Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

[jeff1225]

I think its quite hilarious that these threads still exist. There is not, and there will never be, a definitive answer to this question because listening is 100% subjective. We could go on the web and have the Campy vs. Shimano debate on the cycling sites or the Porsche vs Ferrari thread on the car sites. Its the same thing, just a bunch of hobbyists debating the un-debatable: personal tastes.

Never mind me, please carry on.

 

[fas42]

So take comfort that we know this science. While there is further research, answers to whether two DACs sound different to humans, etc. are all very well known. Those answers make us upset as they go against the experiences we have. But they are the answers. And there are explanations as to why our experiences are in conflict with them.

I think not. I was curious to see whether Fastl's book references Bregman's work on ASA, but I can't see a link from that book at all - scene analysis doesn't appear to figure in their thinking, perhaps. However, I can see many, many audio science websites, books and papers referencing both Fastl and Bregman. Fastl has some of the answers, but not all, seems to be the implication ...

Auditory Scene Analysis takes into account that we have a complex brain analysing and processing auditory data - able to leap over tall walls in a single bound, so to speak - and the investigators readily admit there is still a great amount that has to be learnt here - no hubris, whatsoever.

Overall, understanding human hearing is a very long way from being a closed topic - and I find ASA particularly interesting because it helps to explain many of the interesting behaviours that an audio system displays when it transitions from average capability, to high levels of competence.

 

[amirm]

No insults intended, ... just a bit of Oz humour thrown in! Seriously, Amir is a person who would be able to involve himself in the process of being coached to detect what's 'wrong' with digital playback - I have a local audio friend with both vinyl and digital, and in the beginning he was very enthusiastic on the vinyl side - he would put on a CD on his player, and comment that it didn't match the qualities of the vinyl. I would carefully point out the precise way that the sound was flawed, that the typical flatness, alternating with edginess, material dependent artifacts, were clearly evident; he steadily learnt to recognise the behaviour - and worked out his own strategies to tweak the digital side.

These days he has an excellent handle on getting decent sound from ordinary digital gear, because he knows what to listen for, and the techniques to reduce the problems - vinyl is just another area where he listens to music, when it suits ...

Before you can coach me Frank you need to demonstrate you can hear digital artifacts better than me. Here is a set of tests for you to run. They are generational losses going from analog to digital multiple times through a $25 sound card: http://ethanwiner.com/loop-back.htm

These are my results:

Many people can hear the degradation after 20 passes, and Amir showed he could hear it after only five passes.

I did both Ethan as I reported in my original post. Here is the one-pass again:

====

Above I am showing my search for critical section. So when I tested the single generational loss (i.e. "most difficult") I knew what to listen for:

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/18 06:40:07

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_original.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_pass1.wav

06:40:07 : Test started.
06:41:03 : 01/01 50.0%
06:41:16 : 02/02 25.0%
06:41:24 : 03/03 12.5%
06:41:33 : 04/04 6.3%
06:41:53 : 05/05 3.1%
06:42:02 : 06/06 1.6%
06:42:22 : 07/07 0.8%
06:42:34 : 08/08 0.4%
06:42:43 : 09/09 0.2%
06:42:56 : 10/10 0.1%
06:43:08 : 11/11 0.0%
06:43:16 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 11/11 (0.0%)
======

This does not surprise me. But I used multiple passes only to make the degradation more obvious. Nobody listens or uses converters this way! If the goal is to determine how much money one needs to spend on a DAC - and I think it should be! - then testing a single generation makes far more sense. That's what really matters. More to the point, that test was done using an old SoundBlaster sound card that cost $25. Few serious audiophiles are using or considering buying stuff like that. I'm much more interested in learning how many people can pick out the original versus one generation of the more typical "high end" converter I used in this follow-up test:

Converter Loop-Back Tests

Ah, didn't realize there were a second set of files on that page. Thanks for upping the fidelity and providing the variety. I gave one set of files a try. Here is how I did:

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/29 14:05:31

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan's new generational loss files\focusrite_3a.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan's new generational loss files\focusrite_3c.wav

14:05:31 : Test started.
14:05:50 : 00/01 100.0%
14:06:18 : 01/02 75.0%
14:06:24 : 02/03 50.0%
14:06:31 : 02/04 68.8% -<<< Difference found
14:06:42 : 03/05 50.0%
14:06:53 : 04/06 34.4%
14:07:02 : 05/07 22.7%
14:07:19 : 06/08 14.5%
14:07:35 : 07/09 9.0%
14:08:01 : 08/10 5.5%
14:08:12 : 09/11 3.3%
14:08:31 : 10/12 1.9%
14:08:54 : 11/13 1.1%
14:09:32 : 11/14 2.9% <--- Dog barked.
14:09:52 : 12/15 1.8%
14:10:03 : 13/16 1.1%
14:10:19 : 14/17 0.6%
14:10:53 : 15/18 0.4%
14:11:33 : 16/19 0.2%
14:12:47 : 17/20 0.1%
14:13:18 : 18/21 0.1%
14:13:39 : 19/22 0.0%
14:13:41 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 19/22 (0.0%)

If digital has the ills that some of you mention, then multiple passes should make it sound a lot worse and easier to identify.

Also, you just post the video on AXPONA. Jump to minute 22:00 and listen to how all three picked A/D and D/A converted version over the original LP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeGzIqYmztA

All three thought the digital trip made the sound a bit better!

 

[fas42]

Before you can coach me Frank you need to demonstrate you can hear digital artifacts better than me. Here is a set of tests for you to run. They are generational losses going from analog to digital multiple times through a $25 sound card: http://ethanwiner.com/loop-back.htm

These are my results:

Generational losses are not the same thing as the digital artifacts of the type I'm talking about. The latter are very largely due to the digital playback occurring during the operation of a full system, meaning power amps and speakers, at normal voume, being part of the equation. Remember that link a few pages ago, with the words of the MBL designer - tests need to be done in the context of a complete system!

Losses within a sound card only context can't relate to a wider scenario ...

Also, you just post the video on AXPONA. Jump to minute 22:00 and listen to how all three picked A/D and D/A converted version over the original LP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeGzIqYmztA

All three thought the digital trip made the sound a bit better!

Yes, a sign of how good A/D and D/A can be made to be - that they picked that over the LP may be simply due to some very mild filtering of high treble, say, in the conversion chain.

Edit: BTW, BE718 posted a file with original, and single pass through D/A and A/D versions, on ASR early on, and I could hear the difference through my laptop speakers. Opus111/2 also picked it after I mentioned doing it to him, on a private conversation over there.

 

[amirm]

Generational losses are not the same thing as the digital artifacts of the type I'm talking about. The latter are very largely due to the digital playback occurring during the operation of a full system, meaning power amps and speakers, at normal voume, being part of the equation. Remember that link a few pages ago, with the words of the MBL designer - tests need to be done in the context of a complete system!

Everything past the source is the same in a CD versus LP test. So your point is non-sequitur. Please run the tests I linked to and let's see if you can pass them.

 

[fas42]

Everything past the source is the same in a CD versus LP test. So your point is non-sequitur. Please run the tests I linked to and let's see if you can pass them.

Since you asked nicely, I shall check them out, . However, that test is still not relevant, because it tests one part of a chain, in isolation from everything else in a possible chain - if you don't understand the importance of that key issue, then you'll probably never "get" it ...

 

[fas42]

Since you asked nicely, I shall check them out,

I note that only the first set of files used a $25 sound card, the rest were upgraded to the $250 job! Looked at the jazz trio set, part of the rest, quickly - the original is quite clear, with different levels of degradation in the rest. But worrying about how many passes leads to how much damage is not the point, we want minimal loss on a single DAC and following chain processing.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Let's go back to the article:

"During the process, he [Ludwig] especially tried to preserve as much as possible of the deep low end of the band's sound, which he believed was critical to its music.

But when he heard the final LP that was released, he was stunned. "All the low, extreme low bass that I knew was there, was chopped right off."


Please explain how this loss of low bass made the sound more like the live event.

""The vinyl disc is a steadily collapsing medium," says Ludwig, who went on to become a Grammy-winning mastering engineer, with credits on Patti Smith's Horses, Steely Dan's Gaucho and White's Lazaretto, among many others. "The closer it gets to the label, the more the information is getting compromised, the high frequencies getting lost."

Please explain how the progressive loss of high frequencies as you get closer to the inner circle of the LP makes the sound more like live event.

"Clearmountain, who now works out of Mix This! in Pacific Palisades, says that when he heard the vinyl test pressings of the albums he'd worked on in the studio, he always felt the same way: depressed.

"I'd just listen and go: 'Jesus, after all that work, that's all I get?' It was sort of a percentage of what we did in the studio," he says. "All that work and trying to make everything sound so good, and the vinyl just wasn't as good.""

Please explain how this loss of musical information leads one to think they are more hearing the live event.

Conversely, please explain why, when the CD preserves all of this information without loss, is more removed from live event.

You won't be able able to answer because your are hunting in the wrong forrest. You think LP sounds more real because it has a different mix. And your ears like that different mix better than CD and at the same time, are not bothered by the much increased distortion levels. That is the likely explanation and not some mysterious fault of CD. Or philosophical difference.

The difference between me and you is that I do hear those distortions. And those distortions are hugely troubling for me and take me completely out of the experience. Forget about anything sounding like a live event when the needle sounds like it is dragging through sand.

To the extend a recording is a subset of a live event, no logical explanation of degrading the recording more can lead us close to the live event. It just can't.

Once again you miss the point. The analysis should start with your professed objective of the hobby. These quotes are inapposite to Objective 1.

If you are being intellectually honest I feel you must first acknowledge explicitly that you subscribe only to Objective 2: ""reproduce exactly what is on the master tape." Only if you subscribe to Objective 2 does your whole objectivist approach make any sense at all.

 

[FrantzM]

Since you asked nicely, I shall check them out, . However, that test is still not relevant, because it tests one part of a chain, in isolation from everything else in a possible chain - if you don't understand the importance of that key issue, then you'll probably never "get" it ...

Why am I not surprised by this reply?

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz, do any of us listen to music in our listening rooms with our biases removed? I suppose to those for whom this is more than just a hobby for enjoyment, removing biases would matter more in their attempt to prove something. I happen to enjoy listening with the lights down, perhaps a glass of wine in one hand, often with friends, after dinner rather than during the day, to a particular type of acoustic music, depending on the mood. I'm not so sure removing those biases would enable me to enjoy my music any more.

Perhaps you are referring to equipment biases like SS/tubes or vinyl/digital or tweaks, speaker types etc. or something like the influence of advertising or cost of components. If so, and one were even able to remove most or all biases from the test subjects, are you saying that they would all tend to strive for the same things, ie. type of system or equipment? For what ever reason, it seems that this is not what is happening in the industry as people tend to have very different kinds of systems and people endlessly discuss variety in forums like this one.

I think biases are part of the human condition. They are a part of what makes each of us an individual and they contribute heavily to the choices we make. Audio equipment designers and recording engineers also have biases which influence the decisions they make. We even select our seats at symphony based on our biases and the sound we prefer.

I have not participated in rigorous scientific double blind testing of audio components. But if I were to, and all knowledge of the gear, the cost and everything other than its sound were removed, it would still come down to the sound from which the components under evaluation I preferred, for my own subjective reasons, based on my own subjective references and memory of the sound or real music. I do not see how the complete removal of biases could also negate a sense of preference when a subjective listening test is involved.

Peter

It seems that a linear system with smooth FR is preferred by most people, regardless of ethnicity or social background. I don’t have the exact studies pointing toward that, some here can provide these.
My hunch about why our systems differ so much is that there are different specific aspects of the music we favor and it varies with individual. Some like their treble, some their midrange and some their bass. I know it is an oversimplification but it is to make a point. For these people a little bit more of their favored spectrum band is deemed preferable. This preference often manifest itself even during a live event. Some would prefer to hear more bass or a more mellow massed strings for example. A given medium may allow these preferences to be satisfied and on that I have no problem.
To make things more complicated visual clues may and do throw us off. This is an anecdote and some could relate similar: During a meet 2 or 3 years ago at an audiophile friend with a system most of us have heard before, we noticed an equalizer he had on demo to linearize his bass … most of the people in the room including your humble servant thought the sound of his system had degraded... too much bass and in our opinion a loss of a lot of things, focus, etc … and that before he got to talk. There were perhaps 6 other people in the room only two correctly heard no difference: his wife a non-audiophile and another audiophile .... The equalizer was on standby and wasn't actually connected to anything. Nothing had changed in the system. He was about to introduce us to the EQ and try some settings with his friends, us, the audiophiles!!! Our preferences are not only influenced by audio, they are heavily influenced by other factors. Removing some of these biases level the field, make us more alike than different, make us more honest.

 

[fas42]

Why am I not surprised by this reply?

The audio world has got itself into a right mess, chasing rainbows every which way, because it largely hasn't grasped the key concern about audio reproduction - which is getting the overall system to be correct, in every area that counts.

That aircraft over there, what's the most important thing about making it safe to fly in: the engines? the pilot? the wings? the landing gear? ... I would say, the mechanic who's going to find a corroded bolt in the tail section actuator assembly in the next scheduled maintenance.

People who don't get what I'm saying here will never understand the direction I'm coming from ...

 

[FrantzM]

The audio world has got itself into a right mess, chasing rainbows every which way, because it largely hasn't grasped the key concern about audio reproduction - which is getting the overall system to be correct, in every area that counts.

That aircraft over there, what's the most important thing about making it safe to fly in: the engines? the pilot? the wings? the landing gear? ... I would say, the mechanic who's going to find a corroded bolt in the tail section actuator assembly in the next scheduled maintenance.

People who don't get what I'm saying here will never understand the direction I'm coming from ...

See This post

 

[fas42]

See This post

Ahhh ... as Maxwell Smart would say, "You can't fool me with the old recursive post link trick!"

 

[jkeny]

I'm sorry, Amir, but your citing of a book from 1990 as "the bible" in psychocacoustics is somewhat misguided. Frank, this is why there is no mention of Bregman or Auditory Scene Analysis - the concepts were only being formulated at the time. Zwicker died in 1990. The book hasn't been updated since 1990 (the 2nd edition).
Although the book seems to offer very good coverage of the field up to this point, I don't believe you really believe that all significant knowledge in the field of psychoacoustics ended in 1990?

As Frank said & as I have been maintaining for some time now, at least one major aspect of psychoacoustics that Zwicker & Fastl weren't aware of when publishing the book is that of Auditory Scene Analysis & I would suspect that there are probably many other significant advances in the past 26 years.

I'm sorry to say, Amir but this is only a slightly more sophisticated argument than the one than Ethan puts forth - that everything was worked out in audio by 1950

 

[jkeny]

Ahhh ... as Maxwell Smart would say, "You can't fool me with the old recursive post link trick!"

Frank, it would appear that we are in a time-warp here - back to Get Smart times
Bring down the cone of silence

 

[FrantzM]

I'm sorry, Amir, but your citing of a book from 1990 as "the bible" in psychocacoustics is somewhat misguided. Frank, this is why there is no mention of Bregman or Auditory Scene Analysis - the concepts were only being formulated at the time. Zwicker died in 1990. The book hasn't been updated since 1990 (the 2nd edition).
Although the book seems to offer very good coverage of the field up to this point, I don't believe you really believe that all significant knowledge in the field of psychoacoustics ended in 1990?

As Frank said & as I have been maintaining for some time now, at least one major aspect of psychoacoustics that Zwicker & Fastl weren't aware of when publishing the book is that of Auditory Scene Analysis & I would suspect that there are probably many other significant advances in the past 26 years.

I'm sorry to say, Amir but this is only a slightly more sophisticated argument than the one than Ethan puts forth - that everything was worked out in audio by 1950

Beyond the conjectures, could you point us toward some peer-reviewed research that would establish your position?

 

[jkeny]

Beyond the conjectures, could you point us toward some peer-reviewed research that would establish your position?

Ah, the old, show me the phone in the shoe trick or I won't believe you
What conjectures are you talking about, exactly Franz?

 

[FrantzM]

Ah, the old, show me the phone in the show trick or I won't believe you
What conjectures are you talking about, exactly Frank?

Not Frank

No I want to see some substantiation of your favorite battle horse, Auditory Scene Analysis. Not playing tricks. If a discussion is about conjectures there isn't much that can gained from it.

 

[jkeny]

Not Frank

Sorry, Frantz, I got confused between you & agent99

No I want to see some substantiation of your favorite battle horse, Auditory Scene Analysis. Not playing tricks. If a discussion is about conjectures there isn't much that can gained from it.

Again, I can't understand what you are asking me? What conjectures? The book was published & not updated since 1990, right - not a conjecture?
You want me to summarise all the advances in psychoacoustics in the last 26 years to prove my statement? One whole field of research ASA, isn't enough for you? You might want to demean it's relevance by calling it my "favorite battle horse" but then this only goes to show the amount of bias you bring to reading anything I have to say. Have you read anything about ASA? Can you see it's fundamental relevance to this hobby?

Edit: Frantz, if you really want to delve into ASA - have a look at this thread on ASR - it is a good collection of posts from Frank & I with all the papers that you need for further reading

 

[fas42]

Frank, this is why there is no mention of Bregman or Auditory Scene Analysis - the concepts were only being formulated at the time. Zwicker died in 1990. The book hasn't been updated since 1990 (the 2nd edition).

Except, that's not quite true - now up to 3rd Ed, 2007, with new material. That's why I queried any linkage ...