What's up with all the deletions?
I take my mom to get her mustache waxed and miss everything...
Vinyl sounds better (shots fired)
I was bored today on a support job so I made a meme. This isn’t a hard or serious conviction of mine, but I am interested in getting reactions 😁
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vinyl is highly processed in order to keep many issues at bay. and interestingly enough many people like the sound of that. I like the sound of vinyl but I also like to sound of a good digital recording as well - way more dynamics, non existent noise floor, no compression (unless you like pop music) and supreme highs. but the real reason I like vinyl is the footprint. far easier to read the liner notes on a cardboard sleeve that's the size of a big dinner plate, compared to a cd or god forbit streaming service. |
@coltrane1 +1 LOL |
If I was starting out, I'd go digital because of the up front investment in records to build a library. But I have a library and play about 10% CDs for the titles that aren't available or are too expensive/rare to get on vinyl. Some well recorded CDs sound surprisingly good. In my system, in general, vinyl sounds better. Probably because my TT/cart/PS/cable costs 15-20 times that of my CD player. I am sure there are some recordings on CD that sound better than some of the issues of a record on vinyl. I don't mind getting up to flip records, in fact I prefer 45s as they sound better than 33s, all things being equal. Keeps the blood flowing. Don't stream - don't want to deal with more screens or apps when relaxing. |
"Vinyl sounds better" to me is a subjective statement. I happen to like vinyl for many reasons. If someone tells me they think digital or streaming sounds better I would not argue with them. That is their subjective experience. I would say "Cool, far out." If I thought I could have a reasonable discussion with that person I might ask why but would never suggest their experience and preference was wrong. |
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I find it interesting that you mention both processing and compression. These were two big factors in me getting back into vinyl after a hiatus of four years. I regard that time as a failed experiment and a big misstep. My original decision was a matter of head over heart. It turned out that the heart had been right. After a couple of years, I experienced remorse over selling my turntable despite upgrading the streaming capabilities of my system. Having seen the enthusiasm of friends and my sons for vinyl, I asked my dealer to lend me a Klimax LP12 that he had taken from a customer in part exchange. Its only difference to my old turntable was that it had the Urika II phono stage. This carries out the RIAA conversion in the digital domain. In tandem with the improved clock of my Klimax DSM /3 Hub, it made a huge difference to the sound quality of vinyl on an LP12. Despite the upgrades that I’d made to the streaming side, I found that generally vinyl trounced streaming on my system. Now, there are some remastered records that don’t cut it in comparison to the original pressings. This appears to be down to poor mastering. It’s not just pop music that suffers from over compression - rock music and other genres are also affected. The crystal clarity that comes with the digital formats is not enough for me. I also need the excitement that vinyl can bring. Perhaps, classical music enthusiasts value different things in music reproduction. Certainly they were among the early adapters to CD due to the absence of surface noise. My reaction then was that the early CD experience also took away the (expletive deleted) music. I can’t claim to understand what it is that gives vinyl its special quality, but to me it’s just more enjoyable particularly for prolonged listening sessions. It gets more thrilling as time passes, whereas streaming becomes slightly tiresome in comparison. |
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@stealthdeburgo This statement is false. Vinyl often gets some processing (such as mono bass for a few milliseconds at a time) or compression to reduce the engineering cost of the project. When I was running our mastering operation, I found that even with out of phase bass, if we simply spent enough time working on the project we could find a way around the issue without any processing at all. None of the recordings we turned out had any other than the normal RIAA pre-emphasis. FWIW a typical LP mastering cost is about $500/hour. So you can see that anything to reduce the engineer's time could be valuable. All this comes down to the producer of the project; what sort of quality he's after and how much he's willing to spend to make it so. |
Dear friends : In my last post I posted about ".fine tunning " room/system.
Even that no one of you makes any comment on that critical room/system characteristic I think that maybe almost all the vinyl oriented/biased audiophiles have their room/systems fine tunned to vinyl and if this is true then could be the explanation or reason why biased to vinyl and not only say for example: digital is sterile with no " emotions "down there. How and why the room/system is fine tunned is way important when analizing audio subjects as the one in this thread and obviously that subjectivity is the oter main reason. Maybe we need a better equilibrium between objectivity and subjectivity, at least could help to all of us one way or the other.
R.
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@rauliruegas 👏👍😎 J. |
Yes, it’s possible that some systems may be optimal for either vinyl or digital formats. However, it can’t be the whole story. I find my preference for vinyl is not system dependent. It’s there with both budget and high end set ups and all points in between. I prefer vinyl on a Linn Exakt system that many all analogue audiophiles would turn their noses up at because it is digital throughout much of the chain with DSP. You can’t get much more optimised for digital than that, yet vinyl still sounds great. I suspect that it is the differences in mastering that are the most significant factor. Of course, it’s only a preference, albeit it quite a big one. If others favour streaming or CDs, that’s fine by me. As always, it’s a matter of balancing the pros and cons - there are no absolutes here. |
@newton_john One difference is that many LPs have less compression than the digital release. This is because there’s no expectation of the LP being played in a car, whereas there is with the digital release. This isn’t universal, but many producers will send an uncompressed tape or source file to the LP mastering operation on this account if they are quality conscious. When I was running my LP mastering operation we always would ask the producer if such was available. |
Listening to vinyl is 100x the cost, labor, space and inconvenience of digital. And the consensus among the intelligentsia of the audiophile community is that the "vinyl zealots" are delusional people with more money than brains, who believe the propaganda after drinking the analogue Kool Aid. Seems like a lot of heat generating from a "debate" that's more like a potluck supper with the Hatfields and the McCoys. If the Luddites (like me) enjoy the listening experience that analogue provides, what skin is it off your rather prominent proboscis? |
Incidentally, I just realised another major benefit of the sound of vinyl replay. There are many artists and albums that I found to be impenetrable on the fully digital formats. Yet on vinyl, they are accessible. For example, I attempted to get to grips with the discography of Yes beyond the handful of popular classic albums from the seventies on streaming. It wasn’t until I heard the unfashionable ends of their catalogue on vinyl without the harshness previously experienced, that I realised most of their albums are enjoyable listens. On vinyl their music just flows effortlessly. It’s no coincidence that the few Yes albums I liked, were the ones I’d heard on vinyl long before CDs ever existed. Of course streaming is the technically superior format. Unfortunately, we are not hearing its full potential because of the mastering of the albums that are available to us. |
I briefly entertained the idea of replacing old vinyl records with new Cd's, probably sometime in the 90's, not sure when. I soon found that the new Cd's that I would buy, had somehow lost a great deal of the original information (music). It didn't take me long to give up on the idea. Lucky for me, I have never gotten rid of a single album/LP. Some got destroyed by pets or kids but I never intentionally got rid of them. I will never regret that decision. There was a brief time when records had fallen out of favor. You would be hard pressed to even find a cartridge for your turntable. I was a bit shocked by this but after maybe 10 years or so of that nonsense, it started popping up everywhere. Funny how that goes. I do not stream but from what people say about it, I am convinced that it can be very good. It can only be as good as whatever source they had in the first place and I don't know if it can equal an original master tape or not. The digital format should be truly unlimited as to it's capabilities so maybe it will someday replace all other sources. I do not know. It will not replace it in my home. I may add it someday but I'm in no hurry. I still buy Cd's and albums all the time. Cd's (Sony?) chose to limit to 20hz to 20khz. I have no idea why. Easier?, all we can hear anyway? They are also limited by the bit/sample rate. SACD was better but didn't catch on for whatever reason. Streaming is the answer for a lot of people as to the enormous library and you don't have to store records or cd's somewhere. It is good enough so that people are able to compare one record pressing or cd or whatever to another. This is what we used to do over on the vinyl asylum all the time and was how we would learn which pressings to look for. I'm impressed that streaming is able to capture that. Some Cd's are much better than others as well but they are never quite what the best vinyl copy was. It's not up to me, it's just how it is. |
@newton_john I've never had a person take "the vinyl test" and come away a digital fan. I take a vinyl and a CD of s piece of music, and start the test with a listen to the vinyl. Then comes the digital version. Every time, I watch with amusement as the first few bars of digital pseudo-reproduction are heard and their expression turns from confusion to dislike. The comments are always the same: "The first one sounded so open and alive, and the second sounded like it was coming from a box." |
@mambacfa keep writing and please post something on YouTube, to make $$$ LOL! "delusional people with more money than brains” - it’s about enjoyment, not efficiency!
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If I am listening to classical music, I find vinyl replays it closer to how it sounds in Meyershoff, Carnegie or David B. Geffen halls. The way the music "billows" as it does in real life is more apparent to me with my turntable than with my digital setup, and that's any digital setup I've had for the past 35 years. And jazz as well. If I'm playing pop music, digital is okay and I don't find myself comparing the sounds of different formats. So much pop music (my collection is mainly records from the 40s through to the 90s) was so mediocre - even when remastered - that I accept the sound that's there. |
I kept my LP records all the way through the barren CD era, then added to them and upgraded my turntable during the vinyl revival. Yet I made the silly mistake of selling my turntable to improve the digital side about six years ago. I said before this was a head over heart decision. My former dealer and friend advised against it because he'd done the same thing himself only to return later. Of course, it wasn't irreversible because I still had my precious and mainly pristine LPs stored lovingly in flight boxes. Then I did a really stupid thing and sold my collection for a tenth of what it would cost to buy again. I didn't really think it through properly. We were moving house to downsize at the time and I had a major operation just a couple weeks before. I was desperate to cast off possessions before the move. It turned out that I couldn't live without vinyl despite having a top notch streaming setup. Now I've got another turntable, I regret so much the decision to ditch my records. Nevertheless, I am really enjoying accumulating more. |
Uhm. Seriously: I bought my first LP when I was 11. I now have 6,000+. I came of age during the LP era, and I never stopped collecting and listening to them. “Better” is an irrelevant question. We have our preferences. I have mine, which might be characterized as loyalty. And ritual: I was raised Catholic and though I’ve been agnostic since I was 14, I transferred my affection for sacred rites onto this neurotic obsession, maybe as a therapeutic approach to justifying the trouble and expense But. To my ears, vinyl sounds rich warm and silky. Digital sounds thin sterile and gritty. |
Not to pick on anyone. But, this statement:"I find vinyl replays it closer to how it sounds in Meyershoff, Carnegie or David B. Geffen halls." is so condensed as to not communicate any useful information. The statement would have to be at least: I find vinyl played through a X cartridge, Y tone arm, on my Z turntable, with my AA phonostage, BB Preamp, CC amp, and DD Speakers. That gets you close... maybe explaining the interconnects, power cords and speaker wires are not necessary to get truth across. I can easily say that my friends cheap Rega and all Schiit components with sound terrible in comparison to my streaming system... you can see mine under my ID. Or my vinyl system just blows away my office streaming system and attribute it to the media and not the equipment it is being reproduced on. |
I agree. I find that, even when it was recorded poorly, it also had fewer microphones and all the things they do in the engineering that reduces the "aliveness" of music nowadays, that it sounds more like there are real people playing real instruments. 'There was an old album reviewed by The Absolute Sound. It was done in the 1920s and 30s and it's all a one microphone setup and these are people who play music. Some played 'fiddles,' some banjo, some guitar. What's striking is how real the music sounds. It doesn't fool me into believing it's 'live' but it sounds FAR less processed than your average CD. |
These type of threads don’t appear on the "digital" sub-forum, but frequent the "analog" sub-forum. [Analysis: Vinyl plastic dudes are a rather insecure bunch. They know deep down that their "cost no object" vinyl chain could easily sound like a lousy crap-pit if their playlists aren’t restricted to those 3 audiophile records on repeat...must hurt when that happens...mmhmm ]
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Trolling posts like this personalising the issue by provocatively pitting one format against another are the epitome of insecurity. The mention of cost is telling. The truth of it is that mastering is key and we need both formats to cover all the bases. Nevertheless, it’s perfectly ok to prefer the sound of one over the other. |
Must hurt when a talented artist discovered through ’streaming’ only has a botched low quality pressing...( put the artist on ignore and sent the dude back to his 3 audiophile pressings on repeat).... There is a solution though for the medium agnostic, an amalgamation of the essence of digital & analog (credit to mark Levinson). One could make the digital studio master sound like master tape.....but, ohhh, the ritual of cleaning, washing & warp removal...the sheer joy of the ritual and the medium loyalty oath that stood in the way...mmhm |
I wouldn't trade my vinyl for digital for anything in the world I have both, and they both sound good, but vinyl does it for me, especially when listening to classical, jazz or blues. Pop? Digital. Recently produced? Digital. But if it was made in the '50s, '60s or '70s, I'll stick with vinyl. Digital, of course, has the 'numbers.' But this is music. |
Much popular music on streaming services and CD, etc. is marred by the choices made during mastering. This does not necessarily apply so much to vinyl releases, which often sound better as a consequence. This is sometimes given as the driving force for the vinyl revival. If you look on places such as the Steve Hoffman Forums, you’ll see a lot of attention given to finding the best versions of albums on each format. Some people go as far as to say that mastering trumps format. I am not totally convinced that this is the whole story, as I suspect there’s something about vinyl per se that we like. At the end of the day, if it sounds better, it is better. The other day, I heard some Michael Jackson tracks on the original vinyl for the first time. I was stunned to hear them as they are meant to sound. People were moved to get up and dance. In all these years, I never realised how good he was and how amazing the musicianship is on his records. I’d thought it was just pop music for kids. How wrong I was. |
@newton_john Thank you. That is a very elegant explanation for the differences people hear (if they do!) between music released on vinyl and digital. |
No, we don't 'dump' on digital. It's just that many of us read, write and play music and have for many decades, so we say that vinyl more completely produces the sounds of music, which it does. If you are listening to classical music, you could easily hear what digital doesn't do, as well as analog. Ambience, for one, is suggested by digital, but it rarely gets the entire ambience of a club or symphony hall correctly, although the better recordinss to a better job of it. (A friend of mine who has a music degree) suggested I listen to a Brucker recording that was done at the Concertgebouw, and that the ambience of the hall was even apparent on his system (I gave him that system, so I know its strengths and weaknesses), which didn't surprise me. But it's not as easily completely outlined in digital, and, before some less-than-mature posters suggest it could be my dac, I want to assure you: that's not it. The more I've thought about it, the more I'm convinced that most of the people who post snarky posts are completely unfamiliar with acoustic music. Anyone who's familiar with acoustic instruments knows what they sound like. But most of the posters post things like "if-the-vinyl-freaks-heard-good-digital-they'd-be-depressed." Well no, "we" wouldn't, since "we" already have an excellent digital setup. And I STILL say vinyl conveys the music more closely to what is sounds like in the symphony hall. Now, if what people listen to is pop, rock and all the other music that is filtered, manipulated and sounds that way, then that's their thing. That's why the majority of my music is 50s, 60s and 70s, although I have plenty of '80s and '90s music, due to also being a club DJ during those decades. So I can listen to two records, one made in say, 1975, and one made in 1985. The 1985 disc usually lacks bass (especially if it was pop. The 80s had the worst bass, especially Electra Records), the voices are doubled (or smeared) and the lead vocalist sounds like a real, live human being. There was more manipulation of records in the '80s than in the preceding 3 decades combined! So, if that is someone's diet, no wonder they don't hear differences in cables, in speaker systems. "Garbage in, garbage out" in music leads to the kind of 'diet' that will not bless you with any kind of hearing acuity. |
So, I observe most are streaming these days. Took many years to get streams up to sound quality of cd's played via my Mark Levinson transport with Phillips Pro mechanism or later on cd rips. Getting clocking correct is critical for providing 'flow' aka inherent sense of relaxation vinyl/analog excels with. Combine this with top notch streamer, dac, and digital can reproduce the complex harmonic structure, ambience and 'flow' of both mine and other very nice vinyl setups I've heard over decades. Recording quality of specific vinyl or digtal recordings is a far greater variable than digital vs. digital. Many others with nice vinyl setups reporting the same. |
@medium_grade Stated " but I am interested in getting reactions 😁" The OP has certainly been successful with achieving their interest. I can't side any longer, End Sound produced from a Digital Source or Analogue Source are totally satisfying. I use my Digital Source with the Standalone Dedicated DAC and my Vinyl Source with a option on Standalone Dedicated Phonostages and other ancillaries to woork with the Cartridge Type being used. I do have to consider Equipment required to receive signal and send it on for further Amplification, but that is the part of being interested in audio equipment and the End Sound able to be produced, this is an equal interest for each source, and will most likely be equally considered when Streaming as a Source is an added option. As for the needed Medium, I own Analogue Hard Medium for approx' 40 Years and still collect this medium as used Purchases and New Purchases from New Artists. The Initial Digital Medium is inherited approx' 10 Years past as a result of other Family Members having given up on using CD and have their music data on Phones. Purchased of New and Used CD's is continuous and multi hundreds are a collection at the present. CD Albums has proven to be much easier to acquire than Vinyl Albums, as a carrier bag full can be bought for a few pounds. After many years of A/B Comparisons of same Album Titles using various configurations of a audio system set up the experiences have led to one outcome. pl When listening to either Source, there is not a want to experience the other under the guise there is better to be attained, the musical encounter produced by either is more than enough to make a good impression. If I were invited to be informed on critical mechanical requirements of a CD Player or a Turntable > Tonearm > Cartridge, the Analogue learning will take precedence all the time and there lies the difference, the mechanical requirements of Analogue has it own Sub Category for being compelling to learn and be an interest.
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