44.1 kHz is twice the level of frequencies that anyone can hear, most pro equipment is set to 48 kHz you can’t hear the difference it’s all in your heads. The only difference is the db level can be louder but you perceive it as more frequencies while cd already plays frequencies way above what people can hear so saying it sounds bad it’s either the recording or your brain that is the problem.
The muddy waters of Analogue vs. digital today
With new technology, everything is changing so fast it is hard to keep up with new recordings. I have had a turntable all of my audiophile life, although I admit I played mostly CDs for many years. It was only since I upgraded my analogue system to a certain degree in the mid-nineties, that I could hear that records sounded better than CDs. It wasn’t a very expensive upgrade, a used Rega 3 with glass platter, new Sumiko Bluepoint Special, and a floor demo ARC PH-3. Probably somewhere around $3K. Mid-90s remember.
Now my system is very upgraded and I can hear more differences between vinyl and streaming at high resolution. CDs have kind of been left in the dust. 44.1 resolution sounds kind of tinny and flat. I listen if that’s my only choice, but I can easily hear the difference. I credit myself with a decent ear after doing critial listening for 30+ years. My ear is not as good as most reviewers, but you'll understand why it’s good enough to write a forward to this thread.
I won’t go through the differences I hear between analogue and digital, because you’ve heard it all before. What I want to talk about is my confusion in this new recording landscape.
I had purchased Roberta Flack’s "First Take" when it came out and I’d kept the record for more than forty years when I realized it had really seen its better days. Basically, it was unlistenable, even after a few washes in the Degritter. I looked at near mint copies of the record and they were quite expensive. Then I saw that there was a new pressing for a reasonable price.
I was listening to the new pressing of "First Take" a few days ago when I realized it sounded overly compressed at the high end. I asked my new audiophile friend chatgpt if the record was pressed from an analogue source. Nope. I was basically listening to a digital recording pressed into vinyl. Chatgpt says that most records made after 1980 come from digital sources. So, I found a reasonablly priced orignal pressing of "First Take." My grandaugher in college can have the digital one.
Today I was playing a fairly new recording of Gustavo Dudamel and Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini. I live in L.A. and have been lucky enough to see Dudamel live many times and Yuga Wang several times. It’s a beautiful recording, wide and deep and detailed and musical. I pronounced it the best classical recording I owned. But it was put out recently. So, I checked with my audiophile buddy chatgpt. The record is from a very high resolution digital source. Chatgpt says that digital can sound more analogue on vinyl because the engineers roll off the high end a bit.
So, now things are more than a bit confusing. Do I buy a recording from before the 80’s on expensive vinyl or might it actually sound better streaming at 192 kHz? If you listen to Patricia Barber’s "Clique" at 172 kHz, it sounds pretty good. So good, i have not bothered to go out and buy it on vinyl.
Does anyone else feel a similar confusion in this modern market, and do you have any suggestions for negotiating it?
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So many audiophiles, including reviewers with high credentials for overcoming biases, have said they hear the difference between vinyl albums and CDs. Are you saying it's just in these millions of people's heads? Your bias might be toward deflecting from a lack in your own hearing. I've had that bias almost all my life. If I can't hear it, see it, or understand it, it must not be real. I've also had more than a few arguments with engineers' numbers in letters in Sterophile. I've never been convinced by their numbers. Think of how many geniuses's numbers have led us astray. Einstein's "cosmological constant" is one good example. But there are so many more. When I am streaming, I can guess close to the level of 44.1/16, 96/24, 172/24, etc. It is so easy for me to hear that difference and guess it. I have had freinds over who cannot tell the difference between a vinyl record and CD, or especially an SACD, that I can hear. They just haven't developed that hearing. And some don't want to because they don't want the hassle of getting into vinyl. And that's a big bias. But whenever you question a whole bunch of people with credentials, it is usally time to question yourself. I do not say this as a put-down. I have questioned all sorts of things my entire life that suddenly I come to understand. I've lived a long life. |
@muvluv - sampling rate needs to be twice the bandwidth to avoid aliasing artefacts. The sampling rate is not the actual bandwidth of the recording. Even sampling at twice the bandwidth, high order filters are needed to avoid problems with aliasing from higher harmonics. High order filters introduce phase shift problems. Higher sampling rates allows lower order filters. That's a somewhat simplistic explanation but it may help you understand a bit about digital recording. It's a bit more complex than you seem to think. If you want a visual representation of aliasing, have a look at some cowboy movies from the early days of cinema. |
In regards to chatgpt, it is true that if you ask it a subjective question you will get a subjective answer that it thinks you want to hear. But when I ask it about the quality of a recording it is fairly amazing. It will not only tell you about whether a recording is taken from an analogue or digital source, it wil tell you about the engineers and where the album was pressed. It will give you a ton of information. Just try it. Ask about an album you wonder about or about an album you'd like to buy. I asked about "My Favorite Things" from "Selflessness" being tipped up in the treble range. It told me that the recording was live and where it was recorded and where the mikes were placed and who engineered the recording. More than I really wanted to know. |
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