Can digital get to vinyl sound and at what price?

[Rexp]

I have all the early (pre-digital) Dire Straits albums on master tapes, as well as Brothers in Arms. Once you have made the comparison, you would lament the fact that the band chose to make that album using a digital recorder.

Brothers in Arms isn't a good recording. So you have no early digital recordings on vinyl that you like?

 

[adrianywu]

Brothers in Arms isn't a good recording. So you have no early digital recordings on vinyl that you like?

I avoided them like the plague……. Preferred to buy second hand SXL, RCA LSC etc. Those were dirt cheap at that time.

 

[Lagonda]

I have all the early (pre-digital) Dire Straits albums on master tapes, as well as Brothers in Arms. Once you have made the comparison, you would lament the fact that the band chose to make that album using a digital recorder.

Yes, Knopfler's early adaptation of digital is really a shame, the Bob Dylan album "Infidels" that he produced is a good example of how bad it can sound.

 

[mtemur]

IMHO any album recorded and mixed using Mitsubishi 800 and 80 digital recorders sound fantastic. Using digital as a multitrack or two track recorder is not that bad and sounds very good. The real problem is using computers, doing everything inside the computer. It wipes the life of the sound. Digital should have been kept as tape recorders and everything else analog.

 

[adrianywu]

IMHO any album recorded and mixed using Mitsubishi 800 and 80 digital recorders sound fantastic. Using digital as a multitrack or two track recorder is not that bad and sounds very good. The real problem is using computers, doing everything inside the computer. It wipes the life of the sound. Digital should have been kept as tape recorders and everything else analog.

There is clearly a difference between the early digital and analogue multitrack recorders. The tone of Mark's guitar playing has completely changed on Brothers in Arms. The sound just sounds more artificial and lacks the warmth and colour of the previous albums.

 

[morricab]

Brothers in Arms isn't a good recording. So you have no early digital recordings on vinyl that you like?

I do. A young Wynton Marsalis playing classical trumpet! I think it is an early 80s CBS recording LP and proudly has digital on it in a top corner. Love the playing and the sound is actually pretty good.

 

[morricab]

There is clearly a difference between the early digital and analogue multitrack recorders. The tone of Mark's guitar playing has completely changed on Brothers in Arms. The sound just sounds more artificial and lacks the warmth and colour of the previous albums.

Well some of that had to do with changing music styles and production values of the 80s rather than being only about digital recording.

 

[Lagonda]

Brothers in Arms isn't a good recording. So you have no early digital recordings on vinyl that you like?

I like all Lyle Lovett's albums, all digitally recorded and mastered, some of them sound great.

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - Lyle Lovett, ... | AllMusic

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band by Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band released in 1989. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and ...

www.allmusic.com

Joshua Judges Ruth - Lyle Lovett | Album | AllMusic

Joshua Judges Ruth by Lyle Lovett released in 1992. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.

www.allmusic.com

 

[Rexp]

I like all Lyle Lovett's albums, all digitally recorded and mastered, some of them sound great.

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - Lyle Lovett, ... | AllMusic

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band by Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band released in 1989. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and ...

www.allmusic.com

Joshua Judges Ruth - Lyle Lovett | Album | AllMusic

Joshua Judges Ruth by Lyle Lovett released in 1992. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.

www.allmusic.com

Out of interest, do you enjoy the digital releases of these albums as much as the vinyl?

 

[Lagonda]

Out of interest, do you enjoy the digital releases of these albums as much as the vinyl?

Back when i listened to the CD's i enjoyed them a lot. These days i mostly listen to the vinyl versions, the CD's are great sounding too.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Sorry for being off-topic!

I recently discovered the song "North Dakota," which I now totally like. But that sounds like a digital recording. Decently recorded, sort of, I guess. But it sounds dry and typical digital. I got the LP from Acoustic Sounds, but I'm not at all sure the vinyl sounds better than Qobuz.

Is "North Dakota" a digital recording?

 

[Rexp]

Sorry for being off-topic!

I recently discovered the song "North Dakota," which I now totally like. But that sounds like a digital recording. Decently recorded, sort of, I guess. But it sounds dry and typical digital. I got the LP from Acoustic Sounds, but I'm not at all sure the vinyl sounds better than Qobuz.

Is "North Dakota" a digital recording?

Yes.

How are your client demos going, are you finding some clients hear very diffently to you when it comes to digital (as I found when I was a dealer)?

 

[stehno]

For one, Redbook CD standard came from an era where the power of supercomputers is outmatched by our smart phones today. And it is commonly acknowledged that the number of bits encoding low level signals in 16/44.1K PCM is inadequate, leading to a loss of fine details in these signals. This loss is not retrievable even with the highest end playback systems, thus rendering early digital recordings obsolete. You only need to compare early digital recordings with the analogue recordings made just a few years earlier to hear the difference. Putting aside the merit of individual performances, there is no reason for buying these early digital recordings.
Of course, in systems that do not have enough resolution to show a difference, these early CDs can still sound quite good.

Just as I suspected. Yet, another paper tiger making nonsensical claims and unable to substantiate a single one.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Yes.

Thank you.

How are your client demos going, are you finding some clients hear very diffently to you when it comes to digital (as I found when I was a dealer)?

No, I have not found that.

 

[Al M.]

Just as I suspected. Yet, another paper tiger making nonsensical claims and unable to substantiate a single one.

If he has a DAC that, as I suspect, cannot properly decode Redbook then of course he will arrive at his particular conclusions.

 

[morricab]

I like all Lyle Lovett's albums, all digitally recorded and mastered, some of them sound great.

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - Lyle Lovett, ... | AllMusic

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band by Lyle Lovett, Lyle Lovett & His Large Band released in 1989. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and ...

www.allmusic.com

Joshua Judges Ruth - Lyle Lovett | Album | AllMusic

Joshua Judges Ruth by Lyle Lovett released in 1992. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.

www.allmusic.com

Love Joshua Judges Ruth...the only "country" album that I truly like.

 

[hopkins]

Sorry for being off-topic!

I recently discovered the song "North Dakota," which I now totally like. But that sounds like a digital recording. Decently recorded, sort of, I guess. But it sounds dry and typical digital. I got the LP from Acoustic Sounds, but I'm not at all sure the vinyl sounds better than Qobuz.

Is "North Dakota" a digital recording

I listened to the track (with headphones). The recording level is quite low, it is not very dynamic (aside for a few drum notes), and there are some differences between the left and right channels, but it does not sound "digital" per se (no glare). I think they added some reverb to make it sound less "dry", but I guess that did not work out so well. I also looked at the frequency spectrum in Audacity and there seems to be little high frequency content.

Could it have been better recorded ? Most probably. I don't see how we can attribute the sound limitations to the fact that it's a digital recording. There are too many variables involved.

 

[Lagonda]

Love Joshua Judges Ruth...the only "country" album that I truly like.

I love country and bluegrass, i love the "fiddle" not so much the violin.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I listened to the track (with headphones). The recording level is quite low, it is not very dynamic (aside for a few drum notes), and there are some differences between the left and right channels, but it does not sound "digital" per se (no glare). I think they added some reverb to make it sound less "dry", but I guess that did not work out so well. I also looked at the frequency spectrum in Audacity and there seems to be little high frequency content.

Could it have been better recorded ? Most probably. I don't see how we can attribute the sound limitations to the fact that it's a digital recording. There are too many variables involved.

I hoped late 1980s type digital "glare" had been vanquished long ago? I think you may be focused on the more obvious sonic indicators of a digital recording? I am focusing on the perhaps subtle one I have always judged by.

I am talking about a subtle "dryness" which for me has always been the telltale of a digital recording of vocals versus an analog recording of vocals. Not all digital recordings have this dryness.

 

[Lagonda]

Sorry for being off-topic!

I recently discovered the song "North Dakota," which I now totally like. But that sounds like a digital recording. Decently recorded, sort of, I guess. But it sounds dry and typical digital. I got the LP from Acoustic Sounds, but I'm not at all sure the vinyl sounds better than Qobuz.

Is "North Dakota" a digital recording?

Yes, i gave the Lovett albums as examples of good sounding digital recordings Ron. And you can almost always hear when a recording has a digital link, they can still sound great.