It depends on your definition of "better".
Its very eazy to ABX the very best analogue tape vs the real thing, but even with quite modest digital equipment, used within its specification, that is an other matter. So in that sense digital is the superior technology. But I can understand why people like the artefacts of tape.
I don't.
Digital artefacts suck very salty balls.
They should be avoided at all costs.
Tape/analogue artefacts on the other hand sound nice (mostly) and could be very useful.
I should take into account the relative level of development. There is incredible potential for advancing analog, but very little action. Why isn't there any decent optical or sub-optical analog format? Why isn't analog weighing the advantages of going to shorter-wavelength light beams...there's no analog blue-ray. Good analog would not degrade from use, with care it could last forever, and a really really good analog format could even be designed to not degrade when copied; you just need much better resolution than the basic data. I don't care whether the implementation would employ techniques closer to photography or involve lasers, or whatever...magnetizing strips or wiggling cut grooves is darn primitive. Computer memory moved beyond magnetizing iron long ago. If we judged digital by formats like punch-cards where you can see the bits as holes knocked into sheets of dried wood-pulp-mash, nobody would like digital either. But there hasn't been much really significant advance in analog media since the days when digital was using punch cards. Most analog tape and especially disc formats were barely adequate for the essential tasks in the past, now also antiquated, obsolete, and superceded.
Perhaps a previous post had a point, that it's the promise of digital that is attractive; what it could/should be. But the nostalgia of analog isn't attractive to me anymore and the potential for really good analog will probably never be realized; most analog sucks and the very best is barely adequate while hopefully digital advances.
Equipment readily available (amps, speakers, etc.) has advanced to the point where media is the problem; a big reason I enjoy quality live reinforcement.
With the constantly declining cost of 'perfect' duplication and medialess download distribution it will be interesting to see how the music industry reacts, and whether the business and musicians survive when the money driving promotion dries up, or when they have to perform live for an optimal consumer experience and work for a living. Will the technology used in live performance continue to improve and surpass the recorded? We used to complain when a band performing live didn't live up to their recordings. Now sometimes the opposite is true, the live performance exceeds its digital description. The political power of a trubadour's influence should be on the rise even as the monetary rewards, groupies and cocaine decline. Will the qaulity of musianship rise with the increased significance and influence related to free distribution, or will it decline to urban folk rap viod of harmony and melody as access to the technology and distribution reaches everyone? Or is that question revealing my own prejudices and position, or my maturing mellowing as testosterone and adolescent frustration fade? Surely folk and rock music were the voice of the baby boomers; when CSN&Y reminded us that Nixon's soldiers were cutting us down it had an impact and a part in changing politics and world history. Booty-shaking hoes on video don't really...or is that just the voice of a different segment? Is this what happens when anyone has access to the technology and distribution...just YouTube? Will live performance ticket costs get truly ridiculous?
Perhaps a previous post had a point, that it's the promise of digital that is attractive; what it could/should be. But the nostalgia of analog isn't attractive to me anymore and the potential for really good analog will probably never be realized; most analog sucks and the very best is barely adequate while hopefully digital advances.
Equipment readily available (amps, speakers, etc.) has advanced to the point where media is the problem; a big reason I enjoy quality live reinforcement.
With the constantly declining cost of 'perfect' duplication and medialess download distribution it will be interesting to see how the music industry reacts, and whether the business and musicians survive when the money driving promotion dries up, or when they have to perform live for an optimal consumer experience and work for a living. Will the technology used in live performance continue to improve and surpass the recorded? We used to complain when a band performing live didn't live up to their recordings. Now sometimes the opposite is true, the live performance exceeds its digital description. The political power of a trubadour's influence should be on the rise even as the monetary rewards, groupies and cocaine decline. Will the qaulity of musianship rise with the increased significance and influence related to free distribution, or will it decline to urban folk rap viod of harmony and melody as access to the technology and distribution reaches everyone? Or is that question revealing my own prejudices and position, or my maturing mellowing as testosterone and adolescent frustration fade? Surely folk and rock music were the voice of the baby boomers; when CSN&Y reminded us that Nixon's soldiers were cutting us down it had an impact and a part in changing politics and world history. Booty-shaking hoes on video don't really...or is that just the voice of a different segment? Is this what happens when anyone has access to the technology and distribution...just YouTube? Will live performance ticket costs get truly ridiculous?
Last edited:
that's a problem with the DAC and/or encoding and NOT something that is inherent in digitisation
i can't POSSIBLY accept that a 24bps/192KHz signal is not AT LEAST on par with the best vinyl
"digital" doesn't sound. "digital" is merely a method of storing information.
the signal encoded (after sampling and quantization) is stored as numbers
pray tell, does vinyl have the stereo separation, THD and noise floor of a good DAC ?
the signal encoded (after sampling and quantization) is stored as numbers
pray tell, does vinyl have the stereo separation, THD and noise floor of a good DAC ?
A comparison?
Just my two cents...
I have a vinyl record collection of about 500 albums, mostly rock and jazz-rock, some classical. Of the vinyl, maybe 5 of them sound like they were well recorded, with good fidelity. The rest sound mostly not very good to plain lousy. So there's about 1% of my vinyl collection that sounds really good. The rest is mostly irritating.
Because of this I sold off my Linn Sondek and my SOTA cosmos vaccum platter with SME arm, and dumbed down to REGA Planar TT and Rega tonearm. Do I notice the difference? Yes, by about 10%, I was down to using the TT once every 6 months or less anyway.
I have the same recordings, all of the re-issues of my favorite tunes on CD. Out of these, maybe 15 to 20 sounded good, and about 120 of them are acceptable to good. By the same measure as the previous paragraph, now I've got about 30% that sounded decent on my CD player.
Then, with the emergence of Amarra and Pure Music, I discovered that the (expensive) digital front ends I had been using were not nearly as good as a Mac w. SSD, using Amarra or PM... the digital edge pretty much disappeared... that was a BIG jump in enjoyment. So it went to 60 to 70% of my digital playback that is actually enjoyable without wanting to shut it off.
Adding a Musical Fidelity V-link instead of using the Optical out on my Mac was a small but perceptible jump, so now it's about 70 to 75% that I can listen to without getting antsy... compared to only 25-30% on analog.
So for the majority of my tunes, nearly all of them sound much better in their digital re-issue than they did on the original vinyl.
So yeah, Tsiros, I'd have agree with you. With the improved front ends that have become available in the past two years, I think 192Khz/24 bit may well be a better format than vinyl.
That being said... I also really, really, really wish the original recordings had been better. There are a few, like Take 5 on the re-mastered version, and the original Jacques Loussier trio Play Bach, Getz-Gilberto, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, et al. where the recordings were very good, prominent tape hiss and all. A mere handful. These albums, recorded mid 50's and early 60's serve as a great reminder of just how good those tube consoles and tube pre-amp mics could get the sound when in the hands of good recording engineers.
For the most part quality dropped dramatically when the transistorized consoles came into heavy use. Maybe the low point of this was in the 70's and early 80's...
Can anyone here imagine how great it would have been to have the first Allman Bros. album recorded the Chesky way? Heck, I re-EQd these albums for myself, using DAK's el cheapo software, and it's an incredible improvement... took it from unlistenable to down-right toe-tapping, get up and dance... just with a simple 5 minutes of re-EQing!...... wow.... how much better could this have been with better recording quality from the beginning?
SO to summarize:
- Most of the differences are in the production quality, not in the S/N ratio. The digital re-masters in many cases sound waay better than the original analog pressings, more due to the re-mastering rather than the format.
Disclaimer: I must not be a true audiophile. I didn't buy too many of the great RCA or Mercury recordings, or special audiophile recordings..... mostly because I just didn't like too much of the music in their repertoire. I love classical music also, some specific pieces especially, just not ALL of it, thank you very much. I never quite got past wanting to enjoy the music instead of oohing and aahing about how clear and transparent the recordings are.
Tell you what, the new Amarra and PM 384Khz capabilities really make me want to re-eq more of my recordings and up-sample them to 384KHz/24 bits....
Just my two cents...
I have a vinyl record collection of about 500 albums, mostly rock and jazz-rock, some classical. Of the vinyl, maybe 5 of them sound like they were well recorded, with good fidelity. The rest sound mostly not very good to plain lousy. So there's about 1% of my vinyl collection that sounds really good. The rest is mostly irritating.
Because of this I sold off my Linn Sondek and my SOTA cosmos vaccum platter with SME arm, and dumbed down to REGA Planar TT and Rega tonearm. Do I notice the difference? Yes, by about 10%, I was down to using the TT once every 6 months or less anyway.
I have the same recordings, all of the re-issues of my favorite tunes on CD. Out of these, maybe 15 to 20 sounded good, and about 120 of them are acceptable to good. By the same measure as the previous paragraph, now I've got about 30% that sounded decent on my CD player.
Then, with the emergence of Amarra and Pure Music, I discovered that the (expensive) digital front ends I had been using were not nearly as good as a Mac w. SSD, using Amarra or PM... the digital edge pretty much disappeared... that was a BIG jump in enjoyment. So it went to 60 to 70% of my digital playback that is actually enjoyable without wanting to shut it off.
Adding a Musical Fidelity V-link instead of using the Optical out on my Mac was a small but perceptible jump, so now it's about 70 to 75% that I can listen to without getting antsy... compared to only 25-30% on analog.
So for the majority of my tunes, nearly all of them sound much better in their digital re-issue than they did on the original vinyl.
So yeah, Tsiros, I'd have agree with you. With the improved front ends that have become available in the past two years, I think 192Khz/24 bit may well be a better format than vinyl.
That being said... I also really, really, really wish the original recordings had been better. There are a few, like Take 5 on the re-mastered version, and the original Jacques Loussier trio Play Bach, Getz-Gilberto, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, et al. where the recordings were very good, prominent tape hiss and all. A mere handful. These albums, recorded mid 50's and early 60's serve as a great reminder of just how good those tube consoles and tube pre-amp mics could get the sound when in the hands of good recording engineers.
For the most part quality dropped dramatically when the transistorized consoles came into heavy use. Maybe the low point of this was in the 70's and early 80's...
Can anyone here imagine how great it would have been to have the first Allman Bros. album recorded the Chesky way? Heck, I re-EQd these albums for myself, using DAK's el cheapo software, and it's an incredible improvement... took it from unlistenable to down-right toe-tapping, get up and dance... just with a simple 5 minutes of re-EQing!...... wow.... how much better could this have been with better recording quality from the beginning?
SO to summarize:
- Most of the differences are in the production quality, not in the S/N ratio. The digital re-masters in many cases sound waay better than the original analog pressings, more due to the re-mastering rather than the format.
Disclaimer: I must not be a true audiophile. I didn't buy too many of the great RCA or Mercury recordings, or special audiophile recordings..... mostly because I just didn't like too much of the music in their repertoire. I love classical music also, some specific pieces especially, just not ALL of it, thank you very much. I never quite got past wanting to enjoy the music instead of oohing and aahing about how clear and transparent the recordings are.
Tell you what, the new Amarra and PM 384Khz capabilities really make me want to re-eq more of my recordings and up-sample them to 384KHz/24 bits....
Last edited:
Diminishing differences at play...
There are big improvements being made in the playback area.
Without getting into the better or worse debate, the newer front ends like Amarra or PM are helping to reduce the differences by quite a lot, and IMO are quite comparable to analog at its best.
In just the last two years, I've gone from preferring the best analog/vinyl over digital in about 90% of the cases to where now the best digital wins out about 50% of the time. And for me, when factoring in surface noise, it goes up to about 75% in favor of digital.
There are big improvements being made in the playback area.
Without getting into the better or worse debate, the newer front ends like Amarra or PM are helping to reduce the differences by quite a lot, and IMO are quite comparable to analog at its best.
In just the last two years, I've gone from preferring the best analog/vinyl over digital in about 90% of the cases to where now the best digital wins out about 50% of the time. And for me, when factoring in surface noise, it goes up to about 75% in favor of digital.
That sounds like quite a challenge!
By the end, I think the most advanced analogue audio storage was in the form of frequency modulation of a higher frequency carrier, as in VHS hi fi and some Laserdiscs. From Wikipedia:
Any enthusiasts for VHS hi fi around here?
Me! It really was very good.
Way back in the 80's I was recording PCM digital onto 3/4" video tape when a guy from Radio France stopped by and recorded the same concert on VHS Hi-Fi. I laughed at first, but it was just as good as my stuff, probably better. He said his buddies back at the radio were always very pleased with the quality of his FM recordings. I can believe it.
Before MP3 I used to record mix tapes to VHS Hi-Fi. It sounded just great.
This tells me everything , Does the thd Numbers tell us it sounds better , or its your sounds good meter.... 🙂
A pity how few have heard good analog or even good digital , again, I find them Different , 24/196 is comparable to the best analog and they both have a different character ...
Last edited:
Yes, even in digital!
Yes, actually your comment reminded me of something I forgot to mention in my previous post, which is the difference between Amarra and Pure Music.
IMO Amarra sounds definitely more tube-like while Pure Music sounds like an ultra-detailed solid-state rig. They seem to have equal levels of detail, definition and extension, and yet Amarra somehow sounds rounder and fuller.
And both claim there is no signal enhancement such as dynamic eq, etc. taking place, it's apparently bit-perfect in both cases. And they each sound way better than iTunes in almost every instance.
So I'm not surprised some would prefer the one over the other. Being a tube-lover, I find myself surprised (VERY surprised!) and delighted with the combination of Amarra playing through a modded Behringer DEQ2496 and a modded HiFiMeDIY 2050 board. Extremely analog, tube-like performance, and not a tube in the circuit!😀
Differences in digital too!24/196 is comparable to the best analog and they both have a different character ...
Yes, actually your comment reminded me of something I forgot to mention in my previous post, which is the difference between Amarra and Pure Music.
IMO Amarra sounds definitely more tube-like while Pure Music sounds like an ultra-detailed solid-state rig. They seem to have equal levels of detail, definition and extension, and yet Amarra somehow sounds rounder and fuller.
And both claim there is no signal enhancement such as dynamic eq, etc. taking place, it's apparently bit-perfect in both cases. And they each sound way better than iTunes in almost every instance.
So I'm not surprised some would prefer the one over the other. Being a tube-lover, I find myself surprised (VERY surprised!) and delighted with the combination of Amarra playing through a modded Behringer DEQ2496 and a modded HiFiMeDIY 2050 board. Extremely analog, tube-like performance, and not a tube in the circuit!😀
I sense we are drifting off topic, and I may have contributed to this.. As a gentle reminder we are talking about differences between LPs mastered on digital mastering equipment and those mastered in the analog domain whether it be direct to disk or tape. Let's stick to the original topic. Thanks!
on topic, then...
in the end, i think what matters most is that the recording is done correctly... uncompressed sound (i am not talking about .mp3 and that, i am talking about the "loudness wars") etc
Vinyl has the great advantage that it is an "archive" format. you have an LP you bought 100 years ago, it will STILL play.
but with digital, encodings are a dime a dozen. CD is a very widely accepted standard, but i'd rather hear my cat attacking its scratchpost than a horribly compressed CD (and i am not even an "audiophile"... i just like to hear the electric guitar correctly, because that is the instrument i know how it sounds live).
Apart from that i have the opinion that as far as sound is concerned, if you take the best master tapes and have them printed on good, modern, vinyl played on good, modern, turntable it will not sound as good as good, modern, digital format played on good, modern, DAC. Turntables are electromechanical. Nature works against them.
- Proud owner of a lenco l833, passed down from my father (along with a yamaha ca 410 and a luxman t33)
in the end, i think what matters most is that the recording is done correctly... uncompressed sound (i am not talking about .mp3 and that, i am talking about the "loudness wars") etc
Vinyl has the great advantage that it is an "archive" format. you have an LP you bought 100 years ago, it will STILL play.
but with digital, encodings are a dime a dozen. CD is a very widely accepted standard, but i'd rather hear my cat attacking its scratchpost than a horribly compressed CD (and i am not even an "audiophile"... i just like to hear the electric guitar correctly, because that is the instrument i know how it sounds live).
Apart from that i have the opinion that as far as sound is concerned, if you take the best master tapes and have them printed on good, modern, vinyl played on good, modern, turntable it will not sound as good as good, modern, digital format played on good, modern, DAC. Turntables are electromechanical. Nature works against them.
- Proud owner of a lenco l833, passed down from my father (along with a yamaha ca 410 and a luxman t33)
The record companies need to start putting out great vinyl. I think it would be a great idea to just record it at 32/196 and then put it on vinyl. I think this would be the best bet to capture the "magic" of vinyl again.
I just love to use my Dual 701, but I need a new cartridge. I love the fun that pure analog offers. After I finish my headphone amp, I want to build some great tube amps for my 701 and probably go with some Fostex speakers.
Just the fun of looking for old vinyl is great. Anyway since we live in the digital age now, I think it is time the recording industry comes up with a new way to do analog to make it worth buying albums again.
I just love to use my Dual 701, but I need a new cartridge. I love the fun that pure analog offers. After I finish my headphone amp, I want to build some great tube amps for my 701 and probably go with some Fostex speakers.
Just the fun of looking for old vinyl is great. Anyway since we live in the digital age now, I think it is time the recording industry comes up with a new way to do analog to make it worth buying albums again.
Again it depends on your definition of "better".
The very best of vinyl doesn't even come close to even the cheapest digital of today in numbers. So stereo separation is 100% in digital, whereas in vinyl this number is a lot lower, but you may like the stereo separation of vinyl better. THD in digital is so low that its extremely hard to measure, THD in vinyl is at best a 1000 times higher but you may like that kind of distortion. Noise in vinyl is at best 70dB lower than the signal, with modest digital its at least 20dB lower.
(Btw I think that dynamic range and noise floor levels are about the least important things for good audio. I never heard a recording with 70dB dynamic range and most music published today has a dynamic range of 20dB's or much less.)
But the problem is that it will always sound different. The stylus gets so hot that it will deform the vinyl and information gets lost every time you play a record. Tape has the same problem, it never sounds the same twice.
And again 99,9% of all vinyl sold today has gone true a AD/DA stage at least once, because the cutting machine must have a delay build in.
Last edited:
There is a very good explanation why vinyl/tape seems to have more dynamics:
A sine wave with the same amplitude of a square wave will always sound a lot softer than the square wave.
This is because a sine only stimulates 1 Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidth filter of our inner ear, whereas a square wave will stimulate a lot more Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidth filters. And if more ERBs are getting stimulated, with equal levels, the louder it will appear to sound.
Vinyl/tape produce noticeable harmonic distortions and therefore stimulate more ERBs, witch will result in more perceived dynamic range.
A sine wave with the same amplitude of a square wave will always sound a lot softer than the square wave.
This is because a sine only stimulates 1 Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidth filter of our inner ear, whereas a square wave will stimulate a lot more Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidth filters. And if more ERBs are getting stimulated, with equal levels, the louder it will appear to sound.
Vinyl/tape produce noticeable harmonic distortions and therefore stimulate more ERBs, witch will result in more perceived dynamic range.
That's one possibility, here's another.
Most people these days listen through sigma-delta DACs which have demonstrable noise modulation. Short term increases in noise floor get perceived as a reduction in dynamics. On average the dynamic range is fairly constant so traditional measurements don't show the effect.
Most people these days listen through sigma-delta DACs which have demonstrable noise modulation. Short term increases in noise floor get perceived as a reduction in dynamics. On average the dynamic range is fairly constant so traditional measurements don't show the effect.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.