To the above, that is correct, any form of recorded music is, recorded. It is not live, and has whatever coloration the recording may add. However, if a live show was recorded flat, no EQ, or any other fix, effect etc... IMO that recording would sound better on vinyl vs. digital. Perhaps it is a personal preference, but I too think vinyl has the edge on SQ over digital.
vinyl versus digital redux
Has anyone compared the sound of vinyl with the sound of digital converted from a vinyl intermediary ?
I am referring to 'rips' of vinyl made with high end, high quality vinyl playback systems, with
conversion to high resolution digital.
I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the two results.
The digital rip of a vinyl record sounds identical...or very nearly so...to direct playback of the vinyl.
If one has 'experienced' the foregoing, one might question why digital made without the intermediary of vinyl sounds so different from vinyl. A detective story ?
We are talking about vinyl made by ADC (analog to digital conversion) of an amplified microphone signal and re-conversion to analog for output to the record cutting lathe, or from analog tape recording of an amplified microphone signal, and then....as above...via ADCl and back to analog for output to the cutting lathe.
Of course vinyl can be and is 'cut' (pressings made from 'stamper' copies the 'master' cut in lacquer) without digital intermediary. Such practice is apparently uncommon, and ?? identified as such by the 'label' (production)
Has anyone compared vinyl and high resolution digital (downloads) albums offered by the same 'label' of the same performance ? Granted, digital versus vinyl difference should diminish with higher digital resolution. Sound waves are sine waves....air waves do not 'travel' in digital bits. A digital signal cannot be more than an approximation of a sine wave, but a closer approximation as potential digital resolution (equating to bit depth times sampling frequency) increases.
If vinyl and digital well made from vinyl intermediary sound almost identical, and If vinyl and digital not made via vinyl intermediary sound quite different, what is the source of this difference ?
Could it reside....I'll skip the sound processing stages (including RIAA equalization)...in the electro-mechanical process imparting the signal to the vinyl groove ?
Is there analogy with speaker cone material and the need for a degree of self-damping ?
Were self-damping not to some extent desirable, would not all speaker cones, from tweeter to sub-woofer, be made of materials where stiffness to weight ratio was of sole importance ?
Thanks for any comments.
I am referring to 'rips' of vinyl made with high end, high quality vinyl playback systems, with
conversion to high resolution digital.
I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the two results.
The digital rip of a vinyl record sounds identical...or very nearly so...to direct playback of the vinyl.
If one has 'experienced' the foregoing, one might question why digital made without the intermediary of vinyl sounds so different from vinyl. A detective story ?
We are talking about vinyl made by ADC (analog to digital conversion) of an amplified microphone signal and re-conversion to analog for output to the record cutting lathe, or from analog tape recording of an amplified microphone signal, and then....as above...via ADCl and back to analog for output to the cutting lathe.
Of course vinyl can be and is 'cut' (pressings made from 'stamper' copies the 'master' cut in lacquer) without digital intermediary. Such practice is apparently uncommon, and ?? identified as such by the 'label' (production)
Has anyone compared vinyl and high resolution digital (downloads) albums offered by the same 'label' of the same performance ? Granted, digital versus vinyl difference should diminish with higher digital resolution. Sound waves are sine waves....air waves do not 'travel' in digital bits. A digital signal cannot be more than an approximation of a sine wave, but a closer approximation as potential digital resolution (equating to bit depth times sampling frequency) increases.
If vinyl and digital well made from vinyl intermediary sound almost identical, and If vinyl and digital not made via vinyl intermediary sound quite different, what is the source of this difference ?
Could it reside....I'll skip the sound processing stages (including RIAA equalization)...in the electro-mechanical process imparting the signal to the vinyl groove ?
Is there analogy with speaker cone material and the need for a degree of self-damping ?
Were self-damping not to some extent desirable, would not all speaker cones, from tweeter to sub-woofer, be made of materials where stiffness to weight ratio was of sole importance ?
Thanks for any comments.
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- 128 posts total
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Just recently on another Forum I visit but am not a Member. There has been Needle Drops carried out to present a Vinyl System with a Particular Device added. There was a suggestion made on how to listen to the needle drops using a Digital Set Up, and a few who followed the information were quite impressed with what they were perceiving. To get this correct does seems to make sense as a Cartridge today is quite a expensive consumable and if a Digital Recording of any Vinyl Album can satisfy a owner/user, and be used as a Substitute for the Vinyl, then the Cartridge might get used a little less and lengthen it usable life. Removing the TT Set Up from the equation and a DAC, what is the projected outlay to acquire the Devices required to produce a Recording of a Analogue to Digital Conversion. |
mijostyn There is more to vinyl than just the sound. There is the collection and handling of records. There is no way to duplicate this digitally even if you can duplicate the sound digitally. Those of you who do not think you can have obviously not tried it. Don’t believe me. Michael Fremer has commented on this subject numerous times and uses the process for demonstration all the time.Some will disagree, but not me. It is incredible how digital can capture the sound of an LP, especially if you’re not confined to 16/44.1 Personally, I do not record my records to the hard drive. It takes way to much time and effort. I’m just fine with playing my records the old fashioned way.Same here - it’s tedious process to dub an LP to digital. I have done it with just a handful of exceptional or rare recordings that I also wanted to be able to have in a digital playlist but otherwise, when I want to play an LP, I just play an LP. Buy the way Cleeds, all vinyl playback systems are sonically colored and euphORic. Reality is sometimes a hard pill tp swallow.I am sorry if reality is so difficult for you to accept that you seek relief through euphoria. I hope it is not drug-induced, because that’s a slippery slope. Here is the definition of euphoria: yoo-fawr-ee-uh, -fohr- noun 1. A state of intense happiness and self-confidence: She was flooded with euphoria as she went to the podium to receive her Student Research Award.Psychology. 2. a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania. (Obviously, your inanimate turntable cannot have, "A state of intense happiness and self-confidence.") |
@rossb, I agree with your first point. I take it as a given that subjecting a signal to yet another process, especially in the home environment, would necessarily degrade it tp some extent. It may sound superficially unchanged, but in the low level and spatial details that we, audiophiles, crave it will change IMO. I do disagree with your second point. HW of VPI measures the success of his TTs by how close their sound comes to master tapes. Any difference has to be called distortion, whether by having the tape altered so that it is ready for the cutting process, or by all the cutting plating and duplication implicit in the disk production process. Consider the difference between an analog master tape and the first disk to come out of production (and they deteriorate as production continues) played on an excellent set-up. Consider also the difference between that master tape and a digital copy made by the best available professional ADC equipment and played back on an excellent set-up. I's only a surmise but I suspect the digital copy would be "virtually" indistinguishable from the original. The vinyl would be fairly easy to distinguish; I'm not saying which would be "better." I have a pretty good analog set-up and am building a good digital one. Lots of learning here, especially about what comes before the DAC. I like them both though it is hard to argue with the ease of dealing with the digital. I just press an icon on my phone to hear anything in my digital collection. It may be strange, compared to what I have written, but I tend to judge changes in my digital set-up to my analog sound.--specially spatial things. Of course, some digital sounds DIGITAL. And some analog sounds lousy. But some digital stereo sounds as good as anything. At the moment I am thinking of new Shostakovich/Nelsons recordings. But some old old, originally analog, recordings (RCA, Decca for ex.) sound just great and no worse than the original disks that I have--some really better. So at the moment I do not prefer one medium over the other (convenience notwithstanding). Just my $.02. |
- 128 posts total