Poll: Vinyl or CD?

[glen]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Eli
Nobody in their right mind would say that vinyl sounds better than a CD, unless perhaps they were being nostalgic.

ummm, its already accepted as fact.

It is not.
If anythign is fact, it is that you can roll off the lows and high of an album, compress it about 10 to 20db, and you get the same sound as vinyl.
But, you can't do any sort of trick to vinyl to make it sound like digital.

 

[NumbaJuan]

I like :wine: so I voted for CD

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Triumph
... The point, however, is that this music was recorded on analog equipment for analog equipment and not engineered for the digital medium. Many CD issues of classic rock were done downright incorrectly. I have tons of CD's that say AAD or ADD on them, very few of them say DDD. (which is more of a byproduct of when the music was recorded, of course) An AAD album is almost assuredly going to sound poor because it just plain wasn't mixed properly for CD.

Sorry, but that simply is not so. CD's were hyped as providing "perfect" reproduction.

AAD vs. DDD argument is just a bad excuse. An analog source is just one more signal source. Likewise, the human voice, violins, guitars, tambourines, jingling keys, drums, etc. are all analog signal sources in free space, and they remain so until the signal from the microphone capsule is converted to a digital signal. If the recording system can't reproduce that signal, IT SIMPLY FAILS the test of being a "perfect" reproducing system.

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Some compromises were made to create audio CDs that make it difficult to get nearly perfect sound. With that said, DVD-A should (and I say should because I've yet to hear a DVD-A) be almost perfect. CDs have the problem that in order to get good sound, you run into a problem when you want to do the D/A conversion. Technically, you can never get a perfect D/A conversion and as you get closer to the Nyquist rate it becomes increasingly difficult to do a good D/A conversion. Harvey is also correct that human hearing is logarithmic and that is one potential weakness of CDs. Finally, you should keep in mind that human hearing is not perfectly logarithmic and that humans are more sensitive at certain frequencies, namely humans can discern much more detail at frequencies at which we find human voices.

However, with the ultra-high sampling rate of DVD-A and its exceptional dynamic range, you should get sound that, electrically speaking is much cleaner and more accurate than either CD or vinyl. Keep in mind that people like to talk about the flaws in CDs but rarely talk about how vinyl also has limitations in areas such as dynamic range, caused mostly by the mechanical nature of the device.

With this said, I am not really an audiophile and mp3s at 192kbps sound very good to me 😉

this man speaks the truth.

 

[tarak]

vinyl sounds better. cds are much more convinent.

i just wish i had the cash flow to get a decent system for my vinyl. Anyone (spidey) have any recommendations for lower cost table/amp/speakers?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Eli
Nobody in their right mind would say that vinyl sounds better than a CD, unless perhaps they were being nostalgic.

ummm, its already accepted as fact.

Hooray for the first analogue purist asshole to enter the thread!

just stating the truth ma'am. nothing more, nothing less.

there are facts and there are opinions - it is a fact that vinyl as a recording media reproduces the original sound more accurately.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: glen

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Eli
Nobody in their right mind would say that vinyl sounds better than a CD, unless perhaps they were being nostalgic.

ummm, its already accepted as fact.

It is not.
If anythign is fact, it is that you can roll off the lows and high of an album, compress it about 10 to 20db, and you get the same sound as vinyl.
But, you can't do any sort of trick to vinyl to make it sound like digital.

thank god you can't make vinyl sound like a CD.

 

[BatmanNate]

I'd say it depends very heavily on the caliber of needle or the quality of the d/a chip respectively, and also what sort of amplifier is paired with the setup.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: tarak
vinyl sounds better. cds are much more convinent.

i just wish i had the cash flow to get a decent system for my vinyl. Anyone (spidey) have any recommendations for lower cost table/amp/speakers?

the music hall MMF5 is an awesome deal - great table and arm and comes with good cartridge. check used for 400 bucks. Its what I use mainly because I didn't want to spend much more on a table but it is considered a gem at that price point.

amp? Any good integrated will do as they generally have great phono stages you could pick up rotel/nad for 500 bucks.

speakers? well there are tons.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Vic
Vinyl IS the sound. CD is a digital replica. The beauty of CDs is that they are more durable, compact, convenient, and transportable, and close enough to the actual sound that most people can't tell the difference. But what CDs can't replace is what is known as "warmth" which, translated from the secret audiophile language, is the sound of actually being there.

= a medium that captures enough data to capture the imperfections

DVD audio/SACD are also getting to the point of being Imperfect...😉

Basically, air, echoes, room acounstics(dispersal, boucing, delay), whispering, coughing etc...all require space on the medium if they are to be presented again. The warmth is just part of the listening experience that isn't recorded because there isn't enough space on conventional CDs. Hopefully our new mediums and even better ones in the future will allow for this to a greater and greater extent.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: Triumph
... The point, however, is that this music was recorded on analog equipment for analog equipment and not engineered for the digital medium. Many CD issues of classic rock were done downright incorrectly. I have tons of CD's that say AAD or ADD on them, very few of them say DDD. (which is more of a byproduct of when the music was recorded, of course) An AAD album is almost assuredly going to sound poor because it just plain wasn't mixed properly for CD.

Sorry, but that simply is not so. CD's were hyped as providing "perfect" reproduction.

AAD vs. DDD argument is just a bad excuse. An analog source is just one more signal source. Likewise, the human voice, violins, guitars, tambourines, jingling keys, drums, etc. are all analog signal sources in free space, and they remain so until the signal from the microphone capsule is converted to a digital signal. If the recording system can't reproduce that signal, IT SIMPLY FAILS the test of being a "perfect" reproducing system.

What do you think sound engineers did up until about 1982? Leave all of the knobs on "0" and press "Record"?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Triumph
What do you think sound engineers did up until about 1982? Leave all of the knobs on "0" and press "Record"?

Umm... did you even read my main post on the topic? :roll:

Vinyl isn't perfect. It's just far more musical as it gets to its nonlinearities. In the hands of a skilled recordist, the final product is a far more musical representation of the source material, no matter how it was EQ'd, compressed, echoed, etc. The sound of the final product is what the mastering engineer makes it.

The original topic is NOT analog vs. digital; it's vinyl vs. CD's. Digital, as a concept, is now approaching acceptable musicality. Vinyl is a post mature technology that has plenty of flaws, but a well recorded vinyl disk is far more capable of perceived musicality than a CD.

The end result is the subjective enjoyment of the music. The underlying reasons why most people like vinyl better than CD's are primarily objective math and science. Please go back, and read my long post for some explations about why the softer, more sublte undertones of digital audio are far worse than a good analog signal, and don't try to tell us that CD's are superior to good analog recording without understanding the mechanisms involved.

Then, do some serious listening for yourself. It proves more than all the math and science, even though they reach the same conclusion. 🙂

 

[Triumph]

Well you failed to understand my point as well, so we'll just leave it at that.

 

[Triumph]

On a separate note, I just learned that Julian Hirsch passed away last November. He was a great evaluator of equipment, testing it in a more scientific manner and not succumbing to popular opinion or preconceived notions about how something should sound. Sad to hear he's passed. 🙁

 

[Goosemaster]

I just read that article on SACD vs DVD and I must say it was quite enlightening. I wasn't aware that SACD was so different than I had pictured it. I guess I just fed off of the advertising. I am still quite that SACD's I have heard have sounded better than the DVD-A's. However, until now, I did not know that it was probably due to sloppy recording, and not the perhaps-limited specifications of themedium.

 

[Flexicon]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
I will always prefer vinyl. I love my LP's and I'm not about to part with them. I like the "warmth" of vinyl's sound better. Digital's vastly superior signal to noise ratio and lower inherent fragility is great though.

Still, in theory analogue is superior if the signal to noise problem can get cleared up. A continuous function can represent more data than the discontinuous digital function. Problem is that analogue is so susceptable to noise that this is a moot point.

ZV

I couldn't agree more.

 

[losershot]

vinyl has atomic resolution

 

[Platypus]

analogue > digital

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: losershot
vinyl has atomic resolution

LOL

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: glen

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
a good vinyl recording is far superior in terms of sound quality. CD's have extremely limited dynamic range and their reproduction of high frequencies is very poor.

That is completely backwards.

for high frequencies, why do you think the high-end digital technologies sound more like vinyl than CD's do? if the the more accurate the digital signal gets, the more it sounds like analog, that tells you something right there.

TechnoKid's links are good if you still have your head in the sand regarding the dynamic range issue. This quote sums it up pretty well.

By contrast, I recently received an e-mail of complaint from a reader who had bought Stereophile's Rendezvous CD. "Your CD has no dynamic range," he wrote. "It sounds quiet." I sighed when I read this. One of the great audio confusions is that of "loudness" with "dynamic range." The reason you have to turn up your volume to play Rendezvous is because it has enormous dynamic range (footnote 2). Its average levels are around 20dB below its peaks. But this low average level means that it sounds "quiet" compared, for example, with the Santana CD, which has very little dynamic range.

when you say "compress it about 10 db to 20 db" you are proving my point! what do you think compression is? REDUCTION OF DYNAMIC RANGE.

when you have been involved in the process of recording pro-level audio on everything ranging from digital and analog setups that are dirt cheap to digital and analog systems worth over $1 million dollars (not counting microphones or physical spaces, but just the consoles and tape machines/computers), i might listen to something you have to say. but if you don't even understand what the phrase "dynamic range" means, you're way out of your league here. if CD's are good enough for you, great (ignorance is bliss). but don't spread misinformation to the other poor fools.

 

[TechnoKid]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain

Originally posted by: glen

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
a good vinyl recording is far superior in terms of sound quality. CD's have extremely limited dynamic range and their reproduction of high frequencies is very poor.

That is completely backwards.

for high frequencies, why do you think the high-end digital technologies sound more like vinyl than CD's do? if the the more accurate the digital signal gets, the more it sounds like analog, that tells you something right there.

TechnoKid's links are good if you still have your head in the sand regarding the dynamic range issue. This quote sums it up pretty well.

By contrast, I recently received an e-mail of complaint from a reader who had bought Stereophile's Rendezvous CD. "Your CD has no dynamic range," he wrote. "It sounds quiet." I sighed when I read this. One of the great audio confusions is that of "loudness" with "dynamic range." The reason you have to turn up your volume to play Rendezvous is because it has enormous dynamic range (footnote 2). Its average levels are around 20dB below its peaks. But this low average level means that it sounds "quiet" compared, for example, with the Santana CD, which has very little dynamic range.

when you say "compress it about 10 db to 20 db" you are proving my point! what do you think compression is? REDUCTION OF DYNAMIC RANGE.

when you have been involved in the process of recording pro-level audio on everything ranging from digital and analog setups that are dirt cheap to digital and analog systems worth over $1 million dollars (not counting microphones or physical spaces, but just the consoles and tape machines/computers), i might listen to something you have to say. but if you don't even understand what the phrase "dynamic range" means, you're way out of your league here. if CD's are good enough for you, great (ignorance is bliss). but don't spread misinformation to the other poor fools.

some of the better CDs I have are really old classical music discs from London. A lot of CDs nowadays that I listen too are too loud= little to no dynamic range.

If you want a reeeally good example of dynamic range that vinyl can offer, buy the 1812 overture by Tchaickovsky. My father has it on vinyl from Telarc digital. Man, this sounds really good!

Also if you have it, just to compare vinyl to cd, the star wars opening theme. I can totally tell the differnce between the vinyl version and the CD version.

 

[glen]

A redbook CD has a dynamic range of 96dB.
An album, at 33 rpm, at the outer edge of the record has a dynamic range of about 75bd.

96dB > 75 db.
A CD has more dynamic range than Vinyl.
Let me know if I am missing something, I find all of this fascinating, but I rarely find any facts in these sort of discussion.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: glen
A redbook CD has a dynamic range of 96dB.
An album, at 33 rpm, at the outer edge of the record has a dynamic range of about 75bd.

96dB > 75 db.
A CD has more dynamic range than Vinyl.
Let me know if I am missing something, I find all of this fascinating, but I rarely find any facts in these sort of discussion.

The gnereal consensus is that the medium is many times irrelevant. Although CD offers a greater dynamic range at the indirect cost of detail, the effort put forth to produce them is not as consistenly substancial as with vinyl. THe demographic purchasing high-quality vinyl expects the best and they usually get it with $$$.

With SACD and DVD-A however, it seems that there is a middle ground whereby detail the likes of vinyl, and dynamic range the likes of nothing out there, will be available on a potentially universally-available medium. Just as always, the amount of effort put in will still yeild varying results, but the potential with these mediums, from the specs. is quite comparable with a vinyl listening experience should the producers put in that much effort.

Appearantly it is just the easel thas has been upgraded.

BTW, I must say i learned a LOT in this thread.

One question though: I have heard positive if no acclamatic reviews of Telarc and remember hearing some about redbook. I have some Telarc and even was even impressed via an mp3 because of the gorgeous recording. (I have prolly heard a redbook many times but forget which albumn it was)

I have always been a fan of RCA Victor and Deutsche grammophon and EMI has had some good CD's but I would be interested in opinions as to some LABELs that I should check out.

Thanks