"Your old records rescued. Brand new records made."

[Rothchild]

If recorded using 32 bit floating point at say 96Khz even after manipulation to remove rumble, surface noise and clicks the resulting file retains the signature of the original turntable sound. Its quite uncanny...the file can then be converted to say Red book CD or 320Kbs MP3 with dither applied and the turntable signature is still present.

Interesting, do you think it would work the other way round, if you recorded a digital file to vinyl would the same transparency be apparent? If not then we have an answer to the 'which is most accurate' thread ;-) (ie if digital is able to capture analogue accurately but analogue can't capture digital accurately (and there are clear and easy conditions we can generate where it won't) then digital is by definition more accurate)

[NRG]

Interesting, do you think it would work the other way round, if you recorded a digital file to vinyl would the same transparency be apparent? If not then we have an answer to the 'which is most accurate' thread ;-) (ie if digital is able to capture analogue accurately but analogue can't capture digital accurately (and there are clear and easy conditions we can generate where it won't) then digital is by definition more accurate)

I suspect not but there would only be one way to tell!

[Marco]

In the end, you hear what you hear, or not, as the case may be!

Marco.

[Haselsh1]

The very best vinyl recordings I possess are all 100% pure analogue as indicated on the sleeve. They are quite noticeably better than ADD or AAD recordings.

[Marco]

Indeed... Incidentally, Shaun, what's your view, as a professional, on film versus digital photography?

Marco.

[Rothchild]

Sorry, I've still not worked out this multiquote thing, but to pick up a point here Marco,

what I certainly don't want is any such euphonic artefacts [/I]added by the playback equipment, or deliberate coloration applied during the recording process that isn't part of the music.

And

At the end of the day, I want to replicate, as closely as possible, via my hi-fi system, the sound that the artist(s) and recording engineers created in the studio

The thing is 99 times in a 100 these postitions are mutually exclusive. What the artist hears in the studio is the product of a series of (normally) deliberate choices about colouration (euphonic or otherwise) many of which will be applied after the event (ie they are part of the music but not necesarily part of the 'performance' (particularly in the UK the tradition is to record 'dry' and then process from the 'tape' whereas our american friends are more inclined to process to 'tape'))

What's the boundary of 'deliberate colouration', I'll presume it's ok to conciously select a particular microphone for a particular task, what abou the judgement about what the best (nicest) recording chain is? Are recordists allowed to use EQ (a very deliberate colouration).

I think we're in complete agreement about the desire for some sort of 'transparent wall' in terms of reproduction (by whatever mechanism, valves, chips, hampsters in wheels whatever) but I think conflating that with the belief that the recording process is concerned with the same transparency is wrong, recording is all about using 'tricks' to make stuff sound better, it's fundamenatally 'dishonest' (if you will) where as HiFi (IMO) is a desire for more 'honesty' as you say, the hifi should replicate the source closely, however in my view the source is a law unto itself and should not be constrained by the same standards.

[Marco]

Hi Marc,

We're essentially in agreement, especially with this bit:

I think we're in complete agreement about the desire for some sort of 'transparent wall' in terms of reproduction (by whatever mechanism, valves, chips, hampsters in wheels whatever...

...and I take the rest of your points on board.

I'm just very 'hot' on debunking the myth that as soon as valves or tape are introduced into the recording (or playback) chain, it automatically results in less 'accuracy' (remember that I'm only interested in genuine 'musical accuracy', not merely deficient readouts on test equipment), and more coloration introduced, which dilutes musical purity, any more than happens necessarily with the use of their transistor or digital counterparts.

In my considerable experience, that is FAR from the reality, especially when the former analogue devices are of the highest quality and judiciously implemented by an expert in his or her field - and if you're honest, I'm sure you'll admit that there was somewhat of an anti-valve/analogue sentiment in your previous post, which is why it got the respose that it did...

At the end of the day, as you inferred in your last post, every device or cable that we introduce into the signal path is coloured, sonically, to some degree, so in terms of the music signal and determining that which is most 'accurate', it's simply a matter of choosing one's 'favoured flavour' of coloration, as a result of how said coloration/distortion is imparted onto the signal by our chosen recording or playback equipment - and ultimately, in that respect, what sounds most 'accurate' to OUR ears.

Just because something appears to test more accurately on a piece of measurement apparatus, doesn't automatically follow that in the real world, it will sound more lifelike to the listener, which at the end of the playback or recording chain, is ultimately all that matters.

That's it in a nutshell.

Marco.

P.S I fixed the quotes in your post for you

[AlexM]

I've archived a lot of vinyl to computer, mainly for playback in the car and on the squeezebox but I've always kept the original recording. If recorded using 32 bit floating point at say 96Khz even after manipulation to remove rumble, surface noise and clicks the resulting file retains the signature of the original turntable sound. Its quite uncanny...the file can then be converted to say Red book CD or 320Kbs MP3 with dither applied and the turntable signature is still present.

I agree, apart from the romance side of having a new LP cut it would be better to just retain it as a file or CD....and it would make sense only if the recording is rare, unobtainable on the same or alternative format.

Hi Neal,

I wanted to agree with what you wrote here - I have found myself that the essential balance and character of the original vinyl and the turntable survive the digitisation process quite clearly, even after some sympathetic processing to remove clicks etc. In direct comparison with a CD of the same material, the vinyl rip still sounds like an 'analogue' presentation and doesn't suddenly take on what many would describe as a 'digital' quality. Sure, there are always going to be some generational losses through ADC/DAC, but I have been suprised by how slight and innocuous they are in my own experiments.

I think the art of the mastering and cutting engineer in terms of EQ for treble or bass reduction, level adjustment or fixing errors in the master mix (out of phase sounds, excessive high treble) that allow a record to be 'playable' and listenable quite often sounds different to the unmastered master tape. There are often a lot of basic problems with the studio master that a good mastering engineer will HAVE to fix to for Vinyl to work, but these just get passed through onto the CD master as a flat transfer.

Given that a lot of these characteristics are retained when you archive vinyl, I can't see what cutting a new impression would add to the process other than more noise and distortion apart from preferring to handle LPs.

Regards,
Alex

[Rothchild]

In my considerable experience, that is FAR from the reality, especially when the former analogue devices are of the highest quality and judiciously implemented by an expert in his or her field - and if you're honest, I'm sure you'll admit that there was somewhat of an anti-valve/analogue sentiment in your previous post, which is why it got the respose that it did...

Honestly, no. I think it's a fair misunderstanding that you thought that, but it's not what I meant. It was more that I was acknowledging that there is that argument but didn't feel it was actually wholly relevant to the context at hand, and, as a follow on to my more general point about the vageries of what they're actually doing, the image (of a well known 'colour box' processor) and absense of a positive reason for the inclusion of another stage (valve or otherwise) led me to determine that they elected to put it in there to appeal to the naive 'valves are necessarily better' mentality than due to a seriously considered and researched position. Of course I stand to be proven wrong on this, but given that the list of uncoloured valve boxes pales in to insignificance against the number of coloured ones makes me feel relatively safe in my view.

[AlexM]

In this context, valves are part of the effects chain, and so can't be transparent as they are adding 2nd harmonic distortion, soft compression etc. to add euphoric colouration. If they weren't adding something to the sound rather than preserving it, they wouldn't be in the circuit.