I didn't know that this was a thread about what format is the most popular? I'm not bemoaning the disappearance of any format as long as what replaces it is not a retrograde step - MP3 is a retrograde step, sonically.
Crappy recordings. Compression. EQ. Aural excitement. Multiple effects plug ins. All brought to you in perfect detail by the transparent digital process.
Sometimes, the soft shot is most flattering to an actor.
@Miklos, many thanks!
You can happily live in the knowledge that you have all the answers. Meanwhile, we'll continue to ask questions and hope that we find the right answers.
Sounds very reasonable to me, and in the case of a lot of digital hardware we may be listening to fairly botched circuitry design on the analog side of the equation as well as any flaws inherent to the medium itself.
SY incidentally still listens to records. 😀 (Sorry SY.. 😛 )
No argument that digital in all of its various forms is so much more convenient, but those last two words "listener enjoyment" are why I am currently listening to my 50yr old TD-124/II and not listening to my media server, SACD player, or CD transport, and why in the past 4 months that Thorens got 10X the use of all other sources combined. I find good vinyl just conveys the complexity and acoustic of the music in a way that with digital media I only hear to a significant degree on very carefully recorded 24 bit material at 88 or 96K. (HDTracks) I will admit vinyl has plenty of warts as Pano pointed out, and while I am acutely aware of them I find them much less annoying than the shortcomings I hear in most digital - they live quite apart from the music in a way that is not often the case with digital. (And not all digital as I have said is clearly inferior.)
I was an early adopter of CD technology and bought a first generation Philips CD player in 1984 for the princely sum of $700 from the company store - that machine stock was almost unlistenable. Modification improved it substantially and it was rather well built by today's standards - almost on par with my SCD-777ES, but it never sounded great, but then again I'm not sure anything in my system at that time would measure up by my standards today. We evolve...
I don't know that I listen for exactly the same things I did 25yrs ago, but transparency and a subjectively correct frequency response along with an ability to handle complex music of all genres have always been things I listened for. (And much more than that frankly)
Despite the technology I have chosen to base my system around I think to a large degree it does what I expect - not that there isn't room for improvement if the funds were infinite. I'm not sure that most people would even readily identify that the power amps are SE, it doesn't come up very often even with other audiophiles who are surprised when they figure it all out.
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For reasons other than absolute quality of reproduction. There are still people out there using film cameras, hell, I made enough old-style prints from negatives to have a certain nostalgic fondness for the process. I know my photography got better quicker when the exposures cost nothing and the feedback became instant. I've got one of those old Russian 35mm enlargers that folds down into a suitcase, every now and then I look at the Zorkis on ebay and think about pairing one up with the enlarger, I've still got the dev. tanks, but then reality gets hold and I realize it's just got nothing to do with taking photos in the 21st. century. It's just a big idea. The Zorki will never be an EDC like the Leica used to be and the Canon G9 has become.
w
Every Day Carry, like the Fenix flashlight on my keyring.
I'm not a believer in the concept of 'absolute quality of reproduction'. I listen in an environment quite different from that where the recording was made.
Well, that's OK then. Perhaps I should have said comparative quality of reproduction.
All I'm saying is that people defend their chosen medium as though sound quality was the absolute arbiter of choice whereas perhaps it's not, but maybe they feel that a defense based on anything else would not stand up. I mean, I don't care if people want to listen to LPs, I often listen to MP3s, and I don't give a twopenny damn what everybody thinks, and nor am I about to recognise the fact as some kind of disqualifier of my opinions.
w
Almost the entire recording industry up until about the last decade. 48Khz was the standard. DAT, Protools, Sony PCM, etc. I made my first digital recording circa 1986 with a Sony PCM gadget onto U-matic video tape. That's mostly what there was at the time. It was 48KHz. DAT followed that quickly, it was also 48Khz.
You can now, but mostly people don't. It's still 48, 96 or 192Khz for the most part.
Now it can, sure. But that's fairly recent. There are 1000s of CDs that were mastered before the common desktop PC could down sample well. And that's what I'm talking about. Older CDs. There is a lot of very good recording quality out there now. The tools have gotten better thanks to faster computers.
Many recording and mastering engineers claim that formats like SACD sound like the master - CDs don't. Could it be the conversion on the master?
There is. And there is such a thing as inaudible distortion. This was proven in studies going all the way back to the 1930s, at least.
I've heard tubes amps that had bucket loads of pleasantly audible distortion. Fun for about 10 minutes, that's all. At least for me. Some of these are classics and sold very well.
Me? I choose those with no, or very little, audible distortion - "coloration" in modern terms. They kinda sound like solid state, but better.
There are documented "faults" with vinyl and amps that just don't matter when playing music. It seems that some folks can't get over the fact that it might not be technically perfect. More power to them, but that's not my trip.
I see, I was talking (and asking) about present practice. I had a DAT player but I ditched it years ago for more convenient solutions like my old Creative Labs Jukebox which could record onto its internal harddisk. The link I gave he said he used a 44k1 master for even making an LP. You're saying he's in a minority?
I don't know. I never saw a disc cut from a digital master, only analog tape. But everything I dealt with in the pro world from the 70s to the 90s was 48Khz. A lot of people still use it for recording and mixing. 44.1Khz was strictly a distribution format.
But things have changed for the better, at least technically. That's not to say there aren't problems, but most of that is not the gear. 😉
But things have changed for the better, at least technically. That's not to say there aren't problems, but most of that is not the gear. 😉
Mike,
I do know that some of the better labels, like First Impression Music, use only analog master tapes, unless they aren't available, to make their "CDs".
Our last blind test indicated that the gear, at least high quality gear, may no longer be an impediment to decent sound. Too bad so many CDs are so carelessly done.
Best Regards,
TerryO
Whenever you see a mastering lab say they will cut a record from a low-res digital source they are talking about dance records for djs. Audiophile lps use much better master sources, usually analog tape or very high-res digital. Having spent a lot of time listening to 15ips master dubs from the '60s, '70s and '80s on a Studer A810, I can say with some confidence that lps are comparatively closer than cds to the master tape.
John
John
Thanks Terry and John. Not being in the record cutting biz, I don't know all the details. But I've done enough other pro work to suspect that both care and "professional" formats are used for important cutting projects.
Of course I've done enough work to also know that "anything that can be done wrong, will be." 😉
Of course I've done enough work to also know that "anything that can be done wrong, will be." 😉
These days, I would think, virtually all of the vinyl is made from good sources because it's done for the audiophile market. Not always the case with CD's.
I think the debate here should be more about current audiphile digital vs current vinyl releases. Because CDs stink no matter how well they are done.
I think the debate here should be more about current audiphile digital vs current vinyl releases. Because CDs stink no matter how well they are done.
But what does that have to do with the discussion of two mediums?? CD is inherently superior to LP as medium.
What I read is that its the engineer that is to blame. With all things being equal (We shoud be thinking that way) the recording will be technically better on CD.
There is. And there is such a thing as inaudible distortion. This was proven in studies going all the way back to the 1930s, at least.
I've heard tubes amps that had bucket loads of pleasantly audible distortion. Fun for about 10 minutes, that's all. At least for me. Some of these are classics and sold very well.
Me? I choose those with no, or very little, audible distortion - "coloration" in modern terms. They kinda sound like solid state, but better.
There are documented "faults" with vinyl and amps that just don't matter when playing music. It seems that some folks can't get over the fact that it might not be technically perfect. More power to them, but that's not my trip.
Its not about getting over it, its just about acknowledging it and either accepting it or choosing something that might be a little more technically perfect.
Everyone has a choice on what they choose, everyone also can choose to use audio science, measurements, etc as their litmus tests for what they buy.
I think most vinyl sounds like crap maybe because its not well taking care of or the music still left on vinyl sucks , either way its not digital and I live in a digital world.
But that's what is being discussed here, doug. Technically better CD might be, but it doesn't convey to some of us the soul of the music like vinyl can... or rather as easily as vinyl can. And I'm not ready to accept that it is because of the so-called colorations and distortions that vinyl adds. Adding these same colorations and distortions to a recording on CD makes it sound worse.
Few decades ago we thought THD was it. An amp that has lower THD is technically superior. Then we realized that is not how we listen. We were able to quantify (somewhat) why tube amps with higher THD could sound better than SS amps with lower THD. Now, the accepted standard is a THD along with a number of other tests.
Few decades ago we thought THD was it. An amp that has lower THD is technically superior. Then we realized that is not how we listen. We were able to quantify (somewhat) why tube amps with higher THD could sound better than SS amps with lower THD. Now, the accepted standard is a THD along with a number of other tests.
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