There is an awful lot of wonderful music that is sumptuously recorded that is not classical. I get that you don't care about that, but if you are asking 'who cares?' now you know: people that like music care.
Analog vs. digital music: What's better, and who cares?
- Thread starter mauidan
- Start date
There is an awful lot of wonderful music that is sumptuously recorded that is not classical. I get that you don't care about that, but if you are asking 'who cares?' now you know: people that like music care.
I know I've said this a million times so here is a million + one
I'll get music I like in whatever format I can get it. Just recently my daughter played me a song I really liked. It was a fan made remix. She downloaded it from youtube. She gave me a copy. Thanks baby number one!
I'll get music I like in whatever format I can get it. Just recently my daughter played me a song I really liked. It was a fan made remix. She downloaded it from youtube. She gave me a copy. Thanks baby number one!
Small potatoes. Only a few items of interest and only a few recognizable performers. Nice reputation but does not inspire me to pull out any of the TTs.
With only a few exceptions, uninspiring repertoire. Also, I find most of their conductors, particularly Oue, completely uninspiring.
So, yes, there are a few but they are inconsequential compared to what one can get in HD MCH.
I was thinking that the rhetorical question "Who cares?" meant that it was unnecessary to make argument between analog and digital (or between classical and non-.)
I was expressing my preference and not casting any aspersions on any other.
Myles, this would make a very interesting new thread. I think the quality of contemporary conductors is not nearly as disappointing as you suggest. We should remember that the "great" ones of yesteryear are more than likely conductors who have had their reputations made in part by their non-musical celebrity as well as their musical talent. Reputations were sometimes made and lost in the gossip columns, the bedroom, the elite press, the evening news and were often directly related to the conductor's country of origin, especially as it pertained to WWII. One thing is for sure which is that exposure of today's conductors suffer irreparably compared to the giants of the past simply because almost no one has a sustained recording contract with one label anymore. (No $$$, = no revenue = no recording contract). Good topic to chew on.
There are several who are vastly more interesting and talented than Oue. In fact, there are several that I do not really favor that I would still pick over that dullard.
Same here Bud. I don't have the room for a vinyl rig in my apartment situation, nor the space to store vinyl, nor the patience for the 'routine', so i'm more of a casual observer of this debate. I've heard some reference level vinyl setups and been impressed by the level of dynamics and flow and the warm, engaging sound. I'd acknowledge it is harder to approach that level of analogue sound in a digital setup. Few players have all those qualities. It really takes a top setup which has been fully optimized in a synergistic way to achieve that feat.
I have heard recordings in analog and digital. Some are better in analog and some are better in digital. Years ago I invested in the new technology of the CD. I am not rich enough to have multiple formats in my collection, so digital is my format of choice.
Someone must care, because we are having a discussion on it.
Someone must care, because we are having a discussion on it.
Having been doing LP mastering work a lot recently, I am interested in the innuendo that I highlighted. The reason being, I had a lot of misconceptions (myths) about LPs prior to actually mastering them (we burned through quite a few lacquers figuring things out!!).
One of the myths was dynamic range, another was noise floor, yet another was distortion and also bandwidth. All turned out to be mostly misinformation caused by either lack of care in the mastering process or misinformation disseminated by the early digital proponents that has propagated over time. So I thought I might share a few of the things I have learned:
1) the noise floor of LPs comes from the pressing process, not the mastering process. A 'lathe cut', if done with care will be quieter than the quietest electronics used to play it back. QRP of Acoustic Sounds in Kansas is now producing pressings that are so quiet that the result rivals CD.
2) The dynamic range of LP easily exceeds that of CD. Essentially, you can't overload an LP mastering amplifier (typically they have about 10-15 times more power than is needed to fry the cutterhead) nor the cutterhead (so obviously you can easily blow up the cutterhead if you do something stupid
). The limit in LP dynamic range is in the playback apparatus; the cutterhead can cut undistorted grooves no cartridge could ever track. 3) Because you can't overload the mastering system the primary source of distortion is in the playback. This is not a fault of the media so much as it is a fault of poor setup, unless you want to say that because an LP reproducer can be set up badly that is a fault of the media. This latter statement would also be shared by CD, ever try setting up a new laser head in a player?
4) LPs have bandwidth that exceeds Redbook and all analog tape formats. We can easily record 30KHz using stock electronics from 50 years ago and play it back on a lowly Technics SL1200 with a stock arm and a Grado Gold. As high end stuff goes, the Technics really isn't although it is a workhorse which is why we use it. Most phono equalizers have similar bandwidth, which may go well past 50KHz (we spec the phono section of our MP-1 and MP-3 preamps to 100KHz). We've not really tried to see how high we can record; the stock cutter electronics are bandwidth limited at about 45KHz to prevent stability problems from frying the cutterhead due to the pre-emphasis. The result of this is you have less phase shift in the audio passband with LPs unless there are significant errors in the playback equalizer.
(Its my opinion that this extra bandwidth is part of why the LP is still very much around over 3 decades after the introduction of the media that was to succeed it. In case anyone has not been keeping track, when the LP was introduced, 7 years later the last 78 was made. When the cassette was introduced, 7 years later it had 99% marketplace penetration. CD failed utterly to have this kind of success although downloads seem to be doing better. The economic reality of the LP still being around after all this time should tell you something: that it works and failed to be inferior to the 'succeeding' format.)
I know its a forlorn hope that in the context of debates as this that the information above be under consideration.
Now as a manufacturer of electronics one thing I learned early on is that LPs will have far less ticks and pops if care is taken in their storage, in the setup of the reproducer, and also in the design of the equalizer. Improper design can lead to emphasis of ticks and pops and the difference between how it should be done and how it should not can be pretty profound. IOW I find that LPs are usually much quieter than many people claim.
These comments are not, IMO, part of the A/D debate so much as correction of misinformation that often fuels that debate. For those that have trouble believing what I say, I really recommend that you get an LP mastering system and find out for yourself. Barring that, perhaps arrange to spend some time with a mastering engineer while they are doing a project.
The bottom line here is money: many LPs are crappy because the producer did not give a hoot; Redbook was bad because Phillips could not do what Sony wanted and intentionally compromised the format (Sony lost of lot of money in the process and was hopping mad about it); studios got on board with digital often because it was so much cheaper. We humans make up reasons for doing the things we do but (and this is my opinion) much of what we see in audio has to do with making money rather than making quality. In the last 20 years I have seen vast improvement in digital and I'm not opposed to it
But I see a lot of the arguments in favor as specious.Quoting AsamelI hate digital because of the small liner notes
Since you are already in the digital domain, you can use your tablet camera to digitize and then magnify them for eay reading!
PS I often use this trick with my cellphone camera to read ultra small print in labels while shoping. Much more discrete than carrying a magnifier...
Since you are already in the digital domain, you can use your tablet camera to digitize and then magnify them for eay reading!
PS I often use this trick with my cellphone camera to read ultra small print in labels while shoping. Much more discrete than carrying a magnifier...
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Sometimes I miss the old days when all we had to discuss was low-output MC vs High-output MC vs MM, step-up transformers vs high gain pre-amps, high mass vs low mass tonearms, tubes vs SS, belt drive vs DD (no one seriously considered idler drive)...
Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
[Quote Omitted]
Excess bandwidth is there in all electronics because we can hear the effects of it even if we can't hear the frequencies themselves and even if there is nothing up there to hear anyway. The engineering rule of thumb is that phase shift artifact will be found to frequencies 1/10th the cutoff, so if we cut off at 20KHz there is artifact all the way down to 2KHz- right in the midrange where our ears are pretty sensitive (see Fletcher-Munson). So its not pointless- you want HiFi that is how its done. The rest of your post I see as trolling and reported it.
If you can get tape to go from 5Hz to 35KHz that's fabulous! But I have not seen that. LPs can do that easily.
Excess bandwidth is there in all electronics because we can hear the effects of it even if we can't hear the frequencies themselves and even if there is nothing up there to hear anyway. The engineering rule of thumb is that phase shift artifact will be found to frequencies 1/10th the cutoff, so if we cut off at 20KHz there is artifact all the way down to 2KHz- right in the midrange where our ears are pretty sensitive (see Fletcher-Munson). So its not pointless- you want HiFi that is how its done. The rest of your post I see as trolling and reported it.
If you can get tape to go from 5Hz to 35KHz that's fabulous! But I have not seen that. LPs can do that easily.
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Bruce B
WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
So after five pages, I don't think anyone actually read Steve's piece but are shooting from the hip.
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