The vinylistas don’t care about logic, so don’t get your hopes up
A very good ENGINEERING explanation of why analog can not be as good as digital..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzRvSWPZQYk
There will still be some flat earthers who refuse to believe it....
Those should watch the video a second or third time :-)
There will still be some flat earthers who refuse to believe it....
Those should watch the video a second or third time :-)
137 responses Add your response
The video doesn’t support the OP’s claim that "analog cannot be as good as digital." In fact, the video states: "There is no functional difference in the audio quality between digital and analog ...The human ear and brain is not sufficiently equipped to distinguish the difference between sound produced from analog signals when compared to a digital counterpart." What’s annoying about pedantic presentations such as this is the extent to which they scrutinize limitations of the LP, but don’t apply the same scrutiny to the limits of digital. Of course the presenter in this video isn’t objective - he’s trying to sell something. |
The brain controls your sound , did NOT go to Engineering school and prefers analog IF you have heard many LIVE concerts of ACOUSTIC music .If you go to amplified concerts it cares less . By many I mean at least 3-400 hundred symphonic or jazz concerts . The human brain can easily detect the difference between analog or digital if it has heard it . If all any one brain ever heard is a rock concert its like a kid in kindergarten . |
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This is a pretty good explanation of how an analog signal is produced and I found it informative. However, I do not believe one format is better than the other. Both digital and analog sound great when played back on high quality gear. My system includes an analog setup costing around $30K and a digital setup costing around $6K. To my ears, the analog set up is superior in musical enjoyment, but the digital set up is only slightly behind, at 1/5th the cost. Fact is, I enjoy both formats and don't expect I will ever abandon one over the other. One thing I like about analog is I tend to play an entire side of a record, and when I play digital I skip around to other songs a lot more. There is something more relaxing about playing records, probably related to a mind set of committing to sitting down and listening to 15+ minutes of music at a time without having the easy option of giving up on a piece with the push of a button. On the other hand, the convenience of creating a massive playlist in digital format allows me to play music all day without having to flip sides |
“There is something more relaxing about playing records, probably related to a mind set of committing to sitting down and listening to 15+ minutes of music at a time without having the easy option of giving up on a piece with the push of a button.” >>>>Or it could be just because you don’t feel like you’re being attacking by screaming banshees and razor blades in an elevator. |
One thing missing in purely engineering studies is human preference. The best businesses rely on audience studies to determine engineering targets. Not the other way around. While we can make the engineering case that 96k/24 bit recordings are so close to perfect a human can no longer distinguish higher resolutions, we cannot tell by that study alone what they would pay for. This is a secret Bose and Harman very well know and live by. |
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The human ear and brain is not sufficiently equipped to distinguish the difference between sound produced from analog signals when compared to a digital counterpart." Now that is pure comedy there (LOL) Schubert says: " The human brain can easily detect the difference between analog or digital if it has heard it" Exactly! Anyway... I'll keep listening to both formats. |
This is a fundamental treatise on the subject, but does not get into the weeds, where the real differences are. First of all, the title is misleading. It is a comparison of CD-quality playback to vinyl playback, not analog to digital. Secondly, even with the RIAA curve, the vinyl record cannot match the dynamic capability of an uncompressed digital format at high or low frequencies. It also cannot match the HF extension possible with hi-res digital, well beyond audibility. These beyond audibility sounds add a lot of live ambience to the music. Jut add a supertweeter to your system to experience this. Finally, citing studies that are decades old to say that people cannot hear the difference is not very useful. I would suggest that 90% of people can tell the difference between a well-recorded hi-res track played on a resolving digital system compared to the same track played from vinyl. Even on 7.5 IPS tape you can hear the difference. They may like the "smoothness" of the vinyl track, but closing their eyes will show that it is not live. The digital track has a much higher probability of recreating the live event IME. However, there are a lot of digital-unique things that prevent this kind of reproduction in typical digital systems, including: 1) Jitter 2) Digital Filtering 3) DAC analog and I/V design 4) D/A chip 5) CODEC and playback software Steve N. Empirical Audio |
Why not bring other issues related to digital, like aliasing or jitter? Also Nyquist/Shannon theorem applies to continuous waves only. Yes, you can accurately recover the sinewave with only two samples per period, but to do so you need a lot of periods - not possible (accurately) with constantly changing signal. This video reminded me short film about the study made of an ethnic group in South America that, on average, had extremely long lifespan. British scientists found that they drink contaminated water, eat unhealthy food and engage in activities, like smoking, that should shorten their life. Last words of narrator were: "It is good that they don’t know it" |
Funny, my partner just finished our phono stage and I borrowed a TT from a buddy of mine to test things out. I spent the weekend adjusting our DHT Dac with a few friends over all day yesterday. We plugged in the TT and let it rip. I laughed at how good the phono sounded in comparison. I called one of the guys who was just here and I told him to sell the digital stuff and find his old record collection! The TT sounded so good it was an eye opening experience even as good as the DHT Dac sounds. Then I took a look at the actual TT that my buddy lent to me to test things out. The label says JC Penny. We were laughing so hard and rolling around on the floor we began to cry. Cannot imagine what the phono stage is going to sound like with a "real" TT. So all the comments above may hold truth but when listening to the two, the vinyl was so sweet it was addicting. The sampling from digital just IMO cannot do what the little old needle can do. @brownsfan1 - all rectifier tubes do sound the same! Not! @audioengr3 "but closing their eyes will show that it is not live" Today I experienced a live recording and when I heard the hand claps at the end of the song, as real as my digital rig sounds, the vinyl sounded better to my ears. So to each his own I guess. Happy Listening. |
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@kijanki Absolutely true, except for a tiny niggle. The signal’s got to have a continuous Fourier transform, which is even smoother than continuous. But don’t bother engineers with theorems. I’ve never met one who didn’t say, "Oh, but we get around that by ...". Which, to a mathematician or scientist, is laughable. Thanks for stating ’what should be obvious’, Kijanki. There are too few of us. |
There are so many mistakes in the information of the infomercial that it made me laugh. How many of you have actually had an analog master, not a copy but a master. Then listened to a comparison between the original master tape, a lacquer, and a CD on a great system. Unless you have, how can you support your claims or statements. I have done this. The answer is even the best CD transport an DAC will not compete with the master tape. If you cannot pick out the difference go get your hearing checked. You ask about my experience, I come from the days before digital. On the other hand I was recording digital data before CD's were available. No matter what the resolution and data rate a digital representation of a sound, it will always be an approximation of the original event. Whether or not you can detect the difference is a question of psycho-acoustics and has a lot to do with how good a persons hearing is. So if you start with a digital recording of "Red Book" specifications don't bother with a vinyl pressing. |
If you oriced they video did go in to issues with digital. Mostly compression and the overly mastered music to ale up for the compression. Without getting in toy which is better, I wonder if someone who has spent 30 ears doing digital can master an analog recording properly ithout bringing gains way up in fat sections. |
Science to the rescue. Forget your ears, listen to the CODEC, which, by definition, SUBTRACTS bits and then "tries" to put them back in. Better yet, listen to a "digital" B-3 and/or "electronic" drums and then the originals. Different, but which one is the B-3? If you can't tell, then anything you listen to is fine with you and me. Doesn't make you "wrong" and me "right" any more than liking a food or car that I don't care for does. I suggest that you listen to the MUSIC and not worry so much about all this silliness. Enjoy. |
I strongly urge those interested to read, "Why Hasn't Everything Disappeared Already?" by Jean Baudrillard. A long time philosophical critic of the 'screen' and the digital/visual nexus, Baudrillard presents a rich approach to understanding the "analogue" through photography and digital visual recording as the death of the real. It all applies to analogue music and vinyl reproduction. In fact he styles the death of the analogue as "murder". I too was insulted being told what I can and cannot hear. I have two separate systems with cd players and turntables, 1 Rega 6 w/ Ortophon Bronze and 1 late 1970s Thorens in great shape and with the same new cartridge. I can not only tell the differrence between playbacks I can tell the difference between the 2 systems. The 2 cd players do not sound the same! Neither do the turntables. And in all 'systems' there are many links and each one can determine the final quality of sound. Dave Brubeck's Take Five album in 180gs is awesome and the high end on the second cut on the first side rings out with the sweetest percussion no digital player can possible match. If I suffer from notalgia, it is with joy and sorrow. Sorrow that music is murdered digitally and joy that I am lucky enough to know the difference. There is nothing wrong with missing something that is very good. The cd is still good on cleaning day when I run the vacuum. |
If we all had master tapes of the music we like and professional reel-to-reel decks, then analog would be king. It's actually a lot cheaper and more convenient to do really good digital. Every bit as good. The master tapes are used to create the digital tracks after all. I'm talking about Ethernet renderer with really low jitter driven by good software: Linn Kinsky/Minimserver/BubbleUPnP, using good cabling. Those still trying to get the ultimate SQ from USB or a transport need not apply. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
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"No matter what the resolution and data rate a digital representation of a sound, it will always be an approximation of the original event."Isn't that true for analog (vinyl in most of the above posts), too? It is an approximation, attempt to reproduce, the original event. No matter what quality of an analog recording it is. Any recording is, essentially, fake. Be it analog or digital. You may prefer the way one is manipulated more than the other, but true representation they are not. When it comes to "reproducing live concert (unamplified, let's say classical music)", I am yet to hear the equipment/sound-carrier combo that can sound as bland. Any recording seems to sound richer. I suspect that many of us who babble about how the system should sound would quit these debates if we went for concerts more often. Blacker blacks, rounder mids, all that poetry is gone in a concert hall. It may something to do with a venue, but not all of it. |
"Isn't that true for analog (vinyl in most of the above posts), too? It is an approximation, attempt to reproduce, the original event. " The microphone to the recording system, what ever it maybe is an analog device. There are no steps, no divisions, or resolution with analog, but there is with digital. This is what I was pointing at. There is no Nyquist theorem, which based on an approximation. A recording will not be able to truly duplicate the original performance. But you can tell the difference between an analog original and a digital original. On the other hand, these days I am not sure you can really call the recording engineers produced in a trade school an engineer. Engineering schools are ABET accredited, are there any trade recording school that can meet the criteria? I don't know of any. |
This is a much better read about the subject and about the limitations of science/engineer thinking: https://www.stereophile.com/reference/23/index.html |
