Where's the evidence that it does?
(edit: I actually tried the experiment of inserting a D/A-A/D between my phono preamp and my preamp- I have to admit I couldn't detect any difference by ear, it still sounded like LP. I could see some circumstances where the sound would actually improve by doing this, but in my case, nope, no change good or bad)
(edit: I actually tried the experiment of inserting a D/A-A/D between my phono preamp and my preamp- I have to admit I couldn't detect any difference by ear, it still sounded like LP. I could see some circumstances where the sound would actually improve by doing this, but in my case, nope, no change good or bad)
Where's the data that shows these shortcomings are severe? I can see that there may be some measurable flaws but where is the data that indicates that they are audible? Or even significant?
John
Well, if you can't hear a 20-30dB noise degradation compared to 16 bit, nor the 1-3dB frequency response variations from head bumps and vinyl compliance, nor the 70+dB degradation in separation compared to 16 bit, nor the mono bass from cutter limitations, nor the severe transient blunting from long-term tape storage, nor the increased tracing distortion in inner grooves, nor the group delay from the enforced arm resonance, the additional group delay from the cutter bass limitations, nor the degradation in vinyl after repeated playing, well... OK. The charm of "old fashioned" may be the driver, just sayin'.
Whilst I disagree that 16/44.1 is 'perfect' there was a thread about this on one of the 'pro' forums (forgot which) which was titled something like 'Why does digital sound worse than tape?. The conclusion I came to on that thread was that 44k1 sounded worse than 96k because of non-optimal digital filtering. Half-band filters are almost universally used at 44k1, these are not optimal as they allow some aliasing to occur.
Thanks for the link. Interesting anecdote. Now why don't you try the experiment that I did? It's a whole lot easier than using vinyl in a bypass test. 😀
There can never be evidence of 16/44k1 sounding worse because he's criticizing a format, not a specific implementation. There could be evidence of it being flawed psychoacoustically, but he's so far presented nothing along those lines. No shortage of claims, so little by way of demonstration😀
That's my point. I can't hear any of what you describe other than the bass being summed to mono. Your figures represent worst case scenarios. In the best case (modern quiet vinyl, much lower signal to noise ratios than you indicate, modern audiophile mastering which considers the high performance of the latest cartridge design, well-preserved tapes that don't exhibit print through, inner grooves that aren't that far in and modern tone-arms that compensate for inner-groove peculiarities, miniscule group delay that is swamped by group delay in loudspeakers, and the old canard of vinyl degradation being just that...) performance is better than one would expect. Some day when really large digital files of our favorite music become available, vinyl will die, and you'd be hard pressed to find any audiophile who would disagree with that. I'll keep buying cds but I'm not going to waste any money on playback equipment for them.
John
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Did you compare it to it's CD version? if so, did the two sound the same to you?
Sorry to hear, i won't hold it against you .................... 😀
Damn 🙁 that bad Huh and still sounds better than digital...................
That post didn't talk about any listening test at 44k1? Or is that somewhere later down the thread? If so, I'd appreciate the heads up, it looks like rather a long thread.
Seems on the surface that you disagree with the guy you've linked to here. He admits he's tried, but failed to come up with evidence that 44k1 is somehow problematic. 😀 I've yet to see any such confession on this thread from those arguing against CD.
Direct comparison of material on LP and CD is meaningless (from the point of view of format/equipment superiority) because the mastering is different.
The objective test theoretically doable at home is LP -> ADC -> DAC -> amp vs. LP -> Amp. The reciprocal one (CD -> DAC -> LP -> ADC -> Amp) is impossible 🙂, although you can (kind of ) do it with RTR tape.
Even in this case you can not exclude mastering stage. The advantage (or disadvantage, as it might be) is that the mastering engineer is yourself. 🙂
The objective test theoretically doable at home is LP -> ADC -> DAC -> amp vs. LP -> Amp. The reciprocal one (CD -> DAC -> LP -> ADC -> Amp) is impossible 🙂, although you can (kind of ) do it with RTR tape.
Even in this case you can not exclude mastering stage. The advantage (or disadvantage, as it might be) is that the mastering engineer is yourself. 🙂
How does that compare cd to lp? You guys still don't get it. It's lp that sounds better than cd, not lp is better than digital. Sheesh...
John
Very simple, john.
If LP is better than CD, than the sound would be degraded in this test.
No, a proper comparison would be to burn a cd from an lp and play it through a cd player. To make the comparison meaningful, a laser has to read pits off of a plastic disc. The guy who developed XRCD told a friend of mine the digital recording was wonderful until it was pressed to disc. That's where the degradation begins and it continues with the laser and so on.
John
John
Never heard such a claim before. Do you have any references we might be able to follow up? Are you saying there are demonstrable problems with EFM (the modulation scheme) ? Where exactly does the degradation start and how does it continue?
By the time you could buy the CD i was outta the retail hifi business and poor. I waited some 20 years before CD players got good enuff to warrant using them as a playback format.
dave
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