HydrogenAudio

CD-R and Audio Hardware => Vinyl => Topic started by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-23 02:55:57

Title: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-23 02:55:57
Wall Street Journal says Vinyl's Fad is over:

By Neil Shah  July 22, 2017 7:00 a.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-vinyls-boom-is-over-1500721202?mod=e2tw

"Ms. Welch and Mr. Rawlings have gone to extreme lengths to solve a problem many music aficionados say is an open secret in the music industry: Behind the resurgence of vinyl records in recent years, the quality of new LPs often stinks.

"Old LPs were cut from analog tapes—that’s why they sound so high quality. But the majority of today’s new and re-issued vinyl albums—around 80% or more, several experts estimate—start from digital files, even lower-quality CDs. These digital files are often loud and harsh-sounding, optimized for ear-buds, not living rooms. So the new vinyl LP is sometimes inferior to what a consumer hears on a CD."

The WSJ article contains obvious falsehoods as statements of fact. It's a black mark on the WSJ's otherwise enviable reputation. The first sentence in the article has two glaring faults: "Old LPs were cut from master tapes, that's why they sound so high quality."

The first problem is that the last 10 years of LP production prior to the introduction of the CD (old enough?) were increasingly cut from digital masters, not analog master tapes. At the time, many music lovers applauded this because it did have a great potential for improved sound quality.

 The second problem is that in general, CDs simply sound better than LPs because they are generally more accurate, technically speaking. No tics and pops, for openers and that is just the beginning. This does not have to be true because of the application of mastering, which involves making changes that may reduce a CDs sonic accuracy in the interest of being louder.

For a more balanced view:

Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cds-may-actually-sound-better-than-vinyl-5352162
"
Even purely digital music is now marketed using the trappings of vinyl. When U2 distributed 500 million digital copies of its new album to iTunes users — a reach unimaginable when the band released its debut in 1980 — the artwork depicted a vinyl record inside a sleeve with the initials "LP" scribbled on the exterior. And when Neil Young launched a Kickstarter campaign for PonoMusic, a digital music player and online store, his company's stated mission was to "re-create the vinyl experience in the digital realm."

Baked into the vinyl resurgence is the suggestion — fed by analog apostles such as Young and White — that an LP's analog playback produces honest, authentic sound, while digital formats like the CD compromise quality for the sake of portability and convenience. Young articulated this sentiment earlier this month at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he told Rolling Stone's Nathan Brackett that the vinyl resurgence is due to the fact that "[vinyl is] the only place people can go where they can really hear."
...
In 1968, a 23-year-old audio engineer named Bob Ludwig at New York's A&R Recording was asked to create a test pressing of The Band's debut, Music From Big Pink, so that the producers could hear what it would sound like on LP. During the process, he especially tried to preserve as much as possible of the deep low end of the band's sound, which he believed was critical to its music.

But when he heard the final LP that was released, he was stunned. "All the low, extreme low bass that I knew was there, was chopped right off"

Years later, when Ludwig was hired to provide the final edit (known as mastering) for a greatest-hits package for The Band, he got the album's master tapes back from Capitol Records. On the box was a note from the cutting engineer who'd made the original vinyl master, saying the album's extreme low end had to be cut out.

Of vinyl's inherent deficiencies, reproducing bass is one of its most glaring. The other is that the last track on each side of a record sounds worse than the first, due to the fact that the player's stylus covers fewer inches of grooves per second as it gets closer to the center

The vinyl disc is a steadily collapsing medium," says Ludwig, who went on to become a Grammy-winning mastering engineer, with credits on Patti Smith's Horses, Steely Dan's Gaucho and White's Lazaretto, among many others. "The closer it gets to the label, the more the information is getting compromised, the high frequencies getting lost."

Ludwig's colleague Bob Clearmountain is one of the industry's most respected mixing engineers, responsible for setting the levels of a band's performance before it's sent to the mastering engineer. He has worked with everyone from The Rolling Stones and David Bowie to Ricky Martin and Lenny Kravitz.

When Clearmountain mixed vinyl albums for Columbia Records, he says the label required the test pressing of each LP to play on an old, cheap turntable without skipping, or it would have to be mixed again. Too much bass in one speaker could make the needle skip out of the groove, as would too much sibilance — a harsh "s" — in a singer's voice.

Clearmountain, who now works out of Mix This! in Pacific Palisades, says that when he heard the vinyl test pressings of the albums he'd worked on in the studio, he always felt the same way: depressed.

"I'd just listen and go: 'Jesus, after all that work, that's all I get?' It was sort of a percentage of what we did in the studio," he says. "All that work and trying to make everything sound so good, and the vinyl just wasn't as good."

Not only did records provide only a sliver of what he'd done in the studio but they also came with plenty of sounds that hadn't been there in the first place: ticks and pops.

"If you're a musician like Bob and I," Ludwig says, "and you get to do a mix and you listen to it and you love the way it sounds, and then it's transferred to vinyl and suddenly it's got noise and ticks and pops, for me that's an extremely unmusical event."
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Paul_ 2012 on 2017-07-23 08:47:07
Thanks for the insights, apart from all the noise that comes with vinyl, my reasons are much simpler, I just can't be bothered with all the rigmarole of dealing with it. Having music at your finger tips and being able to easily select individual tracks, albums or genres at the touch of a button from a hard drive is bliss.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: apastuszak on 2017-07-24 00:32:05
You can find videos right now on YouTube where engineers like Alan Parsons and Trevor Horn are interviewed and they talk about how great it was to switch to digital recording methods, which increased the dynamic range and lowered the noise floor without losing any quality.  In Trevor Horn's video he says everyone should do a full analog workflow just once in their life, so they'll never want to do it again.

When CDs came out, there was a lot of praise from artists about how you can finally hear what they hear in the studio.  As a teenager in high school, I couldn't wait to buy my first CD player.  When I got my first job in 1988, the first thing I did was buy a CD player and 3 CDs (Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery, Boston - Boston, and I forget the third one).  I was immediately blown away by not having to drop a needle, not needing rewind the CD and being able to switch tracks instantly.  I also knew that CDs didn't wear out, so buying used CDs was a pretty safe bet.

CDs won me over in about 5 minutes.  The next paycheck, I was already upgrading my favorite albums to CD.

Then, years later, my wife bought me a 20 GB iPod, and I could carry a good chunk of my music collection in my pocket.  Once again I was blown away by how much music I could have on me at any given time.  Life was really good for a music lover.

I find it silly that a lot of modern music's problems are blamed on iPod earbuds and the industry's need to master albums for that device.   I think that's crap.

Modern music is seriously dynamically compressed.  New vinyl releases don't sound as good as old ones, because they're LOUD.  And they don't have to be.  The vinyl fad is not commercially successful enough to warrant a record label cutting a completely different master just for the vinyl release.  So the same LOUD master that is used for the CD/Digital release is used for Vinyl.

I remember reading an interview with Steve Hoffman talking about how they made master tapes back in the 70s.  They would create a master tape and then chop off the high and low end to preserve as much mid range as possible in the 60 dB dynamic range of an LP.  The original full range master was labeled "DO NOT USE" and locked away in a vault.  Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab and Audio Fidelity claim that they strive to find that "full dynamic range" "DO NOT USE" master tape to make their CDs/SACDs.  I don't know if that's a marketing  gimmick or not, but I do know that their releases are not nearly as loud as the standard commercial release.

Now that that vinyl resurgence may be at a standstill, I expect at some point CDs will make some kind of comeback for a short time.  It would not surprise me if record labels started to create "audiophile" releases of albums that have a much higher price point than a standard release.

Supposedly, cassette tapes are now making a comeback...
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: bandpass on 2017-07-24 07:04:52
The second article contains the following:
Quote
as CD sales eclipsed and nearly exterminated vinyl, the format was plagued by accusations that its sound was inferior, that it was merely a convenient alternative to the LP
Hmm, my understanding is that CD’s success came from the classical music sector, where convenience (and cost) were far less important than sound quality.

Are there articles in ’80s music listener’s magazines urging readers to stop buying CDs for fear of killing the supply of music on LP?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: lithopsian on 2017-07-24 12:16:21
Shame on you, WSJ, for not at least questioning the industry pap you were fed.

I'm not sure CDs will have any resurgence. It might be just my age group, but I can see nostalgia for cassette tapes, and even for vinyl if you're really old or a snob, but CDs were just this modern thing that worked (not so well on the move). Or maybe someone younger (older?) would see a CD as that great thing you could actually own before MP3s and Spotify? And how long before we get a comeback of MP3s, didn't they sound so much better than tracks that are just streamed?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Chibisteven on 2017-07-24 13:18:20
Or maybe someone younger (older?) would see a CD as that great thing you could actually own before MP3s and Spotify?

Well hello there.  Younger by what?  Might fit the definition.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: KozmoNaut on 2017-07-24 13:31:39
CDs are going to continue for a while, if nothing else then as physical merch for sale at concerts. The simple reason is that it's much better for the bands to sell a CD rather than a download code for Bandcamp or something, because people want to take a physical object home with them, and they probably have more than enough t-shirts already.

Imagine the guy at the merch stand going "yeah, we don't have any CDs, LPs or tapes for sale, but you can listen to the album on Spotify". It's not really gonna fly, is it?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: bennetng on 2017-07-24 13:58:48
Some people have obsoleted physical digital media fetish like DAT and (Hi)MD as well.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: KozmoNaut on 2017-07-24 15:15:39
No other format ever reached the massive dominance of the CD, though.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: apastuszak on 2017-07-24 16:26:24
No other format ever reached the massive dominance of the CD, though.

I feel like CD was the first format that was a huge improvement over what came before.  Tapes and 8-tracks were just a side step.  8-tracks let you take your music in your car.  Cassettes, when the Walkman came out, let you take your music with you on your person.

But CDs improved sound quality, didn't wear out, and eventually became portable.

No more needle drops.  No more pops and whistles.  No more rewinding.  No more flipping the album or tape over.  I really think Sony and Phillips got it right with CD.  The only thing it was missing at launch was portability.  The thing would skip like crazy if you jostled it.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-07-24 17:43:32
The second article contains the following:
Quote
as CD sales eclipsed and nearly exterminated vinyl, the format was plagued by accusations that its sound was inferior, that it was merely a convenient alternative to the LP
Hmm, my understanding is that CD’s success came from the classical music sector, where convenience (and cost) were far less important than sound quality.

CDs were certainly a success in the classical market, and it was the classical market  (and classical recording/producing professionals) that was pushing hardest for improved audio quality in the first place. 

BUT that doesn't mean the 'CD success came from the classical music sector'.  Classical sales have always been a minor segment of the music market.  CD success derived from the rapid increase in sales to  people who listened to rock and other forms of popular music.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: DVDdoug on 2017-07-24 18:09:25
Quote
I feel like CD was the first format that was a huge improvement over what came before.
Yes.  As far as sound quality, it was a huge leap from imperfect to perfect!   Or more precisely, from a variety of formats that had audible limitations & imperfections to a format that was better than human hearing with no audible defects/limitations.  There's no more need for incremental improvements and that changes everything!

The other features were "nice", but I bought my CD player because of sound quality and I eventually replaced all (most) of my records because of sound quality.   The thing that was missing in the beginning was the ability to record.    I wasn't a "the first on my block" to get a CD player (my plan was to wait 'till the price dropped to $200, but I prices dropped suddenly and I paid around $100) but I was an early-adopter with CD burning...  I paid about $1000 for my CD burner when blank CDs were $12.

Quote
The first problem is that the last 10 years of LP production prior to the introduction of the CD (old enough?) were increasingly cut from digital masters, not analog master tapes. At the time, many music lovers applauded this because it did have a great potential for improved sound quality.
I had forgotten about that...     I never thought the "studio side" of the process was the big problem, but I do remember having a few records where I could her the tape hiss kick-in following the lead-in groove (when listening with headphones).

I also believe there was a general improvement in sound quality simply driven by demand, pushing the record companies to do better, beginning with the disco era where records were being played on big systems with full-range speakers, in public.      By the time I got my 1st CD player and stopped buying records, they were generally "getting better", but exceptional-sounding records were still... the exception.  ;)

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-24 19:36:29
Quote
I feel like CD was the first format that was a huge improvement over what came before.
Yes.  As far as sound quality, it was a huge leap from imperfect to perfect!  Or more precisely, from a variety of formats that had audible limitations & imperfections to a format that was better than human hearing with no audible defects/limitations.  There's no more need for incremental improvements and that changes everything!
Can't tell if you're joking or drank too much Sony kool-aid, but no. Close to "perfect" for 2ch in homes, sure.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-24 19:44:03
Huh.

According to Forbes, LP sales are projected to be over a billion$ US this year, first time this century.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanpassman/2017/01/12/vinyl-is-officially-booming-the-new-billion-dollar-music-business/#79e813834054

There's more of course; google 'Vinyl sales 2017' and just look at the hits on the first page.

FWIW, most of the LP pressing houses are about 6 months backed up in the US. I agree the WSJ is wrong, but for very different reasons! First, the fad ain't over; 1993 was the era of least vinyl sales and its been on the rise ever since. That the LP is still around after all this time is because its not a fad. Second, they got it wrong about digital audio too. I love to cut LPs from digital files. The resulting cut is much quieter than if I use an analog tape.

I've yet to see a project that has required compression or any processing. I suspect that about 95% of all LPs sold these days have digital masters; that's simply not a problem.

In my town, your band simply has not arrived until it has a vinyl release. There's lots of local bands with LP titles and its been that way for 20 years. It might be different in other towns, but I can name a few other metro areas where the same thing is happening- New York, Chicago, Denver, Seattle...

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: lithopsian on 2017-07-24 20:32:08
Always worth remembering that new CD sales still outnumber new vinyl, something like five or ten to one depending on which region you look at. And are still comparable to "album downloads" (excluding streaming). Out of the three, only vinyl is increasing (with blips) but it would be massively premature to think it is going to be the major player any time soon, even given the inflated prices for new vinyl. I guess that doesn't make for good headlines ...
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: DVDdoug on 2017-07-24 21:01:29
Quote
Can't tell if you're joking or drank too much Sony kool-aid, but no. Close to "perfect" for 2ch in homes, sure.
No, I'm not joking, and of course I'm talking about 2-channel stereo.  And, I'm talking about the traditional understanding of "audio quality" ... Noise, distortion, and frequency response.

Quote
According to Forbes, LP sales are projected to be over a billion$ US this year, first time this century.
Is anyone making the equipment?  Cutting lathes, etc.?  From what I understand they are maintaining old equipment and there is a "shortage",  but maybe not enough demand to stimulate new production.  Is that true, or can you buy a brand-new LP-lathe?

Quote
In my town, your band simply has not arrived until it has a vinyl release. There's lots of local bands with LP titles and its been that way for 20 years. It might be different in other towns, but I can name a few other metro areas where the same thing is happening- New York, Chicago, Denver, Seattle...
And of course, that's the LAST format AFTER you've "arrived".

Quote
According to Forbes, LP sales are projected to be over a billion$ US this year, first time this century.
And, I'd guess half of that is probably purchased as a collectible, never to be played as music...  That's fine, but compare it to T-shirt or poster sales, not music sales.    
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-24 21:46:38
Is anyone making the equipment?  Cutting lathes, etc.?  From what I understand they are maintaining old equipment and there is a "shortage",  but maybe not enough demand to stimulate new production.  Is that true, or can you buy a brand-new LP-lathe?

The problem area is actually pressing machines, not lathes. But there is at least one new pressing machine now in production.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/inside-jack-whites-new-vinyl-pressing-paradise-w468376
Seems to me I saw an automated machine in production as well.

Quote
And of course, that's the LAST format AFTER you've "arrived".
Not sure how to interpret that. Remember a band called Arcade Fire? They had a number one hit a couple of years ago. They were on an independent label, but you could find their LP at Best Buy, Target and almost any record shop, nation-wide. Google...

Quote
And, I'd guess half of that is probably purchased as a collectible, never to be played as music...  That's fine, but compare it to T-shirt or poster sales, not music sales.   

Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Paul_ 2012 on 2017-07-25 01:44:43
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?

I have a couple of friends that are still analogue hero's and they always proud to show me their super thick LP's still in their cellophane wrapping, often multiple copies that are "worth a mint" but they never trade, only collect.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: polemon on 2017-07-25 01:57:58
As long as we don't experience another information cataclysm similar to the library fire in Alexandria, I don't think we have too much to worry.

Vinyl never really went dead as such, so the "revival" thanks to hipsters was just an increase and now it dies down, but I doubt it'll be discontinued completely for many years to come.

I see no reason, why a company making a couple lathes per year and a couple pressing machines per year cannot keep churning them out. There are lots of niche products similar to that, the demoscene comes to mind.

I don't see why making a low-volume run pressing machine wouldn't be all that viable. I can almost imagine it being a kickstarter project, or whatever.

Vacuum tubes are still being produced, albeit for a niche application, too, etc.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-25 02:17:29
Why do people in this forum erroneously assume that vacuum tubes are only made for audiophile products?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-25 10:56:14
Just to address the reasons for CD taking over from vinyl one that is usually overlooked is the power and influence of record company accountants. Faced with out-dated equipment needing replacing and an old factory in a desirable area one UK major simply shut down its vinyl manufacturing and sold the site. 

Then of course there's the zeitgeist - CD came along at the right time and was well promoted by Philips and Sony. And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 11:45:03
Just to address the reasons for CD taking over from vinyl one that is usually overlooked is the power and influence of record company accountants. Faced with out-dated equipment needing replacing and an old factory in a desirable area one UK major simply shut down its vinyl manufacturing and sold the site. 

Then of course there's the zeitgeist - CD came along at the right time and was well promoted by Philips and Sony. And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

Having been there at the time, I see the above as an obfuscation of the fact that the CD fully addressed many longstanding technical failings of the LP, almost too many to list.


 People in the industly who had been fighting bravely for decades with with the audible and obvious failings of the LP knew full well that there was no way to address the failings of the LP without starting over from pretty close to scratch.

For example, the technical and business implosion of RCA's Selectavision showed that not only was a fresh piece of paper required, it was an absolute necessity and even the paper had to be dramatically changed.

The path to the CD was beaten out by the overwhelming technical and business success of digital telephone switches about 10 years earlier. As I have pointed out in another post, even the production of LPs was becoming more and more digitally-based.

If it was not for a brilliant hate/slander/lies campaign of the usual suspects in the murky world of high end audio, this thread might not even exist.  They saw digital audio as an existential threat, and geared up their propaganda mills.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 11:48:56
Why do people in this forum erroneously assume that vacuum tubes are only made for audiophile products?

Other than musical instruments, which is really an area that shares a lot with high end audio, what else is there but a few esoteric tubes for broadcasting, radar and the like? Even most of those application have gone over to "The Dark Side". ;-)

 We used to be able to point at CRTs, but those are now getting carried out to the trash by the dumpster-full, even as I type.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 11:53:45
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?

A lot of the vinyl I buy at estate sales seems to have been in the possession of its owner for a long time, but pretty pristine, perhaps lightly-played to unplayed.

FWIW, I've also picked up a number of NIB CD's with the shrink wrap and seals in place.

Quote
I have a couple of friends that are still analogue hero's and they always proud to show me their super thick LP's still in their cellophane wrapping, often multiple copies that are "worth a mint" but they never trade, only collect.

That, too. 

How intoxicated do you have to get a vinyl advocate before he admits that the ritual gets old for him, too? ;-)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: polemon on 2017-07-25 14:52:00
Why do people in this forum erroneously assume that vacuum tubes are only made for audiophile products?
Not sure if you're referring to me, but I never said they're used only for audiophile applications.

High power broadcasting and some systems that must pass a certain compliance testing use vacuum tubes, for instance. Obviously they're still are being produced, and I don't see production ending any time soon...

Similar to a TO-92 package, vacuum tube "packages" are used for other applications, like ray emitters, sensors, etc. Similar to how tube sockets get reused for all sorts of things (except Nuvistors, perhaps).
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-25 15:06:36
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality
Posterior generated "fact" or baseless opinion?
Only the tiny audiophool fringe bubble talking among themselves missed the audio improvements of CD vs snap crackle pop
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-07-25 16:30:19
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player (http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-07-25 16:37:49
Other than musical instruments, which is really an area that shares a lot with high end audio, what else is there but a few esoteric tubes for broadcasting, radar and the like? Even most of those application have gone over to "The Dark Side". ;-)

I'm pretty sure that every microwave oven still contains a magnetron tube.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-25 17:01:11
musical instruments [...] shares a lot with high end audio
Feel free to elaborate.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-25 17:07:03
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player (http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player)


You might expect that they are looking for a turntable on craigslist of suitable quality. A friend on mine collected LPs for years before he finally bought a high end machine.

This seems as good a place as any to drop this link:

http://brooklynradio.com/vinyl-recorder-t560/

If the LP were really on the way out, seems unlikely that a product like this would exist.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Thad E Ginathom on 2017-07-25 19:14:18
Although an obvious strawman, are you seriously suggesting that $500,000 is going to spent by (mostly) kids on recordings they will never play? On its face, that sounds pretty ludicrous. Do you have any evidence for that?

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player (http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36040746/silent-vinyl-buying-records-without-a-record-player)


You might expect that they are looking for a turntable on craigslist of suitable quality. A friend on mine collected LPs for years before he finally bought a high end machine.

This seems as good a place as any to drop this link:

http://brooklynradio.com/vinyl-recorder-t560/

If the LP were really on the way out, seems unlikely that a product like this would exist.
Quote
...But maybe now’s the ‘moment’ for this previously-outlandish market niche.
Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's an obscure toy, which I accept would probably give its owners lots of pleasure.

Vinyl on the way out.

On a scale of ubiquitous to Museum Piece, then, where would you place "vinyl" now? Very much closer to the latter than the former. Just try, today, to find a street with a turntable in the living room of every music listener who lives there.

OK, so it is not dead and gone yet. It, and its associated equipment, has a following that is going to keep it alive for a while yet. But, give or take a bit of waxing and waning, it is never again going to be a mainstay of the mass music market. I don't know why some of its enthusiasts have a need to "prove" otherwise. Who cares how many albums and turntables were sold last year, this year... it is not even a particularly interesting statistic to people who buy albums and turntables.

Yes, LP/Vinyl is on the way out. And yes, there may be years to go before it finally ceases to exist, and even then, some hobbyist somewhere will be producing some niche item and people will still be listening to existing collections on existing equipmet. More power to their pick-up arms. It's great fun, playing LPs, to those who can still be bothered.

But enough of the album sales double stuff. Who cares. Vinyl is on the way out... One day.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-25 19:48:38
Hey, it may have generated more revenue than free streaming services, though!

LOL
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 19:59:12

http://brooklynradio.com/vinyl-recorder-t560/

If the LP were really on the way out, seems unlikely that a product like this would exist.

If the LP were a boutique item, that is exactly the kind of device and pricing ($4,000 plus thousands of dollars worth of supporting products that must be obtained elsewhere),  that we might expect. BTW at that lofty price, you still have the Mission Impossible problem of finding time in a vinyl stamping mill.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 20:02:25
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality
Posterior generated "fact" or baseless opinion?
Only the tiny audiophool fringe bubble talking among themselves missed the audio improvements of CD vs snap crackle pop

Baseless opinon that is contradicted by statistics from the day. As with LPs, the bulk of the sales of CD were popular and contemporary music of the day.  The overwhelming majority of consumers wanted their new music on CDs, and were actually setting aside their existing LPs and replacing them with CDs.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 20:06:23
Other than musical instruments, which is really an area that shares a lot with high end audio, what else is there but a few esoteric tubes for broadcasting, radar and the like? Even most of those application have gone over to "The Dark Side". ;-)

I'm pretty sure that every microwave oven still contains a magnetron tube.

The original brand  name of the microwave oven was "RadarRange" I was an early adopter, and my father before me. RadaRanges were made by Amana under license from Raytheon, of military radar fame. So, it was already included in the phrase "...tubes for broadcasting, radar and the like?"
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-25 20:11:05
musical instruments [...] shares a lot with high end audio
Feel free to elaborate.

Often musical instruments sell for high prices for not a heck of a lot of hardware, based on sonic advantages for which no standard objective tests are used to quantify. 

I am told that the audio for performances and the musical instrument market taken together sum up to be  about the same size in dollars and customers as high end audio.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-25 21:29:07
Hey, it may have generated more revenue than free streaming services, though!

LOL

Kinda did:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/06/tables-turned-as-vinyl-records-outsell-digital-in-uk-for-first-time

Quote
BTW at that lofty price, you still have the Mission Impossible problem of finding time in a vinyl stamping mill.

While it is true that it takes 6 months or so in the US, a recent project we did for a local label got pressed in about 4 weeks from a plant in the Netherlands. They had the tests back to us in the same week.

Quote
OK, so it is not dead and gone yet. It, and its associated equipment, has a following that is going to keep it alive for a while yet. But, give or take a bit of waxing and waning, it is never again going to be a mainstay of the mass music market. I don't know why some of its enthusiasts have a need to "prove" otherwise. Who cares how many albums and turntables were sold last year, this year... it is not even a particularly interesting statistic to people who buy albums and turntables.

Very true! About the only use for such statistics and links is in forum threads like this  :)



Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Ed Seedhouse on 2017-07-26 03:20:33
Why do people in this forum erroneously assume that vacuum tubes are only made for audiophile products?

Other than musical instruments, which is really an area that shares a lot with high end audio, what else is there but a few esoteric tubes for broadcasting, radar and the like? Even most of those application have gone over to "The Dark Side". ;-)

 We used to be able to point at CRTs, but those are now getting carried out to the trash by the dumpster-full, even as I type.

Amateur radio operators commonly use tubes for high power transmission on the high frequency bands.  Admittedly there ain't many of them, though the hobby itself has been expanding, but mainly into VHF and UHF.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-26 04:45:53
based on sonic advantages for which no standard objective tests are used to quantify.
Hi-fi is an attempt at transparent reproduction of a recording.  Musical instruments are to create music, hopefully in new and unique ways.  I should hope there is no objective standard to grade a Les Paul, a Stratocaster, a JTM45 or Deluxe Reverb.

I am told
I get to read third-hand anecdotal information from a non-musician about stuff with which I have been well versed for decades, yay!
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-26 10:05:01
based on sonic advantages for which no standard objective tests are used to quantify.
Hi-fi is an attempt at transparent reproduction of a recording. 

That is pretty much the book answer. I've probably said something like it myself.

While it may be a truism, it is not always true.

I would clarify it today, by saying:  "Hi-fi  for the mainstream is an attempt at transparent reproduction of a recording. "  I might add  that with high end audio, there are two kinds of high end audio:

(1) Attempts at accurate reproduction with high costs not being a stopper.  For example, IB subwoofers composed of relatively large numbers of SOTA subwoofers and power amplifiers.

(2) Attempts to obtain bragging rights with sound quality and good technology being secondary and tertiary considerations.

Quote
Musical instruments are to create music, hopefully in new and unique ways.

Historic goals and means with sentimental attachments seem to be big part of the business.

Quote
I should hope there is no objective standard to grade a Les Paul, a Stratocaster, a JTM45 or Deluxe Reverb.

But there are. Talk to many who buy and sell them for a business.  Google "guitar grading system".

It seems like even with art, it is hard to get away from that objectivity thing.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-26 11:05:27
Just to address the reasons for CD taking over from vinyl one that is usually overlooked is the power and influence of record company accountants. Faced with out-dated equipment needing replacing and an old factory in a desirable area one UK major simply shut down its vinyl manufacturing and sold the site. 

Then of course there's the zeitgeist - CD came along at the right time and was well promoted by Philips and Sony. And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

Having been there at the time, I see the above as an obfuscation of the fact that the CD fully addressed many longstanding technical failings of the LP, almost too many to list.


 People in the industly who had been fighting bravely for decades with with the audible and obvious failings of the LP knew full well that there was no way to address the failings of the LP without starting over from pretty close to scratch.

For example, the technical and business implosion of RCA's Selectavision showed that not only was a fresh piece of paper required, it was an absolute necessity and even the paper had to be dramatically changed.

The path to the CD was beaten out by the overwhelming technical and business success of digital telephone switches about 10 years earlier. As I have pointed out in another post, even the production of LPs was becoming more and more digitally-based.

If it was not for a brilliant hate/slander/lies campaign of the usual suspects in the murky world of high end audio, this thread might not even exist.  They saw digital audio as an existential threat, and geared up their propaganda mills.

I was also there at the time and was involved (albeit in a small way) with the launch of CD in theUK. I stand by what I say
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-26 13:30:51
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

I was also there at the time and was involved (albeit in a small way) with the launch of CD in theUK. I stand by what I say
Right, baseless, factless opinion from the bubble fringe.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-27 10:12:18
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

I was also there at the time and was involved (albeit in a small way) with the launch of CD in theUK. I stand by what I say
Right, baseless, factless opinion from the bubble fringe.


Nope. Based on market research undertaken in the first year after launch

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I was trying to add some background that might be of interest to some people.

There seems to be an underlying opinion that CD took over from vinyl purely because of sound quality improvement whereas there were all sorts of other reasons mainly commercially driven.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-27 11:20:41
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

Based on market research undertaken in the first year after launch
Lets see it.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-27 11:27:21
The research is owned by the company that commissioned it so sorry, but it's not mine to show.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-27 12:16:27
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

Based on market research undertaken in the first year after launch
Lets see it.

You can put 2 and 2 together:

Here is some historic sales data by format:

http://www.businessinsider.com/recorded-music-sales-by-format-2015-12

And  here is some sales data by genre:

https://datamarket.com/data/set/28ny/us-music-sales-by-genre#!ds=28ny!2rsw=7&display=line

For example, you can see that classical sales were about 3.5  million per year in 1989, and more like 2.3 million  since 2004. The trend seems to be pretty smooth, so future trends and past behavior might be inferred from this data with reasonable reliability.

The information about formats points out that the period of format replacement in terms of CD sales extended from 1989 to 1999 and peaked at about 13 million units per year in 2002-2003.

In 1999 for example, total classical sales were about 3.2 million, and total CD sales were about 13 million.  How classical sales could have been the majority of CD sales seems problematical, to say the least. 

CD sales have exceeded classical sales since around 1991.

In terms of availability, in the early 1980s one could see a store's entire CD collection in a glace, and my recollection that the classical titles were as a rule less than 20% of what I saw.

It stands to reason that the far more conservative classical purchasers were likely to be late adopters of technological change. 

Media purchasing trends are known to vary strongly between the US and UK for example, but since the whole UK is only the size (geographic, population, economics) of one of our larger states of which we have 50, US sales are always the 500 pound gorilla in the room.



Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-27 14:09:25
The research is owned by the company that commissioned it so sorry, but it's not mine to show.
The question was rhetorical. You can quit waving your hands now.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-27 15:20:22
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself (though you might consider lower noise a quality improvement). Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the promised improvements in sound quality

Based on market research undertaken in the first year after launch
Lets see it.

You can put 2 and 2 together:

Here is some historic sales data by format:

http://www.businessinsider.com/recorded-music-sales-by-format-2015-12

And  here is some sales data by genre:

https://datamarket.com/data/set/28ny/us-music-sales-by-genre#!ds=28ny!2rsw=7&display=line

For example, you can see that classical sales were about 3.5  million per year in 1989, and more like 2.3 million  since 2004. The trend seems to be pretty smooth, so future trends and past behavior might be inferred from this data with reasonable reliability.

The information about formats points out that the period of format replacement in terms of CD sales extended from 1989 to 1999 and peaked at about 13 million units per year in 2002-2003.

In 1999 for example, total classical sales were about 3.2 million, and total CD sales were about 13 million.  How classical sales could have been the majority of CD sales seems problematical, to say the least. 

CD sales have exceeded classical sales since around 1991.

In terms of availability, in the early 1980s one could see a store's entire CD collection in a glace, and my recollection that the classical titles were as a rule less than 20% of what I saw.

It stands to reason that the far more conservative classical purchasers were likely to be late adopters of technological change. 

Media purchasing trends are known to vary strongly between the US and UK for example, but since the whole UK is only the size (geographic, population, economics) of one of our larger states of which we have 50, US sales are always the 500 pound gorilla in the room.





Thanks. However, I was talking about early adopters. So the data from 1983 is what we need. I was also talking about the UK market which may have handled the launch differently
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-27 15:45:27
So the data from 1983 is what we need.
We?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-07-28 11:06:32
FWIW, and this is purely anecdotal...

When I started using CDs around 1985, I bought classical on CD and continued buying rock on vinyl. I did this for pretty much exactly the reasons botface describes: the ability to hear a complete work without having to change sides/LPs, and for the lower noise floor.

I finally switched to buying rock on CD when I became exasperated at having to return too many faulty vinyl pressings, not for sound quality reasons per se. That said, I guess you could argue that a pressing fault - ie. big clicks and pops - is the ultimate example of poor sound quality.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-28 12:14:15
So the data from 1983 is what we need.
We?

The information about sales by format goes back to 1973, which gives us a look at how music recordings were doing after the stereo revolution was pretty mature, and before all of the new pinko commie tech reared its ugly head ;-)  I've attached an annotated enlargment of it.

The first thing I can see is shown by the magenta (light blue) line.  Were it not for the new formats, a reasonable extrapolation shows sales of about 4 million units by 1994, when just the CD sales at that time were over twice that.  So we might credit digital with a doubling of the sales of music recordings over reasonable prior trends. 

Secondly, by Y2K, the CD format had utterly crushed all other music formats.

 
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-28 13:00:53
FWIW, and this is purely anecdotal...
Yes, like Botfaces claims. Too bad his "evidence" is under triple secret probation.
It's like that with folklore.

ie. big clicks and pops - is the ultimate example of poor sound quality.
Yeah, that's part of it, along with the dynamic range, FR issues, speed variations, sensitivity to vibrations, etc, etc, etc.
Of course, improving all those were just the "promises of better sound" CD allegedly offered.
In the bubble.

Luckily, after 3+ decades, it appears the "promise" of digital is finally upon us, all thanks to a audio jewelry TT peddler!
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-28 18:51:45
Quote
ie. big clicks and pops - is the ultimate example of poor sound quality.

The ticks and pops might not have been the fault of the LP so much as the fault of the equalizer, which can be unstable (and was common the the 1970s and 1980s). If it is unstable, it can exacerbate ticks and pops, making them sound much louder than a stable equalizer might. I have seen a correlation between RFI sensitivity (with the RFI injected directly into the input of the phono equalizer). I've not confirmed this with any real in depth study, its anecdotal, but it is also very real; RFI sensitivity is not a good thing!

Generally speaking, LPs don't come from the store with ticks and pops unless poorly handled which certainly can happen. I am very used to not experiencing more than perhaps one tick on an entire LP side, usually I get none. I think modern LP producers have stepped up their game out of necessity.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-28 19:06:20
Hey, it may have generated more revenue than free streaming services, though!

LOL
Kinda did:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/06/tables-turned-as-vinyl-records-outsell-digital-in-uk-for-first-time
Woosh!
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-07-28 22:33:04
Generally speaking, LPs don't come from the store with ticks and pops unless poorly handled which certainly can happen. I am very used to not experiencing more than perhaps one tick on an entire LP side, usually I get none. I think modern LP producers have stepped up their game out of necessity.
Well, it's been nearly 30 years since I bought a brand new LP, so perhaps things have changed since then. Given the price they charge for LPs these days, I certainly hope so!

I can assure you that back in the 1980s (and 1970s, after the oil crisis), LPs were routinely accompanied by plenty of ticks and pops - fresh out of the sleeve, on first play. Before CDs came along, I guess we just accepted it as par for the course.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-29 11:40:12
Hey, it may have generated more revenue than free streaming services, though!

LOL
Kinda did:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/06/tables-turned-as-vinyl-records-outsell-digital-in-uk-for-first-time
Woosh!

Lame attempt to turn a statsitical glitch into eternal truth...
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-29 16:15:50
Sorry but I don't see anything that refutes my assertion that early adopters in the UK were largely classical enthusiasts. That shouldn't surprise anybody. They were deliberately targeted by the marketing. CD was a premium product (retail price at launch was £14.99). CD players were expensive. It was felt that the best chance of success was to target people with a relatively large disposable income. That tended to be middle aged men who were also more like to be classical music buyers. This article  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6950845.stm seems to agree when it says :

"The first CDs went on sale in November 1982 and were mainly classical recordings.

Classical music lovers were believed to be more affluent than pop and rock music fans, and Philips thought they would be more inclined to pay the price for the more expensive CDs and the very expensive CD-players,"


Nor do I see anything that supports the view that increasing CD sales in the early years were due to sound quality improvements rather than record companies pulling the plug on vinyl production
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-07-29 16:52:09
Easiest way to achieve quiet playback with vinyl is to roll off the high frequencies! And one of the more frustrating aspects of shopping for a phono cartridge is the dearth of useful performance data or how to achieve the flattest frequency response.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-07-29 17:31:04
Nor do I see anything that supports the view that increasing CD sales in the early years were due to sound quality improvements rather than record companies pulling the plug on vinyl production

Just some anecdotal stuff based on memories from half a lifetime ago, but seems to me that portability was always king, and cassette tape, not LP was the real medium of choice for most people. And a popular approach was to buy an LP and immediately dub it to cassette tape for listening in the car or while on the move.  But once CD portables and car units became relatively affordable, it was pretty much game-over for both cassettes and LPs despite the fact that CD was much pricier than LP, maybe $15 vs $8.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-29 19:24:19
Sorry but I don't see anything that refutes my assertion that early adopters in the UK were largely classical enthusiasts. That shouldn't surprise anybody. They were deliberately targeted by the marketing. CD was a premium product (retail price at launch was £14.99). CD players were expensive. It was felt that the best chance of success was to target people with a relatively large disposable income. That tended to be middle aged men who were also more like to be classical music buyers. This article  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6950845.stm seems to agree when it says :

"The first CDs went on sale in November 1982 and were mainly classical recordings.

Might be true for the UK, but it was not true for the US.

The first times I went into record stores and started seriously looking at CDs (because I had a CD player), I would estimate that about 20%-25% of the titles were Classical.  That pretty well held up for a long time. Given that there were only about 16-18 titles at first, and only 1 or two copies of each it was pretty easy to monitor the inventory and get a feeling for what was selling. On a really good day the Classical titles were selling as fast per title, as the popular, rock and other titles. As soon as current releases started showing up on CDs, that parity melted away and CDs ruled even more thoroughly than the number of titles in inventory might suggest.  Maybe the better part of a year passed for that to start happening.

This was pretty consistent in the parts of the US I visited at the time including Detroit where I lived, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City. I found one of the largest libraries of CDs for sale in Bismark North Dakota. The store owner said that farmers were big early adopters because of the superior sound quality. With no cable or satellite at the time, and TV being limited to one or two dicy channels or less, CDs looked pretty good to them!

How many time do I need to point out that the UK is about the size of just one of the U.S's larger states in terms of population, land area, and wealth. In case your geography and world history are foggy, there is the slight matter of our other 49 states, and the 50 or more countries in Europe.  That still ignores some absolutely huge countries in terms of population, wealth, and/or land area like China, India, and Russia.

UK stopped being the sole or even in many cases an important determiner of just about anything after the Second World War.

Quote
Nor do I see anything that supports the view that increasing CD sales in the early years were due to sound quality improvements rather than record companies pulling the plug on vinyl production

Given all that was written in the day about the superior sound quality of CDs and how everybody needed to run right out and buy CDs and the equipment to play them, one has to ask about your choice of reading material.

I guess that your understanding of capitalism is as poor as your understanding of geography. People stopped making LPs because of over 99% of the people first in US, Europe, and Japan stopped buying them. When people stop buying something, it doesn't take too long for capitalists to figure out that it is time to stop making them. This was in spite of the fact that CD's retailed for 3-5 times as much.

The statistics I've posted tell me that cassette had taken over about half the market by the time that the CD was introduced. IME that is a good measure of the impact of an audio media product that offered only greater convenience, with just a different set of audible compromises to sound quality.  Therefore, the CD blew both LPs and Cassettes out of the market in record time based on something other than convenience, since it is arguable that compared to LPs tapes are only a little less convenient than CDs.

That leaves sound quality as the primary reason why CDs came to dominate the market for audio recordings so quickly and so completely.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-29 19:29:16
Nor do I see anything that supports the view that increasing CD sales in the early years were due to sound quality improvements
Your hands are liable to fall off any time now.
Too bad about that alleged secret survey "proof", that might have done it. Ah well.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-30 09:54:04
Sorry but I don't see anything that refutes my assertion that early adopters in the UK were largely classical enthusiasts. That shouldn't surprise anybody. They were deliberately targeted by the marketing. CD was a premium product (retail price at launch was £14.99). CD players were expensive. It was felt that the best chance of success was to target people with a relatively large disposable income. That tended to be middle aged men who were also more like to be classical music buyers. This article  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6950845.stm seems to agree when it says :

"The first CDs went on sale in November 1982 and were mainly classical recordings.

Might be true for the UK, but it was not true for the US.

The first times I went into record stores and started seriously looking at CDs (because I had a CD player), I would estimate that about 20%-25% of the titles were Classical.  That pretty well held up for a long time. Given that there were only about 16-18 titles at first, and only 1 or two copies of each it was pretty easy to monitor the inventory and get a feeling for what was selling. On a really good day the Classical titles were selling as fast per title, as the popular, rock and other titles. As soon as current releases started showing up on CDs, that parity melted away and CDs ruled even more thoroughly than the number of titles in inventory might suggest.  Maybe the better part of a year passed for that to start happening.

This was pretty consistent in the parts of the US I visited at the time including Detroit where I lived, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City. I found one of the largest libraries of CDs for sale in Bismark North Dakota. The store owner said that farmers were big early adopters because of the superior sound quality. With no cable or satellite at the time, and TV being limited to one or two dicy channels or less, CDs looked pretty good to them!

How many time do I need to point out that the UK is about the size of just one of the U.S's larger states in terms of population, land area, and wealth. In case your geography and world history are foggy, there is the slight matter of our other 49 states, and the 50 or more countries in Europe.  That still ignores some absolutely huge countries in terms of population, wealth, and/or land area like China, India, and Russia.

UK stopped being the sole or even in many cases an important determiner of just about anything after the Second World War.

Quote
Nor do I see anything that supports the view that increasing CD sales in the early years were due to sound quality improvements rather than record companies pulling the plug on vinyl production

Given all that was written in the day about the superior sound quality of CDs and how everybody needed to run right out and buy CDs and the equipment to play them, one has to ask about your choice of reading material.

I guess that your understanding of capitalism is as poor as your understanding of geography. People stopped making LPs because of over 99% of the people first in US, Europe, and Japan stopped buying them. When people stop buying something, it doesn't take too long for capitalists to figure out that it is time to stop making them. This was in spite of the fact that CD's retailed for 3-5 times as much.

The statistics I've posted tell me that cassette had taken over about half the market by the time that the CD was introduced. IME that is a good measure of the impact of an audio media product that offered only greater convenience, with just a different set of audible compromises to sound quality.  Therefore, the CD blew both LPs and Cassettes out of the market in record time based on something other than convenience, since it is arguable that compared to LPs tapes are only a little less convenient than CDs.

That leaves sound quality as the primary reason why CDs came to dominate the market for audio recordings so quickly and so completely.



Why do you have to start throwing insults around whenever anyone disagrees with you?

Basically what your saying is your recollection of events is different to mine.  That's not surprising. I worked in the industry at the time and was involved in getting the CD format to market and getting it established so it's to be expected that I have a different view from the average consumer.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-30 11:46:17
your recollection of events is different to mine.  That's not surprising. I worked in the industry at the time and was involved in getting the CD format to market and getting it established so it's to be expected that I have a different view from the average consumer.
Right and I'm Batman. It's that easy.

Of course, to prop/embellish your tale, you go further by claiming to have objective evidence/data to support your now "recollection" that classical fans were not drawn by SQ over snack crackle pop, limited dynamic range, bass, sensitivity to deep bass vibrations, etc, etc, but by convenience.
But of course this evidence is top secret, hidden.
Behind you I suppose.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-30 14:34:21

Why do you have to start throwing insults around whenever anyone disagrees with you?

What insults?

I get it. You seem to think you are entitled to use the "Royal We". News Flash:  The  UK is not the center of the earth.  Just because you granted yourselves the Prime Meridian doesn't mean that the world rotates around your axis.

Quote
Basically what your saying is your recollection of events is different to mine.

Thanks for verifying my observations. I said nothing about CD sales in the UK because I have no clue and little interest.

My recollection is not of the same events as yours. Your recollections sound to me like a mix of UK-centric provincial thinking and , anti business rehtoric, complete with a common placebophile conspiracy theory about why LP production dropped so fast.

In the US LP production stopped because LP sales stopped. LPs were eventually sold off as distressed goods.

The production resources for LPs and CDs  did not overlap and there was no contention among them. . The CD production facilities were new builds in new spaces with new equipment and new staff. I was fairly close to this because the chief engineer of the first non-Sony, non-Philips CD production facility was someone who was and is a close friend. Other friends staffed some of the new facilities.

If you had actually read what I wrote, you'd realize that what I said is that your comments don't apply to the whole earth. I never said that what you observed didn't happen in the UK.  I just said that it wasn't what happened in the US and much of the rest of the world.

Quote
That's not surprising. I worked in the industry at the time and was involved in getting the CD format to market and getting it established so it's to be expected that I have a different view from the average consumer.

OK, you worked in a small segment of the industry at the time.

What does that mean about the rest of the world?

I could cite lots of numbers and articles supporting my claims I already did. . But, based on your comments, I have no reason to believe that you would bother to read them and grant them any credibility.

You do know that there is such a place as the  rest of the world, right? ;-)

Please come back with hard facts about the rest of the world, and make things interesting.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-30 16:19:24
OK so in spite of knowing nothing of my background, experience or role you feel qualified to denigrate it.  Feel free to continue to do so.

In case anybody else is still reading the thread also feel free to provide any information you have that refutes what I said. HINT : what you've provided so far doesn't address this at all
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-30 16:26:09
your recollection of events is different to mine.  That's not surprising. I worked in the industry at the time and was involved in getting the CD format to market and getting it established so it's to be expected that I have a different view from the average consumer.
Right and I'm Batman. It's that easy.

Of course, to prop/embellish your tale, you go further by claiming to have objective evidence/data to support your now "recollection" that classical fans were not drawn by SQ over snack crackle pop, limited dynamic range, bass, sensitivity to deep bass vibrations, etc, etc, but by convenience.
But of course this evidence is top secret, hidden.
Behind you I suppose.

Look it's not difficult to understand. Record companies and labels commissioned market research leading up to and post launch.  I don't have the reports in my possession and even if I did I would not be at liberty to divulge them. But as I said to Arnold B. Krueger feel free to continue to denigrate me I'm really not bothered
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Wombat on 2017-07-30 16:27:53
Somehow i don't remember the immense talk about the big advantage of not having to flip the media.
I remember how impressive even some early CDs sounded back in 1985/86 when CD-players became affordable. Back then i already had active woofers and my fellow neighbour speakers of the caibre of a Visaton Atlas. We really enjoyed CDs with our Philips players and NAD amps.
The ones still crying after turntables often were these strange behaving freaks listening some even more strangely voiced bookshelf speakers.
Much beer back then, so i just may have forgotten about the no more flippping revolution...
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-30 16:30:12
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself

Based on market research undertaken in the first year after launch.
The research is owned by the company that commissioned it so sorry, but it's not mine to show.

free to provide any information you have that refutes what I said. HINT : what you've provided so far doesn't address this at all
HINT : what you've provided so far: flap flap flap



Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-30 16:33:27
I don't have the reports in my possession
That's too bad.
But you can always keep clutching your vinyl in the bubble, with belief that CD didn't wipe the floor with it due to sound quality.
Because you said so.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-30 16:35:25
OK so in spite of knowing nothing of my background, experience or role you feel qualified to denigrate it.  Feel free to continue to do so.

You keep ignoring the fact that your information appears to be peculiar to to a certain locality.

Please discuss your experiences in the largest CD market in the world, if you know where it is.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-07-30 18:59:20
Please discuss your experiences in the largest CD market in the world, if you know where it is.

Japan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-30 19:30:41
I don't have the reports in my possession
That's too bad.
But you can always keep clutching your vinyl in the bubble, with belief that CD didn't wipe the floor with it due to sound quality.
Because you said so.


Batman, sorry I do find your posts difficult to understand at times. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm clutching some vinyl bubble whatever that means.

It says here you're a manufacturer of speaker systems. I suppose that means you run your own business. I expect that means you need legal advice now and then. Next time you speak to your legal adviser ask him to explain to you why it's not OK to make public information that is not already in the public domain - unless you're the owner of the data . Then you can stop banging on about it
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-30 19:34:02
OK so in spite of knowing nothing of my background, experience or role you feel qualified to denigrate it.  Feel free to continue to do so.


You keep ignoring the fact that your information appears to be peculiar to to a certain locality.

Please discuss your experiences in the largest CD market in the world, if you know where it is.


No, I did say at the outset I was referring to the UK. - though I'm sure it was applicable to most of Europe. I never suggested that my experience was universally applicable
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-30 19:44:27
I don't know where you got the idea that I'm clutching some vinyl bubble whatever that means.
From you, the vinyl clutcher. In the bubble, where you exist/chat with the other clutchers, who share your beliefs about vinyl, top secret surveys, the "promise" of digital etc, etc.
It's all good...and very funny  ;)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-31 11:45:05
OK so in spite of knowing nothing of my background, experience or role you feel qualified to denigrate it.  Feel free to continue to do so.


You keep ignoring the fact that your information appears to be peculiar to to a certain locality.

Please discuss your experiences in the largest CD market in the world, if you know where it is.


No, I did say at the outset I was referring to the UK. -

I checked the thread. It appears that your first post to this thread was post #20 and it seems to say nothing about locality. Even after I brought up the issue of locality, you kept ignoring it. Finally you say something about it directly here, for what appares to be the first time.

Quote
though I'm sure it was applicable to most of Europe. I never suggested that my experience was universally applicable

You "being sure" of anything seems to be a dubious proposition.  Sure you aren't just trolling? ;-)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-31 11:54:28
Check posts 47 and 56.

Me trolling? No you're confusing me with ajinfla
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-31 12:27:20
Check posts 47 and 56.

But your first post was post 20, and said nothing about locality. Iguess I  eventually smoked out the truth.

I did a little research, and found that a high proportion of the titles initially offered in the UK were classical.

But offerings are not the same thing as sales. Classical sales were slipping even back then in the US. The CD probably helped prop them up for a while. They are again slipping.

I recall that one of the first CD offerings of any kind in the US was from the top-selling (worldwide) UK group Dire Straits, and  the pressings were imported to the US from Europe.

I also found comments by "A Rykodisk staffer" saying that they were unable to meet demand in theearly- mid-80s  because so much of the  world available CD production capacity was tied up making Dire Straits CDs. This pretty well agrees with my recollections from the day.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: botface on 2017-07-31 13:07:17
That pretty much agrees with my recollections too. Having said that the sales history graph is obviously incorrect as it shows zero CD sales in 1983. The media sales history by format doesn't say anything about genre and neither of them have any bearing on the reasons for CD's sales figures.

The Dire Straits album you refer to is probably Brothers In Arms but that wasn't released until 1985 so maybe you have another title in mind. Brothers In Arms certainly sold in large numbers on CD at the time
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-31 13:29:39
That pretty much agrees with my recollections too.
Except you have gone beyond "recollection" and alleged "secret" polling data that showed UK classical fans weren't drawn by CD SQ, but primarily, convenience. It's well known folklore created by vinyl clutchers in their bubble. They insist that to this day, vinyl/analog is the ultimate SQ, rather than anything digital. That's of course a preference, not debatable. But concocted objective support to prop up a preference, like top secret polling data, is certainly debatable.
Believers fabricate their own "facts" in their bubble about a lot of things like this.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-07-31 15:41:39
Nowhere in this thread has botface said anything that can be construed as him believing that vinyl sound quality is as good or better than CD, so I'm perplexed as to why Arny and AJ seem to have jumped to that conclusion. All botface ever said was that there were other factors in addition to sound quality alone that drove the replacement of vinyl with CD.

In this big bad world controlled by multinational corporations, the idea that perhaps CD triumphed over vinyl because commercial interests forced it to be that way seems eminently plausible. In my opinion, the record companies saw that in the long run they would enjoy greater profit margins from CDs than from LPs and tapes, and so it was in their interest to drive the market that way. My own experience was that I stopped buying LPs because pressing quality nose-dived. An obvious possible reason for this is that there might have been some kind of conspiracy by the industry to encourage people towards CD. If there was, then it certainly worked on me!
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-31 16:01:58
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself

Nowhere in this thread has botface said anything that can be construed as him believing that vinyl sound quality is as good or better than CD
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-07-31 17:00:38
And it's true that classical music lovers were the most enthusiastic early adopters but the main reasons mentioned at the time were a lower noise floor and the ability to play a complete work without having to turn over rather than sound quality itself

Nowhere in this thread has botface said anything that can be construed as him believing that vinyl sound quality is as good or better than CD
Why does the first quote from botface imply he thinks vinyl's sound quality is as good as CD?

He simply states that there were other reasons that were more significant than the improved sound quality - nowhere does he deny the fact that sound quality was indeed better.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-31 17:38:41
568 date=1500976574]
Having said that I'm sure there were many lured by the "promised" improvements in sound quality
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-31 18:20:04
Ok Clive, never mind

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,91248.msg786951.html#msg786951 (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,91248.msg786951.html#msg786951)

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,91248.200.html (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,91248.200.html)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-07-31 18:25:50
Nowhere in this thread has botface said anything that can be construed as him believing that vinyl sound quality is as good or better than CD, so I'm perplexed as to why Arny and AJ seem to have jumped to that conclusion.

I can only speak for myself, and what I read of AJ's. I see no such concusion.

Quote
All botface ever said was that there were other factors in addition to sound quality alone that drove the replacement of vinyl with CD.

In general, I totally agree. However, you are making the logical error or aggregation. You've taken a number of different statements, some agreed-on and some not, and wrapping them into one package. Thus you have dumbed-down the discussion to a straw man.

Quote
In this big bad world controlled by multinational corporations, the idea that perhaps CD triumphed over vinyl because commercial interests forced it to be that way seems eminently plausible.

There you go, negating the fact that CD finally gave us a medium that was soncially transparent and allowed the art to shine though.

Quote
In my opinion, the record companies saw that in the long run they would enjoy greater profit margins from CDs than from LPs and tapes,

That is hard to argue with because it is exactly what happened.

Quote
and so it was in their interest to drive the market that way.

This sort of false claim reminds me of a certain governmental top executive we have here in the US. He seems to think that if he tweets it, it is done.  Life is not that simple!

Look at how his "tweet it and it will be done" strategy worked for him with  Health Care!

The same is true with any product  You bring it to the market, you put it into the best light you can, but in the end you can't force people to buy it against their will. 

Quote
My own experience was that I stopped buying LPs because pressing quality nose-dived.

IME it was a dive from a low board.

Quote
An obvious possible reason for this is that there might have been some kind of conspiracy by the industry to encourage people towards CD. If there was, then it certainly worked on me!

In a way what actually happened supports my model of market acceptance. The major companies abandoned the LP, but a  market remained. New sources of supply sprang up to meet the needs of that market. If the remaining market was large and there was pent-up demand, the niche providers would have been able to backfill the artificial void and restore LP sales to what they were.

Never happened. In fact all that remains is a tiny niche - a vapor of what the LP market used to be. Heck, the cassette with all of its failings had already taken almost half the market.  There was never any throttling of the cassette market. When people could get CDs of their favorite music, the market for both cassettes and LPs disappeared for all practical purposes.

There is copious and very clear evidence that a true resurgence of LP sales  never happened.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-07-31 21:35:34
Yet someone seems to come along every few months to tell is it happened because he reads some soft piece pretending to be a news article.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-07-31 22:45:08
Quote
Lame attempt to turn a statsitical glitch into eternal truth...
Nah. Classic Strawman. You seem to have a need to always be right no matter the facts, like a certain president you disdain. Well guess what- you have something in common with him. I merely put up the link since someone mentioned streaming and I had previously heard about that particular event. Suck it up.

********************

Someone mentioned that to get the LP to be quiet, you have to roll off the highs which simply has not been my experience at all. Just for fun, years back I spec'ced out my phono equalizer to 100KHz, and my line section to 400KHz (IOW I get quiet LPs and no rolloff).

I'm convinced at this point that those here who complain about noise must not treat their LP surfaces very well, and from other threads on this site, I'm starting to think they have compromised pickups too. Neither are good for noise. Any format has to be respected; its not a good idea to scratch up the surface of a CD, why would it be OK to do that to an LP??

I'm not saying the LP is as quiet as a CD (although it can get close) but to those that think the format is dreadful due to ticks and pops and whatnot, you seem to be conflating your personal experience as a universal truth. If your LP rig is not sounding as good as your CDP then you know its got a problem and the problem isn't the format. IOW it should sound excellent with very little difference from the CD.

On high end audio websites I see that others have similar experiences to mine, but on this site that seems to be rare.

Quote
There is copious and very clear evidence that a true resurgence of LP sales  never happened.
That's actually really funny that you actually put that up on a site that demands a bit more rigor. Irony is still in.

Obviously you can't cause your hand to move and google 'vinyl' resurgence', and like Trump, you apparently think mainstream reporting is fake news, unless you have a very special short-bus meaning for the word 'true' of which no-one was previously aware:
https://www.forbes.com/vinyl/#3fe172deebdd
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanpassman/2017/01/12/vinyl-is-officially-booming-the-new-billion-dollar-music-business/#3501e4934054
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/vinyl-is-vintage-and-the-future-as-new-generation-warms-to-an-old-music-form.html

..and so on, google 'vinyl resergence' and Suck. It. Up.

Of course, since this doesn't fit your world view, it must be #fakenews right?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-07-31 23:12:03
If your LP rig is not sounding as good as your CDP then you know its got a problem and the problem isn't the format. IOW it should sound excellent with very little difference from the CD.
Actually if your "audiophile" rig can't clearly demonstrate the superiority of CD/digital over LP with classical music, then it's typical low info audiophile garbage.
But not surprising.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Porcus on 2017-08-01 00:32:26
Please discuss your experiences in the largest CD market in the world, if you know where it is.

Japan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data)


The land of the rising LaserDisc!

Did the CD really gain momentum until the record industry raised LP prices to the expensive CD price? IIRC (the thread is way into anecdote-land already):
On my (the East) side of the Atlantic, the industry made a quick 50 percent price increase (first by claiming that CDs were so expensive to produce, and then by increasing LP prices to CD levels) - and then the "full price" tag did not move much for thirty years. 
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-08-01 06:26:25
FWIW, and this is purely anecdotal...

When I started using CDs around 1985, I bought classical on CD and continued buying rock on vinyl. I did this for pretty much exactly the reasons botface describes: the ability to hear a complete work without having to change sides/LPs, and for the lower noise floor.

I finally switched to buying rock on CD when I became exasperated at having to return too many faulty vinyl pressings, not for sound quality reasons per se. That said, I guess you could argue that a pressing fault - ie. big clicks and pops - is the ultimate example of poor sound quality.

Hmm.  Anecdotally, I embraced CD *immediately* in the early 1980s for sound quality reasons, even though I had a good 'midfi' turntable  (Systemdek IIx, with a Shure V15 III cart).  *I even bought CDs before I had  CD player*.  I cared about sound quality FAR MORE than the length capacity.   Everyone else I know did too (though everyone liked the idea of not having to 'flip over' the disc/tape)

You and botface are UK folk.  Maybe there was a difference there compared to the States (a much larger market). Here, as technically clueless audiophiles are wont to remind us forever, the format was marketed as 'Perfect Sound Forever'


Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-08-01 06:45:43
Quote
Lame attempt to turn a statsitical glitch into eternal truth...
Nah. Classic Strawman. You seem to have a need to always be right no matter the facts, like a certain president you disdain. Well guess what- you have something in common with him. I merely put up the link since someone mentioned streaming and I had previously heard about that particular event. Suck it up.

********************

Someone mentioned that to get the LP to be quiet, you have to roll off the highs which simply has not been my experience at all. Just for fun, years back I spec'ced out my phono equalizer to 100KHz, and my line section to 400KHz (IOW I get quiet LPs and no rolloff).

I'm convinced at this point that those here who complain about noise must not treat their LP surfaces very well, and from other threads on this site, I'm starting to think they have compromised pickups too. Neither are good for noise. Any format has to be respected; its not a good idea to scratch up the surface of a CD, why would it be OK to do that to an LP??


Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.  It's entirely possible for a normally-used CD (even with visible scratches) to sound like an LP that has been treated with the utmost TLC (which is unreasonable to expect of a mass market format, but whatever) -- *if* the mastering engineer so chooses.    The CD format is both more immune to rough handling and more capable of offering audio faithful to the master source within the audible range,  than vinyl. Full stop. Anyone who claims otherwise is prevaricating.  Preference for vinyl has to do entirely with the comforts of packaging, ritual, euphonic distortion (which can also be fully rendered on CD), and more recently , cultural cachet (hipness).  NOT objectively superior quality. 
 

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-01 12:26:58
Someone mentioned that to get the LP to be quiet, you have to roll off the highs which simply has not been my experience at all.

The high end roll off need not be in the gear.

 I'm still trying to figure out why some people say they can't hear the incessant surface noise that is inherent in vinyl.

 OTOH they say that ear damage is pretty common...
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-01 12:59:55
Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.
Though he has no sig identifying his interests, as all such should (See "Loudspeaker Manufacturer" there? Yup), he's "in the biz", so cut him some slack for pitching vinyl.
I've heard countless "audiophile" uber high end vinyl based systems. When they say they can't hear the difference between vinyl and CD spec digital playing full orchestra pieces, I believe them. With their systems and ears, it's most likely true.

cheers,

AJ
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-08-01 18:35:36
Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.
Though he has no sig identifying his interests, as all such should (See "Loudspeaker Manufacturer" there? Yup), he's "in the biz", so cut him some slack for pitching vinyl.
I've heard countless "audiophile" uber high end vinyl based systems. When they say they can't hear the difference between vinyl and CD spec digital playing full orchestra pieces, I believe them. With their systems and ears, it's most likely true.

cheers,

AJ

Well, sure. I've heard terrific-sounding vinyl setups too -- though if you mean 'loud parts of full orchestral pieces' I don't think that's necessarily the best way to illustrate the different capabilities of the two formats  (CD excels at low-level reproduction and pitch stability, to name two things, so those would best be highlighted by something like a sustained note or chord that fades to silence).  Both formats can deliver spectacularly good sound.  It remains the case though that 1) vinyl discs are far more vulnerable to permanent noise-producing damage than compact discs, and  2) CD can do anything vinyl can do within the audible range, while the reverse is not true.   (And I  know you know all this already.)


Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-01 18:51:20
though if you mean 'loud parts of full orchestral pieces'
I mean music, like certain orchestral works, with the widest dynamic range, deep bass (below 20hz), etc., played at realistic levels, to expose the limitations of vinyl...which electronic/rock/pop music that vinyl clutchers mainly listen to, won't expose.
Remember, not talking "preference" here, but the physical reality limits of the soundfield, that only the audiophile deaf could miss.
Oh and even lowly CD players can output the signal digitally, which allows for DSP eq at LF in the modal range to be employed, instead of wishful thinking away bass modes (or more audiophile deafness in inability to detect these real room modal problems).

cheers,

AJ
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: 4season on 2017-08-01 20:19:18
I believe someone else on HA posted a link to these Hifi World phono cartridge frequency plots recently. I'd imagine that a cartridge like the Shure M97 would be "warmer" and more forgiving of record noise than the Ortofon 2M Red:

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1 (http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-01 21:29:57
Quote
Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.

And you don't have a special pleading for digital?? Keep in mind that the OP of this topic turned out to be false- that LP sales have been and are continuing to increase. You might ask why that is, why it is that you can get LPs at Target, Best Buy and Barnes and Nobles where you couldn't at those places only 5-6 years ago.

The thing is, analog or digital can sound just fine! When I play digital at shows, my goal is to get it to sound as good as LP (IOW not bright and annoying). When I play LPs at shows, my goal is to have them be as silent and noise-free as digital. There are strengths to both formats; I started taking digital seriously about 20 years ago with the Appogee DACs. That DAC showed that digital playback finally got good enough that it stopped giving me headaches.

Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache. In the early days 30 seconds was sufficient (of course my hearing was better then) and it took until the 1990s before I could stay in the room all day with a strictly digital source.

That was important as I do audio for a living. When I would go to CES, sometimes the only source was digital. Playing analog was considered 'cheating' if you wanted to make your room sound good (being in the Specialty/high end part of the game, we didn't have booths on the convention floor, instead CES had us in a hotel. I started in the Las Vegas Riviera, then we got moved to the Sahara Bi-Level complex, and finally to the Alexis Park before we bailed on CES entirely).

Quote
I mean music, like certain orchestral works, with the widest dynamic range, deep bass (below 20hz), etc., played at realistic levels, to expose the limitations of vinyl...which electronic/rock/pop music that vinyl clutchers mainly listen to, won't expose.

Look out for the Verdi Requiem on the RCA Soria series. Side 1 track 2 and tell me that you don't hear some dynamic range (most systems can reproduce it...). Or the Saint Saens Organ symphony, which has sub-20Hz in the grooves- it can shake the walls.... As far as electronic music goes, try out 'Mystical Experiences' on the Blue Room label (apparently a subsidiary of B&W Loudspeakers). A favorite of mine for showing off the abilities (or lack thereof) of a system is Black Sabbath's Paranoid on the Vertigo white label. That recording has enough energy that if you try to play it at a life-like level, most systems just cack.

I think the biggest problem for the special pleading for digital crowd is that many CDs are compressed due to an expectation that they will be played in a car. LPs **these days** usually don't have that compression unless the producer is being lazy or cheap. Keeping in mind of course that almost any LP available today is a special run/limited edition; a 10,000 copy run is a pretty big run.

Quote
instead of wishful thinking away bass modes (or more audiophile deafness in inability to detect these real room modal problems).

There's a whole industry around room treatment. I know a manufacturer that builds subs that are meant to be deployed in multiples to eliminate nodes and such. Its not been my experience that audiophiles are unaware of these issues- most installations I've seen have some sort of treatment
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-01 21:40:18
I believe someone else on HA posted a link to these Hifi World phono cartridge frequency plots recently. I'd imagine that a cartridge like the Shure M97 would be "warmer" and more forgiving of record noise than the Ortofon 2M Red:

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1 (http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1)

No-where in the article does it mention what tone arm is used nor are any higher performance cartridges used, which is disturbing, as the ability of the arm to track the cartridge is IME far more important than the actual cartridge used. But the article is quite consistent on this omission. . Additionally, this comment:
Quote
For example, the Goldring Legacy MC produces a very low 0.26mV and hiss is audible with many preamplifiers. Only a low input Z transformer with a high turns ratio can cope with this

-is false, there are a number of phono equalizers that can have good SNR numbers without an SUT; IOW direct-in.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-01 22:14:19
Quote
I mean music, like certain orchestral works, with the widest dynamic range, deep bass (below 20hz), etc., played at realistic levels, to expose the limitations of vinyl...which electronic/rock/pop music that vinyl clutchers mainly listen to, won't expose.

Look out for the Verdi Requiem on the RCA Soria series. Side 1 track 2 and tell me that you don't hear some dynamic range (most systems can reproduce it...). Or the Saint Saens Organ symphony, which has sub-20Hz in the grooves- it can shake the walls....

I don't think you really understand the point. There's an audible dynamic range on every classical recording, whatever the format: LP, CD, MP3. There's no need to mention any composition, or recording, or specific tracks.
On vinyl the maximal dynamic range is reduced compared to PCM 44,1/16 based formats. Because every time the music comes closer to silence you'll hear noise surface, pops, cracks, distortion… Something you can't ear at all with CD on normal listening conditions. The dynamic range here simply means Signal to Noise Ratio (and has nothing to do with the rather misleading DR Range).

I have more than 2500 classical CD in my own collection, and I'm used to this sound. When I had the opportunity to listen recently classical music on vinyl (it was an Oratorio from Haendel) I was very excited… and was really astonished by the high amount of noise and other defects. It's was absolutely not transparent, and the sound was clearly behind the CD version. It was simply poor. I also downloaded for "science" some high quality vinyl rip (those made with insanely expensive material and time costly preparation) which were sampled in DSD128 or PCM 192/24…32 and I thought it was a kind of joke. The noise amount is really high and the only time I wasn't disturbed by it is when the music played loudly. There were also many other sound issues mainly audible with low volume music on those "high resolution audiophile hardware" vinyl rip. The dynamic range is clearly and by far lower on classical LP than on classical CD. Especially on modern and crystal clear recordings.

I guess I could post samples but I also guess that some people will just say the vinyl rip was just poorly made by someone who can't set up properly his own turntable.

For the little story, here are the amazon sales for LP in 2004 and 2012. In 2012, 0,1% of LP sales were classical music albums. 0,1%… Which is really surprising when you know the appetite of classical music audiophiles for SACD (~50% of the whole catalog are classical stuff) or more recently Blu-Ray Audio.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-01 22:26:51


Look out for the Verdi Requiem on the RCA Soria series. Side 1 track 2 and tell me that you don't hear some dynamic range (most systems can reproduce it...). Or the Saint Saens Organ symphony, which has sub-20Hz in the grooves- it can shake the walls....


 When I had the opportunity to listen recently classical music on vinyl (it was an Oratorio from Haendel) I was very excited… and was really astonished by the high amount of noise and other defects. It's was absolutely not transparent, and the sound was clearly behind the CD version. It was simply poor. I also downloaded for "science" some high quality vinyl rip (those made with insanely expensive material and time costly preparation) which were sampled in DSD128 or PCM 192/24…32 and I thought it was a kind of joke. The noise amount is really high and the only time I wasn't disturbed by it is when the music played loudly. There were also many other sound issues mainly audible with low volume music on those "high resolution audiophile hardware" vinyl rip. The dynamic range is clearly and by far lower on classical LP than on classical CD. Especially on modern and crystal clear recordings.
I have to assume this was not your rig then.

What sort of arm and cartridge? What phono preamp was used? As I have pointed out before, the phono preamp can cause ticks and pops to sound a lot louder than they are on the LP itself. It can be the difference between 'noisy- take the record back to the shop' or 'just fine- crank it up'. If the arm is unable to track the cartridge, it can crackle and sound strained on complex passages as it mistracks. The cartridge itself might not up to the task if its older and the cantilever assembly has lost its proper suspension. So there are some variables and its important to not conflate them and your experience thereof with the media itself.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Wombat on 2017-08-01 22:35:52
Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache. In the early days 30 seconds was sufficient (of course my hearing was better then) and it took until the 1990s before I could stay in the room all day with a strictly digital source.
WoW! :)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-08-01 22:55:03
Exactly. This guy is as big a placebophile clown as they come.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-02 00:06:53
Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache.
This is a common symptom of digital disorder, a subset of audiophile disorder.

Look out for the Verdi Requiem on the RCA Soria series. Side 1 track 2 and tell me that you don't hear some dynamic range
No interest in anecdotes. The fact is LPs have limited dynamic range and high noise that is laid bare with wide dynamic range classical, while CDs do not.

Or the Saint Saens Organ symphony, which has sub-20Hz in the grooves- it can shake the walls.
And the turntable...with high distortion mono spatially compromised bass. 16hz bass from stereo LP...please.

As far as electronic music goes..
...red herring. That's about where LPs do ok. Due to lack of dynamic range, etc.

There's a whole industry around room treatment.
Yes, many audio fashions like vinyl and "treatments" in the audio fashions biz.

I know a manufacturer that builds subs that are meant to be deployed in multiples to eliminate nodes and such. Its not been my experience that audiophiles are unaware of these issues- most installations I've seen have some sort of treatment
You completely evaded the fact that EQ either by itself or combined with multi-sub (which is ok for HT/pop, not classical music), is far more effective.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-08-02 04:31:10
Quote
Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.

And you don't have a special pleading for digital?? Keep in mind that the OP of this topic turned out to be false- that LP sales have been and are continuing to increase. You might ask why that is, why it is that you can get LPs at Target, Best Buy and Barnes and Nobles where you couldn't at those places only 5-6 years ago.

The thing is, analog or digital can sound just fine! When I play digital at shows, my goal is to get it to sound as good as LP (IOW not bright and annoying). When I play LPs at shows, my goal is to have them be as silent and noise-free as digital. There are strengths to both formats; I started taking digital seriously about 20 years ago with the Appogee DACs. That DAC showed that digital playback finally got good enough that it stopped giving me headaches.

Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache. In the early days 30 seconds was sufficient (of course my hearing was better then) and it took until the 1990s before I could stay in the room all day with a strictly digital source.


I suggest you drop such loads of utter tosh elsewhere. 
 
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Porcus on 2017-08-02 10:14:45
Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache. In the early days 30 seconds was sufficient (of course my hearing was better then) and it took until the 1990s before I could stay in the room all day with a strictly digital source.
WoW! :)
Makes total sense if you turn up the volume to compensate for the missing surface noise. In the old days, you could set the volume by ear before the music started ;)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 10:58:50
I don't have the reports in my possession
That's too bad.
But you can always keep clutching your vinyl in the bubble, with belief that CD didn't wipe the floor with it due to sound quality.
Because you said so.


Batman, sorry I do find your posts difficult to understand at times. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm clutching some vinyl bubble whatever that means.

It says here you're a manufacturer of speaker systems. I suppose that means you run your own business. I expect that means you need legal advice now and then. Next time you speak to your legal adviser ask him to explain to you why it's not OK to make public information that is not already in the public domain - unless you're the owner of the data . Then you can stop banging on about it

If you come to a knife fight and claim to have a gun, don't be surprised when everybody laughs in your face when you can't produce it to defend yourself.

By hiding behind this apparently non-existent data, you've taken it off the table, because if it can't be reviewed directly, for all practical purposes, it does not exist.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-08-02 11:13:08
I'd like to exit this thread with just a couple of final comments:

1. Thanks to AJ for pointing out a couple of posts in other threads that do seem to suggest that perhaps botface does think vinyl sounds better than CD. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say they prove he does. I stand by my earlier comment that *within this thread* I had not seen anything he said that implied such.

2. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do NOT think vinyl sounds better than CD. I am fully aware of the LP format's limitations. What I do find remarkable is that vinyl can sound pretty damn good, despite those limitations. My day-to-day listening is via streamed digital files - some of which happen to be needle drops that I can (shock, horror!) actually enjoy listening to.

3. I object to being labelled a "placebophile" every time I try to engage in debate at a more subtle level than "vinyl is utter dog poo and everyone who thinks otherwise is crazy".
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 11:44:00
Quote
Oh for f*ck's sake, just stop this special pleading for vinyl.

And you don't have a special pleading for digital?? Keep in mind that the OP of this topic turned out to be false- that LP sales have been and are continuing to increase.

I believe that my OP to this thread complained about some false premises in the article's rhetoric.

Quote
You might ask why that is, why it is that you can get LPs at Target, Best Buy and Barnes and Nobles where you couldn't at those places only 5-6 years ago.

Obviously, they are big enough to address niche markets, even fairly tiny niches.

Quote
The thing is, analog or digital can sound just fine!

Ever wonder why before digital mastering, LPs were cut from tapes? Hint: sound quality had something to do with it.

Quote
When I play digital at shows, my goal is to get it to sound as good as LP (IOW not bright and annoying). When I play LPs at shows, my goal is to have them be as silent and noise-free as digital.

I'll bet that either not all of the people who visit your booth agree that you have made LPs to be as silent as CDs, or there are some what many of us would see as technical issues with the audio system at your booth.

Got any idea how many people have demoed their vinyl systems to me that were purportedly as free of added noise and distortion s comparable CD's, only to disappoint me?


Quote
There are strengths to both formats; I started taking digital seriously about 20 years ago with the Appogee DACs. That DAC showed that digital playback finally got good enough that it stopped giving me headaches.

Most would diagnose headaches due to listening to meainstream digital as a problem due to listener bias. Trouble is, unless the noise inherent in LP playback is removed by means of technology (usually digital), it has an obvious tell.

Quote
Before that my yardstick for assessing how good a digital system was done by seeing how long it took to get a headache. In the early days 30 seconds was sufficient (of course my hearing was better then) and it took until the 1990s before I could stay in the room all day with a strictly digital source.

I think Freud reported something comparable with certain sexually repressed women...

However, there is a technical reason for this.  IME if you tune a system so that it sounds good with LPs, well that takes a lot of bending, and you end up with something pretty weird.

Yes, I had to take the analog  turning out of my system when I first switched to digital to enjoy digital at its best. However, I had been guided enough by good technology when I tuned my system for vinyl, that I wasn't that bad for digital from the onset.

Quote
That was important as I do audio for a living.

That would be a controversial claim. What you do involves practicing dark audio arts that were chased into a tiny niche long ago for a number of very good reasons, many having to do with sound quality.


Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 11:49:51
I believe someone else on HA posted a link to these Hifi World phono cartridge frequency plots recently. I'd imagine that a cartridge like the Shure M97 would be "warmer" and more forgiving of record noise than the Ortofon 2M Red:

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1 (http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/vinyl-lp/70-tests/103-cartridge-tests.html?showall=1)


IME those tests show why people adjust the capacitive cartridge loading of the Shure M97 (and other Shure cartridges) as Shure recommends.  A roll-off like that usually goes away if you add about 220 pF (more or less, depends on tone arm wiring and preamp input loading) to each channel.  The cited text doesn't show that, but it appears to have other technical problems.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 11:54:55

What sort of arm and cartridge? What phono preamp was used? As I have pointed out before, the phono preamp can cause ticks and pops to sound a lot louder than they are on the LP itself.

I guess you never heard of RIAA equalization, or simply don't know what it does to playback of LPs.

One way to look at it is that it is one big freakin' low pass filter.

(http://sessionville.com/assets/images/articles/riaa-curve.jpg)

There is a 40 dB over-all high frequency loss!

This means that high frequency sounds like record tics are massively attenuated by any even just marginal RIAA preamp.

It is inconceivable to me how one could screw up the performance of a RIAA equalizer to create such a severe problem as to overcome massive desirable high frequency losses like this, and have anything that could be reasonably considered to be just marginally operational.  Tweeters would fry. There would probably be readily audible distortion. It would be horrible!

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 12:12:11
I guess I could post samples but I also guess that some people will just say the vinyl rip was just poorly made by someone who can't set up properly his own turntable.
What sort of arm and cartridge? What phono preamp was used? As I have pointed out before, the phono preamp can cause ticks and pops to sound a lot louder than they are on the LP itself.

It seems that I was right. Most often when someone explains that obvious sound issues are audible with vinyl LP, there's another person to tell that LP wasn't played correctly.

Fire is nice but it's hot, burns and create smoke
No it doesn't! how was the fire created? Which wood did you take? With a good set up it's perfectly smokeless, lukewarm and odourless.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-02 13:13:13
1. Thanks to AJ for pointing out a couple of posts in other threads that do seem to suggest that perhaps botface does think vinyl sounds better than CD. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say they prove he does. I stand by my earlier comment that *within this thread* I had not seen anything he said that implied such.
And again I couldn't care less if he prefers vinyl to CD, or wax cylinders for that matter. Subjective preference is preference. Nothing to argue there.
However, audiophile believers always feel the need for objective crutches to support their preferences, due to the specious nature of their positions. It's not enough for them to simply prefer something, they need to have objective metrics like the sane folks have, such as lower distortion, noise, dynamic range, FR errors, etc, etc, etc to support their preferences.
So they fabricate tales about objective support like secret controlled blind tests, secret survey data, etc, etc. to prop up their subjective preferences.
Sad.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 14:36:48
I guess I could post samples but I also guess that some people will just say the vinyl rip was just poorly made by someone who can't set up properly his own turntable.

It happens all the time!  So if you ask them to post their samples, they either post something that can't be compared to an extant CD, or they post nothing at all.

Placebopihiles are often into all talk but no action. They are audio voyeurs - they want to talk, they want to drop names, they want names and pictures but when it comes to making their alleged gear strut its stuff, they are dead to the world.

For example, let's take the placebophile poster at hand. he claims to have a vinyl cutting shop, but I seriously question his competence to actually operate it. People who are hands-on with something often have a sort of immediacy in their tone.  What work of his is there to back up his claims?

Quote
What sort of arm and cartridge? What phono preamp was used? As I have pointed out before, the phono preamp can cause ticks and pops to sound a lot louder than they are on the LP itself.


Placebophiles are very often big into name dropping.

Quote
It seems that I was right. Most often when someone explains that obvious sound issues are audible with vinyl LP, there's another person to tell that LP wasn't played correctly.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Wombat on 2017-08-02 15:55:09
Sidenote:
Almost bizarre to tell guruboolez how something sounds.
I doubt there are many people out there on the internet ever provided as good detailed listening test results and artifact descriptions on a solid verifyable basis over many years as he did.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-02 16:11:10
Sidenote:
Almost bizarre to tell guruboolez how something sounds.
I doubt there are many people out there on the internet ever provided as good detailed listening test results and artifact descriptions on a solid verifyable basis over many years as he did.
Yeah, yeah, but we still don't know what arm, cartridge and phono preamp he used, now do we?
That critical information is far more important than say 60db vs 100db dynamic range, audible vs inaudible levels of distortion, timing errors, etc
Who knows, he could have been using lowly zip cord for wires too!
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 19:40:36
Sidenote:
Almost bizarre to tell guruboolez how something sounds.
I doubt there are many people out there on the internet ever provided as good detailed listening test results and artifact descriptions on a solid verifyable basis over many years as he did.
Yeah, yeah, but we still don't know what arm, cartridge and phono preamp he used, now do we?
That critical information is far more important than say 60db vs 100db dynamic range, audible vs inaudible levels of distortion, timing errors, etc
Who knows, he could have been using lowly zip cord for wires too!

Thank you Wombat. Ten years after my last tests people haven't forgot me :-[

@ajinfla
As I said before my experience is based on:
— a single personal experience which I can't tell anything about (it was good hardware even if  you can't buy a Ferrari for the same price)
— exemples of downloaded stuff. I don't have them anymore, so I can't describe it nor tell anymore what exact model of every piece of hardware they used. But among the recording process you always have cleaning fluid, expensive cartridge, audiophile wires etc, etc… You can easily find exemples of them but searching for DSD128 (maybe 256 now) or 352/32 LP rips on sharing site. There's nowadays a kind of race in sound quality / technical demonstration and every ripper want to outperform all rivals.

Anyway my point was to answer to the poster who answered that vinyl can sound with a nice dynamic to someone who remind that CD has a much better signal to noise ratio, which is the true technical word for dynamic range. Unless you or someone else can bring some evidence that specific cartridge, specific phono preamp or whatever may overcome the known limitation of LP format (~60 to 70 dB of theoretical SNR, and practically less) and therefore allow it to reach the CD transparency (96 dB, up to 112 with dithering and noise shaping) I have no interest to further discuss this point. It's a fruitless debate.

The obvious is that LP is by far a less transparent media than CD. It may be transparent enough on Iron Maiden (I like this band since 25 years so it's not an insult) but the limitation are obvious on every piano, or symphony, or string quartet, or opera recordings. For this kind of music quiet parts are countless and CD was the very first popular media which sounded and still sounds perfectly transparent. Some classical lovers may prefer the sound of LP for some reasons, but it can't be for dynamic, transparency or even fidelity.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-02 19:59:56
Sheesh.
Quote
Obviously, they are big enough to address niche markets, even fairly tiny niches.

Anything to try to make yourself right, go ahead.... So these companies *weren't* big enough to do that five years ago?? Do you see how ridiculous you are sounding?
********************************

An article was linked, showing cartridge performance and how it was measured, yet with no mention of the equipment used or how it was set up, and somehow I'm the bad guy in this? That's bulls**t and you all *know* that.

What was really going on is that the article was heavily slanted, using two 'mid-fi' cartridges (one being pretty junky lo-fi), with almost no mention of the procedures, despite having a section devoted to just that. The question really is, is the obfuscation on purpose or are they just not aware of how dramatically the pickup performance can alter the measurements? This article is heavily flawed ('bad science') as a result.

Before you all do the knee jerk unload, think about the fact that in any scientific procedure, the equipment used and how it is used is laid out so things can be repeatable. This article does not allow for that; if you ignore the arm, turntable and equalizer as this article did, you will get different results using the same cartridges. Sheesh.

FWIW, setup of the pickup is the single worst problem of the LP. Most people screw it up (by not using a protractor) and then when it fails to perform, blame the LP instead. Sheesh. Of course I'm going to ask how someone came to the conclusion they did, but all I did was ask what cartridge, arm and so on and they get all offended. This site asks for proof and all I was looking for was evidence. No-one seems willing to provide it. Arnold still has refused for some days now to say why he uses legacy cartridges (read: old junk) when he tests phono performance.... but here's a suggestion: Why assume I am casting aspersions when I ask a simple question like that? Are you afraid of the answer??

Quote
Most would diagnose headaches due to listening to meainstream digital as a problem due to listener bias. Trouble is, unless the noise inherent in LP playback is removed by means of technology (usually digital), it has an obvious tell.

Most would?  :) that's really funny! Clearly you've not spent time around high performance gear, but the the thing is, you think you have, which is also funny.

My phono preamp is just that and nothing more. What it does not do is **add** to the signal or exacerbate problems (like ticks and pops), simply because its circuit is stable. It really seems like a lot of people here listen to junk and think its the greatest thing ever.
Quote
That would be a controversial claim. What you do involves practicing dark audio arts that were chased into a tiny niche long ago for a number of very good reasons, many having to do with sound quality.

Evidence for such an attack and obvious crap? 

You can't have it both ways you know. You want others to present proof of their assertions, but then turn right around and make similar ridiculous statements, all the while expecting that you should be given a pass. What a hypocrite!

'Dark Audio Arts'... sheesh.  ::)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: krabapple on 2017-08-02 20:22:06
I'd like to exit this thread with just a couple of final comments:

1. Thanks to AJ for pointing out a couple of posts in other threads that do seem to suggest that perhaps botface does think vinyl sounds better than CD. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say they prove he does. I stand by my earlier comment that *within this thread* I had not seen anything he said that implied such.

2. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do NOT think vinyl sounds better than CD. I am fully aware of the LP format's limitations. What I do find remarkable is that vinyl can sound pretty damn good, despite those limitations. My day-to-day listening is via streamed digital files - some of which happen to be needle drops that I can (shock, horror!) actually enjoy listening to.

3. I object to being labelled a "placebophile" every time I try to engage in debate at a more subtle level than "vinyl is utter dog poo and everyone who thinks otherwise is crazy".

I know for a fact that you are a 'white hat'  -- no 'placebophile' --  and I hope you won't be put off  permanently from engaging in such threads as this. 
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: greynol on 2017-08-02 20:36:46
+1 with krabapple.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 20:50:22
In order to feed the debate with something to hear, I'm trying to post some comparison between LP sound and CD sound. As I said before it's usually pointless because people tends to refute everything concrete with hardware considerations. But for the other one who may be curious about how LP may sound with classical it should be interesting enough.

First example: the famous Bolero of Maurice Ravel (a large, 15 minutes crescendo repeating the same scheme).
I found a LP rip of a modern and digital recording done in 1986. It features Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The original CD is not absolutely transparent but silent parts are really close to silence unless you turn the volume knob on unrealistic level. This transparency level was the kind of digital marvel people never get before in their listening rooms when they discovered the CD and pure digital media. The first 30 seconds (the most quiet part) is provided as sample.

On the other side, the LP release of the same recording. It was ripped by someone in PCM 192.000 Hz, 32 bit downsampled to 24 bit. The person used a Trio KP-700 (https://www.hifishark.com/model/trio-kp-700), a Luxman E-03 (https://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_pgn=1&isRefine=false&_nkw=luxman%2003), a T.C. Electronic Desktop Konnekt 6 (http://www.tcelectronic.com/desktop-konnekt-6/). The LP itself may be used.

As you can see in the dynamic range graph of the 15 minutes recording, the quietest musical parts of the CD rip is ~-60dB. On the LP recording ripped it's ~15 dB higher. On the graph, it's not dramatic. On the ears… oh well. I still don't get the point of having a 2,3 Gb rip of something that bad. Even strongest LAME 96 kbps artifacts are not that obvious in my souvenirs (but they're not pretty either).
This LP rip is also interesting on loud musical moments. Frequency jumps up to 80.000 Hz which undoubtedly proves that LP is a very high resolution format… Oh wait, source is PCM from 1986, 44100 or 48000 Hz at best, with no information above 24000 Hz.

Conclusion on most classical music or on any high dynamic range recordings: LP provides lower dynamic range with a higher noise level easily audible on normal playback conditions, various audible issues (pops, crackles…), a lot of high frequency distortion.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-02 21:05:54
Quote
First example: the famous Bolero of Maurice Ravel (a large, 15 minutes crescendo repeating the same scheme).
I found a LP rip of a modern and digital recording done in 1986. It features Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The original CD is not absolutely transparent but silent parts are really close to silence unless you turn the volume knob on unrealistic level. This transparency level was the kind of digital marvel people never get before in their listening rooms when they discovered the CD and pure digital media. The first 30 seconds (the most quiet part) is provided as sample.

On the other side, the LP release of the same recording. It was ripped by someone in PCM 192.000 Hz, 32 bit downsampled to 24 bit. The person used a Trio KP-700, a Luxman E-03, a T.C. Electronic Desktop Konnekt 6. The LP itself may be used.

So all LPs are as noisy as this one, right? The likelihood is 'some are and some are not'.

The other questions to ask are: what cartridge, what arm, what table and what phono preamp. As always.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 21:18:20
Second example. This one is much less shocking.

It features another DDD recording. Composer is Philip Glass. The music comes from the movie Powaqqatsi. Released on CD and LP in 1988 by Nonesuch.

The ripper used the following well documented hardware and software setup:

• Linn LP12 with Lingo 2 power supply
• Linn Ekos 2 Tone-arm *upgrade
• van den Hul – The DDT II Special Cartridge
• Linn T-cable (Tonearm)
• Accuphase C11 Phono-pre
• Pro-Line Silver interlink
• Propellerhead Balance ADC
• Audioquest Coffee USB Cable
• Wavelab 6 and CD Wave 1.95.2

Tweaks:
• Noise Eater
• Masterbase (under the feet of the turntable)
• Boston Audio Mat 1

Again, I provided two samples from the same part (20 seconds sample, beginning of track #6).
The LP is this time much cleaner. But keep in mind that a noise was digitally lowered and clics/pops removed by filters. Even there, the most transparent version is the CD. The LP is muffled. If you pump the volume, many surface noise and artifacts will rise again with the LP.

If you check the dynamic of these 20 seconds, especially on the six first ones, you can easily see how well shaped, precise and deep it may go on the CD. LP isn't that far… but — ironically enough— only with digital enhancement.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 21:28:02
So all LPs are as noisy as this one, right? The likelihood is 'some are and some are not'.

The other questions to ask are: what cartridge, what arm, what table and what phono preamp. As always.
For the latter it seems that some information are provided in my post. As I said I'm not trying to convince you. Bring anything concrete to the debate please. If you have some evidence that an arm can magically enhance the sound, remove all pops, clean all noise, be sure I'll listen carefully…

…or maybe not so carefully. LP is technically inferior from the SNR point of vue. It's well known for 40 years. You can't reinvent the wheel... Even vinyl fanatics carefully avoid any conflict in this area and try to argue on more poetic aspect of the sound (warmth, presence, depth… almost anything you can't describe nor measure).
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-02 22:24:17
@ajinfla
As I said before my experience is based on:
Probably lost in translation. I was joking. Sarcasm. I thought the  zip wire comment would be the total giveaway.
Yes, I'm very aware a magic mega $$ tonearm still can't generate 100+ db dynamic range from vinyl. Or cartridge. Or phono pre. Or...

I was recently at a demo of an uber table, $20k phono pre, etc.
The Elvis track sounded hands down better than my CD version. So good, I went out and bought the LP ;-).
On classical, well.....
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-02 22:26:28
Quote
First example: the famous Bolero of Maurice Ravel (a large, 15 minutes crescendo repeating the same scheme).
I found a LP rip of a modern and digital recording done in 1986. It features Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The original CD is not absolutely transparent but silent parts are really close to silence unless you turn the volume knob on unrealistic level. This transparency level was the kind of digital marvel people never get before in their listening rooms when they discovered the CD and pure digital media. The first 30 seconds (the most quiet part) is provided as sample.

On the other side, the LP release of the same recording. It was ripped by someone in PCM 192.000 Hz, 32 bit downsampled to 24 bit. The person used a Trio KP-700, a Luxman E-03, a T.C. Electronic Desktop Konnekt 6. The LP itself may be used.

So all LPs are as noisy as this one, right? The likelihood is 'some are and some are not'.

OK "Atmasphere", if you really do have a disk cutting facility at your disposal, (I doubt it!) then you are unique among us as being able to prepare a counter-example with all LP recording and playback components as exactly you would have them.  I'm sure the CD track is still available as either new or old stock. Since it is digital, its provenance doesn't matter. Just round trip it through your LP recording and playback facility and post the results as a FLAC file.

If you can't meet this simple request "Atmasphere," it is evidence that you don't have the resources you claim, or that they don't work as well as you claim.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: nastea on 2017-08-02 22:28:54
Guruboolez, what's a Noise Eater? Sounds interesting.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-02 22:43:07
Guruboolez, what's a Noise Eater? Sounds interesting.
My first guess: a noise cleaning filter
But after googling it: it may be an audiophile carpet, or an idiophile device:

https://www.thomann.de/fr/roland_ne_10_noise_eater.htm
http://www.son-video.com/Rayons/Cables/EspaceCable/FiltresSecteur/EAT-Noise-Eater.html

Anyway, it's probably something you don't need to rip a CD but something important  enough to make a LP rip sound closer to a CD.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Cavaille on 2017-08-03 01:22:17
This LP rip is also interesting on loud musical moments. Frequency jumps up to 80.000 Hz which undoubtedly proves that LP is a very high resolution format… Oh wait, source is PCM from 1986, 44100 or 48000 Hz at best, with no information above 24000 Hz.

Thank you for finding and providing these comparisons. This LP rip is a fine example of limitations inherent in vinyl. And a particularly bad rip. On a good setup (without all the fancy stuff) one would be clearly able to see the aliasing filter of the recording device (I assume it was a PCM adaptor, Soundstream or Sony PCM-16xx). When I digitized several vinyls last year (I wanted to know how good an LP rip can really be), it was visible in all cases. Most of the time indicating a 44.1 source, one time a 48 source and two or three times a 32 source. The LPs were a mixture of '80s -> Present-Day recordings. While I set the turntable up to perfection, I spent hours to remove all the defects all LPs (several brand new) produced. All the time.

A few months ago I had a discussion on the German site minidiscforum.de. Someone accused me of regarding everything audio with a too technical eye, "sucking out the soul of the music", reducing peoples' abilities to listen to music, etc. (http://www.minidiscforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=23594)

To (sort of) prove that one can create any desired sound once that person knows how that sound technically works, I created a listening test (non-ABX).

People had to listen to two samples of the same musical piece: one vinyl, the other CD. So at a glance a very simple analogue vs. digital fun and not serious listening test. But: in most cases, both samples came from the same media. Many came from the vinyl rips I described above. To create the CD version I just applied an EQ setting supposed to sound like the audiophool cliché: cold, brittle and lifeless. I also brickwall limited and decreased channel seperation. Very easy.

To create the vinyl sound was easy as well: I just had to destroy the material. That simple. Add distortions for high frequencies, make lower frequencies monaural and attentuate them, add a cartridge/amp mismatch (peak around 15 kHz), add pops / clicks and noise (white noise, equalized to pronounce low frequencies), add vinyl surface noise, add wow and flutter and - Heureka! - you created a destroyed vinyl rip out of perfectly transparent audio. In two cases I mimicked different turntables. One was supposed to be the new Audio-Technica, the other an old Thorens (clearly audible wow and flutter, different distortions).

I didn't say what was what, people had to guess. The ones who took parts guessed correctly and suggested to throw the "Thorens" away. One person had problems hearing any difference at all, one or two persons refused to listen because "one cannot compare this / test not expressive / one cannot listen to computer files / blablabla".

Things I took away from this were:

1. people are easily fooled (I read things like "vinyl samples sound warmer")
2. they like their clichés to be confirmed (CD sounds "cold")
3. they will believe the things you tell them once you say "I work as an engineer" (which is true but still doesn't make any arguments of mine more important)

4. the "vinyl sound" is easy to create: just destroy the audio

Effectively, LP is just a collection of several kinds of distortions and defects, with a bit of music thrown in for good measure. And in rare cases (when all is well, the LP a good pressing, etc.), it can even sound decent. If the music has a low dynamic range and doesn't reveal the low signal to noise ratio.

So, Atmasphere, if vinyl is as noise-and-distortion-free as you say it is, prove it. Btw, the guys here don't need to prove that digital is better. It is a fact. Here you can find those facts, the guys on this site have them, they are stating them to you all the time. You have faith. Which isn't really a counterpart. I understand you, I do. I was once like you, not 10 years ago. I did not believe them (that's why they still don't trust me which is ok) and I didn't like to be challenged by them. In the end however they have been right with... well, anything and everything. And you would do well by listening to them.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: kode54 on 2017-08-03 02:26:39
He has already chimed in with a moderator report against one of Arny's posts, for allegedly failing to meet this site's need for proof to validate his mere opinion that digital is better than vinyl. Technically, that could be correct, as if someone actually does desire all of those flaws in their audio recordings, to give them the "character" that they could not acquire merely through the original performance, then perhaps to those people, LPs really are "better".

Digital is still objectively better at reproducing the original signal, regardless of whatever medium it came from in the first place. Digital can even faithfully reproduce all of the flaws of vinyl or analog tape, either through recording something produced in that format, or from digital simulation that is more than adequate at fooling anyone with a set of ears.

I only posted in one of these vinyl discussions a few weeks ago to point out I had to transfer an LP to digital, and I used heavy processing before I settled on a result. I only did this because the original album was never released in a digital format, not because I desired the flaws of vinyl media.

Don't take this as the final word of this forum, though. I only oil the gears, I have chosen to stay out of this discussion in any official capacity, as it has been somewhat entertaining, and has brought out all sorts of technical details and knowledge. Of course, a lot of this is existing information, and may very well already be posted in older vinyl arguments.

I also notice that @Atmasphere registered years ago, and only posted a handful of times back then, also in some placebophile discussion, before disappearing for many years, only to return here in time with the vinyl revolution. (Get it? It's a turntable pun.)

I even see the publisher of some of my favorite games, Double Fine, getting in on the vinyl action, by selling "limited edition" vinyl releases of their game soundtracks. This time, for their retraux futuristic Head Lander. And you just know that what they're putting on these vinyl platters is a 100% digital master, so the only point is to introduce all of the format flaws of LP, which don't even matter, because people will be buying this mostly to stash in their collectibles vaults of crap that never gets used, and will likely never accumulate as much value as they will dust.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-03 12:33:40
SOME MORE SAMPLES

LOVE - FOREVER CHANGES - MFSL

2016 MFSL EDITION: SACD vs 2×180g LP high quality rip

(http://www.elusivedisc.com/images/mfsl245402.jpg)

I choose this one, because I can compare a new pressed LP to the same digital master (SACD edition). Both were released by MFSL last year. I also choose this one because the person who did the rip seems to master the process, has a nice hardware setup and documented every step. Even the LP was new. It's the kind of vinyl rip I talked above: a well performed and time consuming work, something I couldn't do nor simply afford probably. I couldn't enjoy a better sounding "vinyl" experience myself.
Here are the details:

Quote
Vinyl condition: Brand New, Sealed.

3 step cleaning process:
(1) Washed with Knosti Disco-Antistat;
(2) Rinsed in 2nd trough with demineralised water;
(3) Record Doctor V RCM

• Rega RP3 Turntable upgraded with:
    — Rega TT-PSU
    — New aluminium sub-platter
    — New stainless steel dual pulley fitted with 2 x Rega White Drive Belts manufactured to higher tolerances
    — New acrylic platter
    — SRM/Tech Silicone Platter Mat
    — JA Mitchell Record Clamp
    — Ortofon 2M Bronze Phono Cartridge aligned using the Baerwald Arc Protractor
• Rega Fono MM Phono Preamp
• Onzow Zerodust stylus cleaner
• Tascam US-366 ADC
• Recorded using Adobe Audition CC v.6.0 @ 32bit/192kHz, then resampled to 24bit/192kHz
• Manual declicking and track splitting using Adobe Audition v. 1.5.

The person didn't say if the electricity comes from a nuclear power plant or a coal power plants (I guess it matters to reduce the DAC's jitter, am I right?), but everything else seems to be complete. I resampled it to 88200 Hz to match the SACD rip (for information, there were no information in the highest frequencies bands, except a slight amount of noise).





On the other side, there's the SACD rip (PS3, Oppo, Pioneer DVD players… there are several options nowadays to rip them). I would say the Red Book layer would do the job, but I prefered the High Resolution DSD layer in order to check the high frequencies as well.
Quote
• SACD Edition, ripped with PS3 to ISO
• PCM conversion with foobar2000: 88200 Hz, +6dB, multistage 32fp mode
• small and imprecise time alignement to match the LP rip





The sample corresponds to:
• track one (Alone Again Or)
• 30 first seconds
It's a really interesting one, because it begins with a very quiet part, with a high channel separation, close to silence in the left channel, and ends with a louder moment.





LISTENING EXPERIENCE

I'm not familiar with the technical words describing analog flaws, but there's an audible kind of wow & flutter on the left channel of the LP rip. There are also small tics and/or pops which weren't removed by the declicking filter of Adobe Audition. They're not very loud but I can ear them with no troubles. The noise is also stronger on the LP rip: it's a coarse one, irregular, corresponding to the mechanical movement of the platter I suppose.
When the music goes louder, all audible problems are gone. Sound is really good, no problem with that. It becomes probably as good as a CD ripped, with individual track split, and tagged, in three minutes and three mouse clics only.

The SACD is on the other side much cleaner. MFSL kept a solid amount of noise (which I can mainly hear on the right and loud channel: so it seems they decided to clean it at the beginning of the left channel which is a great idea in my opinion). No surface noise, no wow/flutter, no tics, no pops, nothing "analog". It's just music, with little annoyance from the recording and media techniques.


CONCLUSION

Even with a high quality set up, even with a lot of work (washing, cleaning and drying the disc + digital filtering) a LP rip from the same master has a poor dynamic range. Silence never exist. Noise covers all the quietest and subtle but audible parts of the music (unless they're compressed on LP mastering, funny enough…). Even with the best efforts, it seems you can't get rid of inherent LP sound issues. And this is with a fresh cut, never played before, LP. From a well reputed audiophile label. I can't provide any better example of the LP vs CD (or SACD, it doesn't matter at this point) comparison. All the remaining ones I found are much worse (when not laughable) for vinyl when it comes to compare the impact of LP transfer on high dynamic music.

You want to know why classical lovers quickly left the vinyl format and why there's quite no LP resurgence in the classical catalogue: no need to look for convenience of the CD format or cost. LP is a far worse media for music, and flaws are easy to notice when benefits are very vague at best (warmth, presence, analog truth, or many more poetic expressions from the neurotic dictionnary of audiofools).
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 13:55:28
He has already chimed in with a moderator report against one of Arny's posts, for allegedly failing to meet this site's need for proof to validate his mere opinion that digital is better than vinyl.

I need to clarify some things.

(1) I reject and avoid using words like "Better" simply because they lack general meaning.  What's better for you might not be better for me, or vice versa.

(2) No matter what better may mean, I assert that sounding different is a prerequisite for sounding better. It is obvious to me that something can't sound better than itself.  In every reasonable case, it will sound no different than itself.

(3) If I'm expressing my true thoughts, I only think in terms of different or not different.

(4) My standard for sound quality is reproduction that is audibly no different than an ideal audio component. To me the ideal audio component is a short, straight, piece of conductive substance driven and received by  what is by traditional engineering standards  appropriately conditioned signal sources and sinks. 

So, failing any other listening test, to me the ideal reference listening test is a comparison of the DUT to the ideal audio component that I just described.

In the case of 16/44 digital, as has been reported publicly many times, in the late 1970s along with some associates of mine we conducted an ABX listening test involving an Ampex  ADD-1 digital delay.  It is described here http://djcarlst.provide.net/abx_digi.htm where it has been posted for well over a decade. I would estimate its first posting date to be around 1996.   The device operated at 16/44 or 16/48 and was based on LPCM coding. It was designed to facilitate the use of the Ampex ATR100 analog tape recorder for vinyl mastering. Its quality was essential, as its purpose was to drive the cutting head.  The delay was required to enable the cutting lathe to anticipate needs for various amounts of lead or groove width based on loudness and spectral content. For example, heavy deep bass needs a wider groove.

It is obvious to me that while the ADD-1 was by most accounts a very good device, current high quality analog converters can reasonably expcted perform the same or even better, at least in terms of technical measurements. Therefore, its sonics are no better than theirs are.  That makes those tests a suitable reference for judging the sonics of modern high quality 16/44 digital audio.

IOW for almost 5 decades I can claim that 16/44 digital audio is indistinguishable from the ideal, based on ABX tests. This claim is thus compliant with TOS-8.   The claim that I violated the site's rules for proof is false and has been false for about 50 years.


Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Cavaille on 2017-08-03 13:56:46
Good vinyl rip. With awful results. Channel separation is particularly bad (apart from surface noise, noise, etc.)

I did a quick frequency response comparison between SACD derived flac and vinyl:

(http://i.imgur.com/Gn8YagN.jpg)
(Vinyl: reference, spectrum: linear, no smoothing)

The wildly alternating response indicates fairly high distortions starting around 650 Hz (assuming the absence of said distortions on the digital source). Rumble noise is clearly visible, the RIAA amp appears to lack a high pass. The frequency boost starting at 14 kHz is either caused by distortions of the cartridge / mistracking / distorting amp or by a low pass applied to the master used for the SACD.

I really have to wonder why people record this with 24/192 if they then don't throw all kinds of signal processing at it (which would at least partly validate the usage of overkill datarates). Pointless.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 14:43:37
[deleted post]
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Cavaille on 2017-08-03 15:27:09
Post deleted. Reason: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,114377.msg943177.html#msg943177
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 16:02:11
Good vinyl rip. With awful results. Channel separation is particularly bad (apart from surface noise, noise, etc.)

I did a quick frequency response comparison between SACD derived flac and vinyl:

(http://i.imgur.com/Gn8YagN.jpg)
(Vinyl: reference, spectrum: linear, no smoothing)

The wildly alternating response indicates fairly high distortions starting around 650 Hz (assuming the absence of said distortions on the digital source). Rumble noise is clearly visible, the RIAA amp appears to lack a high pass. The frequency boost starting at 14 kHz is either caused by distortions of the cartridge / mistracking / distorting amp or by a low pass applied to the master used for the SACD.

I really have to wonder why people record this with 24/192 if they then don't throw all kinds of signal processing at it (which would at least partly validate the usage of overkill datarates). Pointless.

I did my own analysis (see attachment) and can't confirm anything above.

The < 40 Hz content in the LP version that seems to be missing from the SACD lacks the periodicity that is characteristic of most rumble which is due to the platter motor. There is a peak just below 10 Hz which seems to be the usual tone arm resonance.

I don't hear lot of mistracking. The HF spectral differences commence above 4 KHz and seem to the result of a shelving-type equalizer filter. 

There were minor timing (ca. 30 mSec) and more signficiant level differences between the SACD and LP rips. Once these difference reduced to less than 1 mSec and less than 0.1 dB, I could still ABX them 16/16 listening to just X's. ABX log on request.  If you listen to the LP track, you should immediately recognize why.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 16:06:24
There are some unexpected differences. One is the  HF differences that you noted, which for all the world look and sound to me like plain old equalization in the form of a shelving filter. There is also a sharp roll off below 60 Hz in the CD version that again looks to me like something that a mastering engineer would do.

About the sharp roll off below 60 Hz... you could be right, I didn't think about that. When mastering I do this all the time, too (below 35 Hz). Apart from subwoofers and certain headphones, most speakers are unable to play such content anyway.

I would not consider this to be a typical pair of recordings because of the extreme nature of the differences in spectral balance. While the LP format has a lot of issues, those issues are IME generally not that bad.  This looks like the work of a mastering engineer with something specific but hard for me to understand on his mind. Maybe if I had been there, or heard an explanation of them, I might understand.

I wondered about that, too. I suspect the hardware, though. I wouldn't be surprised if the boutique amp that was used tries to add something that isn't there in order to be adored by its target audience. I've seen my fair share of boutique hardware, some of that was - strictly speaking - broken. And with an analogue RIAA amp (which is imprecise technology to begin with) companies might go wild in order to attract people who are basically looking for a botched frequency response (because it sounds... "different").

I often have the impression that audiophiles just crave something that "remasters" stuff on-the-fly. Something that applies some euphonic beautyfication alongside a preferred, effective EQ setting. You probably could make audiophiles of all trades happy if you'd produce a device that contains an equalizer (combined with an exciter), put it into fancy housing, offering genre-specific settings not called "settings" and sell it as the newest analogue revolution. Of course, it cannot be called equalizer, they wouldn't buy it.

However, people who are trying to justify their affection for vinyl do not follow the kind of logic that you and I might share. There is this tremendous hostility to the digital domain which they may seek to addresss with extreme overkill formats, and then accept poorer subjective results by avoiding digital processing of any kind.

Reminds me of religious zealots.

(1) A poster who reported health-related problems due to listening to digital media. I haven't heard of such a thing since the days of Dr. Diamond.  http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=4408

Sadly, I can't read it.

(2) The ELP turntable which was apparently packaged with an analog noise reduction facility that probably underperformed digitial equivalents.

Wasn't that the one that came with a washing machine because the reading process amplified dust enormously?

My big mistake - The tracks in question were incorrectly identified in the graphic, and were actually the previous LP/CD pair.

I deleted the post but you quoted and responded to it before I realized my mistake and deleted its contents.

I redid the work with the LP/SACD pair and just posted those results.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Cavaille on 2017-08-03 16:14:26
Deleted my post as well as.

The < 40 Hz content in the LP version that seems to be missing from the SACD lacks the periodicity that is characteristic of most rumble which is due to the platter motor. There is a peak just below 10 Hz which seems to be the usual tone arm resonance.

A tone arm resonance. Makes sense, thanks.

I don't hear lot of mistracking. The HF spectral differences commence above 4 KHz and seem to the result of a shelving-type equalizer filter.

So indeed a mastering decision.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-08-03 18:35:14
Guruboolez, what's a Noise Eater? Sounds interesting.
My first guess: a noise cleaning filter
But after googling it: it may be an audiophile carpet, or an idiophile device:

https://www.thomann.de/fr/roland_ne_10_noise_eater.htm
Interesting. It's a damping device to place under the kick pedal of an electronic drum kit to reduce the transmission of vibrations caused by using the pedal. (I am a failed ex-drummer and occasional user of an e-drum kit myself, and my wife will attest to how annoying the "thump thump thump" that travels through the house can be). Made by Roland who are one of the leading manufacturers of e-drums. (Obviously not relevant for an acoustic drum kit).

Can't quite figure out where it fits into a vinyl ripping setup. Presumably it goes under the turntable in an attempt to limit environmental vibrations reaching the TT. That said, the picture of it suggests that it's narrower than would be needed to go under a TT.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Wombat on 2017-08-03 18:39:02
2016 MFSL EDITION: SACD vs 2×180g LP high quality rip
A very nice sample guruboolez, thanks.
The noise in the beginning even when cleaned as in the LP sample it still sounds like the storm comes near or i live near the beach. This is for normal listening level and i don't like listening to loud.
What annoys me most is clicks. Even the obvious cleaned clicks leave that little hiccups that sound like broken tape.
I can't stand such noise and i am glad digital came around.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-03 18:56:31
Quote
For the latter it seems that some information are provided in my post. As I said I'm not trying to convince you. Bring anything concrete to the debate please. If you have some evidence that an arm can magically enhance the sound, remove all pops, clean all noise, be sure I'll listen carefully…

I don't know of an arm that can do that! Nor did I suggest that one can, although I *did* say that when a cartridge is mistracking, one of the artifacts is a crackle that is very much like ticks and pops. An arm that can track a cartridge properly will be free of **that** particular artifact, but its not actually removing any ticks and pops.
Quote
…or maybe not so carefully. LP is technically inferior from the SNR point of vue. It's well known for 40 years. You can't reinvent the wheel... Even vinyl fanatics carefully avoid any conflict in this area and try to argue on more poetic aspect of the sound (warmth, presence, depth… almost anything you can't describe nor measure).

No argument, nor have I suggested otherwise at any time on this forum! What I **have** suggested is that the LP is quieter than many here assert, that's all. Two nights ago I played an LP pressed in 1960 (a red label Angel no less, the 4 seasons by Vivaldi) and there were no ticks and pops over the entire side. I don't find this unusual, but I am careful when I buy used LPs (like this one) and I try to take care of them with proper storage and handling.

Quote
OK "Atmasphere", if you really do have a disk cutting facility at your disposal, (I doubt it!) then you are unique among us as being able to prepare a counter-example with all LP recording and playback components as exactly you would have them.

That is correct-  I bought the lathe and associated electronics back in 1991. And I do have a state of the art tone arm (Triplanar) and phono preamp.  FWIW I've already posted a photo of my lathe and on the lathe was the Sutherland Timeline.

Quote
  I'm sure the CD track is still available as either new or old stock. Since it is digital, its provenance doesn't matter. Just round trip it through your LP recording and playback facility and post the results as a FLAC file.

If you can't meet this simple request "Atmasphere," it is evidence that you don't have the resources you claim, or that they don't work as well as you claim.

I think I can do that but perhaps you could clarify: what CD track is it to which you refer?

Quote
He has already chimed in with a moderator report against one of Arny's posts, for allegedly failing to meet this site's need for proof to validate his mere opinion that digital is better than vinyl.

This statement is false. I reported the post on the basis that what he was saying about me was false- in fact he had no idea what he was talking about, and no evidence for it. Oh wait- maybe it was the statement that Arny made about vinyl being past its resurgence- I loose track; he says a lot of things he can't back up. This site looks for evidence, I assume that includes comments that members make. Go back and read the report again. As an admin you can do that.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: guruboolez on 2017-08-03 19:25:12
No argument, nor have I suggested otherwise at any time on this forum! What I **have** suggested is that the LP is quieter than many here assert, that's all. Two nights ago I played an LP pressed in 1960 (a red label Angel no less, the 4 seasons by Vivaldi) and there were no ticks and pops over the entire side. I don't find this unusual, but I am careful when I buy used LPs (like this one) and I try to take care of them with proper storage and handling.

I have no reason to not believe in your experience, but you could try to capture some examples of quiet moments and share them. It's a good way to feed a debate by sharing audio samples rather than words only. You must have quite a good experience with vinyl playback. I don't have it — mine is near exclusively based on LP rip. So I'm really open minded with others experience, but I need something to hear :)
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 20:17:25
This statement is false. I reported the post on the basis that what he was saying about me was false- in fact he had no idea what he was talking about, and no evidence for it. Oh wait- maybe it was the statement that Arny made about vinyl being past its resurgence- I loose track; he says a lot of things he can't back up. This site looks for evidence, I assume that includes comments that members make. Go back and read the report again. As an admin you can do that.

IOW what I said was false, but you don't know the reason why. But wait, you have speculated a couple of things.

I never said that vinyl was past its resurgence. I just quoted an article that used a statement to that effect to grab attention.  I just pointed out why some of its reasons why were bogus.

It appears that this is about as good as it gets with you - false claims, Opinion Stated As Fact, an absence of any confirming evidence except your say-so which has already been found to be false any number of times.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-03 20:26:27


Quote
OK "Atmasphere", if you really do have a disk cutting facility at your disposal, (I doubt it!) then you are unique among us as being able to prepare a counter-example with all LP recording and playback components as exactly you would have them.

That is correct-  I bought the lathe and associated electronics back in 1991. And I do have a state of the art tone arm (Triplanar) and phono preamp.  FWIW I've already posted a photo of my lathe and on the lathe was the Sutherland Timeline.

Provides zero evidence about who owned it and when. 

Quote
  I'm sure the CD track is still available as either new or old stock. Since it is digital, its provenance doesn't matter. Just round trip it through your LP recording and playback facility and post the results as a FLAC file.
Quote


If you can't meet this simple request "Atmasphere," it is evidence that you don't have the resources you claim, or that they don't work as well as you claim.

I think I can do that but perhaps you could clarify: what CD track is it to which you refer?

Three have been mentioned in this thread.

This is what I can divine about the specifics that are mentioned in this thread.  This information is just as available to you as it is to myself, but I want to make sure that you can't hide behind your oft-demonstrated inability to discern such things:

Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft , Digital Stereo , 415 972-1  specifically the Bolero cut.
https://www.discogs.com/Ravel-London-Symphony-Orchestra-Claudio-Abbado-Bolero-Rapsodie-Espagnole-Ma-M%C3%A8re-LOye-Pavane/release/7719557
Post 119 this thread

Philip Glass. Soundtrack for the movie Powaqqatsi. Released on CD and LP in 1988 by Nonesuch
https://www.discogs.com/Philip-Glass-Powaqqatsi/release/2395526
Post 121 this thread


Love - Forever Changes - MFSL 2016 MFSL EDITION: SACD vs 2×180g LP 
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/mobile-fidelity-reissues-loves-forever-changes-45rpm
Post 129 this thread

This is the best information that I can discern. It is subject to verification by the authors of the posts  in this thread that originally mentioned it.




Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-03 21:45:05
This site looks for evidence, I assume that includes comments that members make.

Two nights ago I played an LP pressed in 1960 (a red label Angel no less, the 4 seasons by Vivaldi) and there were no ticks and pops over the entire side.
Post sample now or stop making extraordinary claims...unless you mean you can't hear ticks and pops.
While you're at it, post samples of the 16hz Saint-Saens stereo LP also
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Atmasphere on 2017-08-04 20:06:29
I don't have the CDs Arne mentions, but I do have others. I'll see if I can post that Angel recording too, but that's an entire album side we're talking about and you want that uncompressed?

Quote
I never said that vinyl was past its resurgence.

Quote
There is copious and very clear evidence that a true resurgence of LP sales  never happened.
(reply #84)

Hm. Were you lying then or are you lying now?
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: cliveb on 2017-08-05 08:11:28
... although I *did* say that when a cartridge is mistracking, one of the artifacts is a crackle that is very much like ticks and pops. An arm that can track a cartridge properly will be free of **that** particular artifact, but its not actually removing any ticks and pops.
I am very familiar with the sound of mistracking. To me it sounds very little like ticks and pops. Rather, it's a horrendous distortion.

If your definition of ticks and pops is something that sounds like mistracking, and what I think of as ticks and pops slides under your radar, then I'm not surprised that you claim LPs need not have ticks and pops.

FWIW, my own experience is that I've never come across one single example of an LP from any source that was completely tick-free. But then digitally restoring LPs is my hobby, and I'm a bit anal about hunting down ticks. (Bear in mind that I've not bought a brand new LP in the last 25-odd years).
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: ajinfla on 2017-08-05 12:54:13
This site looks for evidence, I assume that includes comments that members make.
Yes and your hands continue to wave.
It's obvious you have none.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-05 14:04:13
I don't have the CDs Arne mentions, but I do have others. I'll see if I can post that Angel recording too, but that's an entire album side we're talking about and you want that uncompressed?

They are readily available to buy for a reasonable cost  - both CD and LP versions.

Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2017-08-05 14:26:08
... although I *did* say that when a cartridge is mistracking, one of the artifacts is a crackle that is very much like ticks and pops. An arm that can track a cartridge properly will be free of **that** particular artifact, but its not actually removing any ticks and pops.
I am very familiar with the sound of mistracking. To me it sounds very little like ticks and pops. Rather, it's a horrendous distortion.

If your definition of ticks and pops is something that sounds like mistracking, and what I think of as ticks and pops slides under your radar, then I'm not surprised that you claim LPs need not have ticks and pops.

FWIW, my own experience is that I've never come across one single example of an LP from any source that was completely tick-free. But then digitally restoring LPs is my hobby, and I'm a bit anal about hunting down ticks. (Bear in mind that I've not bought a brand new LP in the last 25-odd years).

I agree 100% with the comments above.  Tics and pops have  short duration, on the order of a fraction of a millisecond to several milliseconds.

(please see attachment for a real-world example).

Mistracking has the duration of the track contents that stimulate it, usually on the order of tens of milliseconds or longer.

The other two graphics are from a Shure document about trackability. I"ve always wondered how modern high end cartrdiges would do if judged by these Shure ca. 1976 criteria.  Since AFAIK nobody seems to ever try, I suspect that the results were no overly complementary.. The Shure test disk is still readily available for a reasonable price. 

But we know one of the cannonical  rules of golden earism - zillions$ for gear, but don't we let you dare spend a penny on test equipment!




Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Audible! on 2017-11-28 19:43:46
Many thanks for posting the matched Love rips/drops, guruboolez, the differences are definitely there.
If I can make it back to my stash of physical CDs any time soon it would be very interesting to compare the MFSL SACD/CD mastering to that of the standard remastered version (https://www.amazon.com/Forever-Changes-LOVE/dp/B000058983).

For anyone interested, Forever Changes is an absolutely superb, and incredibly eclectic album.
Psychedelic, baroque, late 60s rock. Flamenco-inflected and slashing electric guitarz, orchestral bits, abrupt time signature changes, bizarre, evocative lyrics ("By the time that I'm through singing, The bells from the schools of wars will be ringing, More confusions, blood transfusions, The news today will be the movies for tomorrow").
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: eric.w on 2017-11-28 22:54:55
I've got the 2001 remaster on CD.

I took the first 30 seconds, padded it and adjusted the gain to match the SACD.flac with:
sox 01\ Alone\ Again\ Or.wav CD.wav pad 0.14523809523809524 trim 0 30 gain -2.99

Gain was set so Foobar's replaygain scanner reports the same track gain (+4.36) and the padding was set to line up the part where the left channel comes in. Other parts of the track don't line up perfectly so I guess the CD and SACD are from different recordings of the tape.
Title: Re: WSJ asks Why Vinyls Boom Is Over
Post by: Audible! on 2017-11-28 23:45:15
Interesting!
Thanks for doing that eric.w, I'm going to have to try some serious critical listening of the two digital rips.