I'd be surprised if your DSD rip doesn't smoke the 24/192 version and if it didn't I'd question the quality of the rip. On the other hand, I'm happy to be proved wrong
Why, oh why, does vinyl continue to blow away digital?
- Thread starter godofwealth
- Start date
at first i could not locate the 2xdsd rip by a search. i did turn up a 192/24 tape transfer file on my hard drive that turned up along with various Tidal and Quboz streaming files.
so i went to Roon 'focus' on my Albums and chose '2xdsd' and scrolled down all the files. i did find the vinyl rip without any meta data which is why it did not sort in my search.
listening to both, the 192/24 is noticeably more alive and present. more vivid. the vinyl rip is comparatively sweet and rounded.....but it does not have the realism and sparkle of the 192/24. i'd say give or take a little, this is what i observe on this compare. it all comes down to the quality of the tape transfer. if care was taken and you have a hirez native file it sure should be better than a vinyl rip when you have a tip top dac. that extra adc step is not nothing. you can hear it. it is not transparent.
the vinyl signature added to the rip can be a positive difference maker in some contexts, but in other's it's a subtraction.
i'm sure different systems and dacs might result in different results. but this is what i am hearing.
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Nobody has yet to notice - if one stop play, then immediately re-play the same track again - the sound will be different?
Why?
Is everybody here having hearing problem?
Why?
Is everybody here having hearing problem?
Nobody has yet to notice - if one shut down the player, before repowering up the player to load the disc and play the CD - the sound will be different?
Why?
Is everybody here having hearing problem?
Why?
Is everybody here having hearing problem?
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Just to be clear, you are comparing a 24/192 commercial digital file (from where?) against your vinyl rip?
yes; at this point cannot recall the source of the commercial 192/24 tape transfer. but i did not do it. probably HDTT
Ella Fitzgerald Sings Songs From Let No Man Write My Epitaph
Artist(s): Vocals – Ella Fitzgerald Piano – Paul Smith Recording Info: Supervised By – Norman Granz Recorded by Verve April 14 - 19, 1960
www.highdeftapetransfers.ca
DACs always need to be shut down and restart if ever there had been a pause in data stream.
They always prefer to be powered up after the transport (whether optical or streaming)
Streaming devices that momentarily pause it's output data stream can put DACs out of whack, affecting subsequent playback sonic qualities, so again the DACs need to be powered down and restarted.
They always prefer to be powered up after the transport (whether optical or streaming)
Streaming devices that momentarily pause it's output data stream can put DACs out of whack, affecting subsequent playback sonic qualities, so again the DACs need to be powered down and restarted.
Then I'm guessing the below is Qobuz rather than the 24/192 file. So as usual it's a fail for streaming.
Seriously the whole digital industry has failed in it's promise to provide perfect sound by not recognising the memory retention problem and resolving it.
i agree. i think you are right.
as i recall i did a search and played it and then realized i did not find my file but we were already moving on. he was moving quick.
but know that i'm not a fan of video's and so really want to keep discussions of this at arm's length. they are what they are.
Because of the memory retention problem, one can never fully enjoy listening to an entire album via streaming as subsequent tracks after the 1st track selected (not necessarily the first track on that album) to be played will always sound less opened, dynamically restrained, and less satisfying musically.
But if one creates a playlist of that album and insert something else from another album in between all the tracks of that original album, then the album will sound more consistent from beginning to end. The problem is you need that something else to be a silent track and it has to be as short as possible in order to minimise the disruption to the musical flow. And that "bridging" track has to be the same format and resolution as all the tracks from the original album, or otherwise the DAC will react adversely and subsequently exhibit some sonic anomalies. (Because of this different and separate issue, one should never directly compare 2 tracks of different resolution immediately one after the other. Always use a "bridging" track of similar resolution to the 2nd track to "climatise" the DAC)
But if one creates a playlist of that album and insert something else from another album in between all the tracks of that original album, then the album will sound more consistent from beginning to end. The problem is you need that something else to be a silent track and it has to be as short as possible in order to minimise the disruption to the musical flow. And that "bridging" track has to be the same format and resolution as all the tracks from the original album, or otherwise the DAC will react adversely and subsequently exhibit some sonic anomalies. (Because of this different and separate issue, one should never directly compare 2 tracks of different resolution immediately one after the other. Always use a "bridging" track of similar resolution to the 2nd track to "climatise" the DAC)
The HDTT version (https://hdtt-samples.s3.amazonaws.c...+From+Let+No+Man+Write+My+Epitaph+Sample.flac) does sounds "cleaner" than the Qobuz version (https://open.qobuz.com/track/61236948). However, how is that a fail for streaming "as usual"?
Are you suggesting that streaming (as opposed to CDs for example) is systematically inferior?
Or are you suggesting that digital is systematically inferior (in which case, streaming is not the issue)?
If so, are you willing to pay 100$ for a mint copy of this 1960s LP?
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What perhaps works against us is the compulsion in this hobby (or the compulsion that is this hobby) to pull everything apart and identify much more with what’s wrong with things that don’t fall within our preferences (and not primarily as much with what is objectively valuable)… so no matter how good things are or may yet become the tenor of these debates continues as a boomerang dominated by long held biases, frustrations, disagreements, disappointment. tension and the continued hammering of glass half empty perspectives.
I love exploring what’s best but I’m not sure that then by default should undermine everything else that then isn’t. We crucify things for not being No 1 and exaggerate imperfections or fail to value other perspectives and make the issue way more a melodrama than it possibly should be. Hating on some things has become an impossible format compulsion for some.
From a source perspective I believe we live in an age of relative wonder, analogue is alive and brilliantly well and proving (at its best) more extraordinary than perhaps was even imagined at its inception. Digital replay has taken leaps and bounds over the last decade after a very, very wobbly start… (dacs, servers and streaming have all especially improved over the last 5 years) to push well past the threshold of earlier fundamental constraints to now offer (at last) potential for real world deeply enjoyable musical experiences (with their own set of accessibility advantages)… and still both digital and analogue replay seems to continue to improve.
Other things like speakers and amplifiers are orbiting in comparatively lesser states of forward momentum in terms of development… some may even say more often sideways and or backwards than rather the other way.
Analogue recording (at its best) has proven to be THE lasting golden era format and the windows of music performance from the early 20th century through to the 70s contain what we have as a limited niche of recordings at this peak sonic capture.
Thankfully music itself continues to amass more and more great performances and there are more available great performances of music today than can be listened to in a lifetime. So a relative near infinite peak of musical experience is available to us even if the recordings of most can’t approach the sonic best of the past… and that said I’d suggest more recent digital mastering seems to have more regularly improved even if vinyl recording has seemingly mostly gone backwards since the 70’s.
That the absolute best of analogue sits established as the reigning recording peak but if life is viewed through a real world lens the rest of analogue and digital today can be still yet be potentially extraordinary and valuable even if much of both formats carry with them a varied mix of strengths and constraints.
If everything doesn’t absolutely align with top analogue then pursuing the absolute analogue peak falls away as well.
If you don’t have the very best analogue gear (setup at its best) and aren’t playing the best of golden analogue recordings (mostly jazz and classical) then there is not as much to pump the chest about.
To me ordinary mundane analogue is in ways as curtailed and limited as any of its digital brethren. People who like pop, prog and the great weight of mainstream music have no head start over any other gear format combos via analogue or digital. Punters with amazing sources but lesser recordings or then putting them through mundane electronics or ordinary speakers all live in a very real world mix of sum sonic strengths and constraints.
Godofwealth asked at the end of his opening post if he was delusional… perhaps most any of us claiming the absolute audiophile high ground may likely be except for that handful sitting in the extraordinarily limited periphery of the very peak I guess.
The ultimate best will possibly always be a niche bordering on some near unobtainium ideal, but what we have here and now in terms of both analogue and digital gear (and more so all the amazing music available to us) provides an extraordinary platform to get a very attainable clear and regular glimpse of nirvana if worked at… if we focus in an unbalanced way only on what’s best and discount everything not perfect we are destined to not enjoy the greater proportion of our lives for most of us. I think we are lucky in many ways and with regards to digital especially so much better off than we were even a decade ago.
So if we discount everything that is great but not best and anything other than a limited (and temporally locked) niche lesser part of analogue that represents the idealised best then sure this thread will reincarnate unchanged ad infinitum as what’s best and then mostly be default what you can’t ever have.
I love exploring what’s best but I’m not sure that then by default should undermine everything else that then isn’t. We crucify things for not being No 1 and exaggerate imperfections or fail to value other perspectives and make the issue way more a melodrama than it possibly should be. Hating on some things has become an impossible format compulsion for some.
From a source perspective I believe we live in an age of relative wonder, analogue is alive and brilliantly well and proving (at its best) more extraordinary than perhaps was even imagined at its inception. Digital replay has taken leaps and bounds over the last decade after a very, very wobbly start… (dacs, servers and streaming have all especially improved over the last 5 years) to push well past the threshold of earlier fundamental constraints to now offer (at last) potential for real world deeply enjoyable musical experiences (with their own set of accessibility advantages)… and still both digital and analogue replay seems to continue to improve.
Other things like speakers and amplifiers are orbiting in comparatively lesser states of forward momentum in terms of development… some may even say more often sideways and or backwards than rather the other way.
Analogue recording (at its best) has proven to be THE lasting golden era format and the windows of music performance from the early 20th century through to the 70s contain what we have as a limited niche of recordings at this peak sonic capture.
Thankfully music itself continues to amass more and more great performances and there are more available great performances of music today than can be listened to in a lifetime. So a relative near infinite peak of musical experience is available to us even if the recordings of most can’t approach the sonic best of the past… and that said I’d suggest more recent digital mastering seems to have more regularly improved even if vinyl recording has seemingly mostly gone backwards since the 70’s.
That the absolute best of analogue sits established as the reigning recording peak but if life is viewed through a real world lens the rest of analogue and digital today can be still yet be potentially extraordinary and valuable even if much of both formats carry with them a varied mix of strengths and constraints.
If everything doesn’t absolutely align with top analogue then pursuing the absolute analogue peak falls away as well.
If you don’t have the very best analogue gear (setup at its best) and aren’t playing the best of golden analogue recordings (mostly jazz and classical) then there is not as much to pump the chest about.
To me ordinary mundane analogue is in ways as curtailed and limited as any of its digital brethren. People who like pop, prog and the great weight of mainstream music have no head start over any other gear format combos via analogue or digital. Punters with amazing sources but lesser recordings or then putting them through mundane electronics or ordinary speakers all live in a very real world mix of sum sonic strengths and constraints.
Godofwealth asked at the end of his opening post if he was delusional… perhaps most any of us claiming the absolute audiophile high ground may likely be except for that handful sitting in the extraordinarily limited periphery of the very peak I guess.
The ultimate best will possibly always be a niche bordering on some near unobtainium ideal, but what we have here and now in terms of both analogue and digital gear (and more so all the amazing music available to us) provides an extraordinary platform to get a very attainable clear and regular glimpse of nirvana if worked at… if we focus in an unbalanced way only on what’s best and discount everything not perfect we are destined to not enjoy the greater proportion of our lives for most of us. I think we are lucky in many ways and with regards to digital especially so much better off than we were even a decade ago.
So if we discount everything that is great but not best and anything other than a limited (and temporally locked) niche lesser part of analogue that represents the idealised best then sure this thread will reincarnate unchanged ad infinitum as what’s best and then mostly be default what you can’t ever have.
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Nothing funny about that, when i listen to recordings made after 1980 i have very low expectations to them. I do still listen to them if i like the music !
Pre barcode.
Complete 3rd Movement -- you really want it all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbYMCAhyWyU
edit: climax starts to build ~4:48, all hell starts to break loose ~5:34
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so much pearl clutching ... i don't give a fig what digital lovers do, it's their choice.
Pre-barcode for sure, but what I usually like most is pre-zip code.
Sure, I don't think you have ever been among those vinyl enthusiasts who just can't let it go.