I suppose some will claim that any hi-rez digital source is still compromised compared to their beloved analog but trading self congratulatory anecdotes supporting your position seems to fly in the face of peer reviewed research suggesting that "CD" audio flaws are in fact very hard to detect compared to much higher resolving sources than vinyl:
“Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback”
JAES Volume 55 Issue 9 pp. 775-779; September 2007
[Engineering Report] Claims both published and anecdotal are regularly made for audibly superior sound quality for two-channel audio encoded with longer word lengths and/or at higher sampling rates than the 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD standard. The authors report on a series of double-blind tests comparing the analog output of high-resolution players playing high-resolution recordings with the same signal passed through a 16-bit/44.1-kHz “bottleneck.” The tests were conducted for over a year using different systems and a variety of subjects. The systems included expensive professional monitors and one high-end system with electrostatic loudspeakers and expensive components and cables. The subjects included professional recording engineers, students in a university recording program, and dedicated audiophiles. The test results show that the CD-quality A/D/A loop was undetectable at normal-to-loud listening levels, by any of the subjects, on any of the playback systems. The noise of the CD-quality loop was audible only at very elevated levels.
Authors: Meyer, E. Brad; Moran, David R.
of course the CD noise level referred to as a limitation "at very elevated levels" is going to totally blow RIAA vinyl playback out of the water - particularly if Redbook CD’s seldom used pre-emphasis is combined with "pre-emphasis aware" noise shaped dither
some time ago (while Quantegy was still in the analog master tape business) I looked master tape performance # for a audioasylum post:
"
http://www.quantegy.com/ProductGroups/Audio/gp9.htm (I think this is “the good stuff” and it’s only 75 dB s/n re the 3% (mostly 3rd harmonic) distortion level)
to have usable S/N analog recording relies on compression/expansion (a nonlinear, ie a lossy, distorting process) like Dolby SR to “add” 10dB/24dB “S/N” low/hi frequency getting to ~ 85-100 dB ~= 16 bit digital resolution
http://www.tangible-technology.com/media/media_2.html (that’s 20 Hz on the left edge of the graph, i.e. where the analog tape fr graphs don’t get to)
the upper end of the analog tape fr curve can extend considerably beyond CD audio’s 22 KHz Nyquist limit but the bias frequency imposes a necessary low pass filtering requirement on the analog tape as well, from the 7 ½ ips curves’ 20KHz roll off we can guess that 30 ips recordings could reach 80KHz bandwidth
so the message is mixed, if you value low distortion with your S/N then 16 bit digital is competitive or ahead (noise shaped dithering can give 16 bit digital the few extra dB needed to get 100+ dB weighted s/n)
on 20 – 20 KHz “audio” frequency response flatness CD 16/44 clearly wins
if you require ultrasonic frequency extension fast analog tape can compete with digital up to 192K sample rates
if you want to even up the comparison standard by allowing the digital domain equivalents of the analog compression/expansion that is absolutely required to make analog tape usable, then look at HDCD which claims 120 dB “S/N” and is available on consumer playback devices clearly giving the specification win to consumer CD audio in the resolution category
of course no professional would call 16/44 an acceptable substitute for analog tape in the mastering process, today’s better 24/96 digital systems can actually deliver nearly 120 dB s/n with ~110 dB thd and are a practical replacement for analog tape.."
“Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback”
JAES Volume 55 Issue 9 pp. 775-779; September 2007
[Engineering Report] Claims both published and anecdotal are regularly made for audibly superior sound quality for two-channel audio encoded with longer word lengths and/or at higher sampling rates than the 16-bit/44.1-kHz CD standard. The authors report on a series of double-blind tests comparing the analog output of high-resolution players playing high-resolution recordings with the same signal passed through a 16-bit/44.1-kHz “bottleneck.” The tests were conducted for over a year using different systems and a variety of subjects. The systems included expensive professional monitors and one high-end system with electrostatic loudspeakers and expensive components and cables. The subjects included professional recording engineers, students in a university recording program, and dedicated audiophiles. The test results show that the CD-quality A/D/A loop was undetectable at normal-to-loud listening levels, by any of the subjects, on any of the playback systems. The noise of the CD-quality loop was audible only at very elevated levels.
Authors: Meyer, E. Brad; Moran, David R.
of course the CD noise level referred to as a limitation "at very elevated levels" is going to totally blow RIAA vinyl playback out of the water - particularly if Redbook CD’s seldom used pre-emphasis is combined with "pre-emphasis aware" noise shaped dither
some time ago (while Quantegy was still in the analog master tape business) I looked master tape performance # for a audioasylum post:
"
http://www.quantegy.com/ProductGroups/Audio/gp9.htm (I think this is “the good stuff” and it’s only 75 dB s/n re the 3% (mostly 3rd harmonic) distortion level)
to have usable S/N analog recording relies on compression/expansion (a nonlinear, ie a lossy, distorting process) like Dolby SR to “add” 10dB/24dB “S/N” low/hi frequency getting to ~ 85-100 dB ~= 16 bit digital resolution
http://www.tangible-technology.com/media/media_2.html (that’s 20 Hz on the left edge of the graph, i.e. where the analog tape fr graphs don’t get to)
the upper end of the analog tape fr curve can extend considerably beyond CD audio’s 22 KHz Nyquist limit but the bias frequency imposes a necessary low pass filtering requirement on the analog tape as well, from the 7 ½ ips curves’ 20KHz roll off we can guess that 30 ips recordings could reach 80KHz bandwidth
so the message is mixed, if you value low distortion with your S/N then 16 bit digital is competitive or ahead (noise shaped dithering can give 16 bit digital the few extra dB needed to get 100+ dB weighted s/n)
on 20 – 20 KHz “audio” frequency response flatness CD 16/44 clearly wins
if you require ultrasonic frequency extension fast analog tape can compete with digital up to 192K sample rates
if you want to even up the comparison standard by allowing the digital domain equivalents of the analog compression/expansion that is absolutely required to make analog tape usable, then look at HDCD which claims 120 dB “S/N” and is available on consumer playback devices clearly giving the specification win to consumer CD audio in the resolution category
of course no professional would call 16/44 an acceptable substitute for analog tape in the mastering process, today’s better 24/96 digital systems can actually deliver nearly 120 dB s/n with ~110 dB thd and are a practical replacement for analog tape.."
I really admire the above quoted paper. First off, it says nothing about comparing digital to analog, which is what we are doing here. Secondly, we are not "trading self congratulatory anecdotes", to put it rudely. I know 'how much technically better' digital is to analog. The point of starting this thread was to see if there were other people who had experienced an unexpected difference: ie, that analog has something that, so far, digital doesn't reproduce.
The AES is full of semi-competent and incompetent recording engineers who turn out release after release of bad to mediocre recordings. Why would a paper like that mean anything to a serious listener?
I stand by my previous post: Anyone who believes that cd's "technological superiority" makes them sound better than vinyl is living in a fantasy world.
John
TerryO said:
Cuibono,
Your prayers are answered
Try this URL: http://www.tapeproject.com/
BTW: Doc Bottlehead will be doing a demo for the Pacific Northwest Audio Society soon (maybe tomorrow night?). I'll have to check that out and I'll post any info in a bit.
Best Regards,
TerryO
For anyone interested, I actually had a chance to listen to the famed red Technics deck with Bottlehead preamp and a few songs from their master tape copies. Very impressive sound, I didn't love all the associated equipment, and felt the speakers being used were a little colored for my taste (I like french speaker though so what do I know), but none the less, very good sound.
I also wanted to comment on this topic in a few different ways. First, someone mentioned that records, and you might include tapes, have an audible noise floor, but CD's don't. I would argue with this on a few grounds. First, yes, normal consumer tapes have an audible noise floor, and yes, all records have some audible noise floor, to a point. However, so do cd's, its just much lower than most other mediums we use. That isn't to say it isn't audible. In fact, the digital noise floor on even cheap cd players is often much higher, in actuality, than what is speced, and is often quite nasty sounding. Having said that, as has been brought up so many times, most cd's, even remasters from old analogue tapes, are mastered with high levels of compression. This brings the music up out of the digital noise floor, and would do the same on a record or tape, but reduces the dynamic range. I've heard some people refer to music sounding flatter, even in stage depth, and less tangible when they really are describing the artifacts of compression.
I have it somewhere, but there have been comparisons of dynamic range of LP's and CD's, and found that, though cd's have a theoretical superior dynamic range, its not used in every case they tested. Records actually had greater dynamic range because less compression was used back when records were big, and obviously much less is used on modern audiophile records. I would wonder though about audiophile cd's, and have no test data for that.
By the way, the noise floor of magnet tape varies by type, and exceeds cd digital by quite a bit if we are talking 3/4" or more. I wouldn't be surpised if 1/2" 15fps could as well, but I've never seen specs for that. I've never seen specs for 2" studio tape, which was never used much, and would wonder how that would compare with modern digital at its best, again, purely by specs. I would still argue that even the best digital is making approximations, through hyper quick sampling, of analogue waveforms, and still can't construct a proper waveform, compared to the best analogue. Anyone who has compared even a 24bit waveform to even a 100 gram record waveform can tell you which looks closer to the original.
Also, records, because of the very mechanical nature of the medium, tends to have more phase issues than digital, and I have found creates more sound stage illusions. Slightly misaligned needles can massivly change the percieved depth and width of the soundstage. I find changes in both VTA and azimuth can even move the performers front and back. Also keep in mind that a brighter presentation, with more presence, will sound more upfront, while the opposite is true of the opposite. If a recording has reduced presence, it can sound very deep.
One example I show people is an old, MONO!!!!, louis armstrong record I have which has a drum solo that somehow suddenly moves far stage right, and not just right, to the back and right. It was a mistake in the cutting process that wouldn't effect mono needles much, but for whatever reason throws off stereo needles. It is easily repeatable, and is true of both of my copies of this record. While listening, it sounds very cool, the effect, one might even think its supposed to be there, but when you realize that this is an old mono recording, you realize its an accidental artifact. My point is not that records are a bad flawed format which give false impressions of the soundstage, just that it can very easily from very small changes.
Thanks for your input. I have wondered if phase played an issue in soundstaging, but have no idea yet how to check it - maybe soon though, with some dsp. I've read a number of professional papers saying phase isn't usually audible, so who knows. Your record sound like a something we might learn from...
I'm a digital guy - but I still recognize the limitations of my RAKK DAC vs. my friend VPI TNT -
anyways, I found the following post by Steve Hoffman quite interesting - http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=133328
he gets to compare SACD, CD, tape, and vinyl directly from the master tape. Plenty of caveats, but an interesting discussion ensues.
anyways, I found the following post by Steve Hoffman quite interesting - http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=133328
he gets to compare SACD, CD, tape, and vinyl directly from the master tape. Plenty of caveats, but an interesting discussion ensues.
I have to say that the amount of info on a vinyl is far greater then whats on a CD. Someone mentioned the bitrate of a cd being to low. I agree with this completely. A vinyl is analog and the bitrate is extremely high because of it. The only recordings I've heard come close to their analog counter parts are 24bit 92khz that were ripped directly from the vinyl. Even ripping it into a 16bit redbook quality is far less appealing. The other thing is that there is no digital to analog conversion. It costs tons of money to get a DAC that is capable of doing what an analog vinyl will do. Even with the most expensive DACs I doubt it would equal quality to a nice TT.
You guys are comparing pineapples to bananas.
You cannot compare CD vs. vinyl directly since the vinyl master must be mastered differently. This is to avoid too deep or too wide grooves that cannot be tracked. So you have to suffer a variety of manipulations like compression, stereo to mono conversion for bass frequencies. German speaking people please read these articles
http://www.rintelen.ch/hifi/Artikel_RLA.pdf
If you prefer vinyl, that's perfectly fine.
Just don't compare CD vs. vinyl directly. If you're objective, this cannot work.
Have fun, Hannes
You cannot compare CD vs. vinyl directly since the vinyl master must be mastered differently. This is to avoid too deep or too wide grooves that cannot be tracked. So you have to suffer a variety of manipulations like compression, stereo to mono conversion for bass frequencies. German speaking people please read these articles
http://www.rintelen.ch/hifi/Artikel_RLA.pdf
If you prefer vinyl, that's perfectly fine.
Just don't compare CD vs. vinyl directly. If you're objective, this cannot work.
Have fun, Hannes
Dougie085 said:
try comparing figs 10,12 in
http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF
also look up Shannon-Hartley channel capacity theorem
and ask whether the extra bandwidth of LP over Redbook CD really helps given the dark blue curve of measured Human auditory sensitivity
yes LP and analog tape can show extended frequency response where its relevance is somewhat controversial – even the few investigations of “ultrasonic hearing” don’t indicate that lots of Shannon’s meaning of “information” is humanly perceptible in the extended frequency range
at the same time LP is way short on S/N and has poor distortion performance where people can clearly hear - a kind of resolution disadvantage which I’d expect to reduce any reasonable interpretation of “depth”
I’d be surprised if many of the machines on the home audiophile end of the Tape Project, playing the distributed tapes, will equal properly dithered CD S/N – and certainly not exceed HDCD dynamic range
Of course the whole premise of the Stuart paper is that RedBook CD isn’t enough ahead of the demonstrated, much less the suspected auditory limits for everyone to just quit there, but vinyl LP isn’t the apparent path forward and only a few handcrafted studio tape machines perform competitively with even “pro-sumer” grade 192k/24bit ADC hardware
Mastering differences can obviously make a huge change - I addressed this: the TAS article ripped vinyl to digital, and compared. The digital sounded exactly the same except for a loss in depth. The noise on the vinyl would be the same as in the copy, as would the mastering. Hence my asking.
Comparing vinyl and digital is easy - listen.
Like I said before, I'm not interested in theoretical arguments about S/N or information density. I'm interested in people's experience listening to both, and what differences they experienced.
And yes, the both sound excellent.
Comparing vinyl and digital is easy - listen.
Like I said before, I'm not interested in theoretical arguments about S/N or information density. I'm interested in people's experience listening to both, and what differences they experienced.
And yes, the both sound excellent.
http://www.audioholics.com/educatio...ology/dynamic-comparison-of-lps-vs-cds-part-4
worth a read.
it has largely been my experience when comparing orignal vinyl releases with original cd release of the same album that the vinyl is the prefered medium for sound quality. Simply more info, finer detail, decay of notes and space between instruments.
i do have a lot of more recent vinyl pressigns that are absolutely indistinguishable from the cd release, but the older stuff pre-90's or that obviosuly recorded onto tape originally always sounds better on vinyl.
here are two examples, both recent.
Fiona Apple: Extraordinary machine, way better on vinyl.
Ryan Adams: 29, indistinguishable from either source.
makes me think it is down to recordign and mastering, and personal preference.
worth a read.
it has largely been my experience when comparing orignal vinyl releases with original cd release of the same album that the vinyl is the prefered medium for sound quality. Simply more info, finer detail, decay of notes and space between instruments.
i do have a lot of more recent vinyl pressigns that are absolutely indistinguishable from the cd release, but the older stuff pre-90's or that obviosuly recorded onto tape originally always sounds better on vinyl.
here are two examples, both recent.
Fiona Apple: Extraordinary machine, way better on vinyl.
Ryan Adams: 29, indistinguishable from either source.
makes me think it is down to recordign and mastering, and personal preference.
Everyone seems to assume that noise has a masking effect, robbing low level detail clarity. In fact, the opposite is true as long as the noise is smooth sounding white/pink noise. The effect is called stochastic resonance and was easily demonstrated in old analogue tape deck days as that produced the right sort of hiss with a blank tape, as probably did vinyl but that's a bit harder to test (no blanks).
The test was to listen to birds singing outside and at the same time play tape noise, turning the volume up from inaudible levels until it could just be heard and at some magical level of noise just above audibility the volume and detail of the birds singing increased markedly, sounding much more spacious and dare I say, hi-fi like.
http://www.tbiomed.com/content/3/1/39
The test was to listen to birds singing outside and at the same time play tape noise, turning the volume up from inaudible levels until it could just be heard and at some magical level of noise just above audibility the volume and detail of the birds singing increased markedly, sounding much more spacious and dare I say, hi-fi like.
http://www.tbiomed.com/content/3/1/39
SY said:
Bingo.
Audio forums are filled with postulations and pontifications based on incomplete and/or oversimplified data.
Digital does indeed have less. Less.........(drum roll please).....noise and non linearities than does analog.
Less is more.
No recording medium/playback medium is perfect. Digital simply uses a different method of converting a live event to an archival storage/playback medium.
Ask anyone who has worked extensively with analog tape what the problems are with that medium.
Analog tape recording suffers from crosstalk problems, pitch problems, aliasing problems, pre emphasis/post emphasis problems, self erasure, print through, high frequency aliasing, high frequency roll off, bias problems, signal to noise problems, magnetization problems, tape saturation, overload compression problems, and storage and deterioration problems of the tape medium.
All serious problems.
Signal to noise of analog tape only got close to digital when machines became equipped with Dolby SR (BTW, and encode/de-code process) and the now defunct BASF 996 tape formulations that could allow overbiasing of the tape machine and could allow +9db levels(over standard) to be recorded without oversaturation.
This still however, didn't eliminate the other problems that exist with analog tape.
Then you move from that format, to a vinyl playback mechanism fraught with it's own non linearities and physical problems, that retrieves the information from a disc that is stamped from a material with impurities, that is made from a die that is made from a mechanically cut copy of a non linear analog (tape) master that was made from a non linear analog session tape......
You get the picture.
There are more transfer processes in the analog domain, to get a recording from a live event to be played back through your speakers.
You have to look at, and scrutinize all the non linearities involved from beginning to end in both processes in order to make a fair comparison.
The main problems with comparisons of analog to digital are because audiophiles use vinyl records and CD's, which are mass produced commercial formats. Not pro formats.
Compare professional analog tape machines to pro level digital formats, and you'll understand why the recording industry has all but made analog tape a dinosaur.
If you record a live event simultaneously on both digital and analog, and then compare them to the live event in a control room when the live event is in the live room and can A/B them, then you have a much better idea as to how transparent the two formats are.
Having recorded both analog and digitally for many years, I much prefer the digital medium for it's transparency. I still do have a warm spot for the sound that analog tape imparts to a recording in some instances, but ultimately, digital reproduces what the microphones capture in a cleaner, purer fashion.
As to which is better, it quickly becomes a debate between logicians who look at the numbers, (then the argument becomes about the threshold of audibility of the measured differences) or subjectivists who argue based on perceptions (which then is challenged due to the flaws inherent in human perception in sighted vs blind tests).
At the end of the day, one's preferences have nothing to do with ultimate superiority.
Cheers
Sounds most reasonable.
Unfortunately, most listeners have no access to studio material and master tapes.
All they (including me) can listen to is copies of copies, both analogue and digital.
In that aspect and all other things equal I have yet to hear a better sounding recording than a ‘Direct to Disc’ LP copy I own. (LA4 / Just Friends, Concord Jazz CJD-1001).
/Hugo
Unfortunately, most listeners have no access to studio material and master tapes.
All they (including me) can listen to is copies of copies, both analogue and digital.
In that aspect and all other things equal I have yet to hear a better sounding recording than a ‘Direct to Disc’ LP copy I own. (LA4 / Just Friends, Concord Jazz CJD-1001).
/Hugo
Daygloworange said:
I listen to both digital and analogue recordings, as probably many audio fanatics do.
In my entire music collection, I need to search for a digital copy that really thrills me, musically spoken. On the other hand, I have lots of vinyl I would ‘die’ for.
It’s hard to explain why and I don’t believe noise has something to do with it, it’s just that analogue seems much more musical to me.
/Hugo
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