The death of hi fidelity

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#103
Joel, rayma, Dude, where can dinosaurs such as myself find, online, a forum or blog or community for vinyl throwbacks and reviews of old vinyl? I know that there are a variety of blogs that post about obscure tracks, but any forum, any large community out there?

I would not want to harm the sensibilities of most of the members here...;-)

I am in a part of the world that does not have vinyl, no record stores within thousands of kms.
 
#104
Anything on 99 records was pressed in very low runs, massive fat grooves, legendary bass. Good luck finding on vinyl originals. DJ's world wide buy them for $100 a copy or more. Liquid Liquid, ESG, Maximum Joy, etc.

Medium Medium, Glitterhouse, US or UK, has excellent sound on SS, 1981. Influenced by krautrock and avant garde jazz. Skip over the most well known track ''Hungry so Angry"" and listen to the rest of it.

Touch and Go label were all analogue well into the 90's. Low pressing runs, lots of bands that make a noisy ruckus - but fanstastic sound.

Are there vinyl addict sites for me to post to? this thread should NOT derail into a vinyl-only thread.
 
#105
I've made and designed some analogue compressors. Those work decently and they're low cost.

After that, I've got to say that the digital compressors are really obvious sounding bad crap!!! It is pitiful!!! And it is rather weak because it is far too heavy on the distortion and far too lacking on the boost. At the point of going limp, I think a digital compressor becomes a little worse than useless.

However. . . It is obvious that the digital modeling works slightly appropriate and therefore I assume the digital compression could be made better. . . although that realization may be somewhat farther into the future because I haven't either seen or heard it yet. The pros continue to use the obvious sounding heavy distortion K.R.A.P!

When it comes to sounding modern, some processing seems reasonable when needed, but the average crop of digital compressors simply fail to achieve. The typical result is unexciting at best and unintelligible at worst, what with the median somewhere (lackluster) in-between. It is somewhat a crime.

When I have discussed the matter with some recording studios, the problem seems to be either the prevalence of worse options or a shortfall of better options. We seem to be lacking something easy to apply, digitally. Although perhaps a related problem is that the pros probably need to know what a compressor ought to sound like, before using it.
 
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#106
I see people here claiming that a digital rip of a vinyl record sounds miles better than the CD reissue. Doesn't that just prove that the digital medium is more accurate than vinyl, and the problem is in the modern production and (re-) mastering techniques used to make the digital content, that weren't available back in the vinyl era?

As far as production goes, digital modelling of nonlinear analog effects like compression and distortion is heavy voodoo. It's very easy to get wrong and introduce unpleasant digital artifacts, especially if you don't have lots of processing power to throw at it. But this is a quite different issue to the accuracy of the digital recording and playback chain.
 
#107
miragem3i said:
Anything on 99 records was pressed in very low runs, massive fat grooves, legendary bass. Good luck finding on vinyl originals. DJ's world wide buy them for $100 a copy or more. Liquid Liquid, ESG, Maximum Joy, etc.

Medium Medium, Glitterhouse, US or UK, has excellent sound on SS, 1981. Influenced by krautrock and avant garde jazz. Skip over the most well known track ''Hungry so Angry"" and listen to the rest of it.

Touch and Go label were all analogue well into the 90's. Low pressing runs, lots of bands that make a noisy ruckus - but fanstastic sound.

Are there vinyl addict sites for me to post to? this thread should NOT derail into a vinyl-only thread.
Click to expand...

Well, mirage3i, you just gave me some more music to explore.. Thanks!

"Krautrock" - I have the first 4lp of Faust.. Now this is good stuff.. Radiohead influences by Faust and a band called "Boards of Canada" Thom Yorke was heavily influenced, by the passionate singing, Of Rufus Wainwright and Jeff Buckley..

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance for Silence and Song X.. Here's some wild music for you.. I'm sure YOU can handle it!

"Sex Mob" Awesome Jazz

I get most vinyl from Amazon.. Lot of purchase suggestions are through friends who buy adventurous music.. Also the back of Stereo Review Magazines has been a good source..

Maybe, start a new thread here.. "avant-garde music on LP"
 
#108
Interesting Stuff Daniel

why did the awful sounding digital keyboards take over? Driven by the big corporations, and maybe we we're all blind at first too, and simply didn't trust our own senses and intuition..

Tone wheels, Now That's where the real emotion, from a good musician, can extracted..
 
#110
Joel Wesseling said:
I know the album.. From my recollection, It has intended effects, distortions and weirdness added..
Click to expand...

I don't know if it was intentional or not. Mr Kravits was a hardcore analogue fanatic at that moment time.
Later digitally produced albums of him are much better quality.

On topic:
Excessive compression/limiting/clipping is to blame for the appalling quality of modern popular music.

scopeboy said:
I see people here claiming that a digital rip of a vinyl record sounds miles better than the CD reissue. Doesn't that just prove that the digital medium is more accurate than vinyl, and the problem is in the modern production and (re-) mastering techniques used to make the digital content, that weren't available back in the vinyl era?

As far as production goes, digital modelling of nonlinear analog effects like compression and distortion is heavy voodoo. It's very easy to get wrong and introduce unpleasant digital artifacts, especially if you don't have lots of processing power to throw at it. But this is a quite different issue to the accuracy of the digital recording and playback chain.
Click to expand...

+1
 
#111
scopeboy said:
I see people here claiming that a digital rip of a vinyl record sounds miles better than the CD reissue.
Click to expand...
Note that no-one has yet specified 16/44 or 24/96 or otherwise

scopeboy said:
Doesn't that just prove that the digital medium is more accurate than vinyl,
Click to expand...
No, it "proves" that the rip sounds better than the CD - not that the rip sounds better than the vinyl.

scopeboy said:
and the problem is in the modern production and (re-) mastering techniques used to make the digital content, that weren't available back in the vinyl era?
Click to expand...
That is one of two hypotheses that pragmatic abductive logic suggests.
The other is that vinyl pathway results in some "euphonic" distortion
 
#113
thoglette said:
No, it "proves" that the rip sounds better than the CD - not that the rip sounds better than the vinyl.
Click to expand...

But we also have the empirical observation that people seem to find the rip an acceptable substitute for the vinyl. I remember one high-end reviewer who used a HHB CD recording deck (red book quality) as a tool for comparing high-end turntables, and swore that the digital recording of his phono stage output was a faithful reproduction of the phono stage going directly into the amp. While I've never owned a "high-end" record player, my own experience of vinyl rips bears out the same thing.

My manifesto can be summed up as: Analog for sound creation (unless you have the latest and best digital gear and really know what you are doing) and digital for sound reproduction. :2c:
 
#114
miragem3i said:
Joel, rayma, Dude, where can dinosaurs such as myself find, online, a forum or blog or community
for vinyl throwbacks and reviews of old vinyl? I know that there are a variety of blogs that post about obscure tracks, but any forum,
any large community out there? I would not want to harm the sensibilities of most of the members here...;-) I am in a part of the world
that does not have vinyl, no record stores within thousands of kms.
Click to expand...

I hear you. A good web site for both equipment and recordings is: Home | Analog Planet
 
#119
scopeboy said:
I see people here claiming that a digital rip of a vinyl record sounds miles better than the CD reissue. Doesn't that just prove that the digital medium is more accurate than vinyl
Click to expand...

To the contrary.

If you have a remaster that sounds the same or lesser than a vinyl rip of the same piece of music, then the entire digital chain is moot.

If a FLAC rip of the vinyl sounds best of all digital sources, then just eliminate the digital entirely and play the vinyl on a turntable.

Just play the vinyl for the best sound.
 
#120
M Gregg said:
At one point I was going to Buy a Space deck,

I listened to one for a while and thought it was better than the LP12

SoundStage! Vinyl Word - Nottingham Analogue Space Deck Turntable and Ace-Space Tonearm (11/2005)
I have no connection its just for interest..

Regards
M. Gregg
Click to expand...

The great thing about getting DIY chops is that one can make a top of the line turntable for nearly nothing. It is the tonearm and cartridge that will set one's budget back.

The platter, plinth, motor and rest can all be machined and sourced for a few hundred Euro, at top performance levels.

I could probably do it where I am, but getting a decent cartridge would be a huge challenge.
 
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