Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

[bonzo75]

Mike, you're clearly at the top of the audio food chain but you're also in the minority. Got it, you have the best of the best which you've stated over and over and maybe, just maybe in that cost-no-object category vinyl wins. But for the rest of us on planet earth digital sounds great within our budget. And I think even better than vinyl for the $.

As far as digital vs analog advancements, I assume you are joking. As you stated as the "best in 2001" - you think there is a bigger change in the ~$75K Rockport Turntable vs. whatever you consider "best " today compared to, again as you stated the $7K Marantz SA-1 vs. let's say the best and latest >$50K DCS stack?

Let me know where you got those pills please....

This post is too focused on dollars instead of Sonics

 

[ddk]

Well funnily enough I feel a fairly ordinary vinyl set up - like mine - runs rings around even the expensive digital. I prefer my current set up to the Nadac I had, for all its virtues. I just find it sounds more like real music. That said I'd like to add a decent CDP for certain recordings which benefit from the lower noise floor eg piano.

Anyway as Rodney said - what ever gives you an ear-gasm.

Could be the music we listen to Andrew, we have the same tastes! Interestingly a lot of it can still be very good on CD when not remastered to death, specially compared to digital reissues of 70's Rock that I grew up with, they're unlistenable.
david

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . digital reissues of 70's Rock that I grew up with, they're unlistenable.
david

I grew up mostly with CDs and I have a lot of CDs of perfectly garden-variety 1980s rock and pop albums which I like a lot (and which are way too lowbrow for most of you), and which were not well-recorded to begin with, and which sound, to me, unlistenable on CD. (We all know that, in general, it was the most famous and popular albums that were rushed by the record labels to be remastered to digital and released on CD first in the early 1980s.)

Over the years I found almost all of the 1980s albums I like on LP. For whatever reason, and this is purely my personal preference, my poorly recorded 1980s rock and pop stuff sounds, to my ears, less bad on LP than it does on CD.

Since I have stayed out of digital ever since I got involved with the hobby in 1988 (I never had the intellectual as well as the sonic curiosity to pursue SOTA in all high-end formats as Mike L has) I enjoy reading digital discussions from afar. But it sure would be nice to have a CD player that made my 1980s silver discs (and David's 1970s silver discs) listenable.

So, Al and LL21 and others, ably assisted by Peter A as (I like to imagine) my analog stand-in and referee, please keep up the search for the best Redbook CD playback!

 

[fas42]

I don't think I should visit you frank. It won't end well.

Were you referring to Vince's deck at the Sydney Audio Show?

My experience so far is that audiophiles are often after a very definite attribute in the sound, when they listen. And if they don't hear that, then it's game over for them - as people have said about the people they come across, they can be oblivious to glaring faults in the playback - I remember a hifi club meet, with vinyl on show of the famous Belafonte at Carnegie, and the tracking distortion had me grinding my teeth, it was quite gross. How can the people listening not pick this, I thought?

IOW, if there isn't some alignment of expectation then it won't work, yes.

Sorry, at the show I can relate to the brands only - which one are you referring to?

 

[fas42]

Since I have stayed out of digital ever since I got involved with the hobby in 1988 (I never had the intellectual as well as the sonic curiosity to pursue SOTA in all high-end formats as Mike L has) I enjoy reading digital discussions from afar. But it sure would be nice to have a CD player that made my 1980s silver discs (and David's 1970s silver discs) listenable.

At your service! I agree that material from that era can be a challenge on many systems, largely because of the recording techniques - however, they can go way past "listenable"; some of the albums are mind boggling in their ability to satisfy, absolutely amazing "masterpieces" - I don't have anything from that era that I haven't been extract competent playback from on at least some occasions.

 

[f1eng]

Seems your mind is already made up based on this response. Perhaps the best thing to do is read this which details the audible range problems with 16/44:

https://www.meridian-audio.com/meridian-uploads/ara/coding2.pdf

I am familiar with this paper. It does outline shortcomings in 16/44 which, IME are important for recording but once the recording and mixing are done 16/44 is capable of carrying more information than a domestic hifi can reproduce.

No, my question was not what is wrong with 16/44 but in what way LPs measure better, which you have not answered, and you never will since there is not a single parameter where an LP is as accurate as a CD.
Some posters seem to take offence at the nice sound of an LP must originate from the list of euphonic colourations inherent in the medium, but the fact is there is no magic and even if you spend 100 million you can't fix it, just move around the balance of colourations to taste.

I started listing the shortcomings and compromises which I learned were inherent in the medium when I was in R&D and designing record players but decided it was pointless.
Some people have taken offence at the very suggestion that what is nice sounding about LPs is the euphonic distortion added both by manufacturing or replay id LP discs. OTOH nobody has come up with another explanation of why LPs sound nice, since there isn't one.

I love my LPs and my record players but I don't kid myself that they are magic, I know far too much about them for that. I like them because of the euphonic additions.

Bye everybody.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Mike, you're clearly at the top of the audio food chain but you're also in the minority. Got it, you have the best of the best which you've stated over and over and maybe, just maybe in that cost-no-object category vinyl wins. But for the rest of us on planet earth digital sounds great within our budget. And I think even better than vinyl for the $.

As far as digital vs analog advancements, I assume you are joking. As you stated as the "best in 2001" - you think there is a bigger change in the ~$75K Rockport Turntable vs. whatever you consider "best " today compared to, again as you stated the $7K Marantz SA-1 vs. let's say the best and latest >$50K DCS stack?

Let me know where you got those pills please....

I believe that much of our talking past each other on threads like this stems from holding different objectives of high-end audio, and from not starting the debate with those different objectives firmly and explicitly in mind.

I also believe that much other consternation arises simply from the well-known incomparability of interpersonal utility (e.g., there is no objective, principled way to prove that you like chocolate ice cream more than I like vanilla ice cream).

Finally, each of us is going to apply a different monetary value to a given improvement in sound. (And this assumes we can even agree there was an improvement in sound. One audiophile's "welcome increase in detail" is another audiophile's "edgy and fatiguing.") It is no surprise that these debates go in circles.

So, sbo6, there is no objective, externally verifiable right and wrong here. You are correct for how you think, and Mike L is correct for how he thinks.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

OTOH nobody has come up with another explanation of why LPs sound nice, since there isn't one.

That is rather presumptious and I have to say rather self-servicing comment. I have already offered my own opinions in this thread on the subject. Maybe you have missed them so I will reiterate.

I have already provided my opinions as to the two principal reasons why vinyl sounds good and they are both directly related to the lack of the sample rate and bit depth limitations inherent in the digital process. The first (sampling rate related) is that all the shortcomings of the analogue process are not nearly as destructive to good sound as the completely unavoidable brickwall digital filtering used by necessity to produce CD masters at the sampling rate of 44.1 KHz (and may or may not be used a second time around for subsequent consumer replay). This problem is only overcome in production stages by employing a sample rate sufficiently high such that the filtering does not audibly effect the program material. Such filtering is not required for vinyl LP replay, nor is it required for other excellent sounding analogue formats.

Additionally, digital noise is not benign like analogue noise is. You can have a digital noise floor 130 or more dB down on the actual program material and it still negatively effects the sound of that program material itself, even though the noise itself is inaudible. Such noise in the digital domain is also completely impossible to avoid - whether it be caused by lack of bits, jitter or other noise inducing processes in the digital production and reproduction chain. The only things that can be done is to reduce it as much as possible by increased bit depths, fanatical attention to power supply and fanatical attention to clock integrity and precision - things that are not nearly as important in the pure analogue domain (though remain important just the same).


Noise in the analogue domain on the other hand simply sits there as a benign background to the music, not interfering in any way with the subjective quality of program material - unless of course the noise is really bad. You can have a "terrible" signal to noise with vinyl of 50-something dB and that still has no effect on the quality of the actual music itself. The music just sits there and the noise sits beneath it. I have never experienced analogue noise so bad that it detracts or reduces the quality of the music program itself, except in the days where I had very cheap equipment and played cheap tapes or cheap vinyl.

The third reason is to why I believe vinyl "sounds nice" is because there are no issues with impulse response as there are for CD and indeed higher (but still low) sample rates. The human ear can easily detect impulses that far exceed the capabilities of the CD standard which is one good reason as to why the sound of vinyl has an immediacy and easy, natural flow to it that is largely missing from CD - because those things in my experience are not musically relevant in the analogue domain. This particular digital shortcoming can admittedly often be overcome by upsampling again at playback, but as I have mentioned before, upsampling produces it's own colourations which I personally do not like, especially as it tends to thin out and sharpen violin timbre - something to which I am incredibly sensitive having spent many years playing that instrument. CD and indeed a lot of digital is beyond hopeless when it comes to the violin - vinyl does it extremely easily on the other hand.

The above reasons, on the other hand, are also why I do not have any problems with 24/96 digital or beyond, since all the shortcomings I have mentioned above are reasonably well-controlled at those specifications. These specs may still potentially produce audible side effects (since no production and reproduction chain can achieve theoretical perfection), however by the time you get to 24/96, it is a case of (relatively minor) sins of omission. I have heard a few 24/192 recordings that in all honesty come so close to what I hear in a concert hall (including massed violins) that it is really hard even for me to reasonably pick fault with it.

 

[Rodney Gold]

I have 8900 CD's on file , have tidal .. spent a gazillion on my room/system ... my daughters 21yr old boyfriend has 100 lp's and a crosley... we are both happy...

Oddly enough , when I play older recordings , like ella/basie etc ... done in the 60's ... hiss , rolled off treble , odd stereo effects and all.. I feel more in touch with the music than with the sterilised offerings we get today

 

[bonzo75]

I have 8900 CD's on file , have tidal .. spent a gazillion on my room/system ... my daughters 21yr old boyfriend has 100 lp's and a crosley... we are both happy...

I have a lot of music on files and withs treaming exploring new music is not an issue, but I would like a vinyl rig to listen to my top few classical albums.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Im not a big classical listener ... about 10% of my listening time. Maybe if I listened to more classical I would use my Thorens TT that I have for "show" .. after all, all card carrying audiophiles need either valves or a TT to establish their credentials.....
Im not too much into the "ritual" of playing music these days ... roon and tidal make instant playing whatever takes your fancy a breeze...






















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[Diapason]

Is it fair to assume that not many "recent" classical releases have made it to vinyl?

 

[SoundAndMotion]

Xiph's videos have all sorts of mistakes and misrepresentations.

I have detailed these mistakes on another forum and it is tedious. It would be a mistake to put them up as any kind of an authoritative source.

I'm interested in seeing that. To avoid extra tedium here, can you give a link?

Lee hasn't had a chance to respond. Does anyone know which forum he's talking about? Have the mistakes and misrepresentations of Xiph videos been discussed here? I'm curious.

TIA

 

[PeterA]

Even as a staunch vinyl proponent, I tend to agree here so long as we are talking about properly done hi-res PCM or SACD. Of course better buy does not mean better sound. For me it just means it has a better price to performance ratio. That said, when it comes to CD, it really does require a level of fanaticism and attention to all the little details such that usually requires a considerable outlay to get very good sound. In such cases, then vinyl has the better price to performance ratio in my opinion because I can get wonderful vinyl sound for far less than the cost of dCS gear and even the cost of "next best" stuff like a Rega Isis.

I recently had the opportunity to listen to a Rega Isis in my system. Lovely, extremely well built machine. It sounded very good, especially after I placed a Townshend Seismic Sink under it for isolation. This is a very impressive CDP.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

Is it fair to assume that not many "recent" classical releases have made it to vinyl?

Yes. The number of new classical releases on vinyl is a very small sub-market within a relatively small market to begin with. Most classical vinyl releases these days are reissues of analogue stereo or 3-track recordings made in the 60s and 70s (with that date range extended as applicable to the mid 50s and early 80s). And within that range there is a spread of fully analogue remasterings together with an increasing number of remasterings made from 24/96 transfers (which were themselves made from the aforementioned analogue masters).

My vinyl collection is pretty representative of the modern "spread" of classical vinyl and I'd say about 80% of the collection is fully analogue derived from recordings originally made in the 50s to 70s, another 10% are the same, but from high res digital masters that are in turn made from those same analogue recordings, whereas the remaining 10% are "modern" (which for this purpose I consider to be anything recorded from the 90s onwards).

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

I recently had the opportunity to listen to a Rega Isis in my system. Lovely, extremely well built machine. It sounded very good, especially after I placed a Townshend Seismic Sink under it for isolation. This is a very impressive CDP.

It certainly is. All the Rega CD players are sonically very impressive for the price points. I wholeheartedly recommend them above anything else if sonic performance at the price point is the main consideration. The only reason I can't unreservedly recommend them however, is that the controlling software can often be a bit cantankerous and - at least in the case of the cheaper Apollo-R and Saturn-R, the transports are not the greatest quality. Normally that in itself might not be an issue given the relatively modest (even bargain) price points, however Rega set their error correction extremely conservatively which in turn places higher demands on the essentially mass-market transports that they employ in these models. What this means in practice is very finicky players that need pristine disks. I have already just put my third transport in my Apollo-R. Not really a problem for me though as I do the full replacements by myself and they cost $25 each in bulk!! I've got a carton of 20 of them (now 18!) sitting in the spare room...

The Isis on the other hand does not compromise on the transport like the Saturn / Apollo do so it is likely to be a better behaved player over time and mechanically far more durable for the life of the original components. Plus Rega keep a spare transport at the factory - serialised for each individual Isis they sell.

 

[Joe Whip]

It is no surprise that these debates go in circles.

Queuing the late great Billy Preston! I know, I am showing my age!

 

[Diapason]

Thanks for that confirmation, FF.

 

[rbbert]

Is it fair to assume that not many "recent" classical releases have made it to vinyl?

Hardly any classical recorded since the early '80's was recorded in analog; it's probably safe to say nothing at all on the "major" labels.

 

[Diapason]

In fairness, this would be a major factor for me since a huge proportion of my listening these days is of classical discs recorded in the last 30 years.