Got me a record player!

I personally have never heard a vinyl setup that was close, for my liking, to even moderate (eg my DAC64) CD setups but then I've heard very few decent vinyl setups.

Still, of all the people I know (and here in the forum) who have done unbiased and valid comparisons, nearly all have said that in the end the sonic differences were not a question of bettter/worse, just personal preference. CD certainly does some things (eg detail) better than vinyl.

Michael.

 

Well, Tony, how can things be different? Your CDP is just a variation on a theme, most decent CDPs sound pretty darn similar to each other, the best ones are those with an accurate clock.

However wonderful your player is, you are still stuck with a low sampling rate.

 

Detail is where vinyl hammers CD.

 

So low in fact that it merely captures the full audible frequency range of the human ear

Vinyl is not better, neither is CD. They're just different.

Michael.

 

Whether it captures the full audible frequency range of the human ear is debatable. What is not debatable is the loss of information & sound quality that the 44.1 kHz sampling rate dictates.

Your different is my better!

 

Ok James, Most decent cdp's Don't sound same Ifeel (or at least the one's we tried and tested, DCS is Not Wadia, Wadia is not Gryphon, BOW Tech is not Naim. Naim is not Electrocompaniet, EC is Krell or M/L or Accuphase, they all have the own twist on the sound, weather 16 bits and 44.1 or 192 and 24 bits, just pick the one you like.
You are right I'm stuck at 48hhz, and 24 bits, however I do have the choice of one or dac's, and I prefer for the music I like the lower rates, I can as Merlin and Henry do adjust my sample and resolution rates to suit what I'm listening too.
I'm not going in to the TT are worse or cdp's are better, because its all personal, and if you been listen in Vinyl for years then I feel nothing will change your record collection
But because you have not heard a cdp yet, that gives the buzz, doesn't mean they aren't any about that's all. Tone
Just a point here, I feel that the 24 bits, produces a 'better uplift' than say 192khz, maybe not as open and wide, but a darn cite more dynamic and musical

 

Yikes! What a breath of fresh air Merlin!!! As someone who was raised on digital but has recently being turned on to the delights of vinyl, I now understand where all those vinyl die-hards are coming from but I see no reason to abandon red-book CDs as I enjoy them immensely. Man!, I'm even considering a tonearm upgrade. Having spent the last few months listening to a couple of SACD players, I can say that the potential is there in the SACD format to trample all over red-book but what SACD has also done for me is to really appreciate my vinyl set-up and congratulate myself for buying a TT as some of the traits I heard in SACD I also hear in vinyl although the SACD format does not present the full picture yet. I hope the format takes off and that more DSD derived recordings are issued not just PCM to DSD transfers. Btw, I agree, red-book CDs regardless of the player on which they are played would not sound as natural as analogue recordings played on a half decent turntable.

Hey Sideshowbob,

So what you are saying here is "there is only so much juice that one can squeeze from a lemon", right?



Enjoy the music!!

Lawrie

 

Tony, I agree that they don't sound identical, but more similar to one another than different.

I'm reasonably happy with the Naim player. The reason it's a good player comes down to the extremely accurate clock (I think!).

I don't see how increasing the sampling rate in the player can get more music out of a 44.1 recording, but there you go.

 

Tony, I am full of admiration for what you have acheived with the "humble" CD medium, I hope you know that. What I am talking about is a certain quality that you do not realise is missing until you hear it via another medium (be that vinyl, DVDA, SACD or whatever). If one of the forum members like say Chris identifies that quality, then they simply ain't gonna get it with CD no matter what. If however, you do not notice this high frequency refinement, and are more aware of background noise and tubby bass, then you will be convinced that CD is great. That's why the debate exists I feel, but I can now understand why people who are into vinyl find all CD to be poor (yes even yours and mine ).

Sorry Michael, but I have to agree with Devil again here, if you listen to the music rather than the hifi, the increased resolution and hence detail of the TT is unquestionable. Hi Rez digital formats however will be a different matter I suspect.

Tony, I don't know your source, but the industry has been recording in 24bit/96khz since the early nineties I believe. Indeed, the newer technology is a minimum of 24/192. DSD has been used to archive Sony masters for over 10 years, hell even the processing in my TacT is 48bit 384khz

Let's not have this descend into a one is better than the other rant, please. My only comment would be that :

When analogue is good, it's very very good.

When it's bad, it's a frickin pain in the ass

 

As someone who never gave up vinyl (started collecting in the early '70s), I totally agree. I think it's remarkable (and rather pleasing) that a relatively primitive medium going back to Edison and Berliner at the start of the last century can hold its head up so well against modern technology. However, I've never heard it to be better than CD. I'd love to, if only to understand what all the vinyl enthusiasts are so wild about, but I can't. (Don't laugh - you'll all be old one day too...).

 

You are all familiar with the placebo effect... Well, I am convinced it plays a major role with TTs, some want it to sound better, after all it is a lot more tweaky and exclusive then mere CDs, so they do their best to "justify" it, even "transforming" its defects in qualities...

I have heard very expensive setups, and people kept trowing sand into my "ears", saying, can't you hear, it has more detail and more bass, where all I could hear was more boom and surface noise, wich, of course, the CD din't have... :JPS:

 

james,
44.1 khz or 44,100 samples per second is quite fast enough to capture any musical detail hearable by the human ear. the big advantage of higher sample rates is the fact that the digital filtering that (to simplify) recovers the music from the bitstream or wordstream can be done at a higher rate. this pushes ringing well out of the audio band at 88 khz or above. this advantage can be carried over to some extent by up / over sampling 44.1 data.
the reason that 96 or 192 khz is chosen when as tone points out 88.1 or 176.4 would make much more sense is down to the proliferation of chips running at these speeds thanks to the a/v explosion and the low cost of said chips thanks to the economis of scale.
i would suggest that your hearing extra information is either placebo or more likely the player in question having a badly ringing digital filter which is obsuring the detail you are hearing at 96 / 192.

as to the mastering rates i always thought they used 48khz and dat before moving to hard disk at the same rate.

i'm with michael on this one. i've heard some very impressive vinyl and cd systems and all had strengths and weaknesses.
cheers


julian

 

This is simply not true. The deterioration in sound quality between 96 kHz and 44.1 kHz is grimly obvious. If it were true, then why do the new formats have/need higher sampling rates than 44.1 kHz?

Playback was via computer & mixing desk into my preamp. Several people were present. We all just looked at each other.

"So that's why CD is crap!"

 

Come on James - you're a doctor and should know better. How many patients have you examined that can hear frequencies higher than 22Khz?

And sample rates of 96 and or 192Khz would be completely absurd if it wasn't for the reasons (digital filtering issues) that Jules pointed out. You may be recording the bats 80Khz bleating amongst the beams of the studio but no-one will ever know

Michael.

 

Hi there, well I'm not an audiologist, so I don't know how many people can hear frequencies that high. Personally, I can hear bats squeaking, but that isn't really relevant.

Higher frequency sounds than we can hear are relevant because they may modulate those frequencies lower down that we can hear.

In any event, after this weekend's demonstration of a live acoustic recording in my living room (two guitars, two vocals), I'm convinced that I know why I prefer live music to recorded, and good vinyl to CD.

It is the sampling rate, honest! I am not making this up.

You have to ask yourself: 'What's in the gaps between the samples?'

The answer is: 'A lot'.

 

Very interesting thread for this vinyl junkie

Last week my younger sister stopped by my place. I played an old LP of Rampal for her, and she was quite surprised by how realistic the sound was. I then played a flute sonata CD, and she said the music does not have as much "life" in it.

Admittedly, my analog front costs more than twice the digital front. In my system both fronts have very similar tonality and overall musical character, but the turntable kills the CDP when it comes to resolution, naturalness, refinement and life, just as merlin has observed. I can enjoy the music coming from a CDP, but it doesn't give me the realism of a well-sorted table.

I'd like to point out to merlin that background noise and tubby bass are not the inherent character of LP. OK it won't be as quiet as CD but in my place most of my LP are in decent (not perfect) condition and the noise level is low enough so that it doesn't matter for enjoying music. BTW I'm not one of those people who think that the background noise "enhances" the listening experience, the noise bothers me when it gets my attention. My guess is that the tubby bass in merlin's case has something to do with the choice of cartridge.

Joongul

 

Having high frequency hearing loss myself and having to get check ups every year I believe the normal hearing range is about 15hz-20,000hz. Some people can hear 22Khz at normal speach level, I can only hear upto 16khz at normal speach level, but because music is amplified I can hear most the high frequencies when listening to music it just means I have to have it on louder than average to hear them, quite music (anything below 9:00 o'clock) sounds lifeless and flat to me.

 

The answer is actually "nothing that the human ear can hear". However a DAC converts discreet samples into an analogue waveform, whether they smoothly interpolate "join the dots" or if they were to stick some random ultra high frequency white noise in there it would sound no different to us as we simply cannot resolve those frequencies which are necessarily higher than 22Khz.

I don't buy the "modulation" argument either. If those lower freq. sounds were being modulated at the time of recording then the effect of that modulation on them would have been recorded and hence would be reproduced anyway.

There is no clear evidence of how ultrasonics affect human sound perception or even if they do affect it at all.

Michael.

 

Michael, I think you are perhaps missing the point that I am trying to make. This is NOT about reproducing inaudible supersonic frequencies.

If you ever get the chance, please listen to an original studio recording at x-kHz (where x >> 44.1).

Then listen to the same recording mastered down to 44.1 kHz or CD quality.

Then you will know exactly what I'm talking about. Information which is easily audible in the original is missing from the CD master.

 

If I ever have the chance I'll certainly try your experiment. However, inaudible supersonic frequencies is all that can possibly exist "between the samples" or, to put it another way, all that could be "lost" in a 44.1Khz recording. Anything else would necessarily be at frequencies lower than 22Khz and therefore captured in a separate sample.

If there is an audible difference between 96Khz recordings and 44.1Khz ones then it is due to some effect that I (and I suspect no one else either) knows about.

Michael.