CD v Vinyl - My preference.

[Andrew L Weekes]

i read somewhere that the digital harshness attributed to early cds was down to lazy engineers using pre riaa equalised tracks as the master recordings. for vinyl this is ok as the phono stage contains the stuff to de-riaa the recording however cd's do not so you end up with bright upper frequencies and no bass - exactly the symptoms of early digital.

This must be myth - the effect of RIAA is massive and would be totally unlistenable by anyone's standards.

The early digital sound had far more, in my view, to do with the truly huge distortion figures, under music conditions, of early CD player / DAC implementations. Many of those early players actually give me a physical headache.

Most early DAC implementations were highly non-linear at low level, producign more distortion than original signal. The distortion spectra extended right across the audio band, which is a classic state for audibility.

It's the same effect as a cartridge mistracking; the distortion level of a vinyl system can easily be as high as 1% under normal playback, but the spectra are low-order and not very audible.

When mistracking the % changes by surprisingly little, yet the spectra extend to a very high order and it sounds terrible.

Andy.

 

[GrahamN]

Originally posted by Lodger
I have had another damn good read of the info found on the link in my previous post regards digital vs analogue - it does make very interesting reading - has any one in this forum encountered the Nyquist Theory? Its pretty damning.....

The discussion of sampling theory in that link is just such utter bollocks, and shows such complete ignorance of what it's saying, that it has to cast doubt on everything else it talks about. About on a par with mysetrious energies and pretty coloured crystals if you ask me!

One thing though that is often missed when discussing Nyquist and Fourier theory in general is that it is formulated in terms of sampling a repetitive signal. Given that music is not (at least if we exclude gabba and happy hard-core etc ) there are some minor issues about starting and stopping sampling.

The example about sampling at exactly half the signal frequency is also very misleading. If sampling at 44.1kHz you can distinguish signals from zero up to but not including 22.05kHz. The sampling frequency chosen does give a 2kHz band to shut down signals above the nominal 20kHz upper limit. The principal error (if it is one) in hindsight with the CD spec was that this is a bit narrow for a decent filter to avoid phase distortions lower down the spectrum. This is normally given as a reason for DAT (24kHz threshold frequency, so the filter can roll off half as fast) sounding a bit better (if it does).

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by GrahamN
The discussion of sampling theory in that link is just such utter bollocks, and shows such complete ignorance of what it's saying, that it has to cast doubt on everything else it talks about. About on a par with mysetrious energies and pretty coloured crystals if you ask me!

One thing though that is often missed when discussing Nyquist and Fourier theory in general is that it is formulated in terms of sampling a repetitive signal. Given that music is not (at least if we exclude gabba and happy hard-core etc ) there are some minor issues about starting and stopping sampling.

The example about sampling at exactly half the signal frequency is also very misleading. If sampling at 44.1kHz you can distinguish signals from zero up to but not including 22.05kHz. The sampling frequency chosen does give a 2kHz band to shut down signals above the nominal 20kHz upper limit. The principal error (if it is one) in hindsight with the CD spec was that this is a bit narrow for a decent filter to avoid phase distortions lower down the spectrum. This is normally given as a reason for DAT (24kHz threshold frequency, so the filter can roll off half as fast) sounding a bit better (if it does).

+1

That article is utter Bollox and shows a complete failure to understand the amths or even to have properly read what Nyquist said. Read some other stuff by these guys and you will find they have a vested interest - commercial and career - in debunking digital technology.

 

[PeteH]

Hahahahahaha :ffrc: Ah, that's great. My particular favourite is this:

People no longer know what music should sound like. They are hearing substantially less than the content of the great recorded performances.... In fact, the confusion at present is so total, and wrong, inaccurate sound-reproduction is so universally prevalent, that it is almost too late. That the gross flaws of digital are not immediately apparent, even to professionals, is a major symptom of this general malaise.

Riiiiiiight So, digital is completely useless at anything, ever, and can't provide anything approximating to acceptable sound quality, but this isn't readily apparent, "even to professionals". Absolutely priceless, that's made my day

Edit: I've just been reading some of the other stuff these people have on their website. Have a look at this to find out why you've been wasting your time with stereo all these years And their article on cables is marvellous too. They don't reckon it's worth buying posh cables for anything that's had a whiff of digital though, because it's a lost cause anyway...

 

[domfjbrown]

Originally posted by tones
I started CD early, Julian, and I have some very early examples. I confess that I've never heard this alleged harshness. Indeed, one of my early examples (in more ways than one), "Music of the Gothic Era", from David Munrow and the Early Music Consort, is one of the most vivid recordings I own

Tones - I have a 1983 pressing of David Bowie's "Hunky Dory", that's so old there's no matrix on the CD, there's only 1 CD-DA logo on the case tray, and the disc is VERY heavy phsyically. It sounds rather excellent...

I also have a 1984 pressing of "Human's Lib" by Howard Jones that you could use as a Brillo pad...

Some early CD discs aren't bad at all, but many of the early players were shockingly bad. Mind you, that Technics SLP2 I have (which worked last time I tried it) sounds fairly decent - not bad going for a 1985 player....

I still prefer vinyl though, but analog laserdisc audio... hmm, that can be pretty cool

 

[lovegroova]

Originally posted by The Devil

He chose 'Hotel California' from 'Hell Freezes Over' for the demo...he specifically liked the 'awesome tom-tom drum' sound from this track, which I had never heard before. He lent me the record, and delivered the briks to my place the next day.

We played the track on my deck. The look on his and his mate's face when he realised that it is quite obviously a bass drum, not a tom-tom, was something else.

It's actually a conga drum (or at least it is on the DVD), there is no drumkit at all in Hotel California...

 

[johnhunt]

by and large I prefer vinyl.

 

[Lt Cdr Data]

There is indeed a fascinating parallel, by and large the hifi fraternity are a traditional lot, and the makers being capitalists, not in a bad sense of the word, just bring out new things all the time.

But having read a bit about amplifiers, transistors were invented in about 1950, I dunno much about what happened in amps in the 50s, and 60s, but disquiet was happening in the late 60s and early 70s, as the motivations were size, weight, power consumption, ease of manufacture, reliability, in all these, transistrors were king, and the makers pushed them hard.
Yet the valve people hated the sound, they found it harsh, tiring, listener fatigue set in, and to this day, the valve is still revered, and is incomparable by and large.

So it seems with cd, started in what 1980 ish, early ones bad, got a lot better, now pretty good, and technology is almost fully understood, yet, the old school still prefer vinyl.

What is more interesting is I was playing cd on a transistor amp. and actually quite enjoyed it, sometimes all this audiophile stuff gets in the way of simply enjoying the music. Who says you can't enjoy music with cd and transistors? many do.

Logically, does it follow that if you hear the minutest details of the performance, you enjoy it more than just an exceptionally detailed one? ie say £200 cd vs £2k cd? I am not so sure...

In a way its like saying you can't enjoy a day out to the country if you go in an old skoda or a new roller.


Cd is more durable, and i like the convenience, and size. I don't think I would want a kind of star trek type of thing where you say 'computer find me XXXX piece of music' like a kind of hard drive thing, I think somehow it takes the magic out and music becomes something on tap, rather than something to appreciate.

Ones hearing is about 17khz max, I tired with a signal generator, in a school lab and it falls off with age, some people couldn't hear above 12 khz, 40/50s something men.

I don't understand digital so I won't try to get embroiled, but I think there are a number of issues at work, sampling freq only one of them.

Bub, one would've thought, logically, that a linn would go out of tune, it is a mechanical object, and surely those sound waves thro the air would vibrate springs and stuff, losening setting and all mana of things

 

[jimmymcfarrell]

There is no drumkit at all in Hotel California???


Erm...what was Don Henley doing on stage when Hotel California was on Top Of the Pops in the 70s then?

 

[leonard smalls]

Originally posted by Lt Cdr Data
In a way its like saying you can't enjoy a day out to the country if you go in an old skoda or a new roller.

Nowt like the handling of an old Skoda Estelle!
Had a similar weight balance to the original Porsche 911 without the power.. Proper tail-happy fun!
And folks like Stig Blomquist won F2 rally in them for years..

 

[titian]

A few years ago I nearly only heard LPs because IMO at my place they were sounding much better than CDs.
After getting my actual CD-player things started to change:
At the beginning I still didn't hear so many CDs but after continous tuning of my system, which mostly affected the Digital part, I started to hear more and more CDs.
This weekend also when playing around with resonances and 'Ringing'.
When listening to CDs you get used to them and you get convinced they are better but strange enough each time I switched back to vinyl (ready to criticize it most possible), I find the LPs still better in sound (details, dynamics and timbre).
More you hear CDs, more you get nervous when hearing the background noise and dirth on the LPs. I hear mostly classical music and I get the feeling that we are all getting used to digital which for me is not 'natural' at all. I also have the feeling that what most people mean by dynamics (the difference between the softiest and loudest passage) is manipulated in digital recordings to give a 'special' physical effect especially when listening at an average room level. For me dynamics include also the possibility of imaging a large soundstage and to be able to change the intensity of the sound very subtly in every point of the soundstage independently. This is at the moment IMO where the CDs fail miserably.
When it is for making great effects that impresses us then the digital engineers have us under total control. We get used to it and expect it to happen also in live concerts. And when we don't have it then we start sitting nearer and nearer to the orchestra until not even the first row is good enough.
It is getting like a drug.
Also what weget impressed about is that very pure sound (each frequency), so pure that you won't find it except for on the CD. In other words I believe we are going into a musical era where everything is clinical sterilized.

 

[merlin]

This is a subject I have been thinking about for some time now, as many will know. For me, there is something not quite convincing about CD replay regardless of the playback equipment, although trying to explain what I mean to people happy with CD is complicated.

It comes down to resolution to me, and what we mean by that term.Recently I have had the pleasure of listening to SACD, DVDA, CD and vinyl at home and have formed some opinions on the strengths/weaknesses of all of them.

Firstly, many people confuse resolution with detail. To use a photographic analogy, if we look at a photo taken of say fifty objects together with two differing technologies, the chances are that both will enable us to see all of the picture. That to me is detail. Now what we have is a photo of some objects. To make that picture convincing, to make it appear that we are looking through a window requires superior resolution. It is here that the difference exists. On the face of it we have two identical photos. But one convinces, the other doesn't.

I think it's the same with audio, but I don't think there is one outright winner in the real world. For me, the most detailed formats that exist (after going through the playback chain) are PCM based. Across the audible frequency response, they offer uniform detail retrieval and resolution. Unfortunately, in CD's case, I believe the sampling frequency and bit depth are simply too low, and we get insufficient resolution, although the detail is all there.

DVDA seems to solve this issue. Even 24bit/48khz is very convincing, doing a very good impression of (but not quite mimicking) master tape to these ears. The increased bit depth seems to lower the noise floor sufficiently to give true resolution. This manifests in the way one can hear such information as the recording studio's acoustic or the recording booth on vocals. There is very little extra detail when compared to CD, after all, 16bit should be able to recreate any sounds that are recorded in the audible spectrum. It's just that the increased resolution has the affect of making the same sounds more convinvcing.

Now I happen to feel that the resolution of analogue is even better, but, and it's a big but, the playback equipment (turntable) and the platform (vinyl) make it very difficult to realise this at home. What we get is glimpses of it, particularly across the midrange. Due to the mechanical nature of the playback system, it seems that the resolution and detail peaks in the midrange, and tails off at the frequency extremes. Vinyl bass is fun, but I personally think that PCM has it beat here in terms of detail, although Cd's resolution still is not enough to make things totally convincing. It is however very well differentiated and more detailed at the frequency extremes if lacking resolution across the board.

DVDA is truly excellent in the bass department, offering both resolution and detail superior to vinyl. If however you are used to vinyl playback rather than mastertape, as most of us are, then you may still prefer the vinyl presentation. Now for me, SACD offers the bass resolution of mastertape and DVDA, but it appears that overall resolution tapers off as the frequency increases. In this way, it kind of mimics vinyl to these ears. Put another way, I feel it offers better resolution than any PCM up to a certain point, but it is uneven like vinyl, which gives it a quality that appeals to vinyl lovers. At the end of the day, I'm not saying one stinks and one is head and shoulders above the rest. The differences are subtle to many but very real to others. For a bit of fun, I thought I'd rate these in an attempt to understand the differences soââ'¬Â¦

Bass Detail

1. DVDA
2. SACD
3. CD
4. Vinyl
Bass Resolution

1. DVDA
2. SACD
3. Vinyl
4. CD

Midrange detail

1. SACD
2. DVDA
3. CD
3= Vinyl

Midrange Resolution

1. SACD
2. Vinyl
3. DVDA
4. CD

Treble Detail

1. DVDA
2. CD
3. SACD
4. Vinyl

Treble Resolution

1. DVDA
2. SACD
3. Vinyl
4. CD

So that leaves the following ranking

1. DVDA 9 points
2. SACD 11 points
3. Vinyl 19 points
4. CD 20 points.

All of which of course means nothing but it indicates my personal feelings. I am of course not taking into account hardware differences and most important of all, recording/pressing quality and form. Still, the differences between vinyl and CD are for me very real, but overall it is close. So it comes down to taste. I am surprised that the new formats come out so far in front, but technically speaking, they both are well ahead in many important areas. If a £500 player can rival and beat £6K's worth of CD player or turntable in some respects, clearly the formats are doing something right. Now all they have to do is release some more music!!

 

[Robbo]

So that leaves the following ranking

1. DVDA 9 points
2. SACD 11 points
3. Vinyl 19 points
4. CD 20 points.

Merlin,

With all these points scores, you are starting to sound like Martin Colloms. Fancy a career change?

 

[Lt Cdr Data]

the difference is I find colloms writing boring as hell:SLEEP:

Merlins is entertaining.

 

[lovegroova]

Originally posted by jimmymcfarrell
There is no drumkit at all in Hotel California???


Erm...what was Don Henley doing on stage when Hotel California was on Top Of the Pops in the 70s then?

Well, on the 1994 Hell Freezes Over version, which was what was being discussed - rather than the 70s original which of course does have a drumkit on it, Don Henley is singing and playing maracas.

Please read the thread more carefully.

 

[merlin]

Originally posted by Robbo
Merlin,

With all these points scores, you are starting to sound like Martin Colloms. Fancy a career change?

I just thought it might help to explain what I perceive to be the differences, rather than the usual argument that one is better than the other. I'd be interested to hear others experiences.

Oh and Bub,

Love groova is right I'm afraid It's not a bass drum, it's a large bongo. If your setup is telling you otherwise, then I believe you may be hearing the Mana effect

 

[lovegroova]

Originally posted by merlin


Oh and Bub,

Love groova is right I'm afraid It's not a bass drum, it's a large bongo. If your setup is telling you otherwise, then I believe you may be hearing the Mana effect

Sorry about being right

Oh, and merlin, it's a conga, not a bongo (percussionist speaking here :drum:

Oh, and merlin, it's lovegroova - one word

Of course, it doesn't answer the question of whether I would have known the difference had I not had the DVD picture to tell me. Hmmmm...

 

[merlin]

Originally posted by lovegroova
Of course, it doesn't answer the question of whether I would have known the difference had I not had the DVD picture to tell me. Hmmmm...

I'm sure you would LG. Any system with satisfactory resolution and low colouration should be able to distinguish between the two sounds. They are quite different in their percussive characteristcs afterall.

 

[wadia-miester]

Somebody mention whack

 

[merlin]

Yep, come on Tone.

you used to play the drums (in a Jim Henson kinda way I suspect)

Do you reckon you can tell the difference between the sound a Conga makes and a big bass drum? even on CD with all it's limitations? Blindfolded with a bottle of Claret in your left hand?