Originally Posted by
AJSki2fly
I would agree to most of what you say both have there merits and both failings. I was a relatively early adopter of CD in 84/85 and by 86 that was all I was buying, but back then I felt something was missing in the sound quality, this lead me down the path of CDP holy grail search and in 88 I succumbed to a £1850 outlay on a Meridian 508, equivalent today would probably be about £8-10k outlay, so for most a huge commitment in the scheme things. Did this give me CD replay perfection, the simple answer is no. Good or well transcribed ones were good in some cases nearing vinyl sound, but bad or poorly transcribed, whatever the cause still sounded not very good.
So even though I had acquired over 600 CD’s and a pretty expensive system I stopped listening to it, yes the occasional CD went on maybe one a week, but always dissatisfaction returned, a feeling of hollowness and disappointment and that was a system the had cost me about £10k, probably today looking at similar equivalents new would be nearer £30-35k.
So for around 12 years it stay like that, I incorporated aspects of the hifi into a surround system to watch films, and that became my entertainment.
So what changed, about 5 years ago a friend sent me some new music on mp3, I was shocked it sounded awful, what was he on he was a music fan and audiophile with a very good vinyl based system. After discussion with him he did a direct copy and things improved and I could now listen to the new world music. So this led me into lots of ready and home trials listening to the same music digitally recorded at different sample rates and different compression, I even investigated the impacts of digital codecs discovering some are historically tied to equipment used in studios and radio stations. So my conclusion was that unfortunately the digital music medium is to be honest a mess, it has to some extent evolved like topsy, in other words there were/are too many variables across the industry. Yes there are industry standards for CDs, we all know that, but just look at all the codecs for converting to and from digital. So is it really surprising some CDs sound good and others not, or even digital files, to be honest no, not in my opinion now I think it’s pretty obvious.
So my music journey continued and having heard my friends vinyl system about 5 years ago, of around £8k when he purchased, I venture back into vinyl. Initially a 2nd hand Project TT from my friend , and then over the next 4 years I moved towards a more analogue focused system and yes I admit ended up spending a reasonable amount. I listen to the same music as I have for 40 years but now it just sounds right, more natural to the ear, more real is the only way I can put it into words. Yes I did keep the Meridian and I listened to good CDs back to back with the same on vinyl through my system but each time the vinyl one through. So why is this, well in my opinion and I’m sure there are many other reasons is that producing a record is more standardised than a digital file, with the advent of RIAA one compression/decompression circuit was agreed across the industry, unless I have misunderstood something. The other recording and mixing variables remain much that same as they have been, although with the advent of digital recording and mixing we may be introducing the same issue onto new vinyl as on CD, certainly and engineer can deliberately compress and alter the dynamics creating a modern wall of sound, yuk.
But IMHO for the music I listen to the vinyl experience give me the best experience to my ears, is it because it was that sound I grew up with and loved, maybe, maybe not, I didn’t listen to vinyl for 25 years so I would have thought my brain and ears would have lost any pre-programming in that time. So it’s mainly vinyl for me and occasional digital to find new stuff and if it’s good but on vinyl and hope it then doesn’t sound digitised because of the front end recording process.
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