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From my understanding, distortions in analog are in the range 2-3% plus. This plus the natural wear & tear of recirds....why do people still listen to vinyl? The distortion & frequency resposne of any CD player is far superior, I believe. Maybe someone here can answer?When I first heard CD players in the early1980's I was stunned. Why do people still isten to ( and spend vast sums) on analog rigs?
MusicLover
Follow Ups:
LP can sound really good, but they often don't sound like the mastertape which is the true reference. Properly remastered (well-clocked) hi-rez digital sound closer, but they are let down by optical disc drives problem during playback.See previous post, with an open mind and adventurous spirit:
The best cueing sequence for digital is:Open / close disc tray before the track is played
Use the numerical keys to cue the desired track directly
(on philips disc drives, after cueing up track number, you have to press Play)Once the track has commenced playing, check the counter, and once time readout hits 12-secs timing, press skip backward key to repeat the track. On some Philips disc players, you need to press Play button to repeat the track.
Don't ask me why it has to be 12 secs. If your system is neutral enough to let you hear this, then you will naturally discover why 11th and 13th second timings don't work as well.
If you are using a Naim player, which has neither remote access open/close disc tray function nor timing readout, you're out of luck, as this problem is more audible on a Naim player/system than others.
The problem will happen again when the next track starts. So you will need to follow the above mentioned sequence again.
That sums it up perfectly for me.
no. They are different. You pay your money and you take your choice.
When digital came out it sucked. Then it got better, now it is pretty good. Vinyl can suck too.
Usually it is way more fun to play with vinyl than CeeDees.
I just spent the weekend taking the sale stickers off 3,000 classical LPs. The vast majority of those cost under $0.23 each, and are in "no scratches"/ no visible wear condition. The fun of just looking at the covers closly as I peeled/scraped/ cleaned was fun, even groaning over the few covers I damaged was ok.. Can't say that about the CeeDees. (RCA old MONO shaded dog covers are the worst for damaging when removing stucky stickers!!)
Being very careful of course. Almost all glues soften when heated, so a hot air gun works better than any solvent I've tried.Take the record out of the sleeve first, natch.
Hope the shop owner didn't get too upset. &%^)
axolotl"Glass beads drop through one-by-one,
Get planted with the seeds,
Which press up hard to reach the sun,
Yet cannot break the beads."
.
There is an ease, fullness, and sense of body to analogue music that sounds more natural and real to many listeners. There is often a slight hardness, leanness, and lack of ease to digital that sounds artificial to many listeners. A/B comparisons, even by dyed in the wool digiphiles, can be quite startling in this respect. This is not to say that one is innately superior or more accurate to source. It is simply to say what the main perceived differences are.
The A/B comparisons?
Also, does the Audio Engineering SOciety believe Analog is a superior medium, in general, or is it just the posters here?
My impression is that ther is no scientific evidence toprove Vinyl is better, but by all objective measurements, digital is FAR better.But thank you all who responded... if nothing else, it showed me the biases of the posters here.
MusicLover
"...if nothing else, it showed me the biases of the posters here."And we learned so much about you, also.
But, I have a suggestion: If you ever decide to come out from under that humble, little bridge you protect, try to listen to a decent analog set-up with an open mind. Let the magic surround you.
You, too, could be like my mother-in-law, who has been force-fed on digital these past 20 years, who said last Friday, without any prompting (we weren't even talking about music or reproduced sound), upon casually listening to Count Basie on Pablo spinning on my humble LP12/RB300/F9e set-up, "I don't know what it is about records, but they just sound... more like real music." As ineloquent as she might've put it, I believe that she said it all.
And she was sitting 10 feet away from the sweet spot.
axolotl"Glass beads drop through one-by-one,
Get planted with the seeds,
Which press up hard to reach the sun,
Yet cannot break the beads."
The most recent A/B I did was with the Columbia Legacy Series Box sets of Miles Davis (Davis and Coltrane, etc.) and the Mosaic LP boxes. I've also done it with digitally remastered Decca recordings of Benjamin Britten's music with the original LP's.If the original mastering is digital, LP's made from those masters sound a lot like the CD's. But when the mastering is analogue, that's where the differences seem most pronounced. Which is measurably (I assume that's what you mean) better is of some interest, but what seems more interesting is when you play both for an audio innocent and let her tell you which she prefers. Or my brother in law who loves music and is indifferent about audio. Both pick the LP every time.
I still own lots of CD's, play them, and enjoy them. But I have a superb, tube-based digital front end and I don't go from one medium directly to the other. You can adapt to good digital if your mind is on the music. But an awful lots of cdp's...well inhale hard, shall we say.
Of course, the real A/B is live music and recorded music. You needn't read more than the first section of this, unless you've nothing better to do, but the first section recounts my personal experience comparing live and recorded this past June. I apologize to those who have already been sent to this before.http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/festival.htm
and were stunned - I assume by their magical powers, then you should be devastated by a decent vinyl system. But wait. It could be too much for you to handle. It might actually kill you. And we wouldn't want that. So please continue to listen to whatever it is you were listening to before you posted your message.Thank you for listening. Now go and listen to a record based system. And I doubt you'll ask the same question.
Happy spinning
Maybe science is measuring the wrong thing. We're talking music here. Miles' horn and Blakey's drums just SOUND BETTER coming through my Koetsu's stylus than through a laser. Not only that, but many of the great jazz and rock recordings of the 50's and 60's sound better in MONO! Granted, I don't have a great CD player, but I have heard my CD's on multi-thousand dollar players and they still don't sound as good as analog. Some music I have to listen to on CD because it is only available in that format. SACD's seem to me to be much better than Redbook, but I haven't heard one in my system (yet) so won't offer an opinion.If you can't stand the occasional tick and pop (they are very few and far between on good vinyl) then maybe you are just a digital guy and be happy with that. No problem. But if you're really curious and want to hear the best sound possible with your system, then track somone down in your country who has a serious vinyl system and give it a listen with an open mind. I think you will like what you hear.
Good luck,
James
It's addictive as all hell!! the only thing worse is bike gear, and even then when I'm riding through the city I'm always looking at junk piles and the front stoops of stores for boxes of records that just may hold something i want to hear. And i almost always, provided I've brought my bike lock, will stop in a record shop if i pass by one.and i wouldn't even be considered a legitimate vinyl bug.
when it comes down to it, it's just way more fun to listen to!one could get into all the losses and insufficiencies of digital recordings available but that would be more smalldicksyndrome than anything really.
if you love the music on vinyl enough, it will be enough.
It teaches me a lot!
MusicLover
Recently I've been shopping for a new 19" LCD monitor.
I ended up with two of them, one of which I will return to the store.
After adjusting them both, one produces washed-out overly bright images and the other produces deep rich colors, just right skin tones and perfect shades of gray to black.
What I noticed was viewing pics on the bad monitor is like glancing at someone’s snapshots.
Viewing the pics on the good monitor I found my self pausing longer to take in the beauty and image detail that was lost with the bad monitor.
Another thing I noticed was many of the pics displayed on the good monitor conveyed not only a beautiful visual image but an emotional feeling much more so than on the bad monitor.
Anyway, I commented to my wife how this was almost exactly how I felt about the difference between analog and digital music.
The one thing that strikes me most about analogdigital is that analog has a liquid like richness and contrast that just oozes out of the speakers that I so dearly love..!. Enjoy,
Dale
I'm not really going to add up to the excellent arguments on analog vs. digital already posted here, but I can shed some light from my own point of view.I like to think that, working on the IT industry, I'm pretty hip to the so-called "digital distribution model" of the music biz - I even got an iPod recently. However, I'm not willing to trade my LPs and turntable for a bunch of digital files on what is basically a very expensive digital Walkman. Why? Because sonically and in terms of excellence and experience, it just isn't the same.
My stereo isn't exactly a state of the art thing, but I do notice how the sound of an LP played on my tweaked Music Hall MMF-5 basically mops the floor with its CD or (shudder!) AAC equivalent. It just sounds more full-bodied, spacious, and "human" - CD's have always had this cold, clinical impression in terms of sound that, while it reproduces a musical performance to a T, it just seems to suck the soul out of the music.
Adding insult to injury, most pop titles produced today sound like they've been engineered by monkeys. In contrast, some of the best-sounding recordings of all time were produced in the late 50s and 60s. That's a major reason why most CDs suck - because fine sound engineering seems to be a lost art. Most teenagers today don't realize the amount of musical crap (both conceptually and in QA) the industry feeds them on a daily basis.
I have yet to hear how a CD sounds like on one of those players with a 4-figure price tag, and I'd surely be impressed. But in any case I can't afford one of those, so what's the use - and even if I could, I'm highly skeptical it can deliver the same kind of rich experience analog has to offer. Sure, it takes true commitment to get the best of analog (all those hardware adjustments and special sleeves and cleaning stuff and humongous sizes) and it will most likely remain being one of the roads less traveled. But for anyone looking the ultimate in sound, the effort ultimately pays off a lot of times over.
.
.
NT
I've been blown away by vinyl since the 50's and 60's and have never felt that way by listening to cd. It got even better in the 70's with even more improvements after that. Many system changes over the years and several differnt cd players and for me, the vinyl is better. My cd player was nearly 2k when new, I bought it used for less than $150. If I had paid 2k, I'd have felt like I was ripped off. You can spend alot more on one if you choose, but I have no desire to do so. For a few hundred bucks, you can put together a very nice sounding turntable rig and of course, you can spend alot more there too.
CD's are capable of sounding very good but I've never heard them sound as close to the real instruments and voices as vinyl. LP care is a pain in the arse, but good clean vinyl in most cases is closer to the original sound than I've ever heard on cd. The best attribute that I've found in cd is the dead quiet background. I think this is what confuses people into thinking that it's better. Try some pristeen vinyl that is perfectly clean on a good playback system and you might find yourself looking into analog. Many have. I just never let my vinyl go and never bought into the hype. There seems to be more turntables, tonearms, cartridges and audiophile LP's than ever before. This must mean something and I don't believe for a minute that it's only about money. That's where cd's came in. Simple, cheap and 90% of the world thinks they're great. I don't and I listen to the pain in the rear LP's 90% of the time that I listen to music.
Bill
I suspect that how you define "better" will be quite a bit different than how most people here would define it.
Analog is better. If vinyl is not better than CD, why SACD wants to emulate the sound of vinyl? Go figure!
nt.
No pun intended, but records "wear" very well. I love music, and I also think of myself as a custodian of my collection. I will eventually pass, but the collection (small, very small), will continue.Don
sound of CD players when they first came out, far from it. Actually the fact that vast majority sounded like grated steel and sent many sensitive ears running from the room was yet just another of the many events throughout the history of hifi that point to the questionable value of reliance purely on distortion figures.Now-a-days things have surely changed and I can say that I am very impressed with the CD player I use.
Now in your case as you were obviously more than pleased with the sound of even early CD players just count youself lucky - having a tin ear can it fact lead to significant cost savings, particularily if reproduced music is a major factor in your lifestyle.
I love a well worded "punch in the nose"!
Jazz is life! Of course life is jazzy!
CDs are more portable, and generally are easier to use. Things like shuffling them in changers, and random track access are real plusses, as is the ability to play them in the car, or to jog while listening to them.Vinyl sounds better. And LPs are more fun to own and collect than CDs. Turntables are more fun than CD players to own.
Those are the advantages of each IMO.
Rob"Let there be songs, to fill the air"
I could easily analize the advantages of digital, heck the fact that the reflected laser has no mass, unlike a stylus/cantilever was enough for me. Then I had the opportunity to listen to some records and heard a more inviting sound than I was used to. I bought a modest turntable a year ago (since traded in) and since then my cd's have been just sitting. I intend to get back to some of them, just haven't yet.
There are must have recordings on both formats so having both is pretty much manditory.
In answering your questions distortion of 2-3% is a bigger deal in text than in listening. Worn records can be found in the used records stores, but the modern "line contact" stylus has very nearly eliminated record wear.Frequency responce of CD players is "brick wall" cut off at 20K Hz. That's one of the reasons we now have SACD (even though some SACD's are mastered from CD's) Even though it's easily argued few of us can hear much past 16Hz some speaker designers strive for responce to 30Hz so all the harmonics of lower tones will be reproduced.
I too was impressed with CD's when they came out and for many years after, but I had been listening to cassettes.
Collecting records has been a lot of fun, my wife and I have learned a lot from our dealer "The Analog Room" about what labels to look for such as Blue Note, Decca, and Verve. We have picked up quite a few very enjoyable jazz records for a buck each.
My wife bought three phone-book sized referances "American Records 1950-1975" "All Music Guide to Jazz" and "Official Price Guide to Records" so we have E-bay gems (and a few duds) coming in from all over all the time.
After listening to CD's for many years and then hearing a AcousTech Mastering 45RPM Limited Edition mastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman I was stunned.
So, check out vinyl to see where it goes, you might like it.
Best wishes, Craig
We all hear analog. We hear ANALOG wave forms. Music and sound in itself is created by vibrations. That's motion energy, not light energy. Digital uses 1's and 0's to create data (that, in CD's may I add, is compressed to 16/44.1khz which isn't recording quality) and light energy to get a signal which is then converted to analog. With analog, it is created with analog wave forms and played back using simple, mechanical vibration, just like how an instrument is played. It isn't converted, compressed, and then converted back. Don't get me wrong, CD's are alright and I've been stunned by some SACD's, it's just not as real and as musical as vinyl.
IBSmiester
Open Your Ears....
Vinyl pre-digests the signal for the system speakers.All sound is a a vibration or movement.
since the stylus is creating that movement, it is pre-digested.
I beleive thats the term he used as to why he thinks vinyl sounds better than other formats. From The Abosolute Sound Interview and debate about Digtal vs Analog
We all hear analog....wrong. New testig results show that we hear digital....
Regards
Lawrence
hrmmm...My physics is a few years old now, however, unless they started producing humans differently:
mechanical vibrations -> hydrodynamics -> electrochemical vibrations -> electrochemical signal -> brain
The human auditory system is, in fact, an analogous device. True, sound is eventually converted to an electrical energy, but this is not the same thing as digital. Our brain process an analogue signal.
Why else would your digital Miracle Ear(TM) need to convert to analogue? ;^)
-Jeff
I hear "digital" when I have my fingers in my ears,which inevitably begs the question...
Do you smell in digital, too?
axolotl"Glass beads drop through one-by-one,
Get planted with the seeds,
Which press up hard to reach the sun,
Yet cannot break the beads."
m
NT
IBSmiester
Open Your Ears....
I could not stand them. Just awful. Records sounded so much better on my Linn Sondek-LVX-Grado MR. Nothing that sophisticated compared to what we see today, but it did not take much to thrash a 1982 CD player. My Thorens would have done it.I think that those who were impressed by CDs never owned a decent record player or looked after their records. They had a different agenda. In the early '90s I finally relented and bought a CD player - they had improved a lot. Now, 10 years later, I like SACD - finally, digital I can live with.
Regards,
Geoff
I suspect you are simply trolling for conflict. If digital does it for you....great. It does measure better than analog. So what? Today's digital, both CD and Hi-Rez can be pretty darn good and I listen to all of them. Too my ears, vinyl is still superior. There is an organic quality to well recorded and well reproduced analog that simply sounds more like music. There is also the tactile quality of vinyl records and LP covers. You simply can't get it with CDs. If your reference is current digital I can understand your position. If it's 1983 CD....well....we simply hear music in a dramatically different way.Wendell
I listen to both but find analog (lps and tapes and early laserdiscs)
just more musical and involving.
sez it all! Now if you were just coming to digital today and said that I could understand. You clearly have a different set of priorities than anyone in this forum. Post in the digital forum and you might find some bud's.
Frequency Response better with digital? With traditional redbook cd the upper limit is 22K (Nyquist thereom) and due to all the filtering necessary it is sonically noticeable. That is the reason for the hi-rez formats-sacd and dvd-audio and the attempts at upsampling. If you raise the sampling frequency you can raise the upper frequency limit so that it will not be audible when it it's filtered or may not require filtering. Upsampling adds dither or random noise to raise the bit count and sampling frequency. Some say it sounds great other well...
Some dacs have no oversampling and are filterless, some say that's an improvement.Now you go back to analog that requires no upper frequency filtering and I feel because of that it's has a more natural presentation. Yeah there are shortcomings but there is nothing like good analog. I certainly don't have the best turntable out there but I can hear what everyone loves about it.
Jim
Having a good CD player is essential to get the music that's only available on that format, but even with my modest Dual CS-5000 and Grado Black rig and a good pressing the music seems to be more "alive". I have a few CD's that are really excellent recordings and point to what that format is capable of, but most modern commercial releases on CD sound like total dogshit, especially newer pop and rock...compressed to hell with clipped waveforms. And they charge money for that crap. Ever hear John Mayer's "Heavier Things?" Great songs, dogshit sonics. A crying shame.Todd P.
I'd say that you are still stunned, maybe.This debate has been going on for years, and will continue long past the demise of the CD. Many people feel that there's nothing wrong with digital done right. It's just that CDs don't do it right. If you really can't hear the benefits of vinyl playback, we will never convince you otherwise. Nor do we want to.
I thought the "stunned" comment was telling. Is that a "Help me; I'm stuck like a deer in the headlights" kind of stunned?When CDs first came out, they were - more often than not - simply awful, bright and fatiguing. Much progress was made in producing and manufacturing them and presently these thingies make up a not inconsiderable part of my collection/selection. The better ones, I find, portray music more in and toward the sense of analog, without glare and fatigue. Some of them I have to doctor to try to get better sound out of them.
If ML ever wishes to become "unstunned," he can pursue the necessary research and experimentation. (Hint for ML: It's in the Archives and FAQ) It has to be a sincere search, or it isn't really one at all.
Still, it sounds like he's coming after the issue with an large, protruding a priori up his backside and this limitation alone may make it difficult to sit still and hear the distinctives.
axolotl"Glass beads drop through one-by-one,
Get planted with the seeds,
Which press up hard to reach the sun,
Yet cannot break the beads."
