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Vinyl v Digital


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On 2/2/2020 at 8:50 PM, awayward said:

 My experience is the opposite, I think you need to spend more on analogue to match modern day digital of the same SQ.

Agreed, listen to the latest edition of the Esoteric K-07SX at 7k rrp. I've never heard a vinyl setup as good at the price, but that's not saying it doesn't exist.

I keep an open mind, not like some on these forums. Modern digital is exciting, and the good thing is, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper.

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3 hours ago, was_a said:

Wonderful! Thanks for your contribution and extensive write-up. 

 

Yes, clearing a disc-player's memory does reap rewards on close listening. As you say, solo piano becomes fuller and less clangy. I must say I'm not as worried about static etc as you are, but everything makes a small difference in my experience.

 

Thanks again. 

should also consider time-aligned speakers to hear piano properly reproduced...

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A lot of people are talking about the "experience" of analog.

 

There's a similar thing with analogue photography, the feeling is different. Even if you completely disregard the look of film vs digital, the feeling of making a picture with only light, glass, and a fully mechanical machine is something special. You take your time more, you notice things you wouldn't have otherwise, you feel more connected, and each frame feels special. 

 

The only difference between hifi analog and photography analog is that shooting film is so much cheaper than listening to vinyl ?, otherwise I'd definitely get into it.

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30 minutes ago, maximus said:

Agreed, listen to the latest edition of the Esoteric K-07SX at 7k rrp. I've never heard a vinyl setup as good at the price, but that's not saying it doesn't exist.

I keep an open mind, not like some on these forums. Modern digital is exciting, and the good thing is, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper.

What vinyl setup's have you directly compared?

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15 minutes ago, Igor Nadj said:

A lot of people are talking about the "experience" of analog.

 

There's a similar thing with analogue photography, the feeling is different. Even if you completely disregard the look of film vs digital, the feeling of making a picture with only light, glass, and a fully mechanical machine is something special. You take your time more, you notice things you wouldn't have otherwise, you feel more connected, and each frame feels special. 

 

The only difference between hifi analog and photography analog is that shooting film is so much cheaper than listening to vinyl ?, otherwise I'd definitely get into it.

You rise an interesting point. The critical point of the OP video is that human hearing is frequency band limited, i.e. we generally can't hear sonic frequencies above 22kHz or there about. Even for those who argue for ultrasonic frequencies, it has to end at some point on the frequency scale. It is solely due to the existence of this band limit that allows us to apply Nyquist's sampling theorem to enables digital recording and play-back in analogue, as explained nicely in the video. 

 

Similarly we have a band limit in our vision as well - i.e. human can only 'see' light frequencies within the visible light range (think colour of the rainbow). Therefore in principle we can also apply Nyquist's sampling theorem to digital photography as well. Yet, a quick search of Nyquist and digital photography seems to focus mainly on pixels resolution, which is a different thing. Interesting difference between digital applied to audio and vision. 

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2 hours ago, kelossus said:

What vinyl setup's have you directly compared?

They weren't comparisons, just individual systems people own and in audio stores, Rega, Technics, Project, Clear audio etc...the Esoteric was so much more dynamic and detailed, it seemed to handle  rhythms with real authority, very foot tapping and engaging. Just my taste and opinion.   

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  • 1 month later...

Research I find interesting and often applicable is this. 

 

Red cars sound sportier and big bulldozers sound louder.  See Internoise publications. 

 

This has been proven under controlled testing where each coloured car has the same audio and so do each of the bulldozers. 

 

A case of either preconception or primal hard wiring impacting perception.

 

I have also had to respond to community complaints of this nature as a professional. Eg blue ships vs red ones, rusty ships vs freshly painted ones, red road noise barriers vs green ones etc... Apparently the noise levels are higher for some even when they are not. 

 

I would love to have the funding to research this in the audio world. 

 

As an acoustics professional grounded in engineering the real psychological aspects of perception have led me to philosophical questions about whether audio, sound or noise is what we measure or perceive?

 

Probably perception for audio as the experience is everything and the financier is the beneficiary. 

 

For community complaints and tax payer funded solutions it is a harder to spend money on perception, although good and negative perception have measurable value which could be used in economic decision making. 

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  • 4 months later...

For a decade or two this topic has been thrashed to death, but hey, I'll weigh in...

Bear in mind that I have a bachelor of applied science and a sparky's trade followed up by studies in industrial electronics, so the "science" side of things should skew my preferences. I've built my own tube amps and speakers in the past, and cabled up one of Australia's top 5 recording studios...

 

My system is pretty lowly by the standards of most here: Martin Logan Electromotion ESL (the bottom of the range of their statics), Nakamichi CA5 PA5 pre power (100w with about 5w in Class A, Nelson Pass Stasis technology).  Sources are an Audiolab 8000CDE with outboard power supply and a Garrard 401 with modified thrust bearing in a Corian and Brushbox plinth running "The Wand" unipivot tonearm and an alloy bodied DL103r cartridge.

The CD player replaced my old Arcam Alpha 5 and was a bit of a revelation for me in clarity, cleaning up soundstage and the bottom end response.

I find the experience of playing records a pain in the butt.  Short playing time, scratches, cleaning, fragile handling etc etc.

That said, my vinyl front end utterly slays the Audiolab if the LP's are in good condition.  Recent examples are the Propellerheads "Decksanddrumsandrockandroll", the Buena Vista Social Club, Caro Emerald "Deleted Scenes fro the Cutting Room Floor", Rodger Waters "Amused to Death".

In every case, despite the inconvenience, there is no comparison, the LP replay is drastically superior and more "real" sounding in instances where acoustic instruments have been used.

Maybe if I threw 3k at a transport and DAC that'd change, I honestly don't know.  I'm enjoying both formats, but if I want the best sound with the gear I have and I have the recording in both formats, despite the inconvenience, I'll play the LP.

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6 minutes ago, FR DRew said:

For a decade or two this topic has been thrashed to death, but hey, I'll weigh in...

Bear in mind that I have a bachelor of applied science and a sparky's trade followed up by studies in industrial electronics, so the "science" side of things should skew my preferences. I've built my own tube amps and speakers in the past, and cabled up one of Australia's top 5 recording studios...

 

My system is pretty lowly by the standards of most here: Martin Logan Electromotion ESL (the bottom of the range of their statics), Nakamichi CA5 PA5 pre power (100w with about 5w in Class A, Nelson Pass Stasis technology).  Sources are an Audiolab 8000CDE with outboard power supply and a Garrard 401 with modified thrust bearing in a Corian and Brushbox plinth running "The Wand" unipivot tonearm and an alloy bodied DL103r cartridge.

The CD player replaced my old Arcam Alpha 5 and was a bit of a revelation for me in clarity, cleaning up soundstage and the bottom end response.

I find the experience of playing records a pain in the butt.  Short playing time, scratches, cleaning, fragile handling etc etc.

That said, my vinyl front end utterly slays the Audiolab if the LP's are in good condition.  Recent examples are the Propellerheads "Decksanddrumsandrockandroll", the Buena Vista Social Club, Caro Emerald "Deleted Scenes fro the Cutting Room Floor", Rodger Waters "Amused to Death".

In every case, despite the inconvenience, there is no comparison, the LP replay is drastically superior and more "real" sounding in instances where acoustic instruments have been used.

Maybe if I threw 3k at a transport and DAC that'd change, I honestly don't know.  I'm enjoying both formats, but if I want the best sound with the gear I have and I have the recording in both formats, despite the inconvenience, I'll play the LP.

The difficulty with these comparisons is that they are usually not about differences in format. Rather, they are mostly about differences in mastering. 
 

I reckon if you made a digital recording of say, your “Amused to Death” record, you’d have all the benefit without the inconvenience (apart from the one-off inconvenience of making the recording itself). 

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Before the lock down in Melbourne i went to pickup some cds this guy was selling.

He had an old Cambridge Audio CD3 cd player that was built around 1989?

It was the closest digital iv'e heard that resembles analogue sound.

My next player if i can find one!

 

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1 hour ago, Fordute said:

Before the lock down in Melbourne i went to pickup some cds this guy was selling.

He had an old Cambridge Audio CD3 cd player that was built around 1989?

It was the closest digital iv'e heard that resembles analogue sound.

My next player if i can find one!

 

A lot to like!

Good power supply

Philip's CDM1 MKII transport, arguably the best Philips made.

4X Philips TDA1541A DAC chips in parallel

:thumb:

 

Edit: CA was a different company back then with better builds.

Edited by muon*
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1 hour ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

The difficulty with these comparisons is that they are usually not about differences in format. Rather, they are mostly about differences in mastering. 
 

I reckon if you made a digital recording of say, your “Amused to Death” record, you’d have all the benefit without the inconvenience (apart from the one-off inconvenience of making the recording itself). 

That being the case, lets concentrate on the Propellerheads album.  Born digital, not remixed or remastered as far as I'm aware (and given that 99.9% of the sales are on digital format, why would they throttle it back when it's the primary medium).  The LP still blows it away.

Of course, if the studio is going to take a bucketload more effort with the LP release, then I suppose that's also a good reason to opt for vinyl...

 

Funny how when digital is claimed to be better, that's because it's supposedly a superior format, but whenever LP is claimed to be better that's apparently down to difference in mastering...

John Elison was certainly (painfully repetitively) of the view that a digital recording of LP playback would have all of the psychoacoustic good qualities that LP brings.

I just want to listen to music and enjoy the experience.

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13 minutes ago, FR DRew said:

That being the case, lets concentrate on the Propellerheads album.  Born digital, not remixed or remastered as far as I'm aware (and given that 99.9% of the sales are on digital format, why would they throttle it back when it's the primary medium).  The LP still blows it away.

Of course, if the studio is going to take a bucketload more effort with the LP release, then I suppose that's also a good reason to opt for vinyl...

 

Funny how when digital is claimed to be better, that's because it's supposedly a superior format, but whenever LP is claimed to be better that's apparently down to difference in mastering...

John Elison was certainly (painfully repetitively) of the view that a digital recording of LP playback would have all of the psychoacoustic good qualities that LP brings.

I just want to listen to music and enjoy the experience.

Instead of questioning why something might be throttled or arguing about digital vs analog "claims", or taking issue with reviewers, just try the simple experiment.

 

Choose any album which sounds better to you on vinyl, record it and see whether that recording still sounds better than the digital release.

 

As an anecdotal data point, my previous system had a digital crossover. This meant that everything I played was converted from analog to digital and back again. What I heard was that the vinyl that sounded better prior to having this system still sounded better (and conversely, the vinyl that sounded worse - yes it does happen - still sounded worse)

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23 minutes ago, FR DRew said:

Of course, if the studio is going to take a bucketload more effort with the LP release, then I suppose that's also a good reason to opt for vinyl...

I think "a bucketload more effort with the LP release" rarely happens if ever at all.

What seemingly happens more often than not is loudness compression is applied to digital releases and not to vinyl.

26 minutes ago, FR DRew said:

I just want to listen to music and enjoy the experience.

Well not quite true, because you're posting about digital vs vinyl here.

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Just now, Satanica said:

I think "a bucketload more effort with the LP release" rarely happens if ever at all.

What seemingly happens more often than not is loudness compression is applied to digital releases and not to vinyl.

That would imply a bucketload more effort goes into the digital release - albeit the wrong kind of effort ?

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1 hour ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

Instead of questioning why something might be throttled or arguing about digital vs analog "claims", or taking issue with reviewers, just try the simple experiment.

 

Choose any album which sounds better to you on vinyl, record it and see whether that recording still sounds better than the digital release.

 

As an anecdotal data point, my previous system had a digital crossover. This meant that everything I played was converted from analog to digital and back again. What I heard was that the vinyl that sounded better prior to having this system still sounded better (and conversely, the vinyl that sounded worse - yes it does happen - still sounded worse)

Capturing a record being played back on a record player captures the nuances of that mechanical analogue playback, so you are comparing vinyl playback to essentially what is vinyl playback.

 

Edit: I have done it and it sounds better in near every case from my limited data set compared to the CD releases. One I found the same...

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7 minutes ago, muon* said:

Capturing a record being played back on a record player captures the nuances of that mechanical analogue playback, so you are comparing vinyl playback to essentially what is vinyl playback.

 

Edit: I have done it and it sounds better in near every case from my limited data set compared to the CD releases. One I found the same...

That's (kind of) my point although as you correctly point out I neglected the other stuff that goes into vinyl playback.

 

My point remains (at least I think it does), that if digital is capable of capturing the nuances of the vinyl recording itself and its playback mechanism then we shouldn't point at digital as being an inferior technology for music reproduction. 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

That's (kind of) my point although as you correctly point out I neglected the other stuff that goes into vinyl playback.

 

My point remains (at least I think it does), that if digital is capable of capturing the nuances of the vinyl recording itself and its playback mechanism then we shouldn't point at digital as being an inferior technology for music reproduction. 

 

 

I don't, but even though I do CD's now i still recognize that I like the sound of good analogue playback a bit more when both are done to my liking.

 

I see them as both capable of very good sound.

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When I was 40 and started in this hobby I could just faintly hear a 21kHz test tone through average headphones, now I'm down to 15 - 16kHz.

 

I wasn't much of a party or concert goer, only occasionally.....didn't even own a stereo myself until when i started this hobby. The old chalk/blackboard or knife - fork/plate sounds were torture most of my life and I'd throw my hands up to cover my ears every time, not as annoying these days.

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