Vinyl trend causes discord

[Greg]

QED. THe digital version is able to resolve more information than a good (I presume you have a decent setup) vinyl rig.

But still people insist that vinyl is capable of more resolution than digital.

Chris

I wouldn't assert it has greater resolution, but inherently it is a waveform with a smooth line. Maybe that's why digital music quite often sounds better played as vinyl on TT (certainly not always of course), despite the fact that every other step in the process of authoring and production was digital; weird. With 24/96 this largely seems irrelevant, but is often reasonably obvious with 16/44.1 despite my belief that red book is technically good enough (probably an issue of mastering once again).

 

[Mescalito]

"There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs."

Although you're obviously referring to the Neumann lathes that use an analog preview and then a digital delay to the cutter head. Saying that "every vinyl production" has been subjected to this is an exaggeration. Especially since many of us have vinyl collections which pre-date the Neumann lathe (and pre-date you as well) by decades.

So do I. But it is an irrefutable fact that the vast majority of vinyl releases for the last 10-15 years have either been recorded on digital equipment, or cut on lathes like the Neumann you refer to.

That is why it always amuses me when people go out & buy vinyl versions of, say, the new Radiohead album. By definition, they end up listening to a digital rendition of the music which has then been degraded by the process of producing the stampers and by the music's subsequent extraction from the grooves. Because, it cannot be denied that this process can only add distortions and noise. So it is less faithful to the master than best available version, the digital one.

Now, alot of people prefer their music with the overlay of analog imperfections, & that's fine. Just don't kid yourself that you are listening to the highest fidelity available. Because you are demonstrably not.

Chris

 

[i_should_coco]

So do I. But it is an irrefutable fact that the vast majority of vinyl releases for the last 10-15 years have either been recorded on digital equipment, or cut on lathes like the Neumann you refer to.

That is why it always amuses me when people go out & buy vinyl versions of, say, the new Radiohead album. By definition, they end up listening to a digital rendition of the music which has then been degraded by the process of producing the stampers and by the music's subsequent extraction from the grooves. Because, it cannot be denied that this process can only add distortions and noise. So it is less faithful to the master than best available version, the digital one.

Now, alot of people prefer their music with the overlay of analog imperfections, & that's fine. Just don't kid yourself that you are listening to the highest fidelity available. Because you are demonstrably not.

Chris

The irony here is that the limitations of vinyl mean that more careful mastering is required. The poorer mastering of many CD releases outweighs any resolution advantage the digital release may have as it's thrown away by the idiot engineers. The upshot being that the vinyl release can be significantly better in many cases.

Until the engineers start doing a decent job then I'll keep buying vinyl.

 

[Mescalito]

I wouldn't assert it has greater resolution, but inherently it is a waveform with a smooth line. Maybe that's why digital music quite often sounds better played as vinyl on TT (certainly not always of course), despite the fact that every other step in the process of authoring and production was digital; weird. With 24/96 this largely seems irrelevant, but is often reasonably obvious with 16/44.1 despite my belief that red book is technically good enough (probably an issue of mastering once again).

As is a 16/44 waveform when it comes out of the ADC. That's how it all works.

Chris

 

[Tony L]

That is why it always amuses me when people go out & buy vinyl versions of, say, the new Radiohead album.

If you'd bought the limited edition vinyl & CD box of In Rainbows you'd a) have a lovely thing, and b) made about £100 profit on your investment. It's not impossible to do similar with CDs, but it is far, far harder. It is however impossible to do it with downloads, which are not lovely things and have zero value.

 

[Mescalito]

If you'd bought the limited edition vinyl & CD box of In Rainbows you'd a) have a lovely thing, and b) made about £100 profit on your investment. It's not impossible to do similar with CDs, but it is far, far harder. It is however impossible to do it with downloads, which are not lovely things and have zero value.

Tony,

You are record dealer/collector/music lover. I would not presume to guess what the prioritisation of the above is in your case, but the staement highlighted above is the statement of a dealer/collector.

I am just a music lover/collector, so the aesthetics of the medium and it's possible future resale value are of little intrinsic interest to me.

Chris

 

[Greg]

As is a 16/44 waveform when it comes out of the ADC. That's how it all works.

Chris

Ah, but you also know how it guesses the joins too.

 

[Mescalito]

Ah, but you also know how it guesses the joins too.

No guessing involved, Greg. Just mathematics. Within the bandwidth of interest, there is ony one possible route between the joins. And that is the correct one. The one identical in every way to the analog waveform.

Digital is not a "join the dots" operation, and there is no guesswork involved when the DAC re-constitutes an analog waveform from the datastream.

Chris

 

[Greg]

No guessing involved, Greg. Just mathematics. Within the bandwidth of interest, there is ony one possible route between the joins. And that is the correct one. The one identical in every way to the analog waveform.

Digital is not a "join the dots" operation, and there is no guesswork involved when the DAC re-constitutes an analog waveform from the datastream.

Chris

Chris, depending upon the sampling frequency though, this isn't the case. 44.1 has too few dots IMO and the line between them is inherently guesswork.

 

[Mescalito]

Chris, depending upon the sampling frequency though, this isn't the case. 44.1 has too few dots IMO and the line between them is inherently guesswork.

How do you figure that out, Greg? with a sampling rate of 44.1KHz, the theoretical upper frequency is 22.05KHz.

Now, you are not going to achieve that because of the impossibility of designing a brick wall fiter that is 100% efficient, so the upper frequency is limited to 20KHz. Even then, some (very small) artifacts of the filtering process may extend down below 20KHz.

But, no guesswork is involve. This is proven mathematcs. That means it is not open to interpretation. It is correct.

Chris

 

[Tony L]

You are record dealer/collector/music lover. I would not presume to guess what the prioritisation of the above is in your case, but the staement highlighted above is the statement of a dealer/collector.

I'm first a music lover. This drives me to the collector thing as I like owning the original issue exactly as it first appeared - this is the correct historical artefact / the thing that actually made the impact. It is also, almost always, the best sounding issue too, as it was usually cut with artistic, rather than corporate supervision. Finally I'm a dealer because I'm rather too good at the buying bit, i.e. I'd not be able to move for bloody vinyl if I didn't sell a fair bit on, plus doing so finances the whole pastime and helps keep a roof over my head. I'm not anti-CD though, far from it. In fact I'm now convinced a similar collectable path lies ahead for this format, so I'm busy stocking up at present!

I have not, and will never buy a download. I object, very strongly, to the whole sales concept. I'm happy to pay a subscription to Spotify to access a whole world of music, but I will not pay money for a product I can not own and has no resale value. For me it's the equivalent of zero value shares, like what's the point? If I can't own it I'll just listen to it on Spotify - I'm certainly not buying it / storing it / paying to back it up!

 

[Mescalito]

I'm first a music lover. This drives me to the collector thing as I like owning the original issue exactly as it first appeared - this is the correct historical artefact / the thing that actually made the impact. It is also, almost always, the best sounding issue too, as it was usually cut with artistic, rather than corporate supervision. Finally I'm a dealer because I'm rather too good at the buying bit, i.e. I'd not be able to move for bloody vinyl if I didn't sell a fair bit on, plus doing so finances the whole pastime and helps keep a roof over my head. I'm not anti-CD though, far from it. In fact I'm now convinced a similar collectable path lies ahead for this format, so I'm busy stocking up at present!

I have not, and will never buy a download. I object, very strongly, to the whole sales concept. I'm happy to pay a subscription to Spotify to access a whole world of music, but I will not pay money for a product I can not own and has no resale value. For me it's the equivalent of zero value shares, like what's the point? If I can't own it I'll just listen to it on Spotify - I'm certainly not buying it / storing it / paying to back it up!

To me, I see little distinction between paying for a download & paying to see a gig. I get to experience the music in both instances.

Chris

 

[Greg]

How do you figure that out, Greg? with a sampling rate of 44.1KHz, the theoretical upper frequency is 22.05KHz.

Now, you are not going to achieve that because of the impossibility of designing a brick wall fiter that is 100% efficient, so the upper frequency is limited to 20KHz. Even then, some (very small) artifacts of the filtering process may extend down below 20KHz.

But, no guesswork is involve. This is proven mathematcs. That means it is not open to interpretation. It is correct.

Chris

but each sample is a discrete point in time, despite the fact individual frequencies (eg. a sine wave) will follow a predictable route, the combination of frequencies as a complex music programme with all of the various harmonic interactions is not, IMHO, captured with sufficient accuracy at 44.1Khz sampling when that is converted back to analogue. What is lacking or what the ear/mind is doing which seems to reveal this I'm completely unsure of and it defies reason, yet the proof seems to be in the listening pudding IME.

 

[Tony L]

To me, I see little distinction between paying for a download & paying to see a gig. I get to experience the music in both instances.

I understand your logic, but I've traded in music all my life, right from when I was a kid at school. It's always been something I've done and I'm not changing mindset now. I'm pretty sure there will always be a marketplace for customers who want physical product as we tend to be the big spenders when it comes to buying music - I must spend £50-100 a month with Amazon alone. I believe the average downloader only spends a few tens of pounds a year.

One only needs to look at the ridiculous queues trailing around many blocks on Record Store Day to know folk still want physical product, especially if it's nice / limited / collectable. Neither end of the queue (outside Piccadilly Records, Manchester, which is out of shot behind the bus on the far right of frame) is visible in the above picture, it stretched right round the back of the block, and was sufficient that I gave up on the idea after moving only a few feet in an hour, as I assume hundreds of others did too. As a proof of market however it speaks volumes.

 

[Mescalito]

but each sample is a discrete point in time, despite the fact individual frequencies (eg. a sine wave) will follow a predictable route, the combination of frequencies as a complex music programme with all of the various harmonic interactions is not, IMHO, captured with sufficient accuracy at 44.1Khz sampling when that is converted back to analogue. What is lacking or what the ear/mind is doing which seems to reveal this I'm completely unsure of and it defies reason, yet the proof seems to be in the listening pudding IME.

I'm afraid the mathematics say differently, Greg.

Chris

 

[Greg]

I'm afraid the mathematics say differently, Greg.

Chris

I'm afraid experience says different, Chris. Enjoy listening to those sine waves.

 

[Mescalito]

I understand your logic, but I've traded in music all my life, right from when I was a kid at school. It's always been something I've done and I'm not changing mindset now. I'm pretty sure there will always be a marketplace for customers who want physical product as we tend to be the big spenders when it comes to buying music - I must spend £50-100 a month with Amazon alone. I believe the average downloader only spends a few tens of pounds a year.

One only needs to look at the ridiculous queues trailing around many blocks on Record Store Day to know folk still want physical product, especially if it's nice / limited / collectable. Neither end of the queue (outside Piccadilly Records, Manchester, which is out of shot behind the bus on the far right of frame) is visible in the above picture, it stretched right round the back of the block, and was sufficient that I gave up on the idea after moving only a few feet in an hour, as I assume hundreds of others did too. As a proof of market however it speaks volumes.

All of which is absolutely fine & totally understandable. But I dopn't feel the need to physically possess the music. In fact when you have a music collection the size of mine, it would (used to be!) physically overwhelming in a domestic environment.

Chris

 

[Tony L]

<moderating>

Off-topic personal argument etc removed, please take it off my forum folks.

 

[Mescalito]

I'm afraid experience says different, Chris. Enjoy listening to those sine waves.

In which case, Greg, your experience cannot be relied upon to represent a reality. Just like when I see a stage magician perform an impossible trick, I know that my experience does not reflect reality.

And Greg, I enjoy listening to sine waves as much as you obviously do. At a purely physical level, that's all music is. Sine wave overlaid upon sinewave overlaid upon sine wave. It is this fact that allows digital audio to exist.

Chris

 

[Tony L]

All of which is absolutely fine & totally understandable. But I dopn't feel the need to physically possess the music. In fact when you have a music collection the size of mine, it would (used to be!) physically overwhelming in a domestic environment.

Fair enough, and to be honest I'm moving to a stage where I'm rationalising my own collection - my aim is to get the vinyl down to the stuff that I *really* care about and is advantageous to have in that format. My retirement strategy will be a pretty substantial jazz vinyl shelf and the absolute cream of my rock / pop vinyl, with everything else as ripped CDs (carefully selected masters, obviously) on a music server.