Why, oh why, does vinyl continue to blow away digital?

[Mike Lavigne]

Hopefully you will get to listen to an optimized HQPLAYER based system at some point.

if i get a chance i will.

Tape and vinyl have a euphoric sound. I certainly like the sound of both but know that they are not neutral.

neutral is not my goal. real is my goal.

Have any visitors provided you with constructive criticism?

all the time. my system building/room tuning process involved lots of feedback, sometimes my initial rejection, then re-consideration, correction and so on. over a decade. i have local friends who do visit and help me with another viewpoint frequently.

jazdoc was here yesterday. we did not agree on everything. which is typical. on the Basie cut 'Bluesville' he preferred the 45rpm over the digital 16/44, but preferred the 16/44 over the tape. i preferred the tape over both. jazdoc is sensitive to high frequencies more than me. the tape had more high end energy and greater dynamics than the vinyl or digital. i need to get Andrey Kosobutsky (ATR Service INC) over to adjust my NAB EQ on my MR 70's as it might be a bit hot (he had not ever touched it thinking i did not need it). i still liked it best though.

jazdoc was smitten with my digital.

in 2 weeks i will have the local audio club here with 25 people for the 3rd year in a row. i have visitors typically about every two weeks. i'm sensitive like anyone, but note any feedback and think about it going forward. since i tuned my room in 2015 the feedback has been pretty positive. certainly, people might tell me what i want to hear. but not everyone.

My life and career have center around science and technology. Validation and confirmation are not “nice to haves” but required in my professional life. Gut-feel and intuition are not good enough on the type of projects that I work on so those standards have been a part of my life for a long time.

my listening buddies are mostly techies, or very highly educated compared to me. i'm use to that. it's not a fatal flaw. my son in law is a PhD in Physics. which i'm fine with.

You do realize that the output of the dac is analog and it is the same type of waveform of the analog sources; when you are listing to digital playback you are not listening to segments but a continuous waveform indispensable from that of any other analog source. So that “completeness” argument dissolves in plain air.

we are talking about an analog sourced recording. played back in an all analog signal path.....compared to a digitally sourced recording. analog is defined by never needing an adc or a dac. if one step involves that process it is not all analog. OTOH it might be wonderful. all analog is no guarantee it's better, since there are many aspects to a recording or media that matter. but all analog just brings a higher ceiling. and then there are all the recordings made prior to the late 70's which happen to be the best performances and recordings mostly and those are best heard in all analog. so all analog is where my favorite music is which is significant.

in direct compare, say a solo concert grand piano 4xdsd and 1/2" 30ips from the same mic feed, the tape has more meat on the bones, more decay, more tonal complexity and bass articulation. more authority and weight. it also has a bit more noise. but more complete is not an anecdotal issue; it's 30 years of listening.

There are a few humans on here that beg to differ.

of course. expected.

 

[Al M.]

You do realize that the output of the dac is analog and it is the same type of waveform of the analog sources; when you are listing to digital playback you are not listening to segments but a continuous waveform indispensable from that of any other analog source. So that “completeness” argument dissolves in plain air.

Agreed, I don't even know what that term is supposed to mean other than a vague feeling.

There are a few humans on here that beg to differ.

Indeed, me too.

Under the condition that the digital is well sorted out, that is, which unfortunately is often not the case. Of course, system context, set-up and room matter, too.

I am pretty picky about what I hear and do not automatically give digital the benefit of the doubt.

 

[tima]

Each musician/instrument is unique, and so is each recording and room acoustics.

Yet across all instances we can tell the difference between a piano and a glockenspiel, between a trombone and a French horn.

 

[tima]

Can vocals work to evaluate realism? That is an acoustic "instrument" that everyone is familiar with and that is present in practically every music "genre".

I believe so, if they are unamplified. I love big choral and some opera. Brahm's choral music or Mozart operas are wonderful, Finzi's 'Intimations of Immortality' is a little gem of the English pastoral genre. Tone and diction within a mass of choristers are among the keys of realism.

 

[tima]

That the sun rises every day is an objective fact.

Within a paradigm of belief.

 

[Al M.]

Within a paradigm of belief.

Hehe, sure.

 

[Alrainbow]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried and SPDIF version of your MIT SL-Matrix Digital Plus AES/EBU cable (1.5 m)? I would be very curious to know if you hear a significant difference like I do between SPDIF and AES/EBU interfaces.

Correct me if I am wrong but it’s my understanding spidif and AES are the same except AES is balanced so transmission cables can be longer and less induced noise. now jitter I think is considered noise ?

 

[Alrainbow]

if i get a chance i will.

neutral is not my goal. real is my goal.

all the time. my system building/room tuning process involved lots of feedback, sometimes my initial rejection, then re-consideration, correction and so on. over a decade. i have local friends who do visit and help me with another viewpoint frequently.

jazdoc was here yesterday. we did not agree on everything. which is typical. on the Basie cut 'Bluesville' he preferred the 45rpm over the digital 16/44, but preferred the 16/44 over the tape. i preferred the tape over both. jazdoc is sensitive to high frequencies more than me. the tape had more high end energy and greater dynamics than the vinyl or digital. i need to get Andrey Kosobutsky (ATR Service INC) over to adjust my NAB EQ on my MR 70's as it might be a bit hot (he had not ever touched it thinking i did not need it). i still liked it best though.

jazdoc was smitten with my digital.

in 2 weeks i will have the local audio club here with 25 people for the 3rd year in a row. i have visitors typically about every two weeks. i'm sensitive like anyone, but note any feedback and think about it going forward. since i tuned my room in 2015 the feedback has been pretty positive. certainly, people might tell me what i want to hear. but not everyone.

my listening buddies are mostly techies, or very highly educated compared to me. i'm use to that. it's not a fatal flaw. my son in law is a PhD in Physics. which i'm fine with.

we are talking about an analog sourced recording. played back in an all analog signal path.....compared to a digitally sourced recording. analog is defined by never needing an adc or a dac. if one step involves that process it is not all analog. OTOH it might be wonderful. all analog is no guarantee it's better, since there are many aspects to a recording or media that matter. but all analog just brings a higher ceiling. and then there are all the recordings made prior to the late 70's which happen to be the best performances and recordings mostly and those are best heard in all analog. so all analog is where my favorite music is which is significant.

in direct compare, say a solo concert grand piano 4xdsd and 1/2" 30ips from the same mic feed, the tape has more meat on the bones, more decay, more tonal complexity and bass articulation. more authority and weight. it also has a bit more noise. but more complete is not an anecdotal issue; it's 30 years of listening.

of course. expected.

Great post Mike that truly is a direct compare opinion to understand

to have this as a point is just wow.
and I thought dsd1024 would Finally get us there
wow.

 

[Rexp]

if i get a chance i will.

neutral is not my goal. real is my goal.

all the time. my system building/room tuning process involved lots of feedback, sometimes my initial rejection, then re-consideration, correction and so on. over a decade. i have local friends who do visit and help me with another viewpoint frequently.

jazdoc was here yesterday. we did not agree on everything. which is typical. on the Basie cut 'Bluesville' he preferred the 45rpm over the digital 16/44, but preferred the 16/44 over the tape. i preferred the tape over both. jazdoc is sensitive to high frequencies more than me. the tape had more high end energy and greater dynamics than the vinyl or digital. i need to get Andrey Kosobutsky (ATR Service INC) over to adjust my NAB EQ on my MR 70's as it might be a bit hot (he had not ever touched it thinking i did not need it). i still liked it best though.

jazdoc was smitten with my digital.

in 2 weeks i will have the local audio club here with 25 people for the 3rd year in a row. i have visitors typically about every two weeks. i'm sensitive like anyone, but note any feedback and think about it going forward. since i tuned my room in 2015 the feedback has been pretty positive. certainly, people might tell me what i want to hear. but not everyone.

my listening buddies are mostly techies, or very highly educated compared to me. i'm use to that. it's not a fatal flaw. my son in law is a PhD in Physics. which i'm fine with.

we are talking about an analog sourced recording. played back in an all analog signal path.....compared to a digitally sourced recording. analog is defined by never needing an adc or a dac. if one step involves that process it is not all analog. OTOH it might be wonderful. all analog is no guarantee it's better, since there are many aspects to a recording or media that matter. but all analog just brings a higher ceiling. and then there are all the recordings made prior to the late 70's which happen to be the best performances and recordings mostly and those are best heard in all analog. so all analog is where my favorite music is which is significant.

in direct compare, say a solo concert grand piano 4xdsd and 1/2" 30ips from the same mic feed, the tape has more meat on the bones, more decay, more tonal complexity and bass articulation. more authority and weight. it also has a bit more noise. but more complete is not an anecdotal issue; it's 30 years of listening.

of course. expected.

What's your findings on FLAC vs WAV?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

What's your findings on FLAC vs WAV?

i never pay any attention to that. i'm listening to a combination of files and streaming. i looked at my last 20 entry's on my Roon history and they were all FLAC except the Basie "Bluesville' cut mentioned above. going forward i'll try to watch it and if i see any significance to it i will post about it.

 

[Mcsnare]

That is indeed an interesting comment. I would be curious to know if there have been experiments where you introduce much higher levels of errors in the conversion process and listen for differences. You could in fact take a digital file and introduce random errors in the samples, for example, and gradually increase the number of errors...

I attended an AES, NYC chapter demonstration of this very nature.
A person with the magic box varied levels of jitter and distortion while the music played. Y’all would be very surprised how much harmonic distortion it takes before it becomes audible. Increasing jitter (while it takes far less than harmonic distortion) is also surprisingly hard to detect up to a larger than I expected amount.
In 2024, digital when done with well designed gear, and using best practices, is a much closer representation to what is sampled than the same signal sampled by analog-regardless of the analog format.
I would rather cut lacquers off a well made digital copy of the 1st generation mix tape, than use a 2nd gen tape safety copy.
To the person that preferred the sound of their voice when recorded to lacquer because it sounded more real, your preference is totally valid but your logic is off. Something can’t be less faithful to the source (analog) and also be more real. It might SEEM more real but it’s just the pleasing quality to the distortion. I get it!
When you add in all the analog steps an analog recording has to go though to get to the end user, the differences become even more magnified as the distortion adds up. Digital doesn’t have this problem, well it kind of does in certain cases like during mixing when something is eq’d or otherwise processed, The DAW apps are run at a higher bit rate to perform the math to a high precision - then round up to a usable bit depth.
To the people that say how can you even know that what is fed to the A to D is what comes out the other side - it’s easy in a studio when a person or group is recording and you hit a button in the control room to compare the analog feed of the console to the DAW output (post digital)
I’ve done it many times in my mastering studio, but not using a live feed - rather I used a 1/2 “ or 1/4” 2 trk of final mixes.
Unless something is really off, it usually sounds damn near identical.
A tape copy, not so much - but the tape copy may pick up in one area and lose in another so in some cases the copy may have something special about the sound. But that would NOT be as a result of accuracy.

I still like the distortions inherent in analog so much, that I like listening to vinyl much more than digital. Especially if the vinyl version is the ONLY analog step in the recording process.

Come at me. I ain’t afraid.

 

[morricab]

Correct me if I am wrong but it’s my understanding spidif and AES are the same except AES is balanced so transmission cables can be longer and less induced noise. now jitter I think is considered noise ?

Supposedly. But the sound differences I hear are not small.

 

[bonzo75]

That the sun rises every day is an objective fact.

It doesn’t. The earth rotates

 

[Carlos269]

I attended an AES, NYC chapter demonstration of this very nature.
A person with the magic box varied levels of jitter and distortion while the music played. Y’all would be very surprised how much harmonic distortion it takes before it becomes audible. Increasing jitter (while it takes far less than harmonic distortion) is also surprisingly hard to detect up to a larger than I expected amount.
In 2024, digital when done with well designed gear, and using best practices, is a much closer representation to what is sampled than the same signal sampled by analog-regardless of the analog format.
I would rather cut lacquers off a well made digital copy of the 1st generation mix tape, than use a 2nd gen tape safety copy.
To the person that preferred the sound of their voice when recorded to lacquer because it sounded more real, your preference is totally valid but your logic is off. Something can’t be less faithful to the source (analog) and also be more real. It might SEEM more real but it’s just the pleasing quality to the distortion. I get it!
When you add in all the analog steps an analog recording has to go though to get to the end user, the differences become even more magnified as the distortion adds up. Digital doesn’t have this problem, well it kind of does in certain cases like during mixing when something is eq’d or otherwise processed, The DAW apps are run at a higher bit rate to perform the math to a high precision - then round up to a usable bit depth.
To the people that say how can you even know that what is fed to the A to D is what comes out the other side - it’s easy in a studio when a person or group is recording and you hit a button in the control room to compare the analog feed of the console to the DAW output (post digital)
I’ve done it many times in my mastering studio, but not using a live feed - rather I used a 1/2 “ or 1/4” 2 trk of final mixes.
Unless something is really off, it usually sounds damn near identical.
A tape copy, not so much - but the tape copy may pick up in one area and lose in another so in some cases the copy may have something special about the sound. But that would NOT be as a result of accuracy.

I still like the distortions inherent in analog so much, that I like listening to vinyl much more than digital. Especially if the vinyl version is the ONLY analog step in the recording process.

Come at me. I ain’t afraid.

Dave, very well and “accurately” stated. I concur. Thank you for providing your experienced insight on this topic.

 

[rDin]

A person with the magic box varied levels of jitter and distortion while the music played. Y’all would be very surprised how much harmonic distortion it takes before it becomes audible. Increasing jitter (while it takes far less than harmonic distortion) is also surprisingly hard to detect up to a larger than I expected amount.

An interesting anecdote. Were the numbers quantified in any way? ie just how much distortion/jitter was needed until audible? What was the control environment? Would love to do such a challenge myself, out of curiosity...

Digital doesn’t have this problem, well it kind of does in certain cases like during mixing when something is eq’d or otherwise processed, The DAW apps are run at a higher bit rate to perform the math to a high precision - then round up to a usable bit depth.

This is something I've often wondered about re: vinyl vs digital sound, and might be relevant to the OP's question: Just how much do DAW plugins /filters risk degrading the sound, ie risk losing/smothering the important cues that make something sound real in the way we audiophiles tend to argue about? And then when you compound filter on filter on filter... what hope is there for accurate sound compared to a "simple" AAA recording? Or is it simply a non issue?

Come at me. I ain’t afraid.

Now, now. Settle down

 

[morricab]

I attended an AES, NYC chapter demonstration of this very nature.
A person with the magic box varied levels of jitter and distortion while the music played. Y’all would be very surprised how much harmonic distortion it takes before it becomes audible. Increasing jitter (while it takes far less than harmonic distortion) is also surprisingly hard to detect up to a larger than I expected amount.
In 2024, digital when done with well designed gear, and using best practices, is a much closer representation to what is sampled than the same signal sampled by analog-regardless of the analog format.
I would rather cut lacquers off a well made digital copy of the 1st generation mix tape, than use a 2nd gen tape safety copy.
To the person that preferred the sound of their voice when recorded to lacquer because it sounded more real, your preference is totally valid but your logic is off. Something can’t be less faithful to the source (analog) and also be more real. It might SEEM more real but it’s just the pleasing quality to the distortion. I get it!
When you add in all the analog steps an analog recording has to go though to get to the end user, the differences become even more magnified as the distortion adds up. Digital doesn’t have this problem, well it kind of does in certain cases like during mixing when something is eq’d or otherwise processed, The DAW apps are run at a higher bit rate to perform the math to a high precision - then round up to a usable bit depth.
To the people that say how can you even know that what is fed to the A to D is what comes out the other side - it’s easy in a studio when a person or group is recording and you hit a button in the control room to compare the analog feed of the console to the DAW output (post digital)
I’ve done it many times in my mastering studio, but not using a live feed - rather I used a 1/2 “ or 1/4” 2 trk of final mixes.
Unless something is really off, it usually sounds damn near identical.
A tape copy, not so much - but the tape copy may pick up in one area and lose in another so in some cases the copy may have something special about the sound. But that would NOT be as a result of accuracy.

I still like the distortions inherent in analog so much, that I like listening to vinyl much more than digital. Especially if the vinyl version is the ONLY analog step in the recording process.

Come at me. I ain’t afraid.

What type of distortion? It is not enough to say that someone had a "magic box" that made distortion. The type of distortion matters greatly with regard to it's impact on sound quality. Shorter, Crowhurst, Geddes, Cheever and others have noted this throughout the last 70 years or so. If it was injecting primarily 2nd order harmonic and that you found that hard to hear then all I can say is DUH! It has also been known for decades that 2nd order harmonic is inaudible up to probably at least 2%...and that is with pure test tones...the easiest case to hear a change.

There are also various types of jitter and the frequency of and period of that jitter probably matter too.

I didn't just prefer the sound of my voice coming from a direct cut lacquer...it sounded more like my voice. Timbre, dynamics, inflections etc. were all clearer and more realistic. It was also more pleasing because it sounded more like...me. You say it might seem more real but how else to judge except the listener of his own voice?

What I don't think you get is the difference between observational reality and a mathematical construct that has been created to try to capture that reality. I am a scientist and the fundamental core of all science is not theoretical mathematical models, it is observation. First comes some kind of observation and then a hypothesis that can be theorized about and/or experimented upon. Digital technology is built on the back of scientific observation but it is not the end all and be all, because as all good scientists know, the science is never completely settled. Engineers, who use science to develop technology often forget this. You say that it has to be better because the science says so. Except there are sufficient observations that, at least to a human brain, this is not necessarily the case. There are lots of small magnitude distortions that while seemingly innocuous, are more pernicious than the grosser analog distortions. You also admitted that at least some distortions (whatever was made by that "magic box") are quite hard to hear. If you don't hear it then it is effectively not there and if you do hear it, no matter how small it looks on a scope, then you can't unhear it.

You talk about all the steps to get an analog product but what I told you was that I spoke into a microphone that directly drove the cutter head on a blank lacquer. That lacquer was then directly played back on a turntable. Doesn't get any fewer steps than that. Is that representative of commercial offerings? I have made numerous recordings of my own voice on digital of various quality (up to at least 24/192 PCM with high quality microphones) and analog R2R tape...and this one direct to disk. The D2D was in my observation the most like my own voice. We can debate why that is and that is surely a more interesting debate to me than you dismissing my observation as fantasy.

 

[the sound of Tao]

It doesn’t. The earth rotates

Ked now you’re just being heliocentric! You do remember what the inquisitors did to Gallileo for that kind of crazy talk… accusations of heresy and spent the rest of his life stuck at home under house arrest without a sound system, espresso or any of them fancy Italian restaurants.

 

[Carlos269]

An interesting anecdote. Were the numbers quantified in any way? ie just how much distortion/jitter was needed until audible? What was the control environment? Would love to do such a challenge myself, out of curiosity...

This is something I've often wondered about re: vinyl vs digital sound, and might be relevant to the OP's question: Just how much do DAW plugins /filters risk degrading the sound, ie risk losing/smothering the important cues that make something sound real in the way we audiophiles tend to like? And then when you compound filter on filter on filter... what hope is there for accurate sound compared to a "simple" AAA recording? Or is it simply a non issue?

Now, now. Settle down

What type of distortion? It is not enough to say that someone had a "magic box" that made distortion. The type of distortion matters greatly with regard to it's impact on sound quality. Shorter, Crowhurst, Geddes, Cheever and others have noted this throughout the last 70 years or so. If it was injecting primarily 2nd order harmonic and that you found that hard to hear then all I can say is DUH! It has also been known for decades that 2nd order harmonic is inaudible up to probably at least 2%...and that is with pure test tones...the easiest case to hear a change.

There are also various types of jitter and the frequency of and period of that jitter probably matter too.

I didn't just prefer the sound of my voice coming from a direct cut lacquer...it sounded more like my voice. Timbre, dynamics, inflections etc. were all clearer and more realistic. It was also more pleasing because it sounded more like...me. You say it might seem more real but how else to judge except the listener of his own voice?

What I don't think you get is the difference between observational reality and a mathematical construct that has been created to try to capture that reality. I am a scientist and the fundamental core of all science is not theoretical mathematical models, it is observation. First comes some kind of observation and then a hypothesis that can be theorized about and/or experimented upon. Digital technology is built on the back of scientific observation but it is not the end all and be all, because as all good scientists know, the science is never completely settled. Engineers, who use science to develop technology often forget this. You say that it has to be better because the science says so. Except there are sufficient observations that, at least to a human brain, this is not necessarily the case. There are lots of small magnitude distortions that while seemingly innocuous, are more pernicious than the grosser analog distortions. You also admitted that at least some distortions (whatever was made by that "magic box") are quite hard to hear. If you don't hear it then it is effectively not there and if you do hear it, no matter how small it looks on a scope, then you can't unhear it.

You talk about all the steps to get an analog product but what I told you was that I spoke into a microphone that directly drove the cutter head on a blank lacquer. That lacquer was then directly played back on a turntable. Doesn't get any fewer steps than that. Is that representative of commercial offerings? I have made numerous recordings of my own voice on digital of various quality (up to at least 24/192 PCM with high quality microphones) and analog R2R tape...and this one direct to disk. The D2D was in my observation the most like my own voice. We can debate why that is and that is surely a more interesting debate to me than you dismissing my observation as fantasy.

When Pete Millett came over to my house, we had a conversation about how little audiophiles understand about electronics and the elements at play. I told Pete that I refer people all the time to his presentation for the European Triode Festival back in 2004. Pete is a subject matter expert on distortion; so much so that he dials in the distortions to produce the sound that he targets with his amplifiers. I have three of Pete’s amplifiers and they are outstanding and superb sounding, not by happenstance but by design. Something can sound pleasing and euphoric and it does not mean that it is accurate, for instance magnetic tape recording and playback. Unless you go D2D, this euphoric sound of magnetic tape is embedded in every AAA release, to be further compounded by the distortions associated with vinyl playback.

Even now 20 years later, Pete Millett’s presentation is an easy and an accessible way for many to learn about audio electronic distortions:

The Sound of Distortion

Pete’s presentation will help others for decades to come. I will add that everything in audio has a transfer function and just like Pete, having control over those transfer functions allows for predictable outcomes.

 

[Rexp]

I attended an AES, NYC chapter demonstration of this very nature.
A person with the magic box varied levels of jitter and distortion while the music played. Y’all would be very surprised how much harmonic distortion it takes before it becomes audible. Increasing jitter (while it takes far less than harmonic distortion) is also surprisingly hard to detect up to a larger than I expected amount.
In 2024, digital when done with well designed gear, and using best practices, is a much closer representation to what is sampled than the same signal sampled by analog-regardless of the analog format.
I would rather cut lacquers off a well made digital copy of the 1st generation mix tape, than use a 2nd gen tape safety copy.
To the person that preferred the sound of their voice when recorded to lacquer because it sounded more real, your preference is totally valid but your logic is off. Something can’t be less faithful to the source (analog) and also be more real. It might SEEM more real but it’s just the pleasing quality to the distortion. I get it!
When you add in all the analog steps an analog recording has to go though to get to the end user, the differences become even more magnified as the distortion adds up. Digital doesn’t have this problem, well it kind of does in certain cases like during mixing when something is eq’d or otherwise processed, The DAW apps are run at a higher bit rate to perform the math to a high precision - then round up to a usable bit depth.
To the people that say how can you even know that what is fed to the A to D is what comes out the other side - it’s easy in a studio when a person or group is recording and you hit a button in the control room to compare the analog feed of the console to the DAW output (post digital)
I’ve done it many times in my mastering studio, but not using a live feed - rather I used a 1/2 “ or 1/4” 2 trk of final mixes.
Unless something is really off, it usually sounds damn near identical.
A tape copy, not so much - but the tape copy may pick up in one area and lose in another so in some cases the copy may have something special about the sound. But that would NOT be as a result of accuracy.

I still like the distortions inherent in analog so much, that I like listening to vinyl much more than digital. Especially if the vinyl version is the ONLY analog step in the recording process.

Come at me. I ain’t afraid.

Which of the DDD commercial releases that you've mastered would you say sound like the live feed?

 

[Carlos269]

Which of the DDD commercial releases that you've mastered would you say sound like the live feed?

Dave is a Mastering Engineer and not a Recording Engineer. A better question would be which commercial release sounds most like your mastering.

FYI - there is so much that happens between a live feed and a commercial release on the recording and production process that they are so far removed from each other, even after the recording engineers hands it off to the mixing engineer, who then hands it off to the mastering engineer.