If you make the statement as digital verses analogue I have to agree. If you say CD against LP it is transformed into which bad system is best. LP's are bad, but can be enjoyed.I haven't listened to enough digital master material to have the whole picture. All I can say is digital is nothing like as bad as I thought. Given care all the analogue qualities are so easy to have. What might be true is all the great engineers are dead. The analogy is like all of us here can put on a classical concert and it is vital we can not read music to quallify. Peter Andre ( no, not that one ) thought it down to that alone. He thought most modern engineers can not read music let alone play four different instruments ( that was the test in 1959 ). Some here have tin ears, yet like music. If you have a musicians ears you will think differently I suspect. Who is to say who is the correct listener? Leave it to science? Why ?
This is an interesting discussion and it inspired me to drag out my vinyl which I had abandoned years ago for all of the usual reasons. I just completed building a Salas folded RIAA and have spent the last week listening to vinyl again. My impression is that is vinyl sounds very nice, better than I had remembered. The details and dynamics are all there and it is fun to be able to play them again. If fact I thought they sounded a lot like a CD with surface noise. It is amazing how good a scratch on a frisby can sound. That said the noise floor and surface noise remain an issue for me, luckily our brains can filter most of it out so it doesn't ruin the listening experience. I do have an ancient pioneer CD player from 1979 that was in a closet that I compared CD vs same album, no question in spite of surface noise LP wins against the first generation consumer goods. But against some modern well made delta sigma dacs using Wolfson and ESS DAC chips that I have I don't feel the same way. For me the modern DACs sound better, jet black background with no noise to distract which lends better transparency, dynamics and tonality to the music. There is no "digital glare" that I can detect. That said I'm not taking my turntable out of my system, it's fun to relive the glory days, but it also great to access streaming music on line and my entire music collection with just a few clicks on my music server.
PJN
PJN
I don't think all of the great engineers are dead. I think the record companies just don't spend the time to create good masters anymore. They are more focused on pushing out pop songs for a public with a limited attention span.
I don't think there are many artists with the power to spend 2 or 3 years producing the album they want to create.
You mean this is as good as it gets? So no more in depth detail, clarity, etc, but broader, as in number of channels, special effects, on-demand streaming everywhere etc., etc?
Have you watched Blade Runner?
George
My girlfriends lad is doing degree level as a sound engineer. 50 % of the theory is difficult ( I doubt if anyone here would find it easy ). One question was based on the speed of sound and a certain type of music as to where should a mircrophone be best placed. Whilst I like the concept I prefer Michael Gerzons statement which was about like this. " It isn't difficult to get a good sound balance. Just try a few microphone positions. It shouldn't take long ".
Last night my friend from Cologne and I listened to 90 % digital sources. She had just driven for 7 hours and then put in another 7 listening. Some of that was her iPhone. Much was MP3 and some was CD. My speakers are OB flat to 40 Hz and nice output to 30Hz. Sound levels typically 105 db peak ( perhaps 115 dB at times, 90 dB average which sounds quiet until trying to speak ). All sources have excellent bass detail and placement. There is plenty of low frequency directional imformation. If anything really is directional below 100 Hz it is hard to say. It sounds like it is ( harmonics ? ). My system has one quality which is rare. It does not loose bass as the levels go down. The punch is always there as it has the same cone area as a 19 inch bass unit ( 15 + 12 ). As it has no box the sound is faster than many small speakers. My feeling is most of this thread is saying that =speakers a wife will allow need LP to work better. I can say after much analysis what is suggested in this hypothesis is the reverse of reality. CD is in general better than LP. One needs the right speakers to prove it. Where CD fails is the product. We didn't listen to much CD. That wasn't a choice. It's just how it works out. Last were all LP's. Pink Floyd Relics, Chris Isaak Wicked game ( she loved it ). Messian Quartet for the end of time ( ADS 2470 ), Buddy Holly and Rickie Lee Jones. Favourite CD's, Peggy Lee Love letters in the sand and George Michael Faith ( last track which the LP doesn't have. CD is much better ) and Brian Eno Another day on Earth.
A solution would be two arms/cartridges reading the same record so speed sync is no issue. Just a constant delay, which can be fixed in DSP.
Jan
Then we're back to reproducing analog with a digital processor. Why not buy a 2 inch reel and record tracks at separate crossover frequencies with different cartridges. Or use an analog delay.
Has anyone ever tried using dual Tonearms? That would be interesting.
Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk
Hi Jan,
Please don't tempt me... as I said, it was a nightmare. However, it could be set up ......
Though meant for special records Livingstone tonearm are interesting.
The following link has two cartridge tonearm design at beginning. Two cartridge can be arranged close to each other where second one is little behind. Binaural tonearms.
Regards
The following link has two cartridge tonearm design at beginning. Two cartridge can be arranged close to each other where second one is little behind. Binaural tonearms.
Regards
I was at a rehearsal of classical music in Wincester Cathedral yesterday. It was hopeless. I managed to get very close to the microphones and found it transformed. Thank goodness a spaced pair used as it will sound fine. Back where people sit the sound was that of a very bad hi fi system. Harmonic distortion was very high or so it seemed. About 10 % second harmonic. The bass was not in time with anything, it was very powerful ( big tick ). The HF like my own system although less good. Then the crunch. It sounded like bad analogue. There was no hint of the silver plated digital sound ( CD ). It has taken music perhaps 2000 years to come to what we know. Is it surprising what we accept as OK in real life is not some measure of what we like?
I would say the conjecture of this thread is wrong. The effects heard in Winchester totally ruin the music and if similar on LP are not helpful. The CD is better than vinyl at LF. How strange to choose the most unlikely thing to exspect to be the magic bullet. People you need some big air moving speakers, your CD players in this are not to blame. I would play Haydn in Winchester and avoid big stuff.
I would say the conjecture of this thread is wrong. The effects heard in Winchester totally ruin the music and if similar on LP are not helpful. The CD is better than vinyl at LF. How strange to choose the most unlikely thing to exspect to be the magic bullet. People you need some big air moving speakers, your CD players in this are not to blame. I would play Haydn in Winchester and avoid big stuff.
Well, I think the fact that some prefer vinyl over digital media is the fact that vinyl is not perfect. Our hearing apparatus is not perfect nor linear, sounds in real life are not perfect either. If you think for a second, there is no place in nature or real life where you can hear sounds with no surrounding noise.
If you go into an anechoic chamber you'll feel very uncomfortable, because the experience is unnatural.
Vinyl is simply more natural to our ears.
If you go into an anechoic chamber you'll feel very uncomfortable, because the experience is unnatural.
Vinyl is simply more natural to our ears.
Do you mean it was DIGITALLY PROCESSED crap sound from the amps??
Not surprising today really........ Very sad
That's exactly what I thought untill I looked. As this thread thinks phase shifted sound enhances I have to say it doesn't. That's not to say in a small amounts it won't. Evidence isn't proff. That's no reason not to ask.
I very carefull positioned myself under the microphones. Obviously whoever set them up was wise to the cathedral. It wasn't too bad there. That will often be the case. Hi fi is often better!!! With rock music we have no real point of reference. We can only say if it sounds better it is better ( Thanks Ivor ).
In Oxford where I have recorded music the Townhall is dreadful ( many times better than Winchester Cathedral ). Over the years I learnt not to hear that, my recording were better than reality. The Sheldonian is sublime. I recorded the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto there. Apart from a bubbling sound the tuba can make the recording was so easy. Beethoven in that building is quite something ( Used in the serries Morse ). I heard the Bach B Minor Mass there sung by The Sixteen. Quad paid for it. It is the last time I met with Quad as a Peter Walker company.
Evenin' all.
Sorry to have been absent from this discussion for a while, but I have been working hard on the Devinyliser hardware; I now have fully working second, third, and fourth-order versions. I am currently writing it up properly.
In my researches I came across these classic papers by Tomilinson Holman, that confirm that 7 - 10 Hz is the area where thing are really bad.
They are:
“New Factors In Phonograph Preamplifier Design”
JAES May 1975, Vol 24 #4, p265
“New Tests for Preamplifiers” Audio, Feb 1977
Also, on looking back at the B&K paper, I note that on one graph it is necessary to attenuate the 10 Hz rumble signal by 40 dB to get it down to the general noise floor. It can be done.
Sorry to have been absent from this discussion for a while, but I have been working hard on the Devinyliser hardware; I now have fully working second, third, and fourth-order versions. I am currently writing it up properly.
In my researches I came across these classic papers by Tomilinson Holman, that confirm that 7 - 10 Hz is the area where thing are really bad.
They are:
“New Factors In Phonograph Preamplifier Design”
JAES May 1975, Vol 24 #4, p265
“New Tests for Preamplifiers” Audio, Feb 1977
Also, on looking back at the B&K paper, I note that on one graph it is necessary to attenuate the 10 Hz rumble signal by 40 dB to get it down to the general noise floor. It can be done.
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