Why Vinyl Sounds Warmer (real reasons)
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- Опубліковано 16 гру 2022
- Vinyl is inferior (technically) to digital for the following reasons:
- Lower resolution / dynamic range
- Higher noise
- Limited frequency response
- Poorer transient response
- Less stereo separation
- Equalization / compression needed for the media
- Disk wear with each play makes the other problems listed above even worse
These factors take away the "crispness" of what you can hear from digital. Kind of like watching a movie on a TV from the 80's as opposed to today on a HD screen. That loss of detail translates to what we perceive as softer or warmer.
Of course you can make digital sound like vinyl by reducing the resolution and frequency response, and adding EQ and noise, if that's your preference. But I think the psychological differences are the real division. After all, there hasn't been a move back to standard definition TV over the same period, and people haven't thrown out their refrigerator to replace it with an icebox.
Records have that simpler time nostalgia attached, that's true, but the media also has a substantial feel to it - something real that you can hold and take care of. Add to that the album art that's big enough to see and appreciate. They feel valuable, unlike music files stored on a computer or streamed via the internet. And you will be taken more seriously as an audiophile (or music lover) if you have a decent collection of records and quality equipment to play them on.
Also the act of selecting, cleaning and putting a record on to play is part of the enjoyment. It takes listening to music from purely consumptive to something you are physically involved in. Something that requires your love and attention.
And finally there's the widespread belief that vinyl does sound better. It's like a given at this point.
I get it. Like I said, I had started on a path of collecting records and turntables. But I soon realized that you need to be a certain type of person to pursue that long term, and I'm not one.
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Vinyl is inferior (technically) to digital for the following reasons:
- Lower resolution / dynamic range
- Higher noise
- Limited frequency response
- Poorer transient response
- Less stereo separation
- Equalization / compression needed for the media
- Disk wear with each play makes the other problems listed above even worse
These factors take away the "crispness" of what you can hear from digital. Kind of like watching a movie on a TV from the 80's as opposed to today on a HD screen. That loss of detail translates to what we perceive as softer or warmer.
Of course you can make digital sound like vinyl by reducing the resolution and frequency response, and adding EQ and noise, if that's your preference. But I think the psychological differences are the real division. After all, there hasn't been a move back to standard definition TV over the same period, and people haven't thrown out their refrigerator to replace it with an icebox.
Records have that simpler time nostalgia attached, that's true, but the media also has a substantial feel to it - something real that you can hold and take care of. Add to that the album art that's big enough to see and appreciate. They feel valuable, unlike music files stored on a computer or streamed via the internet. And you will be taken more seriously as an audiophile (or music lover) if you have a decent collection of records and quality equipment to play them on.
Also the act of selecting, cleaning and putting a record on to play is part of the enjoyment. It takes listening to music from purely consumptive to something you are physically involved in. Something that requires your love and attention.
And finally there's the widespread belief that vinyl does sound better. It's like a given at this point.
I get it. Like I said, I had started on a path of collecting records and turntables. But I soon realized that you need to be a certain type of person to pursue that long term, and I'm not one.
Well said about standard TV lol!
All great reasons!
Hey arent you that skilled finish carpenter that builds homes too?
78rpms have the same diameter mostly as lps.
For the warmer sound. I think also that there is a bass frequency feedback on the surface of the record which could explain that sort of boomy sound.
Same kind of effect we have with the low damping factor of tube amps.
All these reasons you state, and yet I and others who are hardcore who care nothing about the nostalgia and "experience" prefer good vinyl over digital.
You cannot support an industry of expensive analog playback hardware just on nostalgia of yesteryear. Koetsu sells phono cartridges that cost more than most people's entire sound systems, and there's a lot more left to finish the vinyl rig, haha!
There are ambience and three dimensionality aspects to vinyl playback that even the best DACs cannot provide with digital. I'm only ever listening to true high end playback when discussing these things (something that many many many people do not have access to), and good vinyl almost always sounds better to me. The gap can be rather minor for lower fidelity releases (such as average digital pop recording transferred to vinyl) to more noticeable in the better recorded analog stuff.
I can address each of your points from my experience:
1) Dynamic range - in theory digital has more, but in actual practice, that's rarely the case with mastered music that's readily available. Dire Straits is maybe one exception to the rule where their digital stuff has comparable dynamic range to the vinyl releases (go look up the dynamic range data base website). The reality is the music that is to be commercially mastered has a level of compression dialed in for the lowest common denominator playback system. I wish they would master all music for true high end hi-fi setups, but such is not the case.
So in the end, this is not something you actually will observe in the real world.
2) Higher noise - This is usually not a big deal, and some level of noise is acceptable and perhaps welcome (prefer the analog tape hiss over vinyl cracks/pops). Lots of good vinyl is pretty damn quiet. Maybe 5% of my vinyl collection is legitimately noisy whereas most of the public are only accustomed to noisy records (of course there's a big price to pay for this).
For classical music or pop music with very very quiet passages, this could be an issue, but again this is not common enough to be an issue.
3) Limited frequency response - I would argue this is a good thing (in general for amplifiers, and speakers as well). 20-20khz is quite an overrated specification....having less total frequency response leads to a more midrange centric sound. As long as you can provide frequency response of about 40 (or even 50 hertz) up to at least 15khz, you have everything you need. Maybe for EDM music you could use more of the 20-20khz range, but the reality is for most music, anything above 6-7khz are harmonics, and most real bass doesn't go much below 40 hertz (with the essence of bass being quite a bit higher than that). For most music, the frequency response is just fine.
Now to those who say the sound of more midrange isn't as good as less midrange......I will say to all of you, very respectfully:
Your listening taste isn't as refined. I was there once too, then I grew up and got more experience :)
4) Poorer transient response/ Less stereo separation - Not something I've observed. This might be a thing with very cheap vinyl rigs, and if so, is in my opinion something that needs to be caveated or ignored. These vinyl versus digital debates should compare the best of the best of what's out there.
5) Equalization/compression for the media - this is a fair point, where vinyl records push/exceed 20 minutes per side. You won't find this issue much (if at all) with 12" singles, and with good turntable gear usually not an issue as you advance along the groove. For "real music", this is less of an issue, but if you're recording to extreme levels of bass/treble, then yes, vinyl does have limitations if you're packing a lot of music on a disc.
6) Disc wear - a non issue in my experience. With good cartridges/styluses with low tracking forces, you would have to play your records non stop for their sound quality to degrade. I just find this to be one of those theoretical things that are talked about like fact (same with analog tape high frequency loss).
If anything, I'd probably welcome some high frequency loss. Not, not to the level where it sounds like you're listening to music played back through a telephone that's all midrange, but some sizzle taken off the top is almost always a good thing.
Analog tape is a notable improvement over vinyl, eliminating all the disadvantages completely and adding some advantages.
Mr. Heisz, if you're ever in the NYC or DC area, I would be more than happy to demonstrate on my personal systems all of the above. Redbook CD, digital stream at 16/44.1 or 24/96, LP at 33 or 45 RPM, or analog tape at 3 3/4, 7 1/2, or 15 IPS playback all ready to go on proper gear.
The frequency response of vinyl has been measured at 50khz due to added noise from the needle. CD only goes up to 20khz before rolling off.
That is the biggest problem with digital. Most of the ultrasonic frequences are missing from CDs because engineers, who thought they were smarter than they actually were, thought we wouldn't need those frequencies.
But we do need those frequencies as they have been shown in studies to relax the brain.
The very first time i listened to a CD i knew there was something wrong and that was it. CDs are not as pleasurable to listen to as vinyl because of this relaxation you feel when listening to vinyl.
It's a shame that most people still don't understand this because this has been talked about since the 1980s when CDs first came out. I remember an article in the FT discussing it at the time.
Thanks for mentioning the RIAA curve. I think that manipulating the filters in the curve to be warmer or more airy has always been the secret sauce for the sound of a phono preamp.
The only thing I truly miss about vinyl LPs is the album cover and insert art. It was always part of the ritual of listening to music for me. The insert that comes with CDs is just too small to enjoy in the same way.
One thing to realize is that older records ( pre 60s) for the most part had little to no compression and those would sound much more dynamic than a newer release of the same recording in a digital format. There are newer pressings that are returning to less compression and that is a wonderful direction for the recording industry to take.
K-Tel instantly popped into my head reading you comment, and how tiny the grooves were on those hits records.
I’m 69, a retired music educator and a semi-retired professional musician. I own both records and cds. I enjoy listening to each format. I do enjoy listening to my albums as well as my CD’s. I agree that a CD format has many advantages over records. But the appreciation of musical performances regardless of medium goes beyond the debate over which format is superior. There are many of the world’s greatest musical performances that exist solely in LP format and my enjoyment of fine performances is not tainted in the least because it is on vinyl and not CD or other digital media. Good conversational topic John!
Some years ago, I've been a believer of that "vinyl superiority" idea. These days I mainly listen to streamed digital, and I have a theory about why, in *some* cases, vinyl "sounds better" than digital. In the, say, first 15 years after CD was released, many re-issues were made using master tapes tailored for vinyl, where experienced engineers knew how to get a nice sounding result despite the format's limitations. Transferring those tapes to CD gave bad results, and vinyl pressings of classic albums sounded often better on good gear. Also, for new releases, vinyl-oriented mastering habits survived, and it took years to get to the point where tools and people gained the ability to prepare good-sounding CD's. So, if your favourite album was thoughtfully (re-)mastered in the 21th century, it should sound better in digital. Before that, it might depend.
Interesting
The point you make is precisely what I had also realized. It naturally took time for sound engineers, brought up on analogue sound systems, to learn and adjust to the ways and means of getting the best sound from analogue or digital recordings onto CD's. There were some excellent sounding CD's made in the early days of digital music but many that were not engineered correctly, It seems that problem has been largely fixed in recent times, especially with the introduction of streaming services, with lossless formats and remastering of older recordings using better software and DACs.
If you want the vinyl audio experience but the convenience of digital, just make a recording from the vinyl.
Almost all new vinyl is made from digital master files of original analogue or digital source material, which are remastered versions of the original mastered recordings. So making a digital recording from a vinyl copy of the same digital recording would only result in a lower sound quality, not the "vinyl audio experience". PS. Modern vinyl recordings made in the purely analogue realm, are rare and very expensive specialist copies.
What I love when I play records is the output potency, sounds powerful even on a lower volume but digital sounds a little muffed like and weak so I always turn the volume much higher.
Great!! That's it, plus the harmonic waves that travels from one side of the stylus to the other, creating a more "sourround" feeling throughout both channels;
Great discussion! Thanks for sharing
Bravo thank you John. I did a lot of mastering in the 90's I got to where I could hear the tape transports and tape friction moving across the heads. Other than 60 cycle hum this is what people identified as "warmer" i.e. noise.
I believe its probably due to smoothing from Distortions. I used to have a certain pair of headphones, that were excellent in 3d soundstage... but the high end frequencies were a bit lacking. When a certain song on my MP3 player played... of a thunder sound, then rain... I was easily fooled, and looked out of the nearest window, to see the "bad weather". When I bought a higher end model headphone from the same company... this new headphone was able to deliver a much high frequency range... and when the same MP3 song came on... I was no longer fooled. Why? Because the recording itself was not very good... and these new headphones were able to reveal all of the flaws, in a very Harsh way.
I learned quickly, that to have an amazing audio experience with the new headphones, I needed to use higher quality recordings. Not badly compressed mp3s. Upon hooking them up to a DVD / Blueray player, or even a high def. youtube stream... I was blown away at their level of detail, clarity, and 3d soundstage. I would then often decide which headphone to use, based on what kind of recording I was listening to... and what format / compression level, that music was in/at.
I believe its the same thing with Tube Amps. The tubes introduce a small amount of micro-distortions.. in the form of Smoothing. Where as the treble in a certain recording, on certain highly revealing speakers... might be way too harsh on the ears (fatiguing)... the Tube amps might be able to reduce that harshness, allowing for much greater listening pleasure, and no harsh listening fatigue.
I personally do not own a record player, nor a tube amp. Though watching a popular youtube dude cycle through such equipment, and detail how the sound is on each... was pretty much how I came up with the above theory. That, and my experience with different headphones (as well owning audiophile grade and generic grade speakers).
That was the most level-headed, well-informed and non-religious assessment I have ever heard on the topic, thank you. I would also add that there are some people that are generally to be considered technophobic in that they resist amy form of technical advancement in the world, leading them to making those choices. And frankly, there are some digital formats that really do sound horrible. I go between vinyl and streaming depending on my mood and the use case at hand. Who really wants to flip records at a party every 15 minutes?! 😎
Now back to restoring that reel to reel machine…
Lol
Reel to reel can give you 30 to 60 minutes per side.....with great sound, so not a bad idea. A 7.5 IPS tape loaded on a 10.5" NAB reel will give you about an hour of music on 2 tracks, two hours on 4 tracks.
As Bernie Grundman said in one of his interview with Chad Kassem, back in the day (the 60s) most records were directly cut from master tapes without editing, and the tape itself is warm sounding, not to mention the all tube equipments in the recording room
Also the analog way of playback (vibration) vs digital playback, the former way is closer to how human listen to things, so it might perfect as ‘warmer’ because it sounds ‘more natural’ in such way.
CDs/digital is of course technical superior, but with great cartridge, phono stage, vinyl could be so high resolution in a way you think it’s digital.
100% agree
We have much much better quality media todays!
Well said John!
There ie no reason to listen to vinyl unless you prefer worst sounds quality than you could listen to!!
I've not listened my vinyls for more than 10 years. Today a pc media center is perfect for me
Digital is far superior but you can't play Frisbee with an mp3.
You can with a cd
posting from my vinyl account specifically. i haven't been listening to mine much lately for a variety of reasons, it's mostly in storage right now, but also i have lap dogs that jump in my lap and fall asleep the moment i sit down on the couch.
i like the longevity. CDs are prone to their own kind of degradation (disc rot) - availability of music comes and goes on streaming services. you can have a collection of files, but i'd say make sure it's backed up of course - i've had drives fail (one project on my list of TODOs is to duplicate DIY perks' clean room box so i can do a platter swap of an old WD green with a head crash - and a decade worth of missing files and media)
i agree that digital is the best/most transparent - i do think that vinyl can get pretty close though if you have a good table and cart. vinyl does not have to roll off at 15k at all (CD-4 quad records contained frequencies well past 30khz - the carrier signal information - of course one required a fine line stylus to retrieve this detail) i think a lot of the vinyl obsessive are way too focused on things that matter so little (belt drive vs direct, MC vs MM, tonearm materials) i also see the irony in my saying all of this considering most of my (new) collection is of course sourced from digital.
It would be cool if you could make a video where you play a digital song clean and then repeat the song but adding the effects you mentioned to replicate the sound of vinyl digitally.
That would be every video uploaded to UA-cam, after their compression has reduced the file size for streaming. Only thing missing is the extra noise.
The differences I mentioned in this video are too small for most people to hear or even care about and couldn't be replicated in an uploaded video.
Well I still have a bunch of albums from the Big Band era, probably have some 78 records too. In fact I think I have Bing Crosby's album with "White Christmas". However I still do like the sound of "Direct to Disk" albums.
In theory it shouldn't matter the medium, but that it's all about the mastering and the engineering.
Not only that, but the constant and consistent rewriting of history with remixes and remasters; there's a significant portion of my library that I cannot find on the internet in an unmolested state, almost every streaming service has remixes or remasters labeled as the "be all end all" true versions.
I don't care about the sample rate, bit rate, and overall frequency response because the engineers at the time understood the medium in which they were mastering to, they understood the theory behind the medium and how to utilize it's shortcomings to their advantage. Most digital transfers or remasters and remixes are preformed the cheapest way, and that ranges from, but is not limited to, using poor master transfers or utilizing already compressed and mixed down material.
The argument to compare the mediums always made me chuckle and shrug because in reality, to the average listener, there is no TRUE comparison that can be made. It really is honestly and truly comparing apples to oranges. In an idealistic world, the digital master should be engineered to suit the benefits and capabilities of the digital medium, whilst cassette and vinyl followed in that same measure to their own limitations. If we were to stand by this, they should be indiscernible from one another because the engineer did their job properly; but there are a number of problems we see and it can vary from poor engineering per medium (utilizing only one master for all the separate mediums) all the way to the fact that there's a significant time gap between some of these original masters versus when their digitization process occurs. For a lot of works the original engineer has either long since passed or has personally changed tastes or desires about said work and you'll run into issues where the digitization process becomes the remake or remaster with no in between version for comparison. This especially becomes an issue where these remake copies are being labeled and flagged as the original true version in this digital/online space ultimately tricking you into believe that there is a difference in quality because it's actually just different all together.
I've listened to brand new presses of modern music to vinyl and personally it seems very digital like in characteristics; I could not tell the difference between my phone plugged into the HiFi versus listening to it through the physical medium. I would call that a success ultimately, but at the same time it's been ingrained in my head that there's supposed to be a jump in perceived quality one way or the other (because that's been argued to death either way). So did they do a good job printing digital to vinyl in this instance or is it a bad job because it's not truly taking advantage of the medium in the same way engineers of the past did, the very way that created this illusionary "warmth"?
We all can honestly go back in forth with this until the end of time, but one thing I know to be true is that it's simply best to go with the primary medium in which the engineer originally intended to master to, and if it's anything made after the conception of digital recording, go with the digital version.
But with anything as subjective as audio and as objective as the medium's specifications there's always going to be the preference of the listener, and in the end that's actually the only thing that matters.
Remasters and remixes are the biggest factor indeed, I usually collect first press records of what I like but I also try to source the first release on CD because despite being wrong on a technical level (using the same master as the record but on digital, which by the way I don't hear what's wrong with that) it helps in comparing later releases and the changes that have been made. The example I use the most are the 2007 to 2009 Genesis remasters which are a complete disaster: loudness war, missing sounds, missing sound effects and the worst stereo mix I've ever heard, truly a product of its time...
The real benefits of vinyl records are the ritual, as John says. You listen to more whole albums, and are exposed to stuff you might skip otherwise. Its a good hobby and it either supports small business or directs more money directly to the artist, sometimes both. If you time it right you can get some return on your collection, too. That experience is a lot more tangible than any auditory benefit I've had.
Most albums were less than 45 minutes total but some were more. 90 minute tapes were 45/side and you could fit most albums on one side….but there were those that would not fit one side. I think this is why the 99 minute cassette tapes were the most popular sellers….:at least for me they were. Taped most of my albums to save the wear/tear on the album. Plus you could play them in the car or Walkman….
I noticed that my lps and 45s onto still have that same warmth.
All good stuff John.
Actually, most music has a dynamic range lower than what vinyl (shellac, polystyrene, etc) offers, so it's fine in that regard. But transit response is a biggie. The signal from a D to A conversion can go from zero to full almost instantaneously. The plastic platter just can't come close.
Frequency response can be quite good, so good in fact that tape bias can be heard (seen). It doesn't roll off all that quickly. Playback equipment can rarely go that high & is where most of the roll off occurs. With the deemphasis in use the level is down 20dB at 20kHz. By 30k it's down below the noise.
A point many people miss is the mastering of what they like to play. In early days of CD they often put the same version on it as they sent to vinyl & the CD sounded pretty harsh.
On the other hand, today's music is so highly compressed, down to just a few decibels of dynamic range for pop & mainstream rock, it really doesn't matter what format you choose. I'd argue you couldn't tell vinyl apart from mp3 or CD with this stuff. I've taken some tracks just for fun, converted to 8bit, & could barely notice any degradation.
I've heard records with such good frequency response and low surface noise that I could make out the background noise of the master tape. "Tape hiss" is a really complex noise and by hearing how clean it comes across it tells me that the cutting quality was really exceptional, when it's bad it sounds more like pink noise and you really start to notice it in the background of a song. Records can be good, record were and can still be an amazing listening experience and most of the time the real reasons why a record, a cd or a file sounds bad is because studios make unnecessary remasters of remasters just so they don't have to pay credits to the original engineers who mixed the album.
For me, (singer - symphonic choir, musical theatre), the differences between good, average, great and outstanding performance are the nuances that humans produce in voice or on instruments. No record or CD or WAV file is going to be better than the performance itself. So this is a plug to go hear live music (of any type) and hear the nuances. Great performances are great on vinyl, (yes with its EQ and resolution), or digital, (yes, with its sampling and its resolution). Wayyyy back in university, (engineering), I learned lots when we studied signal processing, sampling etc. and completely understand why 44.1 kHz is the magic number behind CDs. In all of my performance experience, the nuance from the humans is what has always made the difference, not the technology used to capture and reproduce the sound. Whether I listen afterwards to a tape, CD or digital download, I can tell when the nuance is missing or when it is sublime. How one gets to perceiving the nuance is up to an individual.
Used to have a stack of 45's back in the seventies and a few albums. Also had some 78's in the basement. I miss them but I wouldnt buy them again on vinyl knowing I could get them on digital if I ever wanted to,
If you get them on digital I guarantee you're not getting the same thing, if it's remastered like crap no 24-bit files can help that.
You have to make choices when mastering to vinyl that you don't when mastering to digital: if you want more bass or more overall level then the grooves will be bigger and you get less time. As a result some buyers feel they're not getting as much music and feel short-changed. You as producer are also extremely dependent on the skill level of the mastering engineer. Someone who's less experienced with cutting lacquers can limit the quality of your final product. There is also another dimension to this discussion - are you listening to the music or the playback system? I've heard stunning recordings of poor performances and very poor recordings of amazing performances.
I couldn't wait for cd/players to become available, then we had to wait for them to become affordable. No more cleaning LPs and still hearing clicks and pops...drove me crazy.
Should learn how to use a record brush. I never have clicks and pops
Insulting AND a liar
@@greggb681 you audio fool!
@@summerforever6736 Hey, I still say digital is better, but vinyl can be very very impressive. Whatever floats your boat!
@@greggb681 if you looking for sounds quality digital is
if you looking to waste your time use vinyl
Thanks John. /../,
I have no problem with people who say they *like* their vinyl better, but if you tell me it *is* better, you’re simply wrong, for the reasons stated in this video and some that aren’t. I also realized that especially with 2-way speakers the mids are coming from woofer cones that are shaking back and forth from the turntable’s rumble and the mids get animated via the Doppler shift imposed by that subsonic shake. That becomes a process artifact that I can imagine people missing subtly when it’s taken away. But it wasn’t in the studio playback when the music was recorded and it wasn’t even in the signal going to the mastering lathe.
I'm not arguing in favour of LP's, but are three points I would make. In the first two, I disagree with what John said.
1) Sampling LPs back in the 90's, I objectively measured in the sampling software records with good frequency response up to 20kHz and back in the day when my hearing was good, I definitely identified a few records with response well above 20kHz. Granted, some LP recordings cut off abruptly at 10kHz.
2) Again, back in the days when my hearing was good, I observed CDs make a real mess of anything above 10kHz, or at least that was the case with the CD players and CDs I used back in the 80s and early 90s.
3) The plastic used for modern records is probably inferior to that used until the early 90s. I understand that the material originally used for LP records was made from a specific hydrocarbon deposit in Germany, which had optimal and unique properties and is now virtually depleted.
Ive never cared much for vinyl. The only vinyl I own is a Marty Robbins record from my grandfather.
What does „warmer“ mean?!
He just said less resolution dynamic range
For me it's the experience/mood you get with vinyl , listening to vinyl is me giving my time to listen to music,not just have it on in the background...it's like comparing smoking cigarettes to cigars....it's basically the same thing but cigarettes you smoke but cigars you experience 🤷♂️
Sure......
Vinyl doesn't roll off at 14khz-15khz. The frequency goes up to 50khz+. This has been shown in a youtube video where they compared CD with vinyl. The CD started to roll off at 20k but the vinyl was still outputting strong frequencies at 50k. So it's a total fail for this video and for digital media such as CDs.
I listened to a technics SP-10R and I honestly the sound was unbelievably good, better than my streamer and DAC. I think you really have to spend a ton of money on a great turntable ,cartridge and 180g vinyl to get truly great sound but you can get crazy good sound out of a well pressed vinyl. But that is why I think the hobby is fun, chasing perfection!
That's 200% true. We should compare prices, not technical data. Because vinyl can be awesome (depending on a music that masks noise, detonation, channel separation, etc), as well as digital can be awful (China DAC, high compression level, etc). And at a same level vinyl appears few times more expensive. That does not include media/disk library price that can shift this ratio drammatically.
Placebo effect!
Chasing delusion more like it mqn!
@@sc0or total BS!
180g records mean nothing, almost all new records are remasters anyway.
'sound' analysis ;-)
No matter of play back techniques used the sound is not better than the recording in the studio!
The biggest draw back of digital is masterings abusing it with the infamous "loudness war".
The original Genesis line-up today is only available in the "raped" version.
The loudness wars have died down a bit, however the portable media and other low fi hardware still necessitate mastering that will almost always be compromised in the digital realm.
Vinyl mastering won't have the same compromises and can be made to sound better. Occasionally you hear about vinyl mastering being held back to deal with cheap cartridges, but more often than not that's not a big deal.
Imho vinyl sound is junk. Sure there is plenty of legacy programme only available on vinyl, moving into the future HD digital (24bit) is the only way forward.
With my loopback recording processing methodology I can remaster existing digital recordings with whatever 'flavour' wanted. I can 'denoise' existing recordings and recreate dead clean dead clear 'onstage at the microphones' sound or any other sound signature further down the room. Very interestingly, individual vinyl record formulations all sound different and can be imparted into the resultant loopback recording. Vinyl formulation recipes were close guarded secrets back in the day, there is reason that particular vinyl editions are cherished. That said digital done properly is the correct solution.
Of course 99.9999% of all comments on this subject are ridiculous. A wise man would always say "I have no idea what medium is warmer or better sound quality, since I have never lived with state of the art cartridges like the $17,000 Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge, and I have never lived with a $50,000 Burmester cd player either. Anything short of that and you are not talking about one medium vs. another; you are talking about one compromised piece of equipment versus another!
I don't think it comes down to frequency response extension, or dynamics; and the dynamics of vinyl can be amazing. Many lps prove that. Whatever has the better midrange is the sound quality you'd like best. By far, the vast majority of the music resides there in the midrange.
If vinyl records roll off at 14khz, why were "super tweeters" a thing during the age of vinyl? It's a funny thing I don't understand. Nowadays we are taught to expect speakers to be flat from 20hz to 20khz, but adults can't actually hear 20khz. Hearing up to ~15khz for an adult with good hearing is more likely. And then there is the fact that 10khz to 20khz is only 1 octave, which translates to 7 musical notes (whole notes). So if you only hear up to 15khz, you are only missing the last 3 notes of the theoretical hearing range. That doesn't seem very important to me.
Harmonics above 7-8 khz are just there to fill in the sound. They are important to be reproduced for maintaining smoothness, but don't offer any true musicality in itself.
There is a video on UA-cam that measures the frequency response of both vinyl and CDs. The cd went up to 20khz, but the vinyl went much further up to 50khz. So the guy in this video doesn't really know what he is talking about if he leaves out facts like that from his video.
Ultrasonic frequencies are present in musical instruments and have been shown to provide positive benefits to humans when they are present.
@@dtz1000 Oh goody! Those high frequencies may come out of the record player, but they are actually noise, not music content. But hey, there are so many low frequency scratchy noises to make up for it.
Nop!
Vinyl records and the record player needle have the big advantage in that the sound from the speakers gets recaught by the needle, which causes a bit of feedback of the original sound, which gives a more full and resonant sound.
It was trance music keep the presses going in the late 90's early 00's DJ's not audiophiles keeping vinyl going
Vinyl is better then you remember it, I would say. I haven't listened to records in years and recently I got my player working again. I was blown away listening to some of my records again. Much better sounding then the same songs on Spotify. Also, vinyl is a pure analog source from beginning to end. No changing music to bits and then back again.
I had that same feeling when I got into collecting records again 16 years ago - I was blown away by how great it sounded. But then I realized that part of that was from me wanting it to sound better (expecting it to sound better) and the rest was actually listening more closely than I was with the digital version.
In truth they sounded slightly different, but I couldn't objectively say which sounded better because my judgment was clouded by my expectations. Our hearing isn't a precision instrument that's immune to influences from what we think is true.
Changing music to bits and then back again is a much safer way to preserve it than to put in on glued rust dust (aka tape) or molded plastic (aka vinyl).
Especially those vinyl records put out by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab that were finally exposed for being sourced from DIGITAL masters.
@@revokdaryl1 You surely don't expect them to run the original master tape every time they cut new wax, do you? What matters is that they make one perfect transposition from the master tape (after which the tape gets returned to its owner) and keep the highest level of precision in the chain so that it is practically identical to cutting it from that master. Digital is better if used in the right ways, no one can question that.
@@BetamaxFlippy Yes, you have a good point there. Now they're working on a technology involving storing data in glass! If you've seen The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie, you'll see that music is stored on these crystal balls that get inserted into a device. Really forward thinking, really since the movie came out in 1976.
The biggest difference in the sound of vinyl and digital, as well as the differences between labels and bands is da-da the recording engineer. He/she determines the sound of the record, all the controls available to the engineer on a multi-track mixing desk weren't put there for ornamentation. You can hear "the sound" of some recording engineers on the albums they produce, for example Alan Parsons.
Some of the limitations you list for LPs are not quite right. The acknowledged expert on this subject and one of the greatest recording engineers, albeit one who constantly strove for neutrality, was Doug Sax. The following link to an interview with Doug Sax may clear up some areas. At the time , Sheffield Labs and a few others were putting out direct-to-disc recordings ( a fraught process). The difference in sound between an original Sheffield Labs LP and one of their CDs is the reason they went for direct-top-disc, the analog tape recorders, one of the rare samples where the LP is better than the CD, at least with top-of-the-line cartridges.
www.magneticfidelity.com/sax.shtml
Some other late LP mainstream period advances such as direct-to-metal masters and half-speed mastering, were never fully developed and had some flaws. CD-4 quadraphonic required half-speed mastering to lay down the high-frequency modulated channels and even then there was only one cutter head that gave good results, the Ortofon DSS-731. The Ortofon cutter was mechanically different from the more common Neuman et al cutter heads, it was far more delicate but had a wider frequency response, I do not think anyone is using the Ortofon cutter heads these days.
Interestingly, both mechanical systems used in modern cutter heads and pretty much all of the LP stereo system as we know it was set out in a single patent by the great engineer Alan Blumlein in 1931!. Sadly, he died while testing the HS2 radar that he was instrumental in developing when the Halifax test aircraft crashed due to an engine fire in 1942. The engine fire was caused by a simple error by a RAF mechanic of not properly tightening a tappet locknut during an inspection some hours earlier.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein
Its a snobbery thing ....
Yes, when your vinyl gear is better than digital, one oughta flex it.
It certainly ain't snobbery for having the heavy piece of hardware just for the sake of having it. You can enjoy the nostalgia of records just fine with a $200 turntable as you would a $20,000 vinyl rig, so tell me why buy the $20k rig if it only impresses 0.000001% of the population?
For me, vinyl is significantly less perfect and for some reason, most ears prefer that...
Vinyl is superior to 44.1/16 digital mainly on transients (like dirac delta functions). DSD/DXD is more comparable to vinyl.
DSD slays vinyl. DSD of a recording that originated on analogue tape is the closest you'll get to the actual master tape. There's no way a vinyl record will capture every nuance of that tape, each cut nearer the center of the record getting more and more distorted with inner groove distortion.
Convenient I will agree and some sound good but all do not sound better on cd. I truly wish that would happen and a full mass of others say different vinyl is at a extreme high while digital not so much as low but people are spending money on vinyl. Early stuff sound way better on good vinyl. Think I’m kidding please try daft punk any cd vs it’s vinyl. Random access memories a cd will lose on any decent system you are wrong my friend do better! Don’t say something and don’t back it up. A ass on the couch is still a ass remember that and do better much better. Wish you the best you are still wrong
Your oppinion about records being warmer is totally incorect. Its not the record that sounds warm its the inferior equipmet that so many of you are use to. Hi end turntables can have a stylus with a super fine line contact area. Sorry but this results in greater resolution and detail not less, especially against cds. Can demonstratre this anytime on my system. I just cue up a copy Tapestry with both vinayl and cd together and 100 % of the listeners have been blown away with the diffedence. On my record we here a stienway grand piano in all its complex detail. Switching to the digital makes that piano collapse down to a shity honer electric piano. No wood on felt attack, no live strings, no reflections of sound board. And Carols voice sounds like she has a cold. So just because your phono system sucks dont be trying to generalize about all vinyl. Its kind of almost racest if you ask me. Im happy you enjoy your system. Dont be so stuppid as to be little mine.
And there is still quite a difference with how things are mastered
Meh... the debate as old as recordings...
I never grew up with vinyl. When I was 7, cd's my older brother got such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana were the newest thing. I recently put together an awesome tube amp (kt88 & el34) with 3 different sets of different speakers (KLH Kendall, HIVI 3.1A DIY, 15' open baffle Lii Audio knock offs). Using a DAC and my surface pro I was able to compare vinyl via a preamp and digital and I was drawn to the clarity of digital. Not having any expectations I wasn't sure what would sound better when I compared a song in ultra HD to the same song on vinyl. Although vinyl sounded good, digital had more clarity/detail in what I could hear. I thought that I would be a vinyl lover based off my enjoyment of processes and doing things with my hands but found that cleanliness of digital was for me.
Digital at it's best might be superior for pure resolution. However, from a musicality standpoint it still cannot compete (comparing the very highest levels). This very well could come down to a genre comparison or maybe a mood thing where one might prefer digital or analog depending on their preference in that particular moment of time.
Resolution matters up to a point, however resolution without energy/soul becomes less involving. Or stated a different way "resolution only matters when the musicality is there to back it up", otherwise it's just a fancy reproduction of sound. For all the ish audiophiles get over being obsessed with gear, this hobby is supposed to be about the love of music over the love of gear. And this is where digital tends to fall short in many cases.
@@fellippegalletta6827 Thanks for your opinion. I agree with what you are saying entirely. Since I wrote that I have found a stylus that I love and connect with. With new detail I am able to close the gap on digital. In a world of diminishing attention spans, there is something really nice about having to devote a chunk of time to listening to a vinyl record as a stand alone activity where tracks are listened to in order and given your full attention.
@@hitnorcal I'm always updating my reference as the years go by. The digital to analog gap can be closer than people want to admit (when comparing elite gear from each medium, and equally well done masterings). There is just SOMETHING to good vinyl/tape that digital has a hard time reproducing in real time as far as musicality is concerned.
Vocals and instruments seem to have more layers/textures. The "air" seems to have more "energy"....
Analog seems to handle top end smoothness better than digital, and often the analog playback is EQ'd (either intentionally or defacto) to be more midrange centric than digital.
When I listen to some world class DACs, they can be amazing and really diminish these differences (they also cost between $50-150k, keep in mind). Most people do not have this level of DAC, and one can easily get into 99th percentile vinyl rig under $30k, 90th percentile for maybe half that. At $50-150k, you can be in the 99.9th percentile for vinyl. And this level of vinyl is better than an Audio Note Fifth Element DAC, easily (assuming the masterings are comparable).
Sometimes vinyl can be very average or underwhelming, by nature of a bad pressing and/or bad mastering. Often we're talking about full length LPs that might've been mass produced and sometimes 2nd or 3rd run.
If one wants to see the potential of vinyl in the easiest way, go listen to some 12" singles. Rarely they will be underwhelming, and often they are amazing.
I will always fight the good fight. A small part of me "roots" for analog, but the reality is, if digital was out and out superior to an overwhelming extent, after a brief period of mourning I would be content to get a nice five figure sum back for my troubles.
At the end of the day, the recording often is the most important part (not so much analog or digital).....so some awesome recordings that you stream on Qobuz or Tidal on a good DAC will probably sound better than Taylor Swift's album on vinyl (even with a Koetsu Blue Lace cartridge). The biggest leverage for any recording is done in the actual recording/tracking/processing stage, and then after that digital vs. analog moves the needle a lot less (no pun intended).
My rule of thumb is not to overpursue vinyl for the sake of it, but to buy vinyl that will most likely be very engaging to listen to..........OR........if it's known that the digital is overly compressed, maybe the vinyl can be pretty good (this happens more often than not with the very latest records that are overcompressed in digital form).
I recommend the Dynamic Range Database for this part (google it).
@@fellippegalletta6827Thanks so much for this thoughtful reply. I will look into Dynamic Range Database.
I'm have a pretty wild set up with multiple amps and speakers. At the moment I have been running a 300b into open baffle 15's. With all the options that I have at my disposal I only search for one thing... what moves me. There is no way to really define it and what moved me yesterday might not move me today. I couldn't agree with you more about recording quality. I tend to enjoy artists who fully own the entire process to include playing all instruments, recording, and even mastering. This final result is often unique and amazing. I really enjoy letting my brain search deeper into the soundstage exploring for sounds that only a master and excellent equipment can highlight. This coupled with the music excites me and keeps me searching.
Thanks again for your insight. It was awesome to hear from you. Have a great day.