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It Can't Be Explained Better

I just read this latest post from Dave Chesky at Audiophile Society, and I must  share it, as nothing I've read has better explained the phenomenon that may be behind the preference for vinyl playback so many of us have...

 

 

The World is a Bell, and it wants to RING!

Walk up to a piano, strike a single key, and listen closely. What you hear is not just a note — it’s a sympathetic vibration, a resonance that arises because the string naturally wants to vibrate at its fundamental frequency. The same happens with a guitar, a drum, a wine glass, or even a sheet of metal. Everything in our physical world has a resonant frequency, a natural mode of vibration, a note it wants to sing. The universe is, quite literally, a concert of ringing.
Audio reproduction is no different.


Your loudspeaker box is the most obvious example — a large resonant cavity with panels that flex and radiate sound in unintended ways. But it's not just the box. Your amplifier chassis, your cables, your digital-to-analog converter (DAC), even the circuit boards and power transformers — everything vibrates, and thus everything rings.


This became viscerally apparent to me recently in the studio while comparing linear-phase equalizers to minimum-phase EQs. Set to identical filter shapes, the sonic difference was striking. Linear-phase filters preserve phase relationships across the spectrum but introduce pre-ringing artifacts — a kind of temporal smear that occurs before the transient. Minimum-phase filters, by contrast, do all their damage after the transient, creating post-ringing that, while technically less "accurate," can feel more musically natural to the ear.


The ear can hear this ringing — not as an overt tone, but as a kind of blur, a clouding of the leading edge of a note, an inability to localize or feel immediacy. And this is just from a software filter. Now imagine the cumulative effect of every physical object in the playback chain doing its own version of ringing, from capacitors to cables, from enclosures to air gaps.


This may also explain why people still love vinyl. LP playback is, from a technical standpoint, riddled with flaws — mechanical noise, surface wear, channel crosstalk, limited dynamic range. And yet, it's emotionally engaging. Why?


Because analog never stops ringing. The cartridge, the stylus, the cantilever, the headshell, and the tonearm are all mechanical resonators that don't just start and stop. They sing along with the music. They fill in the gaps — not with data, but with sympathetic overtones and a kind of musical sugar that pleases the brain. There's a reason maple syrup and salt taste good together in the morning: we crave harmonic density. LPs, in a sense, continue the sound beyond the note — a sonic metaphor for warmth, continuity, and presence.


So what is accurate?


That’s the philosophical core of this discussion. You can measure a flat frequency response, perfect impulse behavior, or total harmonic distortion below 0.0001%. But no measurement can capture the cumulative psychoacoustic impact of all the materials, mechanics, and algorithms in your playback chain. The ringing, the resonance, the interactions — they are systemic and emergent, not linear or isolated.


The signal is not the music. The music is what happens after the signal passes through your chain of resonating objects and arrives in your emotionally perceptive brain.


So the question is not merely what is accurate, but rather:
What is beautiful? What is meaningful? What moves you?
Because in the end, the world is a bell — and it wants to ring.

- David Chesky

 

Thanks Dave.
audiodidact
tommyu
45 posts
 

https://highendnovum.de/en/home-en/

Just another way of doing things..

twowheels53
10 posts
 

if you read about how the human ear and brain process sound waves, you should realize that so much more goes into the reception and processing of even ordinary sounds, not to mention music. not only are we different than other animals in how we register sound (which is why my dogs usually get up and leave the room when i have my music on), but each one of us is different, too, based on skull structure, tinnitus, or ear wax. trying to chase those differences into a corner with "perfect" digital recording is largely wasted energy.

as for jasonbourne71's comment that the digital transformation has been "the equivalent of going from candle light to the electric light bulb! No doubt which is superior!" i truly enjoy electric appliances, but when the power goes out here in Georgia (USA) as it frequently does, i am also glad that i have kept my oil-burning lamps with me for over 40 years. it may not illuminate every nook and cranny of my house, but the "analog" glow of an oil lamp is a sublime experience, in certain circumstances. i'm equally glad that vinyl technology still exists.

brev
57 posts
 

Sound quality is perhaps last on the list of my reasons for my preference for vinyl. First, it is a complete sensory experience involving the kinesthetics of handling the vinyl and cleaning it along with the visuals of the artwork. Then there’s the nostalgia and emotional connection to albums I have owned for 20, 30, 40 years. Which leads to my preference for ownership over subscribing which leads to rewarding the artists versus paying them pennies.  I probably stream music more often than play vinyl due to the undeniable convenience of it all. But when I want to focus and listen to music prioritize vinyl. Just like I did when I was living in my parents house as a teen playing my system in my bedroom. Discovering Talking Heads and playing them for my confused friends. Right now I'm trying to choose between which box set for more songs about buildings and food. The ultimate with the singles or just the four album collection?

joelepo
28 posts
 

Loved this discussion: had doubts that "it can't be explained better" but that was one good try. Found compelling the finale by  twowheels53. 
In spite of investing tens of $1000 in high-end audio equipment that process CDs, DVDs and streaming... wife and I still LOVE listening to our vinyl collection via an old Luxman turntable with Audiotechnica MC cartridge.
Of course, all signals go thru McIntosh, Anthem power amps into B&W Center and multiple surrounds, a huge subwoofer, and a pair of K-Horns.
What we enjoy sounds awesomely similar to reality-- from my perspective as a professional musician.  

 

wyoboy
328 posts
 

+1 Mahgister on all your comments

Someone above made an analogy between incandescent and LED bulbs--in some ways I think that's a good one for vinyl v digital but i have the opposite view--i much prefer incandescent to LED b/c of the unnatural "glare" of LED. Regardless of how many shades i can turn my smart LED bulb i cannot make it appear as "warm" as incandescent.  However, do i use LED?  Of course.  Same for vinyl v digital--i prefer the sound of vinyl but more often than not i will stream music b/c of its convenience and unlimited library.  However, when i stream i sometimes use my equalizer to gently roll off the highs which reduces that glare which may be coming from either compression or the fact that digital can reproduce treble to a higher frequency than vinyl.  Back in the 80's Stereo Review ran a column on equalization and how to go about approximating best seats in concert halls.  Their "perfect" curve on 5th row seats at an orchestral concert hall featured a rolloff of the highs beginning around 12KHz.  I could reproduce that curve with my computerized graphic equalizer and pink noise generator and found it quite pleasing for taming CDs which were just gaining prominence.  I usually bypassed the equalizer (as i still do today) for vinyl playback.  Chesky's point about everything resonating is the reason i recently replaced my metal component rack with solid wood racks. 

All that aside there really shouldn't be a debate between vinyl vs digital--it really doesn't matter which one is more "accurate" or dynamic--it only matters which one you prefer.

 

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