[Freo-1]

Rather than annoy either vinyl or his res supporters, thought I would post this article regarding CD vs Vinyl:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cds-may-actually-sound-better-than-vinyl-5352162

With the renewed interest in vinyl, thought this would be a suitable topic for debate.  I searched the web for more information about Digital vs Vinyl, and while there is a lot of hits on the subject, it became readily apparent that the vinyl supporters love the sound, and specs be dammed.  The digital guys point to the superior dynamics (96 plus vs. 55 to 70db), and therefore it is more accurate. 

I'm a bit conflicted.  My take is:  For classical, no question, digital all the way.  For jazz/rock, vinyl has some seductive appeal. 

So, let's see if a reasonable set of pros and cons can be discussed.   

[Freo-1]

Here is a link from the engineering side of the house:

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=1&doc_id=1283449


And a link supporting vinyl:

http://gizmodo.com/why-vinyl-is-the-only-worthwhile-way-to-own-music-1527750499


One fact that tends to jump out when looking into this topic on the web is that the pro digital camp has a lot of engineering data to support the position.  The pro vinyl camp does not have that  engineering support.  They rely on their perceptions of what they hear.


At the end of day, we each enjoy what works for us.  That is the most important item in this discussion. 

[thunderbrick]

At the end of the day, it's all about perceptions, data or not.......

[*Scotty*]

Freo, the link to the La Weekly article is appreciated, the article had some very cogent points to make. When no less a personage than Bob Ludwig bitches about what little remains of the music when it is transferred from tape to vinyl you have to believe that the vinyl medium has some serious fundamental technical limitations.
 The early CD players were real dogs as were some of the early CDs. Both digital recording and playback have made huge strides forward in recent years. I have CDs that were produced during the early 80s that, that when first auditioned, were very amusical. Fast forward 30 years and now a lot of them sound pretty good when played back as a WAV file on a modern DAC. In fact some of them sound good enough to almost make you believe 16/44.1 is all you need.
 Real Hi-Rez recordings as narrowly defined by Dr.AIX, are whole 'nother thing and audibly superior to 16/44.1 or vinyl.
My biggest complaint is that very few recordings from any genre take advantage of the dynamic range capabilities that the digital recording technology brings to the table.
Scotty

[Freo-1]

Freo, the link to the La Weekly article is appreciated, the article had some very cogent points to make. When no less a personage than Bob Ludwig bitches about what little remains of the music when it is transferred from tape to vinyl you have to believe that the vinyl medium has some serious fundamental technical limitations.
 The early CD players were real dogs as were some of the early CDs. Both digital recording and playback have made huge strides forward in recent years. I have CDs that were produced during the early 80s that, that when first auditioned, were very amusical. Fast forward 30 years and now a lot of them sound pretty good when played back as a WAV file on a modern DAC. In fact some of them sound good enough to almost make you believe 16/44.1 is all you need.
 Real Hi-Rez recordings as narrowly defined by Dr.AIX, are whole 'nother thing and audibly superior to 16/44.1 or vinyl.
My biggest complaint is that very few recordings from any genre take advantage of the dynamic range capabilities that the digital recording technology brings to the table.
Scotty

You are most welcome.  The point about the technical limitations with vinyl is what finally sent me over to digital when my tastes shifted more to classical.

Totally agree about your point regarding recordings.  This recording has little to no compression, and a couple of dynamic shifts in the 3rd and fourth movements will really stress your woofer/subs.


 


I have a number of recent SACD digital classical recordings that really have a lot of dynamic range.

[G Georgopoulos]

Freo, digital = music on steroids,artificially made like steroids

of course you gonna have bigger dynamic range,artificially!

people aren't stupid,they know vinyl is NATURAL 100% ba--by!...

[*Scotty*]

Technically speaking, if the goal of making a recording of music is to preserve the original performance as intact as possible, including its dynamic range, then digital recording at 24/88 or higher is your first choice.
The much lauded Telarc label has used a digital recording medium from the being, even though their first releases were on vinyl.
Scotty

[sts9fan]

Freo, digital = music on steroids,artificially made like steroids

of course you gonna have bigger dynamic range,artificially!

people aren't stupid,they know vinyl is NATURAL 100% ba--by!...

Except for that pesky EQ. So natural...

[Devil Doc]

At the end of the day, it's all about perceptions, data or not.......

And human perception varies among individuals.

Doc

[Johnny2Bad]

One interesting difference between vinyl and digital album-length media is the digital playback system relies on a power supply (typically, a number of power supplies) and like everything else when it comes to active stages in audio, power supply quality plays a role in reproductive quality.

Contrast that with vinyl ... the cartridge is the power supply; the playback device generates it's own voltage in direct correlation to it's reading of the storage media.

The implications, in my mind, are profound and directly affect the realized and potential quality of the playback system.

Comments?

[FullRangeMan]

http://gizmodo.com/why-vinyl-is-the-only-worthwhile-way-to-own-music-1527750499

This guy are saying his personal opinion and taste as if it was a fact of life, ie he is a vinyl fanatic.
He is so inside his hobby that forgot to mention the inevitable wear will spoil your beloved vinyl sound.

[FullRangeMan]

Freo, digital = music on steroids,artificially made like steroids

of course you gonna have bigger dynamic range,artificially!

people aren't stupid,they know vinyl is NATURAL 100% ba--by!...

Do you already hear a LP without that RIAA eq George?
The Riaa eq that was choosed to the 33rpm LP was so well implemented it made the LP sound good at the few firsts running.

[Davey]

One interesting difference between vinyl and digital album-length media is the digital playback system relies on a power supply (typically, a number of power supplies) and like everything else when it comes to active stages in audio, power supply quality plays a role in reproductive quality.

Contrast that with vinyl ... the cartridge is the power supply; the playback device generates it's own voltage in direct correlation to it's reading of the storage media.

The implications, in my mind, are profound and directly affect the realized and potential quality of the playback system.

Comments?

I think you'd have a heck of time hooking up speakers to your cartridge. 
Your phono cartridge is a transducer not a power supply.  It still needs a preamp (and maybe a pre-preamp) which will have a power supply or maybe a number of power supplies and active stages.........and serious equalization as well.

If your objective is to avoid power supplies and active circuitry when searching for a profound listening experience, I suggest to start buying concert tickets for live acoustic performances. 

CD and phono playback both have advantages and disadvantages.  But it's an apples/oranges comparison.

Dave.

[werd]

One interesting difference between vinyl and digital album-length media is the digital playback system relies on a power supply (typically, a number of power supplies) and like everything else when it comes to active stages in audio, power supply quality plays a role in reproductive quality.

Contrast that with vinyl ... the cartridge is the power supply; the playback device generates it's own voltage in direct correlation to it's reading of the storage media.

The implications, in my mind, are profound and directly affect the realized and potential quality of the playback system.

Comments?

What comes to mind is an ole gramophone player. The original playback device, wave guide pointed right at the cartridge. What it shows is how far we have come' but the same principles are still in play. We listen to the source with a whole bunch powers supplies doing things to amplify and direct the signal to the speakers.

[Davey]

Check this out about 3/4 of the way through for a glimpse into the future of "direct" phono reproduction. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoK_xvh1tPo
No friggin' amplifiers or power supplies required. 

Dave.

[FullRangeMan]

3/4 what is the time?
The Nelson and Linkwitz systems are great btw.

[jsaliga]

One fact that tends to jump out when looking into this topic on the web is that the pro digital camp has a lot of engineering data to support the position.  The pro vinyl camp does not have that  engineering support.  They rely on their perceptions of what they hear.

It sure seems that way until one critically evaluates what has been written and said.  That is when you start to realize that a lot of what is presented as fact is nothing more than more opinion masquerading as fact.  No sensible person would argue that digital is not better, at least on paper.  But that isn't the point.  The point is about content and how it is produced.  The whole vinyl vs digital debate is very convenient, but it's a lazy man's contrivance that glosses over many important details about how music is recorded, mixed, and mastered.  It doesn't really mean anything to people who genuinely care about the quality of the music they are listening to.  It is important to people who enjoy a spirited debate.

What the pro-vinyl "camp" has is people producing content for vinyl who, by and large, are doing a much better job mastering for vinyl than the people who are producing and mastering for digital.  If you look at a lot of digital music you know virtually nothing about its pedigree.  This is changing and things are getting better on the digital side.  I'm a fan of full disclosure since it tends to keep the producers honest. 

When digital producers start treating their products with the same care and provide the same level of disclosure and detailed information that audiophile vinyl labels have been doing for years that is when I will most likely start buying more digital content.  But for the music I listen to, mostly jazz and classical recorded between 1950 and 1980, it simply isn't there yet and for the most part digital hasn't yet gained my trust.  So if I am faced with choice between buying a 200g LP from Analogue Productions that was remastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue tapes or a CD or even hi-res digital download that is sourced from God only knows what and mastered by anyone's guess then I am going to spend my money on the 200g vinyl and not look back.

The truth is that Bob Ludwig is personally responsible for a tiny fraction of the digital content that is available in the music marketplace.  So he cannot speak for the entire industry because he doesn't represent it.

--Jerome

[*Scotty*]

I think the takeaway from Bob Ludwig's comments is that the potential for a more faithful recording of the performance that was heard in the studio is possible from the digital medium than it is from analogue mediums, vinyl or tape.
On paper I think this might be true, but we will always be at the mercy of the producer for what happens to to the final product. The way I see it producers have a lot of Karmic debt to pay.
Scotty

[S Clark]

And to Freo-1's charge "They rely on their perceptions of what they hear"-- guilty as charged.  Ultimately, you don't evaluate graphs with your ears. And if you don't trust your ears over graphs, well, now you are arguing philosophy.

[Freo-1]

It sure seems that way until one critically evaluates what has been written and said.  That is when you start to realize that a lot of what is presented as fact is nothing more than more opinion masquerading as fact.  No sensible person would argue that digital is not better, at least on paper.  But that isn't the point.  The point is about content and how it is produced.  The whole vinyl vs digital debate is very convenient, but it's a lazy man's contrivance that glosses over many important details about how music is recorded, mixed, and mastered.  It doesn't really mean anything to people who genuinely care about the quality of the music they are listening to.  It is important to people who enjoy a spirited debate.

What the pro-vinyl "camp" has is people producing content for vinyl who, by and large, are doing a much better job mastering for vinyl than the people who are producing and mastering for digital.  If you look at a lot of digital music you know virtually nothing about its pedigree.  This is changing and things are getting better on the digital side.  I'm a fan of full disclosure since it tends to keep the producers honest. 

When digital producers start treating their products with the same care and provide the same level of disclosure and detailed information that audiophile vinyl labels have been doing for years that is when I will most likely start buying more digital content.  But for the music I listen to, mostly jazz and classical recorded between 1950 and 1980, it simply isn't there yet and for the most part digital hasn't yet gained my trust.  So if I am faced with choice between buying a 200g LP from Analogue Productions that was remastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue tapes or a CD or even hi-res digital download that is sourced from God only knows what and mastered by anyone's guess then I am going to spend my money on the 200g vinyl and not look back.

The truth is that Bob Ludwig is personally responsible for a tiny fraction of the digital content that is available in the music marketplace.  So he cannot speak for the entire industry because he doesn't represent it.

--Jerome

Hmm.  I think the vinyl camp uses more opinion as fact than the digital camp.  The SNR/Dynamic Range differences between digital and vinyl are very significant (well over 20 db in many cases).  Vinyl playback also has to deal with wow/flutter, high frequency loss over time with repeated playing of the records, cartridge/tonearm alignment, and the list goes on and on.  There  is also the low frequency rumble effect to deal with. 

Granted, early digital was not all that musical sounding.  It took the engineers some number of years to work out recording mastering, the effects of jitter, and current to voltage conversion regarding the DAC's. 

Your point about the mastering has a lot validity.  The recordings you prefer were made during the golden age of audio, mastered to sound their best on vinyl, and no question, many do sound excellent indeed.  There are hi res recordings from the golden age of Jazz on SACD that sound every bit as good to me with that format as vinyl.  Some (IMHO) sound even better with the SACD.  Check out the European offerings from Supreme Jazz.   Sounds very much like one is listening to the original master tape.  Before CD, reel to reel was the true high end format (IMHO). 

Regarding classical, there are a great amount (in the thousands) of more recently produced high quality digital recordings on SACD that were made and mastered to take full advantage of the enhanced dynamic range and resolution offered by digital.  Many romantic era symphonies have a great deal of dynamic contrasts.  The legacy recordings could never quite capture the full contrasts, due to the need to perform compression to work around vinyl's limitations.  Digital does not have those restrictions.  There are modern recordings on digital from the Berlin Philharmonic that are stunning,  and are not bound by compression, hiss, ticks, pops, or record wear. 

Beyond all the technical issues, there is the matter of "what moves you"  when listening to music.  If vinyl "moves you", who is anyone to say otherwise?