Re: Re: Janneman
David is really too modest here. We went to visit two of his friends who both had spent lost of money to design and built a dedicated music listening room, filled with the most awesome equipment available. I was standing knee-deep in FM Acoustics equipment from Switzerland.
The Wison Whamm II were awesome in their own right, not to mention the Avantgarde horns in the other room.
But most impressive were the purpose-designed rooms. One room had 240 wall modules that could be changed in absorbtion and reflection properties by flipping them over, to tune the room.
I have never heard such lifelike, realistic, "being there" sound in my life.
After some pressure from me one of our hosts reluctantly dug out a CD equivalent to the LP he was playing so we could do some A-B-ing (I am an objectivist and A/B/X man at heart as some of you will know).
No competition. Compared to the LP, the CD sounded dull, lifeless, flat. I know, it flies in the face of common knowledge, and in the face of my beliefs.
I'm still grappling with my experiences and perceptions from that evening.
More later.
Jan Didden
mikeks said:
David is really too modest here. We went to visit two of his friends who both had spent lost of money to design and built a dedicated music listening room, filled with the most awesome equipment available. I was standing knee-deep in FM Acoustics equipment from Switzerland.
The Wison Whamm II were awesome in their own right, not to mention the Avantgarde horns in the other room.
But most impressive were the purpose-designed rooms. One room had 240 wall modules that could be changed in absorbtion and reflection properties by flipping them over, to tune the room.
I have never heard such lifelike, realistic, "being there" sound in my life.
After some pressure from me one of our hosts reluctantly dug out a CD equivalent to the LP he was playing so we could do some A-B-ing (I am an objectivist and A/B/X man at heart as some of you will know).
No competition. Compared to the LP, the CD sounded dull, lifeless, flat. I know, it flies in the face of common knowledge, and in the face of my beliefs.
I'm still grappling with my experiences and perceptions from that evening.
More later.
Jan Didden
Re: Re: Re: Re: Janneman
Well, can't prove it, but my gut feeling is that it had to do with how well the source material was transferred to the CD versus the LP. I would guess that a direct to disk LP would sound better (as in more lifelike and realistic) than a CD master mixed down umpteen times from a dozen tracks going through 100 opamps in several consoles. IOW, the CD may be better wrt distortion, noise, freq response etc but if the source material is inferior it's a lost battle for those 0's and 1's.
I think the real acid test is to digitize the output of the phono preamp through a high quality ADC and write it to CD , and then compare the CD to the LP.
Jan Didden
clem_o said:
Well, can't prove it, but my gut feeling is that it had to do with how well the source material was transferred to the CD versus the LP. I would guess that a direct to disk LP would sound better (as in more lifelike and realistic) than a CD master mixed down umpteen times from a dozen tracks going through 100 opamps in several consoles. IOW, the CD may be better wrt distortion, noise, freq response etc but if the source material is inferior it's a lost battle for those 0's and 1's.
I think the real acid test is to digitize the output of the phono preamp through a high quality ADC and write it to CD , and then compare the CD to the LP.
Jan Didden
lumanauw said:You know, that's the best partI often wonder what this member looks like, what's that member looks like, what Mikeks looks like. It's nice to meet the person.
We did that about 4 years ago.
Ugly face contest.
Feel free to add your picture.
How about an LP mastered from the same digital master (probably 20 to 24 bit / 96 kHz) as the CD?
In that case, the CD should win hands down if a good SRC and dithering were used. If not, we can conclude that some wow and flutter, distortion and noise are actually beneficial, and we can redesign the downsamplers to include them synthetically
(speaking only partly tongue in cheek)
In that case, the CD should win hands down if a good SRC and dithering were used. If not, we can conclude that some wow and flutter, distortion and noise are actually beneficial, and we can redesign the downsamplers to include them synthetically
(speaking only partly tongue in cheek)
capslock said:How about an LP mastered from the same digital master (probably 20 to 24 bit / 96 kHz) as the CD?
In that case, the CD should win hands down if a good SRC and dithering were used. If not, we can conclude that some wow and flutter, distortion and noise are actually beneficial, and we can redesign the downsamplers to include them synthetically
(speaking only partly tongue in cheek)
You know the 0.55Hz jitter is more acceptable than digital jitter
, and digital HF residuals are not acceptable at all
I hear the same song, the same album, but from 2 sources, LP and CD.
With CD, the stage width seems limited only to the sides of the speakers, the sound cannot be farther than speaker sides.
With LP the stage seems to be able 2m more left and 2m more right than the speaker sides. Test is made with eyes closed.
I know that audio CD (not XRCD or HDCD or audio DVD) has bandwith only up to 22.05khz, because there is "brickwall" filter.
What is the max frequency that LP can store?
If it is higher than 22.05khz, could it be that this "super-sonic" data that is making the LP sounds wider? By intermodulation?
With CD, the stage width seems limited only to the sides of the speakers, the sound cannot be farther than speaker sides.
With LP the stage seems to be able 2m more left and 2m more right than the speaker sides. Test is made with eyes closed.
I know that audio CD (not XRCD or HDCD or audio DVD) has bandwith only up to 22.05khz, because there is "brickwall" filter.
What is the max frequency that LP can store?
If it is higher than 22.05khz, could it be that this "super-sonic" data that is making the LP sounds wider? By intermodulation?
Hi,
I am frequently stating that I am to deaf to hear differences between speaker cables.
But I must confess that in all my LP / CD competitions the old fashioned LP won the race. By far.
Besides digital jitter it might also be the fact that the digitized
signal is suffering from missing information, while the LP is suffering from added noise. Might be quite different for our ears.
Also ...Shannon or not... who of us would like to judge a sine wave on his scope just from 3 captured points? And that's what the CD sampling rate means at 15kHz. ... of course I can reconstruct a sinewave from this, if a assume that it is a sine wave... But my eyes do not like such scope pictures...
In fact, if I look to the low sampling rate I am quite amazed how good these CDs can sound. They can sound good enough, that I changed from CD to LP, because of practical reasons.
I am frequently stating that I am to deaf to hear differences between speaker cables.
But I must confess that in all my LP / CD competitions the old fashioned LP won the race. By far.
Besides digital jitter it might also be the fact that the digitized
signal is suffering from missing information, while the LP is suffering from added noise. Might be quite different for our ears.
Also ...Shannon or not... who of us would like to judge a sine wave on his scope just from 3 captured points? And that's what the CD sampling rate means at 15kHz. ... of course I can reconstruct a sinewave from this, if a assume that it is a sine wave... But my eyes do not like such scope pictures...
In fact, if I look to the low sampling rate I am quite amazed how good these CDs can sound. They can sound good enough, that I changed from CD to LP, because of practical reasons.
ChocoHolic said:
These are some valid points, but on the 15kHz - 3 samples issue, if you sent that reconstituted signal through the post DAC filters that are always present, you really will see a SINE wave on your scope!
And yes, the CD has shortcomings like jitter, but what about LP jitter? Fast vibration of variations in replay speed, wow, flutter, what have you. No, I still think it it NOT a difference in technical specs, because if that was it, LP's would lose on all counts.
I think it has to do with the way the music is mastered to the LP or to the CD. If the CD mastering process loses more stuff on its way to the CD than with LP mastering, CD's would be expected to sound inferior.
But I cannot prove it. Yet.
Jan Didden
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