can say that with some regret. I've worked in totally analog Talking Books for 20 years, knowing analog tape machines, recording and production techniques and duplication and distribution like the back of my hand. It will be a sad day for me when all that system which I loved and got to know so well will soon become just a memory. My tenure will also become little more than a memory and I'll be looking for other work. But do I think the digital system will be better on balance? Not sure but my tentative guess is probably yes, even if not for me personally.
If you really think redbook is crap you can always record to higher bit and sample rates if you want to, even though they wont play on Redbook.
Even if the argument for higher than 44.1khz is valid, the argument for higher than 16 bit rates makes vinyl pathetically noisy and you have a stalemate. On that score then, neither format is any good!
What do others think?
PS Apparently Neil Young is critical of digital sound but it's hard to know just what he means by it without reading the whole article. I love Neil Young's stuff, the old and the new. Not so sure about some of the grunge... I saw the movie and listened to Praire Wind, all in CD audio. It was recorded apparently in analog. But what's the point? We get to hear it in Redbook. and it's beautiful, as it would be on vinyl. It's just good music. Somehow in all of this the music and its life and soul needs to be at the forefront.
Cheers Tim
Vinyl is fine IF it's not scratched, or dirty, or been played with a worn stylus or just played too many times with a good stylus. With pop and rock type music it's fine because there's usually very few quiet passages.
But for classical? Unless everything is right the quiet passages which can go on for ages have to compete with the surface noise. The only recording remedy was to artificially drag the orchestra volume up in these quiet sections. Orchestras were actually instructed to limit the dynamics of their playing so the vinyl could handle it more easily. Was THAT natural?
16 bits not good enough? Do you know what vinyl equates to in bit (ie: noise) terms? Neither do I exactly but it's a whole lot less than 16 bits. In db terms it's about 65db from memory on a good 'table. Redbook 16 bit is in the 90 db's. So if you are complaining 16 bit is not quiet enough, you're already trashing part your own argument for vinyl. If 20 bit is the mark (your argument, not mine) then vinyl doesnt even get a look in. It's far worse than 16 bit.
It's too easy to lump bitrates and sample rates together as one. They're totally different things. One is, put simply, signal to noise and the other is effectively frequency response.
Archiving is a separate issue again. There's talk CD discs may not last that well in the long term as an archive medium. Be that as it may, it has nothing to do with sound quality on CD's now.
If we're talking about the supersonic frequencies I'm not sure that vinyl was that good at those anyway, especially on the inner grooves and at high cutting velocities levels. The highs are already boosted seriously on vinyl to try and get above the background hiss and the further you push the cutting levels, the more you risk distortion, which IS audible, and horribly unnatural again.
On stereo vinyl if the bass notes go too much out of stereo phase, the stylus risks being catapulted out of the groove!
If vinyl is so good, why for many years have the vast majority of buyers abandoned it for CD? A conspiracy maybe...?
I think in any comparison like this, you have to look at ALL the factors that influence people's choices, not just quote a bit of an argument that SEEMS to be supporting vinyl (or just analog) indirectly by saying the LOC is still using tapes for archiving. BTW The LOC is also on the verge of a huge change to their massive Talking Book system It is going digital.
To get a bit more personal, I can say that with some regret. I've worked in totally analog Talking Books for 20 years, knowing analog tape machines, recording and production techniques and duplication and distribution like the back of my hand. It will be a sad day for me when all that system which I loved and got to know so well will soon become just a memory. My tenure will also become little more than a memory and I'll be looking for other work. But do I think the digital system will be better on balance? Not sure but my tentative guess is probably yes, even if not for me personally.
If you really think redbook is crap you can always record to higher bit and sample rates if you want to, even though they wont play on Redbook.
Even if the argument for higher than 44.1khz is valid, the argument for higher than 16 bit rates makes vinyl pathetically noisy and you have a stalemate. On that score then, neither format is any good!
What do others think?
PS Apparently Neil Young is critical of digital sound but it's hard to know just what he means by it without reading the whole article. I love Neil Young's stuff, the old and the new. Not so sure about some of the grunge... I saw the movie and listened to Praire Wind, all in CD audio. It was recorded apparently in analog. But what's the point? We get to hear it in Redbook. and it's beautiful, as it would be on vinyl. It's just good music. Somehow in all of this the music and its life and soul needs to be at the forefront.
Cheers Tim
littlesongs
New member
i agree that it all boils down to the song... one can get the nightcrawlers reissue and listen to the classic, "little black egg" on compact disc and it doesn't lose any luster as a song... it's still a bunch of hyper college kids in a kitchen with the lead singer outside under a microphone hanging in a tree... it's lo-fi either way... and, even though it was a rough hewn classic of home recording, it stayed on the charts for two years... yes, the romance of vinyl is seductive... especially when it was the format of the original release...
having worked in radio through the heartbreaking transition of vinyl to cd, i have long wondered why i love records more than compact discs... over time, i developed an interesting theory as to why analog formats work so well... so... bear with me while i postulate...
your brain sends an electrical impulse and your arm strums a guitar to vibrate the strings or air is pushed through your vocal chords and they vibrate or a drumhead is struck, etc... the sound travels through the air where it vibrates a diaphragm or ribbon that sends an electrical impulse... that impulse in turn is recorded on a long strip of tape rotating on a reel... as one multi-tracks, more and more impulses are collected in a linear way... eventually, the final collection of vibrations converted to electrical impulses are converted back to vibrations and cut into vinyl... that record spins and vibrates a stylus to send an electrical impulse to an amplifier and finally, a speaker that converts it one last time, vibrates and sends sound through the air... the sound is only ever converted from electrical impulses to mechanical vibrations and back... over and over... humans are analog, tape is analog and the turntable is as well... it never has to be a one or a zero... i know, i may be wading in deep waters without any parchment in physics, but it is a theory...
having worked in radio through the heartbreaking transition of vinyl to cd, i have long wondered why i love records more than compact discs... over time, i developed an interesting theory as to why analog formats work so well... so... bear with me while i postulate...
your brain sends an electrical impulse and your arm strums a guitar to vibrate the strings or air is pushed through your vocal chords and they vibrate or a drumhead is struck, etc... the sound travels through the air where it vibrates a diaphragm or ribbon that sends an electrical impulse... that impulse in turn is recorded on a long strip of tape rotating on a reel... as one multi-tracks, more and more impulses are collected in a linear way... eventually, the final collection of vibrations converted to electrical impulses are converted back to vibrations and cut into vinyl... that record spins and vibrates a stylus to send an electrical impulse to an amplifier and finally, a speaker that converts it one last time, vibrates and sends sound through the air... the sound is only ever converted from electrical impulses to mechanical vibrations and back... over and over... humans are analog, tape is analog and the turntable is as well... it never has to be a one or a zero... i know, i may be wading in deep waters without any parchment in physics, but it is a theory...
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Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
Don't agree .....Tim Gillett said:
First off ..... the reason that the masses of people switched to CD had absolutely nothing to do with sound quality just as today the fact that the masses have switched to MP3s right now has absolutely nothing to do with sound quality. It's convenience pure and simple which CDs do have all over vinyl. I certainly don't argue that at all and I listen to CDs all the time .... can't play records in a car and many times I don't feel like cleaning the record or turning it over after 20 minutes.
And yes vinyl is fragile and if not played on good gear is noisy. But the vast majority of people have never ever heard vinyl played on a good rig. If your idea of a good 'table is a Technics 1200 then you've never heard what it can do ........... period. It's far quieter than you might think when played on good gear and noise isn't the only factor in good sound anyway.
CDs are definitely more convenient and better for Joe Public because he doesn't want to baby his music ..... he just wants to throw it around ..... and that's fine. But for those of us that don't mind using care and taking the time to put our records on a cleaning machine ..... the noise and wear problems are far less of an issue.
I can play my records and except for very old ones .... you won't hear any noise ..... occassional pops yes ..... but not many and the more natural timbre of instruments and voices offsets that to my ears.
I acknowledge that to yours it might not.
As for the dynamics issue .... noise floor isn't the only thing that matters. CD's cut off 'verb tails and analog lets it dissappear into the noise floor ..... that's one of the reasons CDs (especially early ones ) are so harsh and unatural sounding.
Classical music? well first off in the audiophile world classical is one of the specific genres where audiophiles critisize CDs and continue to spin vinyl. And, in general ..... the opposite of what you said is true. The specific musics that audiophiles tend to prefer on vinyl is stuff with quiet passages and delicate detail. Go look at any audiophile site and that's what you'll see.
And for myself .... that's also the specific music that I prefer on vinyl . Rock music comes across just fine on CD, but something delicate with reverb tails that CD players truncate and vinyl doesn't come across .... just 'not right' on CD. I actually can't really put it in words ...... but I hear it clearly. It's one of those times when ears trumps measurements.
There is a reason that vinyl continues to be made and is, in fact, one of the few areas of music that has had a small growth in sales the last 4 or 5 years. And in Europe and Japan it's much bigger than here. Now before anyone throws up the statistics on vinyl being much smaller than CDs don't bother. I already know that. The fact is that audiophiles are, by their very nature, a small portion of the market. Still, vinyl sales continue .... in part due to DJs but in equal part because lots of audiophiles prefer it.
Some of the things I hear complained about vinyl are things that apply to the records you dad played on a changer where you stacked records up and let them slide on each other and whatnot. That's not the kind of vinyl playback I'm talking about.
Or one of those horrendous sounding direct drive 'tables ....... *shudder*.
And the RIAA compensation is certainly a real problem ..... but like A/D and D/A converters ..... there are phono preamps that do the job extremely accurately and well. Once again ..... if the only vinyl you've listened to is plugged into the phono input of a Pioneer receiver then you've never really heard what it can do.
Lastly ..... yes bass is the biggest single problem for vinyl and that's where you need something like this .. www.vpiindustries.com/
And the very house you're in makes a difference .... I recently moved to Fl. and this house is on piers and one of my favorite 'tables is unlistenable because the bass is so bloated sounding. At my old house it sounded great ................. sucks here. Not sure what I'm gonna do about that ..... first I'll try a wall shelf but we'll see.
Plus the high end is where vinyl flat out does better than CD. CDs cut things off at 20k ...... and those brick wall filters cause a host of problems ..... aliasing and phase issues. Any designer of good digital gear says that the brick wall filters are a horrible problem. Vinyl goes right on up there ..... many carts are rated to 50 or 55k and the vinyl itself supports this. In the old quad format ..... the way they added the extra 2 channels was to put a 25k carrier wave on the music and then the preamp removed that to extract the rear channels. I had a friend with one of those rigs and it played the back two channels in full range ..... and this was classical music ..... so vinyl can be cut at least to 45k and the carts can play it back.
Don't misunderstand me ...... I'm not evangelistic about vinyl and don't expect anyone to run out and get into vinyl. Hell ..... if my collection got lost (hold me
) I can't imagine I would do it again.But trotting out measurements doesn't tell the whole story anymore than showing me the meaurements of a mic tells me what it'll sound like. It all comes back to the ears and I go by what I hear.
B
Beck
Guest
Tim Gillett said:
Tim! I don’t even know what to say. Your post as a whole sounds like a brochure for CDs from 1982, before we knew what we know now.
I’m not going to pick it apart line-by-line… but, a couple key points --Digital’s word length and resolution are rated at 0 VU. Anything above or below is distorted. We’re not talking about harmonic or modulation distortion in the classic sense, but distortion unique to the digital medium (distortion as in corruption of the audio). We can easily identify digital distortion above 0 VU because it sounds like a train wreck. But digital also falls into distortion during low passages. This is why I’ve always insisted that bargraphs in any digital signal chain should have red bars at both ends -- lines of death that cannot be crossed.
So while low-level material falls into the noise floor with vinyl and tape, it must be understood that digital audio falls into inadequate resolution at low levels. Thus, the dynamic range specs of CD have always been misleading.
However, audio reproduction is not just about dynamic range or other standard measurements, such as frequency response, signal-to-noise, etc. When comparing any recording medium to the source material one must consider the unquantifiables that are not in a spec sheet.
But come on… Vinyl having less resolution than CD? What???
Cassette tape gains 30 dB of dynamic range using dbx and it’s pin-drop quite, rivaling CD in noise specs. What should we glean from this, that cassette is a superior format? The fact is ¼” open-reel and vinyl still sound better without noise reduction, hiss or not.
~Tim