Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

[PeterA]

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 ...

Perhaps this is why the measurement crowd keeps touting hi rez, quad DSD, the NADAC and other modules etc. They all measure great, but all sound different. There is no end to the search for "perfect sound forever". It keeps improving. If they actually listened to classical music, live and then recorded, different DACs and the difference between redbook CDs and hi rez files would be more apparent. I have seen little to nothing on the science threads about digital mentioning dCS gear. Perhaps it is dismissed because of price and fancy casework as typical high end. Those who have actually heard it, think it sounds different, solves some of these issues that are difficult to measure, and is perhaps the current SOTA of digital.

Another thing that I'm confused about is if digital, in theory, is the better copy, and this is confirmed through measurements, why are there so many different filters and algorithms designed to shape the sound and make it more pleasing to the listener? Does the copy need to be altered to the preference of the listener? Why not just present the copy as is?

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Peter
Good post.

I am sure you have worked out long ago that both digital and vinyl manipulate the sound for pleasing effect, the digital guys by and large just don't acknowledge it, and whatever facsimile of an event we get in either medium will have not much in common with our listening experience at the performance. Depending on your seat and the Concert Hall, I find the recorded event can often be better. I'd take the CD of eg the RCO of their live performance at the Sydney Opera House, over our experience of them up in the mezzanine, where we sat, any day of the week.

 

[Al M.]

PAnother thing that I'm confused about is if digital, in theory, is the better copy, and this is confirmed through measurements, why are there so many different filters and algorithms designed to shape the sound and make it more pleasing to the listener? Does the copy need to be altered to the preference of the listener? Why not just present the copy as is?

That is a good question, Peter. There are different filters because, while digital theory may be perfect, there are still limitations with regard to practical implementation of the theory.

From the dCS Rossini user manual:

"The first 4 PCM filters give diffferent trade-offs betwen the Nyquist image rejection and the phase response. Filter 1 has the best rejection of (unwanted) Nyquist images and the sharpest roll-off, resulting in the poorest transient repsonse of the four. Filters 2 3 and 4 have progressively more releaxed image rejection and progressively better transient response. Filter 2 is often preferred for orchestral music, while Filter 3 and Filter 4 are often used for rock music."

http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Rossini-Player-Manual-v1_0x.pdf

(For technical explanation, perhaps some knowledgeable folks here can help out.)

dCS is clearly honest with both the customer and themselves. Perhaps in fact because they are so honest and don't go on a Pretend Tour about the perfection of digital (unlike some folks here at WBF, among others), they can most effectively be at the forefront of pushing digital technology towards practical implementation more closely matching the theory.

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Good post Al, I agree.

 

[Al M.]

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.

I bet that the folks at dCS are measuring it. They seem to be among the most sophisticated people measuring digital and even make their own measuring equipment according to their own specifications (obviously unlike many pretenders out there they don't believe that current digital measures perfectly, but hold that it needs to be measurably improved). That appears to be a main reason why they are so good at creating superior audible results.

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Al & peter
I always found dCS gear to be very clinical and devoid of emotion. It has coloured my view of their product. I have never heard the current top level Rossini or Vivaldi. Would you say the dCS was more errr 'organic' (for want of a better term) playing back redbook than eg the Nadac playing back DSD 256?

Edit: I suppose by organic I mean a more natural sense of flow and space around the notes, with correct timbral accuracy.

 

[Al M.]

Al & peter
I always found dCS gear to be very clinical and devoid of emotion. It has coloured my view of their product. I have never heard the current top level Rossini or Vivaldi. Would you say the dCS was more errr 'organic' (for want of a better term) playing back redbook than eg the Nadac playing back DSD 256?

Yes. The current dCS playback is the most organic and 'colorful' (in a good sense, in terms of timbral differentiation) digital playback that I have heard so far. Nothing clinical about it all all -- quite to the contrary.

 

[Jazzhead]

Al & peter
I always found dCS gear to be very clinical and devoid of emotion. It has coloured my view of their product. I have never heard the current top level Rossini or Vivaldi. Would you say the dCS was more errr 'organic' (for want of a better term) playing back redbook than eg the Nadac playing back DSD 256?

Edit: I suppose by organic I mean it had more of a natural sense of flow and space around the notes, with correct timbral accuracy.

Not Al & neither am I Peter , but ...... They were clinical and devoid of emotion , as you mention ... Something I refer to as the lab coat syndrome . This was up until the Scarlatti , they have turned that corner in how they have voiced the Vivaldi and am sure the Rossini too . They sat down a panel of whom they consider golden ears and took their inputs , while implementing the algorithms and conceiving the design . I know of this , as a close friend was among those who were present at the voicing sessions . I would love to hear the Trinity in comparison and form an opinion .

 

[fas42]

Yes, dCS seems to have made very good progress. I heard the top of line stack at an audio show something like 10 years ago, and the playback of the Four Seasons was, bluntly, quite terrible - vinyl through the same rig was a total contrast, absolutely brilliant.

 

[bonzo75]

Not Al & neither am I Peter , but ...... They were clinical and devoid of emotion , as you mention ... Something I refer to as the lab coat syndrome . This was up until the Scarlatti , they have turned that corner in how they have voiced the Vivaldi and am sure the Rossini too . They sat down a panel of whom they consider golden ears and took their inputs , while implementing the algorithms and conceiving the design . I know of this , as a close friend was among those who were present at the voicing sessions . I would love to hear the Trinity in comparison and form an opinion .

All those in Munich this time please visit the Silbatone/WE room, where they alternate tracks on Scarlatti and the Thomas Schick idler TT. Was in that room with Audiophile Bill last year, one of the key reasons I said I have been kidding myself for too long, let's start exploring analog. Have seldom heard a better audition for analog.

Before that, I had heard a Goldmund Studio in Marty's room and wondered, if a $2k used TT with arm going through a room corrector sounds so many degrees superior to EMM Labs, why am I am in digital? Till then I had incorrectly thought such sound was capable only from expensive vinyl set ups. But these were the two main moments when I stopped to slap myself.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

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.

I wonder if he would say the same about a direct uncompressed video feed from a state of the art...digital...6K professional video camera like a Red Dragon. If that isn't an acceptable - albeit 2D rectangular - emulation of what I see in reality, then I think I should be donating my eyeballs to science! Even though it is "inferior" digital technology and deconstruction and reconstruction is arguably far more complex and processor intensive than anything audio!

 

[bonzo75]

I wonder if he would say the same about a direct uncompressed video feed from a state of the art...digital...6K professional video camera like a Red Dragon. If that isn't an acceptable - albeit 2D rectangular - emulation of what I see in reality, then I think I should be donating my eyeballs to science! Even though it is "inferior" digital technology and deconstruction and reconstruction is arguably far more complex and processor intensive than anything audio!

Errr...don't get him started on cameras

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I wonder if he would say the same about a direct uncompressed video feed from a state of the art...digital...6K professional video camera like a Red Dragon. If that isn't an acceptable - albeit 2D rectangular - emulation of what I see in reality, then I think I should be donating my eyeballs to science! Even though it is "inferior" digital technology and deconstruction and reconstruction is arguably far more complex and processor intensive than anything audio!

if the R & D budget going into digital video development was also going into digital audio development then you could relate the two. but unfortunately for us music lovers/audiophiles, there is no compelling economic case for making digital music formats better.

if the NFL or Porn experience was enhanced through better audio then it would happen right the hell now. just follow the dollars and where they lead. people buy TV's and video experiences.....and will continue to do so.

so the fact that digital video has surpassed analog video simply does not mean anything for us here. we remain in the relative 'dark ages' of digital audio.

more effort is being put into making vinyl better than making digital music better. my vinyl performance has progressed farther since the year 2000 than my digital.....not that digital is not better.

 

[bonzo75]

Yes, dCS seems to have made very good progress. I heard the top of line stack at an audio show something like 10 years ago, and the playback of the Four Seasons was, bluntly, quite terrible - vinyl through the same rig was a total contrast, absolutely brilliant.

The sound was terrible even till last year so unless this v2.0 is some magic that 100k couldn't initially fix, color (no pun intended) me skeptical.

Also, given the ability to change sound using software filters as opposed to cartridges or 300b, px4, 101d, etc type valves, I know what I will choose

 

[Diapason]

if the NFL or Porn experience was enhanced through better audio then it would happen right the hell now.

There's a truth we can all agree on!

 

[microstrip]

I bet that the folks at dCS are measuring it. They seem to be among the most sophisticated people measuring digital and even make their own measuring equipment according to their own specifications (obviously unlike many pretenders out there they don't believe that current digital measures perfectly, but hold that it needs to be measurably improved). That appears to be a main reason why they are so good at creating superior audible results.

Sound quality of DACs is probably due to the correlation of hardware and software characteristics. The differences introduced by software are most of the time minimal in the audio band - I have never seen any review showing a measured difference in redbook in the 10-20000 Hz bandwidth. IMHO - and this is just an unconfirmed supposition - in order to make them predictable and effective the hardware must not "spoil" these minimal actions, and must follow a rigorous model of accuracy and extreme quality. Perhaps it is why manufacturers such as Trinity select their components to the nth degree, or DCS implement their own DACs - using specific measurements surely!

At some time we expected that software would solve all the problems of digital. Unfortunately It seems that in order to have the last drop of information, accuracy and a pleasant sound the key is also in the hardware.

Do you remember when it was thought that the solution was mostly in the buffer between the DAC and the output?

 

[microstrip]

The sound was terrible even till last year so unless this v2.0 is some magic that 100k couldn't initially fix, color (no pun intended) me skeptical.

Also, given the ability to change sound using software filters as opposed to cartridges or 300b, px4, 101d, etc type valves, I know what I will choose

I must say that I heard great sound with version 1.0 ... If it was not for the price I would have ordered it immediately!

 

[PeterA]

I would just like to note how much less contentious this thread seems than what a similar thread just a few months ago might have looked like. It is an interesting subject, and after some 28 pages, there has been no real infighting amongst the members. I think there is a healthy respect for measurements in this area, and for subjective listening impressions. We can discuss personal preferences between the two formats, and subjective impressions about which sounds more real. I have also enjoyed the technical explanations put forth for the different formats.

I think the key here is that we are not beating each other up with our personal dogmas and having a fairly constructive discussion. I know that I have learned a few things lately about digital and enjoy these threads much more than I did just a short while ago.

I commend the membership for its tone and congratulate the management team for the current state of the site.

 

[Argonaut]

The sound was terrible even till last year so unless this v2.0 is some magic that 100k couldn't initially fix, color (no pun intended) me skeptical.

Also, given the ability to change sound using software filters as opposed to cartridges or 300b, px4, 101d, etc type valves, I know what I will choose

Bonzo... , I rather feel that your current evangelism over vinyl together with your enthusiasm for valve output stage digital may have inadvertently 'coloured' your perception of the latest DCS Vivaldi line!!! which even at V1.0 software, I have yet to hear or read of anyone else considering the product to "sound terrible" the vast majority far from it.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Well Peter, I did comment on my return to the forum being suprisingly enjoyable diving into this thread. Along w/a reel to reel thread I opened that was a joy from start to finish (helping me decide NOT to invest), this one is up there.
In my personal circumstances, my previous predispositions on analog over digital being well and truly challenged by my preference for Emm Labs over Michell/SME/Transfiguration (my late-00's rigs) made me investigate digital a lot more closely. This then led me to analyse what I felt the shortfalls on the comparison of analog to it was at the time, and see if I could bridge the gap. The fact that I did, and then found a subsequent digital player to up the ante again, has left me in a place where I genuinely love each medium for what they uniquely bring to the party. But recent changes still mean that analog pulls me in more each time I listen to it, and that it seems to have more unlimited headroom for improvement.
The situation I currently have is that my cdp has the most liquid/toneful analog-heavy presentation, and my tt has the most accurate/linear digital-friendly presentation, and my enjoyment of both is enhanced by this hard-to-achieve balance.