Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry (Read 193225 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

I'm looking to point some people to it, but I don't want to use it at a source if there's a constant battle with vinyl placebophiles to keep it accurate.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #1 –
It "looks true" to me and there are a lot of smart, scientific, minds around here.

Vinyl does sound different* from digital and if someone prefers the sound of vinyl then it truly sounds better to them and there's no point in arguing.

* That's assuming the same master...  If you digitize vinyl the digital copy can sound identical to the original analog (in a proper scientific-blind listening test).


Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #2 –
It was more or less ok last time I looked. I stopped policing it quite some time ago. You can view the edit history.  If you don’t recognize a user, check the contribution.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #3 –
“Many people prefer listening to music on vinyl rather than on CD or digital formats, a majority of those people do so because they honestly percieve the sound to be better. Better meaning; more natural, less artificial, more true to the original studio recording, more organic etc, even when unsupported by objective measurements of fidelity. For such people the statement that "vinyl sounds better than CD" is not a myth but a fact.”

This is pretty ridiculous. Subjectivity is fine, but this is going too far. Reworded to say it is a fact that people believe fairies actually exist would be OK. This is with regards to the original to the studio recording portion, assuming these subjective terms are to be accepted.

I’m cool with the part above that isn’t in bold.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #4 –
Sigh....

It's so hard for anyone in the audio hobby to ever discuss anything objective.  They always throw around terms that can't be objectively measured, such as "detail" and "clarity."  Trying to find a good objective source with real world measurements that matter is very difficult.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #5 –
Such an old argument which will never be settled.

For me:

1. technical measurements will always show digital to be a more faithful reproduction than vinyl.
2. many people prefer vinyl to digital, as the technical fact that digital is more faithful to the original is not the end of it.

Those two statements aren't contradictory.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #6 –
Quote from: forestasia on
Such an old argument which will never be settled.
For me:

1. technical measurements will always show digital to be a more faithful reproduction than vinyl.
2. many people prefer vinyl to digital, as the technical fact that digital is more faithful to the original is not the end of it.

Those two statements aren't contradictory.
3. No people have be able to demonstrate ability to distinguish vinyl vs "digital" version of said vinyl in any valid, controlled listening test.

Tests which are lots of fun to perform on vinylphile believers.
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #7 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: forestasia on
Such an old argument which will never be settled.
For me:

1. technical measurements will always show digital to be a more faithful reproduction than vinyl.
2. many people prefer vinyl to digital, as the technical fact that digital is more faithful to the original is not the end of it.

Those two statements aren't contradictory.
3. No people have be able to demonstrate ability to distinguish vinyl vs "digital" version of said vinyl in any valid, controlled listening test.

Tests which are lots of fun to perform on vinylphile believers.

I don't think anyone says they can hear the difference between a vinyl and a high quality digital recording of a record? Vinyl fans would be wrong to say that they can, but that doesn't mean they're wrong for preferring playing a record over a FLAC.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #8 –
We’ve had our fair share of people claiming to distinguish analog from digital.

Subjective preference is still preference, even when it is baseless. However, It does no one any good for there to be a paragraph listing various subjective claims as to why people may have them.  Especially one that doesn’t explain the physiology.

Back to the original question, I did not identify any edits that contain misinformation since I last read the page.  I don’t think I was ever happy with the page, which to me seems poorly structured and somewhat directionless.  I also have a feeling that there are testable claims which ought to include citations but don’t have them.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #9 –
Quote from: forestasia on
I don't think anyone says they can hear the difference between a vinyl and a high quality digital recording of a record?
I wasn't referring to a recording of vinyl, which might actually be detectable due to the variability of each play of a record. I meant a real time comparison, literally, of vinyl playback. Regardless, I suspect the vast majority of vinylphiles believe they could detect the difference, because they believe it is the "digital" that creates artifacts, "artificial", less orgasmic, etc, etc as stated in the moronic blathering on Wiki.
Heck, I've seen that kind of idiocy right here, much less on the believer forums where its practically all that.
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #10 –
Why is that drivel even in there?

Some people prefer the sound of vinyl over CD for a variety of reasons, some of which aren’t rooted in an objective reality.  How’s that a myth?

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #11 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
Quote from: forestasia on
Such an old argument which will never be settled.
For me:

1. technical measurements will always show digital to be a more faithful reproduction than vinyl.
2. many people prefer vinyl to digital, as the technical fact that digital is more faithful to the original is not the end of it.

Those two statements aren't contradictory.
3. No people have be able to demonstrate ability to distinguish vinyl vs "digital" version of said vinyl in any valid, controlled listening test.

Tests which are lots of fun to perform on vinylphile believers.

How is this possible.  The first pop or click you hear will instantly give it away.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #12 –
Quote from: greynol on
Why is that drivel even in there?

Some people prefer the sound of vinyl over CD for a variety of reasons, some of which aren’t rooted in an objective reality.  How’s that a myth?

A lot of it may just be nostalgia.  It's quite possible the digital release of an album might sound different.  For example, Hotel California by the Eagles was mastered by Ted Jensen for vinyl in the 70s.  Barry Diament remastered the album for CD for it's 1982 release.  I would think the two versions are not going to be identical.  People used to the vinyl release probably think it's better just because they're used to it.  Familiarity breeds content.  I'm sure people that grew up in the digital music era may prefer a CD release over vinyl for the very same reason.

It's all VERY subjective.  For a lot of people, they like what they know.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #13 –
 
Quote
How is this possible.  The first pop or click you hear will instantly give it away.
I believe we are talking about comparing the vinyl to a digitized copy of the vinyl which of course would include all of the vinyl noise and other vinyl defects and inaccuracies.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #14 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
How is this possible.
TT/vinyl > Dual output phono pre >output 1> Input 1 preamp, output 2>ADC/DAC loop> Input 2 preamp. Match voltages>amp. Switch between inputs, or use an ABX box in lieu of preamp these days.

Quote from: apastuszak on
The first pop or click you hear will instantly give it away.
The "digital" click pops or the "analog" ones? None have done so this far.

**Nothing is recorded
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #15 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
Quote from: greynol on
Why is that drivel even in there?

Some people prefer the sound of vinyl over CD for a variety of reasons, some of which aren’t rooted in an objective reality.  How’s that a myth?

A lot of it may just be nostalgia.  It's quite possible the digital release of an album might sound different.  For example, Hotel California by the Eagles was mastered by Ted Jensen for vinyl in the 70s.  Barry Diament remastered the album for CD for it's 1982 release.  I would think the two versions are not going to be identical.  People used to the vinyl release probably think it's better just because they're used to it.  Familiarity breeds content.  I'm sure people that grew up in the digital music era may prefer a CD release over vinyl for the very same reason.

It's all VERY subjective.  For a lot of people, they like what they know.
How does any of that qualify as a myth?

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #16 –
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: apastuszak on
Quote from: greynol on
Why is that drivel even in there?

Some people prefer the sound of vinyl over CD for a variety of reasons, some of which aren’t rooted in an objective reality.  How’s that a myth?

A lot of it may just be nostalgia.  It's quite possible the digital release of an album might sound different.  For example, Hotel California by the Eagles was mastered by Ted Jensen for vinyl in the 70s.  Barry Diament remastered the album for CD for it's 1982 release.  I would think the two versions are not going to be identical.  People used to the vinyl release probably think it's better just because they're used to it.  Familiarity breeds content.  I'm sure people that grew up in the digital music era may prefer a CD release over vinyl for the very same reason.

It's all VERY subjective.  For a lot of people, they like what they know.
How does any of that qualify as a myth?

It doesn't qualify as a myth.  But if you edit the page, a vinylphile will just come along and put it back.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #18 –
So, the other question I have is, what exactly is this "vinyl sound' everyone talks about.

I just watched an interesting YouTube video where the person discussed vinyl era recordings being done long before the loudness wars, and the "rich, warm, dynamic sound" may just be the person appreciation a recording with more dynamic range.

Having recently bought a turntable, I have to say that the sheer inconvenience of the format is quite the irritation.  Just from end user simplicity of operation, I can see why CDs won out over LPs.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #19 –
Quote
what exactly is this "vinyl sound' everyone talks about.
"Snap", "crackle", and "pop"?   :P   I guess some people enjoy the warm crackle of vinyl on a cold Winter's evening!   :D

Quote
I just watched an interesting YouTube video where the person discussed vinyl era recordings being done long before the loudness wars, and the "rich, warm, dynamic sound" may just be the person appreciation a recording with more dynamic range.
"Dynamic" has a meaning but the person who used the word may not know what it means..    "Rich" and "warm" can mean whatever you want them to mean.    These terms have no scientific. technical, or agreed-upon meaning.  You can't measure or quantify these things.  They are nonsense.    We CAN measure & quantify noise, frequency response, and distortion and these have real meanings.

Technically, vinyl is inferior.   Digitized vinyl can sound identical to the original analog (in a proper-blind listening test).   

A vinyl copy of a digital recording will sound different from the digital original, but that's hard to "prove" because we can't make our own records and you (almost) never know if your vinyl and digital recordings are from the same master.

The loudness war did exist in the analog days and from what I've read Motown Records "won" that war.     But the digital "weapons" are much more effective.    A CD from that era that's not "badly" remastered (or a modern CD that hasn't been "badly" mastered) will usually sound better.    CDs (and MP3s) have more dynamic range capability than vinyl, but the dynamic contrast of the music depends on the performance and the production process.

BTW -  There is a "simple" (and inaccurate) way of measuring dynamic range that makes vinyl (cut from the same master) measure "better" than the digital, even though you can't hear a difference in dynamics.    Something similar happens with MP3 encoding...  Some peaks get higher and some peaks get lower (without affecting the sound) and that can give you a wider "measured" dynamic range.

Quote
I can see why CDs won out over LPs.
Plus, they sound better and they don't deteriorate or "wear out" from playing, and they are more-immune to scratches or other damage.  

I grew-up with vinyl and it was the sound quality that won me over.   I was amazed at the dead-silent background.   After getting my 1st CD player I never bought another record and like most people (or most music lovers) of my age I replaced all of my vinyl with CDs unless the CD was unavailable.   Now, I never play records except when I digitize them.

I always hated the clicks & pops, even before CDs were invented.   It seemed to bother me more than it bothered my friends.   It was particularly annoying when it was my record and I knew exactly when that "click" was coming.    I'd be anticipating the click instead of enjoying the music.   I tried to take care of my records but they always "developed" defects. 

And as a rule CDs had better, more-consistent, frequency response.    I think with records (at least popular/rock records) they didn't really care.   There were exceptions.   There were some really great sounding records and I think things were getting better toward the end of the vinyl era, but with CDs I think the producers/manufactures knew that CD listeners expected better.   And those great-sounding records sounded even better on CD!

Cassettes didn't have clicks & pops, but they had tape hiss and records had better frequency response and a new good-sounding record sounded better than the cassette, so I stuck with records at home and only listened to cassettes in the car.   

BTW - I didn't expect the loudness wars.    I expected artists & producers to take advantage of the improved dynamic range.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #20 –
The only reason I have a turntable now is for some recordings that I can't get on another format.

What's interesting to me is the insane amount of effort that people go through to get rid of pops and clicks.  I'm watching YouTube videos of people buying $500 ultrasonic cleaners to clean old records to get rid of pops and clicks.

Meanwhile, I take my dirty thrift store CD, wash both sides with dawn dish soap and a sponge, rinse and let dry, and I'm done.  Then I make a bit-perfect backup to FLAC files and move on with my listening.

I will say that it LOOKED cool to take an album out and drop it on the turntable and watch it spin.  Had flashbacks to my youth.  Then I turned around to work on my computer, and suddenly I didn't care about the format that was playing (out of sight, out of mind), and actually got a little annoyed when I had to flip the album over.

Quote
BTW - I didn't expect the loudness wars.    I expected artists & producers to take advantage of the improved dynamic range.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

There was a time in the 80s where people took advantage of the increased dynamic range of a CD.  Albums like Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms are a treat for the ears.  But then the loudness wars took off in the 90s, and hit their atrocious peak in the 2000s.

A lot of vinylphiles claim that vinyl sounds it's best when used with analog masters and a full analog recording process.

My son wants to be an audio engineer.  So, he's been watching a lot of YouTube videos from other mixing and mastering engineers.  There was one by Trevor Horn, where he says every recording engineer needs to do a full analog workflow once in their life.  Because once they do that, they'll NEVER want to do it again.

I wonder if the person that engineered the new Styx album (The Mission) went "Oh God!  No!" when they said they wanted to record the whole thing in analog.
 

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #21 –
Quote
What's interesting to me is the insane amount of effort that people go through to get rid of pops and clicks.  I'm watching YouTube videos of people buying $500 ultrasonic cleaners to clean old records to get rid of pops and clicks.
Well...   More than once I've spent a weekend (digitally) "cleaning up" a digitized record.  If it was "just dirt", I might have bought one of those....    I have a Discwasher and a Shure cartridge with a built-in brush, and I used to have something like this.  It came out of the bottle as a gel and the bottle/dispenser had a built-in sponge.  You spread it over the surface and let it dry to a film.   Then you'd peel off the film, removing any dust/dirt. 

Quote
There was a time in the 80s where people took advantage of the increased dynamic range of a CD.  Albums like Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms are a treat for the ears.
One of my favorite groups!   I  remember hearing Sultans Of Swing  on the radio and thinking. "What kind of music is that?   ...Is that rock & roll or something new/different?"   (Now that I've heard it a million times it doesn't sound that "different".)   I had to wait for it to be played a few more times before I heard the DJ announce the artist and I went-out and bought the album (on vinyl...  1978).   It was one of those rare times when I liked every song on the album! 

Quote
My son wants to be an audio engineer.  So, he's been watching a lot of YouTube videos from other mixing and mastering engineers.
Hopefully, he's "in touch" with HydrogenAudio because there is a ton of nonsense out there.  The pro world isn't as bad as the audiophile world but there is still a lot of myth & nonsense and most "recording engineers" are don't have the same scientific/engineering/mathematical education as electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, or software engineers.     They do know how to make good sounding records (or over-compressed loudness war records if that's what their boss/client wants) but they may not understand "audio resolution" and they may not be aware of the limits of human hearing (even the limits their own hearing). 

He might enjoy Jeff Emrick's book.   (He was the engineer, or assistant engineer on most of The Beatles recordings.)  And/or you might enjoy it too!     It's not a technical-recording book, and if it was I would be outdated.   It's more like an autobiography about his life as a recording engineer.   There are lots of good-interesting stories if he can relate to something from the 1960s.

...As you know, this is a "tough business".  There are lots of amateur/hobbyist & part-time audio engineers and very few full-time jobs.   There are probably  more "audio jobs" in film & TV than in music.

Quote
There was one by Trevor Horn, where he says every recording engineer needs to do a full analog workflow once in their life.  Because once they do that, they'll NEVER want to do it again.
Yeah...   :D :D :D     There's a big-practical problem of the tape machine...   Nobody is making professional or multitrack tape recorders anymore so you'd be dealing with old machinery and of course replacement parts aren't being made either.   Those things did need "regular maintenance and calibration" and in the old days the recording studios had maintenance engineers to take care of that.   Now, you'd have to bring-in someone to do it.   I imagine the tape (especially 1/2-inch or wider) is "hard to find" and very expensive.  (I've never seen a professional audio recorder "in person" but I have seen an Ampex 2-inch reel-to-reel video tape machine!    They called it a VTR" and it was a monster the size of a desk.)

There is at least one company making reel-to-reel tape recorders but they are 1/4-inch stereo machines so I'd classify them as "prosumer" or "audiophile" products.

There is an article in the current  (September?) Recording Magazine  about re-mastering (and I think re-mixing) the Toto catalog.   I kind-of skimmed the article but I think they said all of the processing was "analog", but they start by digitizing the tape.  And, the guy said they didn't do any  compression or limiting.


Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #22 –
He and I have had long discussions about the limits of human hearing and the snake oil that is hi-res music.  I own some SACDs and DVD-As, because it contains a unique master than I want.  At least with the SACD, I can just rip the CD layer.  The DVD-A, I don't even know how I could rip it.  I know I'd need to resample and dither to get it down to "only CD quality."

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #23 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
He and I have had long discussions about the limits of human hearing and the snake oil that is hi-res music.  I own some SACDs and DVD-As, because it contains a unique master than I want.  At least with the SACD, I can just rip the CD layer.  The DVD-A, I don't even know how I could rip it.  I know I'd need to resample and dither to get it down to "only CD quality."

If you use Windows, DVDA - what's in the 'Audio TS' folder of a DVDA disc -  is easy to rip with the right software.   e.g. DVD Audio Extractor (which costs money) or DVD Audio Explorer (which is free). Google's your friend there. In both case, you load the disc into the computer's DVD drive, aim the software at it (or at the folder thereon), specify the data you're interested in (stereo or multichannel) and output format (wav, flac, etc) and off you go. DVD Audio Extractor is more user-friendly and has more options.  It can also rip DVD-V disc audio (Dolby, DTS, PCM), and from certain BluRay discs.

SACD (DSD) only became 'rip-able' in recent years, and is more complex to rip in that it requires *quite particular* player hardware, as well as software and network setup.     

Re: How accurate is the Vinyl Myths wiki entry

Reply #24 –
Quote
SACD (DSD) only became 'rip-able' in recent years, and is more complex to rip in that it requires *quite particular* player hardware, as well as software and network setup. 

I just want to rip the CD layer.  In theory, it should be the same master as the SACD layer, so ripping the CD layer is more than good enough.  And any CD ripping app will rip the CD layer.