Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"


Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

I am sharing this for those with an interest. I no longer have vinyl, but I find the issues involved in the debates to be interesting. This piece raises interesting issues and relates them to philosophy, which I know is not everyone's bag. So, you've been warned. I think the philosophical ideas here are pretty well explained -- this is not a journal article. I'm not advocating these ideas, and am not staked in the issues -- so I won't be debating things here. But it's fodder for anyone with an interest, I think. So, discuss away!

https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2019/11/25/spin-me-round-why-vinyl-is-better-than-digital/amp/?fbclid...
128x128hilde45
I think you know as I do mahgister how silly youtube videos are like this. The echo in the original track is intentional, it is part of the recording, though I believe there is a bit of evidence of additional room reflections where the microphone is.
There is other youtube files of this same song without this "echoing".... Perfectly listenable, contrary to some other youtube file of this same song, and of this youtube contest of 2 amplifier with an "echoing"...

For sure youtube file are not very good one, especially to judge amplifier or anything through your own audio system...

But some defect persist to any medium: harsh echoing, with unnatural timbre if they are there will be there for listening through retransmission to any good audio system... If i listen to it then hearing UNNATURAL sounds through my relatively "warm" and non fatiguing system then the fault cannot be my system....

Like i said my post dont want to be an attack toward a clearly very good and superior audio system than mine, but to his catastrophic acoustical embedding and probably a sensitive dac that would need like most, a careful mechanical and electrical embedding.... The possibility is also that the dac is not so good in the circonstance, i dont know what the dac is, but i suppose it is a very good one, then the room acoustic is the first culprit, and then the audio system all embeddings ....

I dont think that what explain this "echoing" and unnatural instrument timbre is the microphone location only....Acoustical treatment are very powerful and the lack of them in some room is cataclysmic soundwise...And you cannot save a bad room with mic location only.....I dont underestimate acoustic after 2 years experiments in my own room with a complete transformation of my modest system to a new higher rung on the scale S.Q. with NO comparison between BEFORE and AFTER...Most people which dont experience this first hand cannot believe it...Acoustician knows tough....

I know then first hand by my experiments that ALL audio system at ANY price could be transformed completely by rightful embeddings.... For me it is the reason why no reviews of audio product are nothing more than anecdotes....Objective measured reviews tough are only speaking for good or bad design and not of the sound quality for real ears then cannot be complete without listenings,,,, Only the statistical numbers of positive or/and negative comments or reviews are of any significance...

I wish you Happy New Year and the more health God can give to you....
@hilde45

I have both. I use a Lynx Hilo to digitize and to playback. It does 24/192kHz. I can say without a doubt that the analogue version of a recording sounds just a little bit better than the digital version, on my system. You may get different results.
I went digital in the late 80s with DAT. A convenient format but only good at the time for 16/48kHz. It sounded pretty good with well recorded material. Then, 20 years later I decided I wanted to hear my records again. I went back to my Denon DP60L and Grace F-9e, using the phono stage of my C-J PV6. Wow, just with that setup there was an improvement. (I was using a Sony 75ES CD player.) Now I've invested in more high end equipment and with the Hilo find it still easier to listen to vinyl. It just sounds better.
Then you have the naysayers who say that records are too noisey with pops and crackle. A good US cleaning with the proper bath water, a good rinsing and vacuum dry. I can't tell it's not live.

This is so far down the food chain it may never be read but..a man much wiser than I explained this phenomenon in this way. Think of a tape recorded piece of music as a loaf of bread. Digital conversion cut that loaf into many slices. Crumbs fall away and no matter how hard you try to reassemble that loaf of bread there will still be missing pieces. Vinyl uses the whole loaf (tape), it may be manipulated and colored and enhanced in many ways, but in the end the loaf is still complete, all the bytes are there to enjoy. 
Good metaphor indeed and a true one....

But the pieces that fall off are now microscopic one and no more too big, dac technology has known an evolution,...

Then what is the difference between 2 load of bread, one that have lost no pieces, and one that have lost one thousand microscopic pieces that amount if we  count them all to  only a little flake or 2 ? And the pieces that fall off fall in the right time window , not at all instant out of any window so to speak....It is no more perceptible or way less at worst...

For the eyes no difference, the two bread are golden and crispy, for the ears samething...

happy new year....




Understand me right tough, i dont negate that the human ears can listen the differences, but i know for sure counting all the other important factors, including the many different possible dac, and the many ways to embed an audio system , this difference is not what Turntable afficionado say it is like stick like a bear nose sticking to honey... With the right dac and the right embeddings there is a difference that is like some flake add to a delicious bread.... No more.... And a badly embed turntable will sound worst than a good and rigthly embedded dac anyway...
I must be blessed. I have tried cleaning records every which way and it never makes a spec of difference. 
What good is a loaf of bread when it is squished flat. Digital playback is potentially far more accurate in relaying an accurate waveform with far less distortion than any analog path. The important word here is potential.
Most frequently with popular music the dynamic compression is crippling. 
But, the naysayers here need to listen to an album remastered for digital in 24/96 or higher. Something like Led Zeppelin One or Leon Russel's blue album. 
Nothing is missing in a digital file. You do not jump from one way point to another when you make a trip. You drive from one way point to another.
A digital file is a bunch of way points that tell the DAC where to drive. The DAC is driving through the signal just like your stylus drives through a record. Any error is added as noise. Far less noise than any analog process can come even remotely close to. It is only a matter of how the music is presented.