Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

[bonzo75]

Hi

We need to stay away from per absurdo argumentation. it leads nowhere or perhaps ....to absurd conclusions.

Vinyl lovers are consistently fooled by digital masquerading as analog. I have read in the WBF (and other fora) threads where people were raving about a particular LP only to find out (and backtrack then), that the master was digital... Quite telling.

That's a very strawman argument. We have all read silly stuff on different fora. I personally, during my early days paying attention to vinyl, heard some records on Linn LP12. Didn't like 2 of them, he explained both were digital recordings. That said, in both cases sample size is small, and I lack the experience to generalize how digital masterings on LP sound on good decks.

 

[TBone]

For provenance, you can ask Bruce Brown of Puget Sound. I know he uses an SME turntable and arm and at least used to have a Doshi tube phono amp. I don't know about the rest of the chain.

I'm very aware of the SME, tt/arms. Perhaps not VPI type popular here, but relatively popular non-the-less. Easily demo'd. I've also a few recent rips with SME, but ...

The only data I've seen concerning a Bruce derived rip appears here ...
http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/lp-sound-vs-digital.76/

 

[thedudeabides]

Again, the focus isn't "sound", more about accuracy.

Thanks for your efforts but I still don't get it. Within what context or parameter does one determine if one needle drop is more "accurate" than another needle drop?

 

[TBG]

My music server plays either JRiver MC-21 or Signalyst. On most 44.1 initial recordings, JRiver is quite good and is easy to use. But on SACDs converted to native DSD, Signalyst from Poland, is so real making a sound stage that puts you at the recording venue. I really don't know what you mean by saying a LP "ripped" to digital is "identical". If you have a first rate A to D, good RiAA or EMT filtering and good software for laying down the data, it can sound very good. But cheap junk sounds awful. At one time I was involved with a Canadian company, Archiving Vinyl that I was going to use to put my 45rpm albums in digital on the music server, but now with Sony converting all master tapes to quad DSD, I have decided to get their master tape DSDs downloads.

 

[FrantzM]

That's a very strawman argument. We have all read silly stuff on different fora. I personally, during my early days paying attention to vinyl, heard some records on Linn LP12. Didn't like 2 of them, he explained both were digital recordings. That said, in both cases sample size is small, and I lack the experience to generalize how digital masterings on LP sound on good decks.

That'snot an argument Bonzo.. Just an anecdote... When the master source wasn't known .. Raves how great this record was... Once someone proved or pointed toward the possibility that the master may be digital then the raves evaporated like droplets of water in a desert...

 

[fas42]

Truth to be told a ripped (to CD) LP sounds as identical as it can to the original. Very few people would be able to distinguish them with knowledge removed and that however long they want to try .. Of course once knowledge returns .. It would not be even be close

It will depend on the quality of the ADC, and then DAC. Even digital to digital has to be done as well as possible, ie. passing through a DAC-ADC chain. BE on the ASR forum posted two versions of a digital track, the second having passed through such a loop - and the losses are there. BE would have taken great care to do this as well as he could, but there is a loss of perceived dynamics, a loss of "cleanness" in the copy.

LP's claim to fame is excellent "subjective" dynamics, so that may be an issue for some people ...

 

[microstrip]

Hi

At one point someone (microstrip was that you?) posted how some notable High End people preferred the sound of the microphones after having gone on tape to the Direct Feed .. Such blunting and removal of information (once it goes through the tapes, perforce some information are lost) could be preferable to some; in that case CD and per extension many uncompressed digital would be at a disadvantage when it comes to the preferred flavor for those folks.

Yes, it was me who posted about it. But it was not a notable high end person, but a professional sound engineer known for his quality classical recordings.

The main question is that people forget the exact sound of the microphones is not the target of sound reproduction - it is why we need mixing and mastering engineers. What counts is the final result, not the media. And for many of us, the vinyl media still challenges the digital media in some very real and important aspects. I am not astonished - just recently we read in WBF about the dramatic effect of the several filters used when transcoding hirez in redbook. Remember that nowadays most subjective improvements in DACs are due to firmware upgrades - digital people are still learning how to properly use the bits. IMHO the diversity of DACs and existing highend systems is not making their task easy.

 

[Al M.]

The main question is that people forget the exact sound of the microphones is not the target of sound reproduction - it is why we need mixing and mastering engineers.

It has been known for a long time among professionals that microphones don't 'hear' the same way as humans do. Hence also the recording of some instruments with mikes from above, among others.

 

[Lee]

I think the article does not tell us anything new. I think it is a typically non-introspective exposition of the view that since CD measures better than vinyl then ipso facto CD sounds better than vinyl, and that if vinyl people choose to delude themselves into thinking otherwise, because they like nostalgia and the feel of LPs, they are simply wrong.

I think CD measures better along some dimensions. But digital has its own problems such as:

**jitter and other timing distortions.

**at 16/44 CD produces even and odd order harmonics as detailed in https://www.meridian-audio.com/meridian-uploads/ara/coding2.pdf

**distortions caused by short tap lengths, detailed by Robert Watts.

 

[JackD201]

Just read PeterA last post and one thing retained my attention. In my experience Vinyl Playback can be surprisingly quiet but never as quiet as digital. I have read here, again and again people who claim that the best Vinyl can be as noise-free as digital. I have not experienced such LP chain and apparently I am not alone...

Very rare birds. I am one of the lucky ones where in an already more quiet than average room you hear nothing between tracks BUT ONLY IF the LPs themselves are pristine. That is a very, very big if.

 

[microstrip]

Very rare birds. I am one of the lucky ones where in an already more quiet than average room you hear nothing between tracks BUT ONLY IF the LPs themselves are pristine. That is a very, very big if.

I know this is an entrance into a mine field, but perceived noise is a subjective matter. In some optimized vinyl playback systems noise is non intrusive and does not mix with the music, hiding it self subjectively. In others, you are just counting the ticks and listening to the hiss ...

Of all the turntables I have owned, the SME 30 and the Forsell were the more "silent" in subjective terms - the music flows in a separate zone from the vinyl artifacts. Perhaps due to their steady localization properties.

 

[JackD201]

I guess if you're talking about a bit of hum and a bit of surface noise, these are, as you say, not distractingly intrusive once the music starts playing. I agree. What I meant is the silence between tracks where there is no music playing at all. This is the rare bird I was talking about where the table and electronics are very silent but with the qualification that if the record itself is noisy then there's nothing one can really do except pray one finds a quieter copy. Even then, such records tend to be quite rare themselves but they do exist. I just got a couple of these from Japan yesterday.

I suppose my point is that record quality is often played down with the bulk of the attention being given to gear. To me this inequality doesn't fit quite right.

 

[PeterA]

Just read PeterA last post and one thing retained my attention. In my experience Vinyl Playback can be surprisingly quiet but never as quiet as digital. I have read here, again and again people who claim that the best Vinyl can be as noise-free as digital. I have not experienced such LP chain and apparently I am not alone...

Frantz, perhaps I should clarify my post. It the sense that I heard absolutely no pops or ticks with these four needle drops, they did indeed remind me of the silence of CDs. They also had a very low noise floor. However, I did not mean to imply that these were as equally silent as the digital medium, in an absolute sense. I was simply astonished at how quiet they sounded, and in this way, they did remind me of digital playback.

 

[FrantzM]

I know this is an entrance into a mine field, but perceived noise is a subjective matter. In some optimized vinyl playback systems noise is non intrusive and does not mix with the music, hiding it self subjectively. In others, you are just counting the ticks and listening to the hiss ...

Of all the turntables I have owned, the SME 30 and the Forsell were the more "silent" in subjective terms - the music flows in a separate zone from the vinyl artifacts. Perhaps due to their steady localization properties.

That the noise doesn't bother a particular person is one thing and very subjective at that. The fact (provable, verifiable, repeatable) is that CD is quieter than LP or anything analog for that matter. If you remove the ticks and other noise from an LP by any artifice you remove some of the music.. The very act of reading/playing a record is based on friction and in each play there is a certain amount of destruction, of irremediable destruction, of loss of information that can't be recovered and addition of distortion that cannot be removed. On top of that rather at the bottom there is a platter turning , however smoothly is another source of noise however smooth or isolated it is plus there are the airborne vibrations aka known as music which do reach the arm/cartridge/turntable system. These are at play (pardon the pun ) every time you play a given LP. That, again is based on the laws of physics , these do not need to be believed in to exist. How many plays before this loss and additions become noticeable or objectionable is not clearly known and may depend on various factors. OTOH, digital remains ... well... the same no matter how many time you play it...

 

[microstrip]

That the noise doesn't bother a particular person is one thing and very subjective at that. The fact (provable, verifiable, repeatable) is that CD is quieter than LP or anything analog for that matter. If you remove the ticks and other noise from an LP by any artifice you remove some of the music.. The very act of reading/playing a record is based on friction and in each play there is a certain amount of destruction, of irremediable destruction, of loss of information that can't be recovered and addition of distortion that cannot be removed. On top of that rather at the bottom there is a platter turning , however smoothly is another source of noise however smooth or isolated it is plus there are the airborne vibrations aka known as music which do reach the arm/cartridge/turntable system. These are at play (pardon the pun ) every time you play a given LP. That, again is based on the laws of physics , these do not need to be believed in to exist. How many plays before this loss and additions become noticeable or objectionable is not clearly known and may depend on various factors. OTOH, digital remains ... well... the same no matter how many time you play it...

No one will disagree with you. What we are mainly addressing is that in spite of all these problems, many of us still consider that we prefer the "noisier" media for certain types of music. Once the number of people is significant it is not any more a private preference, but objective data. And we are just looking for reasons that could explain that fact.

 

[Al M.]

That the noise doesn't bother a particular person is one thing and very subjective at that. The fact (provable, verifiable, repeatable) is that CD is quieter than LP or anything analog for that matter.

It's very subjective indeed. While I can very much enjoy vinyl in the systems of others, and have learned to ignore the clicks and pops, they would absolutely drive me crazy if I had vinyl in mine. As someone once aptly put it, "analog is a land you enjoy to visit, but you could never live there"

When I was a teenager I was so obsessed with clicks and pops that I would try to clean an LP and then play it just to see if the most annoying click was still there. Totally silly of course, but my OCD with regard to that was really, really bad. Fortunately, CD solved the OCD problem in an instant, and I was 'healed'. That especially in the early days there were other problems with that new format is another matter…

I guess I'll get my 'vinyl fix' eventually by purchasing a dCS Rossini CD Player...

 

[rbbert]

There are still problems with all formats, just as there are still problems with all systems. It ends up being a matter of personal priorities and preferences, something that remains hard for some people to accept.

 

[Al M.]

There are still problems with all formats, just as there are still problems with all systems. It ends up being a matter of personal priorities and preferences, something that remains hard for some people to accept.

Indeed. Some people 'want it all' with their systems, but you just can never get it. You have to know your priorities and preferences, and taylor your system accordingly. Everything is a compromise, and you have to learn to live with that fact, if you want it or not.

 

[FrantzM]

No one will disagree with you. What we are mainly addressing is that in spite of all these problems, many of us still consider that we prefer the "noisier" media for certain types of music. Once the number of people is significant it is not any more a private preference, but objective data. And we are just looking for reasons that could explain that fact.

microstrip

I agree with you up to a point: That a vast number of people believe in something does not make of it an objective data. For a long time most believe Earth to be flat...

 

[PeterA]

microstrip

I agree with you up to a point: That a vast number of people believe in something does not make of it an objective data. For a long time most believe Earth to be flat...

Is preferring CDs or LPs a belief ?