Digital is better

[frenchyfranky]

I have some vinyls that sounds very very good and some others are deceptive, I think that it's all depends on how much precision and quality the vinyl maker decided to doing their vinyls, and for sure the artist and editor demands, higher the quality of the vinyl is, higher the price will.

For me it's a real joy to listen and appreciate a good vinyl occasionally like a good glasses of single malt scotch or cognac, but it's for sure not the manner I always listen my music.

[insightfulman]

Everything has time and place. While I wouldn't say vinyl is better than digital both vinyl and digital sources have there place. Just as I would not wear a tourbillon while I'm mountain biking I also would not listen to vinyl while I'm running around hosting a dinner party. On the other hand, enjoying a glass of 18yo McChallan and enjoying the music I would almost always spin vinyl. :-)

[memotiva]

The debate is actually quite flawed. The problem isn't digital vs analog usually, it's all about dynamic compression and idiots in the sound booth. Pretty much every album by Muse is just ruined. You listed directly to the CD with a nice system and it sounds empty.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg

Here's a comparison of the poor mastering of Death Magnetic. They downloadable content for Guitar Hero 3 had an uncompressed version.

There's not really any benefit to a properly recorded and presented digital music file provided that things haven't been compressed. Taking that same file, moving it to vinyl and adding vinyl artifacts to it doesn't really change anything.

[KeithL]

From what you're describing, I very much doubt that the differences you're hearing are because of a difference between vinyl and digital.

The differences between vinyl and digital fall into certain specific categories:

Noise:
Records have a maximum dynamic range of about 70 dB or so; the dynamic range of a CD (16 bits) is about 96 dB; with 24 bit digital audio files it is about 130 dB. Beyond that, the actual character of the noise itself may be different (many people hold that the noise in digital files is more unpleasant, although a properly dithered digital file should have more or less the same white noise hiss as vinyl or tape - although, at more than 95 dB below maximum, it's doubtful that you'd hear it anyway).

Frequency response:
Digital recordings inherently have a very flat frequency response, up to the Nyquist limit (which is half of the sample rate), and cut off sharply above that. For a CD, which has a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, the theoretical frequency response is flat from 10 Hz or so up to about 21 kHz (real CD players often achieve flatness better than +/- 0.5 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz). In contrast, because of the extensive equalization required to produce vinyl recordings, variations in vinyl itself, variations between different brands and models of phono cartridges, inaccuracies in the equalization in phono preamps, and interactions between a specific cartridge and preamp, record playback is rarely anywhere near flat (with variations as much as +/- 3 dB or even +/- 5 dB quite common). These variations account for much of the "difference in sound" between various phono cartridges, and between vinyl and digital. It is true that the frequency response of vinyl can extend well above 20 kHz (although not very flatly), and some people insist that they can also hear this difference.

Phase response:
Frequency-related phase shifts can occur in audio content for a variety of reasons. The phase accuracy of digital files is (surprise) very good, with many CD players maintaining phase accuracy between 20 hz and 20 kHz within a fraction of a degree. Because of the inductance and capacitance of phono cartridges and mastering lathes, and the equalization required during recording and playback, like the frequency response, the phase accuracy of vinyl is (big surprise) not very good.

Distortion:
Without getting into numbers, the distortion for vinyl is not very good, possibly rising as high as several full percent under some conditions, and tends to rise with amplitude. The distortion on digital files is VERY low (some of our DACs reach 0.003%). However, the types of distortion in the two types of media are different in character, and some people insist that ANY digital distortion sounds worse than even large amounts of the types of distortion commonly found in vinyl playback.

To relate these to your experience.... Variations in frequency response can make a given instrument seem significantly more "forward" or more "buried in the mix". If the frequency range occupied by a given instrument is boosted, that instrument seems louder and closer; if those frequencies are cut, then that instrument will seem further away and less prominent. If the frequencies occupied by the harmonics produced by an instrument are boosted or cut in relation to the frequencies where the primary frequencies reside, that instrument or voice may sound "smoother" or "edgier". Certain types of distortion may also add a pleasant "aggressiveness" to the sound of certain instruments, and so make them seem more apparent in the mix. Likewise, second harmonic distortion is often added to vocal tracks to give them more "presence" and increase intelligibility (so, if it gets added, even accidentally, it may result in an "improvement" in sound, or in your being able to understand what a vocalist was singing that was previously buried ). Phase information is a large part of what our brains use to determine where various instruments and voices are positioned in the sound field, so a variation in phase can make a given sound seem physically closer ("stage front") or further away ("stage rear"), and variations in phase response between the channels can make the sound stage seem wider or narrower and deeper or shallower. (Note that, especially in this case, there is an actual "correct value" and other values, even if they sound "nice", are less accurate.)  All of these may result in audible differences in sound. In fact, even variations that seem obviously bad, if they happen to cancel out other imperfections in the recording, could end up producing an end result that sounds better. However, none of these would account for "entire instruments being missing".

I suspect most of what you're hearing are simply differences in the mix. The master recordings for modern records are recorded in multi-track format. This means that each instrument may be recorded on a different track. In fact, while some tracks may contain multiple instruments, some instruments may actually occupy several tracks. For example, a drum may be recorded using a dynamic microphone close to the drum head - recorded in one track, and another microphone placed further away and higher up - in another track, and, perhaps, a whole different microphone, aimed at the cymbals - in yet another track. The whole idea there is to provide the greatest flexibility to the mixing engineer. The microphone closer to the low drum head will contain more of the deep thump, while the one placed far above will contain more of the sharp crack of the drumstick on the rim, and the one nearest the cymbals will have a much sharper and clearer rendition of them. Of course, they may be different brands or types of microphones, each chosen for a particular pickup pattern and sound characteristic, and the mixing engineer can apply different types of EQ and compression to each - both before and after mixing them together. By varying how much of each microphone's track he uses, the recording engineer gets to control how that drum sounds in the final recording. Sometimes different tracks are even recorded in different studios, or at different times, and on some recordings a single artist may record one track, then go back later and record another to go with it. 

How much of each track is used, and what equalization and compression is applied to each, is determined when the master tape is mixed down. This means that different mixes, even when made from the same master, and even when done by the same mixing engineer, may be very different. Was he asked to make his mixes consistent, or was he told to "make the CD mix sharp and digital sounding and the vinyl mix mellow"? Did he simply decide to de-emphasize, or even remove altogether, certain instruments? Did he do the new re-mix using different monitoring equipment? Have his preferences simply changed since that first mix? Does he simply believe that "the video mix" and "the audio mix" should sound different?  There are also different limitations imposed by each different recording medium. For example, you can safely record a cymbal at -3 dB on a CD; however, that same level would overload a record cutter, and risk causing distortion and even possible damage... so the engineer had better either lower the level of the cymbal on the "vinyl mix" or apply some compression to make sure it stays within safe limits (of course, he could also choose to limit it for both).

You'll never know for sure if that instrument was further back, or further forward, in the vinyl version because of some anomaly in frequency response, or simply because the mixing engineer decided to position it further forward or back, or even because your phono cartridge has a slight bump or dip in frequency response right at the frequency where the primary tone of that instruments resides. In general, digital recordings are CAPABLE of recording far greater overall  dynamic range than vinyl, and dynamic range compression as a distortion can occur with vinyl, but not normally with digital recording media and technology... so, if the dynamic range is really more compressed on the CD, it's almost certainly because SOMEBODY wanted it that way at mix time. (Altering the dynamic range to some degree is something that is almost universally inflicted on EVERY audio track that gets anywhere near an engineer )

At best, in situations where the vinyl and digital versions were released at the same time, and by the same studio, there's at least a decent chance that they were made from not only the same master, but the same mix.

Sept 28, 2014 16:02:33 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

In our family collection we have 4 versions of the album S&M by Metallica, which as many would know is a very complex live recording featuring the full San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. There is a vinyl, an original CD version, a DVD version and numerous lossless (mostly FLAC) downloads. Since this was a live recording I assume the mastering of all the formats is the same, they are certainly attributed to the same engineers and the same mixers. Based on my readings it indicates mastering of all versions on high speed analogue tape. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the vinyl version plays "more information" in my system. On all of the "digital" versions there is information missing, sometimes complete instruments. Sometimes an instrument in the foreground in the vinyl version drops into the background in the digital versions. More frequently an instrument displays less dynamic range in the digital versions. This is not particularly subtle, all of my family and friends that I have played the versions for can hear the differences, unprompted. On that basis I believe the vinyl version to be a more "accurate" copy of the original performance. Whether that is due to the format itself or the mastering/mixing of the various versions I don't know.

The different versions do "sound" different, mostly quite subtle differences, some I like some I don't, but the vinyl version is the one with the most "information". This is not the only example where I have found this, has anyone else had similar experiences?


Cheers
Gary

[KeithL]

Agreed....

I've got 24/192 recordings that sound significantly better than their CD equivalents - but we'll never know whether that's because 24/192 is really audibly better than 16/44, or because, when they were being produced, someone said "we'd better make SURE that the $12 CD sounds WORSE than the $29 "audiophile high-res recording". Likewise, if I were mixing a CD and the "audiophile vinyl pressing" to go with it, I most certainly would EQ them differently. I'd make sure that the CD sounded "sharp and clear" - just like people expect from a digital recording, and I'd mix the vinyl version to sound "smooth and mellow" - because I'm pretty sure that's what vinyl fans would want. The last thing I would be doing would be to try and make them sound the same.

Oct 1, 2014 16:46:34 GMT -5 memotiva said:

The debate is actually quite flawed. The problem isn't digital vs analog usually, it's all about dynamic compression and idiots in the sound booth. Pretty much every album by Muse is just ruined. You listed directly to the CD with a nice system and it sounds empty.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nfqpr3ygSg

Here's a comparison of the poor mastering of Death Magnetic. They downloadable content for Guitar Hero 3 had an uncompressed version.

There's not really any benefit to a properly recorded and presented digital music file provided that things haven't been compressed. Taking that same file, moving it to vinyl and adding vinyl artifacts to it doesn't really change anything.

[pkelly1504]

I was thinking of purchasing a turntable so I demo'd CD's to LP's.

I went to a brick and mortar dealer who had the equipment set up or me. It really wasn't fair since the CD player was 3x the cost of the turntable, cartridge.

The CD player and turntable were played through identical electronics and speakers.

I had 8 LP's and 8 CD's of the same recordings as I had the LP's in storage for at least 25 years. My last turntable was the early 80"s

I brought a friend with me for another opinion.

It was no contest as every time the LP was superior to the cd's.

My friend agreed as it was really easy to hear the difference. I was quite surprised as the CD player was on a different level from a price standpoint.

I did this again in another brick and mortar store a few weeks later with my wife and did the same thing with other recordings and we had the same outcome. Analog to our ears was far superior.

Needless to say I now have a turntable along with a CD player in my system.

Any critical listening for me is analog.

Just my opinion.

[hemster]

Digital is better... for me when I travel overseas I can take my entire music collection with me on a USB drive. That's great for when I myself in countries with very little TV entertainment (you'd be surprised how many countries!). I can simply attach my USB drive and listen to my music on my laptop (which has Dolby Advanced Audio and Harmon/Kardon speakers). This I value a lot and it's only possible due to "digital". It'd be very cumbersome to carry all the CDs with me as well as vinyl (if I still had some).

Digital is better... as I can easily make backups of my collection.

Digital is better... as it saves me the expense and hassle of maintenance of record players, cartridges, cleaning supplies

Digital is better... and this coming from an ex-vinyl fan.

I continue to have snap, crackle and pop.. but from my bowl of Rice Crispies, not my speakers.   

[pkelly1504]

Digital is surely more convenient. Analog is expensive and a pain in the butt to care for however for me at home I love it.

On a good system with a clean LP it is dead quiet, really quite remarkable.

That is what is so great with this hobby.

What ever you prefer, go for it and enjoy!!!

[novisnick]

Oct 2, 2014 17:20:24 GMT -5 hemster said:

Digital is better... for me when I travel overseas I can take my entire music collection with me on a USB drive. That's great for when I myself in countries with very little TV entertainment (you'd be surprised how many countries!). I can simply attach my USB drive and listen to my music on my laptop (which has Dolby Advanced Audio and Harmon/Kardon speakers). This I value a lot and it's only possible due to "digital". It'd be very cumbersome to carry all the CDs with me as well as vinyl (if I still had some).

Digital is better... as I can easily make backups of my collection.

Digital is better... as it saves me the expense and hassle of maintenance of record players, cartridges, cleaning supplies

Digital is better... and this coming from an ex-vinyl fan.

I continue to have snap, crackle and pop.. but from my bowl of Rice Crispies, not my speakers.   

I agree with you with your situation, I also do enjoy my digital when I just want some background music or whatever, as long as it's not critical listening with a nice pot of Earl Grey.

The part that always gets me about vinyl is how poor either the TT, cartridge, or vinyl is,,,,,,because only on very rare occasion do I hear any disruption in the sound of my vinyl collection, this includes both old and newer LPs. Even the thirty year old vinyl sounds great,,,,,,I guess I have always been a little anal when it comes to my vinyl.
but I have no Rice Crispys,,,,,,,and don't care for the cereal either!!,!,,,,he,,,he,,,,  

[Gary Cook]

Thanks Keith, as usual very succinct and highly informative. I'd be fairly confident that my example (Metallica's S&M with the SF Symphony Orchestra) being a live recording would only have one master tape. I also would find it hard to believe that rerecording and/or different sessions / studios were employed for different versions. I also agree with your summation of the different media characteristics. So I'm left with your suggestion that the sound engineer / mixer made deliberate decisions that affected what each version (vinyl, CD and DVD) sounds like. Those decisions appear to me to have had far more influence on what I hear than the differences in the media themselves.

For completeness, when I'm in the car I listen to the FLAC version, on family vinyl days we obviously listen to the LP and the rest of the time it's the CD that gets played with the DVD version reserved for parties.


Cheers
Gary

[KeithL]

Now, this all leads to an interesting possibility...

We've opened up the possibility that a digital recording really is neutral, and that the differences people think they hear between digital audio and vinyl are really mostly differences in mastering. We should be able to do a little experiment and find out if that's really true or not......

We can prove whether a high quality digital recording significantly alters the sound easily enough. Just play a record, make a digital recording of it, and then A/B the recording of the record against the record itself. If you hear a huge difference, then digital recordings just won't cut it. However, if you CAN'T hear a difference, or even if there's a tiny difference, but you can't tell which is which, then the digital recording certainly seems to be giving you the same sound quality... PLUS all the benefits of digital (like making backups, and sharing copies, and being able to store five thousand songs in your pocket).

If this is true then, if you want to hear your favorite album played on a $10k cartridge, all you really need is a 24/96 digital recording of your favorite album being played on a $10k cartridge, and a good DAC to play it through.

(Of course, if this is true, then someone is going to have to make proper digitized versions of those good sounding old vinyls.)

Oct 2, 2014 21:37:29 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

Thanks Keith, as usual very succinct and highly informative. I'd be fairly confident that my example (Metallica's S&M with the SF Symphony Orchestra) being a live recording would only have one master tape. I also would find it hard to believe that rerecording and/or different sessions / studios were employed for different versions. I also agree with your summation of the different media characteristics. So I'm left with your suggestion that the sound engineer / mixer made deliberate decisions that affected what each version (vinyl, CD and DVD) sounds like. Those decisions appear to me to have had far more influence on what I hear than the differences in the media themselves.

For completeness, when I'm in the car I listen to the FLAC version, on family vinyl days we obviously listen to the LP and the rest of the time it's the CD that gets played with the DVD version reserved for parties.


Cheers
Gary

[hemster]

Oct 2, 2014 22:43:56 GMT -5 KeithL said:

Now, this all leads to an interesting possibility...

--->snip<---

..someone is going to have to make proper digitized versions of those good sounding old vinyls.)

Yes, but that's unfortunately easier said than done.

[KeithL]

Agreed.

However, it's not that bad either. Even some sound cards have pretty good ADCs in them. I would say that the ADC in a $99 SoundBlaster card is good enough that the difference between a recording made on it and the original would be far smaller than the differences between any two so-called "good" phono cartridges. There are also quite a few "pro" ADCs that cost $300 or under; I haven't tried any of them, but many consistently receive good reviews. (I would probably go for something like the Tascam DA-3000, which costs a bit more, but has excellent specifications, generally receives very good reviews, and has all the features I would be looking for.)

I have to admit that I had originally planned to do this "experiment" myself. Although most of what I listen to has either been released since vinyl went out of style, or has been re-released in digital versions that actually sound better than the vinyl "originals" to me, until recently I still had a few albums that simply hadn't been offered in digital form (good or bad). However, since then, several of them have been re-mastered in high resolution digital audio form - some of which, like the Grateful Dead Studio Albums in 24/192, sound much better than the old vinyl OR digital versions. A few others have been re-released in rather mediocre digital versions... but they were albums that never sounded especially great in vinyl either. In short, I have no vinyl albums left that I want to digitize, so the project is sort of at a standstill.....

It seems like a good idea (and a fun project) for someone who still has albums that they like the sound of better than their digital counterparts, or albums that never made it across the digital divide, to carry on and do some actual testing. It would be nice to finally have some actual data to go with all the discussions...  And how about a few properly set up group A/B tests - between albums and digital recordings of them....  My money is on digital being just as good as... but wouldn't we all like to see who's really right?  

Maybe, if Emo ever comes out with an ADC, and there's enough interest, I'll try to organize something along those lines...

Oct 2, 2014 22:47:04 GMT -5 hemster said:

Oct 2, 2014 22:43:56 GMT -5 KeithL said:

Now, this all leads to an interesting possibility...

--->snip<---

..someone is going to have to make proper digitized versions of those good sounding old vinyls.)

Yes, but that's unfortunately easier said than done.

[Gary Cook]

Oct 2, 2014 22:43:56 GMT -5 KeithL said:

Now, this all leads to an interesting possibility...
We've opened up the possibility that a digital recording really is neutral, and that the differences people think they hear between digital audio and vinyl are really mostly differences in mastering. We should be able to do a little experiment and find out if that's really true or not......
We can prove whether a high quality digital recording significantly alters the sound easily enough. Just play a record, make a digital recording of it, and then A/B the recording of the record against the record itself. If you hear a huge difference, then digital recordings just won't cut it. However, if you CAN'T hear a difference, or even if there's a tiny difference, but you can't tell which is which, then the digital recording certainly seems to be giving you the same sound quality... PLUS all the benefits of digital (like making backups, and sharing copies, and being able to store five thousand songs in your pocket).
If this is true then, if you want to hear your favorite album played on a $10k cartridge, all you really need is a 24/96 digital recording of your favorite album being played on a $10k cartridge, and a good DAC to play it through.
(Of course, if this is true, then someone is going to have to make proper digitized versions of those good sounding old vinyls.)

I do have a reasonable ADC, so far used for converting the family VHS tapes to digital. So it does both video and audio, not that there is much audio to speak of. No loss I guess, if the digital copy doesn't sound as good then I can blame it on the ADC. If it sounds the same / indistinguishable then the ADC can't be that bad.

Cheers
Gary

[Gary Cook]

Oct 2, 2014 23:58:22 GMT -5 KeithL said:

Maybe, if Emo ever comes out with an ADC, and there's enough interest, I'll try to organize something along those lines... ;

The XMC-1 has pretty decent ADC circuit I assume, just grab one of those and stick it in a separate box with a power supply. I'm sure you and Lonnie could knock it up during lunch hour. Assuming of course that Dan lets you guys have lunch


Cheers
Gary

[lionear]

Sept 28, 2014 16:02:33 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

In our family collection we have 4 versions of the album S&M by Metallica, which as many would know is a very complex live recording featuring the full San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. There is a vinyl, an original CD version, a DVD version and numerous lossless (mostly FLAC) downloads. Since this was a live recording I assume the mastering of all the formats is the same, they are certainly attributed to the same engineers and the same mixers. Based on my readings it indicates mastering of all versions on high speed analogue tape. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the vinyl version plays "more information" in my system. On all of the "digital" versions there is information missing, sometimes complete instruments. Sometimes an instrument in the foreground in the vinyl version drops into the background in the digital versions. More frequently an instrument displays less dynamic range in the digital versions. This is not particularly subtle, all of my family and friends that I have played the versions for can hear the differences, unprompted. On that basis I believe the vinyl version to be a more "accurate" copy of the original performance. Whether that is due to the format itself or the mastering/mixing of the various versions I don't know.

The different versions do "sound" different, mostly quite subtle differences, some I like some I don't, but the vinyl version is the one with the most "information". This is not the only example where I have found this, has anyone else had similar experiences?


Cheers
Gary

I couldn't have said this better.  My example would be "La Folia" on the Harmonia Mundi label.  The LP is on HP's super disc list.  I had high hopes for the CD but instruments were either missing, or played at a different level, changing the sense of the music.  The LP version was superior.

I keep dipping my toes into digital, and returning to the LP.  The latest dip was with a Sony HAP-Z1ES.  The DESS feature is very nice - it makes a FLAC file sound a lot like a DSD file.  And the DSD files are very good.  But there's still less information in the digital version.

[audiobill]

I read yesterday that the biggest seller of vinyl albums is Urban Outfitters........hipster chic.

[drtrey3]

While it is not an experiment, I rip vinyl all the time. Most of my 24 bit flacs are vinyl rips. Not that I have a $10,000 cartridge or analog setup, but try finding a 24 bit file of Glass Harp or Hawkwind or the Minutemen.

You can on my hard drives. 8)

Trey

[KeithL]

I think a lot of the problem today comes down to PERCEPTION. Today, when an album gets "remastered", the goal is NOT to make a digital file copy that sounds just like the album did - but minus the flaws that were present in the original. Instead, everybody wants to "improve it" or "fix it". In the beginning days of CD (when they were still competing commercially with vinyl), many CDs were deliberately remixed with boosted high ends, with the obvious goal of making them sound DIFFERENT than the vinyl album. (They had to give you some obvious reason to think it was better than the album version you already had.) And, even if it isn't deliberate, it's hard to get a mixing engineer to ignore all the cool new plugins and ways to fiddle with things that didn't exist when the album was made.

Think of the differences in production and special effects technology between the original Star Trek movie and the latest series; now imagine that you actually liked the way the original looked. I read an article once about the original Star Wars movie (which is now itself part of ancient history). Back when movies were shot on film, and moving cameras around was tricky, many directors did their best to shoot a movie with the fewest possible camera moves and scene cuts. There were whole movies that were shot from four or five different camera positions. By the time Star Wars was shot, we were into "the modern era" of zillions of little camera shots spliced together. If you count each time your point of view switches from one camera to another as "a scene/cut", Star Wars had OVER TWO THOUSAND SCENE/CUTS in it. (For some fun, start counting how many times they change camera angles in each 30 or 60 second TV commercial - it's amazing.)

The funny part of the article, however, was about CGI (digital special effects). Star Wars was made right at the point where it had become EASY to do minor digital corrections to film frames. Things like removing a stray piece of paper from a lawn, or changing the tint of the light, or even "fixing" someone's eyeball if they happened to have glanced in the wrong direction for a split second during the scene (yeah, really). In one scene they gave as an example, a certain actress was supposed to look towards someone at a certain point, but she moved her eye in the wrong direction (since it was some sort of closeup, what she was supposed to glance at may not have even been there at the time). Sadly, nobody noticed it until the scene had been "torn down" and everybody went home, so re-shooting the whole scene would have been an expensive option. What to do? What they ended up doing was actually splicing in a very short piece of the scene backwards, so, instead of moving from right to left, her eye moved from left to right for that fraction of a second. But, uh-oh, there was a candle in the background, and now the smoke moved in the wrong direction for that split second. Luckily, digital editing to the rescue; they re-drew the smoke... moving in the right direction. All this to correct the fact that the actress glanced in the wrong direction for, like, a half second. According to this article, even though the production folks "tried to resist the urge to tweak every little detail", they ended up doing at least minor digital corrections in about 80% (80%!) of those over two thousand scenes.

I suspect it's the same today with many sound and mixing engineers. When you've got a DAW, with a thousand sliders, and ten thousand cool plugins, it's difficult to resist the urge to adjust a level here, and add a little reverb there, and maybe delete that annoying breath that the musician took. In the end, you wind up making an awful lot of changes, and those changes - and the unintended side effects from them - add up.

Since you mention DSD, I have to say that I've heard the same thing with DSD and PCM. DSD is a major nuisance to edit (still), with most mastering equipment it's basically impossible to do much more than trim the ends off a track, or splice two tracks together, without converting it into PCM and back again. This pretty much prevents the mixing engineer from doing much to alter the way a DSD recording sounds - if he or she wants to claim that "it's a pure DSD recording". PCM, which is the format used by virtually all commonly used editing software and hardware, is the exact opposite. I've had the opportunity to listen to quite a few "SACD versions" of albums that are also available in regular PCM/CD versions, and the SACD versions do often sound better... even on some of the ones that weren't mastered in DSD to begin with. HOWEVER, whenever I take the SACD VERSION of one of these, and convert it into PCM myself, I find it to sound virtually indistinguishable from the "original SACD". (There may be the slight and inevitable difference caused by the conversion process itself but, by and large, the PCM copy I made from the DSD "original" sounds like the DSD version, and DOESN'T sound like "the PCM version" that they're selling.)

From this I've come to two conclusions:

1) Most recordings mastered in DSD sound the way they do (and different from those mastered in PCM) not because there is any difference in sound between DSD and PCM, but because using DSD has prevented them from being "engineered to death".
2) Most if not all of the differences between DSD and PCM are simply differences in mastering (apparently you just CAN'T convince a mixing engineer to master in PCM WITHOUT touching all those knobs and dials).
2a) It's also possible that some engineers are well aware of all this, and actually specifically WANT the SACD version to sound different than the CD version (SACDs do cost more than CDs, right?) If so, then some of that difference could extend beyond any technical limitations of either the format or the ability to edit it, and could actually be partly due to a deliberate attempt to "make the SACD version sound like people expect SACDs to sound".

If you have a recent Oppo player, and an XMC-1 (or something else that can play DSD directly), you can do this experiment for yourself pretty easily.

Pop in an SACD, and set the output options on the Oppo so it plays in DSD (I think that would be "bitstream output" and audio output options NOT set to "play DSD as PCM").
Now try the same thing, only DO set the Oppo to "play DSD as PCM".
You can confirm that, in the first case, your XMC-1 is really receiving DSD, and in the second it's getting PCM (the XMC-1's display will say DSD or PCM).
Oh, and set your XMC-1 to Reference Stereo mode (since the XMC-1 has very few processing options when playing DSD directly, you want those same options set for the PCM input).
Now.. how much difference do you hear between those two (with the same disc for both).... and, if you do hear a slight difference, decide if one or the other sounds "obviously better".
That difference, if any, is the actual difference between DSD and PCM (plus, of course, the slight alteration inevitably caused by the Oppo's pretty-good-quality conversion).

Personally, I hear VERY little difference, and what I do hear can easily be attributed to slight changes caused by the conversion process itself.
So far, with any I've tried, I have entirely failed to hear any obvious and significant difference with the "real DSD" version.

Now, of course, this DOESN'T mean that a given SACD doesn't sound better than the CD version.
What it means is that the SACD doesn't sound better BECAUSE it's an SACD (or because it's in DSD).

The reason I mention this here in such detail is that I suspect this is basically what often happens with vinyl as well.....
The vinyl copy may well sound better than the CD.... but not BECAUSE it's vinyl...

(And I am curious as to what Sony does with their "DESS feature" - which, obviously, alters the sound in the way they believe most engineers tweak their SACDs... )

Oct 3, 2014 1:52:38 GMT -5 lionear said:

Sept 28, 2014 16:02:33 GMT -5 Gary Cook said:

In our family collection we have 4 versions of the album S&M by Metallica, which as many would know is a very complex live recording featuring the full San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. There is a vinyl, an original CD version, a DVD version and numerous lossless (mostly FLAC) downloads. Since this was a live recording I assume the mastering of all the formats is the same, they are certainly attributed to the same engineers and the same mixers. Based on my readings it indicates mastering of all versions on high speed analogue tape. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the vinyl version plays "more information" in my system. On all of the "digital" versions there is information missing, sometimes complete instruments. Sometimes an instrument in the foreground in the vinyl version drops into the background in the digital versions. More frequently an instrument displays less dynamic range in the digital versions. This is not particularly subtle, all of my family and friends that I have played the versions for can hear the differences, unprompted. On that basis I believe the vinyl version to be a more "accurate" copy of the original performance. Whether that is due to the format itself or the mastering/mixing of the various versions I don't know.

The different versions do "sound" different, mostly quite subtle differences, some I like some I don't, but the vinyl version is the one with the most "information". This is not the only example where I have found this, has anyone else had similar experiences?


Cheers
Gary

I couldn't have said this better.  My example would be "La Folia" on the Harmonia Mundi label.  The LP is on HP's super disc list.  I had high hopes for the CD but instruments were either missing, or played at a different level, changing the sense of the music.  The LP version was superior.

I keep dipping my toes into digital, and returning to the LP.  The latest dip was with a Sony HAP-Z1ES.  The DESS feature is very nice - it makes a FLAC file sound a lot like a DSD file.  And the DSD files are very good.  But there's still less information in the digital version.

[autiger]

What fun it would be to have a get together and set up this Hi-End experiment with a bunch of the loungers at Emo Headquarters

Great thread-Keith.