merlin
Avatar changed - Town names deemed offensive.
Never heard of the bloke.
I know this other audio bloke called Trevor who says he's clueless
Which one is most accurate digital or vinyl?
- Thread starter kristoffer
- Start date
Never heard of the bloke.
I know this other audio bloke called Trevor who says he's clueless
Paul R
pfm Member
What proportion of the recording industry do you know? And why are they happy to almost universally use PCM if they all consider it poor?
I think your generalised and repeated assertion (that PCM encoding changes the sound) is absurd. Really you need to refine it into something that can be tested.
Because PCM defines a signal it can be algorithmically transformed into PDM which consequently also defines the signal. And vice versa. All the information that is on an SACD can comfortably be contained within an 88k2/20bit PCM stream.
Paul
adamdea
You are not a sound quality evaluation device
This guy's clearly an idiot. He thinks that vinyl produces inconsistent results with high hats, whereas everyone knows vinyl reproduces them perfectly and PCM makes them sound like someone hitting a cornflake packet with a wooden mallet.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Merlin is very sketchy on details I know his ability to be humble around PFM is very well known, and a blessed contrast to, some for whom every single part of modern life would collapse had he not attended meeting-this or feasibility-study that: but it might add a little credibility if we could have a glimpse at a cv.
This is going to be bad form, and maybe the quivakent of dropping a poop in a library, but I actually don't like Steve Hoffman's remastering work very much, not that it matters and it does not besmirch the careful work of a professional, yet his style is not something I gravitate towards.
Steve Wilson too, I don't like porcupine tree all that much, talented as they are the mastering I have heard he has done (especially on Yes feels absurdly etched and wide). I hate to diss a professional's work, and I know this is accepted as "cleaner more revealing" but some of these remasters feel like the reveal of the Michelangelo sistine chapel restoration, cleaned to the point of weird.
I have never knowingly heard a DSD file. The PCM recorders I have heard and used have been transparent, in as much as I can't hear the difference between the direct mike feed and the recorder output. This -never- happens on tape.
Certainly some, but by no means all, tape shortcomings are pleasant sounding, but transparent (i.e. accurate) it ain't. LP is nowhere near as good as tape. It has far more shortcomings and limitations, though again pleasant sounding.
The fact is, some enthusiasts prefer the addition of some euphonic colouration in their system.
The only thing that I take issue with is that so few of them accept that what they like are the well documented, known for decades colourations and try to invent some as-yet-discovered-by-man perfection in their preference.
I enjoy my LPs for what they are. I enjoy my CDs for what they are. I pretty well can't be arsed with "high def" downloads since so few have music I want to listen to on them. I have a tiny number only.
Certainly some, but by no means all, tape shortcomings are pleasant sounding, but transparent (i.e. accurate) it ain't. LP is nowhere near as good as tape. It has far more shortcomings and limitations, though again pleasant sounding.
The fact is, some enthusiasts prefer the addition of some euphonic colouration in their system.
The only thing that I take issue with is that so few of them accept that what they like are the well documented, known for decades colourations and try to invent some as-yet-discovered-by-man perfection in their preference.
I enjoy my LPs for what they are. I enjoy my CDs for what they are. I pretty well can't be arsed with "high def" downloads since so few have music I want to listen to on them. I have a tiny number only.
merlin
Avatar changed - Town names deemed offensive.
Paul
It's another rather sorry example of some people not reading what I am saying.
I have said that in my experience, and that of others, conversion to PCM changes the sound.
I have not mentioned another form of conversion. Please show me where I have.
I have also not stated that PCM is bad. Nor have friends.
But don't let the what I DID say get in the way of an argument please.
Asking you a question, can you possibly point me towards the available genuine 20 bit analogue to digital converters that operate natively at 88.2khz? Not shitstream - genuine 20 bit converters Paul.
What I HAVE said (not in this thread but elsewhere) is that IME, if you take an analogue signal and digitize it as a pure bitstream signal, then replay it as pure bitstream with no conversion in between, then the results appear to be exceptional and have the same musical qualities as analogue playback. Why not try it then come back and tell me I am utterly absurd?
kristoffer
Danish Hi Fi NERD
The thing is digital can sound more "sharp" and because of this your experience listener fatigue. This never happens with vinyl. So even though vinyl might be less "accurate" it makes me listen to more music than I would otherwise.
smoking-rob
pfm Member
In principle, the information embedded in the grooves of vinyl is infinite: better replay equipment (think stylus shape, cartridge/arm construction and stuff further down the chain etc.) can still dig up levels of details unheard before. I believe with digital, resolution is limited to the amount of bits.
adamdea
You are not a sound quality evaluation device
Lots of people think that, but it isn't the case. The resolution is limited by the noise level for both digital and analog. It's true that better vinyl front ends can dig up more detail, but even with the fanciest replay chain imaginable there would still be some limits.
Still it means that vinyl is much more suitable as a hobby if one wants to feel a sense of personal involvement in the quest to dig up more detail, just as a spade is better than a bulldozer if one wants to enjoy a lifetime of personal engagement in digging up the garden.
As a thought experiment try imagining that someone handed you a machine and said this is the best that can be extracted from your records. Full stop-that's it. You play it. It sounds really great. But not actually that much better than your current record player. Still great, don't get me wrong. But that's it.
IMHO, that's what a cd player is (give or take a tiny hint here or there), and that's what upsets alot of people about them. It's not that their limits are lower than vinyl, it's just that they are more apparent at every level- in the numbers which ram down one's throat that they capture this much and no more; and in the degree to which all but the shittiest ones now get it about right. They simply can't sound as different as record players can unless your messing around with them.
When Sony said perfect sound forever, they might as well have been saying F**k You audiophiles.
vinylkid58
pfm Member
mmaatt
pfm Member
Yes all in your opinion, not born out by actual listening; my record player has been digging up more detail than any CD player I've ever owned for many years and the upgrades take it even further.
mat
Paul R
pfm Member
And all the evidence is that you are wrong, even for 'CD' standard PCM.
I don't know what you mean by 'genuine 20 bit converters'
DSD is equivalent to 1 bit PCM at 1.4MHz with a bunch of DSP to trade bandwidth for resolution. It's transformable into and out of 20 bit PCM with no loss of information. 'Pure' is a marketing ism.
Paul
One of the reasons people hear more detail on LPs is that the low level sound is amplified before cutting the disc in order to keep it above the noise level.
The system doesn't record more detail, but the manufacturing necessities make the details stand out more.
There is a straightforward explanation for the differences between CD and LP. No need to invent new ones and no magic.
The mono bass, raised level of quiet bits and reduction in level of high frequencies inherent in manufacturing a playable LP all make for an easier to reproduce output, less likely to clip amplifiers, sharing bass between speakers and giving tweeters an easier time.
Probably more suited to domestic hifi in effect.
CD has more dynamic range then can be comfortably enjoyed in a domestic situation. With a background noise in my room of about 40dB when the heating is running a CD, turned up just enough to hear the quietest signal it can reproduce would be 136 dB at the loudest. Deafening, and not reproducible with pretty well any domestic amps or speakers.
A lot of domestic hi fis are not capable of doing justice to CD due to not enough amp power or linear enough speakers.
A lot of the complaints about CD sound is due to amps clipping IMHO.
At my listening distance there is a drop of around 15dB per stereo pair. My horn speakers are 106dB/watt so I get 91 dB at my listening seat from 1 Watt. For 136 dB at my listening seat I would need well over 1,000 watts, which the speakers can not take for long. I use 500 watts per channel.
A more typical domestic hifi is nowhere near capable of reproducing the full dynamic range a CD is capable of.
mmaatt
pfm Member
Interesting explanation, I've never heard that before.
I'm not sure about the problem being amps can't cope with the full dynamic range of CD, how much music is 136db loud? That is ear drum bursting level, and not the kind of music I listen to.
mat
I think it was Philips not sony
anyway "Vinyl's imperfect sound gets worn away"
Entropically
Unless you look after it
Obsessively
People today listen to amazing quality
Via small phones and an Internet of things
we forget names like Matsui and Amstrad
(and double cassette recorder boomboxes).
I am holding onto my 1st Gen iPod
for when it becomes ironic
For hipster v3.0
Who Traded in their vinyl collections long ago
Sometime soon 2018, i reckon.
yeah yeah, I know, I know...
"perfect consumption, forever"
RossB
Former Member
Dynamic range and distortion levels are not the only measures of fidelity. Timing issues are also critical. Sampling theory says that the original waveform can be reproduced perfectly provided the original recording is bandwidth limited to half the sampling frequency. That's fine, most people respond, because we can't hear anything above 20khz anyway.
However, this misses a fundamental point, that music is not a continuous sinewave at a certain frequency, but a series of transient impulses followed by decay. When sampling at 44.1khz (for example) the sampling interval is 22uS. A transient - eg a drum thwack - occurring during that 22uS gap will not be sampled, although its decay will be. The leading edge of most notes - a plucked string, the sound of a piano key hitting the string - will statistically be likely to occur within the 22uS gap, not at the exact point of sampling. This means that a large amount of important information - regardless of the sampling frequency - is never recorded. It also means that digital recordings - particularly early ones which were originally recorded with 44.1 khz ADCs - do not sound quite natural, and have lost important musical information during the recording process which can never be recovered.
Analogue recordings and playback are of course far worse than digital in most parameters, but they do seem to be able to reproduce transient information in a more natural way. Someone once defined music as "the organisation of time" and if vinyl reproduces the timing of musical information more accurately, and more completely, in my opinion this is why it sounds more "real" than digital.
However, this misses a fundamental point, that music is not a continuous sinewave at a certain frequency, but a series of transient impulses followed by decay. When sampling at 44.1khz (for example) the sampling interval is 22uS. A transient - eg a drum thwack - occurring during that 22uS gap will not be sampled, although its decay will be. The leading edge of most notes - a plucked string, the sound of a piano key hitting the string - will statistically be likely to occur within the 22uS gap, not at the exact point of sampling. This means that a large amount of important information - regardless of the sampling frequency - is never recorded. It also means that digital recordings - particularly early ones which were originally recorded with 44.1 khz ADCs - do not sound quite natural, and have lost important musical information during the recording process which can never be recovered.
Analogue recordings and playback are of course far worse than digital in most parameters, but they do seem to be able to reproduce transient information in a more natural way. Someone once defined music as "the organisation of time" and if vinyl reproduces the timing of musical information more accurately, and more completely, in my opinion this is why it sounds more "real" than digital.