[jtwrace]

then why go thru all the trouble?

If I were retired and had much more time, I could totally see myself tinkering with vinyl more.  I have a really cool vintage Transcriptor table and plenty of vinyl.  Heck, I even have two R2R machines left (soon to be sold for a song). 

The fact is that my digital system is so darn convenient and I get to listen to the music more often and more of it per session.  In the end, I'm very happy with the sound and most of all I just enjoy listening when I can.

It's back to that CO disorder.

We've got one thing in common!

[BobRex]

Wayne, I think your basic assumption is wrong.  Digital isn't attempting to sound like analog, it's attempting to sound like music.  Now it just so happens that vinyl is a good milestone, but I don't consider it to be the end result.

Having said that, I agree with you that the majority of digital releases fall woefully short of the analog milestone and have a looong way to go to surpass the best of analog.  But... best digital release (fill in your reference here) against best vinyl release (fill in here too) is probably very, very close, and in fact, given hires' potential, the digital may surpass the vinyl by a small margin.  I still feel that comparing typical releases, digital's limitations rear their ugly head, but it's been years since I did a truly valid comparison, and I've neglected my digital rig (CAL Alpha/Delta) if favor of my analog (HW19, Alphason, VDH Colribi, Herron VTPH1-mc.)

What's needed is a no holds barred best vs. best systems and releases, level matched at 1K, go for broke, winner take all, listening test.  So who's got the system (and fortitude) to do it?

[firedog]

Do I want my digital hi-res to sound like analogue?

 I want the sound to be "analogue like", but not "like analogue". In other words, the natural sound timbres of iinstruments you hear with analogue, but with the quietness and detail of digital. No analogue background noise, clicks, hiss, bass bloom, and unnatural overly warm, highly tubey sound that some (note I  said some) analogue lovers are looking for.

The best digital does get you there. And yes, I agree some of it sounds like crap. That's why some of us who are into digital try to reduce jitter to very low levels. Playback with very low levels of jitter has that sound I'm looking for.

Some of what some analogue lovers look for is just euphonic sounding distortion; likewise some forms of jitter. Jitter results in a form of distortion on playback. There can be digital devices that add jitter, but the result may sound good to some people.

BTW, don't flame me. I didn't say analogue sounds bad, I just said SOME listeners (to both analogue and digital) actually like the sounds of certain kinds of distortion. That's fine, as long as they are willing to admit it, and not trying to say that their equipment is more accurate than some without the distortion.

[*Scotty*]

I like vinyl,but it is not the master tape and I doubt that it is even very close.
I have the hope that a Hi-Rez release at 24/96 or higher is the "master tape".
 If the Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed I should be hearing the music as good as it is going to get.
Scotty

[macrojack]

Digital is not trying to sound like analogue anymore than your computer is trying to act like an abacus.

Digital designers will only concern themselves with analogue sound unless we buyers force them to. I'm sure their goal is to bypass the inherently flawed and hopelessly handicapped analogue mechanics on their way to the goal that Scotty mentions in the previous post.

Reproduction of a bit perfect live acoustic performance is the only thing to which any worthy audio gear can aspire.

[TONEPUB]

Wayne, I think your basic assumption is wrong.  Digital isn't attempting to sound like analog, it's attempting to sound like music.  Now it just so happens that vinyl is a good milestone, but I don't consider it to be the end result.

Having said that, I agree with you that the majority of digital releases fall woefully short of the analog milestone and have a looong way to go to surpass the best of analog.  But... best digital release (fill in your reference here) against best vinyl release (fill in here too) is probably very, very close, and in fact, given hires' potential, the digital may surpass the vinyl by a small margin.  I still feel that comparing typical releases, digital's limitations rear their ugly head, but it's been years since I did a truly valid comparison, and I've neglected my digital rig (CAL Alpha/Delta) if favor of my analog (HW19, Alphason, VDH Colribi, Herron VTPH1-mc.)

What's needed is a no holds barred best vs. best systems and releases, level matched at 1K, go for broke, winner take all, listening test.  So who's got the system (and fortitude) to do it?

I've got it and we've done it a few times.  Again, I've heard recordings where the analog came out ahead and I've heard recordings where the digital sounded more natural and realistic.

They are both quite good these days.  So many people forget that even in the heyday of analog, there were a lot of crappy sounding records too.

[Quiet Earth]

I am willing to guess that very few of us have ever heard a "master tape".

And to take that thought a step further, I'll bet you that if some of us did get to hear a master tape or two, there would be some people in that group that would not like what they heard. Or at the very least they would go .
 

Am I crazy?

[JohnR]

Should I jump on board and dump all my vinyl?

I'm assuming that you're not actually serious, as that would be a fairly "radical" move for anyone that was not desperately and irretrievably unhappy with their vinyl playback system.

However, what barrier is there really to you to trying hi-res digital? You have a computer and (presumably) a hires-capable DAC. It seems to me to be a natural extension of what you have, and one that you can get into gradually. I do wish I was in your position, with thousands and thousands of records and a playback system that needs no improvement, so the "us and them" attitude in this regard seems rather strange.

[Pez]

As a 'digital guy' I WISH I could do vinyl. But the cost, size of the medium, and lack of space makes it a very very hard proposition to the point of impracticality. There is not a single audiophile that I have ever met that doesn't love vinyl so I must agree with John, this is a manufactured issue.

[neekomax]

Speaking of confused, John, what IS your avatar about, anyway?

[JohnR]

Speaking of confused, John, what IS your avatar about, anyway?

Photo of a #30 triode (I think).

[rbbert]

...There is not a single audiophile that I have ever met that doesn't love vinyl ...

You're kidding, right?  If not, you need to get out more...

[sts9fan]

I have met plenty. You must have a small sample set. Hell, I have a pretty ok vinyl rig and I am not sure I LOVE vinyl. I do like it a bunch. 

[Pez]

Maybe your setup is subpar. And I say that without trying to knock your setup or discount your opinion.

I have heard bad vinyl setups, I have heard bad digital setups. I assure you if you have heard the vinyl setups I have heard you would agree that vinyl is very lovable.

As far as my use of the generalization that every audiophile loves vinyl, please forgive me I had no idea some were so thick headed to think the world works in absolutes. I will temper my words thusly in te future. 

[Chromisdesigns]

I am willing to guess that very few of us have ever heard a "master tape".

And to take that thought a step further, I'll bet you that if some of us did get to hear a master tape or two, there would be some people in that group that would not like what they heard. Or at the very least they would go .
 

Am I crazy?

It's a point, though plenty of us (including me) have heard "direct to disk" recordings in which no mastering at all is involved -- just mikes to sound board to cutting head.  That's pretty much as close as most of us are ever going to get.

The best of them (and there are some of the **other** kind as well) have a presence that is hard to dismiss.  In my case, I have both the d2d and CD edition of a Charlie Byrd performance, and I do prefer the vinyl, even on my modest system.  But the CD reissue is quite listenable, with nearly the same air and immediacy as the vinyl.  Is the difference in the medium itself, or in the mastering for the CD reissue?  Who can tell.  I used to go hear Charlie a lot at his clubs, and both of them are very close to the "live" experience.  A friend of mine was actually at the session where the original D2D was recorded, and he swears the disk sounds better than the actual club performance did...

[TheChairGuy]

7 pages - so far not much hair pulling and only modest eye gouging.

Congrats on reaching adulthood, all 

John / Facilitator

[matt.w]

As a 'digital guy' I WISH I could do vinyl. But the cost, size of the medium, and lack of space makes it a very very hard proposition to the point of impracticality. There is not a single audiophile that I have ever met that doesn't love vinyl.

I'll also chime in to disagree, but with some elaboration.

Right now, space is an issue, so digital is a necessity.

At all times, availability is an issue, so digital is a necessity. I grew up in the 90's. Much of my most beloved music- multiple genres, especially film scores- is digital only.

That said, vinyl has been alluring. I understand where vinyl lovers are coming from, as I feel much the same way about books nowadays. Physical books are so exciting; in our future home, we're going to have a library room. But as I single-handedly try to keep bookstores afloat, I'm vilified by my peers who have jumped on the e-reader bandwagon, who don't understand this perspective. So I get it. Because of this love and to satisfy my general geek nature, I've looked into vinyl multiple times.

But I'm never going to switch. My Squeemote/Modwright Transporter setup has spoiled me. Maybe it is an artifact of my generation, but I'm pretty schizo when I listen, jumping from here to there to everywhere on a track-by-track basis. Vinyl- or CD, for that matter- would put a pretty big crimp on my style in a way that paper books or Blu-ray (another media close to my heart) does not for reading or movie watching. Music's length is simply a different order of magnitude than a book or a movie, so it calls for a different interaction experience. Changing physical media so often- as I have tried with CD- made me strongly fall out of love with it quickly.

I still have my tubes, though  . Tubes and digital is a wonderful marriage, and honestly, I'm not missing much of anything. If I am, beer or wine takes care of that quickly 

[Wayner]

First, JohnR, my comment about dumping my vinyl was kind of a joke. Sorry you took it the wrong way. Do I want to give hi-res a whirl? I've heard it at RMAF when Jim Salk had it running our AVA/SALK demo. The first of several problems is the availability of music that I like. Second is the problem of a computer running while I'm trying to listen to music. Disc drives make too much noise so unless the computer is in another room and I do WiFi, it just probably won't do.

Now onto master tapes. I happen to have about a couple of dozen of them. 10 of them are my work, done totally in the digital domain and reside on DAT tapes. There are a couple on reel-to reel and even some more that were mastered to cassette (Dolby S). In all cases, the master seems to be better then the copy. I can't explain why in the digital versions, as a copy should be exactly the same, but that seems to be not the case. That is also something that I have never figured out either.

Master tapes in the studio are in a different league then our home systems. They have lots of pro equipment, all XLR connections and high end speakers, just to name a few advantages.

I have always thought when CDs first came out that the record companies where deliberately sabotaging the recording that the public would hear, just because it was so good in the studio, they were afraid of these high quality copies out in public. I still wonder that.

Wayner

[Pez]

That said, vinyl has been alluring. I understand where vinyl lovers are coming from, as I feel much the same way about books nowadays. Physical books are so exciting; in our future home, we're going to have a library room. But as I single-handedly try to keep bookstores afloat, I'm vilified by my peers who have jumped on the e-reader bandwagon, who don't understand this perspective. So I get it. Because of this love and to satisfy my general geek nature, I've looked into vinyl multiple times.

Let's put nostalgia aside here. This discussion is clearly based on sound quality alone. I don't care about holding an album cover with 3rd rate 'artwork' or the smell of benzene on a printed page of a book. I care about content period. And yes vinyl does something that digital has yet to do. What that something is is hard to pin down, but generally people refer to it as body or soul or some such garbage. I personally think it has more to do with the way the sound is robust and saturated.

[zybar]

First, JohnR, my comment about dumping my vinyl was kind of a joke. Sorry you took it the wrong way. Do I want to give hi-res a whirl? I've heard it at RMAF when Jim Salk had it running our AVA/SALK demo. The first of several problems is the availability of music that I like. Second is the problem of a computer running while I'm trying to listen to music. Disc drives make too much noise so unless the computer is in another room and I do WiFi, it just probably won't do.

Now onto master tapes. I happen to have about a couple of dozen of them. 10 of them are my work, done totally in the digital domain and reside on DAT tapes. There are a couple on reel-to reel and even some more that were mastered to cassette (Dolby S). In all cases, the master seems to be better then the copy. I can't explain why in the digital versions, as a copy should be exactly the same, but that seems to be not the case. That is also something that I have never figured out either.

Master tapes in the studio are in a different league then our home systems. They have lots of pro equipment, all XLR connections and high end speakers, just to name a few advantages.

I have always thought when CDs first came out that the record companies where deliberately sabotaging the recording that the public would hear, just because it was so good in the studio, they were afraid of these high quality copies out in public. I still wonder that.

Wayner

Wayner,

The disc drives making too much noise is not necessarily an issue.

I used to think the same thing until I had to put some drives in my music room when I purchased a Bryston BDP-1.  I have yet to hear the disc drives - even when there is a very quiet passgae or piece.  In fairness, I sit around 18-20' from the the two extrenal disc drives, but unless you have them right up against you, the noise is simply not an issue. 

A standard computer in the music room?  That is a different story...and I can see how that "could" be distracting or noticeable in some situations.

George