Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

[Al M.]

Al, an audiophile without a TT, who listens to actual music without constantly thinking about the gear and its deficiencies? Sounds like nirvana!

Yes, it's nice to listen to actual music, isn't it? You seem to be much happier with your system lately as well.

 

[Argonaut]

The other thing is that no dac can ever compete with the software updates happening externally. So your V2.0 quality will be surpassed by HQ Player, bughead, wtfplayer or someone else much faster and they are either free or cheap.

Ahhhha! http://www.tonepublications.com/industry-news/new-dcs-vivaldi-2-0/

As I was saying bonzo, a little more to V2.0 than a minor software tweak!

 

[Al M.]

Currently I am on a Stravinsky binge, and I'm loving it. I never liked that composer that much, except perhaps the Rite of Spring and his late serial stuff, but now I am into his music. I had thought his neo-classical Symphony in C was really bad, but no, it is really excellent! Fascinating music.

By the way, the inspiration for listening to Stravinsky again came from Madfloyd last time spinning the version of Rite of Spring by the jazz trio Bad Plus. We also listened to their version of "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath and "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. Also their take on "Heart of Glass" by Blondie. Hilarious and incredibly sophisticated! What a bunch of incredible musicians.

 

[Diapason]

Yes, it's nice to listen to actual music, isn't it? You seem to be much happier with your system lately as well.

I am! I'm listening to music again, the system's not perfect, but it's no longer in the way.

 

[LenWhite]

These are the recording professionals statements in the original article in post#1 by Steve that appear to make the case for digital (all things equal) being the closest to the recorded performance.

"Of vinyl's inherent deficiencies, reproducing bass is one of its most glaring."

"The other is that the last track on each side of a record sounds worse than the first, due to the fact that the player's stylus covers fewer inches of grooves per second as it gets closer to the center."

"In the 1960s and '70s, when artists were recording specifically for vinyl, they recorded and mixed to fit the confines of the medium, he explains. They kept sides below 20 minutes, and put loud songs on the outside tracks and quiet ones toward the center to account for the natural deterioration of sound that occurs when the needle gets closer to the middle of the LP."

"To get an album longer than 40 minutes to fit onto one LP, Lyman says, high frequencies and bass are the first things that go. There's also extra distortion because he has to cut the master lacquer at a lower volume to fit all that extra music onto the LP."

"From a record player, it's impossible to have such a dynamic range," Immink says. "You have to suppress the dynamic range, otherwise the grooves will touch or you [have reduced] playing time."

"Because vinyl's restrictions do not permit the same abuse of audio levels as the CD, Mayo says that listeners might hear a wider dynamic range in an album mixed separately for vinyl over a compact disc version optimized for loudness — even though vinyl, as a format, has a narrower range than CD."

"I think some people interpret the lack of top end [on vinyl] and interpret an analog type of distortion as warmth," says Jim Anderson, a Grammy-winning recording engineer and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It's a misinterpretation of it. But if they like it, they like it. That's fine."

"Most notable among these is "audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl," which consumers assume is superior because it is heavier. Lyman, however, says the added weight offers no musical benefit at all."

"Scott Metcalfe, for example, says that recording to analog tape isn't any purer than recording music digitally. But the distortion and pitch variation that analog tape adds to the recording are preferred by some artists and audiences."

 

[amirm]

OK, back from a nice trip with the grandchildren.
Firstly the microphone feed sounds like the sound at the microphone position. People listen to classical music much further away from the orchestra than even the simple old microphone techniques using a crosser pair ORTF pair Decca tree and so forth. Nowadays multiple microphones are recorded and mixed down to stereo later but tend to be mounted far closer to the instruments than any concertgoer's ears ever would be.
Recording engineers manipulate the resulting channels and mix to stereo.
I prefer the older methods using only 2 microphones, personally, which is worse for noise but better for everything else IMHO.
Back in the day a pair of sensitive microphones above and behind the conductor's head produced a microphone output far closer to that a concert goer would hear but still a front of stalls balance.

When I first started recording seriously I was surprised that the standard alignment for a tape recorder was done at -20 dB and decided I would use 0dB because the signal is not often at -20dB and often peaking at +7 dB. I learned a lot then. There was no way the recorder could achieve a level frequency response at 0dB. In fact analogue recorders I have used all roll off the high frequencies at levels above -20 dB.
So does sitting further from the orchestra than the recording microphones...
I have only heard of one reel to reel recorder which has even frequency response in the bass.

There is a lot of experience needed to cut an LP, involving certain manipulations of the original recording, which change the sound.
Firstly the bass must be mono to ensure a continuous groove if the level goes high. This is of benefit on playback since both speakers and amps are handling the bass.
Secondly the LP medium does not have a high signal to noise potential so the low level sounds are almost always amplified relative to the average level to make sure the quiet parts of the music don't descend too close to the LP noise. This has the beneficial effect on playback of the hall ambience being more audible relative to the average level.
The maximum level which can be cut in the top octave is less than that at medium frequencies due to cutter limitations.

So overall there is no way an LP is likely to sound like the microphone feed.

I have not written that the LP is "grossly coloured" but it is coloured in ways that are nice, euphonic and maybe/probably in a way which is similar to the sound change one gets by being quite a long way from the orchestra in a concert.
Whilst it is true that quite a lot of people prefer the sound of LPs, I would be surprised if it is a majority of music lovers even if there is a hard core of audiophile enthusiasts who feel that way.

If that sounds more real to some people that is fine and dandy.

It is, IMHO, fortunate happenstance though, not any inherent superiority of LPs, the shortcomings of which, as I wrote before, sound nice and have been known about and fully explained for decades.
In fact the flat disc was invented to make music cheaper to distribute than tape, not for sound quality and the original analogue or digital recording is of much higher accuracy than the LP cut from it.

Refreshing post with nice personal experience and insight .

 

[Simon Moon]

Hi, how do you get Quad DSD of 50s - 70s classical recordings?

Have you tied High Definition Tape Transfers?

They have a large selection of Quad DSD downloads of 50s to 70s classical.


http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/

 

[ddk]

The only case I see the author trying to make is for the superiority of CD over Vinyl but gets flummoxed when people continue to prefer Analog even when faced with his collective arguments against it. A bunch of technical maybes don't always add up the way one wants them to. Reading this or other articles trying pawn off digital in this way reminds me of prepackaged frozen diet food industry claiming that their Thai dish is better than the authentic cooked version by highlighting some measly protein content while hiding the high sodium levels. Of course in a taste comparison there's no contest between the two. That's how digital comes across for me at this point in time, diet food...

david

These are the recording professionals statements in the original article in post#1 by Steve that appear to make the case for digital (all things equal) being the closest to the recorded performance.

"Of vinyl's inherent deficiencies, reproducing bass is one of its most glaring."

"The other is that the last track on each side of a record sounds worse than the first, due to the fact that the player's stylus covers fewer inches of grooves per second as it gets closer to the center."

"In the 1960s and '70s, when artists were recording specifically for vinyl, they recorded and mixed to fit the confines of the medium, he explains. They kept sides below 20 minutes, and put loud songs on the outside tracks and quiet ones toward the center to account for the natural deterioration of sound that occurs when the needle gets closer to the middle of the LP."

"To get an album longer than 40 minutes to fit onto one LP, Lyman says, high frequencies and bass are the first things that go. There's also extra distortion because he has to cut the master lacquer at a lower volume to fit all that extra music onto the LP."

"From a record player, it's impossible to have such a dynamic range," Immink says. "You have to suppress the dynamic range, otherwise the grooves will touch or you [have reduced] playing time."

"Because vinyl's restrictions do not permit the same abuse of audio levels as the CD, Mayo says that listeners might hear a wider dynamic range in an album mixed separately for vinyl over a compact disc version optimized for loudness — even though vinyl, as a format, has a narrower range than CD."

"I think some people interpret the lack of top end [on vinyl] and interpret an analog type of distortion as warmth," says Jim Anderson, a Grammy-winning recording engineer and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It's a misinterpretation of it. But if they like it, they like it. That's fine."

"Most notable among these is "audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl," which consumers assume is superior because it is heavier. Lyman, however, says the added weight offers no musical benefit at all."

"Scott Metcalfe, for example, says that recording to analog tape isn't any purer than recording music digitally. But the distortion and pitch variation that analog tape adds to the recording are preferred by some artists and audiences."

 

[Al M.]

I am! I'm listening to music again, the system's not perfect, but it's no longer in the way.

Great to hear that, Diapason!

 

[Al M.]

These are the recording professionals statements in the original article in post#1 by Steve that appear to make the case for digital (all things equal) being the closest to the recorded performance.

Ok, I have no doubt that technically all these things from the article are correct. Yet let me give it a shot answering these points with my own observations.

"Of vinyl's inherent deficiencies, reproducing bass is one of its most glaring."

"The other is that the last track on each side of a record sounds worse than the first, due to the fact that the player's stylus covers fewer inches of grooves per second as it gets closer to the center."

"In the 1960s and '70s, when artists were recording specifically for vinyl, they recorded and mixed to fit the confines of the medium, he explains. They kept sides below 20 minutes, and put loud songs on the outside tracks and quiet ones toward the center to account for the natural deterioration of sound that occurs when the needle gets closer to the middle of the LP."

"To get an album longer than 40 minutes to fit onto one LP, Lyman says, high frequencies and bass are the first things that go. There's also extra distortion because he has to cut the master lacquer at a lower volume to fit all that extra music onto the LP."

The bass and these other issues may be the reason why I find vinyl least convincing on rock, while I often find it very convincing on classical and jazz.

"From a record player, it's impossible to have such a dynamic range," Immink says. "You have to suppress the dynamic range, otherwise the grooves will touch or you [have reduced] playing time."

Strangely enough, even though the nominal dynamic range of vinyl is much lower than CD, a great LP on great vinyl rig often sounds subjectively as dynamic or even more so than a CD -- including on material that is usually put uncompressed on a CD, such as classical and much of jazz.

"I think some people interpret the lack of top end [on vinyl] and interpret an analog type of distortion as warmth," says Jim Anderson, a Grammy-winning recording engineer and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It's a misinterpretation of it. But if they like it, they like it. That's fine."

Oddly enough, I have never heard triangles sound as extended and transparent as on great analog, with the exception of CD playback on the dCS Vivaldi stack. Also massed violins usually sound more transparent and extended on great vinyl than they do on CD.

So the nominal technical issues do not always reflect what I hear subjectively from LP.

By the way, I have no emotional stake in this since I don't have a vinyl rig myself, I only listen to CDs on my own system. These are just observations of mine.

For me the important differences between great analog and most (not all!) digital playback go deeper than the technical issues listed in the article:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ter-Than-Vinyl&p=388548&viewfull=1#post388548

 

[microstrip]

These are the recording professionals statements in the original article in post#1 by Steve that appear to make the case for digital (all things equal) being the closest to the recorded performance.

(...)

LenWhite,

If I had not listened to great vinyl sound since long I would immediately trash my LPs after reading such comments ...

The deficiencies of vinyl are known since long - nothing new here. The fact that many still find that vinyl sounds so great could suggest that professionals are using digital inadequately, either at the recording/mastering or playback level.

Anyway nothing in this long list explains why people in this debate feel that only very recently they found digital reproduction to be capable of reaching the sound quality of analog, and only with very particular equipment. Another question is why the digital camp still finds great subjective differences between the digital formats. Because of music availability, my main concern is redbook and I find that every discussion about digital quality soon enters the HiRez/DSD camp, bypassing the redbook format.

I also have no emotional stake in this thread since I listen mainly to CDs and my CD rig is much more expensive then my vinyl rig. But I would like to understand why the CD playback in a few aspects many people and I praise a lot does not sound as real as the LP one.

 

[fas42]

Anyway nothing in this long list explains why people in this debate feel that only very recently they found digital reproduction to be capable of reaching the sound quality of analog, and only with very particular equipment. Another question is why the digital camp still finds great subjective differences between the digital formats. Because of music availability, my main concern is redbook and I find that every discussion about digital quality soon enters the HiRez/DSD camp, bypassing the redbook format.

I also have no emotional stake in this thread since I listen mainly to CDs and my CD rig is much more expensive then my vinyl rig. But I would like to understand why the CD playback in a few aspects many people I praise a lot does not sound as real as the LP one.

Main reason is that the designers and manufacturers of digital equipment have only very recently understood, really understood, what they need to worry about, to eliminate subtle artifacts in the end sound. These aberrations are hard to measure, hence the spec's for gear have always been "brilliant", but unfortunately do much damage in the subjective hearing - those makers of digital components, no matter how expensive, who don't "get" it will keep producing models that won't satisfy people who can hear those problems interfering with the music that they want to hear. The massed strings "problem" of CD playback is a classic example of where there is audible distortion, but no-one is measuring it happening - you need to hear a rig where this issue is sorted to properly appreciate the difference.

Until recently only someone who was willing to do a lot of internal fiddling and use other techniques as necessary, like myself, could get CD to sound as good as it should - I knew that eventually real movement forward in the industry would occur - and it's pleasing to see it happen at last ...

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Thanks for this thread, I have enjoyed reading it.

I posted this back in my Nadac thread, which still reflects my view on digital vs vinyl for classical:

In fact for classical, which I prefer to listen to most of the time, I am leaning toward Roon - HQP - Nadac combo as my preferred playback chain. Lower noise floor, certainly more convenient and has the same (or at least remarkably similar) liquidity and involvement.

I still prefer a relatively modest vinyl rig to any digital solution I can afford, including the Nadac, but the differences are getting smaller each year.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I also have no emotional stake in this thread since I listen mainly to CDs and my CD rig is much more expensive then my vinyl rig. But I would like to understand why the CD playback in a few aspects many people I praise a lot does not sound as real as the LP one.

I am very pro CD at the very top of the CD food chain......the Trinity dac (using top-of-line Tara Labs GM XLR interconnects). yet it's also good.....even very good, but not great, being upsampled -> Quad dsd thru JRiver into my GG. and I'm told with MQPlayer is some better.

in any case, I feel I have a full grasp of what is possible with redbook. it's very very fine. you cannot criticize any aspect of redbook at it's best.

it only pales when directly compared with the best of analog, and then only in degrees.

vinyl at that same relative top level is much more real and profound (not saying perfect or strictly accurate.....neither of which mean much really). much more information and note development, much greater nuance and sense of substance. greater degree of reality in drum kits, guitar plucks, vocal shadings, harmonic complexity, etc. etc. the holographic ability of vinyl is on another level. the dynamics of vinyl carry more weight and authority.

on very complex musical peaks top level vinyl never breaks a sweat, either in sorting out details, rendering spacial clues, or maintaining musical integrity. the same type of material on redbook gets more of a congealed type sound.....which seems capable and up to standards until directly compared to the best vinyl examples.

overall vinyl is not perfect, but it is more 'complete' than redbook.

why does vinyl have these advantages? I have my own opinions.

I have a number of Lps that simply take the lid off what our concept of the limitations of what reproduced music is.

redbook hints at all these things but comes up short in the translation.

i'm only commenting on my own experience at the top level of both redbook and vinyl that I have experienced. i'm sure there are many views based on alternate exposures.

I fully understand how someone could be 100% redbook and be happy as a clam. it does it all.

 

[fas42]

I have a number of Lps that simply take the lid off what our concept of the limitations of what reproduced music is.

redbook hints at all these things but comes up short.

I'm of course in the other camp - I've had CD "hints" of what's possible in sound reproduction, which is truly, truly marvelous - but it won't happen, just like with analogue, unless every last refinement to the system is applied.

 

[ddk]

I would like to understand why the CD playback in a few aspects many people I praise a lot does not sound as real as the LP one.

I would like to bring your attention to Neil Young's eloquent quote from the article,

"Because vinyl is a reflection and any digital is a reconstitution; it's not the same thing."

In reality what you're doing with digital is taking an analog signal, breaking it down into digits and using algorithms to reconstruct a representative model of the original so it can be converted back to an analog signal from the machine reconstruct. Maybe as computing power of the chips becomes greater and people write more complex math the digital sound can improve but I just don't see how it can ever match the reality of the original analog signal. Further, aside for storage purposes and/or easy manipulation would you want to take something pure, break it down to machine code only to have to build it back up to a version of its original state for consumption? Unless human beings learn to process machine language the best digital can ever be is analog like and no measurement or math will change this reality!

david

 

[bonzo75]

Funny what's considered as more accurate than analog is what is broken down and rebuilt from analog

 

[the sound of Tao]

I am very pro CD at the very top of the CD food chain......the Trinity dac (using top-of-line Tara Labs GM XLR interconnects). yet it's also good.....even very good, but not great, being upsampled -> Quad dsd thru JRiver into my GG. and I'm told with MQPlayer is some better.

in any case, I feel I have a full grasp of what is possible with redbook. it's very very fine. you cannot criticize any aspect of redbook at it's best.

it only pales when directly compared with the best of analog, and then only in degrees.

vinyl at that same relative top level is much more real and profound (not saying perfect or strictly accurate.....neither of which mean much really). much more information and note development, much greater nuance and sense of substance. greater degree of reality in drum kits, guitar plucks, vocal shadings, harmonic complexity, etc. etc. the holographic ability of vinyl is on another level. the dynamics of vinyl carry more weight and authority.

on very complex musical peaks top level vinyl never breaks a sweat, either in sorting out details, rendering spacial clues, or maintaining musical integrity. the same type of material on redbook gets more of a congealed type sound.....which seems capable and up to standards until directly compared to the best vinyl examples.

overall vinyl is not perfect, but it is more 'complete' than redbook.

why does vinyl have these advantages? I have my own opinions.

I have a number of Lps that simply take the lid off what our concept of the limitations of what reproduced music is.

redbook hints at all these things but comes up short in the translation.

i'm only commenting on my own experience at the top level of both redbook and vinyl that I have experienced. i'm sure there are many views based on alternate exposures.

I fully understand how someone could be 100% redbook and be happy as a clam. it does it all.

Great post... we've all tried but I think you've really caught the essential differences here and communicated it beautifully, thanks Mike.

 

[bonzo75]

I... Quad dsd thru JRiver into my GG. and I'm told with HQPlayer is some better.

...

Jriver upsampling is much lower quality

 

[Al M.]

[
I would like to bring your attention to Neil Young's eloquent quote from the article,

"Because vinyl is a reflection and any digital is a reconstitution; it's not the same thing."
In reality what you're doing with digital is taking an analog signal, breaking it down into digits and using algorithms to reconstruct a representative model of the original so it can be converted back to an analog signal from the machine reconstruct. Maybe as computing power of the chips becomes greater and people write more complex math the digital sound can improve but I just don't see how it can ever match the reality of the original analog signal.

The signal on vinyl also does not match the reality of the original analog signal. Take a 1 kHz sine wave and have it reproduced through vinyl. It looks absolutely horrible. Amir had posted a graph at some point. Perhaps that was not on the best turntable, but even on great analog there will still be plenty of degradation. Through digital the sine wave looks perfect. Why great analog sounds more convincing than most digital, and it does -- I don't have a technical explanation for that.

Also, on vinyl, as has been pointed out, much "has been left on the cutting floor", as they say. There are just very many technical compromises in processing the signal for making vinyl, which also make it not match the original analog signal.

Further, aside for storage purposes and/or easy manipulation would you want to take something pure, break it down to machine code only to have to build it back up to a version of its original state for consumption?

Because in theory there is less degradation of signal through the digital chain. It is designed to preserve the purity of the signal, which gets compromised in an analog chain. And after having developed a somewhat deeper technical understanding of digital, greatly aided by the helpful folks at WBF, Amir and others, I do think digital theory is perfect. It just has enormous issues in practical implementation, issues that were not anticipated by digital engineers when it was brought to market. Yet playback of CD through the dCS Vivaldi and dCS Rossini systems was finally convincing enough to make me think when I heard it "so the theory really is perfect!". Certainly, even that playback will be improved in the future, but the audible result was so convincing in its timbral believability that it put any lingering doubts about digital theory to rest for me.

So while I agree with you about the currently still existing superiority of great analog to most digital playback when it comes to preserving timbral believability of music, there are the above issues with degradation of the signal in the analog chain that make the argument of reflection vs. reconstitution a rather weak one. I don't find it useful as an argument for why analog is superior to digital. In fact, I find it counterproductive.