Thanks for the heads up @Jack Pot. For the benefit of others TRPTK recordings are available on Qobuz (in 24/176.4 PCM). For instance the aforementioned Winterreise).
dCS Varese short review
- Thread starter craigr
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Yet in order to make those digitally sourced LPs they need to use digital reproduction equipment (DACs) as well. So that option falls away as explanation.
So you basically agree with my point that it's vinyl colorations that are the "secret of vinyl" and are (partially) responsible for its to many attractive sound.
But if vinyl introduces distortions as you say, how can it be better? Well, it may be subjectively better to some, I guess.
Agreed 100%. All new records are digitally sourced, mastered, etc. The medium may be vinyl however ultimately it's digital,
Not all new records are digitally sourced. And many of us listen to older pressings or original all analog vinyl primarily. The digital sourced vinyl is a strawman brought in to say "gotchya". Frankly, even some of that sounds better to some than pure digital.
Everybody is correct.
During the mastering process of both digital and analogue, choices must be made. I call that "introducing distortion". By the way, mastering a digital recording is different from mastering an analogue recording, which says it all. The point is: analogue is a continuous signal, similar to what the human ear has been trained to listen to for millennia. Digital is not. Sony/Philips's choice of a "standard" 44.1 kHz digital sampling frequency proved to be a mistake, notwithstanding the theoretical background that justified the choice. I remember listening to the first cd players back in 1982(?) and running away in horror. At that time, I listened to vinyl on a Roksan Xerxes with SME V and Koestu Black. As a classical music buff, I used to go to the concert hall at least once a week.
The situation today is unchanged: analogue remains continuous, digital - no matter the sampling frequency - remains discontinuous. Meanwhile, a great deal has been learned about digital recording, on how to push digital artefacts produced by digitalization as far away from the audible range as possible etc... IMHO, these advances fully justify the complaints of some/many? audiophiles about digital recordings' insurmountable shortcomings. Perhaps, a time will come when these advances close the gap with analogue reproduction. But imho, it has not arrived yet. I found the best proof in excellent digital recordings that sound superior when they are cut to vinyl - which seems to minimize/ filter out? the digital artefacts generated in the D/A conversion. Here, I disagree with many vinylstas who seek the goodness of old Decca recordings. IMHO, today, vinyl from digital sources can be a joy, if done properly (I get frustrated with the hit and miss DG LPs of late: feed the fad, forget about sound quality; eg Joe Hisaishi's uplifting music massacred on LP).
An aside: a few years ago, a small German outfit - Stockfish - made a curious experiment. It cut digital masters through a D/A converter to an analogue direct metal master on a Neumann VMS-82 cutting lathe; it then read the copper master with an EMT 997 tonearm/TSD-15 cartridge and fed the analogue signal to a Meitner A/D converter. The obtained DSD signal at 2.8224 Mhz was used to produce SACDs. These SACDs (two in total) are amongst the best sounding SACDs in my collection.
During the mastering process of both digital and analogue, choices must be made. I call that "introducing distortion". By the way, mastering a digital recording is different from mastering an analogue recording, which says it all. The point is: analogue is a continuous signal, similar to what the human ear has been trained to listen to for millennia. Digital is not. Sony/Philips's choice of a "standard" 44.1 kHz digital sampling frequency proved to be a mistake, notwithstanding the theoretical background that justified the choice. I remember listening to the first cd players back in 1982(?) and running away in horror. At that time, I listened to vinyl on a Roksan Xerxes with SME V and Koestu Black. As a classical music buff, I used to go to the concert hall at least once a week.
The situation today is unchanged: analogue remains continuous, digital - no matter the sampling frequency - remains discontinuous. Meanwhile, a great deal has been learned about digital recording, on how to push digital artefacts produced by digitalization as far away from the audible range as possible etc... IMHO, these advances fully justify the complaints of some/many? audiophiles about digital recordings' insurmountable shortcomings. Perhaps, a time will come when these advances close the gap with analogue reproduction. But imho, it has not arrived yet. I found the best proof in excellent digital recordings that sound superior when they are cut to vinyl - which seems to minimize/ filter out? the digital artefacts generated in the D/A conversion. Here, I disagree with many vinylstas who seek the goodness of old Decca recordings. IMHO, today, vinyl from digital sources can be a joy, if done properly (I get frustrated with the hit and miss DG LPs of late: feed the fad, forget about sound quality; eg Joe Hisaishi's uplifting music massacred on LP).
An aside: a few years ago, a small German outfit - Stockfish - made a curious experiment. It cut digital masters through a D/A converter to an analogue direct metal master on a Neumann VMS-82 cutting lathe; it then read the copper master with an EMT 997 tonearm/TSD-15 cartridge and fed the analogue signal to a Meitner A/D converter. The obtained DSD signal at 2.8224 Mhz was used to produce SACDs. These SACDs (two in total) are amongst the best sounding SACDs in my collection.
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The only conclusion is that current digital recording tech is flawed and digital recordings need tweaking to filter out the distortion embedded within.
Thanks for the suggestion. Here it is:
Digital Vinyl: Superior Sound Compared To Just Digital?
This is a continuation from the discussion on this page from the thread: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/dcs-varese-short-review.39573/page-5
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