Vinyl vs CD - what's your experience?

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diyAudio Senior Member
Joined 2002
Hi,

A point worth bearing in mind is that older...and I mean older than both SY and Janneman ...music enthusiasts more usually have good collections of vinyl recordings and had already amassed the basis of their collections prior to the introduction of CDs. Early CD recordings were almost all remastered from analogue tapes. The record companies were perhaps a bit too 'on the ball' in transferring their back-catalogue to digital. There was a race to see which company would have the largest CD catalogue. Much of this work was out-sourced!

The result was that many budget remastering suites were set-up in a hurry and producers - who were too often second class - had a short field day, whilst the engineers and tech guys were so often unemployable in a more stable studio employment marketplace.

The consequence was that many early CDs were very bad examples of a media which had a far higher potential than was all too often realized.

Concurrent with this was a fast rise in affordable mini multi-track machines from the likes of Akai. Many record companies - because of the race to increase their CD marketshare - encouraged the 'home-recording- industry...it freed-up recording budgets, post-production suites and staff to accelerate back-catalogue digital transfer. In my view this was the time at which so much rubbish music was being plugged and a terrible disservice to music was committed. The new music of the period has produced a few artists who have stayed the course, but vast numbers were five minute wonders.:rolleyes:

For my part, being older than the previous posters and even older than John Curl, I have a few thousand good vinyl recordings and not more than a hundred CDs and am only now getting into sorting out a reasonable digital replay set-up. I have chosen a DAC from China and a transformer (filtered) output in place of the poor on-board analogue output stage. My old Philips 850 Mk11 still spins the discs. I have a some early digital sampler discs from music magazine covers. The early ones which are transfers, for the most-part, sound absolutely dreadful , whereas those recorded in the digital domain, in the recent past, really are usually very good.

But my analogue system is in another category and still has quite an edge of advantage despite being a little less quite. To replace this front end with today's equivalent would cost a frightening amount of money! So I will say that an indifferent front end, analogue or digital, cannot be compared with a a top end player of the opposite media. I suspect that the best of digital will now equal the best of analogue provided that the discs are of high quality.

If only they would treat compressors with a lighter hand!!

Amen to that.

Allow me to state it this way: numerical recordings intrinsically can surpass analogue ones if only they'd know how to record them properely instead of prodrucing them...Get it?


Cheers ;)
 
So much is down to pressing quality.

Recently I had the opportunity to do a shootout over at a friends place using a range of copies of that hoary old chestnut "Time Out" by Dave Brubeck.

Personally I have 3 copies of this, the Sony Legacy series 20 bit remaster on CD, a recent reissue 180gm vinyl and a Columbia Mono 6 eye pressing. Also used in the comaprison was an SACD and a regular CD release.

Speakers were Vienna Acoustics plus a custom built sub, amplifiers were custom built Patrick Turner Audio single ended, fed by phono and preamp by the same builder, TT was a Michell Orbe running an incognito rewired RB900 with a Lyra MC on the front. CD's were played through a modified SACD player, can't recall if it was a Marantz or Phillips.

On the digital side the SACD was the clear winner followed by the Legacy 20 bit remaster and the cooking version. I'd probably put the 180GM pressing level with the Legacy 20bit for musical enjoyment.

The real standout of the session was the Mono 6 eye which utterly destroyed every other format in the test by a country mile. Far more realistic in tone, better dynamics, just lovely to listen to. Obviously there's the complete loss of the stereo image as a downside, but otherwise no contest.

Have had the same results with other Columbia material such as my pressing of Miles Davis Sketches of Spain. If you want to hear how the instruments really sound, the mono 6 eye is a no-brainer.

It all depends so much on the mastering and the pressing quality

Some vinyl pressings are no better than a good CD, some are far worse. A badly pressed, unloved and badly mastered vinyl can be utterly horrid to listen to with no dynamics, surface noise, harshness on peaks, tics, pops, skips, loops etc to be endured.

Of courese poorly mastered CD can sound pretty naff too. Have heard reports that the most recent Metallica release sounds far better on playstation "Guitar Hero" than it does on CD.

Well loved and well manufactured/mastered vinyl can be utterly sublime with audibly non existent noise, perfect tone and dynamics.
 
I have to agree with the previous sentiments that I'll summarize as "it depends on how good a job was done in the process of going from tape -> LP/CD."

Last I tried this was with a Philip Glass recording, LP on my Oracle/SME/Grado setup, CD on what was at the time a well regarded Sony. Started with the LP, sounded wonderful, played the same track on CD, damn if there wasn't something that I didn't remember hearing on the LP, switched back and there it was. That particular contest was declared a tie and much red wine was consumed.

A few years later I brought home a 30+ year old LP of instrumental surf that I had picked up at the record swap, cleaned it carefully on the VPI and dropped the Grado into the groove. I sat back on the couch and I swear the band was in the room in front of me. I could hear the location of every instrument, even the individual drums in the drum kit and where the guitar players were and where their amps were. Haven't had that experience with a CD yet.
 
s.
Phono cartridges do not have even half the channel separation of the CD format. Much of my vinyl seems to create a narrower sound stage, even though I may like other aspects of the vinyl better.
So even though we can measure channel separation, and given all the different source material, in general do the best phono systems equal the imaging and soundstage width of the CD?

Most decent phono cartridges have enough stereo separation for all intents and puropses, if you feel the soundstage is narrow with some records, maybe it's fault of the record itself.
 
The consequence was that many early CDs were very bad examples of a media which had a far higher potential than was all too often realized.


Have you ever heard any of Opus3 early cd transfers(AAD)?
When I did,I tought like you that this medium had potential.Since then,I have bought more than 2000 LP's many of them recordings from the 50's and 60's.
Even those recordings transfered on cd,clearly show cd's potential,wich will remain a potential for many years to come,IMO.
 
Vinyl has to many variables that wear out; the tape heads on the lathe, yes the first stage passes your music through a lathe, the cutting head on the lathe wears, the stamper that presses the vinyl wears out, so if your LP was at the ed of its life it wont sound as good a the first few thst were stamped, the LP wears every time you play it, your stylus wears, and I might have missed a stage between the master and the stamper.

And a mono recording of "Time Out"?? What a way to ruin a beutiful stereo recording.
 
One Red Book CD quantization is worse than two or three generations of analog tape (excepting possibly cassette) with the cutting lathe and normal stamper deterioration thrown in also, IMO.

Is vinyl "wear out" really an excuse to avoid the format if you can play them up to hundreds of times with insignificant degradation, as I have with records that I have owned for up to 30 years?

Of course, vinyl "wear out" is to be expected if one mishandles & doesn't clean their LPs and plays them on low end equipment that never receives any maintenance. IOW, YMMV.
 
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Must be said, I agree with the maintenance problems with LPs - I bought a few LPs 2nd hand (charity shop), and one of two tracks... you could tell where their favourite part was - even the vocals sounded nasty, the needle had been dropped there so many times. The other tracks are Ok, and I only say I like the crackles because it reminds me that I'm doing something unique to my generation - sitting down and listening to a record, with an old record deck, and a pre-amp, and a pair of speakers older than myself. I hope you can understand that doing that makes me feel part of something that may not be around for a whole lot longer, with the way my generation looks at music.

The part that made me slightly worried was that some (I'm not sure how much) of your generation declares what I do (listen to records) to be "geeky", and the guy was around 40, and would probably have owned a record deck at some point.

Chris
 
diyAudio Senior Member
Joined 2002
Hi,

Someone mentioned Direct to Disc recordings.
Indeed, they're great.
Sounding very close to a master tape but....How many of these D2D recordings hold musical content worth holding?
Not that many I'm afraid.

At any given period of history there were companies that cared about the music, others were just there to make a quick buck. Sad but true.

A good quality vinyl record can live for a lifetime when taken care of properly.
I doubt a CD will last 50 years though...

Anyway, if product such as Last are still out there, get it.
Buy a decent cleaning machine and use a harmless mixture of chemicals to keep the records in pristine condition.
Get some of these Nagaoka rice paper sleeves to prevent static build-up.
Use a cartridge with a fine tip (A.J. v.d. Hul or similar), not a plough.
Treat it with Stylast.

Keep all contact points to a bare minimum, clean them regularly with some alcohol and treat them to some Tweak.

Unsuspended TTs can be quite revealing in dynamic range provided they're well isolated from acoustic feedback.
Suspended TTs, no matter how good, are often dull and uninvolving.

Learn about the recording engineers and the lables they work for.
Learn about mirophones so you know what they sound like....
Daunting task I'll admit.

When all is said and done, an Art Blakey session for Blue Note isn't going to sound bad just because it's transferred to CD.
After all it was a job well done in the first place. Thank you Rudy.

Anno 2009 there are still some companies out there offering the finest 180g vinyl reissues you wouldn't have imagined possible.

Sound like vinyl is going to be the next valve.........;)

Cheers, ;)
 
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First, Im 50 and listened to nothing but vinyl for 25 years. Second, the list; Warping, non centered holes, mono bass, clicks pops rumble hiss, RIA preamps, acoustic feedback, acoustic leakage, wow and flutter, incorrect speed (pitch), low level interconects and a few I missed.

Sure I know some of these problems disappear if you throw enough money at them but alot of them will always be there. I believe an LP can sound great maybee even better than a CD but getting that great sound is usually a lot more difficult with a turntable.
 
I have a few direct disk recordings I like for more than sound FX. The Dillards, Shelley Manne & His Men, Les Brown & His Band of Renown, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Laurindo Almeida, the LA4, and Dave Brubeck and his sons. Admittedly, my taste runs to jazz and classics which are probably over-represented on DD.

There is also a small stack of DBX disks which I ought to set up the decoder for. Haven't listened to them for a long time. Might be worth dubbing them at 24/96 to the big disk library.
 
diyAudio Senior Member
Joined 2002
Hi,

I have a few direct disk recordings I like for more than sound FX. The Dillards, Shelley Manne & His Men, Les Brown & His Band of Renown, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Laurindo Almeida, the LA4, and Dave Brubeck and his sons. Admittedly, my taste runs to jazz and classics which are probably over-represented on DD.

There is also a small stack of DBX disks which I ought to set up the decoder for. Haven't listened to them for a long time. Might be worth dubbing them at 24/96 to the big disk library.

Yep.
Run it through that processor a few times. It can only sound better.:p

On m'appelle "Le Puriste"....Comprendre, compadre?

Cheers, ;)
 
Run it through that processor a few times. It can only sound better.:p

On m'appelle "Le Puriste"....Comprendre, compadre?

Cheers, ;)

Indeed! I can't remember how much damage the DBX does. I do remember it eliminates surface noise, but I don't remember how much it affects dynamics of the music. It is analog, at least, so there's no quantization loss. So the main purpose of the experiment is to see how well the old technology worked (or if my decoder still works at all).

Remember that most of your "purist" sessions of the 70s and 80s were recorded through DBX or Dolby A as a matter of course. It's tough to be pure. :)

Given my choice of recording chain, I'd take a direct Blumlein mic pair into an Ampex 1/2" 15ips ATR100, and playback from the master tape & recorder. Unfortunately, that just doesn't happen often, especially today. Have to live with digits, lotsa digits recorded to a MacBook... (sigh)
 
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