Vinyl Rip vs Orignial CD

[RAJ1]

This was just an experiment to see how close a vinyl rip was to a well mastered CD.

 

We used a CD and Record of Mahavishnu Orchestra Visions of the Emerald Beyond. We choose these because on A/B testing the CD and record sounded very close to being the same, the CD is not overly compressed like most.

 

We adjusted the loudness of the Vinyl rip and CD to be as close as possible using audacity. The CD was louder because I was using a low output MMC1 moving cross cartridge.

 

We tested the USB device and Sansui Phono base noise levels, the Sansui was basically zero and the USB was very quite vs some others we tested. Both well under the sound of the needle on the record.

The equipment used.

 

- Sansui AU717 phono preamp. We compared this to several newer external units and was surprised how much lower the Sansuis noise floor was.

http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/sansui-au-717-integrated-amplifier/

 

- Very inexpensive Ambery USB Analog to Digital converter using default windows driver. http://www.ambery.com/usbantodiauc.html

 

- Windows 10 desktop PC with audacity software set to 32bit float bit depth/44.1k sample rate.

 

- B&O 8002 turn table with MMC1 cartridge Soundsmith SMMC1 moving-iron phono cartridge | Stereophile.com

https://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=307

 

 

The CD and Record rips were both made to flac files without compression.

 

Results:

 

On A/B playback the main difference was the occasional pop or snap from the needle, the files sounded remarkably the same. Only if turning up the volume very loud in a section with no audio could a difference be heard. It was not electrical hum, it was mostly the sound a needle makes with the vinyl.

 

From this I would have to say there is no need to spend $3000.00 on a Analog to digital converter. The snaps and pops would still be there and you would be out 3000.00 - $13.00 (Price of device on amazon)

 

Any improvement would most likely be minute.

[SCT]

Wow, nice experiment. I have been looking for stuff like this on the web but have found very little on it.

 

Have you compared that device to like $300.00 DACS?

 

Well the cost of converter chips has plummeted, probably does not take much of the chip to do the conversion, I am looking for the best bang for the buck. That little device you tested is a great idea for converting analog though.

 

I think maybe you should should repost this in the DAC area of the forum.

[kilroy]

Given the age of the components and their relatively low cost, it's no wonder little difference was heard.

[RAJ1]

Actually the older components are built much better than the new. You have to pay 5k or more to come close to the build quality of the Sansui, they have cheaped things quite a bit today. I also have very expensive components and have talked to the engineers of pre amps and DACs.

 

The purpose of this shot test was to compare the cheapest ADC converting vinyl and comparing to the CD master. You must not have read what I was doing because component quality (Even if perfect) the limiting part would be the ADC and there would be a very large difference between if it were due to cheap components.

 

Since there was not a large difference that means even the best components in the world would not close the gap much because it was already close to begin with. To put it another way, lets say the source is 100 and the copy is 99.2 percent of the original. Someone could say well yea but if you have a million dollar pre amp it would be 99.5. I expected the gap to be much larger given how cheap the ADC was.

 

No doubt some improvement could be made but not much. This does not assume the reverse is true, this is not saying DACs are all the the same, this was vinyl to preamp to computer vs original master CD. Not digital to analog.

 

I was a physics and engineering undergrad so names, colors, age, don't affect me only data does.

 

With computer components its a algorithm, a chip that converts signals to 0s and 1s. Silicon is cheap these days.

 

The analog section of components is where this can be improved. I think a great deal of music lovers do not understand what they are using and only go based on price, the case etc. Many believe phono preamps and other solid state devices breakin in and sound better with use. This has nothing to do with capacitors changing it has to do with subjective view changing, or learning to like the sound rather then the hardware changing. I am more scientific in my approach, yes a bit dry but truthful.

 

To some people I could put $10,000 on a 50 cent device and they would swear it sounded better based on price. I want to find the point of diminishing returns on components. I think interconnects, wiring, case all are much better on the high end components. But it is interesting to see were the actual audio performance begins to suffer. Many engineers in the industry say mid grade gives 96 percent and to get the last 4 percent costs 20 times more.

[ElviaCaprice]

I agree, well mastered digital redbook is my preferred medium over any analog medium. Unfortunately there many works not released on digital or done poorly, this is where a good ADC/TT/software comes into play. But I find these far and few for my needs these days. Nice to have though.

[RAJ1]

I agree, well mastered digital redbook is my preferred medium over any analog medium. Unfortunately there many works not released on digital or done poorly, this is where a good ADC/TT/software comes into play. But I find these far and few for my needs these days. Nice to have though.

 

Yes that is exactly what I am finding. It took me awhile to find a CD that was mastered using more of it dynamic range rather than compressing it to make it louder. I have heard Steeley Dan Nighfly is well done too. But I don't have the vinyl recording of it.

 

I have to admit I do like vinyl for the tactile feel, the artwork and the retro feel of playing on a 1980s TT. Its kind of cool. If they wanted to they could make all CDs great and very close to that vinyl sound, compression of the dynamic range is not needed but it probably sells better. Follow the dollar.

 

I have an old SACD player but got side tracked and never really used it much. From what I read on those it was not that the medium was superior to regular CDs it was the company/engineers knew the marked for those disks was mostly audiophiles that hated compressed CDs so they re-masted those on SACDs with a wider dynamic range. They could have done the same thing with regular CD I wish more would as there would have been no need for SACD in the first place. I wonder what percentage of CDs are done right, or close to how vinyl was done. 5%?

[RAJ1]

I agree, well mastered digital redbook is my preferred medium over any analog medium. Unfortunately there many works not released on digital or done poorly, this is where a good ADC/TT/software comes into play. But I find these far and few for my needs these days. Nice to have though.

 

I was looking at some of your components. PPA V3 OCXO USB

I can't find a good explanation of what that is, even at the web site. It looks to be a PCix USB 3.0 card with audio on it? A high end PC sound card? Why the USB ports?

 

Outlaw Monoblock! Was wondering what you thought of those. I bought an Outlaw HT 5.1 in 2001 and found its build quality to be well above average for its price. Ahh probably should not side track this thread.

[ElviaCaprice]

I was looking at some of your components. PPA V3 OCXO USB

I can't find a good explanation of what that is, even at the web site. It looks to be a PCix USB 3.0 card with audio on it? A high end PC sound card? Why the USB ports?

 

Outlaw Monoblock! Was wondering what you thought of those. I bought an Outlaw HT 5.1 in 2001 and found its build quality to be well above average for its price. Ahh probably should not side track this thread.

 

It's all about system synergy. Those Amps work great with the Maggies, so does the Hugo DAC.

The PPA USB card has a great clock and clean 5V feed from the LPS. Search Paul Pang USB card.

 

As far as redbook recording percentages, I find about 50 percent more than adequate and fill in the blanks with SACD, Hi Resolution PCM, along with my own remastered analog transfers.

[RAJ1]

Thanks, I did go the Paul web site but they did not have a Brochure type write up explaining why its good, what it does etc. Maybe I just overlooked it.

 

I understand its a nice audio card. But I don't understand why they put USB 3.0 ports on it. There must be a good reason just curious. Maybe for piping data into the computer? USB 2.0 does around 30 Mbytes/sec +- which is good. Perhaps they put 3.0 in for people that don't have 3.0 ports on the computer. Maybe 30Mb/sec is not fast enough for some recordings.

 

Wow Magnaplaners. That brings back college memories. Had a buddy that had the big ones. There were one of the best speakers I had listened to. Were are talking 1980s so no idea what the newer ones sound like but if anything like those old ones they must be great for you. They were a WOW speaker back then.

[RAJ1]

Wow, nice experiment. I have been looking for stuff like this on the web but have found very little on it.

 

Have you compared that device to like $300.00 DACS?

 

Well the cost of converter chips has plummeted, probably does not take much of the chip to do the conversion, I am looking for the best bang for the buck. That little device you tested is a great idea for converting analog though.

 

I think maybe you should should repost this in the DAC area of the forum.

 

Just to be clear SCT, I was converting from Analog to digital. A DAC is converting Digital to Analog.

 

Most of the uses are commercial recording, like a live performer and great mic. So the units are usually quite expensive as they have other features not required by someone that just need to copy a record to his computer.

 

I have not tested DACs.

[kaufenpreis]

Vinyl LP's usually sound better than their CD counterparts. Most new vinyl is remastered by top notch engineers like Doug Sax, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, etc.

 

Moreover, even with old LP's, the sound will be better because it will not be compressed to death like modern LP's.

 

Here is a great example:

 

Nat King Cole - Just One Of Those Things.

 

Both are 30 second uncompressed WAV files.

[RAJ1]

Vinyl LP's usually sound better than their CD counterparts. Most new vinyl is remastered by top notch engineers like Doug Sax, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, etc.

 

Moreover, even with old LP's, the sound will be better because it will not be compressed to death like modern LP's.

 

Here is a great example:

 

Nat King Cole - Just One Of Those Things.

 

Both are 30 second uncompressed WAV files.

 

Agreed,

 

We were just experienting in converting some vinyl to digital and testing out the conversion. Yes I found many CDs compressed a bit too much. We found a few that matched the vinyl pretty close. So we used those as the baseline to compare the copy with.

[davide256]

Actually the older components are built much better than the new. You have to pay 5k or more to come close to the build quality of the Sansui, they have cheaped things quite a bit today. I also have very expensive components and have talked to the engineers of pre amps and DACs.

 

The purpose of this shot test was to compare the cheapest ADC converting vinyl and comparing to the CD master. You must not have read what I was doing because component quality (Even if perfect) the limiting part would be the ADC and there would be a very large difference between if it were due to cheap components.

 

Since there was not a large difference that means even the best components in the world would not close the gap much because it was already close to begin with. To put it another way, lets say the source is 100 and the copy is 99.2 percent of the original. Someone could say well yea but if you have a million dollar pre amp it would be 99.5. I expected the gap to be much larger given how cheap the ADC was.

 

No doubt some improvement could be made but not much. This does not assume the reverse is true, this is not saying DACs are all the the same, this was vinyl to preamp to computer vs original master CD. Not digital to analog.

 

I was a physics and engineering undergrad so names, colors, age, don't affect me only data does.

 

With computer components its a algorithm, a chip that converts signals to 0s and 1s. Silicon is cheap these days.

 

The analog section of components is where this can be improved. I think a great deal of music lovers do not understand what they are using and only go based on price, the case etc. Many believe phono preamps and other solid state devices breakin in and sound better with use. This has nothing to do with capacitors changing it has to do with subjective view changing, or learning to like the sound rather then the hardware changing. I am more scientific in my approach, yes a bit dry but truthful.

 

To some people I could put $10,000 on a 50 cent device and they would swear it sounded better based on price. I want to find the point of diminishing returns on components. I think interconnects, wiring, case all are much better on the high end components. But it is interesting to see were the actual audio performance begins to suffer. Many engineers in the industry say mid grade gives 96 percent and to get the last 4 percent costs 20 times more.

 

If you studied physics than you should already know that the bit depth of vinyl is at least an order of magnitude greater than CD resolution... its the actual recorded signal curve and not a digital interpolation. The limitations of vinyl were always in the groove separation required to avoid volume compression of loud passages and how much one was willing to spend on high quality transducer and pre-amplification to tame those pesky LRC circuit non linearities across a 60 db signal range.

[RAJ1]

If you studied physics than you should already know that the bit depth of vinyl is at least an order of magnitude greater than CD resolution... its the actual recorded signal curve and not a digital interpolation. The limitations of vinyl were always in the groove separation required to avoid volume compression of loud passages and how much one was willing to spend on high quality transducer and pre-amplification to tame those pesky LRC circuit non linearities across a 60 db signal range.

 

LOL. I am sorry to disappoint you Dave. We never studied vinyl records in physics.

Although it sounds like it might have been interesting.

[Don Hills]

If you studied physics than you should already know that the bit depth of vinyl is at least an order of magnitude greater than CD resolution... its the actual recorded signal curve and not a digital interpolation. ...

 

Jim LeSurf studied physics:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/iandm/part12/page2.html

In summary, at best comparable, real world significantly worse (equivalent bit depth).

[Jud]

Jim LeSurf studied physics:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/iandm/part12/page2.html

In summary, at best comparable, real world significantly worse (equivalent bit depth).

 

The limitations of physics are not a problem for either LPs or CDs in reproducing most music, unless you spend a lot of time with the 1812 Overture versions that use real cannons. So we are not talking about the physical capabilities of those media or of higher resolution digital files.

 

What creates the limitations we experience in practicality is recording quality. And this, due to market forces, is almost exactly the reverse of what it should be.

 

Digital file loudness is based on the largest market segment, folks listening with earbuds with very little isolation. Wide dynamic range would lose half the music in those circumstances. So those are often the loudest, most compressed versions of a musical piece.

 

Then there are CDs. New CDs follow along with digital files, loud and compressed. Older ones that came before digital downloads will usually have higher dynamic range, having been made for people doing dedicated listening at home.

 

LPs, the media least physically capable of wide dynamic range, are paradoxically usually recorded with the widest dynamic range of the media available these days, because they are being made expressly for a market made up of dedicated home listeners.

[Don Hills]

... Unless you spend a lot of time with the 1812 overture versions that use real cannons. ...

 

 

[Jud]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24779[/ATTACH]

 

OK, I even tried Google image search, and I give up - tell me where that comes from.

[goldsdad]

OK, I even tried Google image search, and I give up - tell me where that comes from.

 

Strange. The image appears as the second top hit when I google for vinyl 1812 overture.

 

[Jud]

Strange. The image appears as the second top hit when I google for vinyl 1812 overture.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24789[/ATTACH]

 

I tried searching on the uploaded image itself, and got a bunch of moiré.

[davide256]

Jim LeSurf studied physics:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/iandm/part12/page2.html

In summary, at best comparable, real world significantly worse (equivalent bit depth).

 

Appreciate the link as it proves my point. Jim's main argument is about dynamic range,that CD's and LP's have similar theoretical limitations for dynamic range; even with the bizarre sounding Telarc digital LP's I purchased in the early 80's this promise of digital vs analog tape mastering was obvious for dynamic range.

 

The other factor is sampling rate, Jim does postulate for the effective mechanical sampling rate of vinyl which is what matters for resolution of

complex signals

 

"The effect is to divide the microns swing of a 0 dB 1 kHz sinewave into 32,000 steps — just as if the signal had passed through an ADC! "

Consider a CD would capture 44.1 samples for one 1khz sine wave vs the 32,000 of the LP mechanical playback limitation. So in Jim's model vinyl equates to a 32mhz/16bit digital playback solution.

[Jud]

Appreciate the link as it proves my point. Jim's main argument is about dynamic range,that CD's and LP's have similar theoretical limitations for dynamic range; even with the bizarre sounding Telarc digital LP's I purchased in the early 80's this promise of digital vs analog tape mastering was obvious for dynamic range.

 

The other factor is sampling rate, Jim does postulate for the effective mechanical sampling rate of vinyl which is what matters for resolution of

complex signals

 

"The effect is to divide the microns swing of a 0 dB 1 kHz sinewave into 32,000 steps — just as if the signal had passed through an ADC! "

Consider a CD would capture 44.1 samples for one 1khz sine wave vs the 32,000 of the LP mechanical playback limitation. So in Jim's model vinyl equates to a 32mhz/16bit digital playback solution.

 

32KHz. You're off by 3 orders of magnitude.

 

Also, in any case we're talking about dynamic range (the "bits" side of the resolution spec) rather than sample rate (the "Hz" side).

 

Edit: Ah, I see how you got there - you're thinking it's 32,000 steps for *each* wave of the 1,000. I'm not at all sure that's how it was meant. But anyway: as noted, we're talking about dynamic range rather than resolution.

[mansr]

Appreciate the link as it proves my point. Jim's main argument is about dynamic range,that CD's and LP's have similar theoretical limitations for dynamic range; even with the bizarre sounding Telarc digital LP's I purchased in the early 80's this promise of digital vs analog tape mastering was obvious for dynamic range.

 

The other factor is sampling rate, Jim does postulate for the effective mechanical sampling rate of vinyl which is what matters for resolution of

complex signals

 

"The effect is to divide the microns swing of a 0 dB 1 kHz sinewave into 32,000 steps — just as if the signal had passed through an ADC! "

Consider a CD would capture 44.1 samples for one 1khz sine wave vs the 32,000 of the LP mechanical playback limitation. So in Jim's model vinyl equates to a 32mhz/16bit digital playback solution.

 

You're confusing sample rate and bit depth. The 32000 figure is roughly 2^15, i.e. the number of discrete values either side of zero in a 16-bit digital signal. This is what determines the dynamic range and, as you say, CD has enough of it.

[davide256]

32KHz. You're off by 3 orders of magnitude.

 

Also, in any case we're talking about dynamic range (the "bits" side of the resolution spec) rather than sample rate (the "Hz" side).

 

Edit: Ah, I see how you got there - you're thinking it's 32,000 steps for *each* wave of the 1,000. I'm not at all sure that's how it was meant. But anyway: as noted, we're talking about dynamic range rather than resolution.

 

What I said was correct... the effective sample rate limitation calculated based on typical stylus contact area of an elliptical stylus and molecular size characteristics of a theoretical diamond LP was 32,000 steps/samples for a sine wave vs 44.1 steps/samples for CD sampling rate when sampling a 1khz signal. The practical value is likely to be a factor 10X lower because we use vinyl, not diamond but that's still 10(3) times greater than CD

 

If I confused by using the term bit depth earlier , I apologize... again no disagreement that LP and CD can provide same dynamic range. What matters is the product of bit depth and sampling rate... here vinyl has a big advantage over CD limitations

[Jud]

What I said was correct... the effective sample rate limitation calculated based on typical stylus contact area of an elliptical stylus and molecular size characteristics of a theoretical diamond LP was 32,000 steps/samples for a sine wave vs 44.1 steps/samples for CD sampling rate when sampling a 1khz signal. The practical value is likely to be a factor 10X lower because we use vinyl, not diamond but that's still 10(3) times greater than CD

 

If I confused by using the term bit depth earlier , I apologize... again no disagreement that LP and CD can provide same dynamic range. What matters is the product of bit depth and sampling rate... here vinyl has a big advantage over CD limitations

 

No. You're ignoring the Sampling Theorem. Even ignoring the calculation regarding vinyl, we can say the sample rate of analog is effectively infinite. That's going to be higher than any digital format sampling rate we look at, right? But with digital audio, you're not listening to samples, you're listening to analog converted from the samples. So you're back at an infinite sample rate again, no different than vinyl.

 

As has been discussed many times in this forum, sample rate isn't the practical limitation in tracking the input analog signal, not even at CD resolution. It's actually trivial to get a perfectly overlaid response curve digital<->analog on a scope. The practical limitations come from distortions that A/D and D/A processes introduce.