Digital is better

[jking]

Sept 28, 2014 14:03:55 GMT -5 autiger said:

While I agree with the technology side of it, a large part is a generational thing- nostalgic stuff . Also, I could never afford to replace my vinyl collection with digital even if I could find it. Part of the analog thing is recording engineers job was a lot harder and it appears they were more careful or respective of the music. If modern engineers took the same care, we would end up with much better digital sources IMHO. But lousy players and cheap earbuds have allowed the music producers to get away with making poor recordings, also IMHO. Digital has the potential if it's done correctly. The source recording/mastering is the key and until the buyers demand hi end there will be poor recordings digital or analog. All that said, I was raised on vinyl and will always love my vinyl collection; but nearly all the music I get today I download. One last thing, back up your digital collection-when it crashes you lose it all not just an album- equivalent of a house fire burning up your vinyl :0

Boy what a way to slam modern day recording engineers. I and most recording engineers I know will spend hundreds of hours on one song if that is what it takes to get it right. Yes you have the home studios that are put together with a Mackie 32-8 or a chopped down version of Pro Tools but they are the minority. Most of us grew up in the industry starting out lugging speakers and sound boards to county fairs working our way up to that studio job and even then spent years working behind the scenes doing the grunt work until the day comes when it is your turn behind the desk and you are not going to mess that up. There are bad studio's just like there are bad carpenters but they do not stay around for long. And for those that cry analog is the best and only sound worth playing what you don't realize is most music has been run through some kind of digital editing desk since the early 90's. True full grown analog went away decades ago and most never knew it.  

[autiger]

Oct 21, 2014 22:18:42 GMT -5 jking said:

Sept 28, 2014 14:03:55 GMT -5 autiger said:

While I agree with the technology side of it, a large part is a generational thing- nostalgic stuff . Also, I could never afford to replace my vinyl collection with digital even if I could find it. Part of the analog thing is recording engineers job was a lot harder and it appears they were more careful or respective of the music. If modern engineers took the same care, we would end up with much better digital sources IMHO. But lousy players and cheap earbuds have allowed the music producers to get away with making poor recordings, also IMHO. Digital has the potential if it's done correctly. The source recording/mastering is the key and until the buyers demand hi end there will be poor recordings digital or analog. All that said, I was raised on vinyl and will always love my vinyl collection; but nearly all the music I get today I download. One last thing, back up your digital collection-when it crashes you lose it all not just an album- equivalent of a house fire burning up your vinyl :0

Boy what a way to slam modern day recording engineers. I and most recording engineers I know will spend hundreds of hours on one song if that is what it takes to get it right. Yes you have the home studios that are put together with a Mackie 32-8 or a chopped down version of Pro Tools but they are the minority. Most of us grew up in the industry starting out lugging speakers and sound boards to county fairs working our way up to that studio job and even then spent years working behind the scenes doing the grunt work until the day comes when it is your turn behind the desk and you are not going to mess that up. There are bad studio's just like there are bad carpenters but they do not stay around for long. And for those that cry analog is the best and only sound worth playing what you don't realize is most music has been run through some kind of digital editing desk since the early 90's. True full grown analog went away decades ago and most never knew it.  

I don't mean to be bashing ALL engineers but when I listen to quite a few modern recordings they do not have the old "full sound". I'm no expert but from what I've read/heard the lack of the "full sound" is from compression. Even Neil Young rants about the compression aspect; hence Pono. And maybe the engineers are not behind the MP3 push/format that removes 50+% of the original recording that supposedly can't be heard anyway. So, I'm not sure who is at fault but the end result has been a lot of hollow sounding music being released. And that's MHO. I do believe that I probably could not tell the difference between well recorded- Hi-Res and vinyl (haven't tried). But I can tell a difference between MP3 and hi-res or vinyl. I have about 500 albums and an ever growing digital library (100 gig). Most of my listening is digital because of travel but I love it when I can sit down and listen to vinyl. So my apologies if I offended the engineering crowd if they are not to blame.

[routlaw]

Autiger, not sure what you are listening to these days but in all honesty I'm not hearing what you are, well at least in the recordings I have been purchasing over the last several years. I do not now nor have I ever purchased any MP3's or any compressed audio from iTunes or any other comparable online purveyor nor will I ever. On rare occasions I will buy a red book cd, but mostly its hi res downloads from sources like HD Tracks, or vinyl locally or from one of the other online sources such as Music Direct, Elusive disc etc. In fact I would have to say the quality of recordings has been fabulous. And I listen to a wide variety of music from classical, jazz, female vocals, rock and roll and more. The point is to my way of thinking there has never been a better time, quality wise to purchase music, though I will admit there is often just too much of it out there to choose from.

Sadly the vast majority of music whether it was recorded and mastered well falls on deaf ears. By that I mean us audiophiles make up probably no more than 1-2% of the music buying audience and the rest, the vast majority obviously, is purchased (if at all) by those listening to some sort of compressed audio be it streaming, low res downloads like iTunes etc. I think it would be very frustrating to be a professional like jking and others who do a great job on the recording end of music to know their work is never fully appreciated, and in most cases not appreciated at all. We have become a culture, a society hell bent on mass consumption be it junk food, fast food, stuff in general and now music. People gorge themselves all day long on the convenience of mass produced music and easily available music, the equivalent of a fast food junkie rather than setting down and listening to a recording and digesting the music the way you would a fine meal be it home cooked or dining out a healthy restaurant. Just this past weekend we had an old friend who had recently moved back to town over. At the beginning of the evening he stated he never buys music anymore and this from a semi professional musician who has played in several bands in other areas and has done some recording. Later we set down to listen to my setup first digital, then on to vinyl. He was blown away with both, had no idea recorded music could sound this good. Before the end of the session he said what to me was the magic word when describing vinyl compared to digital, "it sounds so alive", not like a live recording but there was so much more liveliness to the music compared to digital which seemed truncated, abbreviated by comparison. The evening was an epiphany for him.

So just last night I ordered the Shelby Lynn album, Just A Little Lovin, a much heralded 200 gram pressing that Michael Fremer gave a 11/10 for sonics alone review. Below are her comments from an interview.

Shelby Lynne: "It's the same thing you feel when you do it. What's fun about a CD or an iPod? We all have them. We know how genius an iPod is for travel and whatever, but there's no soul in it. You can put it on shuffle and take speed for four days and never touch it again. What's fun about that? When you put on a record, you really have to dedicate yourself to it. Because after six songs you have to turn it over. you have to actually listen to the music. It's about having patience and a true love afair with the music".

Whether you like her music or not and most people do, its advice most of us could learn from.

Just some thoughts.

[memotiva]

There are very few albums that I own in any form where I want to listen to all of it and I definitely don't listen to things over and over again. Life is better with variety. There might be soul in vinyl, but I don't want to spend all day digging out records and finding tracks to which I want to listen.

Ms Lynn would be better served calling out her fellow musicians when they release poorly recorded garbage or people who use things like Autotune.

"This is really interesting, and something I didn't know about. Can you (or anyone else in this thread) recommend some reading I can do on this phenomena? A co-worker and I were discussing the differences between the UMC-1 and XMC-1 recently. We received our XMC-1s at the same time, and both replaced UMC-1s. At the time I commented that I found the uncalibrated sound of the XMC-1 to be superior. Over the last few months, I've started to doubt my assessment, assuming I was just getting carried away with the joy of new gear. My recent assessment has been that the main difference between the two (as far as sound quality goes) must be limited to the awesome PEQ included in the XMC-1.

Your post lends credence to my initial assessment. I'd love to know/read more about it, as most of the technical stuff I've read suggests that well designed DACs shouldn't make a difference. These are from (admittedly well informed) forum users around the web, and not audio engineers. I'd like to read more about the science and technique involved in measuring the differences."

Unless it's a blind test, your results will be biased. You spent $4k on a product that is supposed to be better and you expect it to sound better. Unless it's a blind test, you'll be biased. When you look at the blind tests that have been done on speakers, etc, it's not the most expensive that always sounds better. The XMC might or it might not but nobody has really don't any valid comparison at this point other than by looking at marketing materials.

[bigmule]

Oct 23, 2014 9:42:09 GMT -5 routlaw said:

Autiger, not sure what you are listening to these days but in all honesty I'm not hearing what you are, well at least in the recordings I have been purchasing over the last several years. I do not now nor have I ever purchased any MP3's or any compressed audio from iTunes or any other comparable online purveyor nor will I ever. On rare occasions I will buy a red book cd, but mostly its hi res downloads from sources like HD Tracks, or vinyl locally or from one of the other online sources such as Music Direct, Elusive disc etc. In fact I would have to say the quality of recordings has been fabulous. And I listen to a wide variety of music from classical, jazz, female vocals, rock and roll and more. The point is to my way of thinking there has never been a better time, quality wise to purchase music, though I will admit there is often just too much of it out there to choose from.

Sadly the vast majority of music whether it was recorded and mastered well falls on deaf ears. By that I mean us audiophiles make up probably no more than 1-2% of the music buying audience and the rest, the vast majority obviously, is purchased (if at all) by those listening to some sort of compressed audio be it streaming, low res downloads like iTunes etc. I think it would be very frustrating to be a professional like jking and others who do a great job on the recording end of music to know their work is never fully appreciated, and in most cases not appreciated at all. We have become a culture, a society hell bent on mass consumption be it junk food, fast food, stuff in general and now music. People gorge themselves all day long on the convenience of mass produced music and easily available music, the equivalent of a fast food junkie rather than setting down and listening to a recording and digesting the music the way you would a fine meal be it home cooked or dining out a healthy restaurant. Just this past weekend we had an old friend who had recently moved back to town over. At the beginning of the evening he stated he never buys music anymore and this from a semi professional musician who has played in several bands in other areas and has done some recording. Later we set down to listen to my setup first digital, then on to vinyl. He was blown away with both, had no idea recorded music could sound this good. Before the end of the session he said what to me was the magic word when describing vinyl compared to digital, "it sounds so alive", not like a live recording but there was so much more liveliness to the music compared to digital which seemed truncated, abbreviated by comparison. The evening was an epiphany for him.

So just last night I ordered the Shelby Lynn album, Just A Little Lovin, a much heralded 200 gram pressing that Michael Fremer gave a 11/10 for sonics alone review. Below are her comments from an interview.

Shelby Lynne: "It's the same thing you feel when you do it. What's fun about a CD or an iPod? We all have them. We know how genius an iPod is for travel and whatever, but there's no soul in it. You can put it on shuffle and take speed for four days and never touch it again. What's fun about that? When you put on a record, you really have to dedicate yourself to it. Because after six songs you have to turn it over. you have to actually listen to the music. It's about having patience and a true love afair with the music".

Whether you like her music or not and most people do, its advice most of us could learn from.

Just some thoughts.

well said sir!!  I own that Shelby Lynne album and it is fantastic, I'm sure you will enjoy it as much as I do.  I just bought Counting Crows 45 rpm from AP and that is great as well. 
Digital music for me is about convenience...whereas, Vinyl is for enjoyment of the music...and for me has always been before vinyl "disappeared" and then became "hip" again.
My set up is decent, not a mega buck system, but even with my system, there is no comparison....a good mastered vinyl album is night and day different than digital...but at what cost? Well, thats up to the person buying the music.  I certainly am more excited to buy and listen to vinyl....And I prefer AAA vinyl.

[Michael Fremer]

All I can say is blah blah blah. Neither analog nor digital is "perfect". Accuracy in audio is nonsense. Accurate to what? One guy's mastering opinion on his own loudspeakers? In video, no argument: there are video standards. Every video mastering suite has a calibrated monitor. There's no such thing in audio. After every story about the vinyl revival come a stream of bitter, angry digital enthusiasts. They can't seem to stand another music lover's pleasure coming from records. All I can think of is that they are not having such a great time listening to their CDs, not to mention their MP3s. CDs? I can't listen to them and never could. Not from DAY 1 when they were declared sonically superior to LPs which they certainly weren't with their brick wall filtering and in the early days positively awful filters. They've gotten better but records still sound way better and that's easily provable to any skeptic. Takes only a few minutes. I do it all the time with CDs of their choosing compared to 40 year old records played very often. Record wear, like CD's sonic superiority is a myth. Measurements? I listen. As for pops and clicks, clean records have none to few and the better your turntable the more detail you hear and the better impulse type noises are suppressed. And let me tell you, if pops and clicks ruin music for you better not go see live. People are sneezing, barfing, coughing all over the place--and especially don't go see classical music. The audiences are OLD: they are coughing, sneezing, choking, throat clearing, having strokes, and even dying. But somehow the music is so compelling you easily tune out those distraction. The bottom line is for many of us (MORE AND MORE ALL THE TIME), we can sit down and be mesmerized by an album side and listen without distraction. Put on a CD or even a high rez file and we're doing other things in a few minutes. I went to the Munich Audio show and in the JBL room they were playing the SACD of Oscar Peterson's "We Get Requests" album. I had a 96k/24 bit vinyl rip of the double 45rpm set. Both the SACD and LP set were produced from the same master tape and issued by Analogue Productions. After "Quiet Nights" played on SACD I popped the USB stick into the computer and we listened to the vinyl rip. First of all there were NO artifacts of vinyl playback: no rumble, no pops and clicks, no noise. BUT EVERYONE in the room agreed that the vinyl rip DESTROYED the SACD. It was not even close. I really don't care if what vinyl does is additive. All recordings are B.S. When digital first started being used what did studios do first upon listening? They bought TUBE MIKES and TUBE COMPRESSORS. Anything to warm up the sound. Those were ADDITIVE choices. In the end it's the final sound that counts and it's easy to prove to anyone that good vinyl sounds better. Period. More difficult to get right? Yes. Less convenient? Yes. But that's not the argument. I'm winning this argument.

[djoel]

Nce to see your post, and perspective here Michael.


DJoel

[routlaw]

Thanks Bigmule. Not sure what AAA vinyl is unless you're just referring to well recorded vinyl in general and that makes sense. Agreed vinyl generally is considerably more expensive when shopping for new records compared to even hi res downloads and thats probably not going to change. What I do find odd and have previously stated within this thread is, I have yet to hear a digital distribution sound better than vinyl. The problem with this statement is its near impossible to make an apples to apples comparison. Just yesterday I learned of something of great interest to this thread which might go some distance in explaining some of the difference between digital and vinyl distribution. There is a website called dr.loudness-war.info
that has a huge data base of recordings including the various digital distributions as well as vinyl. One can compare the Dynamic Range of each of the releases and as often as not the digital releases will have more compressed DR compared to its vinyl counterpart. Go figure. Hidden agendas from the recording studios to release the same material at different levels? I don't know and we may never know.

Regardless the problem I have in understanding this situation is the visual counterpart to the scenario. I am now in my 30th year as a professional photographer, cut my teeth on film for a very long time, the analog equivalent of tape in the recording industry but was a very early adopter with digital capture back in the mid 90's with some extremely high resolution digital gear that goes way beyond Nikons and Canons. My first digital setup cost me $18 + grand. I am known for my color correction and accuracy and work with artist from all over the country within this vain. Make no mistake for those who know what they are doing with equivalent gear digital capture annihilates any film that has ever been made now or in the past for accuracy and dynamic range. Its not even close by a long shot. So for me reconciling the difference in digital photography vs digital audio is extremely difficult especially when so many vinyl releases are mastered from digital sources masters. It would be the equivalent of making a digital photograph, then burning that file to film (which can be done) and declaring it to be better than the digital original. Its preposterous when it comes to photography, yet with audio it almost seems the order of the day.

With this in mind, it becomes clearly evident that somewhere along the way these digital master recordings get stepped on… a lot apparently. Why, we can only conjecture. And it is worth noting there are some fabulous digital recordings and releases. One that comes to mind is Anne Akiko Meyers release earlier in the year of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I don't care how many times you have heard this by whomever, brace yourself for this high res digital download on HD Tracks. It will blow you away not just for the performance which is extraordinary but for its sonics as well.

Hope this helps.

[audiogeek]

Yep... welcome Michael. I'm enjoying immensely my return to vinyl!

[monkumonku]

Oct 29, 2014 10:59:00 GMT -5 Michael Fremer said:

All I can say is blah blah blah. Neither analog nor digital is "perfect". Accuracy in audio is nonsense. Accurate to what? One guy's mastering opinion on his own loudspeakers? In video, no argument: there are video standards. Every video mastering suite has a calibrated monitor. There's no such thing in audio. After every story about the vinyl revival come a stream of bitter, angry digital enthusiasts. They can't seem to stand another music lover's pleasure coming from records. All I can think of is that they are not having such a great time listening to their CDs, not to mention their MP3s. CDs? I can't listen to them and never could. Not from DAY 1 when they were declared sonically superior to LPs which they certainly weren't with their brick wall filtering and in the early days positively awful filters. They've gotten better but records still sound way better and that's easily provable to any skeptic. Takes only a few minutes. I do it all the time with CDs of their choosing compared to 40 year old records played very often. Record wear, like CD's sonic superiority is a myth. Measurements? I listen. As for pops and clicks, clean records have none to few and the better your turntable the more detail you hear and the better impulse type noises are suppressed. And let me tell you, if pops and clicks ruin music for you better not go see live. People are sneezing, barfing, coughing all over the place--and especially don't go see classical music. The audiences are OLD: they are coughing, sneezing, choking, throat clearing, having strokes, and even dying. But somehow the music is so compelling you easily tune out those distraction. The bottom line is for many of us (MORE AND MORE ALL THE TIME), we can sit down and be mesmerized by an album side and listen without distraction. Put on a CD or even a high rez file and we're doing other things in a few minutes. I went to the Munich Audio show and in the JBL room they were playing the SACD of Oscar Peterson's "We Get Requests" album. I had a 96k/24 bit vinyl rip of the double 45rpm set. Both the SACD and LP set were produced from the same master tape and issued by Analogue Productions. After "Quiet Nights" played on SACD I popped the USB stick into the computer and we listened to the vinyl rip. First of all there were NO artifacts of vinyl playback: no rumble, no pops and clicks, no noise. BUT EVERYONE in the room agreed that the vinyl rip DESTROYED the SACD. It was not even close. I really don't care if what vinyl does is additive. All recordings are B.S. When digital first started being used what did studios do first upon listening? They bought TUBE MIKES and TUBE COMPRESSORS. Anything to warm up the sound. Those were ADDITIVE choices. In the end it's the final sound that counts and it's easy to prove to anyone that good vinyl sounds better. Period. More difficult to get right? Yes. Less convenient? Yes. But that's not the argument. I'm winning this argument.

Thank you for your OPINION. Why don't you register as a member here instead of just a guest, or is this just a temporary stop while you haul your flame thrower around to various forums?

[KeithL]

Actually, there are turntables that let you mount two arms, so you could put your stereo cartridge in one, and your mono cartridge in the other.

Of course, I don't think any of them costs as little as $500, and arms themselves can cost... well... you get the idea.

Oct 14, 2014 10:48:18 GMT -5 Bonzo said:

So I was reading Sound & Vision last night about the Beatles mono set. As it turns out, Ortofon released special new mono cartridge just for this set. I'm only posting this because while I can sort of understand the difference the way it was explained, the entire thing cracks me up. No wonder vinyl faded into the back depths of closets for so many years. Everything about it is so damned difficult. The more I read and learn about it, the more difficult it becomes. Nothing is set it and forget it. Listen to stereo use your $400 stereo cartridge. Listen to mono, use your $350 mono cartridge. Want convenience, buy 2 $500 turn tables. Classic.

Just thought this was a good place to post this since it sort of backs the Digital Is Better motif.

ortofon.com/hifi/products/cartridges/2m-series/2m-mono-se

[jmilton]

Vinyl causes cancer.

End of story.

[monkumonku]

Oct 29, 2014 12:48:54 GMT -5 jmilton said:

Vinyl causes cancer.

End of story.

Well now let's just think of digital as virus and analog as bacteria or germs. Either one can make you sick if you endlessly obsess about them.

[Axis]

Oct 29, 2014 12:58:06 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Oct 29, 2014 12:48:54 GMT -5 jmilton said:

Vinyl causes cancer.

End of story.

Well now let's just think of digital as virus and analog as bacteria or germs. Either one can make you sick if you endlessly obsess about them.

OMG I am sick !

[Jim]

Oct 29, 2014 12:48:54 GMT -5 jmilton said:

Vinyl causes cancer.

End of story.

And Ebola.

[KeithL]

I'm not familiar with the term "AAA vinyl" - but, in the past, the actual quality of the vinyl used was rather important. When vinyl is first produced, it is referred to as "virgin vinyl". In the old days, most LPs were pressed on vinyl that was a combination of virgin vinyl and recycled scraps. (These could include the little bits trimmed off after the discs are pressed, as well as whole recycled records, which could have been there because they had pressing flaws, or simply because they were returned as unsold. Humorously, sometimes even tiny bits of label would make it through the recycling process, and you would occasionally find a lump in your new record. Beyond that, the long chain molecules in plastic degrade from heat and mechanical processing, so "reused" vinyl has slightly poorer mechanical properties.) High-quality audiophile pressings were usually done on "pure virgin vinyl" - and often had lower levels of surface noise and fewer ticks and pops (presumably because of the better vinyl). I would assume that this is supposed to be something along those lines... either virgin vinyl, or "better than normal" vinyl.

Compression has always been a sore subject. I agree that many recent releases have very little dynamic range... and I'm inclined to put that down to several things. Back in the old days, radio broadcasts were notorious for being highly compressed, both because of "the loudness wars" and for the more legitimate reason that, since cars used to typically be rather noisy, a lot of compression made the broadcast sound better when played in a car - which is where a lot of radio listening took place. Many people also would leave the radio on "as background music" at home - which, again, tends to lend itself to lots of compression. I'm guessing that today, with a lot of portable listening done through poor fitting ear buds, and in noisy environments, again compression "serves a purpose". You've also got the fact that now compression is easier. With modern digital processing, it's quite simple to achieve levels of compression that would have been impossible with old analog equipment - at least without producing horrible side effects. The ease with which you can do all sorts of fancy processing today certainly encourages people to do more of it.... which is unfortunate.

As far as radio broadcasts, there was nothing "hidden" about the agenda. When people tune across the dial looking for a station, they are more likely to notice and stop at loud stations than quiet ones. Since (especially with FM) the absolute maximum loudness level is fixed by the broadcast format itself, the easiest way to raise the perceived loudness level is to raise the average level - which you do by applying liberal doses of compression. (It's quite a bit like juicing up the saturation on photos so they "stand out" more.) This is still done on radio broadcasts, and TV commercials, today.

One thing I would be interested in seeing would be a more detailed breakdown of the types of compression involved. Virtually all vinyl recordings are in fact compressed - even those good sounding old ones. On the very good ones, that compression would be limited to compressing very loud high frequency content (to avoid overloading the cutter head or exceeding the tracking abilities of a cartridge), and compressing very loud low frequency content (to manage the required track spacing effectively). However, this would not extend to compressing everything simply to make it louder. (So, even though overall there is still lots of dynamic range left, the original dynamics have been fiddled with.)

It wouldn't surprise me if today some modern "audiophile vinyl" releases might be compressed less than their digital counterparts... Personally, I'm cynical enough to believe that this was done deliberately since, if the vinyl release sounded exactly the same as the CD version except for more ticks and pops, then nobody would buy it. However, if I'm going to be stuck with choosing the vinyl version because it's mastered better, or the CD version because it avoids the serious flaws inherent in vinyl, I just hope they'll at least let me pay a bit extra for the high-def digital version and avoid all the drawbacks of both....

As far as photography - I'm with you 100% there as well. If someone wants to use old black & white film, or even a Holga, "for artistic reasons", that's fine by me... but if they want to start claiming that their Holga takes more accurate pictures than my d800, then they really need to go back to school.

One thing I think all the vinyl lovers are missing, however, is that once they admit that the differences are additive, then all sorts of new possibilities open up (at least once the industry catches on).....

If you really like the way vinyl albums sound on a particular $3000 cartridge and $10,000 turntable, then all you have to do is make high-quality 24/96 digital recordings of albums played on that equipment. Then you can distribute perfect digital copies to everyone who has similar tastes - and they can be played back on equipment that doesn't require a mortgage to own. Vinyl lovers; imagine a library where you could rent or purchase perfect recordings of your favorite albums, played on your choice of the top ten most popular super-expensive cartridge and turntable combinations, at reasonable prices.

Oct 29, 2014 11:33:57 GMT -5 routlaw said:

Thanks Bigmule. Not sure what AAA vinyl is unless you're just referring to well recorded vinyl in general and that makes sense. Agreed vinyl generally is considerably more expensive when shopping for new records compared to even hi res downloads and thats probably not going to change. What I do find odd and have previously stated within this thread is, I have yet to hear a digital distribution sound better than vinyl. The problem with this statement is its near impossible to make an apples to apples comparison. Just yesterday I learned of something of great interest to this thread which might go some distance in explaining some of the difference between digital and vinyl distribution. There is a website called dr.loudness-war.info
that has a huge data base of recordings including the various digital distributions as well as vinyl. One can compare the Dynamic Range of each of the releases and as often as not the digital releases will have more compressed DR compared to its vinyl counterpart. Go figure. Hidden agendas from the recording studios to release the same material at different levels? I don't know and we may never know.

Regardless the problem I have in understanding this situation is the visual counterpart to the scenario. I am now in my 30th year as a professional photographer, cut my teeth on film for a very long time, the analog equivalent of tape in the recording industry but was a very early adopter with digital capture back in the mid 90's with some extremely high resolution digital gear that goes way beyond Nikons and Canons. My first digital setup cost me $18 + grand. I am known for my color correction and accuracy and work with artist from all over the country within this vain. Make no mistake for those who know what they are doing with equivalent gear digital capture annihilates any film that has ever been made now or in the past for accuracy and dynamic range. Its not even close by a long shot. So for me reconciling the difference in digital photography vs digital audio is extremely difficult especially when so many vinyl releases are mastered from digital sources masters. It would be the equivalent of making a digital photograph, then burning that file to film (which can be done) and declaring it to be better than the digital original. Its preposterous when it comes to photography, yet with audio it almost seems the order of the day.

With this in mind, it becomes clearly evident that somewhere along the way these digital master recordings get stepped on… a lot apparently. Why, we can only conjecture. And it is worth noting there are some fabulous digital recordings and releases. One that comes to mind is Anne Akiko Meyers release earlier in the year of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I don't care how many times you have heard this by whomever, brace yourself for this high res digital download on HD Tracks. It will blow you away not just for the performance which is extraordinary but for its sonics as well.

Hope this helps.

[KeithL]

But... hey... you're not supposed to SMOKE it

Oct 29, 2014 12:48:54 GMT -5 jmilton said:

Vinyl causes cancer.

End of story.

[garbulky]

Oct 29, 2014 14:02:23 GMT -5 KeithL said:

One thing I think all the vinyl lovers are missing, however, is that once they admit that the differences are additive, then all sorts of new possibilities open up (at least once the industry catches on).....

If you really like the way vinyl albums sound on a particular $3000 cartridge and $10,000 turntable, then all you have to do is make high-quality 24/96 digital recordings of albums played on that equipment. Then you can distribute perfect digital copies to everyone who has similar tastes - and they can be played back on equipment that doesn't require a mortgage to own. Vinyl lovers; imagine a library where you could rent or purchase perfect recordings of your favorite albums, played on your choice of the top ten most popular super-expensive cartridge and turntable combinations, at reasonable prices.

That is FANTASTIC idea! Why the heck not?! I can see lots of people buying that stuff.

[KeithL]

I actually find this to be very interesting.....

So (our narrator)  is saying that a DIGITAL RECORDING of a RIP of a vinyl album was the best-sounding copy in the house...
(Clearly being digitized, then played back on a computer, through a DAC, did nothing to mess up the vinyl-y goodness....)

Let me reiterate that in more detail.....

Whatever characteristic alteration was caused to the music by "being passed through the vinyl recording and playback process" (and which the author clearly considers to be an improvement) WAS PRESERVED BY THE DIGITAL RECORDING.

In yet other words, he liked the way the vinyl sounded better than the SACD made from the original, AND THE DIGITAL RIP OF THE VINYL PRESERVED EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOOD ABOUT THE VINYL.
Digitizing the vinyl didn't somehow "mess up" the properties imparted to the sound by its trip through vinyl-land.

Phrasing that differently, the copy that was recorded to and then played back from vinyl as part of the mastering process sounded better than the copy that was directly mastered to an SACD.
(I have no problem with any of this as long as we're considering the trip through vinyl land to be part of the mastering process rather than as part of an attempt to produce a perfectly accurate reproduction.)

Taking this as true, then it would lead to two conclusions:
1) Recording something onto vinyl clearly alters the sound.
2) Once the original has been altered by "being passed through the vinyl process", a digital recording does indeed reproduce the changes that result from being recorded onto and played back from vinyl.
2a) So, in still other words, a 24/96 digital RIP of a vinyl album "sounds like the vinyl album" - but lacks most of the drawbacks.

So, QED, if you like the way vinyl sounds, but don't like the inconvenience and impermanence that go with it, then you should RIP all of your vinyl to digital copies.

As for his last comment.... I'm a little bit unsure whether he was equally "mesmerized" by the digital reproduction of the vinyl recording as by the "original" vinyl version...

Also, while I can't speak for him, I remember that I too tended to sit still in one place while listening to vinyl albums.
Honestly, in my case, I think it was partly due to feeling like I had time to actually sit and listen to music (being younger and having fewer things I should be doing),
and partly due to being afraid to step heavily and disturb the turntable (which might make a nasty thump in my speakers or even make the arm skip) .

Some people really enjoy the ritual of placing the record, applying the cleaner, and gently lowering the tone arm.
In my case, that was always mixed with a bit of fear - somewhat like you get from handling explosives - that I could damage something (expensive) if I screwed up.

Oct 29, 2014 11:37:15 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Oct 29, 2014 10:59:00 GMT -5 Michael Fremer said:

All I can say is blah blah blah. Neither analog nor digital is "perfect". Accuracy in audio is nonsense. Accurate to what? One guy's mastering opinion on his own loudspeakers? In video, no argument: there are video standards. Every video mastering suite has a calibrated monitor. There's no such thing in audio. After every story about the vinyl revival come a stream of bitter, angry digital enthusiasts. They can't seem to stand another music lover's pleasure coming from records. All I can think of is that they are not having such a great time listening to their CDs, not to mention their MP3s. CDs? I can't listen to them and never could. Not from DAY 1 when they were declared sonically superior to LPs which they certainly weren't with their brick wall filtering and in the early days positively awful filters. They've gotten better but records still sound way better and that's easily provable to any skeptic. Takes only a few minutes. I do it all the time with CDs of their choosing compared to 40 year old records played very often. Record wear, like CD's sonic superiority is a myth. Measurements? I listen. As for pops and clicks, clean records have none to few and the better your turntable the more detail you hear and the better impulse type noises are suppressed. And let me tell you, if pops and clicks ruin music for you better not go see live. People are sneezing, barfing, coughing all over the place--and especially don't go see classical music. The audiences are OLD: they are coughing, sneezing, choking, throat clearing, having strokes, and even dying. But somehow the music is so compelling you easily tune out those distraction. The bottom line is for many of us (MORE AND MORE ALL THE TIME), we can sit down and be mesmerized by an album side and listen without distraction. Put on a CD or even a high rez file and we're doing other things in a few minutes. I went to the Munich Audio show and in the JBL room they were playing the SACD of Oscar Peterson's "We Get Requests" album. I had a 96k/24 bit vinyl rip of the double 45rpm set. Both the SACD and LP set were produced from the same master tape and issued by Analogue Productions. After "Quiet Nights" played on SACD I popped the USB stick into the computer and we listened to the vinyl rip. First of all there were NO artifacts of vinyl playback: no rumble, no pops and clicks, no noise. BUT EVERYONE in the room agreed that the vinyl rip DESTROYED the SACD. It was not even close. I really don't care if what vinyl does is additive. All recordings are B.S. When digital first started being used what did studios do first upon listening? They bought TUBE MIKES and TUBE COMPRESSORS. Anything to warm up the sound. Those were ADDITIVE choices. In the end it's the final sound that counts and it's easy to prove to anyone that good vinyl sounds better. Period. More difficult to get right? Yes. Less convenient? Yes. But that's not the argument. I'm winning this argument.

Thank you for your OPINION. Why don't you register as a member here instead of just a guest, or is this just a temporary stop while you haul your flame thrower around to various forums?

[KeithL]

I'm sure the main reason why someone hasn't done it yet (as a separate service) would be the complexity involved in getting licenses for the music.

Now, as a service, I would think you could avoid those problems by having it set up such that you sent your album to the service, who then played it on the equipment you specified - and digitized it for you, although there still might be legal complications arising from the idea that, while you are allowed to make backups of stuff you own, I don't know how surely that right extends to paying someone else to make backups for you. I've seen a few places that sell used records, and offer, for an additional fee, to also provide a digital copy of any album you buy. This neatly solves the "shipping the album back and forth" issue. (Honestly, though, the few places I saw offering to do this were not offering anything special in terms of what equipment the conversion was done on, and were probably so small that, as far as licensing issues, they were simply way below the radar. I only tried it once, and, sadly, the particular place that did it - and whose name I charitably forget - did a truly awful job with the ripping.)

However, it sure seems like a logical progression for the producer or distributor to offer a CD, a vinyl version, and a digital version OF a vinyl version as options.
For places that are already selling a limited selection of "audiophile recordings", the ability to pick specific turntable and cartridge combinations seems logical to me.
In terms of production, they'd only have to digitize each album they sell once with each of their ten "menu choice" turntable and cartridge combinations.
(And I almost forgot; choice of phono preamps as well )

Imagine the marketing...

Buy the 24/96 recording for $19.99

Or the vinyl audiophile pressing for $29.99

Or enjoy all the benefits of hearing that audiophile vinyl pressing played on a really stellar turntable and cartridge combination, whenever you want to, for only $49.95
(choose any one of these ten classic and cutting edge vinyl playback equipment combinations)

Oct 29, 2014 14:39:31 GMT -5 garbulky said:

Oct 29, 2014 14:02:23 GMT -5 KeithL said:

One thing I think all the vinyl lovers are missing, however, is that once they admit that the differences are additive, then all sorts of new possibilities open up (at least once the industry catches on).....

If you really like the way vinyl albums sound on a particular $3000 cartridge and $10,000 turntable, then all you have to do is make high-quality 24/96 digital recordings of albums played on that equipment. Then you can distribute perfect digital copies to everyone who has similar tastes - and they can be played back on equipment that doesn't require a mortgage to own. Vinyl lovers; imagine a library where you could rent or purchase perfect recordings of your favorite albums, played on your choice of the top ten most popular super-expensive cartridge and turntable combinations, at reasonable prices.

That is FANTASTIC idea! Why the heck not?! I can see lots of people buying that stuff.