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Thread: Comparing vinyl sound to hi-res digital remaster

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    I was probably naive to assume that remastering meant taking the original master tapes and carefully transferring them to digital. All along doing everything possible to reverently retain the closeness to the sonic fidelity. Apparently, nothing could be farther from the truth, as it now appears that artists and engineers are taking this remastering reissue project as an opportunity to revise history. .
    Remastering is taking the original mix and remastering it. Hence the name. So you create a new master different to the old one.

    It is sort of revising history but not to the extent of, say, the Star Wars Special Editions. It is a way to sell you the same album again, which is why there are so many re-masters of popular albums.
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  2. #12
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    Ive never been a vinyl person. I think it would add a nice vinyl analogue sound but since almost all new and good music is on streaming or download or cd now i.e. Digital, it's natural to use digital sources for most music - that's unless you just rehash old vinyl albums again and again. Which would then mean playing vinyl really only predominantly for aesthetic purposes i.e. A nice deck looking good in a hi fi. This is my age old problem with vinyl.

    So in this regard, and in the context of original question, the way digital music sounds is so much down to the dacs and quality of all the stuff, you can never say across all systems that vinyl is better. I don't think that was said but my digital stuff is well good enough, I don't need to bother with vinyl and I probably never will.

  3. #13
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    Max Townshend stated that cd is better than vinyl , and he created the mighty Rock

    Having said that a fair comparison would be with two equally priced cd player and turntable. Most of the time I hear people waxing over vinyl is when they have £5k turntable and £1k cdp. They feel its not worth spending more on the cd end as they have already made up their mind which sounds better.
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  4. #14
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    Nothing wrong with digital replay - and that's from an analogue diehard. I have only come to this conclusion recently, having had long held preconceptions about the superior quality of vinyl playback. As some have already said, it is all down to the mastering. Some digital remasters have just made the music unlistenable as the quiet bits are levelled up in a bid to win over the iPhone/iPod generation.

    So, why have I changed my mind about digital v vinyl? It's all down to my recent R2R fetish with my 3 15 IPS 2 track studio machines. I have now bought over 50 "master" tapes (original distribution masters, Tape Project and safety copies) in the last 2 years. A few months ago, I transcribed a couple of these (Sgt Pepper's and Ziggy Stardust) to digital using a Pioneer CDR-609; this was done properly with the tape machines aligned and levels set on the PDR-609 for unity gain. Well, the digital files sound bl**dy excellent. Just goes to show that I shouldn't have been so bigoted in the past

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anthony K View Post
    Max Townshend stated that cd is better than vinyl , and he created the mighty Rock

    Having said that a fair comparison would be with two equally priced cd player and turntable. Most of the time I hear people waxing over vinyl is when they have £5k turntable and £1k cdp. They feel its not worth spending more on the cd end as they have already made up their mind which sounds better.
    Makes sense that we cannot compare two formats if one is listened to on a superior player while the other is listened to on an inferior player.

    However, the topic of this thread is not 'vinyl compared to CD', the topic is 'vinyl compared to hi-res'.
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  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    Remastering is taking the original mix and remastering it. Hence the name. So you create a new master different to the old one.

    It is sort of revising history but not to the extent of, say, the Star Wars Special Editions. It is a way to sell you the same album again, which is why there are so many re-masters of popular albums.
    I thought that digital remaster is merely creating a new digital master that is different from the old digital master, not altering the original analog master. Digital remaster of the digitally mastered file is a completely different ball of wax.
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  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by topoxforddoc View Post
    Nothing wrong with digital replay - and that's from an analogue diehard. I have only come to this conclusion recently, having had long held preconceptions about the superior quality of vinyl playback. As some have already said, it is all down to the mastering. Some digital remasters have just made the music unlistenable as the quiet bits are levelled up in a bid to win over the iPhone/iPod generation.

    So, why have I changed my mind about digital v vinyl? It's all down to my recent R2R fetish with my 3 15 IPS 2 track studio machines. I have now bought over 50 "master" tapes (original distribution masters, Tape Project and safety copies) in the last 2 years. A few months ago, I transcribed a couple of these (Sgt Pepper's and Ziggy Stardust) to digital using a Pioneer CDR-609; this was done properly with the tape machines aligned and levels set on the PDR-609 for unity gain. Well, the digital files sound bl**dy excellent. Just goes to show that I shouldn't have been so bigoted in the past
    I agree that there is nothing wrong with digital reproduction. Unless you happen to hear the same recording played back on a good turntable. Then the joy is totally and irrevocably ruined.
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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dynamics View Post
    Ive never been a vinyl person. I think it would add a nice vinyl analogue sound but since almost all new and good music is on streaming or download or cd now i.e. Digital, it's natural to use digital sources for most music - that's unless you just rehash old vinyl albums again and again. Which would then mean playing vinyl really only predominantly for aesthetic purposes i.e. A nice deck looking good in a hi fi. This is my age old problem with vinyl.

    So in this regard, and in the context of original question, the way digital music sounds is so much down to the dacs and quality of all the stuff, you can never say across all systems that vinyl is better. I don't think that was said but my digital stuff is well good enough, I don't need to bother with vinyl and I probably never will.
    I agree that listening to vinyl only makes sense if one is not interested in primarily listening to the contemporary production. I've tried my hand on purchasing a few of the contemporarily recorded and pressed vinyl records, and walked away unimpressed (I want my money back). I think I'll stick to the golden vinyl period -- 1950s to early 1980s.
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  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    I agree that there is nothing wrong with digital reproduction. Unless you happen to hear the same recording played back on a good turntable. Then the joy is totally and irrevocably ruined.
    Not necessarily. In my system, I'm comparing 3 ways - 15 IPS master tape to a digital rip from the master tape to the LP played on my Platine Verdier. Even though my vinyl replay set up (PV plus 2 tonearms/carts and TRON Reference phono stage) costs in excess of £15k new, it gets stomped all over by the 15 IPS master tape and a direct digital rip of the 15 IPS master. Sorry.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by magiccarpetride View Post
    I thought that digital remaster is merely creating a new digital master that is different from the old digital master, not altering the original analog master. Digital remaster of the digitally mastered file is a completely different ball of wax.
    Depends on what we are taking about, the final mix is a master but then after that you have a recording master with compression eq and then you make generations of masters off that and send them round the world to pressing plants, or to distributors who make more copies of that master and so on.

    So you may not have the original final mix, or the pre or post compression master, you may have to use the 4th or 5th gen master if that is all there is available. Obviously in analogue all that copying results in degredation. So the source of your digital version could be significantly poorer than the source of your vinyl version. I mean people don't go after 1st pressings for no reason.

    As to what they do with it can vary from next to nothing, to cleaning it up a bit, to whacking the compressor right up and getting shot of all the nasty dynamic range. Although can't see why they would do that with a 'hi rez' remaster so I doubt that is the problem, although you never know.

    It is unlikely that went back to the original tracks and re-mixed it but I think they did do that with the 'Stones remasters so could be so. I agree that starts to become revisionism and a bit dodgy.
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