Records / Vinyl versus CDs

[tagutcow]

Originally Posted by A Y

CDs have far superior bass. CD can reproduce perfectly down to practically DC with its entire dynamic range. (It's not really DC since CD doesn't have infinite playtime, but 1/(60*80) Hz is DC for all practical purposes.) LP has mono bass, lots of bass distortion, and very limited bass dynamic range.

True, non-mono bass can throw the needle out of the groove, and a loud bass frequency will quash everything else.

Must of what people don't like about "digital sound" is actually just contemporary production/mastering techniques, esp. stupid, unnecessary compression, which studies have shown to fatigue people's hearing more quickly.

 

[DeCaloFashion1]

Originally Posted by A Y

Not really, and your explanation of digital recording isn't right either. Analog is about as artificial as digital is --- they're just different artificial ways of representing reality. For example, is a rock more analog or digital?

--Andre

Digital recording by definition is the transfer of analog sine waves to binary code. While both rocks are not real it would be more apt to call the digital rock a near-perfect photocopy of the analog rock.

Sonically these nuances don't really matter to the vast majority of people (myself included 90% of the time).

The rigidity of current sample rates is the only hurdle for digital media to overcome in order to surpass the turntable as the king of audiophile music playback.

 

[T4phage]

^ simple question: the grooves and pits of a record is a audio sine wave? And not a 'representation'?

those lying BASTARDS who taught me physics...

 

[sonick]

Originally Posted by tagutcow

Must of what people don't like about "digital sound" is actually just contemporary production/mastering techniques, esp. stupid, unnecessary compression, which studies have shown to fatigue people's hearing more quickly.

+1. I'd listen to Muse if their albums weren't so horribly mastered.

 

[Artisan Fan]

I have been playing LPs for 2+ years now and I have learned a few things:

1. LP is an inherently higher resolution format than CD. In addition you have the advantage of many older albums being transferred from analog tape to analog LP cutting. That eliminates the terrible sonic degradation of an A-D and D-A conversion that you have with CDs or worse eMPty3.
2. Most LPs sound more natural than CDs, especially classic rock if you have the right pressing. For instance, you have not heard Led Zep II until you have played the Ludwig mastered LP.
3. Most reissued CD, with some notable exceptions, are horrible sounding due to compression and use of second or later generation tapes.
4. There are literally hundreds of different turntables you can buy and most sound very good.
5. Most new bands also put out vinyl.
6. Many audiophile jazz and classical reissues sound superb. The MusicMattersJazz series is sublime.
7. You can get started with a Rega P1 for only $350 including cartridge and it sounds great.

 

[Modernist]

Originally Posted by Mike

A friend of mine works at Best Buy and he told me the reissues and new releases on vinyl sell better than the cds. When I went to his store a few months ago I was amazed at how many new albums were released on vinyl. "Chinese Democracy", Metallica's new one, and a few others, plus all the reissues of The Who and others. I've got a few hundred vinyl records and I inherited my uncle's awesome turn table {direct drive Sony, that probably weighs 40 pounds}, so when I get a little money, I may have to pick up some of these new records and check them out.
Records are the one physical medium that is demonstrating constant growth in sales during the last years. Some labels in fact either provide a code with the lp for downloading the album in mp3 format, or a cd. Even 7" and 10" records are selling, and even some reissues are collectable (eg Jazz Man).

Originally Posted by MrG

It's the playback that makes vinyl sound warmer, not the recording process. Vinyl playback provides a wider range of frequencies than do CDs, particularly on the low end.

Originally Posted by A Y

Yes, absolutely. Also for some reason, record companies seem to feel compelled to do a better job mastering and mixing LP releases than their CD counterparts, which get squished to make them play super loud.



CDs have far superior bass. CD can reproduce perfectly down to practically DC with its entire dynamic range. (It's not really DC since CD doesn't have infinite playtime, but 1/(60*80) Hz is DC for all practical purposes.) LP has mono bass, lots of bass distortion, and very limited bass dynamic range.

LPs do have more extended high frequencies, but are orders of magnitude more distorted, have much higher noise, and worse channel separation. It's also debatable how important frequencies above 20 kHz are, and even if they are important, almost no speaker will play back those frequencies.

--Andre
Actually, the CD has a superior dynamic range to the LP. It was the misuse of digital consoles and compression (aka "the compression wars") that killed the CD. And the fact is that distortion is actually a desirable effect, during playback. The distortion that occurs during the playback of a record results in the amplification of the even base frequencies (Fourier analysis), which sound warmer to the human ear. Same reason guitarists rave about lamp amplifiers.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

I have been playing LPs for 2+ years now and I have learned a few things:

1. LP is an inherently higher resolution format than CD. In addition you have the advantage of many older albums being transferred from analog tape to analog LP cutting. That eliminates the terrible sonic degradation of an A-D and D-A conversion that you have with CDs or worse eMPty3.
2. Most LPs sound more natural than CDs, especially classic rock if you have the right pressing. For instance, you have not heard Led Zep II until you have played the Ludwig mastered LP.
3. Most reissued CD, with some notable exceptions, are horrible sounding due to compression and use of second or later generation tapes.
4. There are literally hundreds of different turntables you can buy and most sound very good.
5. Most new bands also put out vinyl.
6. Many audiophile jazz and classical reissues sound superb. The MusicMattersJazz series is sublime.
7. You can get started with a Rega P1 for only $350 including cartridge and it sounds great.
+1

I've also switched back to records 2-3 years . Besides the above, the main reason is that the record forces the listener to pay attention: You can't skip forward to the next track, and you have to be there to flip the side. Plus the actual presence of the physical object helps focus to the recording. And the artwork looks so much better in 12".

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by DeCaloFashion1

Digital recording by definition is the transfer of analog sine waves to binary code. While both rocks are not real it would be more apt to call the digital rock a near-perfect photocopy of the analog rock.

Digital recording isn't the transfer of analog into binary code. It is one representation of a physical phenomena, just like analog recording is a different, but equally alien, representation of a physical phenomena. There is nothing in nature like analog.

Sound is not a sine wave or analog, but is the aggregate behavior of many tiny physical interactions. Zillions of air molecules are hitting the diaphragm of a microphone, and the average behavior of all these molecules is getting transcoded into an electrical signal by some magnets shaking around. That seems awfully far away from the original phenomenon.....

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

I have been playing LPs for 2+ years now and I have learned a few things:

1. LP is an inherently higher resolution format than CD. In addition you have the advantage of many older albums being transferred from analog tape to analog LP cutting. That eliminates the terrible sonic degradation of an A-D and D-A conversion that you have with CDs or worse eMPty3.

What a way to welcome you back --- we can rehash one of our old arguments. LP is not higher resolution that CD. Every objective test you can run on both media confirms that fact.

2. Most LPs sound more natural than CDs, especially classic rock if you have the right pressing. For instance, you have not heard Led Zep II until you have played the Ludwig mastered LP.

LPs can sound great, and often better than their CD counterparts. But I wish audiophiles wouldn't try to make up bogus technical reasons why, and instead just enjoy their LPs.

Originally Posted by Modernist

Actually, the CD has a superior dynamic range to the LP. It was the misuse of digital consoles and compression (aka "the compression wars") that killed the CD. And the fact is that distortion is actually a desirable effect, during playback. The distortion that occurs during the playback of a record results in the amplification of the even base frequencies (Fourier analysis), which sound warmer to the human ear. Same reason guitarists rave about lamp amplifiers.

I totally agree. Another interesting euphonic distortion of LPs comes from the fact that they store stereo as mid and side signals: LPs don't store left and right channels separately. Instead (due to historical compatibility issues), they're stored as mid (left + right) and side (left-right). Because of this, it's easy for LPs to increase how spacious a recording sounds by boosting the side signal.

Since this signal is the difference between left and right channels, it generally encodes all of the out-of-phase and ambience sound of a recording. By applying a subtle boost to this channel (especially a frequency-dependent one, where some frequencies get more boost than others, as record players are wont to do), you can make a recording sound better than the original. Lots of reverb generators and spatializers use this principle.

--Andre

 

[Artisan Fan]

Andre, No need to cover old ground but an LP can hold a 50khz signal whereas a CD cannot. That equates to a much higher sampling rate than 44.1khz. Bob Ludwig and others have conclusively proven an LP has higher resolution. The fact that you can't hear it just confirms to us your lack of experience with better audio equipment.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

Andre,

No need to cover old ground but an LP can hold a 50khz signal whereas a CD cannot. That equates to a much higher sampling rate than 44.1khz. Bob Ludwig and others have conclusively proven an LP has higher resolution.

The fact that you can't hear it just confirms to us your lack of experience with better audio equipment.

Now, now, no need to get nasty!

We've covered the Ludwig claim before. LP may be able to hold 50 kHz, but it is a noisy, distorted channel, and not comparable to a PCM channel.

And as I've already pointed out, barely any speaker can reproduce above 20 kHz, so even if 50 kHz content is valuable, and even if the noise and distortion of LP at those frequencies aren't important, no one could have heard it to decide if it makes a difference.

But most importantly, I don't think any human is physiologically equipped to hear 50 kHz no matter how good their audio system.

--Andre

 

[audiophilia]

This old chesnut. <sigh>

Here's the correct answer.

Vinyl is better.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by audiophilia

This old chesnut. <sigh>

Here's the correct answer.

Vinyl is better.

I admire your brevity.

 

[tagutcow]

Originally Posted by A Y

I totally agree. Another interesting euphonic distortion of LPs comes from the fact that they store stereo as mid and side signals: LPs don't store left and right channels separately. Instead (due to historical compatibility issues), they're stored as mid (left + right) and side (left-right). Because of this, it's easy for LPs to increase how spacious a recording sounds by boosting the side signal.

Since this signal is the difference between left and right channels, it generally encodes all of the out-of-phase and ambience sound of a recording. By applying a subtle boost to this channel (especially a frequency-dependent one, where some frequencies get more boost than others, as record players are wont to do), you can make a recording sound better than the original. Lots of reverb generators and spatializers use this principle.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're saying here. I know subtracting one channel from another is a common "voice cancellation" process, but from the way you describe it, I don't see how would you get different material out of the left speaker than the right.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Well perhaps we can be diplomatic and say that I hear much more detail and musicality on my vinyl rig than my expensive CD/SACD player.

Originally Posted by A Y

Now, now, no need to get nasty!

We've covered the Ludwig claim before. LP may be able to hold 50 kHz, but it is a noisy, distorted channel, and not comparable to a PCM channel.

And as I've already pointed out, barely any speaker can reproduce above 20 kHz, so even if 50 kHz content is valuable, and even if the noise and distortion of LP at those frequencies aren't important, no one could have heard it to decide if it makes a difference.

But most importantly, I don't think any human is physiologically equipped to hear 50 kHz no matter how good their audio system.

--Andre

 

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Modernist

I've also switched back to records 2-3 years . Besides the above, the main reason is that the record forces the listener to pay attention: You can't skip forward to the next track, and you have to be there to flip the side. Plus the actual presence of the physical object helps focus to the recording. And the artwork looks so much better in 12".

Bam! QFT.

 

[Tck13]

So, uh, records can sound just as good as CDs?

Hmmmm.