So the bypass test was not done.
These are other tests completely. It's interesting that the glass master and the CD sounded radically different.
It all really boils down to implementation doesn't it?
Peer reviewed journal articles don't mean squat. 99% of the papers published in peer reviewed journals are simply attempts to get yourself published, and personally, I would not believe an iota of what's presented in those papers. Sure, there is some great original work once in a while, but most of it is rubbish and highly questionable. That's been my experience.
I'm not saying that we should stop pursuing scientific methods and analysis. But at the same time, choosing to overlook data that's in front of you, like this whole thread, and continuously asking for things, such as double blind listening test results or peer reviewed papers, is misguided.
The fact is that vinyl can still compete with CDs and even hi-res formats, atleast in the sound quality department, despite all the claimed technical perfection of digital.
I don't recall a conclusion to that discussion. Didn't someone claim that the average CD has only a single un-corrected error in 74 minutes of audio? (But still interpolated so likely inaudible).
And I can't remember the last time I had a corrupt commercially-produced CD ROM i.e. no uncorrected errors at all.
Is it a major issue? If we know that CDs can be produced reliably at low cost, but there are some el cheapo defective ones, it isn't really an argument against the technology as such, is it?
I know & I didn't want to restate it either but seeing as you brought it up - it does focus the attention on the playback rather than what has gone before. I said it already - it could well be the implementation that is the problem? Easier to get vinyl to sound excellent than CD. Consider also the fact that the vinyl users here probably have finely tuned, high spec vinyl replay systems & the CD systems they have heard may not be so refined/ high-end? So perhaps sample of vinyl users here is skewed?
It's impossible to test this - too many variables involved.
Again, it points to playback as the focus for the differences, if any?
You seem to assume that what is being referred to as "have manufacturing limitations which seem to effect the sound" means bit errors?
I think most all listeners weren't aware of the change. To me this points to the position that the technologies are still so close as far as the ear/brain are concerned, and there is generally no better-worse conclusion that can be drawn.
That's an interesting statement, because it tends to beg the question, what then were the CD engineering goals in the first place? And why was it successful?
Also, I would not consider my TT high-end and finely tuned. It's not sloppily implemented either. I think that for the most part, those comments about rumble, noise, scratches, etc. have been self-servingly exaggerated.
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Well only if we assume no 'hypothesis' to start with.
My hypothesis is that in listening tests vinyl->ear will be found to be indistinguishable from vinyl->CD->ear in all[*] circumstances. If this could be shown, then a whole load of variables would disappear and we could concentrate on what makes people prefer master->vinyl->ear over master->CD->ear. If the hypothesis was wrong, then yes, it would be more complicated.
[*] stipulating that the 16 bit digitisation recording level was set to just under full scale at the maximum vinyl output level. i.e. a reasonable recording level, using a good 24 bit ADC (dithering), and a good 16 bit DAC (say $10 a piece!).
But that's not the whole picture, by any means. What you do in the privacy of your own home does not translate into the bigger picture of how CDs are made. Are commercial CDs recorded from vinyl and burned to a unique CD-ROM? No. Just because the medium is capable of achieving a certain fidelity does not mean that it does achieve it in practice.
Believe me, in the pro world anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Fortunately most of it is right. 😉
That's interesting Werner because there are a number of folks who don't like the "sound" of ProTools. I've always wondered why, what could it be doing (since it's all in the digital domain) to sour the sound or add glare? Perhaps a large part of that was the SRC.
Don't know but it doesn't mean implementation issues weren't/aren't more difficult than anticipated
marketing!
OK, but my point is that maybe existing vinyl users tend to have a better level of equipment than CD users because vinyl playback is not mainstream anymore?
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The question was which is better? Turntable vs. CD. Not LP mastering vs. CD mastering. Or even LP vs. CD.
So I'm taking the question at face value. As I rather pedantically said earlier, if I make a CD recording of an LP, and it is indistinguishable from the original, then it could be said to be better than the original, because the original degraded just after I made the recording. And 100 plays later, it will be probably be audibly better. So in those circumstances, CD would 'win' - unless the listener had an inexhaustible supply of fresh LPs.
Of course the whole hypothesis could be completely wrong, but I don't get the feeling that too many people disagree with me..? That is, while many people think that "vinyl sounds superior to CD" (ignoring those mysterious manufacturing faults and mastering differences) a significant proportion of them believe it is an enhancement effect due to the vinyl process, and wouldn't fancy their chances in spotting the difference between vinyl->ear vs. vinyl->CD->ear. I could be wrong, though. And I can certainly see the appeal of 'tinkering' with tracking, weights, anti-skate bias, and all that other stuff, which makes every play unique and gives you an infinite 'upgrade path'. You wouldn't get that with your CD copy.
CopperTop, you seem to have completely ignored TerryO's posts. He did the exact test you are talking about and the LP playback was recognizable, if not superior.
You don't notice people disagreeing with you?
You mis-characterize (deliberately or inadvertently its hard to say) what the vinylphiles (I hasten to add I'm not among their number 😀) are saying here. They don't merely 'think' it sounds superior, they find it to be so. And they put their money where their experience is.
And who are they mysterious to?
OK, maybe some of the eng goals simply weren't met. Not out of the ordinary.
Well... I have a hard time accepting that as a lone answer.
That could well be, but it isn't difficult to consider the opposite being true, that CD users have a better level than vinyl users because vinyl pb is not mainstream anymore.
First ringing and time smearing are not necessarily the same.
Second, the ringing in the reconstruction filter is intended and disappears completely when a particular condition is met.
The ringing in the anti-aliasing filter remains in the signal, but so far its appears that this is inaudible provided the frequency of ringing is sufficiently high, which is the case for CD and for most normal adult people.
So pointing at that ringing might well be barking up the wrong tree.
I am not claiming here that CD is flawless. But once a particular flaw has been proposed it should be fairly easy to isolate and demonstrate its audibility, not? For instance by direct comparison of the signal to a variant recorded at 176.4kHz or higher (which is generally deemed marvellous and 'on a par with analogue'). But what then typically happens is that it appears that the only difference exists above 22kHz. And so the argument boils down again to: are frequencies above ~20kHz relevant to the human auditory system, in direct or indirect detection? And here too most research points at 'no'. The few studies that hint at 'yes', sadly, appear rather flawed.
In my experience the level of teaching is generally insufficient to guarantee the full understanding of possible pitfalls. Hence the deplorable quality of SRC and signal processing software through the 90s and early 00s.
"We've done a lot of listening tests, both sighted and blind, I can tell you that a master tape sounds much better than a Vinyl recording and certainly any CD. In fact, speaking of digital, we've played a glass master and compared it to a CD made from that master and the difference was like night and day, IOW: not subtle!"
These are assertions made by one individual. They are without doubt interesting, but without much more background information they are of little weight when the purpose of this all is to learn and understand.
What master tape? What recorder? How was the glass master made? How was the CD itself made? Were there guaranteed to be no mutations? Were the output signals from the CD player analysed to compare glass master and CD? Etc.
I disagree. Getting the most off vinyl is one of my hobbies. I find it a challenge.
Careful.
If we accept that analogue line-level amplifier stages modify the sound quality (and I guess we all do, not?), and that ADC and DAC contain analogue line level circuits, then the above test is unfair, to the advantage of vinyl.
Further a 24 bit DAC should be specified, since correct reconstruction of a 16-bit sampled signal is not possible with a 16-bit DAC, due to the word length expansion that happens in the digital reconstruction filter.
And still, such a test wouldn't prove much to the die-hards. It would always remain possible to find (or imagine) a turntable/arm/cartridge/preamp combination that would get that little bit of extra information off a particular LP, that conceivably would not get past the digital link ;-)
One step at a time.
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