No. People vary. Some are different heights, some have different color eyes, whatever. Height may be an advantage for some things, but I don't worry someone is bragging if they can reach a shelf from standing and I have to use a ladder or something. It's not a contest. And, I'm never going to be an airplane pilot, because my vision isn't good enough. Does that mean I should take offense every time I see a pilot? Come on.
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Everything you mentioned has a metric and a unit (meters, light wavelength, vision acuity/resolution, etc...). Your hearing powers do not, and your kind is absolutely rejecting the idea of creating one, by any other means than religious beliefs or hearsay.
Can't speak for others, but I personally don't feel an urge to discuss quantitative issues about things that don't have a clear metric. YMMV, of course.
Does 'audio resolution' need a metric to be real?
I don't find it to be so. Some people have it, many do not. Some seem to become less accurate because of their higher education, which somehow takes away some of their normal observation capability.
Not everybody has the same 'gifts' some have more intelligence or IQ, others musical ability, still others athletic ability, etc.
For the last 60 years or so, I found that I had superior hearing ability, but only above average musical ability. Therefore, I could easily pick out the best acoustic guitar, but I never became professionally successful in playing it. I always found it interesting that I started playing the guitar the same time as Jerry Garcia did, but he went on to become an amazing guitarist, and I gave up in frustration after about 8 years or so.
Yet, when picking musical instruments, or noting audio quality, I could easily compete with most anybody. I have always relied on this ability to note audio differences.
Now, when it comes to digital, I never have truly liked it, even when the specs say that it should be almost perfect. I will always return to a quality vinyl recording or an analog master tape for the best sound quality. Just recently, after having it in my possession for several years, was I able to get the OPPO 105 to sound OK enough that I listened for a number of hours, but still, I don't find digital quite good enough. That is why I am interested in the newer designs, both from Benchmark and also OPPO. Maybe they have really made something better that will make me more comfortable with listening to digital. I sure hope so.
One thing for sure, digital moves fast, and my 105 is almost obsolete.
I don't find it to be so. Some people have it, many do not. Some seem to become less accurate because of their higher education, which somehow takes away some of their normal observation capability.
Not everybody has the same 'gifts' some have more intelligence or IQ, others musical ability, still others athletic ability, etc.
For the last 60 years or so, I found that I had superior hearing ability, but only above average musical ability. Therefore, I could easily pick out the best acoustic guitar, but I never became professionally successful in playing it. I always found it interesting that I started playing the guitar the same time as Jerry Garcia did, but he went on to become an amazing guitarist, and I gave up in frustration after about 8 years or so.
Yet, when picking musical instruments, or noting audio quality, I could easily compete with most anybody. I have always relied on this ability to note audio differences.
Now, when it comes to digital, I never have truly liked it, even when the specs say that it should be almost perfect. I will always return to a quality vinyl recording or an analog master tape for the best sound quality. Just recently, after having it in my possession for several years, was I able to get the OPPO 105 to sound OK enough that I listened for a number of hours, but still, I don't find digital quite good enough. That is why I am interested in the newer designs, both from Benchmark and also OPPO. Maybe they have really made something better that will make me more comfortable with listening to digital. I sure hope so.
One thing for sure, digital moves fast, and my 105 is almost obsolete.
Yes, "Happy the poor in spirit - because theirs is the reign of the heavens."
Talking about "self appointed"...
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In regular audiophile forums, some people seem to believe the correlation between sound and price. In DIY forum, price is just replaced with the spec.
People have good ears probably know those believes are wrong. I have met a few people with really good ears enough to make me depressing.
People have good ears probably know those believes are wrong. I have met a few people with really good ears enough to make me depressing.
Waly, where do you get your strange unfounded beliefs? My kind? I don't reject the idea of creating one! I'm the one who says we need more research to find out how to best measure whatever it is. I am exactly the guy who wants to create one. You don't know what you're talking about.
Anybody else, Scott, Bill, is this guy sane? He ranting like a racist against another race he doesn't like. It's crazy. "Your kind." Indeed.
I have worked and relied upon on people with better hearing than me. My former Vendetta Research business partner, Karen Richardson and my former CTC business partner, Bob Crump, both had better hearing of differences in audio components than me, and I miss them both.
Most people think vinyl has more resolution and dynamics but the numbers don't point that way so much...
I like vinyl, I find there is a lot more character to most albums until sometime in the 80's and Japanese albums. The mastering is often fantastic too. Usually it sounds more like music, like, overwhelmingly so compared to digital. But I'm also a picky person on pressing, very much so...
Here's a tip, for Rumors. You have to find the BSK 3010, w/ the textured jacket. Now look in the deadwax you'll see a bunch of stuff but all that matters is the "F#". F40+ sound bad, around F22 and below sound good, and F1-F10 are fantastic. There's a pretty good amount out there so if you keep checking record stores you'll find a good copy.
I like vinyl, I find there is a lot more character to most albums until sometime in the 80's and Japanese albums. The mastering is often fantastic too. Usually it sounds more like music, like, overwhelmingly so compared to digital. But I'm also a picky person on pressing, very much so...
Here's a tip, for Rumors. You have to find the BSK 3010, w/ the textured jacket. Now look in the deadwax you'll see a bunch of stuff but all that matters is the "F#". F40+ sound bad, around F22 and below sound good, and F1-F10 are fantastic. There's a pretty good amount out there so if you keep checking record stores you'll find a good copy.
No, I'm not sane, and I'm indeed one of those skinheads you mom warned you about, thanks for asking!
BYBEE!
I went straight to the schematic porn, but now that you mentioned I checked the view and it´s very nice
Have you guys ever seriously compared CD with Vinyl?
I found direct AB comparison is very hard because there was no album that their frequency response nor dynamic range is the same. In terms overall mastering quality, I found CD masters are much more consistent than vinyls. Many vinyls sound nothing but horrible. And funny thing is some mastering engineers added plate reverb to the whole music on the vinyl versions. I think it was common in 60's and 70's. CD remasters are completely dry.
I chose about 10 comparable tracks each and carefully matched their frequency response and loudness using professional audio plugins. Cartridge was DL103. I concluded that CD is not a lesser sounding media. I guessed the reason why people (including me) prefer vinyl. 1) Vinyl does not contain unnecessary very low frequency information which probably masks higher frequency. 2) Vinyl's high frequency response is naturally going down. 3) Overall compression and transient characters tends to be smoother with vinyl.
Vinyls are musical, but I don't think it measures well.
I found direct AB comparison is very hard because there was no album that their frequency response nor dynamic range is the same. In terms overall mastering quality, I found CD masters are much more consistent than vinyls. Many vinyls sound nothing but horrible. And funny thing is some mastering engineers added plate reverb to the whole music on the vinyl versions. I think it was common in 60's and 70's. CD remasters are completely dry.
I chose about 10 comparable tracks each and carefully matched their frequency response and loudness using professional audio plugins. Cartridge was DL103. I concluded that CD is not a lesser sounding media. I guessed the reason why people (including me) prefer vinyl. 1) Vinyl does not contain unnecessary very low frequency information which probably masks higher frequency. 2) Vinyl's high frequency response is naturally going down. 3) Overall compression and transient characters tends to be smoother with vinyl.
Vinyls are musical, but I don't think it measures well.
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Yes, CD's sound more similar. And sure, there's plenty of bad vinyl albums but again you have to consider the pressing. For example all first catalog number ZZ-Top's are mastered by Bob Ludwig, but all the ones after that are mastered by who ever was cheap and would work at night or whatever. Mostly the 80's was problematic because of mixing digital with analog, as the exception to finding good masterings.
My tastes for sure read as CD being strangely clean and boring.
All three of your reasons don't sound like anything to do with my interest in vinyl (or even ring as true). I'd say the number one thing that makes vinyl often preferred is phono stages sound better with little effort where as DAC's take a lot of effort to sound tolerable. You can spend $100 on a phono stage and enjoy it, but a DAC? What a joke, at best they have some analytical appeal, a bit of reach into the music, but they are not actually pleasant. Also cheap DAC's sound like clipping and saturation all the time, where as phono stages typically don't.
My tastes for sure read as CD being strangely clean and boring.
All three of your reasons don't sound like anything to do with my interest in vinyl (or even ring as true). I'd say the number one thing that makes vinyl often preferred is phono stages sound better with little effort where as DAC's take a lot of effort to sound tolerable. You can spend $100 on a phono stage and enjoy it, but a DAC? What a joke, at best they have some analytical appeal, a bit of reach into the music, but they are not actually pleasant. Also cheap DAC's sound like clipping and saturation all the time, where as phono stages typically don't.
Generally, cheap phono stages sound 'smeared' or opaque. This is often due to low order IM generated by discrete circuits, or slew rate limiting by op amps.
In the early days of CD there was very little difference, because they used the same master for vinyl and CD. As an example, the 1994 Paul Simon's Graceland has a vinyl version and a CD version. They no only have the same cover, they absolutely sound exactly the same as far as the recording is concerned. So when you play it on a good LP system it sounds very, very little different from the CD version.
I did a presentation on loudness wars many years ago and for that I analyzed how compression increased through the years. The songs on Graceland from later CD releases and 'best of...' CD releases sounded progressively worse on CD than the original LP version. Looking at the tracks in Audacity, you could clearly see the progressive decline in dynamic range and increase in compression. All self-inflicted.
Your point that vinyl measures rather poor but (can) sound great is well taken. It also clearly demonstrates that we are wasting our time to worry about opamp A or B. We should call the recording industry to task.
Jan
Yes, I have compared a digital vinyl rip with digital data of the same issue. New 45rpm vinyl, new issue.
In case you are interested, here are the files.
http://pmacura.cz/alaba.zip
You just must make it technically correct and use the same mastering versions 😀
Tell me your ABX result 🙂. I did post the test at our local forum and people had big troubles to tell the difference.
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New 45rpm's don't sound that great to me. The mastering plays well to very large dynamic swings, but regular dynamics of the music is usually ****. They lose a lot of character and resolution too, often. They are more like a CD for sure.
Or sometimes "lazy" as if they were trying to keep up the pace with some demanding fast signals. I attribute that to unacceptably slow op amps used, probabl due to the ower cost factor in comparison with some more worthy models. Short comparisons seemed to indicate to me that once you get over the nominal slewrate of about 20 V/us most problems will be gone.
Also, in my experience, most two stage passive network models tend to be free of most problems as is, right out of the box. The Burr-Brown model by Dr Holger Hermann from Germany from 1990 (I posted it here several times) is an unusually clean, clear and well focused example thet comes to mind.
Waly is completely sane. After all he would splurge 2k on a DAC to then listen to through NS-10's. 😛
He does however have the more evil end of a British sense of humour. It is like mustard on an overly sweet frank.
He does however have the more evil end of a British sense of humour. It is like mustard on an overly sweet frank.
Alan, thanks for the hosting service and of course thanks to Demian for the files.
But none of the links to the three files works (and the description link is off target). Can you have a look please?
George
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