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In Reply to: RE: Comparing vinyl sound to hi-res digital remaster posted by John Elison on May 07, 2017 at 17:42:29
They sound identical to you, yet a seasoned audiophile with a good analog setup was able to pick the vinyl from your copy, blind, five out of six times, right?
If only it were so simple to replicate analog sound digitally.
Follow Ups:
I've heard some of John's recordings. They sound damn good. Is there a difference? I don't know but I do know I wouldn't want to live on the difference.
-Wendell
I bet they sound damn good. So do my vinyl recordings (most made by a Korg). It takes a trained ear to tell them from the direct source.
You're right and I'm glad you brought this up. I was challenged in 2006 to fly to Seattle and prove to Mike Lavigne that 16/44 Redbook digital could sound the same as vinyl. Mike had a stereo system that cost at least two or three hundred thousand dollars and he thought he could easily hear the difference between digital and analog. In fact, he was so confident he could hear the difference that he bet $250 he could identify the digital recording 100% of the time. He would have succeeded in winning the bet had we used his thirty thousand dollar Meitner CD player to conduct the test. However, I insisted on using my thousand dollar Audio Alchemy CD player and Mike failed his own challenge by missing one of the digital trials. Two others attempted the test but also failed.
Remember, we were using 16/44 Redbook digital and a thousand dollar Audio Alchemy CD player connected to a two or three hundred thousand dollar stereo system with Monster Cable interconnects. Mike's turntable was a 75 thousand dollar Rockport Sirius III with a $7000 van den Hul Colibri phono cartridge and a 30 thousand dollar darTZeel phono preamp. He had $8000 interconnects connecting his turntable to the darTZeel and he used thirty thousand dollar speaker cables. I have no doubt that the results would have more heavily favored digital had we used a hi-res DSD recorder instead of 16/44 Redbook. However, even using 16/44 Redbook, Mike was absolutely shocked that he missed even one trial out of six.
Thanks,
John Elison
You've generally got to drop $20K on interconnects to get six out of six.
I'm pretty sure all of Mike's interconnects incorporated zobel networks that altered frequency response. When we played my CD-R in Mike's Meitner CD player it sounded substantially different than the vinyl record. When I heard this, I immediately connected my own CD player using standard Monster Cable interconnects and one of the observers remarked, "Wow, that sure sounds a lot better." That's why I insisted on using my own CD player for the formal test and that's why Mike and two others failed the test even with lowly 16/44 Redbook digital.
Bruce Brown brought his TASCAM DSD recorder to the Challenge and after the formal test was finished he made some DSD recordings from Mike's Rockport Sirius III. Bruce's DSD recordings were essentially indistinguishable from vinyl. This is basically what I hear with my new TASCAM DA-3000 DSD recorder.
Best regards,
John Elison
BUT, JOHN, IN THE WORD "ESSENTIALLY" IS CAPTURED EVERYTHING!!!!
It really is. I myself could not tell the difference between my own DSD128 recordings and the vinyl initially. But once I learned the differences over long-term listening, I could. Reliably. And I figured this out when I began searching for the explanation for why the recordings were just never quite as fulfilling/had some fatigue that the analog source did not.
I find my digital recordings of vinyl just as fulfilling if not more so than listening to vinyl itself. My goal is listening to music -- not in listening to my audio components. My audio system is a tool for listening to music . It is not an end in and of itself. There is no audio system in existence that sounds exactly like live music; therefore, I don't bother deluding myself about small differences. However, I experience no listening fatigue with hi-res digital, and especially not with DSD.
To each his own!
I take your experience for what it's worth, but you might have missed my point. By no means was I LOOKING for a "reason" to declare the direct vinyl better - on the contrary, I'd already sold my whole setup by the time I realized that it was just not quite as *musical* - as natural, that is.
I've gotten used to digital and it sounds very musical to me, especially well recorded hi-res digital. Of course, I like both vinyl and digital, and I wouldn't want a system that didn't include both.
Best regards,
John Elison
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