CD vs Vinyl vs Streaming

[bitsandbytes]

Between vinyl and cd's/streaming, the best quality I have heard came from vinyl. The sound seemed smooth and full with natural and realistic detail. This is from hearing it at friends' places who have top rate setups.

I do not personally own any vinyl. The expenses of great vinyl equipment and the media is very costly and its maintenance time consuming. Am glad to see on this thread that the clicks and pops do not trouble most people. To me, they stick out like sore thumbs. It seems no matter how much painstaking care the owner of an album takes, they will start occurring with frequent use of that album. On quieter passages, it can sound like someone just poured milk into a bowl of Rice Krispies. Even so, I think vinyl sounds darn good.

I agree that the most important factor is the recording quality rather than the media used. A well recorded mp3 will sound much better than a higher resolution recording of mediocre quality. Over the years, technology has vastly improved the POTENTIAL for making great music recordings. The recording quality on a lot of material released today is appalling. When the recording quality of some of the popular music from the sixties and seventies sounds better than some of what is released today, you know that is awful. But it is what it is. You either suck it up and listen to flawed music you like - or just limit your horizons and stick to only well recorded music. With today's technology, why is such a choice necessary?

The second most important factor (to me) is the quality of the DAC. Listening to TIDAL at cd resolution - and comparing it to a cd with the Oppo used as a transport utilizing the Sabre DAC of my Grace Design m920, I cannot detect a dropoff in quality either way. If I play the same cd using the Sabre DAC of my Oppo BDP-95, there will be a lessening of fidelity. Of course, the Oppo comes out on top though when playing quality recordings with higher than cd resolution, but that is not being compared here.

As far as strictly sound quality goes, I believe vinyl > cd = cd quality streaming.

Regarding value for the dollar, I think cd quality streaming > cd > vinyl.

These are all my subjective opinions. The only  real way to form an opinion on this subject is to listen for ourselves.

Walt

[novisnick]

My heart just bleeds for you poor pitiful people that have never heard even a relatively in expensive TT! This " snap cracle pop" bullpoop needs to stop please.

[KeithL]

I really do need to correct you on one misunderstanding that a lot of people seem to have...

You are absolutely correct that digital filters almost always have ringing. It's what you might refer to as "calculated ringing" - it's the mathematical result of the calculations that make the filter a filter. Because it's built into the math, it's entirely predictable, repeatable, and expected. However, you are incorrect in assuming that vinyl playback lacks this flaw. With a vinyl playback system, rather than being a direct result of math, you instead have all sorts of resonances due to actual mechanical and electrical resonances of the individual parts. For example, assuming your turntable has some sort of isolation from what it's sitting on, you have a low frequency resonance based on the compliance of the suspension and the weight of the suspended mechanism. And you have another resonance based on the compliance of the stylus and cantilever and the mass of the tonearm, and another resonance based on the length of the cantilever itself (it acts like a little tiny metal tuning fork), and another electromechanical resonance involving the inductance of the pickup coil in the cartridge, the capacitance of the tonearm wiring, and the circuitry in the preamp... and maybe a few more resonances based on the dimensions of each of the little pieces of metal inside the cartridge.

And, if a cartridge were to try and follow a perfect square wave perfectly, well, for starters, you'd have to accelerate the tiny mass of the stylus and its suspension in zero time, which would require the record surface to push on it with infinite force, which just isn't possible. And, of course, once the cartridge reached the top of the wave shape, it would fly right off the surface of the record due to all the stored momentum of that horrific velocity. That would be pretty bad too. Obviously, in real life, we don't have infinite force or velocity, but we do have to be careful to avoid trying to reach either (if you record a signal that's too loud onto the vinyl, the cartridge will actually "hop" off the surface - it's called "mistracking due to excessive recorded velocity"). All of these little flaws and resonances occur at different frequencies, they're different for every individual component, and for every different combination of components, and what you hear in the end is the sum of all of them -  which is why every combination of turntable, cartridge, and preamp sounds a tiny bit different. (After all, if they were all anywhere near perfect, then they'd all sound the same - right?)

Then, of course, we have all the other types of mechanical limitations. The tonearm isn't perfectly stiff, and neither is the cantilever, and neither is the platter. And, before you worry about a tiny bit of rumble from your turntable, you have to ask how flat the record you're playing really is - in thousandths or millionths of an inch. And how smooth is the vinyl.... and, for that matter, is the arm or the record going to vibrate because of the sound from your speaker reaching it through the air? That's another sort of resonance we call "feedback".

And we shouldn't ignore electrical limitations either. Guess what, the inductance of the cartridge produces an analog version of "time smear", and everything from the flaws in frequency response to the size of the actual molecules in the vinyl of the record surface introduces mechanical "losses of resolution" and "inaccuracy".

The main reason digital filters ring is because they are basically a simulation of a physical circuit.... however, where a digital filter has the calculated flaws of a "perfect simulation of a system which has limits", with cartridges and tonearms, it's all more arbitrary and random... which simply results in a wider variety of more variable, and not entirely known, flaws - rather than a few that can be calculated to several decimal places.

While it may intuitively seem to be the opposite, the reality is that figuring out exactly what a digital filter is going to put out is relatively simple - while figuring out how all of the little mechanical and electrical parts in a vinyl playback system are going to interact with each other in precise detail is somewhere between incredibly complex and downright impossible.  

If you actually analyze all this in detail, you'll find that vinyl has a lot more mechanisms by which "information gets lost or altered", and those mechanisms are a lot less predictable and repeatable, than with a digital system. In simplest terms, if you analyze the waveform from a digital recording and an analog recording, the waveform produced by the digital recording is much closer to the original - by virtually every known method of measurement. (You can feel free to argue that the flaws inherent in vinyl, even though much greater in magnitude, are less "aesthetically annoying" than the flaws in digital reproduction... but there most certainly are a lot more of them.)

Jun 28, 2016 11:20:16 GMT -5 garbulky said:

The thing with CD vs vinyl is the CD is limited by the quality of the DAC output. And there are various types of dacs and they have their own sound. And like it or not most DACS have ringing in the wave form. Something vinyl does not have. Also though people say who cares about the sampling rate? If isn't sampled at a certain time then that information is lost.
So the CD doesn't capture everyhing perfectly.
The digital filters used also has to alter the signal.

Now vinyl also has limits to its time resolution as well as a bunch of manipulations the signal needs to go through to output it like the RIAA curve and different cartridges sound different etc.

[audiobill]

Just as long as we never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate goal of digital is to become analog, no music on earth starts with digital ones and zeros.

Higher and higher sampling rates just more closely trace the original analog sine waves.

And the more the conversion steps, the more is lost.

[geebo]

Jun 29, 2016 16:49:22 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Just as long as we never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate goal of digital is to become analog, no music on earth starts with digital ones and zeros.

Higher and higher sampling rates just more closely trace the original analog sine waves.

And the more the conversion steps, the more is lost.

The ultimate goal of any audio system is to make air vibrate in a predetermined and precise manner. How it goes about doing that is immaterial.

[audiobill]

But it all starts with complex sine waves, no question, and not ones and zeros.

I value digital for convenience, but try not to forget where it starts.

And  as for vinyl originally recorded on a digital recorder, what's the point?

[qdtjni]

Keith, The fact an artefact is predictable based on the algorithm behind it doesn't make it good.

[qdtjni]

Jun 29, 2016 17:30:27 GMT -5 geebo said:

Jun 29, 2016 16:49:22 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Just as long as we never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate goal of digital is to become analog, no music on earth starts with digital ones and zeros.

Higher and higher sampling rates just more closely trace the original analog sine waves.

And the more the conversion steps, the more is lost.

The ultimate goal of any audio system is to make air vibrate in a predetermined and precise manner. How it goes about doing that is immaterial.

I'd like to think that it's to reproduce music I like in a good enough way-
If people by hifi stuff to just reproduce sounds, fine with me.
Each to their own.

[geebo]

Jun 29, 2016 17:33:15 GMT -5 audiobill said:

But it all starts with complex sine waves, no question, and not ones and zeros.

I value digital for convenience, but try not to forget where it starts.

And  as for vinyl originally recorded on a digital recorder, what's the point?

I value digital for it's accuracy. Convenience is icing on the cake.

[audiobill]

I value equipment for how it sounds, not for its specs. I trust my ears above all else, being a musician.

[geebo]

Jun 29, 2016 18:00:58 GMT -5 audiobill said:

I value equipment for how it sounds, not for its specs. I trust my ears above all else, being a musician.

And it's so nice to treat these ears to accurate sound reproduction.

[audiobill]

Of the 20th remastering of Stairway To Heaven on transistors? Thanks, but I'll pass.

[bluemeanies]

Jun 29, 2016 18:52:14 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Of the 20th remastering of Stairway To Heaven on transistors? Thanks, but I'll pass.

EXACTLY!!

[yves]

Jun 29, 2016 15:43:24 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I really do need to correct you on one misunderstanding that a lot of people seem to have...

You are absolutely correct that digital filters almost always have ringing. It's what you might refer to as "calculated ringing" - it's the mathematical result of the calculations that make the filter a filter. Because it's built into the math, it's entirely predictable, repeatable, and expected. However, you are incorrect in assuming that vinyl playback lacks this flaw. With a vinyl playback system, rather than being a direct result of math, you instead have all sorts of resonances due to actual mechanical and electrical resonances of the individual parts. For example, assuming your turntable has some sort of isolation from what it's sitting on, you have a low frequency resonance based on the compliance of the suspension and the weight of the suspended mechanism. And you have another resonance based on the compliance of the stylus and cantilever and the mass of the tonearm, and another resonance based on the length of the cantilever itself (it acts like a little tiny metal tuning fork), and another electromechanical resonance involving the inductance of the pickup coil in the cartridge, the capacitance of the tonearm wiring, and the circuitry in the preamp... and maybe a few more resonances based on the dimensions of each of the little pieces of metal inside the cartridge.

And, if a cartridge were to try and follow a perfect square wave perfectly, well, for starters, you'd have to accelerate the tiny mass of the stylus and its suspension in zero time, which would require the record surface to push on it with infinite force, which just isn't possible. And, of course, once the cartridge reached the top of the wave shape, it would fly right off the surface of the record due to all the stored momentum of that horrific velocity. That would be pretty bad too. Obviously, in real life, we don't have infinite force or velocity, but we do have to be careful to avoid trying to reach either (if you record a signal that's too loud onto the vinyl, the cartridge will actually "hop" off the surface - it's called "mistracking due to excessive recorded velocity"). All of these little flaws and resonances occur at different frequencies, they're different for every individual component, and for every different combination of components, and what you hear in the end is the sum of all of them -  which is why every combination of turntable, cartridge, and preamp sounds a tiny bit different. (After all, if they were all anywhere near perfect, then they'd all sound the same - right?)

Then, of course, we have all the other types of mechanical limitations. The tonearm isn't perfectly stiff, and neither is the cantilever, and neither is the platter. And, before you worry about a tiny bit of rumble from your turntable, you have to ask how flat the record you're playing really is - in thousandths or millionths of an inch. And how smooth is the vinyl.... and, for that matter, is the arm or the record going to vibrate because of the sound from your speaker reaching it through the air? That's another sort of resonance we call "feedback".

And we shouldn't ignore electrical limitations either. Guess what, the inductance of the cartridge produces an analog version of "time smear", and everything from the flaws in frequency response to the size of the actual molecules in the vinyl of the record surface introduces mechanical "losses of resolution" and "inaccuracy".

The main reason digital filters ring is because they are basically a simulation of a physical circuit.... however, where a digital filter has the calculated flaws of a "perfect simulation of a system which has limits", with cartridges and tonearms, it's all more arbitrary and random... which simply results in a wider variety of more variable, and not entirely known, flaws - rather than a few that can be calculated to several decimal places.

While it may intuitively seem to be the opposite, the reality is that figuring out exactly what a digital filter is going to put out is relatively simple - while figuring out how all of the little mechanical and electrical parts in a vinyl playback system are going to interact with each other in precise detail is somewhere between incredibly complex and downright impossible.  

If you actually analyze all this in detail, you'll find that vinyl has a lot more mechanisms by which "information gets lost or altered", and those mechanisms are a lot less predictable and repeatable, than with a digital system. In simplest terms, if you analyze the waveform from a digital recording and an analog recording, the waveform produced by the digital recording is much closer to the original - by virtually every known method of measurement. (You can feel free to argue that the flaws inherent in vinyl, even though much greater in magnitude, are less "aesthetically annoying" than the flaws in digital reproduction... but there most certainly are a lot more of them.)

Jun 28, 2016 11:20:16 GMT -5 garbulky said:

The thing with CD vs vinyl is the CD is limited by the quality of the DAC output. And there are various types of dacs and they have their own sound. And like it or not most DACS have ringing in the wave form. Something vinyl does not have. Also though people say who cares about the sampling rate? If isn't sampled at a certain time then that information is lost.
So the CD doesn't capture everyhing perfectly.
The digital filters used also has to alter the signal.

Now vinyl also has limits to its time resolution as well as a bunch of manipulations the signal needs to go through to output it like the RIAA curve and different cartridges sound different etc.

Playback of all-analog mastered vinyl records does not have any pre-ringing, though. The fact CD playback has a far more consistent quality level than vinyl playback is only a theoretical advantage when, in practice, it does not make the pre-ringing any less audible than it factually is. In pure terms of measurements and signal accuracy, the magnitude of pre-ringing *looks* like it is subtle. However, human hearing is incredibly sensitive to some types of errors in a signal, and very tolerant of others. So it is not just about which type of error is *aesthetically* more annoying. Accuracy of a signal essentially is meaningless if the human audible significance of the signal's multi-type error instance is ignored.

[geebo]

Jun 29, 2016 18:52:14 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Of the 20th remastering of Stairway To Heaven on transistors? Thanks, but I'll pass.

I'll pass on that as well.

[garbulky]

Hey hey hey! What did I just hear?
Stairway to heaven sounds great mo matter how it's done!!

[etc6849]

Analog recording methods have what any knowledgeable mastering engineer would consider poor signal to noise ratio (SNR) by today's standards and capture less dynamic range than recording at 96kHz/24 bit.

As for the other discussions, if folks are concerned about the ringing from digital filters (you can't actually hear it but...), increase the sampling frequency and then raise the cutoff frequency for the low pass filter at the output; this will absolutely ensure no human on earth can hear the ringing (e.g. use fs = 96kHz and 48kHz for the low pass filter).  I think we can all agree no one can hear up to 48kHz!?!

No offense to anyone here, but there are very few young folks here and our ears will hear less and less high frequency range the older we get.  I'm 38 and probably one of the youngest folks on here.

Digital recording and playback without scientific question produces a more accurate waveform (when mastered properly).  Even 16 bits offers a better SNR than the best analog tape recording devices at any cost:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth

[nwobhm]

This is a debate that will never end, will never die, will always be a part of our hobby. For me, in my system, in my room, I can repeatedly a/b the same recording played back via CD and Vinyl and even the non-audiophile friends I have will almost always choose the vinyl as more pleasing.

Is this a universal truth in every system, in every room ever assembled? Absolutely not

Is this because I have spent considerably more on my analog chain then my digital? Perhaps

Is this because I am meticulous about selection and cleaning of any used records I purchase? Perhaps

Is this because my analog chain is resulting in a presentation that deviates from the original recording in a way that is pleasing in my particular listening room? Perhaps

Bottom line is, I don't care - it's what I like!

The one "truth" in this that I have found in my 30+ years in this hobby is that it takes considerably more time, money, and meticulous dedication to get the most out of vinyl when compared with digital and that's not something a lot of folks are willing to undertake, which I totally get, by the way! Vinyl is the farthest thing from "plug and play" and, besides from the hipster crowd I am constantly annoyed by at my local vinyl haunts who are more concerned about the hobby as a fashion than sound quality, most folks see no need in spending the time and money necessary to surpass their digital sources. Nor should they, I would argue, if they are happy with it!

[novisnick]

Jul 8, 2016 9:51:55 GMT -5 nwobhm said:

This is a debate that will never end, will never die, will always be a part of our hobby. For me, in my system, in my room, I can repeatedly a/b the same recording played back via CD and Vinyl and even the non-audiophile friends I have will almost always choose the vinyl as more pleasing.

Is this a universal truth in every system, in every room ever assembled? Absolutely not

Is this because I have spent considerably more on my analog chain then my digital? Perhaps

Is this because I am meticulous about selection and cleaning of any used records I purchase? Perhaps

Is this because my analog chain is resulting in a presentation that deviates from the original recording in a way that is pleasing in my particular listening room? Perhaps

Bottom line is, I don't care - it's what I like!

The one "truth" in this that I have found in my 30+ years in this hobby is that it takes considerably more time, money, and meticulous dedication to get the most out of vinyl when compared with digital and that's not something a lot of folks are willing to undertake, which I totally get, by the way! Vinyl is the farthest thing from "plug and play" and, besides from the hipster crowd I am constantly annoyed by at my local vinyl haunts who are more concerned about the hobby as a fashion than sound quality, most folks see no need in spending the time and money necessary to surpass their digital sources. Nor should they, I would argue, if they are happy with it!

+1


Im sitting in the first pew! 

[etc6849]

I agree that folks perception of what they hear leads to a lot of debate.  From a scientific standpoint though there really is no debating scientific facts.  Anyone who has studied linear systems and basic DSP theory knows for a fact digital is scientifically more accurate.  I know this is very confusing as many industry experts say stuff that isn't true... 

It is the way that digital albums are being mastered that is the problem, not some limitation of the technology.

What you should really A/B is a capture of your vinyl track to flac (or some other lossless format) using a good quality phono preamp and 96k/24bit sound card input.  Then level match the two sources and compare playback.  I bet they sound the same. 

What is most likely is the vinyl is mastered better than the CD version.  Check this site out:  dr.loudness-war.info/

For almost all albums, the vinyl version has better dynamic range.  I have no doubt you can hear the difference, but it has to do with the fault of the marketers of the record labels trying to make their CD as loud as they can by compressing the difference between the highs and lows. 

Our ears love hearing dynamic range because that is how real life is.  I have no doubt anyone on hear can hear the difference in mastering.  It is very obvious even for me and I'm not a musician.

A few recent examples.  For each, the dynamic range of the vinyl version is mastered much better than the CD version.

Taylor Swift 1989:
dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/83022 versus dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/86980

Daft Punk Random Access Memories:
dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/99181 and dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/88615

Go find your favorite albums in the database.  I am certain this is the difference you are hearing and it really is there which is why I try to "find" the best possible version in terms of dynamic range, then play that back on my PC.

Jul 8, 2016 9:51:55 GMT -5 nwobhm said:

This is a debate that will never end, will never die, will always be a part of our hobby. For me, in my system, in my room, I can repeatedly a/b the same recording played back via CD and Vinyl and even the non-audiophile friends I have will almost always choose the vinyl as more pleasing.