Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?


I have always been curious about vinyl and its touted superiority over digital, so I decided to try it for myself. Over the course of the past several years I bought a few turntables, phono stages, and a bunch of new albums. They sounded fine I thought, but didn't stomp all over digital like some would tend to believe.

It wasn't until I popped on some old disk that I picked up used from a garage sale somewhere that I heard what vinyl was really about: it was the smoothest, most organic, and 3d sound that ever came out of my speakers. I had never heard anything quite like it. All of the digital I had, no matter how high the resolution, did not really come close to approaching that type of sound.

Out of the handful of albums I have from the 70s-80s, most of them have this type of sound. Problem is, most of my music and preferences are new releases (not necessarily in an audiophile genre) or stuff from the past decade and these albums sounded like music from a CD player but with the added noise, pops, clicks, higher price, and inconveniences inherent with vinyl. Of all the new albums I bought recently, only two sounded like they were mastered in the analog domain.

It seems that almost anything released after the 2000's (except audiophile reissues) sounded like music from a CD player of some sort, only worse due to the added noise making the CD version superior. I have experienced this on a variety of turntables, and this was even true in a friend's setup with a high end TT/cart.

So my question is, is vinyl only good for older pre-80s music when mastering was still analog and not all digital?
solman989

Showing 28 responses by mapman

Uh-oh, the cat's out the bag!

Personally, I would agree with the OPS premise and would think it applies to most except perhaps some of those who like turntables just because they are turntables. I fall into that category. I gre up with and love turntables but am realistic and practical about their advantages and disadvantages. I don't easily get all romantic and gobbly-goopy about them except when the right vintage recordings are playing.
"I don't easily get all romantic and gobbly-goopy about them except when the right vintage recordings are playing."

BTW, the right vintage recordings sometimes includes even old 78's that I occasionally purchase, play on an old Admiral ceramic cat table with 78 stylus hooked to my main rig when needed and recorded to CD for playback moving forward. The CDs sound just like the 78s and are a lot of fun and even quite musical though obviously imperfect in many ways.

WOuld love to own a properly restored Victrola someday!
I have a few CDs of remastered hits from the 30s and 40's. THese are some of my favorite recordings to listen to these days. I grew up in the 60's-70's rock era when listening to most music that pre-dated The Beatles was not "cool". Being the geek I am, I still listened to a lot of classical and some jazz but tended to steer away from the older recordings. Big mistake! I am making up for that these days mostly at yard sales and the Goodwill Store. Luckily, most never learned the lesson I did about recordings from the "golden age". There was a time back in the 80's I would say when I became jaded by limiting what I listened to and found it quite hard sometimes to find new recordings that rally interested me. Now, I'll buy used CDs and vinyl by the dozens just to hear something, anything a little different until I get so backlogged Ijust have to slow down. I feel like I did about listening to music when I was a kid again. Life is good!
"try the decemberists "the king is dead" album from 2011. its a stunning piece of vinyl."

The CD is as well.
I'm with LCD.

Music trumps format for me every time because I am first a music lover and have fine tuned both my vinyl and digital rigs to enable this. I am currently hesitant to change a thing in my system because dare I say it it meets my expectations essentially perfectly at present after many years of work to get it that way.

The addition of a plush recliner chair to my room was enough to throw that off even recently, but luckily I was able to implement a simple tweak with what I have to correct it.
Atmasphere is right. CD Redbook format has specifications that limit what is possible whereas vinyl does not.

Practically the issue is more how significant are the CD redbook limits and how often are the capabilities of vinyl recordings realized in practice?

The CD redbook format debate is well documented, no need to rehash that.

What is possible with vinyl is more an open book. My assessment/gut estimate is that overall less than 50% of modern vinyl format technical capabilities are realized in most popular recordings and even less most likely by most rigs used for playback, except perhaps for the very top, elite few %, and that comes only on occasional recordings via rigs that perhaps might be better classified as expensive laboratory gear than something the typical consumer is likely to own.
I tend to agree with Raul's latest stated position on both digital and vinyl.

DIgital signal processing is much more flexible and accurate in general than analog. I doubt anybody familiar with both technologies in detail could dispute that? CD redbook specifically was a compromise format but one that was well thought out and is now quite mature and very well executed for the most part these days. The potential for digital audio is wide open from a technology perspective. What happens will mostly be determined by the usually open market business drivers as determined by what people want and are willing to pay for.

On the other hand, the 331/3 vinyl format may have some untapped potential still as well that can be realized still by modern technology, but most of what occurs here will be quite expensive and not to far removed from a laboratory experiment in terms of complexity and cost and is not likely to find a wide market, especially as digital continues to evolve.

HEy, look, I'm an old time vinyl record playing lover, but the facts are facts. Some things continue to progress due to the value proposition and some do not. BEtween digital and vinyl, guess which one will continue to progress in a manner that works well for most? In many cases, the gap has already been closed between 331/3 vinyl and digital and digital is obviously continuing to move ahead at warp speed while vinyl is barely moving on the grand scale of things.
Hi Ralph,

Glad you responded. I was thinking of this very initiative that you have mentioned prior.

A laboratory, whatever it's actual form, is wherever innovation takes place. That is what it seems to me you are doing in attempting to push the edge of what is possible with vinyl and I can easily see how it would well be successful.

The next step is to take a product to market and watch the market grow.

I think there is a niche market still obviously for new and better vinyl recordings and gear capable of playing it. It may well transition out of the "laboratory" stage and become a success. I truly hope it does, and might even set the benchmark for the immediate future sound quality wise in some regards, but there is no chance of vinyl winning the race over the long term, right?

Obviously its up to the OP who wondered and others to determine in the end for themselves whether a vinyl rig is worth it to them or not for new things in addition to for oldies.....
"If one medium is threatened, it's CD"

No doubt. DIgital downloads are a way bigger threat to CD than vinyl. SImilar to how digital downloads of books are a threat to the formally printed variety. Printing/publishing to physical media in general is a negative growth industry as a result of digital access and downloads. Many local daily newspapers would like to be able to be done with it already due to the relative costs and overhead of printing and mass distribution of printed materials. Lots of happy trees out there as a result I imagine!

"Now I did comment directly to this issue of traceability above, but the *generalization* that no groove can be tracked by any cartridge is simply too much of a generalization. If that were true LPs would not still be around. "

Yeah, its all relative. No encoding/decoding approach is perfect, digital or analog. Each has advantages/disadvantages.

No way vinyl will ever even come close to competing with digital moving forward though. IT may well outlast CD redbook as a niche market though in that digital will continue to progress beyond CD whereas vinyl will continue to provide an alternative for those who care I suppose.
Raul retains an open mind in his search for musical perfection and the force is now with him!

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Like Raul, I have carefully observed bass and most other parameters of sound at live events.

Based on that, I too have reached the conclusion that good digital, even CD redbook, has no problem doing realistic and accurate bass if implement well (always a big if).

Same true for vinyl but there are more challenges getting clean bass out of many records due to issues that are well documented with the format over the years (wow/flutter/rumble, manufacturing and other imperfections that only increase over time like warping over time, etc).

Most people will find it easier to get right with digital IMHO, not to say that it cannot be done very well in many cases as well with records. IT will just in general be harder and also probably a lot more expensive to address with vinyl. A lot will vary from record to record. Part of the expense will be finding a copy of a desired title on vinyl that is relatively free of any defects.
Movies shot in Cinemascope have some unique inherent distortions (see the technical difficulties section in the referenced article) yet are generally quite lovely to watch.

How about modern digital Imax?

Which would you prefer?

Why should vinyl/digital audio, be any different?
Lacee,

I agree with you about the recordings from the 50 and 60s and how they were made in a manner that set a certain bar, distortions or not.

Now, given that we are in the year 2012 50 years later, does that mean that a vinyl rig is truly in fact only "worth it" for oldies?

I also tend to agree with Raul's latest position that digital is technically inherently more accurate than vinyl, which does not necessarily mean it sounds better, which I think Raul indicated as well. The case for CD redbook format specifically being more accurate than vinyl can be argued but definitely has more holes.
My visit yesterday to Capital Audiofest reaffirmed to me that the days of "digitally impaired" digital are over. There was plenty of digital and vinyl to go around and neither ruled nor came up short categorically. Did they sound the same or even similar? Mostly no, at least in the better rooms. Each had a lot to offer. And I heard nothing that reeked of inherently bad or inferior digital.
"Before saying that vinyl is so distorted, especially in the bass, how about compare it and the resulting digital to the original master tape??!"

I have heard this done once at United Home Audio in Md but tape/vinyl/CD recordings were not the same, so validity of the comparison is not clear.

Master tape won followed by vinyl then CD. Bass, dynamics, organic fullness of the recordings top to bottom was where I heard the difference.

However, since this was not an apples/apples test of the BEST of each format, I am not convinced that the CD could not have been mastered in a way that closed the gap with the vinyl.

Neither came close to the reference tape recording.

In lieu of the perfect test/comparison, nothing I have heard day to day since with either format causes me any real concern.

CD will never match top dynamics possible with tape or vinyl, that much is clear to me. Other digital formats might.
"CD will never match top dynamics possible with tape or vinyl, that much is clear to me. Other digital formats might."

I should qualify that to refer to macro-dynamics/overall dynamic range.

In regards to microdynamics and transient response, there I think the book is still way open and I do not expect it to ever close on digital.
At Capital Audio Fest, I got to finally hear high end Atmasphere amps driving the Classic Audio field coil speakers, which has been on my to do list for a long time. Two Words: very nice!

Everything I heard was sourced from vinyl, mostly acoustic music. What was there not to like? Nothing really.

I also heard the high end Tidal system sourced from a music server. Tidal gets a lot of buzz on this site so I had to hear!

Similar music types playing there.

What was there not to like? Nothing.

The two sounded as different as night and day. Room acoustics were different but not radically so.

SO what accounts for how two high end rigs could both sound so good yet so different?

I'll attribute to each doing a good job and choosing their distortions wisely.
It would not surprise me if vinyl is affected by "loudness wars" pretty much the same as digital. The record companies do what they do for a reason....to try to sell more records (or CDs). I doubt that most have the tiny purist audiophile community on their radar screen, although I do not doubt they will use the trendy buzz about the superiority of vinyl to help make a sales pitch no doubt.

I have not heard good things in general about recent vinyl record quality and have not bought a single "new" recording on vinyl. I have thousands of vintage albums though and growing rapidly whenever I encounter good used vinyl for reasonable cost.
Isn't the assumption that "sounds better" which is totally subjective is not the same as "more accurate" to the recording in this case?

I think it has been acknowledged that something can sound better and not necessarily be more accurate.

Also specific ideal test scenarios, whatever the outcome, do not determine what occurs in the real world. They are interesting from an R&D perspective but until that is translated into a viable commercial product, it may not matter to most.
Atmasphere,

I hear what your saying but of course the counter argument is that a test signal is not music so alone it does not completely address the problem.

I suspect there are other tests that can be done where digital would measure better.

There is seldom only one way to skin a cat. That's why that saying sticks! Audio and technology in general is no exception.

Plus, the OP is asking what is worth it or not, so lets assume the two formats do not have the same strengths and weaknesses which is a safe assumption and focus on what is really worth it or not.
I don't see how anybody with a serious interest in the music of TODAY can tell someone they should be doing vinyl rather than digital. Maybe if the recommendation comes with an interest free loan it might go over better. Pay more for a more problematic format to play recordings that are mostly digitally mastered to start with. Makes sense to me.

Maybe if digital never happened and the world was still geared around analog technology I would feel differently.

Vinyl is a niche technology today. One with some nice things about but a niche nonetheless. There are many vintage vinyl recordings worth hearing on a good vinyl rig. That the worl today revolves around digital technology and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future is an irrefutable part of the value proposition.

I admire Atamasphere's products and his steadfast willingness to realize his visions but that does not change reality as a whole. Vinyl may sound better sometimes. That is about the extent of it. When the recording is digital to start with, all the vinyl in the world will not make it into something from years gone by that it is not.
Td,

What kind of music do you listen to? Is it current or "oldies"?

Are you recommending vinyl for current music?
Atmasphere,

No, i understood fine. You make a good case for strengths of vinyl. But when i hear good digital these days, that sounds good as well thugh often in a different way. So i do not conclude that digital is sk dire that one must turn to vinyl. I feel the same way abkut tube amps. I love picking up old cheap vinyl and getting tat vintage sound. I trust my ears! Digital is making them quite happy these days. And the facts speak for themselves. Vinyl is a niche market. Digital is not. No technical spins can deny that.
Atmasphere,

I did wnt to mention that I was at Capital Audiofest last weekend and finally got to hear your amps running the Classic Audio speakers with field coil drivers. I had expectations for benchmark sound and was not dissapointed. This was a very competitive offering in the price range for many that are looking to go in the tube amp/vintage look/big dynamic sound direction.

I would have liked to have heard some digital on that rig. Something modern, like the Green Day "American Idiot" I heard later in the DIY room the sound of which was nailed pretty well. There was a CD player I recall but the CAD gentleman was spinning only vinyl at the time and I could only stay for 20 minutes or so. THe gear in that room was definitely a work of art!
Atmasphere,

Let's put the vinyl/digital debate on teh shelf for a moment.

Do you find any digital enjoyable when you hear it played on your gear? How about other gear?

If you see any value at all with digital on your gear, my advice would be to ride that wave for what its worth to open up new markets for your gear in addition to catching the big one with vinyl.
Chad,

My background is more digital image processing than digital audio but I recall even back in the 80's implementing image enhancement algorithms that increased information content in digital imagery without peaking out or saturating teh brightness levels. When I see spectral visualizations of many modern digital recordings that sound pretty good to me, I believe I see a similar kind of approach. The few that are truly earbleed material (mostly newer core pop stuff + an occasional remaster) appear to clip loudness levels/waveforms but I am not sure this is as prevalent in modern recordings overall as some seem to think.

Just my observations. I enjoy many newer digital recordings and remasters, but not all. Not much different than back in the golden age of vinyl even....
The vinyl/digital debate is a perfect example of a classic Dilemma.

Both have their strengths and both have their weaknesses. Neither solution alone is perfect to meet the needs of many.

Modern strategic thinking says that one can not analyze their way out of a dilemma. Attempts to do so by definition will always turn out to be futile and just re-inforce the fact that the dilemma exists.

The solution is to apply Synthesis to create something new from both that is leveraged effectively to meet all needs.
Rr,

Leveraging vinyl in addition to digital would be the synthesized solution leveraging both together as needed only if one has the desird to hear certain recordings on vinyl in addition to digital. Or, vice versa.

If one is satisfied with one or the other only, then no dilemma exists.

It all depends on the individual's wants or needs, for whatever reason.