The Vinyl nail in CD's coffin?

In a few years time (or for some of us it already is) that will be the whole thing between CD and FLAC etc via machines similar to the squeezebox. No green pens, no vibrations, etc.

 

Tones, I tend not to get involved in the CD v LP quality debate as personally I think of it more as a lifestyle choice.

That said I strongly suspect that audiophiles listen to things differently than musicians do. I also suspect that trained classical musicians (and professional critics andlong term fans of orchestral music too perhaps) are probably a lot more sensitive to pitch stability issues than most of us. The odd tick or pop is probably more distracting as well. Two reasons why CD might be considered superior to LP for orchestral music. The latter of more relevance to Joe Public living on a diet of rock and pop where pitch instability isn't so much of an issue (from my experience on a half decent deck is always caused by an off centre spindle hole and will vary from pressing to pressing)

Its probably a generalisation (but its based on talking to customers), but people who are seriously into orchestral music tend to use the sort of equipment that is going to treat more kindly the less positive aspects of CD - their fatiguing nature mostly - what is disparagingly and possibly unfairly termed pipe and slippers - Quad ESLs, BBC type monitors et al rather than whizz bang gear. I get the impression that they aren't as easily impressed by whizz bang audiophile stunt sounds than your typical audiophile might be.

It may also be that classical CD got treated with more care than rock and pop CD.

On the other hand their are a lot of albums (and I'm not a big orchestral music fan myself, apart from the odd bit of Beethoven) I have which are definitely superior sounding in their vinyl version. There are some I have on both formats which are virtually indistinguishable (unless you hear a tick, which is the only clue). There are some where CD is better. I still prefer records though for all kinds of reasons not to do with how they sound ... which can be superb. So far though, all things considered I think at its very best LP has CD beat. If I were a classical fan, my views may be different, but Marvin Gaye on CD, just ain't right

On the last point though I think you are wrong. Certainly the majority of my customers (by some large margin) are not audiophiles and are not tweakers. The tweakery may be why some audiophiles say they prefer vinyl, but the majority of people who listen to records do so because they like records, not because it gives them opportunity to tweak. Besides there are enough other areas for tweakery to keep wholly digital audiophiles happy aren't there?

 

Hello, Uncle. I had a reasonably comprehensive response typed out, but then I fumbled and lost the lot and I haven't the heart (or the patience) to do it all again, so some quick responses to your interesting post.

I think that's right. Musicians and music lovers listen to the soul of the music, whereas I suspect most audiophiles listen to the technical reproduction thereof and both soul and music pass them by completely. Remember Flanders and Swann?

But I never did care for music much!
It's the hi-fi-del-it-tee!

Still as true today. (Of course, given the utter hogwash to which most people listen, the technical reproduction is probably all that there is).

John Atkinson, Humbug-in-Chief of "Stereovile", once said that Quad made equipment for music lovers rather than audiophiles. I think that says it all.

I think the "fatiguing" business of CD is rot - but then, I am a pipe-and-slippers type, with both Quad ESL57s and Rogers LS3/5as!

Thus it always was. Classical engineers seek to reproduce the sounds as they'd be heard in a concert hall, and of course the listeners tend to be more discriminating with regard to "whizz bang" as you call it.

In the time since I got my first CD player (1985), I have yet to hear this.

The normal situation chez Tones.

On that we shall agree to disagree.

They may not be tweakers or audiophiles, but I suspect that the wonderful, antediluvian ritual of record playing gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling, which then commutes itself positively to the listening experience itself. They have also probably heard the "vinyl is always superior" con, and possibly also the "vinyl has all the music and CD only bits of it" con. Let's face it, vinyl is now such a minority thing that the vast majority of ordinary folk ignore it completely. So, something special is drawing customers to you. For your sake, I'm glad 'tis so, and may it continue to be so.

 

Seems to me that cost is a factor too....in that you have to spend a few thousand quid to get a turntable that will sound comparable to a decent CD player which can be had for a few hundred

 

Other way around isn't it?

 

my TT was more than my CDP and my CDP has alot better sound quality.

people moan about cds being compressed , vinyl is alot worse

 

well my vinyl rigwas less than my cd and it can sound much better, decca vinyl vs same decca cd. the vinyl eats the cd for lunch.

cd has no surface noise and better pitch stability, but theres something hiding in the HF range, that isn't there with vinyl.

vinyl sounds more natural, organic, cd often has a touch of 'synthesiser' about it,

but each to their own

 

Swings and roundabouts.

I'm happy with either and enjoy both. As long as I have a physical product that I can pick up and look at as well as listen to it's all good. It's the downloaded music thing that I don't have an interest in; it's just not the same scanning through your selection on your pc or squeezebox or whatever, I like to pull a record or cd out of the rack and contemplate it before I put it on. I need to be able to pick it up before I can really feel that I own it .

 

Hear hear!

BTW, My TT (Planar3/RB300/Denon DL110/Flutterbuster/Cambridge Audio 640 phono stage) eats my Naim CD5/Flatcap for lunch on most vinyl - with exception of well-worn or off-centre LPs. At about a third the price.

Even my cheapo Soundblab DLP3r DJ decks with Ortofon Pro carts (total cost about £65 per deck/cart since I got the decks for £25 each still has something CD doesn't...

Having said that, you can't take an LP on the walk to work with you and still listen to it

Older CDs can indeed sound better than modern ones. My 1983 RCA release of Bowie's "Hunky dory" is far far superior to the recent reissue. Same is true of the Rough Trade Smiths originals. Even when you compare the ~£25 it costs to get "The queen is dead" on Rough Trade versus the fiver for the WEA reissue...

 

Well it says something anyway - that he believes the two are different (I'd argue that they can be - some people are ojne or the other - its not impossible to be both). Did he say it sneeringly as though there were something wrong with being one rather than the other? That would be a bit much

To be fair Tones your setup IS firmly in the non fatiguing and gentler presentation camp, so you would only be looking at it from that reference point. Its also fair to say that you don't have a taste for modern rock or pop which is where the trouble really starts for CD IMO.

That's the interesting thing though isn't it. In theory to get a setup to sound vaguely realistic for orchestral music is one thing, though I can't say I've actually experienced such a thing. I've been to a few classical concerts and they didn't sound much like any stereo system I'd ever heard. But its a real event that you are aiming to reproduce.

Rock and pop for the most part however are pure artifice, concocted in the studio. As such other than the notion that they should sound like the way the Enigineer or band intended (a dubious proposition), there is nothing real to compare it against - no yardstick. Those types of Jazz, Blues or other acoustic non orchestral music, recorded simply and "Live" will have some sort of real yardstick too, like, "does that sound like a real double bass, saxophone or acoustic guitar"?

The notion that a setup ought to be trying to recreate the sound of a live Rock band ... is actually laughably mad, as anyone who has ever been to alive gig should know. Studio Recordings sound nothing like a live gig anyway and the sheer physicality of a rock rhythm section played into a venue full of people through a powerful PA is virtually impossible to replicate ... well maybe not entirely impossible, but I think you would be mad to try.

It doesn't mean it doesn't or can't happen. I don't spend loads of time listening to CD v LP versions of albums, comparing notes - that would be silly. Albums where I have recently done this (it was in the process of setting up a new pair of speakers), where this springs to mind were Hotel California by the Eagles, What's Goin On? by Marvin Gaye and The dreaded Dark Side of the Moon by the even more dreaded Pink Floyd.

The differences were a feeling of 3 dimensionality that LPs seemed to have that the CDs didn't (or put another way the CDs sounded much more 2d with less front to back) and had a certain sweetness to them that the CDs didn't have. These are all "artificial" studio recordings. In the case of the Floyd it was also less detailed but much fuller sounding with a heavier bottom end. Of the two I'd have said the LP was more satsifying, but others might differ.

It could be differences in the mastering (in fact I'm fairly certain a lot of it is). It could be my LP spinner's better than my CDP. It could be a matter of taste. Whatever ... its irrelevant ... in these cases the LP sounds better to me.

Those that tend to sound the same, tend to be those which were released on vinyl into a post CD world ... which makes me suspect some of this is down to mastering - ie on old records, when they got released to CD, they got "improved". Exceptions to this are those CDs which git slammed in the mastering which seem to cope better on LP - this view is based on a very small sample though.

Those that sound better on CD, also tend to pre CD vinyl releases, generally those which frankly they made a balls up of on release to vinyl (or voiced the orignal for playback on a Dansette or similar). Some Early Motown stuff springs to mind here - though I've been told that may be down to them using a non standard EQ at the time.

My point was that it wasn't a HiFi thing. Record nuts tend not to give a hoot about High Fidelity. They want it to sound "nice", they want it to sound "good" and yes the whole putting on a record thing is a factor. Notions of reality whichever side of the audiophile coin that you are looking at are a non topic though. Its a human interaction thing, not a HiFi thing.

The "Vinyl is always superior" thing isn't a con, its a point of view - though probably incorrect if only sound quality is taken into consideration - for example I might argue that as a thing to own or collect it IS always superior.

Of course vinyl is a minority thing, but its certainly becoming a bigger minority. I suspect you will find CD is now on the verge of becoming a minority thing. Its where Vinyl was in about 1989. In 1989 you could go into a record shop and get whatever you wanted on vinyl. Other than there also being CD racks, you could ignore them. By 1991 you would be hard pushed to find many high street shops that even stocked it.

The difference is that there is something about vinyl (which is nothing whatsoever to do with sound quality) that means it will still be there. There is something about them that for a lot of people CD never bettered and never replaced. I'm not sure the same thing could be said of CDs over downloads. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in ten years time vinyl is still the same or similar sized a minority pursuit, whereas CDs will be as common to buy as pre recorded tapes are now.

To be frank though Tones I suspect you simply don't understand the mindset of the record buying pop/rock (etc.) music fan (non audiophile). Because you aren't one.

 

Lots of interesting stuff there, Uncle, to which I will not be able to do justice. In any case, as you've observed, we have different points of view, and that will remain.

No, it was a matter-of-fact statement (particularly mentioning the filter and tilt controls on the 44 preamp (I think), which were useful for getting the best out of older, less well recorded records (I confirm their usefulness in this regard).

Delicately put! Actually I utterly detest most modern rock/pop and work very hard at avoiding it. Just say the words "Led Zeppelin" and watch me go...

However, I have bi-active Linn Keilidhs driven by Linn electronics in the lounge. I've observed the same lack of difference between CD and LP there.

Your "aiming for" is right on the money. There's nothing so difficult to record as a symphony orchestra, in fact, it's simply impossible in an ordinary room. Just think, would you actually want a symphony orchestra in your front room? The difference between the loudest and softest sound is colossal (think Beethoven 5th, the oh-so-quiet end of the third movement building to the colossal crescendo at the start of the fourth). Put that in a room and you'd have to duck as the speaker cones came flying across the room at you. You simply have to reduce that dynamic range. So, you end up with a facsimile, never more. The object is to get as reasonable facsimile as possible in a domestic situation.

This is, of course, another advantage of CD - you can capture much more of this dynamic range. Remember the famous Telarc "1812" with real cannon, with warning on the record sleeve that your stylus could end up on the far side of the room? Incredibly heavily modulated grooves! Some CD producers in the early days apparently abused this facility (an absurd thing to do in a domestic situation), but they seemed to have learned.

No, it doesn't, but I still believe it unlikely.

Again, I think that's your love of vinyl subliminally showing through, but nothing wrong with that.

True, but that's my point really. People like vinyl, for whatever reason, and their positive feelings towards it influence how they hear it sound. As I've often said, sound exists only in our heads, and its perception is influenced by our likes and dislikes, previous experiences, etc.

It's a con when it is relentlessly promoted to the exclusion of the alternative, as is the case with all the magazines. I believe The Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome is very strong in this hi-fi business. Or, as Josef Goebbels so nicely put it, tell a big enough lie often enough, and everyone will believe it. The classic example is the "cables make a difference" lie. But that's another argument...

I suspect that it's mainly nostalgia. CD is rather sterile and mechanical from the operation point of view. People have no control - they stick the silvery disc in a drawer and press a button. Vinyl, it seems to me, gives at least the illusion of having some sort of control over things, perhaps even subconsciously hearking back to a more innocent time.

Possibly, although I doubt it. We'll meet here in 10 years time and compare notes.OK?

Please don't be Frank - I've had enough of mains cables discussions!

You might well be right there. But chacun à son goût

 

If I am understanding Uncle Ants correctly there are 2 distinct reasons why someone might prefer vinyl
a) because it is more "collectable" -which means different things to different people including nicer to look at, more satisfying to hold, part of the authentic rock tradition (?), cooler, retro, edgy, less apparently corporate (?)
b) because it sounds better
Most people who collect vinyl do so for reason a) although some of them do it for reason b). My guess is that whilst most a)s are not b)s, most b) probably subscribe to a) too.
I wonder how many a) or b)s there are amongst devoted listeners of classical music. My guess is not many. I know several really serious classical cd collectors, no serious collectors of classical vinyl (as opposed to people with a lot of old classical vinyl still in their collection) and but only one really serious (rock) vinyl collector.
[I have a feeling that there are serious collectors of old vinyl classical 78s, but that is a different story.]
This is clearly not enough to constitute a meaningful statistical sample though, and there may be some Hi Fi critics who count themselves as serious collectors of classical vinyl.
I have the feeling that for classical music enthusiasts, reason a) is less likely to favour vinyl because the recording is generally seen as a reproduction of a perfomace (even if not live) and not an iconic object in itself. (Compare the likely reactions of friend to having a first pressing of Elvis' Sun records session, with an orginal first pressing of Solti's Rheingold). Classical Collectors are more likely to covet the program notes (which you can also get with CD) rather than the sleeve; or they may want the autograph score of the composer (different story)..

 

absolutely

Yes, but you need to understand is that what most record listeners mean by sounds better has nothing to do with what audiophiles mean by sounds better. For a lot of record collectors that records sound better is a matter of personal fact ... to them they sound better.

Whether they sound better from an audiophile point of view is a matter for debate as you see - and people disagree - I can assure Tones that my vinyl HotelCalifornia sounds significantl;y different and better than my CD copy, he may think I'm imagining (and that they are both dreadful anyway).

There is also a question as to whether what you mean by sounds better is "always sounds better", "usually sounds better" or has "the potential to sound better"

So far as why most people who buy them are concerned though whether they do in audiiophile terms is a matter of irrelevance

Most a)s are b)s but not in an audiophile sense

I would guess that too, relatively speaking

Both exist. Collectors of Classical vinyl are rarer than collectors of Rock/Pop/etc. at least among the customers I've spoken to about it , but they do exist ... as the stratospheric prices of mint second hand Decca SXLs, Mercury Living Presence, Columbia SAX Classical pressings amongst others will attest. with Rock and Pop I say etc... to be honest once the collecting bug hits most folks branch out into lots of different areas ... I don't know anyone who is literally just a Rock collector.

Yup

A fair summary but not the whle story I'm pretty sure. There certainly are serious classical fans who prefer vinyl and I think it would be a little arrogant to suggest its all down to some sort of nostalgia, though unbdoubtedly there is an element of it.

 

Hi,

There are serious collectors of classical music on vinyl.

Peter Qvotrup (Audionote) is one. As is Jimmy Hughes (hifi reviewer)

Jimmy Hughes has a massive collection. He has records everywhere in his flat. There are other hifi reviewers who use classical records but not sure how big their collections are.

Certain records of certain performances are rare, they can go for big money. The collectors want these certain records and will pay for them. Here are some big priced Mahler records.

http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksea...r&incldescr=&currency=&sortord=dprice&thumbs=

Some Beethoven


http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksea...n&incldescr=&currency=&sortord=dprice&thumbs=

These show that there is a collector scene with classical music. It may not be massive but it is still quite keen.

SCIDB

 

I'm thinking of buying one as a dedicated phonostage for exactly this reason

Oh well, its not all that subliminal Put it this way, no I don't believe the one is always better than the other (sound wise anyway) ... vinyl is less consistent for starters. There are definitely real differences between the LP and CD versions of many albums though. I suspect a lot of its is down to mastering as I said and sometimes CD sounds better, sometimes LP .. and to some extent its a matter of taste anyway. I do think Vinyl's better though, when I add in all the other reasons for liking it

True but it doesn't mean they are imagining it either, they really could (and I say do) sound different ... at least some of the time. But as I've said, how it sounds in conventional HiFi/audiophile terms is actually irrelevant. If they can sound different and they definitely7 can, then its a subjective question. Many may well genuinely prefer it for reasons other than the psychological.

Journalists and politicians .. like soundbites, don't like nuance. HiFi journalists will have you believe that sound quality (defined how?) is the only consideration when it comes to purchasing equipment, they encourage people to think that there is a right and wrong solution to everything and that spending more will get you better sounds and all sorts of other nonsense. I don't exactly agree with you on the cable front, but if ever there were a subject which lacked nuance as discussed by the press that's it. I sometimes wonder if they think their readers are idiots.

Maybe, but all those teens buying 7" singles are nostalgic for what? I'm not sure.

I hope so.

 

I suppose you're right about people thinking that things sound better in a non-audiophile sense -eg the famous John Peel quote about surface noise.
I am sure there is a market for collecting classical vinyl and Hi fi reviewers do refer to classical music.
And Ah Yes, Jimmy Hughes

My generalisations are now punctured and I shall limp back to base licking my ruptured rubber.

Just 2 slightly random thoughts for you.
1) Some Hi Fi reviewers comment on the playing of classical material. Some of them do so convincingly especially Stereophile reviewers; but i would rather not go into the question of Michael Fremer.
Some of them are less convincing eg What Hi Fi might say "Classical sounds great on this amp- just give Stravinsky (EMI) a whirl on this baby and your jaw will drop quicker than the price of a Jens Lehmann replica shirt".
.
.
2) To get back to my starting point, I feel a real sense of unreality when I read some Hi Fi reviewer saying that Cd just can't make a recorded instrument or voice like itself- only like a horrible, ear-bleedingly-screechy digital abomination; and all the while people who have been reviewing recorded classical music for 60 years, frequently review recordings of concerts they have attended in person, and (in one case I think of) had Vladimir Horowitz play the piano in their front room, remain blissfully ignorant that they are in fact collecting something not only risibly inferior to the vinyl versions they already own, but actually physically painful to listen too.
How, in particular, can these listeners fail to succumb to the notorious listener fatigue which we all know is a blight on the lives of those who listen to CDs for more than 30 seconds at a time?

 

Maybe they use decent kit and don't listen to the Killers

PS. there are few people in the world more prone hyperbole than certain HiFi journalists.

 

Yes, although it's usually not even interesting or stimulating. Ken Kessler for example is marketed as some sort of provocative intellectual dynamo because he makes references to expensive watches and is rude about French people.

 

and I just thought he was a self important pillock. Is it really provocative to talk bollocks and dare people to pull you up on it?

 

Uncle, my ignorance is exposed! I wasn't aware that 7" singles even existed, never mind that teens bought them! I clearly move in the wrong circles (thank goodness).

And your characterisation of Ken Kessler is spot-on, ditto all those other self-important self-promoting "gurus", such as Collomswallop, Atkinson, Fremer, etc., etc. Nothing wrong with them that a good hosing down from an AK47 wouldn't cure.