advertisement


Which one is most accurate digital or vinyl?

kristoffer said:
The latest ed. of the Podcast Accidental Tech Podcast talks about vinyl vs digital. They state that digital is far more accurate when it comes to capturing sound or music. Digital has a wider dynamic range ( in theory ) and is more accurate compared to vinyl which is cut in plastic.

I prefer vinyl and I don't really care whether or not it is the most accurate reproduction or not, but does the guys from Accidental Tech Podcast have a point? :confused:
http://atp.fm/episodes/60
Click to expand...

Digital is supposed to sound the most accurate - but vinyl is more musically satisfying for some reason - and that's what counts in my books. The best vinyl sound I've ever heard is via croft amplification and a pair of stacked Quad Electrostatic loudspeakers.
 
It's never going to sound more accurate than real life sound.

You listen to real life all day long.

Mark
 
Tony L said:
PS The Leftfield item to hunt down is the original 3xLP of Leftism, that thing sounds amazing!
Click to expand...

Took me ages to track that one down. Loved that album ever since crashing at a mates on night with my head next to one of his speakers and the album on repeat loop. Next morning went and bought it as first order of business but only on CD. Vinyl took about 3 years to find.
 
neil said:
Took me ages to track that one down. Loved that album ever since crashing at a mates on night with my head next to one of his speakers and the album on repeat loop. Next morning went and bought it as first order of business but only on CD. Vinyl took about 3 years to find.
Click to expand...

The limited edition 2xCD of Leftism is worth finding too as it adds Cut For Life which they inexplicably cut from the single CD issue (it's one of the best tracks) and adds a load of remixes etc too. I have it and the triple vinyl. There is also a double vinyl issue on IIRC Simply Vinyl, but I don't know anything about that one.
 
Interesting term accurate. In most cases, accurate would relate to a tolerance or specification so pretty meaningless here bearing in mind the wide variety of criteria which listeners would incorporate.
 
Tony L said:
The limited edition 2xCD of Leftism is worth finding too as it adds Cut For Life which they inexplicably cut from the single CD issue (it's one of the best tracks) and adds a load of remixes etc too. I have it and the triple vinyl. There is also a double vinyl issue on IIRC Simply Vinyl, but I don't know anything about that one.
Click to expand...

I'll look out for it.
 
The double vinyl sounds good. Nice pressing. Not sure it's superior to the CD though. A long time since I dragged it out.
 
Without looking through my CD collection I have very few DDD recordings and because I enjoy bebop jazz , classical and female vocal such as Julie London,Nina and Ella much of my collection is of AAD recordings,which I much prefer. The benefit of being an old fogey!

CD players have made massive improvements over the years but in my opinion they struggle to beat a good vinyl system
 
Tony L said:
Whichever format has the better mastering of the title you wish to listen to available is the better format. The end.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
Does the forum software have some sort of auto responder to insert that line into every thread when this question is posted? :)
 
Tony L said:
Whichever format has the better mastering of the title you wish to listen to available is the better format. The end.
Click to expand...

Sadly, not quite that simple. Just re-present the initial question as ''Assuming a similar quality of mastering, which format is most accurate'' ?
In truth, as has been argued on this thread, the word 'accurate' can mean a variety of things.
No matter, in the end, you either like the result or you don't. I far prefer vinyl, other people tend to prefer cd (assuming good mastering in both instances). As long as the choices are available for consumers, why does it matter? Just buy what you like. End of problem.
By the way, I use the term 'buy' only for vinyl or CD. With most streaming you just rent. You can't sell it on, or even lend it to someone. It's not yours in any meaningful sense.
 
TPA said:
Interesting term accurate. In most cases, accurate would relate to a tolerance or specification so pretty meaningless here bearing in mind the wide variety of criteria which listeners would incorporate.
Click to expand...

The question isn't meaningless when related to hi-fi.
The specification in the audio sense is the original master tape - be it the analogue tape or the digital file. Accuracy is simply a measure of preserving the sound of that original once transferred to the distribution format. If you have the original master and the copies you simply compare the two.

The problems arise when different masters exist, and when that happens a skanky old cassette tape made from a great master can potentially outperform a 24 bit hi-res capture of a poor one. Where you to directly compare them and declare the cassette the winner, it would be foolish to suggest that in generic terms cassette tape is superior to digital....

This question always requires breaking into two parts - what is the potential of a format on the one hand and how it's typically used in the real world on the other.
 
Robert said:
The question isn't meaningless when related to hi-fi.
The specification in the audio sense is the original master tape - be it the analogue tape or the digital file. Accuracy is simply a measure of preserving the sound of that original once transferred to the distribution format. If you have the original master and the copies you simply compare the two.

The problems arise when different masters exist, and when that happens a skanky old cassette tape made from a great master can potentially outperform a 24 bit hi-res capture of a poor one. Where you to directly compare them and declare the cassette the winner, it would be foolish to suggest that in generic terms cassette tape is superior to digital....

This question always requires breaking into two parts - what is the potential of a format on the one hand and how it's typically used in the real world on the other.
Click to expand...

My point entirely, as you say, "you simply compare the two" - but on what criteria? Some distortions measure well but sound awful, and vice versa. I completely agree about differing masters etc, and that is not the point.

I guess in the most basic of terms if you asked the artist what he intended the reaction to his music to be and he said 'I expect people to get up and dance' - then a system/format that made more people get up and dance than another could be regarded as more accurate?

A digital file, by it's nature, remains accurate in a bit for bit sense. If we both download an MP3 of from iTunes from different parts of the world, we will both get a bit perfect version, and it in turn will be the same as the engineer finally committed. But here lies another difference, which digital are we talking in terms of format? There is only one analogue, but there are numerous digital formats. I'm not necessarily convinced that they're all reliably differentiable on an audible basis but they will absolutely be measurably different on a bit for bit basis.
 
TPA said:
There is only one analogue
Click to expand...

The contrary. There are as many analogues as there are tapes actively used and individual LP copies pressed. No two LPs are the same. Compare a 10th one from a matrix to the 5000th one from the same matrix.

And then there are as many renderings from these sources as there are tape decks and turntable combinations.


Likeable? Yes.

Accurate in a technical sense? No.

Accurate in a subjective sense? Perhaps.
 
Werner said:
Likeable? Yes.



Accurate in a technical sense? No.



Accurate in a subjective sense? Perhaps.
Click to expand...

If we were all happy to keep the first and second categories apart, there would be nothing to argue about. The problem is that even if people grudgingly acknowledge the distinction, the majority inevitably circle back to confusing them.

It just doesn't sound very attractive to be chained to a quest to identify the distortion generator one likes best. Or simply to enjoy quaint technology. In the heart of the hobby lies a belief that the enjoyment one derives from "better" equipment must flow from greater technical accuracy and truth.

This can be made to hang together when comparing dacs or (up to a point) when comparing turntables, where hugely expensive materials and components can be shown to increase accuracy or reduce distortion. As long as objective audibility is kept at bay, digital audio has a great a capacity to spawn ultra expensive state of the art solutions as analog.

But the wheel completely falls off when comparing different formats. So much time and ingenuity has been spent on trying to identify the elusive distortion introduced by ADC/DAC so that it can be described as technically less accurate, and so that a sense can be identified in which vinyl is more technically accurate.
 
I use extensive equalisation and DSP room correction of various types - none of this can be described as accurate as they all "mangle" the signal , however the various flavours of "inaccuracy" are pleasing to me...
All I'm really concerned with is the signal that hits my ears rather than the signal that hits my speakers.
If there was a universal truth as to accurate reproduction , we would all be using the same gear - we all have preferences with respect to the variances from absolute accuracy. Your preferences are inviolate and are personal , so if you like vinyl and another likes ceedee , well it's their preference - neither is right or wrong.
 
Tony L said:
The limited edition 2xCD of Leftism is worth finding too as it adds Cut For Life which they inexplicably cut from the single CD issue (it's one of the best tracks) and adds a load of remixes etc too. I have it and the triple vinyl. There is also a double vinyl issue on IIRC Simply Vinyl, but I don't know anything about that one.
Click to expand...
Thanks Tony, bought it. 30p plus post, used VG.:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top