Cecil my man, a long time ago the music stores were full of Vinyl LP. Then the CD came and like magic all the Vinyl disappeared. Where did they go? Millions of them. Lately I noticed that they are using Vinyl LP and expensive turntable in some major motion pictures. Are they quietly planning a comeback? Hope they do, the sound is so much better than a CD.
Thank you, Jean Jacques Shanghai.
Vinyl records are a trendy fad for people that have Waaaaaayyyyy too much money, and bad taste.
There is a definite niche market for vinyl, but no, it isn’t making a comeback. And digital recordings are superior to vinyl in every single respect, by every measurable means.
This BBC report suggests that vinyl is definitely making some sort of comeback: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38221420
I went to a demo by a very up-scale hi-fi manufacturer a couple of years ago. They did a blind comparison between their mind-numbingly expensive turntable and their equally buttock-clenchingly costly digital music player, both hooked up to the same no-expense-spared amp and speaker system. Both sounded fabulous. However, the overwhelming view in the room of about 30 people was that the analogue system was the more pleasing. Given that the purpose is for humans to enjoy recorded music, I humbly submit that such a survey of listeners is a valid measurement and one which, if reproducible, would dent your hypothesis above.
Was it a double-blind test? Or at least a blind-test? If not, the result is meaningless.
All else being equal, a vinyl record cannot sound better than a CD or other high-quality digital source. (Again, all else being equal.) It simply can’t… the noise, distortion, frequency response, and dynamic range of a CD is far superior to that of a vinyl record.
There is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy to this. There are only so many vinyl plants remaining, and they all have years of backlog to them and are running 24/7 the last time I heard about the backlog. However, no one wants to invest in creating new ones or putting decommissioned ones back online because no one knows when the so-called “trend” that has lasted around a decade so far will end. Until then it will by definition be a “niche” due to lack of capacity.
I buy vinyl if it is a solid album. For several reasons: 1) I admit some of it is collecting, 2) it is less hassle than investing in a good digital music setup, and 3) I don’t want to have to remember if I put my digital player on shuffle, so vinyl has a trust system built in that I can listen to the whole album and relax in knowing it will play the next tracks in order.
I already said it was a blind test, though it wasn’t double blind. The experimental setup wasn’t perfect but I think good enough that the results shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. The company who made the equipment would be just as happy selling you a digital as analogue system.
I understand what you are saying, but I think there is a potential flaw in that argument. I don’t have time right now to expand on that as I have a train to catch, maybe later.
Economics alone will prevent any significant resurgence of vinyl, regardless of whether or not it sounds better. You can get an excellent CD player for far less money than you can get what is needed to play vinyl records well, not to mention that no one ever found a useful way to play LP’s in a moving vehicle.
Minor note: analog recordings of sound are INHERENTLY superior to digital ones. This is a fact, because SOUND IS MECHANICALLY ANALOG. Digital recordings, when the sampling rate is high enough, do indeed sound good enough, but that’s because the human listening system is set up, and has developed so that we can make sense of things, and “fill in the gaps” automatically.
Look at how old style film works, to get a better understanding. No matter how high a frame rate a movie is made at, it is still a series of motionless photographs of something which in real life, is moving constantly. Movies only SEEM to look like what we see, because we smudge over the gaps from one still picture to the next.
Now. How PLEASING it is to you,to see the differences or hear the differences between a digital and an analog recording of something, is a separate issue. People tend to be more pleased by things that are familiar, or at least expected, than by surprises, so there will always be differences of perception. But it is inescapable that copying sound or video in little chunks will always be less accurate, than copying it entirely. Whether you LIKE the one copy more than another, has to do with your personal tastes.
This is actually not in the least bit true. It is a line that was pushed for years in the HiFi fraternity by some members of the golden eared and some purveyors of non-digital gear.
There is a deep mathematical relationship between all the encodings of sound we use, and the bottom line is that there is no difference. As I am often wont to say - it is all down to Shannon. In a bandwidth limited system with a defined dynamic range there is exactly no different in the information content. A correctly built digital system has no gaps. Popular magazine explanations of how digital sound works not withstanding.
Given we live in the real world, every channel is bandwidth limited and has a defined finite dynamic range. LP is rather poor on both of these. Standard 44.1kHz/16 bit linear PCM digital beats it handily on both numbers. With care, the same digital encoding can match the ability of the human ear (but it is a close thing, and easy to mess up.)
I will also note that there are essentially no LPs that were recorded on anything other than digital or tape. Anyone who things tape is a continuous analog system with no “gaps” has no idea how tape actually works.
LPs seems to be selling to the hipster crowd. Those that crave an artisanal authentic experience.
This is getting into IMHO territory, but I can see the appeal of getting into vinyl for nostalgic reasons. Meaning, collecting albums from the past which were recorded, mixed, and mastered for LP as a way of appreciating the technology of that day.
Modern music on vinyl? Hipster nonsense. LPs are objectively terrible. Low signal to nose ratio, terrible stereo separation, and they progressively destroy their own high frequency response just by being played. People who say they sound more pleasing are probably keying in on the “warmer/fatter” sound of LP’s poorer HF response and a bit of 2nd harmonic distortion. If you like that better that’s fine, I can’t tell you you’re wrong, but it ain’t more accurate.
The problem with this argument is, whether you’re listening to CDs or vinyl, the sound you’re hearing coming out of the speakers is analog. It doesn’t matter what kind of device is driving the speakers, what matters is the (analog) pressure waves coming out of the speaker. If a CD player can drive the speakers identically to an LP player, then the sound coming out is identical.
Mathematically, the Nyquist-Shannon theorem says that it’s possible to EXACTLY reconstruct an analog waveform as long as the sampling rate is at least 2 times the highest frequency in the waveform. Since CDs sample at 44.1 KHz, they can exactly reconstruct a signal with frequencies up to 22.05 KHz. This is at the upper limit of human hearing. If you have truly exceptional hearing you might be able to hear sounds slightly above 22 KHz, but most people cannot, so the “digital is inherently inferior” argument fails.
This argument of course won’t stop audiophiles from claiming that LPs are better. Blind tests don’t help much, because it’s not hard to tell whether you’re listening to a CD or LP. Someone who has a preconceived opinion that LPs are superior will hear the (inferior) sound of an LP and say to himself “ah, this one is the LP, it’s better”.
Personal anecdotal confirmation on vinyl: I put a box of pristine 45s and EPs out at my neighbor’s garage sale two years ago. A buyer immediately grabbed the entire box, then came over and knocked on my door, nearly begging for anything else I might have. I did, but wasn’t ready to sell them right then. He left his contact info and grudgingly left empty-handed. Prior to that, I had sold a number of desirable albums on ebay. Fads are great if you have the desired item, but I don’t see this one being sustained.
Stereo Review did a test of high-end versus lower cost equipment (late 90s? Early aughts?) where they took special precautions to assure that all systems were equalized and had near-identical spectrum profiles. Can’t find a link but the results showed no statistical difference based on the reviewer’s opinions. Caused a shitstorm of controversy at the time as the high-end, low-oxygen-speaker-cable geeks claimed improper procedures, bias, etc…
Which points out the problem with this sort of test. Tube amp supporters claim a “warmer” frequency response and will be biased toward equipment with this behavior. A bit more high-end or low-end boost bakes a noticeable difference and can influence perception.
You’re making objective claims about a subjective experience. Some people prefer camping to living in a real house. The bugs, lack of HVAC, plumbing and electricity, no roads, police or fire protection, etc. make camping objectively inferior to sleeping at home. But subjectively, a lot of people prefer it, at least some of the time.
valves pretty much always add some measure of 2nd-harmonic distortion even when not run into overdrive. a bit of added 2nd order distortion “fattens” up the sound and tends to sound more pleasing to a lot of people (all else equal.)
yep. the next person who tries to show me a picture of a stair-stepped sine wave gets hurt.
it didn’t help that when CD first was coming out, some of the early releases had truly awful mastering.
Since most people have damaged hearing, subtleties in sound are pretty much lost as we age. I suspect that the widespread habit of having earbuds or headphones attached like a prosthesis for hours on end is not improving matters. This would seem to make the argument about fidelity differences pretty pointless.
All else being equal, it’s worth it to have the LP for the cover art, plus you can actually read the liner notes.
Since this is about a medium for playing music, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Yes, you hipsters - any vinyl recorded since about 1983 has had its original recording done on a digital master. You think they are using some variation on the Edison cylinder and cutting a master vinyl right there live in the studio?
And in the analog master tape days, with a good system you can easily hear the tape noise in the recording. But it was all we had, and we liked it, dagnabbit!
Re-read the second paragraph of your cite. Then re-read it. Then re-read it again.
Nyquist–Shannon works really well on simple repeating sounds. But a lot of music has percussive elements. Not just drums, but the plucking of a guitar string, the initial hit of a hammer on piano strings, etc. Even the human voice has all sorts of bursts and such.
Nyquist–Shannon is incredibly lousy on these. The DFT is the all time classic canonical example of “If your only tool is a hammer …”
Music is analog. End of debate. If you want to slam vinyl quality, then go after the limits of its dynamic range and such.
Invoking Nyquist–Shannon is ridiculous. I can’t believe people still cite this after all these decades.
what about it? It makes perfect sense.
You’re talking about transient response, which is irrelevant here. I don’t think you actually understand that second paragraph. When it says:
Digital audio does work on a band-limited signal. Therefore no information is lost.
Nyquist-Shannon doesn’t actually “do” anything here, it’s not a “thing.” Pulse-code modulation is what (uncompressed) digital audio uses.
Ah, I see. first there’s proof by assertion, then an attempt to say you can poo-pooh something proven just because you have a pair of ears. We “cite” Nyquist-Shannon because it forms the very foundation of digital audio. Simply stating “FACT” or “end of debate” after your statement doesn’t make it gospel.