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Topic: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl. (Read 204315 times) previous topic - next topic
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Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #250
But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl.


It probably helps to take a step back. This is really about music and media. Supposedly, we listen to music beause we like music. Alternatively, one might like a particular medium, less so than want to enjoy the music.

If your primary interest is music, then of course you want to  listen to the most accurate form of the music which is of course live music. Since that is often difficult or impossible, us music lovers fall back on listening to music via some medium.

Comparing and contrasting the LP and CD mediums, let us first agree that both mediums force us to resort to the process of micing and mixing, which in and of itself dramatically changes the sound of the music. This problem is common to both the LP and the CD, and sequel mediums, which are now common. Most newer mediums behave more like the CD than the LP as typically used.

Now, actualy comparing just the 2 mediums, we should agree that the CD medium can deliver a near-perfect or functionally perfect presentation of whatever we miced and mixed. The LP medium is highly sonically instrusive, and that is not an opinion, it is a scientifically provable fact.

Therefore, if your interest is primarily listening to music, and not primarily listening to the sonic and experiencing the other non-sonic properties of the medium, then the CD is the logical, scientific choice.



Where is the data in the form of bias controlled listening tests to support this hypothesis? this would require that we have the original musicians in the original venue as a reference. Then we would have to be choose a listening position in the concert hall as our reference position given the fact that the sound changes with any changes in listener position. then we have to find the best possible microphone/recording/playback/listening room combination that creates the best illusion of that sound from that one listener position. THEN we can take that recording, master it to CD and LP and THEN we can do a bias controlled comparison using the live music as a reference. Not terribly practical is it? Never been done quite like that has it? The problem with your hypothesis is that it assumes that transparency in every step of the process of recording and playing back music is going to lead to a better result. this might be true if the process were designed to be a literal reconstruction of the original and if every other link in the chain were perfect. But the assumption fails to hold up in the real world where we have a recording and playback system that is designed to create an aural illusion and there are many undisputed less than perfect links in the chain that create inherent problems in that aural illusion. given these obvious problems one can not make any of the assumptions you make and must actually do the hard work and conduct the actual listening tests.

Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #251
analog scott,

We've had this argument tens of times before on HA.

1. No one has proven that the sound of an LP can't be faithfully reproduced on a CD. Lots of people copy LPs onto CDs. They seem happy with the process. No one seems to be able to ABX a difference. If you can, step right up.

2. Mastering differences, noise, and distortion can all cause a commercial LP to sound different from a commercial CD. Sometimes the commercial LP will sound better. My stereo LP of A Hard Day's Night sounds far better than my mono CD


You might think the solution to point 2 is to spend a lot of money on a decent turntable and buy vinyl for those releases where vinyl sounds better.

Some people would rather get the "superior" vinyl copied to CD or digital file by someone else, and use that.

Unless you can disprove point 1, using a digital copy of the "superior" vinyl is rational, gives equivalent sound quality, and is far cheaper - not to mention more convenient, as the digital file won't scratch or wear out!

Cheers,
David.



Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering. I'll give you credit though you have almost reluctantly acknowledged that in some cases one can get better sound from a commercial LP than it's commercial CD counterpart. Even baby steps are steps. But do tell me how does one smuggle that superior sound through a friend if one doesn't have the friend with that superior LP? If everyone did as you suggest there would be no one with superior LPs to steal from. It amazes me just how warped some of the rationalizations used against LPs can become here.

Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #252
If you can't comprehend the distinction between format and mastering, there is no point in continuing involving you in this discussion. This discussion is not about mastering. Mastering techniques for vinyl will also work for CD. If the quality of the CD masters is inferior to the quality of the vinyl masters, that does not make CD inferior as a format, it makes the CD masters inferior.

You are also consistently involving live sound in this discussion. When discussing recorded music, you're dealing with an audio signal. Capturing the "live experience" is quite beyond the scope of the current discussion and is blatantly off-topic.

Consider yourself warned. Further comments pulling the discussion off-topic towards either live music or mastering differences will be split off to some separate thread. This topic compares and discusses the details of the signal reproduction abilities of vinyl and CD, though that's probably putting too fine a point on it.

Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #253
Why is that the point? Why is the goal to reproduce a stored intermediate signal (a recording) with a particular greater quantifiable accuracy the point?


Because that is the best we can hope to do predictably.  The gear we have at home only 'sees' the recorded signal, not the original event.  Attempts to recreate the original event by changing the recorded signal at playback before output are always going to be guesses, and cannot possibly cover every circumstance of original event.  An setup that happens to impart an stunning illusion of reality to , say, a recording of an organ recital in a church cannot be guaranteed to do the same job for a rock show recorded in a dive bar or a string quartet in a small salon-like room or a wholly artificial mix from electric instruments sent directly to the mixing board.

For better or worse, the recorded signal  -- what the record/mix/mastering engineers heard in their monitors -- *is* the event to be reproduced faithfully, from the perspective of the 'playback gear'.  Everything else is speculation.  The better those engineers do at their job of capturing the 'reality', the better the chance that we can recreate it at home.

Quote
As for the matter of speakers, if you were not drawing a parallel, what was the point of that anecdote? The parallel breaks just as the analogy would, and the anecdote is really rather impotent if it is neither parallel nor analogy.


A Parallel yes. an analogy no. Why does the parallel "break?" what is so unique about speakers that one can make preference comparisons without time syncing but one can not do the same when comparing CDs to LPs for the same purpose?



Your analogy is not apt, because as I explained, loudspeakers, and amps, and cables, are not source devices playing media.  'Synching' has no meaning when you are using the same source device to compare some downstream component...there is nothing to 'synch'. You play the music on a single CDP or DVDP or turntable or hard disc or Edison cylinder or whatever,  and switch between downstream components A and B.  Whereas if you are comparing two CDPs, DVDPs,  etc you necessarily have two sources, and two discs/sound files/wax cylinders, so synching becomes an issue if you wish to avoid identification of a player/format merely by the timing difference between A and B.

Furthermore for loudspeakers the blind tests are typically of *preference*, not A/B/X-type difference tests.  Of course it is still advantageous to keep the switching interval as close to instantaneous as possible, because audio memory is fleeting.

Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #254
But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl.


It probably helps to take a step back. This is really about music and media. Supposedly, we listen to music beause we like music. Alternatively, one might like a particular medium, less so than want to enjoy the music.

If your primary interest is music, then of course you want to  listen to the most accurate form of the music which is of course live music. Since that is often difficult or impossible, us music lovers fall back on listening to music via some medium.

Comparing and contrasting the LP and CD mediums, let us first agree that both mediums force us to resort to the process of micing and mixing, which in and of itself dramatically changes the sound of the music. This problem is common to both the LP and the CD, and sequel mediums, which are now common. Most newer mediums behave more like the CD than the LP as typically used.

Now, actualy comparing just the 2 mediums, we should agree that the CD medium can deliver a near-perfect or functionally perfect presentation of whatever we miced and mixed. The LP medium is highly sonically instrusive, and that is not an opinion, it is a scientifically provable fact.

Therefore, if your interest is primarily listening to music, and not primarily listening to the sonic and experiencing the other non-sonic properties of the medium, then the CD is the logical, scientific choice.


Where is the data in the form of bias controlled listening tests to support this hypothesis?


None needed. The hypothesis is based on logic. The logic is based on facts that have been determined with bias-controlled listening tests.

Quote
this would require that we have the original musicians in the original venue as a reference.


Not true. In order to determine that the CD format is sonically transparent, all we need is a represenative number of demanding sound sources such as other recordings, to use as a reference. If the CD format is capable of rendering them so perfectly that we can't tell the difference between the CD copy and the origional in a bias-controlled test, then we know that the CD format is sonically transparent. This has been done many times. You *could* do it for yourself if you wished, using only common audio utility programs, even freeware programs.  This sort have test has been done with high speed master tapes, high sample rate commercial recordeings, LPs, other CDs, live sounds, etc.

In order to determine that the LP format is *not* sonically trasnparent, all we have to notice is the rather obvious sonic mayhem that is clearly audible on every LP when played back on a good audio system. Measurements that anybody with a suitable test record and a PC with some common analytical software backs that up.  Note that neither the obviously audible sonic mayhem present on every LP, nor the rediculously bad measurements are present on CDs. The sonic mayhem present on every LP is so gross that we can even measure it on every digital transcription of every LP that any of us has ever examined. If you can transcribe a LP into a digital file for use to examine, please be our guest and upload said file.

Failure to upload a file that lacks the usual sonic mayhem that the LP format applies to every piece of music ever recorded to LP would be an effective concession of the above points by you. Enjoy!



Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #255
Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering.
But if I can make a better CD at home than the one they've released, they hardly went "the extra mile" on the CD mastering, did they?

And you're talking to someone with a half decent turntable, and over 10,000 records.

I am an anachronism - physical media is dead - what century are you living in?

Quote
I'll give you credit though you have almost reluctantly acknowledged that in some cases one can get better sound from a commercial LP than it's commercial CD counterpart.
Your condescension is noted.

No one debated this. The point is that the better sound could and should be on the CD. Any company who intentionally make the vinyl better (which actually means they made the CD worse) doesn't deserve any custom.

Take note of Canar's reply.

And think: just because in your little world everyone shares the same strange world view doesn't make it right - you can lose the attitude - though a step into reality might be too much of a shock for you at present.

Cheers,
David.

Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.

Reply #256
analog scott

Some people would rather get the "superior" vinyl copied to CD or digital file by someone else, and use that.


Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering.


HA is decidedly hostile to piracy: the suggestion was not that anyone should steal work, but rather that for most people it would be better to buy the LP, have it digitized by someone with the appropriate good equipment, and then play the digital version whilst enjoying the 12" album art (which is an area where vinyl is undoubtedly superior). In other words, get the good quality digital version that the funky little label should have released in the first place (less, of course, the bad effects of vinyl mayhem).