Why does vinyl (analog) sound better?

Yes, square wave responses are used as a test for any number of things, not just audio. But I even remember some speaker manufacturers using them to check the phase coherence of their driver configurations back in the 70s and 80s.

 

No. You see, responses like this are what make your posts so ambiguous. It's more obvious what you're referring to this in particular post, but in your previous one, there is simply nothing that you could relate to in the post you quoted that even remotely made sense when using digital as the subject versus analog.

I'm sorry, but I really hate most of the things you post. It's usually not even because of content - it's because you repeatedly make absolutely no effort to make yourself understood. You may think conciseness is key in situations like this, but you're trying to condense your posts so much that it becomes confusing. The two quoted above are truly idiotic posts. I cannot understand what you're saying.

I mean, honestly:

How could you say this about digital music formats? He's talking about the reason that digital music exists! How could you possibly reverse this statement?

Don't participate in complex, technical discussions like this unless you're ready to type more than two sentences per post. You're not contributing at all - just complicating things.

 

Can we keep this discussion within decent limits.... If you have read the forum rules, you must have seen this in the "Forum Etiquette":

"There are many different types of people who are members at Steve Hoffman Forums, with many different tastes in music, hardware, etc. One of the primary goals of our cyber community is to foster an intelligent, enjoyable, and civil exchange of thoughts and ideas about music and its related topics between our members."

Keep this in mind please...

 

Folks, FWIW I think this has gone on way too long. Discussions like this are best when they are about learning and not trying to prevail. Here is how I see it IMHO.

Analog is still the gold standard especially reel to reel high speed tapes. Well made vinyl that has been processed through an all analog system is very close to the tapes. Having said that analog and in particular vinyl has all kinds of problems: Harmonic distortion, tape hiss, you have dust off vinyl before you play it, clicks, ticks and pops, ever try to use a TT in a moving car, analog to analog coping builds up tape hiss (although vinyl is copy protection free ), you have to properly setup your TT for best results, it is not plug and play.

Again IMHO the goal of digital is to come as close as possible to analog and I think DSD has made great strides in that direction. Digital has a lot going for it: it is convenient, it is portable, it is computer compatible, it is Internet compatible, it makes "exact" copies (thus the RIAA going completely ballistic).

Today I think vinyl sounds better, I think there are sound mathematical and physical reasons why, but I also think the gap is closing.

 

the goal of digital is to do no such thing. the goals of digital are transparency and convinience, not to inherit the distortions of your preferred format.

 

Although a digital system has it's natural enemies, this kind of systems are superior over vinyl. But that was not the original question. It was about "why sounds it better". That is a completely different kind of thinking. That has to do with preferences of what we like to hear, rather than being technically better or worse.

Conclusion: vinyl sounds better and digital systems are better in terms of performance. In black and white terms.

Regards,
Jacco

 

Agreed all the way across the board

DSD sounds pretty darned sweet, as far as it goes - almost as good (but not quite)

I would LOVE to see Tony's TT-to-lathe record duplicating system, by the way

-s

 

This thread is ripe and ready to be put to bed....

 

Agreed. Let's not suck up any more bandwidth with further arguments about who is right.

 

Regarding music - if it sounds better, it is better. Period. End of argument.

 

So, you like the idea of creating distortion?

Regards,
Jacco

 

Regarding music - if it sounds better, it is better. Period. End of argument.

That can apply to anything in audio even distortion. There is much more to vinyl than distortion though....why focus on the negatives?

BTW...the reason I listen to vinyl is similar to the reason I use tube amps. If I believed in frequency range and distortion numbers telling me the whole story...I'd probably have gone for a Wal-Mart special setup.

 

The sad thing, the huge rub (for those of us who bought into digital being 'perfect' in the 80s) is that we thought the gap had been closed then...20 years of CD purchases later many people find the record they originally owned and got rid of for pennies in 1988 still sounds better.

I'll never forget the statement from the late nineties by a SONY spokesman on the goal of the new digital formats the company was working on: to get digital to sound more like analog. In a nutshell...

Dale

 

Since it is a reproduction path. The wanted sound is created by engineers at studio(s) and this signal should resemble the signal in the reproduction chain as close as possible. IMHO.

Regards,
Jacco

 

The title of theis thread suggests subjective opinions only. And I don't see anyone here arguint DSD vs. analog or SACD vs. vinyl. Most people want to make it CD vs. vinyl.

 

Why? 10 more will just pop up in its place anyway.

I don't see any death threats...

...yet.

 

I'm not sure why - but I took the position early on that I would
only buy CDs when certain conditions were met:

I would buy a CD only if

a.) my vinyl was extremely worn out

or

b.) the CD had bonus tracks

or

c.) the music was very very quiet

or

d.) I didn't have a choice.

Eventually, I had to buy CDs because many
titles weren't pressed in both formats.

The last time I remember having to make
a choice (cd or LP?) was in 1989 when
The Rolling Stone's "Steel Wheels" album
was released. I went for the vinyl, simply
because it was a few bucks cheaper - and
I had been listening to the Stones on vinyl
for years - and it seemed natural. I even
said to myself "Why would anyone want
The Stones on CD???" (yes, a very dated
comment at this point)


At the time, it was not about snobbery or
some feeling that vinyl is superior. My decision
was based purely on economics. I wanted
to keep more money in MY pocket.


Today - as the proud owner of a respectable
vinyl rig - I'm really really glad I never got
rid of my albums. Somehow pennies on
the dollar never seemed attractive to me.


As for CD vs vinyl - its still a matter of economics.
A used LP goes for $1 to $2 in my area, and a
used CD goes for $7 to $8.

And the only thing nice I have to say about
the mp3/ipod craze is it will drive down the prices
for used CD (and vinyl) even further. Which
is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

 

I've been on record several times expressing my hope that people will drop their weird fixation on vinyl and go with the flow so prices on the collectible vinyl I want will drop.

And what's the deal with The Beatles? YAWN!

Dale

 

Well, leaving aside the possibilities of 1) different mastering, and 2) psychological bias effects (which is leaving aside A HECKKA LOT), the argument for this rests on of the audibility of the measurable differences between hi-rez and redbook. These measurable differences are *tiny* compared to the measurable differences between vinyl and redbook.

The investment aspect is not so odd when you consider that CD technology is at the end of its patent cycle. Moreover, now rather lost in the debate is the fact that DSD was original developed as an *archiving* medium rather than a home delivery format. No one disputes that archival transfers of analog sources can benefit from 'hi rez' -- because
'hi rez' formats can render the digital files more immune to sonic artifacts during *subsequent digital production and processing* than 16/44 can. The idea was that DSD files could be
worked on in a 'hi rez' environment then safely converted to 16/44 (or other) format at the end, with no unintentional loss of audible content and no unintentional added distortion.
(Interestingly, Deutsche Grammaphon's digital archivists/tonmeisters investigated DSD and decided to stick with PCM, albeit hi-rez PCM, for archiving. So their SACD releases all go through a PCM stage).

Again, the utility of hi-rez in the *recording and production* environment is not disputed
(though the need for resource-hogging values such as 192 kHz certainly *is*). The issue is whether the ~16-bit resolution (yielding >85 dB of dynamic range) and 44.1 kHz sampling rate (yielding a useful frequency response all the way up to 20 kHz) of a properly dithered CD playback system is really inadequate in the home environment. The hard evidence for such inadequacy is (to be generous) *scant*.

I would be more likely to broach that argument for SACD than 24/192 PCM, based on the massive amounts of noise shaping that goes on with SACD. However, I'd happily concede that the audibility of pro *or* con effects of SACD has yet to be properly demonstrated.

I would instead look more into the 'your ears could be playing tricks' idea, and of course whether or not the mastering and playback output levels were different.

 

I'm happy to report that one of the most authoritative online articles on sampling theory for audio is available again:

http://www.lavryengineering.com/documents/Sampling_Theory.pdf

wiki entries just don't compare. :>

 

Does it also discuss pre and post ringing caused by the digital FIR filters?

Regards,
Jacco

 

I suggest you phrase your questions more accurately. No one has spoken of 'total resolution' or 'no distortion'. The issue is whether a given format has audibly *high enough* resolution and audibly *low enough* distortion to render further 'improvements' unnecessary at the playback end. And too, in digital audio, 'resolution' has a precise definition, which is not necessarily the same as the vernacular usage.

It is hard for me to understand why it is hard for you to understand that the 'power of suggestion' (which I'll inaccurately use as a blanket term for every known form of psychological bias) is *pervasive* and is *always* a possible answer to such questions, unless specific (and perhaps tedious) measures have been taken to rule it out.

 

Even though you haven't ruled out *different mastering*? Suppose one has different high-frequency EQ than the other? Like, say, less top on the CD than the DVD-A. Or more NR on one than the other. Or more compression on one than the other, to bring up low-level signal. Don't you think the tail of a cymbal splash could be affected very much as you say>?

In any of those cases, the concordance with your theory (though I'm not quite sure what theory you mean) *could indeed* be merely a coincidence.

I think you need to do some more figurin'.

 

It's simple. The best analog sounds better than the best redbook because the best analog has better rise time. Or is anyone prepared to demonstrate that the best redbook has better rise time (this is intimately related to square waves) than the best analog? This has everything to do with phase, this has everything to do with timing, this is not some euphonic distortion.