The vinyl illusion ?

[Yomanze]

Vinyl sounds 'nicer', but digital / CD is a lot more 'transparent'. This is a problem for digital because it highlights issues with production and mastering a lot more than vinyl does. Get it right (Massive Attack - Mezzanine springs to mind as an example), and CD can sound more real and believable than vinyl. Problem is there is so much poorly-produced / poorly mastered / poorly remastered CDs / files out there, and to make matters worse, we're in the generation where music is made for phone earbuds, not HiFi.

New vinyl has a lot of similar issues, but it isn't as transparent, nor has the dynamic range, of CD, as mentioned it sounds nice, so is more forgiving. A lot of people like the 'euphonic' nature of vinyl, the flaws are liked by many people, sounding more like music. It's a matter of taste really, not that vinyl somehow manages to let the music through more than digital, quite the opposite in fact!

[jandl100]

Tom,
Interesting again.
Yes, I agree that your mod-Quad system didn't do the Big Stuff, a fair stab at Bruckner when I visited but no more than that.
It was when Bryn Terfel came on with the Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel (solo voice and solo piano) that my senses got seriously re-arranged and set a high water mark for what can be achieved with an audio system.

I'm getting ever closer to achieving that high water mark on that album, but I always have to also be able to get great sounds with big orchestral which used to not be of much (any?) interest to you. So big stuff / little stuff - very serious challenges to both be achieved in one system A work in progress for me.

[Jimbo]

Vinyl sounds 'nicer', but digital / CD is a lot more 'transparent'. This is a problem for digital because it highlights issues with production and mastering a lot more than vinyl does. Get it right (Massive Attack - Mezzanine springs to mind as an example), and CD can sound more real and believable than vinyl. Problem is there is so much poorly-produced / poorly mastered / poorly remastered CDs / files out there, and to make matters worse, we're in the generation where music is made for phone earbuds, not HiFi.

New vinyl has a lot of similar issues, but it isn't as transparent, nor has the dynamic range, of CD, as mentioned it sounds nice, so is more forgiving. A lot of people like the 'euphonic' nature of vinyl, the flaws are liked by many people, sounding more like music. It's a matter of taste really, not that vinyl somehow manages to let the music through more than digital, quite the opposite in fact!

I think you have almost nailed it there Neil. Both have their place it all depends on which one you prefer to listen too and which technology satisfies your listening experience. If you have both then there should be no argument between vinyl and digital, you have the choice and access to a huge selection of music which is really what it should all be about.

[montesquieu]

Anything to say about my previous post, Tom?

For me, the reason why you junked the system you've just referred to is because it created a false impression of 'accuracy'; one which I outlined in my previous post. However, there's simply no reason why you can have BOTH (genuine) accuracy, and the 'musicality' you've described and enjoy

Marco.

Was still pondering a reply Marco.

If I can answer perhaps a little obliquely ... I'm reading a book at the moment called Music, Imagination and Culture by a guy called Nicholas Cook, professor of music at Cambridge who previously worked at my wife's institution, Royal Holloway, University of London, where he directed the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). (This is really worth a look btw http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/index.html )

It's a fascinating book which explores the gap between how music is experienced (by listeners and performers alike) and how it's described, defined, analysed and generally discussed. It's a bit of a paradox of a book - spending the first chapter essentially dissecting the inadequacies of verbal language with regards to music and musical performance, while then going on to spend the next 243 pages attempting just that.

And I think that's what we are running against here. What do we mean by accuracy? (You have attempted to define, but there are several other definitions clearly operating in this thread explicitly or implicitly). What do we mean by enjoyment? Or musicality? Or any of the other key words in the previous 27 pages of this discussion?

What we are really bumping into is a multiplicity of perspectives. We are never going to agree on what words mean if we are all coming from a different direction (or even the same direction but with different vocabularies).

It's a useful conversation though there's always something to learn from people's attempts to articulate their experiences - but consensus, I suspect, will always evade us.

[jandl100]

^ Hey, I understood some of that.

What we also have is a multiplicity of objectives and goals and aspirations.
We are after different things - there isn't a "one fit suits all" system. There isn't a 'right' answer.

[Marco]

Hi Tom,

Good post, and I get where you're coming from (it is also extremely relevant to the discussion), but what I'm getting at goes beyond semantics, and is essentially summed up here:

If your system [let's pretend] was able to 100% faithfully reproduce the sound of a cello, with zero coloration/distortion and unhindered clarity, so that you simply couldn't distinguish between what was coming out of your speakers, and the sound produced by the real thing, then how would that ever be ear-bleeding or uncomfortable?

It could only ever be so if you didn't actually LIKE the sound of the real thing! So...... There is absolutely no reason to 'fear' accuracy or faithfulness to the original sound (what hi-fi is about), *if* what's being judged is genuinely that.

Could you have a go at addressing that bit, specifically if a system were able to achieve the above, then surely that would be everyone's goal, *if* they actually wanted to hear the REAL thing, and not simply a 'nicer' version, tailored to appeal to their own tastes?

For me, you either want to try [the key word here] and achieve (as far as possible) genuine HIGH-FIDELITY, with a system and the music it reproduces (as outlined by the cello example above), or you don't. There is NO grey area!

Marco.

[Jimbo]

To put it simply one persons idea of what constitutes music or great sound will always be different to anothers!

[Marco]

To put it simply one persons idea of what constitutes music or great sound will always be different to anothers!

Yes, but you're missing my point, Jim.

Marco.

[User211]

I think vinyl is a "fooled you" medium.

Technically, it is measurably poor. And that is because IT IS poor, no other reason. But poor doesn't mean bad sounding. Exactly the reverse for quite a few vinyl recordings, which can pull off the trick of sounding great and more "real" than the digital equivalent. But I believe that's mainly the distortions and the poor noise floor having a positive perceived affect.

There's some stuff I have - a lot of it in fact, that sounds sub standard on my relatively high end TT. On average, I'd be flat out lying if I said analogue does better than digital across a wide band of recordings. And TBH the vast majority of the time I think vinyl sounds great is on 45 rpm records where an entire side is dedicated to one track.

A paradox is I use a technically poor, but expensive DAC. Just because to my ears it works better than all solid state alternatives I have tried. Part of that is because I can alter its sonic signature by swapping valves in and out. But all I am really doing is playing with different kinds of distortion, in the same way a vinyl enthusiast does when swapping carts and arms and doing TT upgrades etc. Only in this case it is a lot easier.

So basically, I conclude, we're just playing distortion modification games when messing around with source components and speakers. That's all there is to it. Nothing is neutral or accurate. And a change is a good as a rest.

[walpurgis]

Dunno about media and sources, but only electronically generated music 'measures' well, as its tones will be exactly what was dialled in. Acoustic instruments measure 'badly', as their sound is full of distortions and harmonics. Which is why they sound so nice!