Analog (Vinyl) vs Digital Audio (CD, FLAC) Listening Event Comparison

[Ponzio]

interesting interview ...
http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2015/07/01/how-music-got-free/

 

[mr sarnoff]

FWIW ,
*IMO The Merits of Vinyl in the digital Age* *as I understand it * :

Note : A lot of regular expert enthusiasts and experts here know all this below and more
so it could all be as boring as watching paint dry for them .


Setting aside individual preferences either way a good recording/mix and a decent playback chain is fundamental without that you get nothing from nothing.

OTOH it doesent have to cost a small fortune with Digital now whereas a decent starter vinyl turntable/cart by itself is ~ $500.00.


Opinion and some facts :

Vinyl ( outside of an all to frequent poor and often compressed CD mix ) is not as accurrate as 16/44 RBCD within RBCD bandwidth.

Vinyl since the 1950's has subtractive RIAA equalization and ephasis applied to the cutting lathe signal at various velocities and frequencies to alow for groove spacing and playback stylus traclking i.e. limiting and emphasis that is reversed in amplified playback device tone circuits in varying degrees of competence depending on the quality of the playback RIAA EQ circuits or sometimes simpy *only and poorly done in an inexpensive ceramic phono cartrige . IOW vinyl is not a perfectly *accurate * format .


*Analog Tape while it can sound excelent has comperession inherently and electrical bias analog noise shaping added IOW nothing is perfect. OTOH Digital *can be* the most accurate representation today.


OTOH vinyl can certainly sound good and if you like the ritual and otherwise prefer vinyl knowing the above *or not* obviously there nothing wrong with that and you don't need me or anyone to tell you that all as long as one doesn't deliberately or otherwise mis interpret or distort the facts or you may not be taken serious by those that know the facts .


That being said I enjoy both vinyl and CD mixes along with digital needle drops that can be every bit as resolving as vinyl and more when you consider the best vinyl is 8 bits of resolution and CD are 16 bit and Cassette .. maybe 6 bits and studio rTr tape maybe 11 bits on a good Studer or Sony.

The fly in soup is *a lot of CD * in general aren't mastered well due to marketing or(other ) reasons which can open the real possibility
of vinyl sounding better on a given recording it's case by case unfortunately so vinyl obviously still has merit .


Other than that some good recordings can be had in hires that otherwise are not available in CD or 16/44 files . << IMO that's main legitimacy of hires beyond 16/44.


Audiophile CD players outside of an OPPO DVD BD player at the top may not be such a good choice with alternatives avaiable today .
ODD/transports /players in shiny billet cases cant do anything much outside of what an inexpensive $15.00 ODD can in a PC and a very modest DAC or a decent digital/discrete line level amplified sound device can do to make those digital > analog signals from CD's or files to get further amplified sound plenty good .

CD's don't play they get the bit word data read decent ODD readers are inexpensive commodities .

Some outside of legitimate enthusiast /audiophiles PC folks or newbies "think* they are [playing ] CD like a phonograhph record and don't know the ODD merely sorts ,[reads] and error checks ones and zeros for transfer into volatile memory or hdd storage in the digital domain (IOW U don't play an ODD you read optical disks with it ) before anything else happens .

Some talk about non existent audible jitter below the lower nyquist rate with asynchonous clocked USB DACS ouside of CD players (they don't even know what it all means half the time ) just like they don't know much about cables.


Many folks have absolutely no understanding of digital discrete time signal sampling and signal reconstruction within a limited bandwidth and the Shannon Nyquist theroms as it applies here and particulary the lower Nyquist rate at 16/44 and what it all means vs continuous time analog signals as they apply digital vs vinyl and tape and are just mis informed or not informed or
..... in the case of a some vendors,audio luminaries and audiophile reviewers and some premium labels all where money is to be had deliberatly ignorant above (good) 16/44 .



OTOH Tidal hif fi and presumably Deezer 16/44 digital streaming from 24/41>16/44 direct studio master 1:1 Digital studio master transfers often presents better options than all 3 of the above no matter how expensive the playback source ,<< *That is what audiophools can't grasp *inducing editors at prominent audiophile publications that either won't admit it or simply do not understand it and an maybe others that never heard a *good recording like that. OTOH 16/44 PCM has been around well over 30 yrs, 25+ for me so it's *potentaial *no suprise to me.

IOW the digital age for hifi has arrived at 16/44 (1441kbps) lossless Tidal streaming and elseware and democratized playback sources you don't *really* need a 5K 10K CD player or 3500.00 + VIP phono table and a $5,000 cartridge beyond that to get some of the best sound availiable .

Digital descrete time signal sampling and signal reconstrucion within a limnited bandwidth can get technical often well beyond your average enthusiast but the fundamentals are not beyond self study by any means I'm sure a lot of members here have done just that like I did .


Anyone reading this should should Try ^^ these alternatives if they are at all serious about the hobby with the caveat a bad recording sounds bad EVERYWHERE and EVERY WAY those can't be fixed .

A little more tech info as I understand it:

FWIW Phonograph aka vinyl record is said to be equuiveklent to ~ 8 Bits Bit depth and 16/44 CD 16 bits and some may still perpetuate the audiophile myth that vinyl (outside of an all to frequent poorly mixd CD ) sounds better as a blanklet statement although some may prefer Vinyl and it can sound excelent nothing wrong there .


Audio bit depth represents digital bit word lengths that in turn represent amplitude loudness points on a digital waveform represntation AKA the noise floor ,dynamic range and maximum loudness within a given bit depth or taken all together dynamic range .

Sample rate represents the sampling *frequency or rate maximum * usually devided by 2 by digital low pass filters to filter out artifacts below the (lower Nyquist rate) which on a CD or 16/44 file is 22,500 hz IOW more than we can hear .

24 bit vs 16 bit is anither argument but *good * 16 bit is othewise adeauate for playback IMO .

OTOH there are good and not so good filters implemented in DAC's but modern electronics being what they are it's not as common anymore to find a poor DAC installed in affordable playback amplified devices as it has been .

Opinion :

An uniformed consumer is fresh meat for the unscrupuilous hires and other marketers /manufactures and a lot of magazine reviewer /bloggers.

OTOH on a case by case basis there are legitamate reasons for hires that have more to do with the *better* recording /mix provenence sales channles than anything else

Final argument : Digital *can be more accurate than vinlyl or tape* within 20-20,000 Hz at RBCD 16/44 and above aside from the all the too frequent compressed /poor CD mixes .

IOW setting aside 16/44 lossless *potential* poor CD mixes are a legitimate reason for anyone to prefer decent vinyl on a given recording not available outside of a poor CD mix or hires it's a case by case basis in the marketplace

OTOH Tidal and Deezer HI FI 16/44 lossless streaming outside of a few needle drops usually pre dating tape and the odd CD mix bypasses both CD and vinyl provnance and comopramise altogether as do some premium label downloads at 16/44 +.

FWIW Tidal and presumably Deezer source their material from truck loads of 1:1 24/41 digital studio master hdd sample copys from the labels and simply truncate it to 16/44
without audiable degradartion for streaming lossles 1441 kbps music .


closing:
I hope you all enjoyed your brief timeout from mid century analog and dragging diamond stones through miles of vinyl grooves even though some of that can sound *very excellent as can digital .

 

[3db]

Digital accuracy doesn't always come across as the more pleasant listening experience. I will choose a good vinyl recording over a digital recording that has been overly compressed any day.

 

[Gary Parker]

I realize my opinion is not scientifically based. However, in MHO, vinyl is far superior in musical sound quality than digital (at least CD). Digital is just too tinny, and that's having heard digital on numerous sound systems.

 

[everettT]

I realize my opinion is not scientifically based. However, in MHO, vinyl is far superior in musical sound quality than digital (at least CD). Digital is just too tinny, and that's having heard digital on numerous sound systems.

It all depends on the engineer's mix.

 

[TLS Guy]

I realize my opinion is not scientifically based. However, in MHO, vinyl is far superior in musical sound quality than digital (at least CD). Digital is just too tinny, and that's having heard digital on numerous sound systems.

Good digital program does not sound the least bit tinny on my rig. My large CD collection sounds excellent with very few bad recordings.

 

[lovinthehd]

The medium isn't nearly as important as the quality of the recording. Perhaps taste in music has a lot to do with the quality of the recordings available. My digital stuff sounds better than most of my vinyl stuff just due to the superior medium, but a good recording in either format remains a good recording that is enjoyable to listen to. I have a large collection of both vinyl and digital. When I hear people think digital sounds bad I tend to think their setup is not ideal or just listen to recent pop music and the recording that is far too typical in that genre.

 

[3db]

My stance has always been, its recording dependent, not medium dependent. Tom Petty's Mojo which I bought in vinyl but it comes with FLAC downloads is a recording where there is no audible advantage of the medium.

 

[Vincent Schwager]

Great comparison, considering the food and one of my favorite recordings of all time, Kind of Blue that is. However I do think that there is one major flaw in your comparison: you picked a remastered version of Kind of blue, not the original Analog recording. Hence you are really comparing digital to digital, since the original analog recording no longer existed having been converted to a digital signal format. I hope I was clear enough. To be a thorough and fair comparison you should have compared:
The original analog recording, if available, to:
a. the "remastered" version on vinyl (if deemed necessary) or:
b. the CD version of it or alternatively:
c. The SACD
In the music recording world there is a divide: analog/digital. Any recording made using analog tape cannot be much different from its subsequent CD counterpart - as in the case of Kind of Blue. The CD version can be cleaner, without the familiar noises made by an LP but it cannot sound any better than its source material (the tape). Any recording made digitally cannot acquire anything it didn't already have by being then recorded onto an analog media like vinyl. Turning a FLAC file into vinyl, regardless of its source, cannot add anything that wasn't already there at the time of recording it onto a tape (like Kind of blue) or onto a digital file - like digital era recordings!
Personally I believe it makes NO SENSE whatsover to have an analog recording remastered onto a vinyl if its souce is digital - as in point a. Just get the SACD or a CD and amen. Considering the resurgence of vinyl I think it would be honest, if not necessary, to have a label clearly indicating the origin, that is: analogue or digital. I would certainly purchase any vinyl record I am interested in, whose source was stricly analogic, with all its pitfalls, limits and merits. I would steer clearly away from ANY vinyl remasterd from a digital source and not because its quality would be inferior, but just because if I want to listen to a digitally source recording, I just stick to the CD. I strongly believe that it makes no sense converting a digital file into a vinyl (or tape) thinking it improves the sound! Personally I find it a pretty absurd statement. However, if you are happy with that so am I .
The rest is marketing I am afraid.

 

[gene]

I agree with you that it makes little sense to compare or use buy a vinyl record remastered from a digital source as the digital source is ALWAYS best to be kept digital and used in that format.

However, can you point me to the info on the 180G Kind of Blue recording that claims it was remastered from a digital source? I was fairly certain this pressing was done from the original analog masters, as are many who purchased this limited edition album.

thanks.

 

[Vincent Schwager]

Hello Gene,
Well, that is exactly the problem, it does not say, and it seems that the original mono tapes, like many great records of the past, went missing. So...I am afraid that the source, likewise many current releases, might be digital.
Having said that, if the later versions of this milestone record are so good it must also be thanks to the supreme skills of its sound engineer whose mono recordings were so perfect that the later digital versions sound as satisfying as their mono originals - hence even professionals could be misled into believing that the remastered vinyl version of KOB could indeed sound superior on a turntable!
Anyway, in my opinion, the KOB comparison would be complete only if you can find an original mono pressing vs the later stereo version of it (still an original analogue pressing, lets say something done in the 60s) and then compared to the digital releases. I suspect that they will all sound good. But I would love to put my hands on an original analogue version of it. I am still looking. Another record I would like to compare is Dark Side of the Moon for instance...
Anyway, I do believe that analogue and digital are two disticnt worlds. What was recorded analogically makes sense to be listened to analogically and also digitally. And if the original analogue tapes are still available I found it legitimate to release newly printed LPs if recorded using only the analogue tapes. However whatever was recorded digitally makes no sense whatsoever to be released on an LP claiming that it's a typical vinyl "sound". I personally think that it's bullshit and it tantamounts to consumer fraud - which is what I think is happening now with most LP releases of great albums whose tapes went missing. And I do not really think that if you had the tapes you could release the LPs at those prices! I pay a premium price for something I know is worth it. Not for a digital release of an analogue recording - albeit fashionably reprinted on an LP. I recently paid 50 € for a mint 1975 copy of Wish you were here. I would have gladly paid the same amount for any record of the 70s re-released faithfully from an analogue source. But I do not see many around. Even new releases on Vinyl of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd come from a digital source.
Thanks to you Gene!

 

[Vincent Schwager]

Anyway, this is an interesting link as to the fate of the original master tapes. I think the same fate was shared by many great recordings of the past unfortunately. Therefore I am, personally, a bit wary of any banners claiming that the source comes "from original master tapes"....I wish it were always true.

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/miles-davis-kind-blue-monophonic-reissue-sonylegacy-analog-planet-exclusive#eRSlTLAiCYLZjE5J.97

"According to Steve Berkowitz, who, with engineer Mark Wilder, has overseen all of the Miles Davis reissues going back many years, both of the original 3-track tapes used in recent years to produce the SACDs as well as 2008's blue 180g vinyl 50th Anniversary Collection box set (which was poorly pressed on 180g with a lot of noisy non-fill, gee I wonder who pressed it? no I don't) are now in very poor condition even though they sat untouched in the vault from 1959 until 1992."

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/miles-davis-kind-blue-monophonic-reissue-sonylegacy-analog-planet-exclusive#vaapTqwTDr91DPrQ.99

...I suggest you find a 1970 era record and play it . What it all boils down to is that, if you want to buy an LP, is not going to be as easy as waltzing in into a shop and buying one. I wish...

http://www.londonjazznews.com/2014/07/lp-review-miles-davis-kind-of-blue.html

 

[Bucknekked]

I realize my opinion is not scientifically based. However, in MHO, vinyl is far superior in musical sound quality than digital (at least CD). Digital is just too tinny, and that's having heard digital on numerous sound systems.

You've probably gotten an earful, but I'm going to agree with those that say I find no inherent advantage to vinyl over digital. The recording engineers work at the original recording has far more impact on the sound than anything added to or subtracted by the format. The only advantage I will concede to vinyl over digital is that a huge portion of the what's on vinyl was recorded with larger dynamic range and some care and feeding than perhaps the last 10 years or so of compressed, limited dynamic range recordings.

I seek out good quality recordings these days above all else. Good quality work rises above format.
If you enjoy vinyl more than digital : that's great. I am not knocking anyone's choices. Keep spinning them albums and enjoying what this whole website is about.

 

[Vincent Schwager]

I seek out good quality recordings these days above all else. Good quality work rises above format.

My point exactly: modern digital pressings can be of excellent quality, but aren't analog. I want analog to be just analog and nothing else, therefore the only way to be sure of that, in most cases, is to purchase LPs pressed before the advent of DDD. I cannot see any other way around this, regardless of the claims being made on the sleeves of modern day pressings.

 

[Stanton]

Guess you guys forgot I did a CD review of the 1997 re-issue a few years ago? There was also some good discussion/comments at the time (which can be found at the end of the review).

 

[sterling shoote]

What I'm wondering about is how much money needs to be put out for a turntable, cartridge, and appropriate amplification to get all there is to get from vinyl. When I purchased my Sony PS-4750 turntable and V15V-MR cartridge, I concluded I was getting from these components all that was in the groove; but now, since I believe my cartridge is not performing optimally, I have been shopping for a new cartridge, discovering I could pay upwards to $14,000.00 for one said to be a "reference" product. But wait, that cartridge also requires a turntable in the $35,000.00 vicinity for best results. This is a joke right? Do I really need a $50,000.00 plus investment to enjoy an LP as I would a CD for about $49,500.00 less? For me, this is today's rub regarding vinyl. It's a bottomless money pit, especially for those compulsive, obsessive types like me.

One update, I did purchase a $99.00 Shure 97xE about a week ago, and so far, my listening experiments suggest this cartridge sounds pretty much indistinguishable from the same music I have on CD. This leads me to think the folks at Shure are making an honestly crafted product and selling it for a modest profit. Also, looking at the 5 star consumer ratings and reviews of this cartridge could it be that more expensive offerings are not so honest? After all, if the Shure cartridge retrieves and delivers everything from vinyl what's the point of spending more?

 

[lovinthehd]

What I'm wondering about is how much money needs to be put out for a turntable, cartridge, and appropriate amplification to get all there is to get from vinyl. When I purchased my Sony PS-4750 turntable and V15V-MR cartridge, I concluded I was getting from these components all that was in the groove; but now, since I believe my cartridge is not performing optimally, I have been shopping for a new cartridge, discovering I could pay upwards to $14,000.00 for one said to be a "reference" product. But wait, that cartridge also requires a turntable in the $35,000.00 vicinity for best results. This is a joke right? Do I really need a $50,000.00 plus investment to enjoy an LP as I would a CD for about $49,500.00 less? For me, this is today's rub regarding vinyl. It's a bottomless money pit, especially for those compulsive, obsessive types like me.

One update, I did purchase a $99.00 Shure 97xE about a week ago, and so far, my listening experiments suggest this cartridge sounds pretty much indistinguishable from the same music I have on CD. This leads me to think the folks at Shure are making an honestly crafted product and selling it for a modest profit. Also, looking at the 5 star consumer ratings and reviews of this cartridge could it be that more expensive offerings are not so honest? After all, if the Shure cartridge retrieves and delivers everything from vinyl what's the point of spending more?

Yes, does it take the high end tt, cartridge and 20k phono stage (you forgot that so now we're up to 70k ) plus the many more thousands in pre-amp, amp and speakers? Good lord anything should sound good once you spend that much on it, just the placebo effect must be amazing at that point. I've never been tempted beyond a good tt and cartridge but always wonder if I had someone else paying for it....

You think you need a $500 cd player to compare to a tt setup? LOL, we need to talk....

 

[sterling shoote]

Yes, does it take the high end tt, cartridge and 20k phono stage (you forgot that so now we're up to 70k ) plus the many more thousands in pre-amp, amp and speakers? Good lord anything should sound good once you spend that much on it, just the placebo effect must be amazing at that point. I've never been tempted beyond a good tt and cartridge but always wonder if I had someone else paying for it....

You think you need a $500 cd player to compare to a tt setup? LOL, we need to talk....

I'm actually in the market right now for a universal player, waiting for release of OPPO UDP-205. I have a really nice collection of multi--channel SACD's which I've yet to hear in multi-channel from my stereo only SACD player. I need the OPPO it appears since it may be the only option for playing multi-channel through the analog only multi-channel preamp in my home theatre system.

 

[3db]

Yes, does it take the high end tt, cartridge and 20k phono stage (you forgot that so now we're up to 70k ) plus the many more thousands in pre-amp, amp and speakers? Good lord anything should sound good once you spend that much on it, just the placebo effect must be amazing at that point. I've never been tempted beyond a good tt and cartridge but always wonder if I had someone else paying for it....

You think you need a $500 cd player to compare to a tt setup? LOL, we need to talk....

I think $500 gets one a decent turntable with cartrige. These mega priced tables are more for an autistic. ..erm artistic flair more than anything else. There's no one more gullible than a hard core audiophile.