View Full Version : Should digital sound like analogue? Should analogue sound like digital?
Seems to me like a lot of people are on a quest to get their digital replay to sound like analogue replay. I don't really understand this. If we accept that digital replay is more accurate to the recording than analogue (and I think we should) then shouldn't it be the other way around? What are your thoughts?
PaulStewart
23-12-2013, 21:45
If we accept that digital replay is more accurate to the recording than analogue (and I think we should) then shouldn't it be the other way around? What are your thoughts?
Sorry I don't agree at all having recently listened to both analogue and digital versions of tracks along with the master tapes, I find the analogue much truer to the original. However I don't think that effort should go into making numbers sound more like waveforms. Digi recordings are what they are and should be reproduced as well as possible, not be made like something they're not.
Cheers
walpurgis
23-12-2013, 22:14
I suppose the answer to the question would depend much on what digital and what analogue. I've heard very fine digital and pretty dire analogue and vice versa.
If we accept that digital replay is more accurate to the recording than analogue (and I think we should) then shouldn't it be the other way around? What are your thoughts?
I don't accept this. However, I do accept that as each converges towards the goal of perfect sound reproduction, they will, of course, ultimately sound the same. Currently, each has some issues although they are far closer, in my opinion, than is generally accepted.
rubber duck
23-12-2013, 22:41
Sorry I don't agree at all having recently listened to both analogue and digital versions of tracks along with the master tapes, I find the analogue much truer to the original. However I don't think that effort should go into making numbers sound more like waveforms. Digi recordings are what they are and should be reproduced as well as possible, not be made like something they're not.
I once listened to a digital master after a live recording and thought it was very good. Then I heard the analogue master. But this was back in the days of 16/44 and I am keeping an open mind with high res digital.
I suppose the answer to the question would depend much on what digital and what analogue. I've heard very fine digital and pretty dire analogue and vice versa.
Indeed. Mastering over format, every time.
The better digital and analogue are, the more they converge. That's my experience for what it's worth.
Indeed, Clive, and my experience concurs with that. Often, until I check, I forget which I'm listening to: my CDP or my turntable. The latter, of course, presumes the use of mint condition, pristine clean vinyl.
In my experience, the better your T/T becomes, the more it sounds like digital at its best. I dislike turntables that very audibly superimpose their sonic signature onto the music. I don't want to hear the turntable; I simply want to hear what's on the recording.
Marco.
walpurgis
23-12-2013, 23:21
The better digital and analogue are, the more they converge. That's my experience for what it's worth.
That obviously makes sense! A good sound is just that, source is coincidental.
Agree with Clive & Marco, but it's much much easier to get nice sounding vinyl-based setups. The best of each are not very different at all...
walpurgis
23-12-2013, 23:28
In my experience, the better your T/T becomes, the more it sounds like digital at its best. Marco.
I agree with this too. Although, I'd say it's easier to achieve very decent sound from vinyl at even a modest cost than it is with digital. Getting CD replay good for instance, takes a lot of 'suck it and see'. The wrong player for a system can really cock things up and if like me, you throw DACs and jitter busters into the equation, choices get much more complicated. And, I haven't even dipped a toe into the rather complex waters of computer managed digital music.
Agree with Clive & Marco, but it's much much easier to get nice sounding vinyl-based setups.
Lol - "nice". I don't do "nice"! ;)
Marco.
walpurgis
23-12-2013, 23:31
Agree with Clive & Marco, but it's much much easier to get nice sounding vinyl-based setups. The best of each are not very different at all...
I see you preempted me with your post Neil. You must have written similar thoughts just as I was.
Lol - "nice". I don't do "nice"! ;)
Marco.
OK, OK, how about "non-fatiguing" and suited to long-term listening…. :P
You can indeed make vinyl nice quite easily and lower end digital can be spitty in particular. You end up with resolution vs roundness, neither is great but one is easier to live with.
OK, OK, how about "non-fatiguing" and suited to long-term listening…. :P
Lol... I know what you're getting at, but I guess it depends on what you mean by non-fatiguing? A euphonic, dynamically inept sound would likely do my nut in just as much as a sterile 'in yer face' one, but for different reasons ;)
That's why creating a realistic and lifelike sound from my system (regardless of source), which resembles as closely as possible that of 'real music', is my primary goal. 'Nice' doesn't come into it.
Marco.
Thankfully I enjoy both on my system I get a bit more in the treble and bass on the TT
Seems to me like a lot of people are on a quest to get their digital replay to sound like analogue replay. I don't really understand this. If we accept that digital replay is more accurate to the recording than analogue (and I think we should) then shouldn't it be the other way around? What are your thoughts?
Convenience dude. If I manage to get my music server to sound like my TT (highly in-likely but others will try) then there is no need to get out of the chair to change the record is there? That is the only reason I can think of why anyone would do it, lazy bas..rds aren't we! :lol:
Most of the music I listen too I can only get digital
With vinyl the mixing seems to matter so much more I have vinyl I just do not enjoy listening to as it sounds lifeless get it right and I am in heaven thankfully not to much of my vinyl is like that
StanleyB
24-12-2013, 09:20
I happen to run my turntable through my DAC via an ADC, which allows me to carry out some interesting experiments. After taking into account the differences in sound from phono preamps and A to D converters that I have tried over the years, the one key difference that I can hear in the direct TT to preamp sound compared to the TT to DAC sound, is in the ambience. By swapping DACs, and keeping the TT/ADC set up the same the ambience level increases or decreases. There are probably other factors in play as well, but for the last couple of years I ended up trying to "recover" that missing ambience so that I can narrow the gap.
It is a simple enough comparison to carry out if you got an ADC.
Ammonite Audio
24-12-2013, 10:00
I happen to run my turntable through my DAC via an ADC, which allows me to carry out some interesting experiments. After taking into account the differences in sound from phono preamps and A to D converters that I have tried over the years, the one key difference that I can hear in the direct TT to preamp sound compared to the TT to DAC sound, is in the ambience. By swapping DACs, and keeping the TT/ADC set up the same the ambience level increases or decreases. There are probably other factors in play as well, but for the last couple of years I ended up trying to "recover" that missing ambience so that I can narrow the gap.
It is a simple enough comparison to carry out if you got an ADC.
What ADC are you using?
Gordon Steadman
24-12-2013, 10:14
They should, of course, sound the same. However, to a degree, it must depend on what original source you are using to compare.
I find both enjoyable and the convenience of digits is undeniable. However, aural memory alone is not going to be a very good judge of what is 'right' as its very unreliable.
The only direct comparison I can make is the sound of my guitars against recordings of same. At one time I could use tape and then convert to CD. Nowadays, its straight to the Mac so there is no comparison to be made.
I used to prefer the analogue version - every time, there was something about the decay and echo that seemed closer to real, even if the basic sound was good. I still feel most comfortable with the sound my TTs make. That applies to the DD but also to the 'lowly' Pioneer PL112D which is so much better than I expected.
What matters, as I will probably say ad nauseum, is that it doesn't matter so long as the music is enjoyed. If I'm in the mood, I'll get an LP out and luxuriate but its so convenient now to get instant sounds that I have no problem with that either.
StanleyB
24-12-2013, 10:43
What ADC are you using?
I have tried a wide range of them. The cheapest one I have tried that gave an excellent result is http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Analog-to-Digital-Audio-Converter-Coaxia-Toslink-RCA-UK-/250769000640?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_HomeAudioHiF i_Tuners&hash=item3a62ff48c0
Mark Grant
24-12-2013, 11:08
That's incredibly low cost :) watched on ebay for when/if I need one for anything.
Sovereign
24-12-2013, 11:29
Very interesting topic and quite relevant to my current seeking a less digital or better digital sound.
The main reason why I only have a dac and not even a cdp is that I used to spend. A lot of money trying albums only to like one or two songs and that was it, so the album would get shelved along with many many others never to get listened to again. I have found sites like Spotify to have opened up a whole world of bloody fantastic music that has re ignited my love for music and Hifi. If I only had a cdp or a tt I would still be frustrated with buying mediocre albums
Convenience dude. If I manage to get my music server to sound like my TT (highly in-likely but others will try) then there is no need to get out of the chair to change the record is there? That is the only reason I can think of why anyone would do it, lazy bas..rds aren't we! :lol:
Digital and analogue recordings will always sound different, I guess it all comes down to which one you prefer. Just like audio equipment, speakers amps and source al sound different and present the music in a different way. Once you have established a system you like the sound of and is good to your ears then it's all down to recording. I have recently heard some superb top quality digital recordings Dsd, 24 bit and 16 bit. Some of the ripped 16 bit sounded better than the Dsd and 24 bit. All depended on how well the recording was engineered in the first place, just like analogue recordings on vinyl. On final consideration I would say that the best analogue vinyl was still better than the best digital recordings. Analogue recording just sounds more real to me than digital. But it is all down to preference and what your own ears tell you in the end!!!
My stepchildren often marvel at how good my vinyl sounds compared to their various digital sources, but then they also marvel at how much better their music sounds on my system as a whole. If the recordings, and equipment used to play them on, is of good quality the format is oftentimes immaterial.
If we accept that digital replay is more accurate to the recording than analogue (and I think we should) then shouldn't it be the other way around? What are your thoughts?
Agree 100% Martin and most folk here will know I am a digital advocate. I'm not going to get embroiled in a discussion, as I think my views/opinions often differ to a lot here but I would invite those who have time, to read the below thread from the Harbeth User Group forum, as it contains some very interesting and informative comment on this often discussed subject.
An honest appraisal of vinyl v. digital - romance v. reality? (http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthread.php?2046-An-honest-appraisal-of-vinyl-v-digital-romance-v-reality)
Its rather long and you could maybe skip a lot, but I would recommend reading post #179 (page 9) and viewing the video by Alan Shaw, as to me it speaks volumes. I go to a lot of live shows and for me vinyl does not compare or replicate how I like to hear my music, especially classical - vinyl just lacks the dynamic range to my ears. Digital for me is more real than vinyl and I just cannot live with any snap, crackle or pops, in fact it totally ruins my enjoyment of the music.
I love and I mean really love the convenience of a file based audio system, being able to access my entire collection, together with the cover art from a tablet just works for me and I play so much more music than I ever used to. I have a large album collection and it got to be a pain to first find what I wanted to play, but also to put it back after a long session - flicking through the covers (all original scans) and tapping your album of choice to play it, is simply blissful.
To return to the OP, "Should digital sound like analogue? Should analogue sound like digital?", my view on this is that music should sound as close to the real thing as possible, whatever your medium of choice be. You are never (IMO) going to replicate in the home the sound of a live performance, you can get close but that's all and for me a good digital system can get you closer than analogue. The mastering/engineering is also key to the end product, a bad recording is a bad recording be it vinyl or digital and the so called loudness wars has been one of the worst things the music industry could have done when it comes to furthering the case for digital as a playback medium. Thankfully this trend seems to be in decline and a lot more effort is being put into the mastering, certainly for the music I prefer this applies, pop music not so much, but then I don't listen to pop. The more Steven Wilson's, Rick Ruben's and Charlie Peacock's we have the better.
But however you enjoy your music is cool, just enjoy it and it matters not one jot which medium you prefer, as its largely down to a preference here, not which you consider to be the best as all our systems will sound different and when you get serious about sound we all naturally gravitate to what we as individuals prefer . . . but its just the music that counts really, certainly for me it is :)
That post 179 paints a very bad picture of vinyl and yet in reality its no where near as bad as its made out to be, it works incredibly well in the real world. Sure it has many issues but when implemented correctly it sounds wonderful.
Before moving to file based audio I was aware of the glare of digital audio Which got in the way in my long time enjoyment of music.
Agree with Neal a lot more going on than that: vinyl can sound very dynamic
This is nothing necessarily to do with the article Tim linked to, as I haven't read it, but simply me plucking the title out of the air and associating it with a popular misconception.
The old 'romantic/euphonic' nonsense, aimed at vinyl replay, really is a load of bollocks. Anyone who thinks that, quite simply, has never heard a top-notch turntable, reproducing the best recordings on vinyl, on a top-notch system.
In my experience, and it's extensive, the best analogue recordings on vinyl, played on a top-notch T/T, can sound as 'real' as the best digital recordings on a top-notch digital replay system, which is precisely why at home, until I check, quite often I forget whether I'm listening to a record or a CD (and neither my CDP or T/T sound remotely 'romantic')!
It really is time that the uninitiated were suitably educated as to what vinyl replay is truly capable of at its best, instead of them trotting out the same old tired, biased, and ill-informed tripe.
:exactly:
Marco (who enjoys the best of both digital and analogue daily on his system).
Agree with Clive & Marco, but it's much much easier to get nice sounding vinyl-based setups. The best of each are not very different at all...
I don't agree. Just buy a decent DAC - what could be simpler?
A decent TT built from various manufacturers bits is a complete pain to get right, and costs way, way more than a decent DAC IMHO.
High precision mechanical engineering, which is what you need, will always be expensive.
Audioman
24-12-2013, 14:05
I don't agree. Just buy a decent DAC - what could be simpler?
A decent TT built from various manufacturers bits is a complete pain to get right, and costs way, way more than a decent DAC IMHO.
High precision mechanical engineering, which is what you need, will always be expensive.
I've seen and heard dacs and music streamers that make a good TT appear cheap. If electronics are so cheap to achieve top sound someone is making a good profit out of people's laziness in banishing physical media from the home.
anthonyTD
24-12-2013, 14:40
Its true that Digital has higher dynamic range and signal to noise ratio,capability, and IMHO, as sampling and bit rates go up with digital, it is inevitable, that it will eventually be obvious in most areas that it is superior to all types of analog playback, however, i believe that we still have a long way to go with digital before it becomes obvious and therefore absolute fact in the mainstream of critical listeners with the best analog systems that it is indeed better full stop. Until then, we will continue to marvel at the performance strengths of both, and also be disappointed by their individual weaknesses.
There are systems that excel at either but are woefully inadequate at both.you picks your poison etc.
However, with care and attention paid to each and every individual part and aspect of the replay chain, i feel it is possible to create a system that will dig deep enough into both formats to satisfy even the most critical of listener' in the areas of most importance, enough to create a truly magical experience.:)
A...
Indeed. Anthony, you've heard my T/T in your (rather excellent) system, where a very capable CD player resides. Would you say that the music you heard reproduced by the Techy that day, playing vinyl, lost out in any area to that reproduced by your Eikos, playing CD?
Marco.
Gordon Steadman
24-12-2013, 15:11
I've just been over to the Harbeth site to read the thread on how Vinyl is such rubbish:)
If the technical specs say that digits are so superior, I do wonder how a TT comes so close at all. The Harbeth guy says its all about noise injected into the vinyl process.
When it comes to it, nothing we experience can be separated from the processing of our brains. I do wonder if its the noise or lack of it, that is the problem.
Human's do not live in silence. Everything we do is accompanied by constant background noise. The brain gets used to filtering it. If I go to a live concert, I can hear the ventilation system, people moving, chairs squeaking, traffic noise etc etc. Could it be that the ear finds the noise associated with vinyl replay more 'natural' than the assumed silence of the digital process (I'm sure there is some noise involved)? The brain is happier with a more, to it, natural, environment and interprets this as better?- some of us!
I can accept all the technical arguments so there is clearly another answer somewhere that doesn't just take the 'ritual' as being more important than the result.
I said in post #4 that the two formats will converge towards perfection in playback one day.
On the subject of dynamics, I don't think digital is quite there yet. My vinyl replay system still edges digital for sheer clout and knockout dynamics. I have any number of record/CD pairs which demonstrate it. However, rather than take sides and eliminate half the great music out there, I am happy to play both formats all day long.
On the subject of dynamics, I don't think digital is quite there yet. My vinyl replay system still edges digital for sheer clout and knockout dynamics. I have any number of record/CD pairs which demonstrate it. However, rather than take sides and eliminate half the great music out there, I am happy to play both formats all day long.
+1
anthonyTD
24-12-2013, 15:41
No, in fact,the experience only serves to reinforce the point of my ramblings above, ie; Analog when done right can still excel on at least an equal footing as even the best digital sources available to date...and in certain areas even surpass it.
Indeed. Anthony, you've heard my T/T in your (rather excellent) system, where a very capable CD player resides. Would you say that the music you heard reproduced by the Techy that day, playing vinyl, lost out in any area to that reproduced by your Eikos, playing CD?
Marco.
I've just been over to the Harbeth site to read the thread on how Vinyl is such rubbish:)
If the technical specs say that digits are so superior, I do wonder how a TT comes so close at all. The Harbeth guy says its all about noise injected into the vinyl process.
First of all, much as I respect Alan Shaw as a designer and enjoy the superb speakers produced by his company, he is rather a 'digital fanboy', as well as somewhat of a 'measurements first'/objectivist type of chap, and he instils those traits in his customers, who are often of a similar persuasion. Therefore, if one is looking to read both a knowledgeable and unbiased discussion on the merits of digital vs. analogue, the Harbeth site would not be my first port of call... ;)
The problem with looking solely at the technical specs, or so-called 'facts', is that it ignores not only our human limitations in audibility, especially with advancing age, in reference to the arguable benefits of reproducing recorded music with the highest possible resolution, not to mention what we can genuinely hear when enjoying vinyl replay at its best, but currently don't fully understand with the measurements we're able to make - it also conveniently ignores the fact that digital replay itself, despite the specs, is far from being sonically 'perfect'.
The reality is, it merely introduces a different type of distortion to that of vinyl replay, so we are left with simply chosing our 'favoured flavour' of coloration, some of which may not be measurable on the test apparatus currently available to us.
Therefore, and I've said this many times before, when you reach the stage of owning comparably top-notch digital and analogue sources, there is little that separates their sound, other than the studio mastering techniques used to create the recordings both reproduce, and so at the end of the day, one is simply left enjoying two versions of musical excellence, separated only by individual listener preference.
Marco.
Therefore, and I've said this many times before, when you reach the stage of owning comparably top-notch digital and analogue sources, there is little that separates their sound, other than the studio mastering techniques used to create the recordings both reproduce, and so at the end of the day, one is simply left enjoying two versions of musical excellence, separated only by individual listener preference.
Marco.
I agree.
But the one thing I could never live with is classical music and vinyl. For quiet classical passages, no vinyl replay on earth is IMHO satisfactory. Fortunately I am not a fan:)
People tend to take the human being out of the equation when discussing digital v analogue.
Our brains are programmed to make natural sense out of the noise that hits us every second of the day. So much so that we see faces appear out of random marks and lines on a wall or see curved lines on trompe l'oeil pictures where we EXPECT to see them when in fact all lines are straight, or we see 3D pictures where in fact it is just a two-dimensional chalk drawing on the pavement. More often, no matter how hard we try to see the reality (the two-dimensional drawing with converging lines for example) we can't, we can only see the expected interpretation from our brains.
And so it is exactly the same for sound.
Imagine two systems, one digital and one analogue, that could be said to be inaccurate to the very same degree yet in their inherently different ways.
I would contend that the analogue system's deviations from the truth are such that the brain can still find natural patterns within those errors and, just like being unable to 'un-see' the 3D picture drawn on the pavement, so the listener will be unable to differentiate those errors from an internal interpretation of reality of the whole.
Digital on the other hand can make some quite unnatural errors and so the brain can't fit those into a natural interpretation of the world around it - therefore they can stand out and make you feel a little disconnected from the sonic event (because you're brain is constantly telling you that some of it is not real). Just the noise from such high frequency chips and feedback loops in most digital systems can cause completely unnatural distortions, nothing to do with digitisation itself.
I think analogue can suffer from many magnitudes of being incorrect compared to digital yet still represent a more coherent illusion of reality in the mind of the listener.
In the big scheme of things should designers bother to turn the errors created by a digital device into errors more palatable or should one try to eradicate the errors completely? I reckon it's better to get rid of them completely - making digital sound like vinyl doesn't necessarily make the sound more accurate (it might, but probably just masking the problems instead).
For the user at home though, I think it is fair enough to try to make things as pleasing and enjoyable as possible for now and leave accuracy for some future aspiration.
Good post, Nat. However...
I think analogue can suffer from many magnitudes of being incorrect compared to digital yet still represent a more coherent illusion of reality in the mind of the listener.
If such 'magnitudes of incorrectness' were true, in an audible sonic sense, I think I'd have heard it by now, especially as I'm exposed to listening to both analogue and digital music reproduction at its best every day, in a very revealing system, through the ownership and replaying of many thousands of CDs and LPs, containing a multitude of different types of music and quality of recordings! ;)
Marco.
. . . one is simply left enjoying two versions of musical excellence, separated only by individual listener preference.
There's a lot amongst the numerous posts here that I don't personally agree with, but this I do and to me it's the crux of it http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/greatgig/thumbsup.gif (http://s173.photobucket.com/user/greatgig/media/thumbsup.gif.html)
:goodthread: as well.
Ali Tait
24-12-2013, 17:39
Good post, Nat. However...
If such 'magnitudes of incorrectness' were true, in an audible sonic sense, I think I'd have heard it by now, especially as I'm exposed to listening to both analogue and digital music reproduction at its best every day, in a very revealing system, through the ownership and replaying of many thousands of CDs and LPs, containing a multitude of different types of music and quality of recordings! ;)
Marco.
I recall Nick saying that vinyl replay is broken, but it's broken in a way we like. I think there is something in this, after all, many love their valve amps which often measure poorly compared to a lot of SS amps. Nat's explanation is an interesting way of looking at it, I think there may well be something in what he says.
Sure, Ali. He may have a point, but I think there's more to it than that, especially with what I consider to be the biggest misconception of all, which is the notion that 'digital is perfect'.
It almost certainly isn't, despite what the spec says, which means that most comparisons between it and analogue replay, at its best, are fundamentally flawed.
Marco.
Ali Tait
24-12-2013, 18:00
Nope, agreed, neither is perfect, however, like Nat, I'm interested in why many prefer vinyl playback, and his explanation is an interesting one.
Mark Grant
24-12-2013, 18:13
Very interesting topic and quite relevant to my current seeking a less digital or better digital sound.
The main reason why I only have a dac and not even a cdp is that I used to spend. A lot of money trying albums only to like one or two songs and that was it, so the album would get shelved along with many many others never to get listened to again. I have found sites like Spotify to have opened up a whole world of bloody fantastic music that has re ignited my love for music and Hifi. If I only had a cdp or a tt I would still be frustrated with buying mediocre albums
Spotify is good isn't it, you hear some music on an advert or a TV program that you brings back memories from years ago and then you find the album within a few seconds of searching and enjoy it.
If you've not tried it yet have a look at http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/applications , the 'hi-fi' option streams flacs :)
worth a free trial over the Christmas holidays.
(Watch your internet usage though if you don't have unlimited data allowance.)
Gordon Steadman
24-12-2013, 18:14
Nope, agreed, neither is perfect, however, like Nat, I'm interested in why many prefer vinyl playback, and his explanation is an interesting one.
Indeed. He said what I was trying to say in a very simple way, earlier.
Sovereign
24-12-2013, 19:39
Spotify is good isn't it, you hear some music on an advert or a TV program that you brings back memories from years ago and then you find the album within a few seconds of searching and enjoy it.
If you've not tried it yet have a look at http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/applications , the 'hi-fi' option streams flacs :)
worth a free trial over the Christmas holidays.
(Watch your internet usage though if you don't have unlimited data allowance.)
Fantastic, thanks for the heads up Mark
Stratmangler
24-12-2013, 21:52
Nope, agreed, neither is perfect, however, like Nat, I'm interested in why many prefer vinyl playback, and his explanation is an interesting one.
My son prefers the sound from vinyl.
In his words "it sounds more realistic".
And his ears aren't f**cked from years of abuse, unlike mine.
Although my streaming setup sounds great, I prefer to play the vinyl of a recording if I have it, with very few exceptions.
I own a good valve DAC, which I enjoy, and a good turntable which I enjoy better. Looking at it objectively, I'm buggered if I know why I like the turntable more, but I just do.
Simple as that.
Hal55
My son prefers the sound from vinyl.
In his words "it sounds more realistic".
Comments like that from a youngster who loves music, and has been exposed to the sound of an excellent system for years, using both digital and vinyl sources, not to mention the sound of real instruments, when listening to his father playing the guitar, should not be ignored.
Marco.
Put on some scratched vinyl on a 1210 sitting on a bouncy tresel table with a stanton cart and tracking weight dialed up to about 4g and plug that into a relatively cheap DJ mixer/photo stage, drop the needle, hear a load of rumble, a load of crackle and.... There are aspects of the sound that do sound more realistic than if you were to play a CD on a cheap player and that CD will probably sound un-involving and a bit lifeless.. (loosing the human culture/psychological qualities that make you feel energy and some vibrancy within yourself).
Don't know technically what it is with vinyl but it certainly has aspects of the sound which connect more with the human brain and emotion, even when the sound is far far from accurate. There's even a particular sense that something exciting is going to happen when you do hear that loud rumble and crackle on a scratched up 7" - your emotions are primed even for the POOR sound!
When it kicks in you're expecting it too - suddenly start a CD with no rumble and scratch warning beforehand and everyone jumps and will probably shout to turn it down after people's thought processes catch up with the negative feeling of fright and anxiety they were suddenly injected with ..
Essentially the workings of digital come from a quite cerebral reconstruction of sound and all it's technical aspects. Most analogue systems come from starting points of natural phenomena which already make natural sounds on their own even without humans hijacking them to replay particular sounds.
Yet I would still go with an idealism that says digital should not stray from a goal of truthful reproduction and throw it all to the wind just in order to please people - unless of course you are trying to run a business selling products that please people!
As time moves onward, I think digital will get to a truer representation of the recorded event (if we're not there already?) than analogue whilst analogue will continue also to suffer its many inconveniences like set-up and quality of media over time (think of the vast amounts spent on mint condition, first pressings! ) etc.
Out of interest, how do things like VTA and azimuth set up and tracking distortion etc effect people's feelings or sense realism when they are adjusted? What have been people's feelings about realism from their decks as they've perhaps moved from a 9" arm to a 12" arm and the lowering of distortion? Did they feel the sound was unrealistic on the 9" and suddenly realistic on the 12? Or did they feel it was still realistic on the 9" but it got more so on the 12? And the same when moving to a parallel tracker? With a pivot arm, does vinyl start off unrealistic, get more realistic in the linear zone and less realistic toward the end of a side? What have been people's feelings towards the replay when going through these equipment changes?
Despite the magnitudes of difference in distortion levels caused by the differences in arm types and setup adjustments, it never seems that these kinds of distortion effects prevent the brain from interpreting the sound as a relatively realistic event (in other words, enjoying vinyl more) - i.e. perhaps this kind of distortion is quite common in nature too and is something our brains are designed to tune out and ignore naturally.
Oddly perhaps, in my experience, field recordings (sounds of the environment, not music) loose quite a lot because of the noise you can get on analogue formats. The very best and realistic field recordings I've heard have been digital. That could be a consequence of equipment suitability in the field and also that no-one ever gets modern field recordings pressed to vinyl. Might have to transfer some to reel 2 reel and see what difference it makes.
Don't know technically what it is with vinyl but it certainly has aspects of the sound which connect more with the human brain and emotion, even when the sound is far far from accurate.
Let me re-phrase that for you . . .
"but it certainly has aspects of the sound which connect more with the some human brains"
You are commenting on a minuscule portion of society, not a majority and this is backed up by total sales figures which are easily found via Google and have been published here previously, from the Nielson music industry reports. I also totally disagree with that statement.
I absolutely get and understand that for a lot of music lovers, vinyl is the only thing that they can really relate to and nothing else quite compares, but to suggest the above is perhaps stretching it a little far ;)
I think we talking about preferences Its great to be in a place where you can enjoy both
Digital is my main source of playback as most of my music is on this medium. As far as sound I have a slight preference for vinyl but not enough for it to get in the way of my enjoyment of digital in the past I could not always say that.
I do think digital has come along way in the last few years and its biggest change is that you no longer have to pay crazy prices to get top notch sounds
As long as the music sounds good, I don't care what the source is and have no real preferences. The one thing that did annoy me was spinning up a new album the other day and having terrible static making it unlistenable, one of the real nuisance issues with LPs. Following a clean, I was looking for my anti-static record sleeves only to find the second annoying thing....some kind soul who'd been in for an audition the other day must have accidentally lifted all 50 anti-static sleeves on their way out :doh:
Audioman
26-12-2013, 10:25
Obviously had too much of the Christmas spirit (or not). Bet he didn't spend any money or you will see him again! Static is a problem with new vinyl especially from certain pressing plants. I have found Pallas to be the worst and most of their records need a run on the RCM before playing as they immediately attract lots of dust. I do think the many inconveniences of analogue lp are worth it as ultimately I don't think currently digital can beat it for listening enjoyment.
Can't see that digital can ever be more accurate. Music (if you exclude modern digital synths or computer generated sounds) is analogue. The way we hear the final reproduction through speakers is from analogue soundwaves. Converting sound waves to 1's and 0's and then back again has to introduce some digital artifacts and even alter the presentation even with the latest high res conversion throughout the chain.
Paul.
StanleyB
26-12-2013, 10:53
There is an interesting and related article on the Guardian website to read:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/26/how-i-taught-my-son-to-love-vinyl
Can't see that digital can ever be more accurate. Music (if you exclude modern digital synths or computer generated sounds) is analogue. The way we hear the final reproduction through speakers is from analogue soundwaves. Converting sound waves to 1's and 0's and then back again has to introduce some digital artifacts and alter the presentation even with the latest high res conversion throughout the chain.
Yup, and that's most probably where I hear the artifice/distortion (often referred to as 'digital glare'), present to some extent on every digital source component I've heard to date, and why, IME, digitally recorded music is most certainly not sonically 'perfect'.
It is merely inherent with a different form of coloration to that of its vinyl counterpart, so just choose whatever your ears like most - simples! Anyway, let's forget about all that, and instead watch a master at work:
PpidqcG7sSo
:youtheman: :youtheman:
"Oomph" is one of the things you certainly get when listening to a well-produced 12" single, creating a quite phenomenally visceral sound that, so far, I've yet to hear from any digital source or digitally recorded music.
Marco.
The fact is, if you eliminate either records or digital from your listening pleasure, you limit your available music for no good reason. This should not be an argument for one or the other formats, but an argument for getting the best that you possibly can from both.
The fact is, if you eliminate either records or digital from your listening pleasure, you limit your available music for no good reason.
Yup!
For me, no true music lover restricts himself or herself to using one format, as to do so simultaneously restricts the amount of music available for one to enjoy :)
Therefore, a system belonging to the most dedicated music lover generally contains more than one type of source component, and thus their music collection features as many 'plastic frisbees' or files, as slabs of vinyl (and perhaps experiences of listening to radio broadcasts of live music, via the use of a quality tuner, too...!) ;)
Marco.
Yup, and that's most probably where I hear the artifice/distortion (often referred to as 'digital glare'), present to some extent on every digital source component I've heard to date, and why, IME, digitally recorded music is most certainly not sonically 'perfect'.
It is merely inherent with a different form of coloration to that of its vinyl counterpart, so just choose whatever your ears like most - simples! Anyway, let's forget about all that, and instead watch a master at work:
PpidqcG7sSo
:youtheman: :youtheman:
"Oomph" is one of the things you certainly get when listening to a well-produced 12" single, creating a quite phenomenally visceral sound that, so far, I've yet to hear from any digital source or digitally recorded music.
Marco.
Yeah I always used to reckon that 12 inch 45s shat on any digital offerings. I'm not so convinced now. Nor am I on the digital glare issue. I reckon the Lamp DAC I got recently kills it stone dead.
The convergence between the two formats is getting much better than it was - WITH THE RIGHT DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE SOURCES i.e. they can be extremely close to each other, noise issues and wanky mastering aside.
Just different experiences, dude. Both are valid :)
Marco.
Just different experiences, dude. Both are valid :)
Marco.
Yeah there's no point in getting upset about differing subjective experiences and opinions.;)
Besides, you can knock up an outstanding system to my ears so all credit due there:)
When my new speakers turn up you're welcome to pop round and get a blast when you have the time. I reckon you'd enjoy it.
Yeah there's no point in getting upset about differing subjective experiences and opinions.;)
Besides, you can knock up an outstanding system to my ears so all credit due there:)
When my new speakers turn up you're welcome to pop round and get a blast when you have the time. I reckon you'd enjoy it.
Cheers, Justin. I may just take you up on that, as Bristol isn't so far away. What speakers are you getting?
Also, where have you heard a system I've knocked up - Scalford? :)
Marco.
Yeah the Ditton 66/Techie/Nagra/Tube Distinctions jobbie. Excellent IMHO.
Just very revised/uprated Duettas. But the ones I have now are very listenable. Some dude is coming round from London this Sunday for a sess. I'll PM you.
Magna Audio
26-12-2013, 16:06
My experiences may interest some. Sorry it's a bit of a long one.
When I had a mid fi system say Rega P3 RB250 arm and AT 33PTG, Dynavector phono stage, a good Push Pull valve amp and say the ProAc D25 speakers I thought the vinyl set up surpassed the CD set up I had by some margin. CD was a transport and Beresford DAC or Copland CD 823 I think it was - their flagship CDP anyway.
I then got a 2nd hand DPA enlightenment DAC and that was a lift. Things were nearer or even a little in CD favour.
I then played with arms, carts decks and speakers a lot.
On a system with a SP-10 Royal N or Silver Meister cart and a range of suitable arms it was pretty much neck and neck. Same amp, speakers became 15" Tannoy GRF's.
I then created a 2/3/4/5 way front loaded horn system over a couple of years.
The later incarnations got better and better. Going tractrix had a good effect on rightness of sound, as did getting really good compression drivers.
The distortion free dynamics of the horns across the entire freq range just wowed me.
I was making a passive crossover system work ok with active room correction on the sub channels but DSP X/O was calling to me.
I bit the bullet on what looked to be a really good DIYaudio forum solution (WAF Najda) that required a DIY'ing and a bit of figuring out.
I had no idea if it would compete with the passives.
The first thing I did was just run the TT though it ACD with no DSP X/O and into the amps and passives etc as before. Could I hear it's impact? Well no actually!
Then I started to introduce its capabilities:
Control of the bass (using steeper slopes where they sounded good), and room correction on the sub and mid bass channel really help get the sound I was after.
Making it more alive and realistic rather than the other way around.
Time alignment for all 5 channels...
At this point I was leaning towards enjoying CD's more?! Somehow what was on offer suited the sound I wanted more.
The DSP X/O is an ADC / DAC / pre. I had ceased to use the DPA enlightenment dac - There was really nothing to choose between the two.
I then got my ultimate upper mid compression drivers (Vitavox S2's that I had refurbed by Mike at Vitavox). These play such a big role in the sound at a critical freq range, getting them right is crucial.
I found these to sound best on a simple 1st order passive X/O - A 3uF cap! I would probably never have come to that conclusion myself - the internet and other enthusiasts are a wonderful source of inspiration and knowledge.
So I have a hybrid DSP / passive X/O solution making the most of what each offers.
For some reason I was still favouring CD...
I completed my TT desire with a Fidelity Research FR64s arm which came with a beast of a headshell and this made the Royal N sing like never before!
Hmm, still favouring CD - Grrrr:)
I then put Silver wire all the way from SUT to phonostage, as well as cart / arm / to SUT and things started to even up.
Now I am pretty much where Marco is. It is down to how it's recorded / mastered, how I am feeling / what mood I'm in.
I must say 12" singles can sound very good indeed but then so can some CD's. Even some Spotify 320kbit streams can wow.
I too would say that my system is extremely revealing but right sounding. Quality compression drivers with the right X/O's, amps, horns really do let it out.
The worrying thing is that the DIY DSP X/O cost £££'s. The TT all up cost ££££'s but I think its a physical experience and something of community to belong to so both will stay.
mr sneff
26-12-2013, 16:20
Music (if you exclude modern digital synths or computer generated sounds) is analogue.
Not really, music is moving air perceived as sound. Vinyl is an analogue representation of this, digital is, well, a digital representation of this :) The actual is neither, the representation can be either. Interestingly, when the sound reaches the eardrum and changes in pressure are converted to nerve impulses, as I understand it a neuron either fires or doesn't i.e it's on or off. So perhaps you could say that hearing is digital?
ATEOTD vinyl rules. no digital can ever sound as good, if someone feels the need to spend 50-100k on that DCs stuff
and convince themselves it sounds analogue then good on them, I WOULD RATHER PAY MY MORTGAGE OFF tbh!
My experiences may interest some. Sorry it's a bit of a long one.
When I had a mid fi system say Rega P3 RB250 arm and AT 33PTG, Dynavector phono stage, a good Push Pull valve amp and say the ProAc D25 speakers I thought the vinyl set up surpassed the CD set up I had by some margin. CD was a transport and Beresford DAC or Copland CD 823 I think it was - their flagship CDP anyway.
I then got a 2nd hand DPA enlightenment DAC and that was a lift. Things were nearer or even a little in CD favour.
I then played with arms, carts decks and speakers a lot.
On a system with a SP-10 Royal N or Silver Meister cart and a range of suitable arms it was pretty much neck and neck. Same amp, speakers became 15" Tannoy GRF's.
I then created a 2/3/4/5 way front loaded horn system over a couple of years.
The later incarnations got better and better. Going tractrix had a good effect on rightness of sound, as did getting really good compression drivers.
The distortion free dynamics of the horns across the entire freq range just wowed me.
I was making a passive crossover system work ok with active room correction on the sub channels but DSP X/O was calling to me.
I bit the bullet on what looked to be a really good DIYaudio forum solution (WAF Najda) that required a DIY'ing and a bit of figuring out.
I had no idea if it would compete with the passives.
The first thing I did was just run the TT though it ACD with no DSP X/O and into the amps and passives etc as before. Could I hear it's impact? Well no actually!
Then I started to introduce its capabilities:
Control of the bass (using steeper slopes where they sounded good), and room correction on the sub and mid bass channel really help get the sound I was after.
Making it more alive and realistic rather than the other way around.
Time alignment for all 5 channels...
At this point I was leaning towards enjoying CD's more?! Somehow what was on offer suited the sound I wanted more.
The DSP X/O is an ADC / DAC / pre. I had ceased to use the DPA enlightenment dac - There was really nothing to choose between the two.
I then got my ultimate upper mid compression drivers (Vitavox S2's that I had refurbed by Mike at Vitavox). These play such a big role in the sound at a critical freq range, getting them right is crucial.
I found these to sound best on a simple 1st order passive X/O - A 3uF cap! I would probably never have come to that conclusion myself - the internet and other enthusiasts are a wonderful source of inspiration and knowledge.
So I have a hybrid DSP / passive X/O solution making the most of what each offers.
For some reason I was still favouring CD...
I completed my TT desire with a Fidelity Research FR64s arm which came with a beast of a headshell and this made the Royal N sing like never before!
Hmm, still favouring CD - Grrrr:)
I then put Silver wire all the way from SUT to phonostage, as well as cart / arm / to SUT and things started to even up.
Now I am pretty much where Marco is. It is down to how it's recorded / mastered, how I am feeling / what mood I'm in.
I must say 12" singles can sound very good indeed but then so can some CD's. Even some Spotify 320kbit streams can wow.
I too would say that my system is extremely revealing but right sounding. Quality compression drivers with the right X/O's, amps, horns really do let it out.
The worrying thing is that the DIY DSP X/O cost £££'s. The TT all up cost ££££'s but I think its a physical experience and something of community to belong to so both will stay.
yes mood has a lot to do with it steve, if I am pished like I am now, I would never dream of putting vinyl on for fear of knackering doms new cartridge which I just installed...hic! :lol:
if someone feels the need to spend 50-100k on that DCs stuff
and convince themselves it sounds analogue then good on them, I WOULD RATHER PAY MY MORTGAGE OFF tbh!
'Mortgage' - wossat, then? :scratch:
Marco.
'Mortgage' - wossat, then? :scratch:
Marco.
maybe you not got one then if so you must be minted
Like most gentry, David - asset rich, but cash poor! ;)
Marco.
Can't see that digital can ever be more accurate. Music (if you exclude modern digital synths or computer generated sounds) is analogue. The way we hear the final reproduction through speakers is from analogue soundwaves. Converting sound waves to 1's and 0's and then back again has to introduce some digital artifacts and even alter the presentation even with the latest high res conversion throughout the chain.
Paul.
"Modern Digital synths"? 30 years old isn't particularly modern. Synths with digital waveforms as the basis of sounds have been in common use in music since about '79.
The Fairlight pads in music such as Kate Bush are absolutely gorgeous and lush and very very analogue (using "analogue" in the sense that describes a kind of organic sound). Hounds of Love, which as some good ones in, was recorded onto 2" tape. If there was digital glare from the digital equipment then were is it? If one believes that digital always has artifacts then one can only conclude that the subsequent recording to tape was in some way inaccurate and could not convey those subtleties of the digital artifacts - i.e. it coloured the sound. Or maybe there never was any ?
I recall Marco extolling the virtues of the Windham Hill label on vinyl - I have some and they are very good (can find them pretty cheap in Japan by the way, fiver each odd and in mint condition). Read the back and it will tell how the recording was made direct to the recorder - a Sony 1630 16 bit early 80s recorder. I can't hear any digital glare on the vinyl I have. So where is it? Is vinyl not accurate enough to convey the digital glare in all it's glory? Just maybe it isn't there...
99.9% of vinyl since the 90s at least goes through some digital processing in the pressing process. 99.99% of new music is recorded onto digital before being pressed onto vinyl.
So where are all the people complaining about the digital glare they hear from their turntables with a newly pressed 180g disc?
You have a few choices, some of which are: a) there is no digital glare from the outset, b) vinyl is not accurate enough to portray recorded digital glare, c) digital glare people experience is caused by the equipment in your home and is not inherent in digital per se, d) artifacts from vinyl distract the human mind away from digital artifacts (e.g. random noise)..
Can't see that digital can ever be more accurate. Music (if you exclude modern digital synths or computer generated sounds) is analogue. The way we hear the final reproduction through speakers is from analogue soundwaves. Converting sound waves to 1's and 0's and then back again has to introduce some digital artifacts and even alter the presentation even with the latest high res conversion throughout the chain.
Paul.
On the point of not seeing that digital can ever be more accurate:
I think that's is a problem mainly to do with thought processes, how you visualise how music and sound works. I don't say that in a critical way but a least one thing that doing a physics degree taught me was to learn to how to throw everything that you had had drummed into you for the last 18 years out the window as the new knowledge showed it all to be overly simplistic and inadequate to explain the world in detail. And do it again and again. Most people don't have to do that in their lives - just simply get their original thoughts confirmed over and over.
Vinyl has a definite, finite low-level quantisation associated with it just on a particle level of the VERY granular and lumpy vinyl. Do the maths with speed of the groove past the needle and you get a finite resolution. Some vinyl is better than others (especially versus recycled vinyl from 60s/70s/80s/90s ). That gives vinyl a certain digital-like resolution which is not particularly the smooth analogue niceness that you imagine. However, that granularity/quantisation is relatively random and so ends up making noise.
How does tape work? Are you really certain of how "analogue" magnetic tape works on a physical level? Analogue tape is about aligning the poles of the magnetic particles on the tape, either north pole up or down. Essentially that is digital.. Now, how does it work in reality? Are signal levels and frequencies recorded in continuously varing amounts of north up or down or is the signal made up of an average of all the ups verses all the downs and the varying amount of these digital states and densities of the digital states responsible for the signal?
I don't know ... but do you?
How well do cartridges work? What are the smallest movements the needle (and therefore coils) needs to make to portray the detail of the groove? Are they small enough that the forces within the suspension material come in to play? If there needs to be a certain amount of energy, of movement of the needle to overcome the resistance of the suspension in changing direction then that too becomes a quantisation process just like digital - imagine say something experiencing friction, you have to push a certain amount before it will move so the smallest detail portrayed is determined by overcoming this energy level first. I don't know about this either - just thinking out loud the possibilities.
Yet all that visualising and (mis-)understanding of the deeper physics behind different mediums means nothing. On a practical level, all we respond to are the ANALOGUE signals coming from the outputs of the device. To all intents and purposes these are definitely analogue .
Grooves in vinyl make no sound. Ferrous particle's magnetic states make no sound on thin tape. Ferrous particle's magnetic states on a disc platter make no sound, pits on a CD make no sound.
So we should forget all about all that! The ONLY thing we listen to from our hifi are the electronics - even vinyl that could be listened to directly is not designed with that in mind, only to be played via electronics (a diaphragm driven direct via needle DOES sound awful...).
Right before we get to the sound making part, the signal is processed by probably the least accurate part of a signal chain - the speakers! These electro-magnetic filters (with the associated cross-overs too) show the highest distortion figures of any equipment that we use. The inertia of the cone and electro-magnetic inertia is far more than any of the digital factors, the quantisation of any digitally reproduced signal - the speakers assert a PURELY analogue pressure wave on the air which reaches our ears (purely analogue within the range of our hearing).
Personally, I think the digital problems people hear as glare (boring, dull, non-spacious sound is probably poor signal processing/mastering) is not a digital artifact related to the digital process but instead a practical interaction of the replay equipment with everything else in the chain - there are lots of very high speed chips in digital, laser servo feedback loops in CD players. Due to the mathematics of digital filters etc there are errors like ringing produced which are far beyond our hearing and often far beyond the response limits of our speakers, especially with oversampling/upsampling - but it could be interacting with electronics down the chain (again, it's the electronics fault, not the digital process). Maybe that's why people love valve output stages so much?
I've had a pre-amp before which had some kind of power supply problem causing subtle distortion - had the same effect on my listening as a very cheap CD player with the same fatigue and quite boring sound. I got it fixed..
(Sorry Paul for picking your post out twice - just was a good starting point for what I was thinking.. :cool: )
You have a few choices, some of which are: a) there is no digital glare from the outset, b) vinyl is not accurate enough to portray recorded digital glare, c) digital glare people experience is caused by the equipment in your home and is not inherent in digital per se, d) artifacts from vinyl distract the human mind away from digital artifacts (e.g. random noise)..
I agree. For my own (amateur) recordings which started with a mono valve reel-to-reel in the early 60s and improved steadily (in terms of the output being increasingly close to the input) until I stopped a while ago. There is no doubt in my experience a digital recorder produces an output audibly identical to the input on the equivalent on on/off tape monitoring. I don't get any more harshness or glare with digital than analogue. Any glare I ever got was due to using harsh microphones. A tape recorder masks this, in as much as the off tape sound is nicer than the direct, so in this case the loss of information is beneficial to the subjective sound.
So, if anything, digital taught me to use better microphones.
Professionally my recordings were of data, initially for noise and vibration research later on Formula 1 racing cars. No analogue recorder small enough to go on a F1 car was accurate enough to be useful. The recorders I used in N&V research were the size of a large suitcase and were a 2 man lift!
Digital recorders can be made small enough for the car, are robust and extremely accurate.
LPs can never sound like CDs anyway. The limit in HF energy is probably not noticeable by somebody of my age, but the mono bass certainly is, and LPs have to have it and nobody in their right mind would make a CD with mono bass (except for testing, I suppose).
I think the reduced HF peaks on LP are a boon to modest tweeters, and the mono bass is a boon to lower powered amps and modest speakers.
I would expect LP may well sound better on such a system, but as others have said as one goes up market the sound does converge somewhat, but however nice it sounds an LP will never have stereo bass or unrestricted HF energy of CD (for better or worse).
I enjoy my LPs and am not obsessive about surface noise since I have been listening through it for decades but I don't buy many any more.
Hi Frank,
Merry Christmas! I hope you are well :)
LPs can never sound like CDs anyway.
Well, that's certainly not my experience, in a very revealing system where I enjoy the best of analogue and digital sound every day. Like I said before, often until I check what is playing, a CD or an LP, I forget which it is I'm listening to! Therefore, how could that happen if, like you say, "LPs can never sound like CDs"? :scratch:
I appreciate the technical argument, but as is often the case in audio, measurements don't tell the full story - and there appears to be a little more to this one than is explained by our current technical understanding. You may also wish to read my signature (emboldened in blue) ;)
Marco.
These days my systems sound similar it took me awhile to get their
You have a few choices, some of which are: a) there is no digital glare from the outset, b) vinyl is not accurate enough to portray recorded digital glare, c) digital glare people experience is caused by the equipment in your home and is not inherent in digital per se, d) artifacts from vinyl distract the human mind away from digital artifacts (e.g. random noise)..
Or...the glare (or at least the majority of it) is removed by the vinyl replay process - and not because it's not accurate enough to reveal it, but rather that it can't impart any, as none is inherent in its 'DNA'.
It's no accident, I feel, that some of the best digital recordings I own are those I've 'digitised' from vinyl, reproduced on my T/T, which sound markedly superior to the same music produced commercially (in an all-digital format) today on CD, reproduced via my CDP.
Here I would also cite the fact that some of the best sounding CDs in my collection (with the least amount of audible 'glare') are those from the late 80s, which are marked as 'AAD' - and of course we all know what process was used to produce those ;)
Marco.
I have "Avalon" on SACD, which I enjoy very much, buy have just acquired the "Ultimate Collection" of Roxy Music on vinyl, playing it for the first time yesterday. Happy to declare, in my system, vinyl the winner. More "palpable" in a way that made digital sound like a stripped down version. Not saying I dislike digital, I've been having great fun playing the Leonard Cohen live in London DVD and love my DAC, but my SP10 is just plain better.
If I had a mega dollar DAC then the result might be different, I'd love to have a Weiss in my system, but I'll have to leave that for another day when I join the ranks of the gentry afer my wife wins lotto!
Hal55
WOStantonCS100
26-12-2013, 23:29
Digital is just a numeric representation (more approximation) of an analog waveform; so, "digital" really doesn't have a sound. Digital is supposed to sound no more or no less like the original analog waveform. We all know that right? :scratch:
So, I can only assume that the original question is one of playback gear sounding as close to the master tape as possible, or at least, which playback gear "renders" recordings more in keeping with the true timbre of instruments voices, so on. But, what's the point if one has never gone to an orchestral performance sans PA, sat in an empty performance hall with a grand piano and an excellent pianist, stood in close proximity to a vintage Marshall played by a kick-butt guitarist, etc. etc...??? In my system, vinyl replay and 24/192 are very close; vinyl besting hi-res by about 5 to 10%. I can happily live with either. What I can't live with, other than for portability and convenience, are CDs. (mp3s & compressed audio... ...fuggedaboutit!!) Good mastering, upsampling, no oversampling, analog filtering, digital filtering, tube buffering... just doesn't matter. They only sound "great" if one never compares it to the master tape, a great vinyl rig or hi res. Anyone can be a star in a vacuum or when compared to someone's raggedy poorly kept record. Once one does the comparison, CD poops the bed. There's just not enough musical info, spacial cues, etc. included in the digits to best my vinyl, tape and hi-res which literally wipes the floor with it and pees down it's neck after ripping it's head off. :chainsaw: :D :lol: That's a done deal for me. Well, now that I've ticked off the CD guys... :rfl: Sometimes, I just prefer to go the route of brutal honesty.
:cheers:
Well this has become one of those which is better threads and that was not the intention. Of course we will have our preference but that was not the point of the thread.
surprised to see some people still expressing the view that vinyl is technically superior. Just cause you prefer vinyl that doesnt make it the technically superior format.
if you do pref vinyl do you attempt to make your digital source sound like vinyl?
Not been able to contribute until now as so hard to type long replies on a phone but have just got hold of one of those tablet thingies :)
WOStantonCS100
27-12-2013, 01:44
Just taking the piss, really. ;)
Honestly, at 24 or 32/384 I am certain digital will trump analog in terms of recording and playback. But, if it's not packaged as lovely as or pleases my soul as much as my analog sources I doubt I'll care. :)
To better answer the question, I don't bother trying to make one sound like the other. I honestly don't know how I would realistically accomplish that unless, as metioned, I ran all my analog sources through an extra and unnecessary step of A/D/A or recorded all my CDs to tape before playing them back. That all seems pointless. Rather my goal, as many others, have pointed out would be to have each impart as little of it's own "sonic signature" as possible.
I will say that some folks seem to believe that's impossible with vinyl. My system begs to differ. The setup I used (mostly the ruby cantilever, nude contour line stylus, linear tracking air bearing arm and modded Techy, etc. etc.) defy those who would claim vinyl is all warm and nice and rounded off. Not so. Timbral accuracy is amazing. (I speak as a musician who is intimately familiar with how instruments, everything from a French horn to a screaming Les Paul/Marshall to how a drum stick sounds on different parts of a ride cymbal, sound in the natural world.) My reel to reel with the best tape (ATR or RMGI SM911) is also great. I have to (and do) go way up the ladder to approach the same "realness" digitally. It 'tis what it 'tis.
Its not about digital to sound more like vinyl or vinyl more like digital its about getting the best out of both formats
What happens is that analogue with a top notch TT has very strong bass and is not warm. Digital losses that harsh edge which some us find fatiguing
Audioman
27-12-2013, 07:37
"Modern Digital synths"? 30 years old isn't particularly modern. Synths with digital waveforms as the basis of sounds have been in common use in music since about '79.
The Fairlight pads in music such as Kate Bush are absolutely gorgeous and lush and very very analogue (using "analogue" in the sense that describes a kind of organic sound). Hounds of Love, which as some good ones in, was recorded onto 2" tape. If there was digital glare from the digital equipment then were is it? If one believes that digital always has artifacts then one can only conclude that the subsequent recording to tape was in some way inaccurate and could not convey those subtleties of the digital artifacts - i.e. it coloured the sound. Or maybe there never was any ?
I recall Marco extolling the virtues of the Windham Hill label on vinyl - I have some and they are very good (can find them pretty cheap in Japan by the way, fiver each odd and in mint condition). Read the back and it will tell how the recording was made direct to the recorder - a Sony 1630 16 bit early 80s recorder. I can't hear any digital glare on the vinyl I have. So where is it? Is vinyl not accurate enough to convey the digital glare in all it's glory? Just maybe it isn't there...
99.9% of vinyl since the 90s at least goes through some digital processing in the pressing process. 99.99% of new music is recorded onto digital before being pressed onto vinyl.
So where are all the people complaining about the digital glare they hear from their turntables with a newly pressed 180g disc?
You have a few choices, some of which are: a) there is no digital glare from the outset, b) vinyl is not accurate enough to portray recorded digital glare, c) digital glare people experience is caused by the equipment in your home and is not inherent in digital per se, d) artifacts from vinyl distract the human mind away from digital artifacts (e.g. random noise)..
Nat. I mentioned digital synths specifically as I am quite aware that the earlier models are analogue based. Exactly why musicians seek out the older analogue synths today - Goldfrapp among others. The digital glare thing is a bit of a mystery and may be more due to domestic replay equipment rather than the source. It is pretty much minimised with hi-res digital (even disc based). SACD (DSD) appears the most successful digital format in eliminating this effect. This would explain partly why digital vinyl sounds better. Also there is more of an analogue element added to the sound. Some engineers are transferring digital files to a an analogue tape machine before cutting a vinyl master as to their ears it improves the sound.
Even if 99.9% of current Lp's involve a digital stage 90% of the vinyl LPs I listen to are all analogue. Either because they are original vintage from 60s through the 80's or are audiophile issues that use analogue masters through an all analogue cutting chain. It's easy for the objectivists to quote specifications and measurements to 'prove' digital is better. The fact is listening does not correlate with the assertions made by the objectivists so there are other elements in sound reproduction that can't be measured at present.
Paul.
anthonyTD
27-12-2013, 09:40
Excellent post, and very thought provoking! :)
On the point of not seeing that digital can ever be more accurate:
I think that's is a problem mainly to do with thought processes, how you visualise how music and sound works. I don't say that in a critical way but a least one thing that doing a physics degree taught me was to learn to how to throw everything that you had had drummed into you for the last 18 years out the window as the new knowledge showed it all to be overly simplistic and inadequate to explain the world in detail. And do it again and again. Most people don't have to do that in their lives - just simply get their original thoughts confirmed over and over.
Vinyl has a definite, finite low-level quantisation associated with it just on a particle level of the VERY granular and lumpy vinyl. Do the maths with speed of the groove past the needle and you get a finite resolution. Some vinyl is better than others (especially versus recycled vinyl from 60s/70s/80s/90s ). That gives vinyl a certain digital-like resolution which is not particularly the smooth analogue niceness that you imagine. However, that granularity/quantisation is relatively random and so ends up making noise.
How does tape work? Are you really certain of how "analogue" magnetic tape works on a physical level? Analogue tape is about aligning the poles of the magnetic particles on the tape, either north pole up or down. Essentially that is digital.. Now, how does it work in reality? Are signal levels and frequencies recorded in continuously varing amounts of north up or down or is the signal made up of an average of all the ups verses all the downs and the varying amount of these digital states and densities of the digital states responsible for the signal?
I don't know ... but do you?
How well do cartridges work? What are the smallest movements the needle (and therefore coils) needs to make to portray the detail of the groove? Are they small enough that the forces within the suspension material come in to play? If there needs to be a certain amount of energy, of movement of the needle to overcome the resistance of the suspension in changing direction then that too becomes a quantisation process just like digital - imagine say something experiencing friction, you have to push a certain amount before it will move so the smallest detail portrayed is determined by overcoming this energy level first. I don't know about this either - just thinking out loud the possibilities.
Yet all that visualising and (mis-)understanding of the deeper physics behind different mediums means nothing. On a practical level, all we respond to are the ANALOGUE signals coming from the outputs of the device. To all intents and purposes these are definitely analogue .
Grooves in vinyl make no sound. Ferrous particle's magnetic states make no sound on thin tape. Ferrous particle's magnetic states on a disc platter make no sound, pits on a CD make no sound.
So we should forget all about all that! The ONLY thing we listen to from our hifi are the electronics - even vinyl that could be listened to directly is not designed with that in mind, only to be played via electronics (a diaphragm driven direct via needle DOES sound awful...).
Right before we get to the sound making part, the signal is processed by probably the least accurate part of a signal chain - the speakers! These electro-magnetic filters (with the associated cross-overs too) show the highest distortion figures of any equipment that we use. The inertia of the cone and electro-magnetic inertia is far more than any of the digital factors, the quantisation of any digitally reproduced signal - the speakers assert a PURELY analogue pressure wave on the air which reaches our ears (purely analogue within the range of our hearing).
Personally, I think the digital problems people hear as glare (boring, dull, non-spacious sound is probably poor signal processing/mastering) is not a digital artifact related to the digital process but instead a practical interaction of the replay equipment with everything else in the chain - there are lots of very high speed chips in digital, laser servo feedback loops in CD players. Due to the mathematics of digital filters etc there are errors like ringing produced which are far beyond our hearing and often far beyond the response limits of our speakers, especially with oversampling/upsampling - but it could be interacting with electronics down the chain (again, it's the electronics fault, not the digital process). Maybe that's why people love valve output stages so much?
I've had a pre-amp before which had some kind of power supply problem causing subtle distortion - had the same effect on my listening as a very cheap CD player with the same fatigue and quite boring sound. I got it fixed..
(Sorry Paul for picking your post out twice - just was a good starting point for what I was thinking.. :cool: )
The digital glare thing is a bit of a mystery and may be more due to domestic replay equipment rather than the source. It is pretty much minimised with hi-res digital (even disc based). SACD (DSD) appears the most successful digital format in eliminating this effect. This would explain partly why digital vinyl sounds better.
I think there is some truth in that. It is certainly the case, to my ears, that the best SACDs possess the least amount of 'digital glare', and consequently sound the most 'vinyl-like'. An excellent example of this is The Doors debut album, which Martin T owns on SACD. I sent him a digital rip ('needledrop') of the track 'The End', which on my 180g 45rpm vinyl re-master, takes up the whole of an album side, and sounds stunning.
After playing my vinyl rip on his system, comparing it with the (equally stunning sounding SACD version), he declared that both sounded near-identical. Therefore, I think that this backs up the point you've made and also my statement that, once one's vinyl set-up reaches a certain standard, there is little to separate its sonic performance from the best digital replay systems. It also calls into question somewhat Frank's claim that "LPs can never sound like CDs"!
Even if 99.9% of current Lp's involve a digital stage 90% of the vinyl LPs I listen to are all analogue. Either because they are original vintage from 60s through the 80's or are audiophile issues that use analogue masters through an all analogue cutting chain. It's easy for the objectivists to quote specifications and measurements to 'prove' digital is better. The fact is listening does not correlate with the assertions made by the objectivists so there are other elements in sound reproduction that can't be measured at present.
Spot on. The situation I'm in is also similar. Quite simply, the best recordings on vinyl I own are either late 50s early stereo recordings on the Capital label (of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc, or jazz, on Blue Note), where not only are they all-analogue, but also all-valve, from the mics used through to the mixing desks, or as you say, modern audiophile reissues which use analogue masters, through an all-analogue cutting chain, such as The Doors album I referred to earlier.
I've yet to hear a current LP (and I own plenty), where the recording process involves a digital stage, sound anywhere near as good (read as realistic/lifelike) as the above!
Marco.
anthonyTD
27-12-2013, 10:18
I made a point way back in this thread concerning the frequency response and bit rate of Digital playing a big part,for eg; i have hybrid albums ie; recorded on 16 bit, and 24 bit, and every time, the 24 bit versions sounds closer to what a lot of people class as analog, ie; much less fatiguing, and more natural, but with obvious improvements in frequency extensions at both ends of the spectrum.
Now whats interesting, is; when you look at the final part of the replay chain, you have the speaker, and given the limitations associated with even the best, how is it that our ear brain combination can still detect these changes when you take into account' as some have mentioned, the limitations of the following electronics, including the speakers.
Therefore, i am of the opinion that we' as humans have senses that are much more acute than we give ourselves credit for, which is why we should always encourage developments in technology, whilst still acknowledging the best accomplishments of the past.
A...
if you do pref vinyl do you attempt to make your digital source sound like vinyl?
Nope - no chance. It sounds how it sounds. I'm also no fan of adding cheap valve output stages to CDPs or DACs, as they simply act as a sticking plaster, 'nice-ifying' the sound in a way which isn't accurate.
However, in terms of my digital source sounding like vinyl, I guess it's no coincidence that the DAC I chose to use is based around good old multi-bit technology, featuring the use of the most 'analogue sounding' (but in the right way) chips known to man, TDA 1541s (in a heavily-modified circuit, using some of the best modern components), in order to achieve the best of both worlds, new and old... ;)
Perhaps that's one of the reasons why my vinyl and digital sources sound so close to each other?
Marco.
Therefore, i am of the opinion that we' as humans have senses that are much more acute than we give ourselves credit for, which is why we should always encourage developments in technology, whilst still acknowledging the best accomplishments of the past.
Spot on. Indeed, I've just said as much! :)
Marco.
I do prefer 24bit over 16bit but the main issue is the lack material that I want to buy on this format I find mp3 lacking in body compared to a standard WAV or FLAC file
I wonder about the cause of digital glare I think it might be a number of factors
Jitter
Second reflections
The actual mastering or engineering of the music
The bit rate of the file
?
anthonyTD
27-12-2013, 11:18
Indeed John,
Concerning other formats like SACD for instance, IMHO' it came out at least 5 years too late, by then, folk were already experimenting with MP3, and file based music, and its a real shame, i think to date there are only a couple of thousand albums available on SACD.:(
I do prefer 24bit over 16bit but the main issue is the lack material that I want to buy on this format I find mp3 lacking in body compared to a standard WAV or FLAC file
I wonder about the cause of digital glare I think it might be a number of factors
Jitter
Second reflections
The actual mastering or engineering of the music
The bit rate of the file
?
StanleyB
27-12-2013, 11:19
And what exactly is meant by digital glare:scratch:?
walpurgis
27-12-2013, 11:22
And what exactly is meant by digital glare:scratch:?
I think playing an early eighties pop CD on any player will give you that quite effectively Stan. As I'm sure you know. :)
anthonyTD
27-12-2013, 11:24
I often think of conventional 16 bit 44khz red book in comparison with 24 bit 96khz DVDA as saw blades, where 16 bit being the more course blade with less teeth per inch etc, both get the job done, but the end result in cut is much cleaner and more refined with the 24 bit.
A...
StanleyB
27-12-2013, 11:57
I think playing an early eighties pop CD on any player will give you that quite effectively Stan. As I'm sure you know. :)
I have a reasonable amount of 1st ever pressings of audio discs. I even use a number of them during R&D. But discs were made in several ways, by different companies, and with a varying degree of quality. But I can't think of any record or album offhand that sounded different between vinyl and CD, except in the dynamic range and ambience/soundstage/bloom (take your pick). Distortions and noise that I detected in the playback of vinyl, and that I had attributed to maybe a worn record groove or stylus, turned out to also exist in the CD version. A warmish sounding amp/speaker combination could hide or most of that distortion, but that's about it.
The difference in dynamic range between vinyl and CD is also not a fixed difference. It's only 12" and 7" records that have a larger dynamic range as far as I can tell. The 331/3" LP doesn't. Well none of mine has anyhow. I suspect that the reason for this is the fact that cutting engineers had to be careful with the groove width, which was far less on an LP compared to a single. With vinyl the engineers are limited by the maximum allowable groove width, whilst with CD they are limited by the maximum 2Vrms output level. The problem is that massive groove excursions are mainly due to bass frequencies, whilst massive CD output levels can be down to any frequency.
Hi Stan,
Hope your good lady and you had a great Christmas! :)
And what exactly is meant by digital glare?
To my ears, it translates as a 'glassy', 'hard-edged' quality, evidenced particularly in the vocal presence region, where the ears are at their most sensitive - and I can hear the effect very clearly, to some extent, in ALL digital sources I've heard to date, regardless of cost.
It is what I would essentially refer to as 'digital distortion', and why digitally reproduced music has its own form of coloration, which is different from that of its analogue counterpart. As to what exactly is causing this 'digital glare' (an effect which I consider as genuine), I'm not sure, although in that respect Nat has come up with some interesting ideas.
*However*, some may be blissfully unaware of what I'm describing, perhaps because they don't have a suitable high-quality vinyl or analogue source in their system, with which to use to compare the best analogue and digital recordings of the same music, as in my experience, that is when the effect of 'digital glare' is most readily identified - and really hits home!
:exactly:
Marco.
Its not about digital to sound more like vinyl or vinyl more like digital its about getting the best out of both formats
+1
StanleyB
27-12-2013, 12:42
Hi Stan,
Hope your good lady and you had a great Christmas! :)
Yes we did, and I hope you had a great one too. I am still busy inspecting the contents of some 15 year old Demerara rum bottles. Having been born in the Demerara region myself, I am partial to the local flavours ;).
To my ears, it translates as a 'glassy', 'hard-edged' quality, evidenced particularly in the vocal presence region, where the ears are at their most sensitive - and I can hear the effect very clearly, to some extent, in ALL digital sources I've heard to date, regardless of cost.
This is what I would essentially refer to as 'digital distortion', and why digitally reproduced music can be as coloured sounding as its analogue counterpart, but simply in a different way.
I can at least say that your ears and my ears are hearing the same thing. The hard-edged reproduction is partly down to the original A to D process, partly down to the bitrate, and partly down to the playback properties of the DAC. The hard-edged sound can be reduced to a certain extent at the DAC end, but It is not possible to eliminate it entirely.
I often think of conventional 16 bit 44khz red book in comparison with 24 bit 96khz SACD as saw blades, where 16 bit being the more course blade with less teeth per inch etc, both get the job done, but the end result in cut is much cleaner and more refined with the 24 bit.
Agreed, Anthony, except that you're describing DVD-A there. SACD is 1-bit 2.8MHz DSD format.
Yes we did, and I hope you had a great one too. I am still busy inspecting the contents of some 15 year old Demerara rum bottles. Having been born in the Demerara region myself, I am partial to the local flavours ;).
Hehehe... I like it :respect:
We had a great one, thanks. Lots of high-quality eating and drinking, and more than a few giggles, spent in excellent company! :cool:
I can at least say that your ears and my ears are hearing the same thing. The hard-edged reproduction is partly down to the original A to D process, partly down to the bitrate, and partly down to the playback properties of the DAC. The hard-edged sound can be reduced to a certain extent at the DAC end, but It is not possible to eliminate it entirely.
Then we are in agreement. It's also my consideration that some people's ears are more sensitive to the effect described than others, thus they are able to 'tune into it' more and assess how much (if at all) they find it irritating.
In essence, IME, digital sound has the tendency to sound rather too 'squeaky clean', in a way that is fundamentally unnatural.
Marco.
The other point worth noting, I feel, is that those whose ears are most 'offended' by the (undoubted) distortions created by vinyl replay, have a tendency, through the desire to eradicate such from their music listening, to be blinded to the sonic limitations and inherent distortions associated with digital replay, thus in the process inhabiting a comfort zone, created from the notion that 'digital is perfect'.......
Essentially, these folk are in denial.
The fact, my friends, is that nothing is 'perfect' in the recorded music reproduction chain, so simply choose the distortions, inherent in whatever recorded music-making method you prefer, and enjoy the music for what it is.
Marco.
Audioman
27-12-2013, 14:48
Then we are in agreement. It's also my consideration that some people's ears are more sensitive to the effect described than others, thus they are able to 'tune into it' more and assess how much (if at all) they find it irritating.
In essence, IME, digital sound has the tendency to sound rather too 'squeaky clean', in a way that is fundamentally unnatural.
Marco.
I think some people have become immune to it -
1. Because they have never heard a decent turntable playing vinyl (even if they think they have).
2. They grew up in the digital age and digital sound has become the norm for them - especially those who mostly listen to Mp3 players.
It's funny how these people are intolerant of 'surface noise' irrespective of the quality of reproduction. Silent background becomes secondary to musical presentation. Unfortunately you are never going to win against these non-believers. Try starting a thread on this topic on a well known US music forum and you will get all the measurements 'proving' 16/44.1 is perfect and dozens of frequency graphs produced from needle drops and digital sources. :mental::rfl:
Hi Frank,
Merry Christmas! I hope you are well :)
Marco.
Hi Marco,
we are all well here. Had my daughter and her family down from Anglesey for Christmas and it has been bedlam here, 10 adults + all 6 grandchildren on Christmas day.
A Happy and prosperous New Year to you and all forum members!
WRT LP never sounding like CDs it -is- inherent in the LP manufacturing process, so whilst it can be pretty close it is impossible to manufacture an LP with the same sound which is possible on a CD. As you note, they can sound very similar, and differences in mastering may well exceed differences due to manufacturing.
I -think- I hear the cut in HF energy inherent in the manufacturing method and I like it. I am pretty sure I hear the mono bass also inherent in the manufacturing process, and I don't like it so much though it is not that big a deal for me, it just moves the double basses across!
I haven't tried to measure either, just being an engineer with some history in the industry I know the manufacturing process.
Hope you are well and had a great Christmas. I have just been listening to some music my daughter gave me for my pressie.
Frank
I think some people have become immune to it -
1. Because they have never heard a decent turntable playing vinyl (even if they think they have).
2. They grew up in the digital age and digital sound has become the norm for them - especially those who mostly listen to Mp3 players.
I think that's an astute observation, and most likely very true!
It's funny how these people are intolerant of 'surface noise' irrespective of the quality of reproduction. Silent background becomes secondary to musical presentation.
Lol... Given some of the comments I've read from those you're referring to, that certainly seems to be the case.
I just cannot relate to that way of thinking, as for me quality of musical presentation comes first and foremost. Indeed, give me a bit of tape hiss, any day, over filtering out half of the music signal, in an effort to remove noise and achieve some notionally 'perfect', but ultimately musically bland, sonic creation..... :doh:
Marco.
Hi Marco,
we are all well here. Had my daughter and her family down from Anglesey for Christmas and it has been bedlam here, 10 adults + all 6 grandchildren on Christmas day.
A Happy and prosperous New Year to you and all forum members!
WRT LP never sounding like CDs it -is- inherent in the LP manufacturing process, so whilst it can be pretty close it is impossible to manufacture an LP with the same sound which is possible on a CD. As you note, they can sound very similar, and differences in mastering may well exceed differences due to manufacturing.
I -think- I hear the cut in HF energy inherent in the manufacturing method and I like it. I am pretty sure I hear the mono bass also inherent in the manufacturing process, and I don't like it so much though it is not that big a deal for me, it just moves the double basses across!
I haven't tried to measure either, just being an engineer with some history in the industry I know the manufacturing process.
Hope you are well and had a great Christmas. I have just been listening to some music my daughter gave me for my pressie.
Frank
Hi Frank,
Glad you had a nice Christmas - it certainly sounds like you did. There's nothing better in life than unwinding and spending quality time with your loved ones :)
Sure, points taken. In the end, all we can do is relate to others what our listening experiences are, however accurate or flawed they may be.
Marco.
I often think of conventional 16 bit 44khz red book in comparison with 24 bit 96khz SACD as saw blades, where 16 bit being the more course blade with less teeth per inch etc, both get the job done, but the end result in cut is much cleaner and more refined with the 24 bit.
A...
Depends on how well engineered the recording is. I have heard ripped 16 bit Cd that sounds a lot better than many 24 bit recordings. Funny what the jiggery pokey stuff that goes on with ripping can actual make Cd sound so much better but try and quantify it!! i think so much is said about digital produced stuff in general but most of it can be turned on its head. I have heard all forms of digital material currently available including DSD and its quite laughable as a lot of the so called HI Rez stuff doesnt sound any better than 16 bit. Again it all depends on the recording!!! Just like audiophile vinyl and badly engineered vinyl. Again the imperfections in the sonic analogue chain make vinyl so much more listenable to me and when its good it still sounds more convincing than the best digital sourced material -- TOO MY EARS :)
mr sneff
27-12-2013, 17:32
Pink Fish Media have also started a thread on this subject, and direct readers, as has this thread, to a similar thread on the Harbeth users forum. In particular readers attention is directed to page 9 http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthread.php?2046-An-honest-appraisal-of-vinyl-v-digital-romance-v-reality/page9 in particular post 179 and the associated video, which is quite illuminating. No doubt far from the last word on the subject, it's probably destined to run and run. To me the question asked at the start of the thread is flawed it's nor whether digital should sound like analogue or vice versa; does it sound like music? Fortunately the power of music is such that it can transcend the medium, we've probably all heard a piece of music on a cheap radio that makes the hairs on the back of our neck stand up :)
Gordon Steadman
27-12-2013, 17:36
Fortunately the power of music is such that it can transcend the medium, we've probably all heard a piece of music on a cheap radio that makes the hairs on the back of our neck stand up :)
Absolutely. I'm sure we've all heard the tales of musicians being quite happy listening to a Dansette. Nearly true - probably.
Ali Tait
27-12-2013, 17:36
The other point worth noting, I feel, is that those whose ears are most 'offended' by the (undoubted) distortions created by vinyl replay, have a tendency, through the desire to eradicate such from their music listening, to be blinded to the sonic limitations and inherent distortions associated with digital replay, thus in the process inhabiting a comfort zone, created from the notion that 'digital is perfect'.......
Essentially, these folk are in denial.
The fact, my friends, is that nothing is 'perfect' in the recorded music reproduction chain, so simply choose the distortions, inherent in whatever recorded music-making method you prefer, and enjoy the music for what it is.
Marco.
Not sure people are in denial as such, but as you say, there are limitations inherent in both media. For my part, I just think it's down to the fact that people are individuals, and hear things in an individual way, finding more satisfaction in one media over the other purely on their taste - how they perceive the music.
Perhaps partly due to hearing response? I'm no expert, but I'd have thought each person has an individual hearing frequency response i.e. Not flat, and varying from person to person. Which is obviously going to lead to that person preferring one way of playing a recording over another?
I have a pretty good streaming system I think, which I very much enjoy. Having recently got a vinyl front end going though, I've had the opportunity to compare some hi Rez needle drops to the actual vinyl. To my ears there is not a great deal in it, but I and others have preferred the vinyl over the digital.
I think what some folk forget is the fact that digital audio is still in it's infancy, whilst vinyl has had over a century to come to fruition.
There will come a day I think when digital will surpass vinyl, but it'll be a while yet.
I use and enjoy both, with little between them to my ears in my system, but vinyl still speaks to my heart in a way that digital doesn't. Yet.
I know that I'm more likely to complain about unnatural sibilance than most. I have more issues with this and spitty sounds with digital than with vinyl. The trouble is that I want resolution too and the more I achueve the more exposed these flaws become. Quite possibly I have a particularly sensitive band in my hearing.
Ali Tait
27-12-2013, 17:55
I think most of us do have peaks in sensitivity Clive, in fact is it not the case that our hearing is most sensitive at the frequency of a baby's cry?
Not sure if that is a fact, but it would seem to make sense from a survival point of view?
I think most of us do have peaks in sensitivity Clive, in fact is it not the case that our hearing is most sensitive at the frequency of a baby's cry?
Not sure if that is a fact, but it would seem to make sense from a survival point of view?
For mothers, less so sleeping fathers! :)
I'm not saying I'm unique, rather that's where my peak is.
Ali Tait
27-12-2013, 20:21
Well it used to wake me! :lol:
I have a pretty good streaming system I think, which I very much enjoy. Having recently got a vinyl front end going though, I've had the opportunity to compare some hi Rez needle drops to the actual vinyl. To my ears there is not a great deal in it, but I and others have preferred the vinyl over the digital.
I think what some folk forget is the fact that digital audio is still in it's infancy, whilst vinyl has had over a century to come to fruition.
There will come a day I think when digital will surpass vinyl, but it'll be a while yet.
I use and enjoy both, with little between them to my ears in my system, but vinyl still speaks to my heart in a way that digital doesn't. Yet.
Interesting stuff, Ali. I do agree with some of the points you've made. However, if you're honest, do you think the position you're occupying now in the vinyl versus digital debate, as outlined in your comments above, would've been the same, say, a year ago, before you got your 401? :)
Marco.
but I'd have thought each person has an individual hearing frequency response
Yep, but hearing is a learnt skill. We may be born with the equipment to hear and see, but we have to learn how to interpret that raw information in a way that we can use to model our external view of reality, its unlikely we all have the same set of programming to hear or see. Though there will of course be much in common. If it (our hearing system) behaves like a neural network, then it needs to have input to allow it to form the weighting values that make up the programming. Different input during the learning phase will I expect lead to different programming.
I head a radio program some time ago about language, and it said that when we are born we can tell all the different sounds that makes up every language in the world apart, but as we grow, we get better at distinguishing the sounds in our mother tongue but loose the ability to differentiate other that are not part of the language we are immersed in.
Wakefield Turntables
27-12-2013, 22:05
If it (our hearing system) behaves like a neural network, then it needs to have input to allow it to form the weighting values that make up the programming.
.
Indeed it does its called the vestibulocochlear nerve (auditory vestibular nerve).
I head a radio program some time ago about language, and it said that when we are born we can tell all the different sounds that makes up every language in the world apart, but as we grow, we get better at distinguishing the sounds in our mother tongue but loose the ability to differentiate other that are not part of the language we are immersed in.
I have experienced that frequently, when listening to a language completely foreign to my brain's capacity to distinguish sounds that could possibly be words. Chinese and Spanish spoken fast, as on their radio stations, are good examples.
It was was Chomsky who says people have a predisposition to gain language. People differ hugely though, for example the 10% with phonological processing problems (dyslexics) will always find it harder and likewise listen differently to music.
I agree. For my own (amateur) recordings which started with a mono valve reel-to-reel in the early 60s and improved steadily (in terms of the output being increasingly close to the input) until I stopped a while ago. There is no doubt in my experience a digital recorder produces an output audibly identical to the input on the equivalent on on/off tape monitoring. I don't get any more harshness or glare with digital than analogue. Any glare I ever got was due to using harsh microphones. A tape recorder masks this, in as much as the off tape sound is nicer than the direct, so in this case the loss of information is beneficial to the subjective sound.
So, if anything, digital taught me to use better microphones.
Professionally my recordings were of data, initially for noise and vibration research later on Formula 1 racing cars. No analogue recorder small enough to go on a F1 car was accurate enough to be useful. The recorders I used in N&V research were the size of a large suitcase and were a 2 man lift!
Digital recorders can be made small enough for the car, are robust and extremely accurate.
LPs can never sound like CDs anyway. The limit in HF energy is probably not noticeable by somebody of my age, but the mono bass certainly is, and LPs have to have it and nobody in their right mind would make a CD with mono bass (except for testing, I suppose).
I think the reduced HF peaks on LP are a boon to modest tweeters, and the mono bass is a boon to lower powered amps and modest speakers.
I would expect LP may well sound better on such a system, but as others have said as one goes up market the sound does converge somewhat, but however nice it sounds an LP will never have stereo bass or unrestricted HF energy of CD (for better or worse).
I enjoy my LPs and am not obsessive about surface noise since I have been listening through it for decades but I don't buy many any more.
Do you still have the vibration/noise recordings? In many ways - and especially to combined retro F1 fans and field recording fans - i bet they sound good!
I was listening to a recording of vibrations in the structure of Western Europe's tallest structure (a radio mast in Iceland) last night on headphones: http://www.touchradio.org.uk/touch_radio_96.html.
One thing in field recordings which definitely provides a strong feeling of reality is stereo bass, be it something in particular or just low rumble environmental noise. It really adds to the holographic image of being there, when stereo bass is simply different tones of the same bass in each speaker or of varying phase, not necessarily something moving about.
For non-musical events, vinyl certainly falls short of digital in some areas (although when do you ever get to hear good, modern field recordings pressed to vinyl? I bet there's a market out there for it! Would love to start a label, if just for the packaging, the art of presentation).
It was was Chomsky who says people have a predisposition to gain language. People differ hugely though, for example the 10% with phonological processing problems (dyslexics) will always find it harder and likewise listen differently to music.
I'm in the latter camp.... I've picked up from all the forums and discussions with friends and randoms, that I certainly listen differently to many people.
I guess that's why people like Bob Dillon! The main attraction of Bob Dillon seems to be the words and many hear those lyrics as "music" because they are sung - whilst I find the music (the sonic, non-language bit) utterly dull..
I've always interpreted say Mr Turfullbruimibroom [spelling] a.k.a Mr Linn as promoting all the dull parts of music too ("toe tapping", "follow the tune") and ignoring rich tones and stereo imagary and flowing and floating complex harmonies, some of which are completely a-tonal, anti-tune.
Hence I've always ignored Linns and anything touched with the "flat-earth" poo-poking stick. And anything that is described as "musical" as opposed to transparent or real-sounding.
I can definitely see the divide in some of these discussions as you say Clive - we relate to music in many many different ways, each of which are only "right" for ourselves.
P.S. It's not dyslexics/ADDers who have problems, it is most definitely the other 90% who have problems in so many areas like abstract thinking and stuff but the 90% are the ones in control via mob rule so dictate how things are "supposed" to be done.. They are quite wrong though! :)
Nope - no chance. It sounds how it sounds. I'm also no fan of adding cheap valve output stages to CDPs or DACs, as they simply act as a sticking plaster, 'nice-ifying' the sound in a way which isn't accurate.
Marco.
Hmm.... You're not saying that valves colour the sound to make things sound overly nice are you?? :)
Having been a bit of a follower of that man Lukasz "Lampizator" Fikus before he turned his efforts to commercial products, I came to the conclusion with him that actually the standard output stages of most CD players were the cheap options!
If you look at his analysis of much of the design work on even well rated CD players, they often use unimaginative op-amp output stages which are then severely compromised by cost cutting and also by making sure they satisfy the "measurement crowd" too.
The valve output stages that he then had added would cost the player manufacturers a LOT more to implement !
I also see valves as being perfectly capable of being fully transparent and fast without being so prone to suffering the many of the noise artifacts (and susceptibility to high frequency power supply noise from some regulators in common use) of the many op-amps in standard circuit designs.
Excellent post, and very thought provoking! :)
Thanks. Although could equally be a load of over-thought bollox :( hehe..
Or...the glare (or at least the majority of it) is removed by the vinyl replay process - and not because it's not accurate enough to reveal it, but rather that it can't impart any, as none is inherent in its 'DNA'.
It's no accident, I feel, that some of the best digital recordings I own are those I've 'digitised' from vinyl, reproduced on my T/T, which sound markedly superior to the same music produced commercially (in an all-digital format) today on CD, reproduced via my CDP.
Here I would also cite the fact that some of the best sounding CDs in my collection (with the least amount of audible 'glare') are those from the late 80s, which are marked as 'AAD' - and of course we all know what process was used to produce those ;)
Marco.
Hmm... I have to admit I don't quite follow the logic of that.
What if, as an artist, you create some music/soundscape which has a deliberately grating top end, identical to the digital glare you describe? The artist, say, wants to impart a deliberate feeling of unease within the listener via this sound she's discovered..
Sounds like then the vinyl pressing will be completely incapable of portraying that sound, and therefore that emotion, because it will filter it off. Therefore you can only say that it compromises the sound of everything, each time making it more pleasant to listen to in general but nevertheless still changing the sound and so loosing realism in some ways.
Hey, nothing is perfect as you say - they both have different strengths.
Well this has become one of those which is better threads and that was not the intention. Of course we will have our preference but that was not the point of the thread.
surprised to see some people still expressing the view that vinyl is technically superior. Just cause you prefer vinyl that doesnt make it the technically superior format.
if you do pref vinyl do you attempt to make your digital source sound like vinyl?
Not been able to contribute until now as so hard to type long replies on a phone but have just got hold of one of those tablet thingies :)
Tablets aren't that much easier either - no substitute to a real computer.
I think the discussion has lead to people expressing their appreciation for different aspects of the sound they get from each (with some having a much stronger preference for one). Therefore there is a kind of consensus that says they have different strengths and weeknesses -
- so NO, we shouldn't push one to sound like the other. We should keep their differences and keep choice whilst at the same time we push both (or developers do) towards the common goal of amazing life-like sound.
To be honest though, it is only digital which is getting the development - analogue has kind of worked itself into developmental dead-ends with the historical formats and equipment - whilst file-based players can evolve almost endlessly, only requiring DAC changes as people naturally upgrade anyway.
P.S. In a different thread on wigwam, Serge gave a quick explanation of what happens in the magnetisation of audio tape.
Pointed me to look up the Barkhausen effect which is about certain areas of tape being influence by the area's around it and they all flipping to one magnetised state together.
http://www.dilettantesdictionary.org/index.php?search=1&searchtxt=Barkhausen%20effect
So there is some kind of granularity which is larger than you might expect. However, like vinyl granularity, it is not uniform so the slightly random nature of the different grain sizes results in hiss, like how vinyl granularity creates low level noise.
Perhaps PCM suffers from the need of a very regular granularity in both time and signal level, whereas if these were more random in their nature (but more frequent so as to still keep the average up at high resolution) perhaps things would sound more "analogue"? Almost like embracing jitter ! you'd need some steady underlying separate clock though I guess which acts in the same way as the speed of tape passing a read head, or the steady speed of vinyl passing under the needle..
In a way it sounds a little like DSD but DSD is still sampled at a steady rate whereas these samples would be a little more random in the time domain at the initial recording stage but set in stone against the master clock signal.
anthonyTD
28-12-2013, 10:10
Woops, only just noticed that,:mental: quite right Martin, i have now amended it.SACD, with its DSD technology is another can of worms...:eek:
Agreed, Anthony, except that you're describing DVD-A there. SACD is 1-bit 2.8MHz DSD format.
I'm in the latter camp.... I've picked up from all the forums and discussions with friends and randoms, that I certainly listen differently to many people.
I guess that's why people like Bob Dillon! The main attraction of Bob Dillon seems to be the words and many hear those lyrics as "music" because they are sung - whilst I find the music (the sonic, non-language bit) utterly dull..
I've always interpreted say Mr Turfullbruimibroom [spelling] a.k.a Mr Linn as promoting all the dull parts of music too ("toe tapping", "follow the tune") and ignoring rich tones and stereo imagary and flowing and floating complex harmonies, some of which are completely a-tonal, anti-tune.
Hence I've always ignored Linns and anything touched with the "flat-earth" poo-poking stick. And anything that is described as "musical" as opposed to transparent or real-sounding.
I can definitely see the divide in some of these discussions as you say Clive - we relate to music in many many different ways, each of which are only "right" for ourselves.
P.S. It's not dyslexics/ADDers who have problems, it is most definitely the other 90% who have problems in so many areas like abstract thinking and stuff but the 90% are the ones in control via mob rule so dictate how things are "supposed" to be done.. They are quite wrong though! :)
I'm with you on Dylan for sure. My favourite track of his is Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts from Blood on the Tracks; this is a bouncy, fun tune and I suppose the words are unusually clear too to but only the occasional phrase is obvious to myself. I generally hear vocals as harmony or as an instrument, I'm not in the camp of "that song is great, the words are so meaningful"; what words I would say!
As a generalization I suggestion that those with phonological process issues will hear the broader aspect of music, ie flow and 3D soundstage. Many dyslexics are more abstract in their thinking, often thinking more in images than words, then putting thoughts into words becomes an issue in itself. It would be an interesting research project to look at how people listen and how this relates to their brain function. For me the differing listening styles mean that blanket recommendations of hifi products are rather pointless, advice can only be given with context and this context should very much be based of listening styles. Some listen for "tonal shading", other "dynamic shading", then we have imaging, bass texture, vocal intelligibility, "musical flow" etc, etc. Most or even all of us can hear these things but their importance to our enjoyment will differ greatly, hence Nat your (and my) dislike of Ivor T telling us how to listen as he didn't understand that people appreciate musicin differing ways.
StanleyB
28-12-2013, 12:08
As a generalization I suggestion that those with phonological process issues will hear the broader aspect of music, ie flow and 3D soundstage. Many dyslexics are more abstract in their thinking, often thinking more in images than words, then putting thoughts into words becomes an issue in itself. It would be an interesting research project to look at how people listen and how this relates to their brain function. For me the differing listening styles mean that blanket recommendations of hifi products are rather pointless, advice can only be given with context and this context should very much be based of listening styles. Some listen for "tonal shading", other "dynamic shading", then we have imaging, bass texture, vocal intelligibility, "musical flow" etc, etc. Most or even all of us can hear these things but their importance to our enjoyment will differ greatly, hence Nat your (and my) dislike of Ivor T telling us how to listen as he didn't understand that people appreciate musicin differing ways.
Well imagine the problems that product designers face. I was listening to a Rega and Benchmark DAC and noticed how wildly different they sound. One is overly soft, whilst the other is overly metallic. But both types are regarded as excellent.
Mr Kipling
28-12-2013, 12:44
The thing that has always, always, always intrigued me about audio design is how designer A will decry topology B (valves/transistors/ics/passive/active etc) using their own preferred choice and produce item A that has obvious merit. Elsewhere designer B is producing his item using the very topology Designer A has savaged and comes up with item B that is equally as valid, if perhaps somewhat different. I used to wonder what might result if two such individuals combined their efforts.
I generally hear vocals as harmony or as an instrument, I'm not in the camp of "that song is great, the words are so meaningful"; what words I would say!
I'm the same, Clive - voice as instrument, although I am not at all dyslexic.
The thing that has always, always, always intrigued me about audio design is how designer A will decry topology B (valves/transistors/ics/passive/active etc) using their own preferred choice and produce item A that has obvious merit. Elsewhere designer B is producing his item using the very topology Designer A has savaged and comes up with item B that is equally as valid, if perhaps somewhat different.
I think designers generally use the topologies they are comfortable with. And why not?
Mr Kipling
28-12-2013, 15:05
Well yes. It's just when some develop a zelot-like approach and dismiss anything different out of hand.
Anyway, who's this Bob Dillon chappie?
Never 'erd of 'im.
I'm the same, Clive - voice as instrument, although I am not at all dyslexic.
Yeah me too to the point where I know track numbers and not track names!
Yeah me too to the point where I know track numbers and not track names!
Probably the type of person I'm thinking is someone who doesn't really get music so they work out the words to find some reason for liking the music. There are of course some tracks that are all about the words, but for me these are quite few.
Anyway, who's this Bob Dillon chappie?
Never 'erd of 'im.
He used to drink coffee at the City Lights Bookstore, Columbus Avenue, San Francisco then he opened Dillons Bookstore....:)
PaulStewart
28-12-2013, 19:29
He used to drink coffee at the City Lights Bookstore, Columbus Avenue, San Francisco then he opened Dillons Bookstore....:)
*Really* I thought he was the rabbit in Magic Roundabout, (really showing my age there)
The Barbarian
28-12-2013, 21:28
The funniest thread i read in the last year
StanleyB
28-12-2013, 23:11
This thread reminds me of the following joke:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
. . . surprised to see some people still expressing the view that vinyl is technically superior. Just cause you prefer vinyl that doesn't make it the technically superior format.
+1,
But I'm not surprised at all Martin, slightly disappointed, but not at all surprised ;)
+1,
But I'm not surprised at all Martin, slightly disappointed, but not at all surprised ;)
Vinyl is more challenging to get the best out of for a given piece of kit (vs digital). As for which is technically better; it's a bit irrelevant really. Given that music is for enjoyment then the medium which delivers more enjoyment is the better one for that individual. There are some technical things which are more easily achieved with digital but is that really the point?
Given that music is for enjoyment then the medium which delivers more enjoyment is the better one for that individual.
Exactly Clive, couldn't agree more.
Vinyl is more challenging to get the best out of for a given piece of kit (vs digital).
And it's much more fun and satisfying doing so!
Normally, unless you decide to DIY (like I will next with my digital), improving digital is just swapping one box for another.. yawn!
Well imagine the problems that product designers face. I was listening to a Rega and Benchmark DAC and noticed how wildly different they sound. One is overly soft, whilst the other is overly metallic. But both types are regarded as excellent.
Kind of why we shouldn't aim to make our digital sound like our turntables (unless we only use digital whilst we look for a vinyl copy?).
Do you think both designs were chasing accuracy but in the ears of different people, or were they deliberately chasing different sonic taste markets?
Hi Nat,
Sorry for the late reply - been busy!
Hmm.... You're not saying that valves colour the sound to make things sound overly nice are you?? :)
Well, that's certainly not how I use valves in my own system, but it can happen when they're not implemented optimally, or simply used as a 'sticking plaster', which is what I've found to be the case with most (but not all) valve buffer/output stages on CDPs and DACs.
Having been a bit of a follower of that man Lukasz "Lampizator" Fikus before he turned his efforts to commercial products, I came to the conclusion with him that actually the standard output stages of most CD players were the cheap options!
I agree with you about the 'Lampizator' products, although I haven't heard any. Lukasz appears to use valves for the right reasons, and knows what he's doing, so I would not put his designs into the category I have described above.
I also see valves as being perfectly capable of being fully transparent and fast without being so prone to suffering the many of the noise artifacts (and susceptibility to high frequency power supply noise from some regulators in common use) of the many op-amps in standard circuit designs.
I completely agree. Properly implemented, IME, valves reproduce music more realistically and believably than any solid-state devices I've heard (why else do you think I use them in my amplifiers?) but *so far* I've not found that to be the case with CDPs and/or DACs.
In that respect, I've yet to hear any DAC, SS or with tubes somewhere in the circuit (and believe my I've tried plenty over the years, at various price levels), sonically outperform my heavily modifed Sony DAS-R1. However, there's bound to be something out there that can, and one of the Lampizator designs could do it. I'm entirely open-minded about that, and would buy in an instant whatever, to my ears, did eventually outperform the Sony! :)
Marco.
Hmm... I have to admit I don't quite follow the logic of that.
What if, as an artist, you create some music/soundscape which has a deliberately grating top end, identical to the digital glare you describe? The artist, say, wants to impart a deliberate feeling of unease within the listener via this sound she's discovered..
Sounds like then the vinyl pressing will be completely incapable of portraying that sound, and therefore that emotion, because it will filter it off. Therefore you can only say that it compromises the sound of everything, each time making it more pleasant to listen to in general but nevertheless still changing the sound and so loosing realism in some ways.
Nope, that's not what I meant. If we're talking about revealing actual (intended by the artist) musical information, imbedded into the grooves on vinyl records, then most good turntables are perfectly capable of doing that - and the best ones, IME, to a fairly forensic degree.
What I'm talking about is that vinyl replay fundamentally does not impart 'glare' onto the music signal, quite simply because, unlike with digital, that effect is not inherent in the way a turntable resolves musical information.
Therefore, when an analogue element (in an otherwise digital procedure) is introduced into the recording or playback process, it dilutes the 'glare', but that has nothing to do with masking anything that is intended to be there; the effect is simply not present in the 'DNA' of any analogue component or procedure, therefore it is incapable of imparting it.
That is why the best produced early CDs, marked as 'AAD', where analogue recording processes were adopted up until the final stage, sound far better to my ears (and have less audible 'glare') than any of the discs at that time which were marked as 'DDD' (all-digital), and lauded by many as being 'superior'. Of course, ALL CDs produced today are 'DDD'.
Now, when I take a vinyl album and 'digitise' it onto CD, by using my turntable as the source, record it onto metal tape (on my Nakamichi), and then finalise the process on a soundcard, using various pieces of noise reduction software, in order to create optimum results, trust me, the results sound far superior, reproduced via my CDP, than those obtained by playing a commercially produced, currently available, ('DDD') CD, of the same album, as effectively the process I've used to make the digital recording is 'AAD', the same as that used to produce those early CDs.
Quite simply, the results obtained sound near-identical to that of my source turntable playing vinyl.
However, if I take the Nakamichi out of the equation, bypassing the intermediate analogue stage in the recording process, and go straight to using the soundcard (and its associated digital processes), and create a CD recording on that basis, one can instantly hear the midrange 'hardness' and 'glassy' quality, associated with the effect of glare, as previously outlined, as the intermediate analogue stage in the recording process was not present to ameliorate the effect.
*However*, even when recording a vinyl album 'straight to soundcard', as it were, thus creating an 'ADD' process, the results STILL sound markedly superior to the commercially produced, currently available 'DDD' CD of the same album, where the latter, quite noticeably, contains the most audible glare. This, I would suggest, is most likely because the musical information was derived from an analogue, rather than a digital source.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the introduction of a high-quality analogue stage anywhere in the recording and/or playback chain, of an ultimately digital recording, ameliorates the effect of 'glare', and whilst it may also measurably introduce its own colorations, the final results are (subjectively) more faithfully musical - certainly if you're the type of listener whose ears are rather sensitive to the effect of said 'glare'.
Now, of course, these are merely the results of my own tests and extensive listening experience, and so we're not dealing in fact. However, the results I've obtained in this area are mirrored by many who have tried the same thing, and reached the same conclusions. Therefore, make of that what you will....
Marco.
I do see both systems as still involving. Neither has stood still over the last 5 years. With digital we seeing more file based media we are also seeing people paying closer attention to power supply to critical areas on the computer and a better understanding on how to get the best out of software. DACs seem to have also progressed in terms of value and the performance one can expect from them. Likewise with vinyl; forums such as AOS have greatly helped how to get the best out of the 1210 and Lenco Heaven has done similar with Idler drives. My own turntable has undergone several small modifications which has taken the performance further, our knowledge is constantly involving. For me the greatest pleasure is I can enjoy both without fatigue something I could not always say in the past.
Gordon Steadman
29-12-2013, 08:17
*However*, even when recording a vinyl album 'straight to soundcard', as it were, thus creating an 'ADD' process, the results STILL sound markedly superior to the commercially produced, currently available 'DDD' CD of the same album, where the latter, quite noticeably, contains the most audible glare.
I have always wondered why this is. When I was about to move into a very small flat, I decided that I would have to dump all the vinyl because of the restricted space so spent a...... l o n g...... time putting all the music onto CD. Whenever I had duplicates on commercial CD, I always preferred my version. (I ended up being unable to part with the LPs and so had at least two of everything anyway)
This is not to claim it was 'better' just that I found it preferable as there still doesn't appear to be any likelihood of a rational explanation of the perceived differences between the two formats any time soon.
I would disagree with the 'markedly' comment as in reality, I found the differences fairly subtle but then again, as we know, some people think a metre of wire can make a night and day difference:eyebrows:
Hi Gordon,
I'm glad that you've also noticed the effect I'm referring to, even if you don't consider it quite as obvious as I do, in the context of transferring vinyl to CD, although perhaps you'd agree that the effect is at its most obvious when simply comparing vinyl and CD replay directly, reproducing the same album of music either on a T/T or a CDP?
In any case, I think enough of us have heard the effect I'm referring to, in order for it to be real, therefore the pertinent issue is successfully identifying what exactly is causing it! :)
Marco.
Gordon Steadman
29-12-2013, 09:31
Hi Gordon,
I'm glad that you've also noticed the effect I'm referring to, even if you don't consider it quite as obvious as I do, in the context of transferring vinyl to CD, although perhaps you'd agree that the effect is at its most obvious when simply comparing vinyl and CD replay directly, reproducing the same album of music either on a T/T or a CDP?
In any case, I think enough of us have heard the effect I'm referring to, in order for it to be real, therefore the pertinent issue is successfully identifying what exactly is causing it! :)
Marco.
I guess so. My two favourite examples are Rumours and Bat out of Hell. I find both commercial CDs quite difficult to enjoy fully but love the vinyl versions and find my transfers quite acceptable to the degree that I just enjoy the music. I have very few classical CDs so haven't really had the chance to see if the situation is the same. I suppose its possible that the mastering would be done more carefully with 'proper music' :)
Yup, but let's not lose focus on the main issue I'm referring to, which is nothing to do with mastering quality, and all to do with the effect of 'digital glare', inherently imparted, to my ears, (to some extent) by ALL digital components and/or recording processes, which, for others and me, is absent (regardless of other sound quality differences, for better or worse) in its analogue counterparts.
What's also interesting (and I guess this picks up on your comments about mastering), is that there appears to be consensus that making digital recordings of vinyl, using one's own T/T and equipment, in general produces superior sonic results to that available on a commercially produced CD, but of course part of the reason for that may also be through the reduction of said 'glare'...
Marco.
Good digital has no glare, but is also rare! Attention to mains is important to achieve the good results here also.
As far as the OP asked; Should digital sound like analogue? Should analogue sound like digital?
No: BOTH should sound like music. But rarely do..
With ref to the link Tim posted earlier (#28) Robert over on PFM has posted a short vid of a test tone recorded from his RP3, it's a much better and clean trace free from any obvious amplitude jitter compared to the Harbeth one. It brings into question the test setup used and shows vinyl is capable of being much better than that thread alludes to...
Hi Paul,
Good digital has no glare...
Unfortunately, that's not my experience, and I own (and have heard) plenty of "good digital". The best of the breed reduce the effect to a level such that it is all but inaudible, but nevertheless, to my ears, it is still present to some extent, as I consider it as 'the nature of the beast'.
However, I agree that attention to how equipment receives power from the mains supply is important, as well as how good power supply arrangements are within equipment itself, in order to ameliorate the effect of 'glare', as much as possible.
I should stress, however, that I still very much enjoy listening to CDs, on my system, which sound superb, so I'm not in any way anti-digital. It's simply that when compared with my ultimate reference (the best audiophile-quality recordings on vinyl, reproduced by my T/T), at that elevated sonic level, the results with digital fall a little short.
As an aside, an electronics engineer, whom I respect, and whose ears I trust, sent me the following in relation to this discussion:
"I have been reading the thread “should digital sound like analogue” and it has been an interesting discussion. There is one fundamental contributor to “digital glare” that has not been mentioned and this is the lack of adequate power supply design in the majority of digital equipment. Take the top off most of the digital equipment and it is often full of LM317 or equivalent three terminal regulator chips.
As an example I upgraded a Berkeley Audio Alpha DAC for a customer last year. This is a well-respected DAC over in the USA. When it arrived I plugged it into my system and I really wondered what all the fuss was about. It was edgy and in your face as well as lacking PRAT. Image stability was also poor. I just did not want to listen to music with this in my system, even after leaving it in system for a few days to get it warmed up.
Removing the lid showed no surprises, as there were half a dozen LM317 regulators on the main power supply board. I replaced the whole power supply board with my regulators and also set up a Multirail external power supply for it, providing a second layer of supply line rejection.
What a difference this made. Now the music had feeling and PRAT and the edgy glare that I find so annoying was replaced with a fast but delicate presentation that was a pleasure to listen to. The image stability had also improved tremendously and the image did not collapse as soon as the music became complex. My customer was very pleased indeed. This happens a lot with all sorts of digital equipment when I have upgraded the power supplies. I guess most of the manufacturers of this type of equipment rarely bother to go past chip application note engineering when designing their products."
I think there's a lot of sense in that, and sadly reflects the (rather too often) commercial reality.
Marco.
Gordon Steadman
29-12-2013, 10:14
Yup, but let's not lose focus on the main issue I'm referring to, which is nothing to do with mastering quality, and all to do with the effect of 'digital glare', inherently imparted, to my ears, (to some extent) by ALL digital components and/or recording processes, which, for others and me, is absent (regardless of other sound quality differences, for better or worse) in its analogue counterparts.
What's also interesting (and I guess this picks up on your comments about mastering), is that there appears to be consensus that making digital recordings of vinyl, using one's own T/T and equipment, in general produces superior sonic results to that available on a commercially produced CD, but of course part of the reason for that may also be through the reduction of said 'glare'...
Marco.
I can't say that I'm aware of any particular 'glare' when listening to digital although i must admit that most of my listening is not through the main system but on my Mac with a Rogers Ravensbrook as amplification. Even through headphones it sounds fine to me, its just that I prefer the transfers even on that system once they have been put into iTunes.
The old Rogers is a terrific amp I reckon. My nephew and girlfriend were over pre Christmas and they actually preferred the sound of the 'second' system to the main one!!:eek: Just shows how we all hear differently. They both preferred the smoother, warmer sound to the incisive, revealing sound!! They listen at home to 2 x Quad 306 amps through some speakers I made for them using Quad 57 treble panels with KEF B139 bass units so are not used to crap MP3s or anything of the like.
Hello Marco,
And, seasons greetings!
Regarding the topic, you include a good example to what I mean - perfect! As I said, good digital is rare, and expensive. Power supply design is critical, as is output stage, have you heard valve rectified, battery powered chipset and valve output stage? It is very good indeed!
StanleyB
29-12-2013, 10:29
As I said, good digital is rare, and expensive. Power supply design is critical, as is output stage, have you heard valve rectified, battery powered chipset and valve output stage? It is very good indeed!
It is not expensive to achieve. But the mark up is good for some companies. Battery power is discussed in a couple of recent threads on AoS.
Hello Marco,
And, seasons greetings!
Seasons greetings to you too, matey! Hope you're having a nice one :cool:
Regarding the topic, you include a good example to what I mean - perfect! As I said, good digital is rare, and expensive. Power supply design is critical, as is output stage, have you heard valve rectified, battery powered chipset and valve output stage? It is very good indeed!
Yes I do think that much of the effect of 'glare' can be reduced by paying serious attention to power supply arrangements inside digital equipment. I spent £1.5k having precisely that done (along with re-clocking) inside my Sony DAS-R1! ;)
However, I think that, as Paul (Audioman) mentioned earlier:
Converting sound waves to 1's and 0's and then back again has to introduce some digital artifacts...
That, I believe, is fundamentally the root cause of 'digital glare', and represents the 'artifact' Paul has mentioned. Therefore, the effect is inherent in the digital process itself, and so no amount of addressing other areas of the digital music reproduction chain will remove it completely.
Nope, I've not heard a valve-rectified, battery powered chipset and valve output stage (used all together at once), so I remain entirely open-minded to its sonic possibilities :)
Marco.
Mr Kipling
29-12-2013, 11:59
What about radio? Isn't that digital?
Stratmangler
29-12-2013, 12:13
What about radio? Isn't that digital?
Depends ....
Mr Kipling
29-12-2013, 12:15
On what?
The glare you speak of Marco I find exists on many modern vinyl records too, mostly with the more pop type of music - sure they add massive bass to try to ameliorate then issue but that's a poor substitute for a good sound. There are those that say we have a rose tinted view of reality built on inaccurate playback equipment experiences. Such naysayers are grossly mistaken.
Here's an example I find interesting though it's very far from scientific. I mentioned in another thread that I attended a violin concert in Venice which took place in a small chapel with as you'd expect hard surfaces everywhere. My feeling was that this was a recipe for a harsh sound. Immediately the musicians played I was surprised how warm the sound was. I recorded some video and sound with my camera using the built in mics. Of course this is a far from good recording kit. The interesting thing is that when I played back the recording on my system at home it sounded like many of the modern pop recordings I complain about, tonally thin with glare. There were loads of high frequencies which I did not hear at the actual concert. Somehow my recording filtered out some sounds and emphasized others. Whilst my recording equipment was far from ideal it did produce what I regard as a typical modern sound, which bore little resemblance what I heard in the concert.
Stratmangler
29-12-2013, 12:24
On what?
The BBC has been sending 13 bit digital to the transmitters for decades.
The transmitter sends that information in analogue radio form.
So to say that radio is digital is not exactly true.
It's not entirely incorrect either.
Some local stations may not even get to the point of digitising the broadcast to get it to the transmitter - there's one in Manchester where the station is at the top of one of the very tall buildings, and the transmitter is on the roof, and there's no distance issue getting the transmission from studio to transmitter, so no digitising is required or done.
Then there's the way digital radio and tv are done - there is an analogue carrier band (all digital communications use an analogue carrier) which has the content superimposed upon it in digital form.
Mr Kipling
29-12-2013, 13:13
The BBC has been sending 13 bit digital to the transmitters for decades.
The transmitter sends that information in analogue radio form.
So to say that radio is digital is not exactly true.
It's not entirely incorrect either.
Some local stations may not even get to the point of digitising the broadcast to get it to the transmitter - there's one in Manchester where the station is at the top of one of the very tall buildings, and the transmitter is on the roof, and there's no distance issue getting the transmission from studio to transmitter, so no digitising is required or done.
The there's the way digital radio and tv are done - there is an analogue carrier band (all digital communications use an analogue carrier) which has the content superimposed upon it in digital form.
Fair enough.
Mini Disc?
Howwa man Clive. . . What sort of frequency response are the mics in your camera likely to have? The proccess can hardly reproduce what wasn't captured in the first place.
Stratmangler
29-12-2013, 13:19
Fair enough.
Mini Disc?
All digital communications are superimposed over analogue carriers.
All digital communications are superimposed over analogue carriers.
Given that this is a extremely picky point, I would have said it was more correct to say "Digital information is encoded within an analogue carrier"
Though some like PSK doesnt actually change the level of the carrier, so you could argue that the carrier is digital in the sense that it only has one level. Or something as simple as morse code, the analog part only has two states, on or off, so could be said to be digital. In fact morse over SSB has no carrier, its removed before transmission.
Ali Tait
29-12-2013, 13:59
Interesting stuff, Ali. I do agree with some of the points you've made. However, if you're honest, do you think the position you're occupying now in the vinyl versus digital debate, as outlined in your comments above, would've been the same, say, a year ago, before you got your 401? :)
Marco.
Yes. I've heard some very very good vinyl at Owston over the last few years, so I've been aware of how good vinyl can be, which is why I've been trying over the last few years to get digital to sound as good.
Audioman
29-12-2013, 14:24
The BBC has been sending 13 bit digital to the transmitters for decades.
The transmitter sends that information in analogue radio form.
So to say that radio is digital is not exactly true.
It's not entirely incorrect either.
Some local stations may not even get to the point of digitising the broadcast to get it to the transmitter - there's one in Manchester where the station is at the top of one of the very tall buildings, and the transmitter is on the roof, and there's no distance issue getting the transmission from studio to transmitter, so no digitising is required or done.
Then there's the way digital radio and tv are done - there is an analogue carrier band (all digital communications use an analogue carrier) which has the content superimposed upon it in digital form.
Assuming you are referring to analogue radio only being 13bit digital in source where does that leave DAB? 13bit/analogue appears to be far superior something that is even obvious in the car where with modern car tuners there is no audible noise and instant passing between transmitter zones. DAB actually takes far longer to find and lock onto a transmitter.
Paul.
Stratmangler
29-12-2013, 14:29
Given that this is a extremely picky point, I would have said it was more correct to say "Digital information is encoded within an analogue carrier"
Though some like PSK doesnt actually change the level of the carrier, so you could argue that the carrier is digital in the sense that it only has one level. Or something as simple as morse code, the analog part only has two states, on or off, so could be said to be digital. In fact morse over SSB has no carrier, its removed before transmission.
Morse over SSB still uses a pilot, which is still a broadcast analogue frequency.
Morse over SSB still uses a pilot, which is still a broadcast analogue frequency.
In SSB the carrier is suppressed. if thats what you mean by pilot.
It is a meaningless distinction anyway. Fundamentally the universe is quantised.
Hi Clive,
The glare you speak of Marco I find exists on many modern vinyl records too...
Yup, although those (final stage excepted) are most probably produced via an all-digital recording process, thus explaining the 'glare'...
There are those that say we have a rose tinted view of reality built on inaccurate playback equipment experiences. Such naysayers are grossly mistaken.
Indeed. If they're genuinely open-minded, then it's simply a matter of their listening experiences catching up, but there are also those whose views remain firmly entrenched in rather closed-minded 'objectivism' :rolleyes:
Here's an example I find interesting though it's very far from scientific. I mentioned in another thread that I attended a violin concert in Venice which took place in a small chapel with as you'd expect hard surfaces everywhere. My feeling was that this was a recipe for a harsh sound. Immediately the musicians played I was surprised how warm the sound was. I recorded some video and sound with my camera using the built in mics. Of course this is a far from good recording kit. The interesting thing is that when I played back the recording on my system at home it sounded like many of the modern pop recordings I complain about, tonally thin with glare. There were loads of high frequencies which I did not hear at the actual concert. Somehow my recording filtered out some sounds and emphasized others. Whilst my recording equipment was far from ideal it did produce what I regard as a typical modern sound, which bore little resemblance what I heard in the concert.
Interesting... I wonder how many would've dismissed the accuracy of their aural memory of the (real) live sound and simply considered that the recording equipment used was 'transparent', and thus perfectly capable of faithfully capturing that sound....? ;)
Marco.
What a difference this made. Now the music had feeling and PRAT and the edgy glare that I find so annoying was replaced with a fast but delicate presentation that was a pleasure to listen to. The image stability had also improved tremendously and the image did not collapse as soon as the music became complex. My customer was very pleased indeed. This happens a lot with all sorts of digital equipment when I have upgraded the power supplies. I guess most of the manufacturers of this type of equipment rarely bother to go past chip application note engineering when designing their products."
I put these effects up there as being the main cause of the glare and things - this is nothing to do with digitalisation of a signal but to do with electronic integration between different IC topologies all working at different speeds with different functions and those functions behaving differently dependent on each IC's behavior before it.
I think the internal high frequency nature of digital electronics is then the main difference between digital and more common solid state electronics.
All you need in a studio is for one of your multiple digital units to cause a problem and it will be noticeable at the end. The more digital gear you use, the more likely one of those stages is to be poor..
If problems can be lessened by an analogue (read physical) transcription stage, then you are essentially adding in a filter not just in frequency terms but also in the time-domain with physical inertia, magnetic field inertia etc . Kind of also becomes a random, coloured noise dither machine to the signal (coloured noise in that it will not be random, it will be statistically skewed).
If that can be incorporated into the output stage of digital then perhaps we'll be getting digital to sound just like analogue (if that's what we want).
I think the brain likes and enjoys a certain amount of effective chaos in what we hear - it is afterall how the world is, so anything that has chaos removed is going to sound less like the world we know.
I've GOT IT !!!!!!
Digital needs a Brownian motion machine connected to its outputs - a cup of TEA! Just like in Hitchiker's Guide
** Digital just needs to sit down with a nice cup of tea... **
I put these effects up there as being the main cause of the glare and things - this is nothing to do with digitalisation of a signal but to do with electronic integration between different IC topologies all working at different speeds with different functions and those functions behaving differently dependent on each IC's behavior before it.
I think the internal high frequency nature of digital electronics is then the main difference between digital and more common solid state electronics.
All you need in a studio is for one of your multiple digital units to cause a problem and it will be noticeable at the end. The more digital gear you use, the more likely one of those stages is to be poor..
If problems can be lessened by an analogue (read physical) transcription stage, then you are essentially adding in a filter not just in frequency terms but also in the time-domain with physical inertia, magnetic field inertia etc . Kind of also becomes a random, coloured noise dither machine to the signal (coloured noise in that it will not be random, it will be statistically skewed).
If that can be incorporated into the output stage of digital then perhaps we'll be getting digital to sound just like analogue (if that's what we want).
I think the brain likes and enjoys a certain amount of effective chaos in what we hear - it is afterall how the world is, so anything that has chaos removed is going to sound less like the world we know.
Sure, there's no reason to say that you're wrong (in fact, there is more that suggests in some ways you could be right), especially the bit I've highlighted.
At the end of the day, however, I trust my ears and the considerable experience I've gained, over the years, of judging how real voices and instruments sound, and based on that, I know which type of equipment and recording processes I consider are the most faithful at reproducing the real thing! ;)
Marco.
What are your thoughts on the cup of tea thing? I was quite pleased with that..
Good digital has no glare, but is also rare! Attention to mains is important to achieve the good results here also.
As far as the OP asked; Should digital sound like analogue? Should analogue sound like digital?
No: BOTH should sound like music. But rarely do..
They should be able to sound like non-music, anti-music when required to too...
Everyone in the chain has an idea of what music sounds like yet a definition of what is music varies between cultures. Get too many recording artists and recording engineers and mastering engineers and hifi electronics engineers and finally the home enthusiast thinking all the same thing, that music is smooth and rich and comforting etc then you get that same flavour of sound compounded all the way.
Yet do people only want to create music in their homes or do they want equipment that re-creates all sound INCLUDING music?
That's why you need the goal to be complete transparency and attempt to take the human culture element out of the sound considerations. Very difficult to do..
.. and then one finds that the consumer buys and makes successful the coloured, 'this is what western music sounds like' equipment that best suits their biased idea of what music should sound like and also influenced by hifi journalists and their descriptions of sound, gushing about certain "emotional" aspects etc
It's up to the end user at home though to do what they want of course, for their own enjoyment.
What are your thoughts on the cup of tea thing? I was quite pleased with that..
Very droll!
Marco.
and based on that, I know which type of equipment and recording processes I consider are the most faithful at reproducing the real thing!
Well that's an easy one Marco . . . . AAD no argument there ;)
Lol - the results with that are certainly superb. I'm just glad you recognise that 'AAD' has the potential to outperform 'DDD'! ;)
Marco.
The very best digital recordings I own in terms of sound quality are DDD. But as I and others have said, it's all down to the mastering rather than the format.
Is this thing still going? Just go and hear some live unamplified music (jazz group at a local pub for example). You'll then begin to realise that ALL audio recording is crap, whatever technology you use :lol:
Is this thing still going? Just go and hear some live unamplified music (jazz group at a local pub for example). You'll then begin to realise that ALL audio recording is crap, whatever technology you use :lol:
Depending on the quality of the group, you might come to the conclusion that ALL live music is crap.
Is this thing still going? Just go and hear some live unamplified music (jazz group at a local pub for example). You'll then begin to realise that ALL audio recording is crap, whatever technology you use :lol:
Whilst that is true it's the degree of crap that we deem acceptable that we are discussing With your approach Dave we might as well all listen to low bit rate MP3.
anthonyTD
30-12-2013, 11:03
The other main aspect we have to take into consideration when comparing digital over analog is' the filtering required for digital that is not required in true analog, ie; the affect the brick wall type filters [22khz red book] have on the audio signal itself, which in some cases can cause a ringing affect,and although in itself' out of the audio bandwidth of most listeners, its affects are obvious to most as a hardening, or peakiness in the mid to high frequencies, maybe this is what people refer to as glare ???
True analog needs no such filtering, as [when done correctly] it has a natural decaying affect at the extreme ends of the audio frequency bandwidth, which is solely dependent on the recording material quality, and end user equipment' in respect to what you can achieve as far as audiophile quality is concerned.
Yes, there are other digital formats that originally' on first release claimed to have overcome the limitations and negative affects of 16bit 44k red book, but in truth' just created another whole lot of problems.
A...
Whilst that is true it's the degree of crap that we deem acceptable that we are discussing With your approach Dave we might as well all listen to low bit rate MP3.
Well, we listen to vinyl and that ain't far off lo-res MP3 :lol: - only joking :respect:
Harshness in domestic replay could easily be loudspeaker design issues as much as anything else as so many boutique bass-mid drivers take off in mid treble frequencies and attempts (or not) to deal with it in the crossover almost always lead to subjective issues in my opinion.
Loads of proper objective info on the Harbeth forum, which tries, I think, to balance fact as well as personal opinion.
Well, we listen to vinyl and that ain't far off lo-res MP3 :lol: - only joking :respect:
Harshness in domestic replay could easily be loudspeaker design issues as much as anything else as so many boutique bass-mid drivers take off in mid treble frequencies and attempts (or not) to deal with it in the crossover almost always lead to subjective issues in my opinion.
Loads of proper objective info on the Harbeth forum, which tries, I think, to balance fact as well as personal opinion.
The room is possibly even more important, it certainly is if it's problematic. It wouldn't surprise me if many typical UK rooms are especially problematic as our rooms are some of the smallest giving rise to all sorts of reflection issues, quite aside from bass concerns too. I've treated my room to great effect so now I'm left with harsh recordings sounding harsh rather than most recordings. Maybe recordings were EQ'ed back in the day such that they sounded good in a domestic environment....no dsp but using valve mics etc.
The other main aspect we have to take into consideration when comparing digital over analog is' the filtering required for digital that is not required in true analog, ie; the affect the brick wall type filters [22khz red book] have on the audio signal itself, which in some cases can cause a ringing affect,and although in itself' out of the audio bandwidth of most listeners, its affects are obvious to most as a hardening, or peakiness in the mid to high frequencies, maybe this is what people refer to as glare ???
A...
I think that may be true is some cases but AFAIK all modern DACS use advanced digital filters these days which don't exhibit the ringing associated with the old analogue anti-aliasing filters.
One consideration (I don't think its been mentioned) is that the frequency curve of many cartridges displays a roll off starting around 2Khz up to approx 18Khz where tip mass resonance causes a peak in the response. If you are tuned into this sort of presentation of a slightly lower midrange output then the ruler flat (in comparison) output of a CD player or DAC may sound harder and brighter especially around the sensitive 3 to 5Khz region....which also coincides with the crossover region of many two way 'speakers...maybe that alone can cause a hardness in presentation.
Here's a way of thinking to get your head around the digital versus analogue debate:
Imagine a sliding scale from low bitrate (telephone) through red book and what we call hi-res to infinitely high bitrate and infinitely high sampling rate (analogue). All of our formats fall somewhere on this scale. Remember that analogue is granular at the molecular level, whether it's the poles on the tape or the vinyl molecules forming the groove.
Now you just have to think about where you prefer your music to come from along this scale. As our technology improves, the positioning of what we find acceptable moves ever slowly down the scale.
Mr Kipling
30-12-2013, 15:00
Analogue playback has it real easy (real easy). Once the signal gets generated at the cartridge it just has to find it's way to the input on your amp, and that's it (leaving asside the R.I.A.A. network). Compare that to the complex processing of digital and the harsh (!) environment it will often find itself in. A soup of rf radiation, mains bourne muck - not to mention inadequate power supploy design & implementation. It must be absolute HELL for those 0s & 1s.
"Told you not to mention inadequate power supply design & implementation".
Those poor digits. . . They have my sympathy.
The link below isn't totally on topic but is does suggest some areas where our hearing is very sensitive and may be why it's possible for some of us to distinguish between analogue and digital.
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0114/the_world_beyond_20khz.htm
I'm just glad you recognise that 'AAD' has the potential to outperform 'DDD'!
Of course Marco, some of the finest recordings I have were made on valve gear and recorded/mastered on tape and a lot of the producers/engineers and artists I like are going back to this methodology with some truly excellent results, but the end delivery is digital.
To say analogue/vinyl is superior to digital is just plain wrong - it may 'sound' superior to the end user if they have a preference for that particular sound, but as a playback medium it is the lesser of the two for accuracy and that cannot be disputed.
Anyway, time for some music and to call it a day in this thread as it's getting a little long and I have only read 20% of it, which is more than enough for me ;)
To say analogue/vinyl is superior to digital is just plain wrong - it may 'sound' superior to the end user if they have a preference for that particular sound, but as a playback medium it is the lesser of the two for accuracy and that cannot be disputed.
I wouldn't like to say which is superior, certainly it's less costly to get a decent sound with digital which is a turnaround from a few years ago.
As for which is better; the purpose of both mediums is to play music for enjoyment. If we look at FR flat to 0.1db then digital will win out but that's nowt to do with enjoyment. If we could pin down what causes glare then we could maybe understand whether it's a fault with digital in some way or could it just be too accurate for the response in our rooms.
If we designed a car that was really fast but had no suspension travel, it might be technically the best but wouldn't be fit for purpose as a car. This to me analogous to the digital vs analogue debate. Can the technically better medim really be better if someone doesn't like its sound in some way? Maybe we're missing a parameter to measure. To my mind it's a recording/mastering issue or some basic electronics screw up in some cases. Digital can sound really good so there are lessons somewhere which aren't well learned yet.
Analogue playback has it real easy (real easy). Once the signal gets generated at the cartridge it just has to find it's way to the input on your amp, and that's it (leaving asside the R.I.A.A. network). Compare that to the complex processing of digital and the harsh (!) environment it will often find itself in. A soup of rf radiation, mains bourne muck - not to mention inadequate power supploy design & implementation. It must be absolute HELL for those 0s & 1s.
"Told you not to mention inadequate power supply design & implementation".
Those poor digits. . . They have my sympathy.
Yeah. And turntables and tonearms are invariably perfectly set up, cartridges are ideally suited to the phono amp, styluses never wear out or deteriorate, and records are always perfectly clean, perfectly pressed, and completely free from surface noise and end-of-side distortion.
Some of the best MUSIC I've ever heard reproduced well is the 60+ year old Ella and Louis recordings, played via CD. On a proper CD player, you can get the fun they had in the sessions and there are no vinyl nasties to get in the way - and no harshness either that I could determine :)
Just enjoy the sodding music, whatever medium it's played on. Life's too blinkin' short to worry about such things :lol:
anthonyTD
30-12-2013, 18:55
Which ever media you prefer, the mastering,and production of the original source material is where [IMHO] it is all won or lost.
I am convinced from my own experiences that both true analog, and digital can give exceptional results when careful attention has been paid while recording the original source material. Yes, it would be great if analog really had the dynamic range capabilities, lower noise floor, and stereo separation of the best Digital, equally, it would be great if digital could achieve its superiority in these realms without the need for noise shaping, and brick wall filters etc, Should either sound like the other, well, if either were truly correct, then yes, why not, however, from all the info and differences of opinions contained in these last 20 or so pages, it is clear that neither is correct, and far from being able to reproduce music in a way that sounds like the original performance, apart from the chosen media, this is also mainly down to the performance not being captured exactly correct in the first place!
Which is why, we are in the end' left to choose the media that sounds right to us as individuals, and within the context of each piece of equipment that makes up our system, and also, the environment in which we listen.
A...
Of course Marco, some of the finest recordings I have were made on valve gear and recorded/mastered on tape and a lot of the producers/engineers and artists I like are going back to this methodology with some truly excellent results...
Agreed, and so if that equipment was transparent enough to produce such sonically fine recordings, then it should similarly be transparent enough to produce sonically fine playback results! ;)
To say analogue/vinyl is superior to digital is just plain wrong - it may 'sound' superior to the end user if they have a preference for that particular sound, but as a playback medium it is the lesser of the two for accuracy and that cannot be disputed.
Ultimately, if you're a music lover, who owns a quality hi-fi system, in order to enjoy hearing your favourite tunes at their best, rather than someone who simply wanks over specs, then the only 'accuracy' that matters is whatever creates a sound that you enjoy listening to most!
In that respect, I don't consider vinyl as 'superior' to digital , but rather [B]at its best more faithfully able to capture what I consider as the sound of real music (voices and instruments).
Anyway, time for some music and to call it a day in this thread as it's getting a little long....
Now in that respect, we are in full agreement!
:exactly:
Marco.
PaulStewart
30-12-2013, 19:04
Yup, although those (final stage excepted) are most probably produced via an all-digital recording process, thus explaining the 'glare'...
Back in the late 80s I was producing Psycho-Billy, the biggest label on the scene Nervous Records insisted on cutting at CTS Studios in Wembley, where rather than use a second head on the tape deck to drive the lathe's Vari-Pitch system, they had an AMS digital delay. Despite the fact that they had a state of the art Neumann lathe and a Studer A800, I found the acetates and pressings much harder and glassy in tone when compared to others that I cut at old school facilities like TAM where they had a Scully lathe and second head on a Lyrec tape and the Exchange (probably the best mastering room I have ever used), which not only had a fully analogue signal chain, it also had one that was mostly valve.
A lot of vinyl can be AADA or these days DDDA because of this.
Is this thing still going? Just go and hear some live unamplified music (jazz group at a local pub for example). You'll then begin to realise that ALL audio recording is crap, whatever technology you use :lol:
It is... (still going on).
Dependent on the venue, I might conclude that recorded music is better.. Most venues are pretty much make-do sonically and are put into use for reasons other than sonics (simply licensing regulation). Then those that are chosen for their sonic benefits are often chosen for the same sound character like reverberant churches and halls - they can make different styles and sounds converge to the sound of the venue.
Still, if you're a sound engineer (or stage technician as I am sometimes) there is certainly no substitute for having your head right by an instrument played well and empty venues often sound more alive too..
Back in the late 80s I was producing Psycho-Billy, the biggest label on the scene Nervous Records insisted on cutting at CTS Studios in Wembley, where rather than use a second head on the tape deck to drive the lathe's Vari-Pitch system, they had an AMS digital delay. Despite the fact that they had a state of the art Neumann lathe and a Studer A800, I found the acetates and pressings much harder and glassy in tone when compared to others that I cut at old school facilities like TAM where they had a Scully lathe and second head on a Lyrec tape and the Exchange (probably the best mastering room I have ever used), which not only had a fully analogue signal chain, it also had one that was mostly valve.
A lot of vinyl can be AADA or these days DDDA because of this.
The Exchange used lots of Tim de Paravichini gear didn't it? And a friend told me a lot ended up with Lewis from Kitty Daisy and Lewis (a similar scene I guess..). Lewis didn't like the 549s and swapped a pair for a simple Garrard 301/3012 set-up! Was so gutted that I couldn't get anything together in time to swap with him when the friend said what he was looking for as a swap.. Lewis has the cutting lathe in his living room (seem to remember seeing a youtube video).
How about a new argument:
That before digital, all signal above, like 22KHz max was lost completely via the tape recording medium, filtered off and nicely so too.
We went from valve gear to solid state transistors and ICs long before we went digital. Studios replaced all their valve gear with solid state and, combined with the rolled off highs of tape, solid state still sounded ok too.
Along comes digital and suddenly all the transistor noise, IC noise, regulator noise is revealed in all it's shitty, glary glory!
But it sounded ok before so must be this new fangled digital that's to blame..
The problem with that argument, Nat, is that it not only presumes digital is more 'accurate' (and, in this context, for the sake of a quiet life, I'll accept that), but crucially, that it doesn't introduce any of its own problems, and for me, that simply isn't the case.
Digital audio is not a universal panacea for all the 'ills' that exist in creating genuine high-fidelity music reproduction, no matter how reassuring it may be for some to think differently.
Therefore, when: "Along comes digital and suddenly all the transistor noise, IC noise, regulator noise is revealed in all it's shitty, glary glory!", you're ignoring the possibility that part of that shittiness (and glare) could be due to side-effects, created by the digital process itself, rather than it simply revealing the deficiencies of everything else involved in the recording or playback chain! ;)
Anyway, I think we're fast reaching the point where the discussion is becoming stale and somewhat circular.
Marco.
Any discussion that centres around matters of taste (and the word 'should' in the title question is a very loaded one) is bound to become circular. Let's say I prefer tea to coffee, and you prefer coffee to tea. Which of us is right? There's not really an answer, and all the technical arguments I can produce won't persuade people to believe that they 'should' prefer tea to coffee if their tastes differ from mine.
Which ever media you prefer, the mastering,and production of the original source material is where [IMHO] it is all won or lost.
I am convinced from my own experiences that both true analog, and digital can give exceptional results when careful attention has been paid while recording the original source material. Yes, it would be great if analog really had the dynamic range capabilities, lower noise floor, and stereo separation of the best Digital, equally, it would be great if digital could achieve its superiority in these realms without the need for noise shaping, and brick wall filters etc, Should either sound like the other, well, if either were truly correct, then yes, why not, however, from all the info and differences of opinions contained in these last 20 or so pages, it is clear that neither is correct, and far from being able to reproduce music in a way that sounds like the original performance, apart from the chosen media, this is also mainly down to the performance not being captured exactly correct in the first place!
Which is why, we are in the end' left to choose the media that sounds right to us as individuals, and within the context of each piece of equipment that makes up our system, and also, the environment in which we listen.
A...
I think this is the best most balanced statement regarding this subject. I would challenge anyone contributing to this post to ignore all the technical details concerning analoq vs digital playback and simply listen with their own ears to material recorded in all formats wether it be 16 /24 bit, DSD or analoq on vinyl and I am sure the statement above from AnthonyTD will bear out the simple fact that analog and digital material both depend almost entirely on how well the original recording was engineered and mastered.
I would challenge anyone contributing to this post to ignore all the technical details concerning analoq vs digital playback
To be fair, I would think about 90% of those contributing to this thread, myself included, don't understand the technical details anyway!
Any discussion that centres around matters of taste (and the word 'should' in the title question is a very loaded one) is bound to become circular. Let's say I prefer tea to coffee, and you prefer coffee to tea. Which of us is right? There's not really an answer, and all the technical arguments I can produce won't persuade people to believe that they 'should' prefer tea to coffee if their tastes differ from mine.
Indeed, Joe. The only real goal I had in contributing to this thread was to robustly challenge the notion that 'digital is perfect' (as I fundamentally believe that it isn't), and to highlight the issue of 'digital glare', the existence of which has been experienced by most who have contributed to the discussion, and so appears to be a subjectively real phenomenon.
Therefore, it's not a matter of vinyl being 'superior' to digital, or vice versa, but rather that digital is not immune to imparting its own (negative) characteristics on the music signal.
The rest of the discussion is simply froth.
Marco.
Audioman
31-12-2013, 10:08
To be fair, I would think about 90% of those contributing to this thread, myself included, don't understand the technical details anyway!
The technical details are largely a side issue anyway. The tea/coffee comparison would better be put as home ground and filtered coffee v instant. Guess which format = ground coffee. We use our taste buds to determine which coffee is best and our ears to determine the prefered musical source. Measurements can tell us little about coffee as they don't tell us that much as to why many prefer analogue. The 'perfect sound forever' marketing of CD is based on the nyquist theorem and 20-20K hearing limits. This doesn't stand up in practice otherwise the industry standards for digital recording would not have risen to 24/96 or better. Resolution the original CD standard cannot support.
The 'perfect sound forever' marketing of CD is based on the nyquist theorem and 20-20K hearing limits. This doesn't stand up in practice otherwise the industry standards for digital recording would not have risen to 24/96 or better. Resolution the original CD standard cannot support.
It was a good marketing line though! The Hi Res question is another debate entirely.
I think this is the best most balanced statement regarding this subject. I would challenge anyone contributing to this post to ignore all the technical details concerning analoq vs digital playback and simply listen with their own ears to material recorded in all formats wether it be 16 /24 bit, DSD or analoq on vinyl and I am sure the statement above from AnthonyTD will bear out the simple fact that analog and digital material both depend almost entirely on how well the original recording was engineered and mastered.
Yes, I agree with this, James. It's why I am happy to accommodate both analogue and digital source material at home.
The technical details are largely a side issue anyway. The tea/coffee comparison would better be put as home ground and filtered coffee v instant. Guess which format = ground coffee. We use our taste buds to determine which coffee is best and our ears to determine the prefered musical source. Measurements can tell us little about coffee as they don't tell us that much as to why many prefer analogue. The 'perfect sound forever' marketing of CD is based on the nyquist theorem and 20-20K hearing limits. This doesn't stand up in practice otherwise the industry standards for digital recording would not have risen to 24/96 or better. Resolution the original CD standard cannot support.
Higher bit depth has nothing to do with better quality it's to have more headroom during music production and editing without clipping. It only increases the dynamic range. As for sampling rates the maths and science is there, 44.1kHz is enough to perfectly construct 20Hz to 20kHz signals. I am convinced that the benefits people are hearing are down to better mastering as companies try to push "high res", not increased bit depths and sampling rates. It's a good thing that improved music is getting out there though, but am not losing sleep over sticking with CD. "Perfect sound forever" was destroyed with digital filters, jitter, poor attention to power supplies and grounding, and poor output stages, not the medium itself IMHO.
Ali Tait
31-12-2013, 11:44
Nice article here by the Guardian-
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/26/how-i-taught-my-son-to-love-vinyl
Audioman
31-12-2013, 12:02
Higher bit depth has nothing to do with better quality it's to have more headroom during music production and editing without clipping. It only increases the dynamic range. As for sampling rates the maths and science is there, 44.1kHz is enough to perfectly construct 20Hz to 20kHz signals. I am convinced that the benefits people are hearing are down to better mastering as companies try to push "high res", not increased bit depths and sampling rates. It's a good thing that improved music is getting out there though, but am not losing sleep over sticking with CD. "Perfect sound forever" was destroyed with digital filters, jitter, poor attention to power supplies and grounding, and poor output stages, not the medium itself IMHO.
You are an example of what I was talking about. Proves my point exactly in hiding behind measurements that prove F all as far as what we hear.
People that know me wouldn't agree that I hide behind measurements at all... I am clearly stating that mastering is what's improving with these high res files, and "perfect sound forever" was limited by hardware issues not the CD format itself. If anything if I was hiding behind measurements I'd be saying that more bits and more samples are better...
I hope we're not getting to the point where all opinions are acceptable, but some are more acceptable than others.
Personally, I have some great recordings on CD, and some crap ones (in terms of sound quality) and ditto for vinyl, so I'm a confirmed fence-sitter regarding which is the better format. I haven't really listened to enough high-res stuff to form an opinion on that.
People that know me wouldn't agree that I hide behind measurements at all... I am clearly stating that mastering is what's improving with these high res files, and "perfect sound forever" was limited by hardware issues not the CD format itself. If anything if I was hiding behind measurements I'd be saying that more bits and more samples are better...
I would agree (on all counts). Paul, I think you've misinterpreted and/or not fully understood the point Neil was making.
Marco.
Link shamelessly stolen from pfm (for anyone here who hasn't already seen this): http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/what-sounds-just-like-the-master-tape-cd-vinyl-sacd-or-an-open-reel-tape-copy.133328/
Most interesting! It certainly concurs with my own experiences, which have led to the opinion I expressed earlier on the matter:
In that respect, I don't consider vinyl as 'superior' to digital [based on what technical specs state as representing 'accuracy'], but rather at its best more faithfully able to capture what I consider as the sound of real music (voices and instruments).
For me, there's a marked difference between that which is 'technically accurate' (based on currently recognised specs), and musically so..........
The problem with currently recognised technical specifications, in relation to high-fidelity audio, is the presumption that the evidence they provide tells the WHOLE story, and/or all the stories that need telling, as it were - and I don't believe that it does.
Marco.
Audioman
31-12-2013, 15:36
Probably was a bit harsh on Neil. Problem most people who use the measurements to argue 16/44.1 is optimum are trying to dismiss hi-res and analogue as being no better. Don't entirely agree with mastering being improved as there are examples of worse and better masters irrespective of the claimed resolution. CD remasters are generally worse and often hi-res is little better.
I would suggest if anyone has DVDA capability to try one of the recent King Crimson remasters which come as a set containing both CD and DVDA. The quality of mastering is way above the norm throughout but to my ears the DVDA is noticeably better. A cleaner version of the CD if you like. (Note with CD via a dedicated transport/DAC v DVDA from a mid range Universal player.) Also consider the recent Beatles vinyl. I suggest comparing one of the 16 bit sourced titles (Help and Rubber Soul) to one of the others sourced from 24/44.1 and report findings here.
Something is happening to improve the sound. I would suggest higher sampling frequencies move digital artifacts into the inaudible range. Also there is a more gentle roll off to audible information rather than a sudden cut at 20K Hz. The extra dynamic range provided by increased bit depth must also help in creating a more believable sound. More detail, better soundstage and less glare are what I hear.
Paul.
PaulStewart
31-12-2013, 20:38
The Exchange used lots of Tim de Paravichini gear didn't it?
Certainly did, as I said best mastering room I ever used. A number of mastering rooms now can only cut from CD, which is just criminal :mad:
The answer is of course no; digital should not sound like analogue and analogue should not sound like digital.
I’m a bit surprised to read audiophiles writing that the two formats have become almost indistinguishable to their ears. I can’t help thinking something isn’t quite right with this and perhaps some are negating some of the better aspects of digital in order to make their digital system more analogue sounding.
I don’t know how good a system has to be to show the differences between the two mediums but in my limited experience the better the respective systems are, the more noticeable the differences.
Of course digital isn’t perfect. This doesn’t mean that Nyquist and Shannon got it wrong imo, there is just further to go in digital to analogue conversion. :)
What I would be interested in is a record player based system that sounds more digital. ;)
To my ears the extra bandwidth available throughout the frequency range of digital is noticeable on good recordings and despite many years of listening to vinyl I doubt very much if I could live with surface noise and damaged media any more. :doh:
Oh, a point of annoyance…..I have heard digital recordings with content below 20Hz and I believe CD standard goes up to 22.5KHz, not 20KHz or 22KHz.
WOStantonCS100
31-12-2013, 23:10
I think some people have become immune to it -
1. Because they have never heard a decent turntable playing vinyl (even if they think they have).
2. They grew up in the digital age and digital sound has become the norm for them - especially those who mostly listen to Mp3 players.
It's funny how these people are intolerant of 'surface noise' irrespective of the quality of reproduction. Silent background becomes secondary to musical presentation. Unfortunately you are never going to win against these non-believers. Try starting a thread on this topic on a well known US music forum and you will get all the measurements 'proving' 16/44.1 is perfect and dozens of frequency graphs produced from needle drops and digital sources. :mental::rfl:
Truth spoken hear. :)
It's really annoying to be spoken to as if I'd been locked in a room with moldy records and a turntable all my life. I don't think so. What these folks (who grew up only knowing CD and compressed audio) fail to realize is that, not only did I grow up with vinyl, I also grew up listening to reel to reel tape and live musicians up close and personal. I know what shite sounds like in the real world as well as from analog sources. (In truth, they are the ones who grew up "in a room"; but, with CD and compressed digital, many having little exposure to the analog sources of which they often show disdain and ignorance.) Add to that, I was quick to the jump to find out what CDs were all about (again when consumer cd-r came along) and had high hopes for the 5" optical (no playback wear) disc; no hate there. To this day, I like the idea of the 5" optical disc. However, in 2013 going on 2014, it should be painfully obvious to anyone that, on that same physical carrier, one can store much more, exceedingly much more musical information. That's not a notion. It's been done. My apologies to those with crappy hearing that can't tell a difference. But, just because I can't see the sun doesn't mean it doesn't shine. Hello! SACD Hello! .wav/.bwf on up to 24/192 (typically) or DSD up to DSD128. It's as if the proliferation of CDs (admittedly very convenient) has thrown people headlong into denial, as if there could never be an improved digital format. Really? Seriously? So, digital audio technology had a head on collision with what is possible and died at 16/44.1 The absurdities are overwhelming.
This time I'm not taking the piss. I mean it. >>RANT OVER<<
I don’t know how good a system has to be to show the differences between the two mediums but in my limited experience the better the respective systems are, the more noticeable the differences.
I fundamentally disagree. In my experience, as both my vinyl and digital playback systems have been improved, both have converged towards a better, and closer, sound quality. I certainly haven't tuned either one to sound like the other, I just don't do that.
+1 (with bells on)! Me neither.
Sorry, John, it's well seen that you're more into digital these days, as that comment shows a distinct lack of experience ;)
Marco.
I fundamentally disagree. In my experience, as both my vinyl and digital playback systems have been improved, both have converged towards a better, and closer, sound quality. I certainly haven't tuned either one to sound like the other, I just don't do that.
I agree with Martin also here, when we did Whiitlebury this year, many comments were made about the remarkable similarity of each source, some convinced that one was playing when in fact it was the other.
Years ago I saw vinyl and digital as creating very different sounds. I think the biggest shock for me was moving to rim drive. I suddenly had the bass impact and dynamics of good digital.
I sometimes wonder if people see vinyl as something that's about warmth and not about getting closer to the musical experience. For me good vinyl should be able to capture the intensity of the musical experience, not just the romance of it.
I think there's some truth there John, we used an early 1980's Sony PS-B80 Direct Drive, an extreme example of what the big Japanese companies believed to be the best option for analogue playback, and it seems they may well have been right all along.
New years wishes to all btw..
I sometimes wonder if people see vinyl as something that's about warmth and not about getting closer to the musical experience.
I think you're absolutely right, John, and there's nothing wrong with that (if that's what shakes your tree) - *but* it is fundamentally not what vinyl replay, at its best, is about :nono:
For me, it's about removing as much of the sonic signature of the turntable itself from the equation, in order to access more of the music. However I think, as you've alluded to above, that some people actually LIKE hearing the 'sound' of the turntable, and the euphonic effect it creates with music (often considered as 'musicality'), and this actually adds to their overall enjoyment.....
I think that is one of the reasons why many like the LP12 (and other suspended belt-driven T/Ts), which as a by-product of their design, impose more of their 'intrinsic sound' onto music reproduced than does, for example, a fully modified SL-1210 (or SP10). In comparison, they find the latter to sound 'clinical' or 'unmusical' - but that's largely because there exists less coloration (inherent sound of the T/T itself), and thus ultimately, greater resolution of information contained in music recordings.
The reason why the best T/Ts sound remarkably close to the best digital sources is precisely because the usual distortions/colorations associated with vinyl replay have been minimised to the extent that they are virtually inaudible, and so, given a well-produced clean piece of vinyl, music has the rock-solid stability, clarity and realism associated with digital replay at its best - and that is precisely why in my system, and in those of others who own both top-notch vinyl and digital sources, sonically, it is almost impossible to tell them apart.
Essentially, I dislike being 'aware' that I'm listening to a turntable, if you know what I mean. I simply want to immerse myself in the music, without noticing the influence of the replay equipment.
When slowly modifying and upgrading my SL-1210, it was very obvious that every major upgrade, whether it be the addition of the Mike New bearing, Paul Hynes PSU, or the other modifications I've carried out, essentially through the reduction of noise and increasing accuracy, brought its performance closer to the sound of my CDP, but in the RIGHT way (as described above), whilst still retaining all that is best about high-quality analogue music reproduction - and it's interesting to note that all of us who have experienced the same thing with other top-notch T/Ts and digital set-ups are in agreement on this matter.
For me, that says it all :)
Marco.
jandl100
01-01-2014, 10:59
Martin is right, imo. Whatever source is playing, if it doesn't sound like real music you're not doing it right. It's that simple, in my view.
I'm (much) more into good digital playback these days, but I think a good vinyl system can be just as rewarding. I just don't like the extra faffing around that comes with vinyl!
Happy New Year one & all, regardless of your playback orientation. :cheers:
anthonyTD
01-01-2014, 11:15
Happy new year to one and all.:)
Anthony,TD...
+1 (with bells on)! Me neither.
Sorry, John, it's well seen that you're more into digital these days, as that comment shows a distinct lack of experience ;)
Marco.
I’ll grant you that my recent experience in vinyl replay is limited but I’ve listened to an awful lot of studio tape replay recently and to my ears the tape replay sounds closer to the mike feeds. It’s not that the digital recordings sound worse as such, just different.
I can’t help wondering if for many people what they are hearing from both mediums is in fact the room they are played in and perhaps the differences I hear are more obvious in studios and purpose built listening environments.
What is true is I am very much into digital playback. :)
Martin is right, imo. Whatever source is playing, if it doesn't sound like real music you're not doing it right. It's that simple, in my view.
Ah, but then how do you decide what 'real music' sounds like?
I can’t help wondering if for many people what they are hearing from both mediums is in fact the room they are played in and perhaps the differences I hear are more obvious in studios and purpose built listening environments.
No doubt that's an influencing factor (as indeed are many other things), but what I described in my earlier post I've heard in many different rooms and environments, so the views I have expressed fundamentally remain the same: at their best, digital and vinyl replay are hard to separate, sonically :)
Marco.
jandl100
01-01-2014, 11:42
Ah, but then how do you decide what 'real music' sounds like?
Well, that's up to you, isn't it.
As long as both Martin and John Welder (and the rest of the inmates here) enjoy their own music playback, nothing else matters, really.
235 posts now, to say the same old guff - my goodness, you folk have a lot of time on your hands! :lol:
Ah, but then how do you decide what 'real music' sounds like?
Whatever, from the results of your experience listening to live un-amplified voices and instruments, best represents the most convincing illusion of such when reproduced on your hi-fi system, using either an analogue or digital source.
Simples!
MArco.
jandl100
01-01-2014, 11:58
Whatever, from the results of your experience listening to live un-amplified voices and instruments, best represents the most convincing illusion of such when reproduced on your hi-fi system, using either an analogue or digital source.
Simples!
MArco.
Well, not so simple really.
What's good for unamplified acoustic recordings may not sound best on electronic music. And vice versa - I've heard many a system set up by rock aficionados that doesn't have a clue about classical playback.
And even with systems optimised for say classical, the audio system requirements of lieder (solo voice and piano) and big orchestral are very different indeed.
Argh. Oh No! - what have I done? I'm getting sucked in to these circular discussions! :doh:
:eyebrows:
Mheh! Jerry wrote just what I was thinking, and has now entered into the seventh circle of forum hell, the 'It depends what you mean by ...' stage in the discussion.
Well, not so simple really.
What's good for unamplified acoustic recordings may not sound best on electronic music. And vice versa - I've heard many a system set up by rock aficionados that doesn't have a clue about classical playback.
:eyebrows:
Then they are not very good hi-fi systems - the kit does not know what type of music it is playing, it is just moving air. Any proper hi-fi system should be able to reproduce all types of music equally well or it is not hi-fi in the strictest sense. I'll grant you that ideal is too rarely realised but that is mainly due to there being some very odd and/or highly compromised loudspeakers out there these days.
Then they are not very good hi-fi systems - the kit does not know what type of music it is playing, it is just moving air. Any proper hi-fi system should be able to reproduce all types of music equally well or it is not hi-fi in the strictest sense.
Spot on, Martin - I couldn't agree more.
A top-notch hi-fi system should be able to play ANY genre of music well, but of course it may excel with some more than others - and that is just as it should be, as no system is perfect. However, if it "doesn't have a clue about classical playback", then something is seriously wrong!
Quite simply, as I have a very wide taste in music (my listening sessions can start with Frank Sinatra, then flick to some Depeche Mode, Tiesto, through to John Martyn, Godsmack, Rammstein, and end in Rachmaninov), my system must be able to play all sorts of music - and do it superbly. I simply couldn't live with a system that couldn't cope with playing a specific type of music.
With regard to what you wrote before, Jerry:
What's good for unamplified acoustic recordings may not sound best on electronic music.
Sure, there's no doubt that some systems will excel more at one genre than the other, but as I've said, if they're any good at all, none should 'fall apart' with any type of music - and *that* is the point.
When I mentioned earlier about acoustic voices and instruments, I meant that reproducing those as realistically as possible is the benchmark I use for assessing how good any system is, including my own, as that is where the 'bones' of most music resides. Get that right, and unless there is some gross mismatch somewhere in the system, everything else usually falls into place.
At the end of that day, systems which are simply 'one-trick ponies' are only of use to those with very specific tastes in music, so count me out! :nono:
Marco.
Where was I? I’ve been tending our new lambs which involves bottle feeding those who can’t or won’t suckle for various reasons.:doh:
Oh arr, this media being harder to tell apart the better the system. :)
Apparently digital and analogue do sound different, if it doesn’t then an awful lot of the posts here on AoS are complete nonsense and this thread a non starter. :scratch:
I think I’m right in believing that the better the replay system (more transparent, more resolving, pick whatever term you like) the more of the media one hears and less of the replay equipment.
One might conclude following this logic that any differences there are between digital and analogue media become more apparent rather than less the better the replay system; one hears more of the media and less of the dacs, amps, cable, speakers etc.
So the more resolving the system to use a term, the more apparent the differences between digital and analogue should be…..shouldn’t they? If this isn’t the case I would love to know why not. :scratch:
If anyone's following the similar thread on pfm, this for me, is the post of the year (and gets it 'right up' the blinkered measurists):
http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2199061&postcount=397 [Evil Emperor quoting Merlin]...
Originally Posted by merlin:
The only issue with that is that "what moves you" is dictated by so many senses of which your actual hearing makes up only a small part.
Question. Does a £1K system in a mortgage free house sound better than a £50K system in a cottage that still belongs to the bank?
Does an iPod on a beach in the Maldives move you more than your Stax SRM007 in your office at lunch time?
You need a constant if you are to make judgements and the science behind audio is both reasonably well understood and constant.
This is where you get it completely backwards. The science is in the service of the art, not the other way round.
I want my Stax to sound like an iPod in the Maldives, and if a better energiser gets me closer to that goal, it's better... even if the reasons why it's better end up entirely unrelated to the sonic performance.
The science only tells me so much. In fact it tells me so little it's almost immaterial. It's a box that needs to be ticked by an expert somewhere in the chain. There's more to my musical sensorium than I get from just the music reproduction. If you were to remove the pre-music cocktail, the massage, the candles, the coitus, the line of coke, the cigar and the post-album whisky from the experience, I wouldn't enjoy it as much irrespective of how good the album or the system was. If something enhances that whole experience, regardless of why or how it enhances that whole experience (and as long as it stays within local legal boundaries and personal guidelines of moral repugnance), go for it.
I've never been able to understand why we should extract the pleasure out of enjoying music, in order to better enjoy it.
:clapclapclap:
Marco.
StanleyB
02-01-2014, 18:16
One reason I still treasure my Aiwa AA-8700 amplifier, and reluctantly sold my Kenwood C2 Basic, is because they got tone controls, variable frequency filters, loudness control, and all those evils banned from "proper hifi". They might not be the thing if you are into faithful reproduction, but boy you sure can have lots of fun whilst breaking all the rules. And after a few shots it doesn't matter how badly scratched some of my 30+ year old vinyls are, whether vinyl is better or worse than digital, or if the neighbours are asleep or not.
Apparently digital and analogue do sound different, if it doesn’t then an awful lot of the posts here on AoS are complete nonsense and this thread a non starter. :scratch:
I think I’m right in believing that the better the replay system (more transparent, more resolving, pick whatever term you like) the more of the media one hears and less of the replay equipment.
One might conclude following this logic that any differences there are between digital and analogue media become more apparent rather than less the better the replay system; one hears more of the media and less of the dacs, amps, cable, speakers etc.
So the more resolving the system to use a term, the more apparent the differences between digital and analogue should be…..shouldn’t they? If this isn’t the case I would love to know why not. :scratch:
You're missing the point, John. It's not about digital and analogue sounding different; in general they do.
This is purely about turntables sounding more and more like the best digital sources (in terms of what the latter do best), once the commonly accepted distortions associated with vinyl replay are minimised to the point of near-inaudibility, and therefore bringing the fundamental sound of both closely in line with one another.
Differences still exist, though, so they are not identical - and of course the gap will be wider in systems where either the digital or anolgue source is significantly better than its counterpart, not to mention in circumstances where the user has never experienced either at its best.
Anyway, that's what many others and I, who own top-notch digital and analogue sources, have heard very clearly in our systems. If you were here, listening to what I am, I'm sure you'd agree!
In any case, whether or not you accept the conclusions of our respective listening experiences is up to you, but I can assure you they are real :)
Marco.
You're missing the point, John. It's not about digital and analogue sounding different; in general they do.
This is purely about turntables sounding more and more like the best digital sources (in terms of what the latter do best), once the commonly accepted distortions associated with vinyl replay are minimised to the point of near-inaudibility, and therefore bringing the fundamental sound of both closely in line with one another.
Differences still exist, though, so they are not identical - and of course the gap will be wider in systems where either the digital or anolgue source is significantly better than its counterpart, not to mention in circumstances where the user has never experienced either at its best.
Anyway, that's what many others and I, who own top-notch digital and analogue sources, have heard very clearly in our systems. If you were here, listening to what I am, I'm sure you'd agree!
In any case, whether or not you accept the conclusions of our respective listening experiences is up to you, but I can assure you they are real :)
Marco.
Oh, I thought the thread was about whether digital and analogue should sound the same to which I answered earlier, definitely not. :scratch:
Great thing for me is I can plug the Benchmark straight into the mixing desk, or the tape deck and listen direct to the master. This way I don’t have to be overly concerned about replay kit, or transfer mixing, messing up the sound.
The band my niece plays in and a couple of others are recording CDs this month in various studios around Barcelona and Girno so I may get the opportunity to make another comparison.
Oh, I thought the thread was about whether digital and analogue should sound the same to which I answered earlier, definitely not. :scratch:
Indeed, but the discussion has since extrapolated to other areas, which I was covering in my response to you.
Great thing for me is I can plug the Benchmark straight into the mixing desk, or the tape deck and listen direct to the master. This way I don’t have to be overly concerned about replay kit, or transfer mixing, messing up the sound.
...presuming of course that the Benchmark is 'transparent', and therefore doesn't contribute any of its own sonic signature ;)
Regardless, that must give you access to some rather rewarding sounds! :)
The band my niece plays in and a couple of others are recording CDs this month in various studios around Barcelona and Girno so I may get the opportunity to make another comparison.
Sounds cool. I must send you some recent files of my T/T (perhaps of music you also own on a digital format), since my T/T has been further modified.
That will hopefully give you greater insight into what I'm talking about, in terms of 'good vinyl' near-mirroring the sound of 'good digital', but in a way which also shows what's really good about 'good vinyl'.... ;)
Marco.
Anyway we are The Art of Thread Drift (I like it). :)
Unfortunately you are never going to win against these non-believers.
Hmm... That is the point where all discussion becomes pointless, when you find out you're amidst a bunch of religious fanatics!
No discussion will ever convince "believers" that their beliefs should be re-examined with an open mind nor that their beliefs stem from subjective standpoints.
Argh. Oh No! - what have I done? I'm getting sucked in to these circular discussions! :doh:
A-haha!
Hey, breath in deep my friend, let the discussion relaaax you, let it encircle your mind like fine hashish smoke swirling and filling the room.. let yourself go... discover new untapped responses deep from within your psyche ...
Aaand.. You're back in the room!
Years ago I saw vinyl and digital as creating very different sounds. I think the biggest shock for me was moving to rim drive. I suddenly had the bass impact and dynamics of good digital.
I sometimes wonder if people see vinyl as something that's about warmth and not about getting closer to the musical experience. For me good vinyl should be able to capture the intensity of the musical experience, not just the romance of it.
I'd agree too.
But that's where these discussions are bound to fall - there are probably many contributing here who STILL love and associate their vinyl source sound for the very reason that it captures the romance and that this romance makes the music feel very REAL (to them).
Then there will be others who like their vinyl to be just as biting and harsh as the music calls for AND they achieve this (perhaps) with their vinyl source too.
There's no point either saying things like " you've never heard good vinyl then!" because a) when someone else hears that "good vinyl" they could subjectively hear it as being just more romantic b) digital people could equally say to Marco for example that he has never heard "good digital" if he can always hear digital glare..
And so, we can only answer on a theoretical standpoint - and yet many people also hate that too, prefer to stay in the realms of personal, subjective feeling about the matter.
Theoretically, digital has more chance of being perfect. Unless one can say vinyl and tape etc are already perfect media, they are doomed to be bound by their physical limitations. There could be new analogue media invented but it's too expensive for physical playback methods to be introduced and implemented throughout the land.
This is were digital has the advantage.. It is easy to change digital methods and formats as technology progresses and by only upgrading the DAC (with file playback). Digital and computer products are constantly being upgraded by folks and so replay hardware constantly evolves by being build into new technology.
So if we accept that both digital and analogue ARE coloured in their own ways, digital is free to evolve and escape current limitations whereas most analogue formats aren't.
Over time, the appeal for analogue media will be to sound very much like analogue media . Over time, digital media should eventually sound like nothing at all.
Digital will become analogue in at some point in time! 3D printing already turns digital into a 7" vinyl (think it was a Block Party single?) - So what is that analogue or digital? Digital with analogue playback.... hmm. :scratch:
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