Can you imagine a world without vinyl?

Zaike: you could hit a Lenco & refurbish it a la Nantais. It's great fun -- really!

NO,I would sell my whole system and watch HD television and movies.And probably spend more time at the gym.

Ah, the acolyte and the apostle. Ok, he has my thanks for you. As for me, I never quit vinyl, so I'll skip the enlightenment. ;^)

Zaike, I say this with fond affection, no disrespect.

DO take Johnnantais seriously, if not personally. I did, and I am once again a vinyl addict! His efforts to enlighten us to what is truly in the grooves has kept me busy (and off the streets, the world owes him for that) building and rebuilding these amazing machines which can spin a record in perfect time-
The awesome Lenco.
Rhassan never sounded so good. (Correction: he was better at the Hoo-Haw).

Don't take Johnnantais personally Jsadurni, it's him against the world and none of the rest of us digital-having heathen can express our affection for vinyl sufficiently enough to escape getting crushed 'neath his crusade of correction.

Yawn. Let's talk about something that matters -- like music.

I played three CDs today and enjoyed the frickin hell out of them. They majorly moved me. And no one's gonna bring me down about that. In fact, I think I'll go list them on the What's On Your Turntable Tonight thread now, and wave my hand in the air like I just don't care...

Nauga's are now on the endangered species list. UniRoyal stopped breeding them and they are all but gone now.

Nauga

If I imagine a world without vinyl, I imagine the death of high end audio.

How many audiophiles will we loose when it is finally (erroneously) accepted that Digital is better than vinyl?

I heard not without sadness a couple of months ago a friend tell me that he was trying to sell his beloved Leika camera with the complete set of lenses and could get nothing on Ebay, he even accepted the fact that digital photos in high res are much better than film.

This is partially true because in digital photography the quality output is in the hands of THE CREATOR who controls the resolution of THAT digital format.

Digital camera format, resolution and processing has substantially improved in quality every few months for the past 10 years. The digital format for our audiophile music system is approaching it's 22 birthday, still stuck in the same limited format controlled by music giants with no intention of catering to our need for great quality.

...imagine a world without vinyl?
Imagine a Teres wood turntable half burnt inside a dumpster in a NYC street, imagine your Triplanar arm stuck with no box in your sock drawer cause you didn’t have the guts to throw it away, you pick it up and a thread from your wool sock is stuck on the needle of your Koestu Urushi, you proceed to very carefully with shaking hands unwrap the thread from around the stylus when you notice it is completely ruined, imagine your 50 boxes of LPs out in the yard under the rain and you are looking at them with a tear in your eye while your grandsons are thowing stones at the boxes with who knows what inside.

Yes, that could happen when you're old enough to have grandkids. So go ahead and fool yourself into believing that the digital format is the best, and you give up the possibility of hearing how wonderful and natural real music can be. Perhaps you even know this, deep in your heart but like so many today, unwilling to make the commitment. Just attack what requires more work, attack what you don't have, attack what your not committed to with the sour grapes routine

You can fool yourself, holding in your hand a remote with a screen on it and all the music in those boxes is at your palm, alphabetically ordered by song by author by performer.

it's called an iPod or music server and it does sound better because most people no longer have a superior analog format to it compare to.

....you remember the ten times you rehooked your Micro Seiki 8000 only to notice after the first couple of minutes your new XXX internet player does sound better, you kinda remeber now that there were some details you enjoyed better on you TT only to realize again that for the eleventh time you might drag the air pump from the basement, lift the 40 pound platter and rehook the entire setup to be shown again that yes, it is not better that the new digital.

far better to tell yourself that what you have now is better. After all, it's SO much easier, SO much cheaper and SO very modern. It MUST be right format because it's what's easily available. There is no way the music giants would stick us with an inferior format just because it cost less and is controlled by two music companies. Later to come up with SACD in a half hearted effort because their patents were expiring and then left us holding the bag.

Did I paint a clear enough picture of a world without vinyl yet?

Yes you did, fortunately I don't have to live in that world

Hope I didn’t break Jsadurni's heart....because I did not correct his spelling errors, simply copied and pasted, so hang me....

I am sorry I didnt mean to hurt (or tripe) anybody I was just picturing a world without vinyl, after I did come to find that picture film was gone.
I was a vinyl diehard, in the 80´s a friend brought over to my place one of the first CD players to show me how it was better than vinyl,we hooked it up to my Fisher 6BQ5 tubed amp (sacrilege in those times) and we compared both CD and Lp (Rush Moving Pictures) and it was clear to me then Vinyl was better (even my friend agreed) I had a NAD TT with an AudioTechnica MM cartridge back then. I bought my first CD in 1994 (Marillion "Brave") and a Nakamichi CD player to go with it, LPs were getting scarce by then.
Yes I am on your side, with vinyl I breath better, but I do enjoy CD playing and have been putting more money into Digital than into vinyl lately, I sold my very expensive preamp with phono about a year ago and I am looking for a good phono stage. So I have been without vinyl for a while and I am surprised I havent missed it that much.
So hang me...

All the Best

Yes, it's heartbreaking that people go to the trouble to write this sort of tripe, and it's double-heartbreaking they come over to an analogue/vinyl forum to do so. Read this, it may help you develop an ear for music, if such things are the result of Nurture and not Nature: A Man Who Found Music

Jsadurni, it's human nature to resist change. But, change is the one thing you can count on. For sure, I can clearly see the day that you describe above. Frightening too.

That is a great story you wrote, is your real name Stephen King?

Sic transit gloria

If I imagine a world without vinyl, I imagine the death of high end audio, How many manufacturers will go under when it is finally accepted (in an imaginary world lets say) that Digital is better than vinyl.
I heard not without sadness a couple of months ago a friend tell me that he was trying to sell his beloved Leika camera with the complete set of lenses and could get nothing on Ebay, he even accepted, yes digital photos in high res are better, much better than film. I had heard this statement already from another photographer friend of mine and we also discussed the issue of digital images bieng much more convenient (nobody here will dare challenge this statement). So there goes my dark room, my 3 big trays, my gallons of liquid, my red lamp, my special table with metal margins, all the parafernalia for developing I have stored somewhere...imagine a world without vinyl?
Imagine a Teres wood turntable half burnt inside a dumpster in a NYC street, imagine your Triplanar arm stuck with no box in your sock drawer cause you didnt have the guts to throw it away, you pick it up and a thread from your wool sock is stuck on the needle of your Koestu Urushi, you proceed to very carefully with shaking hands unwrap the thread from around the stylus when you notice it is completely ruined, imagine your 50 boxes of LPs out in the yard under the rain and you are looking at them with a tear in your eye while your grandsons are thowing stones at the boxes with who knows what inside, you are holding in your hand a remote with a screen on it and all the music in those boxes is at your palm, alphabetically ordered by song by author by performer and yes it does sound better, you remember the ten times you rehooked your Micro Seiki 8000 only to notice after the first couple of minutes your new XXX internet player does sound better, you kinda remeber now that there were some details you enjoyed better on you TT only to realize again that for the eleventh time you might drag the air pump from the basement, lift the 40 pound platter and rehook the entire setup to be shown again that yes, it is not better that the new digital.

Did I paint a clear enough picture of a world without vinyl yet?

Hope I didnt break anybodys heart....

If my listening room weren't also the living room, I'd eliminate the couch and make a permanent dancefloor.

Perhaps "high-end" refers to the High, Harsh end of the musical spectrum which CDs are so efficient at? That grain which makes you want to turn the "music" down, after a whole CD of listening, and, reaching for the bottle (of Tylenol) to sooth the headache brought on by the digitized bits of daggers drilling into your little over abused (by marketing hype) heads?
Oh...
I'm sorry, just teasing.
But, do get up once in a while. You'll get a pressure sore if you don't get up off the couch.
Can you imagine a world with out the couch, too? And the Tylenol?

It would be harder to imagine a world without the Compact Disc than Vinyl....yeah vinyl sounds good but is difficult and expensive to get the performance and ease you get with even an average CD player. Also having Disc players in cars and portable stereos has made many more contributions to society the Vinyl, is Vinyl better?, I in some ways think yes and in many ways think no......let the debate roll on.

and by driving the input harder the gain following can be less, so that one bit AT THE SPEAKER is a smaller voltage.

I notice much greater improvement by this adjustment of gains than with ceramic outlet covers

I don't question that you hear an improvement....I am just disconcerted why a higher or lower gain in the preamplification stages should make such a difference. (Might some clipping somewhere be eliminated through your adjustements.... line level mismatches between studio and consumer levels perhaps?)

Shadorne....The number of D/A states is fixed for a device of a given number of bits. The voltage step from one state to the next (quantization) depends on how the D/A is designed. That said, the numbers you quote are about right for D/As used in audio applications. And with 0.03 mv for a CD and 0.2 microvolt for a DVDA one would think that either would follow a line level analog waveform darned well. However, don't forget that gain follows the D/A, and by driving the input harder the gain following can be less, so that one bit AT THE SPEAKER is a smaller voltage.

I notice much greater improvement by this adjustment of gains than with ceramic outlet covers :-)

A definite Yes, I can live without vinyl! BUT Playing vinyls (for me) is a big part of fun listening and ritual.
But to be fair I think digital formats are getting better and better in sound quality. No pops and clicks... not to get-up from your listening position every 20 mins. Not to mention buying new vinyls can be costly now a days. Let alone prices of analog gear are also on the rise...just my two cents.

Bondmanp: The change to vinyl and turntables "becoming hip with young people" already occurred a long time ago now, but it was because of hip hop, not anything related to audiophile sound matters.

Apparently, even the cutting edge of compressed digital audio realizes the importance of vinyl. The new Urge music downloading site has based its grand opening ad campaign around posters that read: "For those who really value music" (or something like that). The backround picture on this poster is a vinyl LP spinning on a TT with a tonearm on it. These posters are all over the NY subway system. One of the many ironies of this ad is that much of the target consumer for a site like Urge has never seen a TT in the flesh. Although I think that is changing. Even among the non-audiophile world, turntables are becomming hip with young people.

Shadorne...How many bits you need depends on the size of the bits

I think you will find that the quantization levels in D to A and A to D converters are fixed.

16-bit A/D conversion has 2^16 discrete numbers, or 65,536 quantization levels in the full-scale...so it has a granularity of 0.000015 or 0.0015 % of full-scale (full scale is like +/-2.5 Volts peak to peak) or roughly a quantization of around 0.03 milli-volts.

Even if you get more lights on, the quantization interval does not change, as it is tied to the full scale capabilities of the chip.

Note that the Behringer is a 24 bit ADC/DAC so we are talking about 16,777,216 quantization levels or signal granularity of 0.2 micro-volts (again a quantization granularity that is independent of which lights are lit up on the box)

=> So relax and simply stay well away from clipping if you have a studio grade 24 bit converter, as it means you have heaps and heaps of "digital" headroom to play with the digital signals using digital filters. Playing around with digital signals/filters (such as boosting one recorded channel immensely) is a good resaon to have the vast dynamic range of 24 bits so studios obvioulsy want that....but in general this capability is overkill for home play back of music. (Thankfully 24 bit DACs are really cheap so many of us have them anyway, whether they are really needed or not.)

Zaikesman...Correct. This is a multichannel system, and digital outputs are not available.

Shadorne...How many bits you need depends on the size of the bits. Lets suppose that the analog signal dynamic range going in to the A/D is 0 to 1.5 volts. If I make each bit 0.5 volts I can cover the range (represent a 1.5 volt sine wave) with just three bits. (Sign and two bit magnitude).

0 1 1 ..... -1.5 volts
0 1 0 ..... -1.0 volts
0 0 1 ..... -0.5 volts
1 0 0 ..... +0.0 volts
1 0 1 ..... +0.5 volts
1 1 0 ..... +1.0 volts
1 1 1 ..... +1.5 volts

Obviously the resolution is terible! If I make each bit 0.05 volts the resolution will be better, but I will need a lot more bits.

Until you decide upon a particular bit scaling, and analog signal gain the dynamic range and number of bits are not related.

Eldartford: Am I correct in thinking from your post that your CD sound is being output from the player in analog, then reconverted to digital and back again in the EQ?

Albert,

I was so sorry to hear you were not feeling well tonight with a stomach virus, and hope you have a speedy recovery. If I recall correctly, there has not been one Tuesday night gathering that you were unable to host through all these years. Am I correct in my memory recollection?

I must tell you that speaking with your son, John, was a privilege. He reminds me so much of you thirty years ago. I could have sworn I had been taken back to 1977 and that was AP on the phone, yet it was your son. It was an honor to speak with such an intelligent and caring human being. I felt an immediate friendship with him, just like I did with you back in 1977.

Please Get Well Soon! See you next week!

Eldartford,

I noticed that the input signal level, displayed by a string of LEDs, never got even half way up, meaning that only the lower bits of the A/D were being used.

Now I am utilizing all the bits I paid for. In my subjective opinion, it sounds better.

It doesn't really matter according to Nika Aldrich. The dynamic range of playback music is far far less than 16 bits...so it is quite normal you only had half the lights on. Whether it is the top half or the lower half of the lights that light up it should really sound the same.

Check out "Digital Audio Explained" by Nika Aldrich...the last chapter has a list of common audio myths. Several of the myths would cause a storm here on audiogon so I won't mention what Nika claims ....but his book is highly respected (by folks like AKM who design/make these DAC/ADC chips) and worth reading, even if you disagree with his conclusions.

Zaikesman...."subjective audition testing done in this area?" That is exactly what I did with my Behringer DEQ2496. I noticed that the input signal level, displayed by a string of LEDs, never got even half way up, meaning that only the lower bits of the A/D were being used. Upon consideration this is not surprising since the DEQ2496 is professional gear, and expects line level signals to be higher than typical consumer electronics. I have introduced attenuation between the output of the DEC2496 and my power amps, and cranked up the preamp gain so that the peak level for a complete CD (detected and loged by the DEC2496) is 6 dB or less below cliping. Now I am utilizing all the bits I paid for. In my subjective opinion, it sounds better.

130dB dynamic range is more than sufficient for our ears I think, but Eldartford's point about the resolution of low-level signals with fixed vs. floating LSB schemes is interesting, and seems like it could possibly have some bearing on why audiophiles hold reservations about the naturalness of digital sound. Anybody know of any subjective audition testing done in this area?

Three audiophiles agree on something!!! The planets must be aligned.

Agree that it makes sense for the LSB to lie below the noise floor, or for the system S/N ratio to be defined by that noise floor rather than the bit-depth. What I meant to suggest was that beyond a certain point there ceases to be a real world advantage to increased bit-depth in a multi-bit scheme, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dear Eldartford: In the digital domain we can work almost at any bit level: 32/64/128/etc/etc, there is nothing that can stop about, the problem is in the analog domain where we have a serious limitations, example: a resolution of true 24 bits needs a dynamic range of 144db and 32bits a dynamic range of 192db: there is no single digital player and analog preamp that could achieve that kind of dynamic range.

The best today preamps ( I don't know any digital player ) has around 125-130db on dynamic range ( btw, the Essential 3150 has 131db. ), this means 20 to 22 bits. So, it is almost imposible to achieve 24 bits on analog: yes, the analog domain is the whole problem, dynamic range and noise.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Zaikesman...There is no rule to the effect that the least significant bit (LSB) be equal to the analog noise level. Usually the LSB is smaller, so that several of the lowest bits toggle on and off due to noise. One might define the noise floor as the voltage corresponding to the bit which never changes unless there is a deliberate signal. The range from zero up to the maximum signal level can be divided up into as many steps as you like (within technology constraints).

I thought that, when it comes to digital audio, there's only so much bit-depth, or S/N ratio, that can pertain in any case, due to the limits of both the noise floor of all the analog parts of the record/playback chain (including the listening room), as well as of human hearing. But maybe what Raul was talking about was simply the limits of currently employed standards for mastering gear.

Thanks, Raul. My post was unclear.

Rauliruegas...I don't know why you CAN'T have more than 24 bits in a word...the missile guidance computer I used to work with used 32 bit words and much of the data and calculations were "double precision" 64 bit words. But as you say, HOW you use the bits is most important. Our music is "fixed point" data. When you play a quiet section of music through 24 bit digital converters you are actually only using perhaps 8 to 10 of the lowest bits. Not that great resolution. I have recently discovered the importance of keeping the analog signal up before the A/D of my Behringer DEQ2496 equalizer, although this requires me to attenuate the output going to my power amps. A better way to use the available bits, whether 16 or 24, would be "floating point". (A few bits are used to indicate the scaling of the remaining bits of data). This format provides the best resolution for signals of all amplitudes. In the DEQ2496 after the A/D input , a 32 bit floating point digital signal processing (DSP) module performs the equalization and other functions, so we know it can be done. Now we need a disc (or other digital media) that employs floating point.

Dear Gregm: You can't go further than 24 bits. The differences could be in how you use this 24 bits technology.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Actually Albert,

...Needle in groove has had 130 years to evolve, CD has had just over 20 years

Analogue, being what it is (well, "analogous")lends itself to engineering improvement. The dominant digital format is utlimately limited by its s/ware. Ain't much you can do about that even given the time

BTW, Raul, 24/192 is still perceptible. But it's neither annoying nor in yr face -- or any in any way grossly obtrusive. However, digital can do even better than that, apparently: I was present at a 1st gen master tape (analogue) copying into digital at a studio. The result, dig. copy vs "master" was exquisite. Rpo soundcards used of course, don't know the bit rates.

Raul:

until we don't have a true commercial 24/192 digital technology the analog one will be the better one in quality sound reproduction and I think that the analog stay here for ever or at least till we own LP's.

What we need is to " push " to the analog manufacturers devices to make a better design efforts to give us a better audio devices performers.

I agree, AND we must push the digital people to make available a digital format that exceeds anything analog offers.

I don't know how many times I've responded here at Audiogon with comments that digital could beat analog with technology available today. Problem is, downloading is a billion dollar business and LP and SACD together do not match it as a money maker.

We high end lovers are a limited market, and the big guys in the music business follow the money.

Analog is right here, right now and it works. Needle in groove has had 130 years to evolve, CD has had just over 20 years.

The best digital is still off in the future somewhere. No doubt there are some here at Audiogon that will live to see fabulous quality digital come to pass. However, I want the best sounding music tomorrow night when my group visits and I there are no big changes coming by then.

Dear friends: I already posted my answer to the thread and some thoughts about.

The thread goes to the " never end " CD vs analog debate about which is better. Thinking on this subject I think that there are some different " areas " where we can analyse which medium is better, example: if we take which medium is more accurate ( I mean which one reproduce with the less deviation what was recording. ) perhaps we could say that the CD is better within its own frequency range, let " see " it:
in the analog sound reproduction the signal " suffer " two heavy degradation first the recording equalization ( RIAA ) and second the inverse equalization in the phonolinepreamp, the bigger problem here is that the inverse equalization that must be a mimic from the original ( the one that was in the recording ) is not really a true mimic: exist deviations where we lost the original recording frequency response, this inaccuracy is one of the imperfection subject in the analog medium.
Other subject is the cartridge frequency response where exist big deviations from the original recording due to the frequency deviations on the cartridge response: the best cartridges have, no better than, +,- 1db 20 to 20Khz in ideal play conditions ( not in our analog rigs ), this goes against the accuracy in the signal reproduction.
Then we have other subjects that preclude accuracy on the analog sound reproduction: record warps, rumble, woow and flutter, step-up transformers, necessity of high gain phonolinepreamps with out noise/distortions, the necessity to make a perfect cartridge set-up: VTA/VTFAS/AZ and the perfect tonearm match, the " sound/noises " that are not on the recording and that the cartridge generate when the stylus touch and " play " in the vynil, the LP suffer a degradation each time we play it, etc, etc.

What happen in the CD/digital medium: well there exist too two process where the signal " suffer " some degradation ( in lesser range than the analog one because is very dificult to " loose " bits with today digital technology ), analog to digital and then digital to analog , of course that the signal has some " problems " between all the process in the digital domain ( like hitter/clocking/etc ) but at the end of the " day " the final signal that we are hearing is more accurate to the original signal than in the analog medium.
Through the digital medium the signal " suffer " less degradation than in an analog medium, inclusive the digital medium does not need a phonolinepreamp because it could be connected directly to the amplifiers: the digital medium is more " clean " than the analog one.

From this point of view IMHO the digital medium is a lot better than the analog one.

Why then many of us preffer the analog over digital? ( other that we own a lot of LP's ), with all the analog imperfections and inaccuracies it has, at least, one advantage: frequency response wider range than the digital one, specially in the high frequency range. Here it is the digital Aquiles heel and here is almost the great differences in what we heard through analog against digital.
The digital promoters choose 16 bits for this medium and this resolution bits along with the 22.05kHz on the frequency response ( where the digital medium has to use filters to cut the high frequency response ) against 50kHz in the analog medium and this fact makes the difference. That's why we hear the silver records agressive, metalic, cold, with out " soul ", etc, etc.

Unfortunatelly the 24/192 digital technology almost disappear because no body ( other that a very small group of people that cares about music and cares about quality sound reproduction: like us. ) cares about quality sound reproduction, but this 24/192 digital technology ( specially the DVDA ) has nothing to envy to the analog one and in some areas surpass with easy the analog medium.
Yes, I think that this technology is superior to the analog one not only like technology it self but in the quality sound reproduction.

With all the inaccuracies that the analog medium has we like it more than the Redbook ( is a lot better in sound reproduction quality. ), as a fact we like the analog beautiful " colorations " and this is all about.

Till we don't have a true commercial 24/192 digital technology the analog one will be the better one in quality sound reproduction and I think that the analog stay here for ever or at least till we own LP's.

What we need is to " push " to the analog manufacturers devices to make a better design efforts to give us a better audio devices performers.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

screensaver of a pizza.might stick with a bikini girl.

Macintosh makes a thin crust computer? Man, where have I been to miss that?

although i find myself never failing to read one of these threads the bottom line is an agreement will never be reached as to which is better.i don't own a cd player anymore so that explains my preference but probably will own one again in the future.mac vs pc,deep dish or thin crust,come on guys.

vinyl was about .01 percent of all music sales in 2006. in 2005 it was .023 to total....thats not a comeback.....

"Come to think of it, she may have included it in "Dolly Parton's biggesthits""

Albert, I think you put an "h" in that last word which shouldn't have been there...

Zaikesman, Nice Post! You are on to exactly the thing I am thinking about. The production and distribution costs of high end media could become so small relative the premium we are willing to pay for it that it would be commercially viable to create some high end offerings. Your analogies to gas and TV video are right on the mark.

We need to agitate for this rather than expending energy over the debate of CD vs LP

Albertporter...Dolly Parton has very small feet. She explains this by "things don't grow well in the shade".

Psychicanimal...Do it and let us know what happens. I might do mine.

Eldartford...the Spartan audiophile. Hey, I'm thinking of revamping the L-07 monoblocks w/ some VenHaus caps & Fairchild rectifiers. Should be worthwhile.

I sure can.

Reminds me of that old song, "Mammaries are made of this." Dean Martin's version was my favorite but always wondered how great it would be, performed by Dolly Parton.

Come to think of it, she may have included it in "Dolly Parton's biggesthits"