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

[Holmz]

Which forum was Ben on

ASR I think?

 

[Gregadd]

100 Quotes by Ben Franklim

 

[Al M.]

Agreed. As with other high end components, such as loudspeakers, one finds a range of solutions: dynamic moving coil loudspeakers, horns, electrostatics etc. These tend to have different areas of strengths and weaknesses. One learns over time to adjust to each approach’s characteristics. Analog and digital reproductions are similar. Each has a characteristic signature.

I’m listening now to a high resolution 24-bit 192 kHz recording of Telemann’s famous Tafelmusik (literally table music intended as background music for aristocrats while they ate supper) via Qobuz. The recording sounds nice and pleasant. Analog sounding it is not. I don’t hear much if any ambience. The soundstage is flattened, it’s a bit 2-dimensional. The instruments don’t sound very natural. It’s a bit electronic sounding. One learns to adjust for these characteristics of modern digital recordings. In fact, an earlier 44.1khz Redbook cd on Brilliant Classics box set of Telemann’s Tafelmusik sounds much more analog like to my ears. High resolution doesn’t translate to high fidelity in my experience, if that is intended to mean concert hall sound quality. Here we are at any rate. I’m pleased, thrilled actually, to be able to stream high resolution recordings of a huge amount of music that I enjoy hearing. But I don’t anymore expect digital to sound like analog. It’s a different medium. It just sounds different, like electrostatic loudspeakers sound very different from horns.

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This sounds like one of two things, or both:

A) Your streaming is not that good. In that case it would be no wonder that a CD of the same music will sound better, provided the playback is good. Somewhat electronic sounding timbres, a flattened soundstage and lack of ambience would be typical of suboptimal streaming afflicted by digital/RF noise. I am allergic to the synthetic, 'plasticky', electronic sound which comes from that.

It doesn't matter if it's 'hi-res' or not. Well implemented Redbook CD playback will beat suboptimally implemented 24-bit 192 kHz playback any minute of any hour of the day. It's the implementation, not the numbers. On the other hand, well implemented 'hi-res' may result in some gains compared to Redbook digital.

Reproducing ambience and depth should be no problem for digital. This last season I attended again a number of classical concerts in Boston Symphony Hall and other locations. In comparison to live I was struck by how well my CD playback gives an impression of ambience, including differences between recorded concert halls. No, it's not the same. The scale is obviously smaller, and the large amount of air in a hall, and the nuance that comes with it, is not reproduced as much (how could it be in a moderately sized living room?). Yet still, the relative amount of hall ambience, as well as the character of it and of its 'air', are quite well recognizable and seem familiar compared to live. I base that impression mostly on modern digital recordings. I am always critical when it comes to comparison of my system with live music and not that easily impressed, but in this case I am actually quite pleasantly surprised.

B) The specific recording and/or mastering is not that good. I have heard, in direct comparison, some 16/44.1 masterings crush some 'hi-res' files of the very same recording where the mastering was obviously lame. Of course, there are great 'hi-res' files as well.

 

[bonzo75]

It just sounds different, like electrostatic loudspeakers sound very different from horns.

Both stats and horns can be made to sound very natural and engaging. In fact horns with Be drivers have a very stat like transparency .

Where they differ is horns can allow you great midbass and bass implemention, that electrostats haven't managed to get past without hybridizing.

And more importantly horns allow use of better electronics than stats. Slagle tried to get past this with a 300b implemented stacked quad set up https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/zero-distortion-stacked-quad-57s.38033/

 

[morricab]

Both stats and horns can be made to sound very natural and engaging. In fact horns with Be drivers have a very stat like transparency .

Where they differ is horns can allow you great midbass and bass implemention, that electrostats haven't managed to get past without hybridizing.

And more importantly horns allow use of better electronics than stats. Slagle tried to get past this with a 300b implemented stacked quad set up https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/zero-distortion-stacked-quad-57s.38033/

Stats can do it but they have to be huge...then they have amazing bass.

 

[Argonaut]

Stats can do it but they have to be huge...then they have amazing bass.

Sound-Lab A-1’s took a decent tilt at that particular Stat Windmill , with the Majestic 945PX taking Stat bass about as far as it could go on a commercial stat .​

 

[morricab]

Sound-Lab A-1’s took a decent tilt at that particular Stat Windmill , with the Majestic 945PX taking Stat bass about as far as it could go on a commercial stat .​

My huge Acoustats also could do amazing bass...really world class and seemingly without compression.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Analog people apart from having a good sense of realism also have a good sense of humor which when transcribed to digital sounds snarky.

no; it's just decimated.

 

[Kingrex]

I asked because I had already hosted this answer. He should stick to investing in digital.

I agree. Its more suited to the gear and music.

 

[Kingrex]

I think each of you is projecting your own biases and preferences into Rex's friend's non-answer. A non-answer is a non-answer. It should not be presumed to support silently one's position.

Whats wrong Ron. You accuse me of being rude when I make a joke then say I have not answeed a question. I was very clear. Ked understood. Do you not know what a high power tube amp and dynamic driver speaker is. You own one of the amps. Take your pick on speakers. Magico, Wilson, Rockport, Focal. They all give the same "general" flavor.

I have personally never agreed with people that say certain speakers play certian muisc better than others. Maybe it would be more accurate to say, certain speakers are more limited on certain genera of music than others.
Heck, I even had a customer with a very similar system, accept he had an even more well know SS amp with the same speakers reciently say he won't play classical as it does not sound good on his stereo. He has had the store come out multiple times to set it up and dial it in. It plays well but could be set up better.

I have another friend who is very very satisfied with his sytem that is again one of the above speakers and SS amp that plays the same music. Pretty much everything accept classicsl and jazz. These people are very satisfied with their systems for the mysic they play. And I respect that all their sysrems play that type of music much better than my system. They all prefer digital. They reapect analog and have all taken a stab at it. All a better stab than a Duel table and Denon cartridge.

 

[andromedaaudio]

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

Because its better for your health .

 

[bonzo75]

Whats wrong Ron. You accuse me of being rude when I make a joke then say I have not answeed a question. I was very clear. Ked understood. Do you not know what a high power tube amp and dynamic driver speaker is. You own one of the amps. Take your pick on speakers. Magico, Wilson, Rockport, Focal. They all give the same "general" flavor.

You are talking to a bot.

 

[Kingrex]

I haven't contributed in earnest to this thread, as I generally dislike these type of heated format debates.

Now that things have calmed down a bit, there is the serious question of what are the Achilles's heels of digital that CAN make it so underwhelming. I am coming at this from the position of being a single format digital adherent who has worked through the struggles to try and get decent sound from the medium.

I thought I would list some observations/thoughts I have made over many years as a both a DIY hobbyist and a former mastering engineer.

- digital is great as a storage medium, able to be copied and transferred with no (this is still debatable) loss.

- processing digital data is great in theory, but I believe this is an area where things fall down. In my years as a mastering engineer I would have to convert music across sample rates. In my opinion, the music never fully survived this process and my preference for doing conversions was to convert back to analog, transferring to tape (@30ips 1/2 inch) and then bringing back in at the new sample rate. I also far preferred to go into the analog domain to use physical compression and EQ rather than digital plug ins.

- further to the point above, digital is a medium where numbers and processing have always been important from a both technical and marketing perspectives. 24bit has to be better that 16bit, 192KHz better than 44.1Khz and 64 times oversampling better than 4 times. I question whether this is correct and I believe that it is this processing element that may give rise to the digital sound and perhaps ever more processing power is not the answer to digital utopia.

- people think of digital as steady state 1s and 0s which it is in storage, but when it is being sent to a DAC it is an analog RF stream subject to the influences that all electrical signals are.

- digital is far more fragile that what one might expect. it is extremely sensitive to power supply quality and is even more sensitive to electrical and mechanical vibration. Turntables are sensitive to placement due to footfall and acoustic feedback, to which digital is immune. However the placement of digital equipment on stands/racks can have a massive bearing on the sound.

- as far as physical digital media goes, I believe that the important factors, in order, are: the recording (and the mixing); the mastering; and then the pressing. Unlike what many people think, digital media is subject to the same degradations in the pressing process as analog media. That is, the further away the pressing from the first run on the first stamper, the more degradation - if you like, you can think of this as jitter encoded into the media.

- Although the earliest CDs copped a lot of flack from both enthusiasts and the media, the industry did try hard to put out a quality product with high dynamic range and good tonal quality. One of the early criticisms of early discs was that many were produced from the vinyl production master rather than the first generation master. The earliest CDs were made at a loss because they went to great lengths in the manufacturing process. The early CDs spent a good 30 seconds in the injection mold compared with something like 1/2 a second in more modern discs. I have been collecting the earliest CDs for about 20 years and have many copies of the same recording made for different countries. It is interesting to hear how different they can sound.

My final thought is that digital can never sound exactly like analog or vice versa. Digital can provide very enjoyable sound if one finds a way to get around it's deficiencies/issues, and this doesn't necessitate extreme expenditure.

Nice write up. Years back I went to a store and the owner specializes in rebuilding 15 ips tape machines. He was proud to display digital music pushed through one of his tape machines and resultant analog type playback I started a thread about it. Something along the lines of, If tape records so well, why does it change the sound so much. I forget the actual title. Long time ago. Anyhow, all this has made me wonder about doing as such with my current system. Pusing the digital through my tape machine. I suspect I will add distortions and loose a little data. But it may be pleasing.

 

[Kingrex]

You just need a better tube preamp than a Schiit Valhalla…tubes done right don’t ever sound dirty…

I was thinking Microzotl for a tube option. It is best if its a headphone amp with preamp output. In the $1500 and under range.
I am open to SS as my Transimpedance Lino 3.3 phone pre is very good with my setup. A designer I respect told me SS can be excellent as a phono pre. Even preferable. So why not the same with a tape preamp. I already have a system tube preamp with tube amplifiers. I have a lot of tubes.

 

[Kingrex]

You are talking to a bot.

That's a decimated response

 

[morricab]

I was thinking Microzotl for a tube option. It is best if its a headphone amp with preamp output. In the $1500 and under range.
I am open to SS as my Transimpedance Lino 3.3 phone pre is very good with my setup. A designer I respect told me SS can be excellent as a phono pre. Even preferable. So why not the same with a tape preamp. I already have a system tube preamp with tube amplifiers. I have a lot of tubes.

Don't know that preamp, heard their stuff is good and not on the warm plush side of the tube spectrum. I have a SS phonostage in one of my systems...not as good as my tube one but it is definitely musical. As for line preamps, I haven't heard a single one with the exception of the old Lyra Connoisseur preamp that was SS, which i would use instead of a good tube preamp. That said, I wouldn't use a cheap preamp of any type as it is too important to the system sound.

 

[Kingrex]

Don't know that preamp, heard their stuff is good and not on the warm plush side of the tube spectrum. I have a SS phonostage in one of my systems...not as good as my tube one but it is definitely musical. As for line preamps, I haven't heard a single one with the exception of the old Lyra Connoisseur preamp that was SS, which i would use instead of a good tube preamp. That said, I wouldn't use a cheap preamp of any type as it is too important to the system sound.

Do you have a head phone amp with Preamp output suggestion

 

[morricab]

Do you have a head phone amp with Preamp output suggestion

Not offhand, but I have an integrated amplifier with headphone output suggestion...two in fact. Aries Cerat Genus and Aries Cerat Protos. Both have headphone outputs in addition to their speaker outputs. Then you don't need a preamp and you have your headphone amp built-in. In both cases I think they take the headphone signal off a different winding of the output transformer of the amp itself...not off the preamp section.

 

[Kingrex]

I noted I wanted to try and stay around $1500. Not $15,000.

Maybe I will drive direct to my First Sound MK3SI. I only have a 3 foot interconnect now. In the past I was pushing 37 feet single ended.

 

[Gregadd]

"...headphone output suggestion..."

Could someone suggest Rockport give me a pair of Lyra.