where has anyone suggested this Frantz. I certainly haven't. We all have preferences. I don't believe anyone is suggesting that at all nor do I believe that there is an anti science sentiment here at WBF like you suggested.
Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl
- Thread starter Steve williams
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where has anyone suggested this Frantz. I certainly haven't. We all have preferences. I don't believe anyone is suggesting that at all nor do I believe that there is an anti science sentiment here at WBF like you suggested.
Thanks for that, Amir. Yes, you need a superior turntable, like the Kronos that I also know from Madfloyd's system, to get vinyl going for me. And of course a superior vinyl 'software', i.e. pressing, which the Hugh Masekela is (pressing quality is often the Achilles' heel of LP playback).
I don't think a turntable set-up in the same price range as my CD transport/DAC combo ($ 8K) can compete with that digital. Others will disagree.
I keep it simple...the format the music was originally recorded in sounds best...So if I have a dub of the safety master, I listen to the reel. If I don't have that title on tape, I listen to the vinyl version. If it was recorded and mastered in digital, I listen to it in that format. All this preference bickering is just that. Bickering. I implore all to listen in the format that makes them happy. There is no need to prove anything to anyone.
That's not what I said. You took one line out my post without proper link that made that clear. Here is the full context:
As I have highlighted, I am investigating why these artifacts that are so well articulated and demonstrated in the format are not commented on by LP devotees. I am not at all questioning why they prefer LP which is what you turned it into. LPs have different mastering so by definition there will be people who will like that better than CD. I don't need any convincing as to why people like that impression better than the CD format.
Do you hear these artifacts Steve? If you don't then that is the topic I like to discuss.
No. If the LP format was a duplicate of the CD master and you liked it better with those distortions then yes, I would be seriously questioning how high fidelity has been so bastardized to mean that. Fortunately that is not the case. It is a given that LP produces a preferred sound for many audiophiles. I am giving you full credit for differing mastering has produced a better experience for you all that prefer it to digital. And I have said that I too enjoy well recorded LP as much as the next guy.
What doesn't fly with me is saying the format is more faithful, real or whatever you want to call it. That the CD has some unknown as yet to be found imperfections. That it creates ear fatigue by mere fact that it is digital. And that LP is a more natural fit for music. None of this is true or supported by the article you post. This is what the OP is about: specific technical differences between formats.
Amir, you chastised me in this very thread when I mentioned that I listened to something critically. All I meant was that I was paying attention to the sound of one component versus another component during a direct comparison. You seemed to argue that only the trained Harmon listeners have an ability to listen critically, and that I was a fool for even suggesting that I could do it. Now you write that people don't hear these issues with vinyl playback because they are not being critical listeners? I'm confused by your reasoning.
And the second sentence in this quote is just insulting. You have admitted many times that you don't trust your ears and that you have hearing loss. I would not presume that others have the same issues. It is certainly possible that the vinyl front ends at the show you just attended were not properly set up in the short time before the show.
I recommend that you accept Mike L's kind invitation to hear his vinyl set up. It may alter your ideas about what is possible with good vinyl playback.
Exactly - more precisely about the preferences of a small group who mainly addresses THEIR OWN preference and explains it. It was the interesting aspect - we now know each other and the reasons behind our choices much better. Perhaps it is time to create a thread "Why Hi-Rez May Actually Sound Better Than CD " - perhaps after such thread gets over the 1000 posts vinyl overs will appreciate better the best of digital!
Let me add another factor for preference of LP which is the fact that the analog chain can easily be made to sound different as we all heard at the PNW meeting (and mentioned in OP article). Rips of different vinyl clearly sounds different so there is secondary re-mastering of music is in play here. Digital doesn't provide such an opportunity. I can again easily see how preferences can be developed for the LP version with its differing sound that way.
My question and I keep repeating myself is how you all able to look past the artifacts. Is the assertion that they don't exist? Or they are inaudible?
My question and I keep repeating myself is how you all able to look past the artifacts. Is the assertion that they don't exist? Or they are inaudible?
A quote from Arny:
"I've done extensive DBTs and measurements involving both LPs and digital.
It is a simple matter of fact that compared to good digital (eg true CD quality or better), vinyl is a high noise, high distortion, high coloration medium.
In contrast, good digital, which is now reasonably inexpensive and common, has no audible noise except under extreme conditions, has no audible distortion, and has no audible coloration.
In almost every case any audible flaw in a digital recording comes from the source material, not the digital domain, This is even true through multiple generations of conversions back and forth between digital and analog - even as many as from 10 to 20 cycles.
When it comes to personal preferences, particularly those developed using systems that may have a few serious audible flaws of their own, and also those that don't involve a ready reference, whatever you prefer is whatever you prefer.
Absolute sound quality may have little or nothing to do with your preferences.
Everybody has some ideal of what everything should sound like to them. Where they get this from varies and is very personal. Most people develop these ideas on their own. Therefore, other people's preferences are not all that interesting to most people."
"I've done extensive DBTs and measurements involving both LPs and digital.
It is a simple matter of fact that compared to good digital (eg true CD quality or better), vinyl is a high noise, high distortion, high coloration medium.
In contrast, good digital, which is now reasonably inexpensive and common, has no audible noise except under extreme conditions, has no audible distortion, and has no audible coloration.
In almost every case any audible flaw in a digital recording comes from the source material, not the digital domain, This is even true through multiple generations of conversions back and forth between digital and analog - even as many as from 10 to 20 cycles.
When it comes to personal preferences, particularly those developed using systems that may have a few serious audible flaws of their own, and also those that don't involve a ready reference, whatever you prefer is whatever you prefer.
Absolute sound quality may have little or nothing to do with your preferences.
Everybody has some ideal of what everything should sound like to them. Where they get this from varies and is very personal. Most people develop these ideas on their own. Therefore, other people's preferences are not all that interesting to most people."
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219732&viewfull=1#post219732
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219777&viewfull=1#post219777
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219787&viewfull=1#post219787
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219842&viewfull=1#post219842
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219777&viewfull=1#post219777
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219787&viewfull=1#post219787
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...enesis-Speaker&p=219842&viewfull=1#post219842
I have no problem anyone preferring LP to CD. I was of this opinion for most of my (very long) audiophile life.
Just one question can someone point to a metric aside from the so-often cited bandwidth , where LP surpass CD? Just one? I know I am repeating myself but ...
Just one question can someone point to a metric aside from the so-often cited bandwidth , where LP surpass CD? Just one? I know I am repeating myself but ...
Hi Amir,
I know next to zilch about vinyl. I have heard the Clearaudio Extreme Reference whatever...it was brilliant and dead silent (no ticks). For me, the question for the techno-guys is not about how people by-pass the 'vinyl artifacts'...its whether or not there IS something BETTER that vinyl does that makes people prefer it that actually IS real, IS measurable and IS actually justified in that it more closely mimics real sound and how people actually hear?
I come back to the fact that the human ear is NOT the same as the microphone. For example, how many optical illusions have we figured out where the human eye is clearly fooled into thinking 2 lines are absolutely different lengths...when in fact they are identical lengths. Forget needing a mechanical eye to figure out they're the same...just use a bloody ruler!!! And yet, the human eye clearly perceives the 2 lengths as different...
...so is our hearing also different than what a 'polygraph' shows? And therefore, is there something in vinyl reproduction that (for those of us who prioritize those elements) is BETTER than digital?
why is that the human ear/mind can so easily listen during a meeting with 10 people and 2 conversations going on, while someone crumples a piece of paper...but a speakerphone microphone literally garbles the entire thing together into an absolutely unlistenable mess?
I am not saying vinyl is better than digital...remember, i am a 100% redbook guy who is totally happy with my Zanden 4-box digital 15 hours a day on the weekends. But i for one am incredibly skeptical we have the correct measurements as relates to HUMAN HEARING and audio reproduction, and am always interested to see when things like the article from Juergen of MBL Audio or Minneapolis Heart Institute show that there can be measurements that show why what many hear is justified...one just needs to find the right way to measure.
http://www.audiostream.com/content/o...nd-uncertainty
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...Monitor-Noise-Floor&highlight=heart+institute
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Uuuuhhhhhh, not to be confrontational here but I would like to point out that the two lines ARE different lengths. I did use a ruler. Doesn't matter, carry on. 
Now back to our regularly scheduled preferences...
Tom
Now back to our regularly scheduled preferences...
Tom
Uuuuhhhhhh, not to be confrontational here but I would like to point out that the two lines ARE different lengths. I did use a ruler. Doesn't matter, carry on.
Now back to our regularly scheduled preferences...
Tom
Tom,
I didn't need the ruler ...
Uuuuhhhhhh, not to be confrontational here but I would like to point out that the two lines ARE different lengths. I did use a ruler. Doesn't matter, carry on.
Now back to our regularly scheduled preferences...
Tom
Fixed!
I am not a techno guy and like you I am 100 % invested in digital.
Yet I will repeat here a post in answer to Ron earlier in the thread:
Again, digital CAN do it correctly (see dCS Rossini above), but most digital does not. It's a matter of implementation: digital theory is correct, no matter what the naysayers claim. And yes, the Redbook sampling rate IS sufficient. It's just that in many cases a higher sampling rate sounds better because it is easier to implement accurately in practical terms. But this issue of ease of practical implementation has nothing to do with digital theory and the correctness of the Nyquist theorem (accurate capture of the waveform by double sampling frequency over captured audio frequency).
Yes, in some cases great analog is better than most digital when it comes to timbral believability. But it does not have to be that way. There is nothing inherent in digital (even Redbook digital) that would prevent it from achieving similar, or even better, timbral believability.
Yes, believability of certain timbres as I described in my previous post. I prefer top vinyl playback in some cases to my current digital because of that, not because it sounds 'nicer', 'more pleasant' or anything like that -- even though certainly there will be those who prefer vinyl for those latter reasons.
With our current instruments and methods we measure test tones, not timbres. On test tones digital always wins, hands down.
Yes & this is the great blind spot that the "pro-science" faction (as they tend to consider themselves) dare not address. They constantly use the existing simplistic measurements as some form of useful analysis & pose strawman questions like "show one metric where LP is better than CD". Just for a moment it would be refreshing to see these people admitting that the current measurements tell us little about the perceived auditory perception of anything.
Look at what Juergen & many, many other say about such measurements - the simplistic nature of the test signals used & the conclusions to be drawn from such derived metrics.
Can we all stop pretending that there is a "science Vs "anti-science" divide. IMO all on this forum & other audio forums are far from sufficient knowledge in audio science to make any claims about these matters & those who claim otherwise are demonstrating puffery
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