Lies about vinyl vs digital

[davide256]

 

19 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

Not "lies" so much as simple misunderstanding.

 

Ever hear of something called the 'loudness war'?

 

Well, there's been a loudness race going almost back to wax cylinders, but when digital audio and the CD debuted closing in on 40 years ago, the loudness war in recorded music went NUCLEAR.

 

Digital was metered in peaks, not average, or RMS.  About 10 years into the life of the CD, music producers and engineers discovered they could peak normalize albums.  Peak normalization led to peak limiting, which when combined with increasing doses of dynamics compression and make-up gain, could produce an album 10-15dB louder average listening level, than one released at any point in the 1980s.  The penalty: Decline and loss of realistic transients and openness that gave the recording depth.

 

To summarize, it is the MASTERING, in the digital domain, not any digital format itself(Redbook CD, 24bit high res, lossy MP3, etc) that slowly lent the impression that digital audio was 'lifeless' or 'dull' next to a vinyl equivalent of the same album release.

 

This is what the general public is slowly being made aware of, one thread at a time, in forums such as this one.

 

So basically you weren't an adult in the 70's when POP albums were being compressed to avoid AM radio frequency bleeding issues?

[davide256]

6 hours ago, mansr said:

It's a marvel of engineering. I'm still glad we don't need it any more.

And how many direct to disc, original RCA Reiner recordings do you own? I can't say that any digital recording solution I've heard matches these recordings on a good vinyl solution.

Not saying that digital is necessarily inferior to vinyl, just that engineering skill in making the recording is make or break for  also ran vs a masterpiece recording.

[davide256]

 

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

So what’s going on?

 

1. Do my DACs just all suck in the ability to render high dynamic performance?

2. Are some posters without the ability to discern high end sound?

3. Has my brain fooled me?

I never got much joy out of a PC source solution... it was like bad solid state amplification. And apparently power supply for digital behaves like platter and motor system for vinyl, the tiniest electrical noise sucks out the clarity required for dynamic contrast just like poor platter isolation/stability.

[davide256]

hmm, well I was thinking of buying a new amplifier because a solid state amp made male voices all sound like Bob Dylan... then I played an album and realized it was

the digital source chain, no such problem with vinyl.  So I would suggest you need both  just to insure you validate your "truths" as you try to improve your system. Most

vinyl setups I hear can't compete with digital at the top and bottom ends of the audio spectrum, its in the mid range they can beat digital. 

[davide256]

5 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

In YOUR opinion. Try telling that to the numerous members who prefer DSD etc. over RBCD

As is so often the case you are making these inane comments that contribute absolutely nothing worthwhile  to the threads with a view to disrupting them.

Your constant irrational anger outbursts look like AD. Seek help. Else you wll become ostracized and isolated from society.

21 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

No one (to my knowledge) has ever said we can hear ultrasonic frequencies. The reason to reproduce them is because musical instruments have overtones as high as 102.4 KHz. See There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz!

 

There are many theories on what our bodies do with inaudible ultrasonic frequencies our ears cannot hear. In all the theories ultrasonic overtones must have the corresponding fundamental tone in order to be perceived.  Theories I've read include:

• We can feel ultrasonics with our skin.
• Ultrasonics are processed by the eyeball.
• Ultrasonics effect how audible frequencies sound.
• etc.

There are many other theories but those seem the most popular.

 

The theory that sounds the most plausible to me is audio energy exists as upper overtones of musical instruments and has an effect on the lower frequencies which we do hear directly. When listening to music we hear the fundamental note and its overtones shape the timbre, this is why an oboe and a clarinet sound different when playing the same note as their overtone series is different. The more overtones available to shape the timbre of the fundamental tone the more accurate the timbre is IMHO.

Teresa,

ultrasonics by definition can't be heard, and to be felt require that they are the fundamental tone, else are too low in energy to be physically felt.

The reason we can enjoy music with much of the same capability as we age is that over 90% of the energy of a musical performance lies below 10khz.

The one hit we take with aging is imaging as the frequencies above 10khz provide better directional queues to our ears. A simple cricket can produce

a very loud and easily located sound because it is a higher frequency requiring little energy

 

 

[davide256]

On 5/14/2019 at 8:21 PM, Teresa said:

 

Have to disagree with that. If ultrasonic overtones effect lower frequencies, they can have no effect if you record at 16/44.1 kHz since the ultrasonic overtones are removed by the brick wall filter at 22.05 kHz. So for them have an effect they have to be in the recording. Or to put this another way if you remove ultrasonic overtones they can no longer effect the timbre of the fundamental tone.

???

an overtone is created by the fundamental frequency, a harmonic, a resonance of the instrument. The total composition of overtones is what makes its signature, why we

can tell the difference between a Stradivarius and a Guarneri violin. Overtone resonance creation is stimulated by lower frequencies, not vice versa... think of it as a waste product.

from the fundamental.

 

Its basic indisputable research anyone can do at home to prove to themselves  that ultrasonics cannot be heard and that high frequency hearing declines with age...

asserting otherwise is believing in "phlogiston" and  going down a path that will only yield results by coincidental accident.

 

Instead look at the assertion that 44.1/16 rate can chop at 22khz without affecting  content in the 10-20khz range... that's  demonstrably false when compared to 96/24

for any piece with complex instrumentation.

 

 

[davide256]

10 hours ago, Teresa said:

No one says ultrasonics can be heard, it is said ultrasonics effect what we can hear. Once again the quote from Chandos Records:

 

Why should  Chandos Records have credibility in this area? Do they have a whitepaper you can link to?

 

As to 44.1/16 vs 96/24... if anyone tells you a cutoff filter always behaves perfectly below the cutoff point, don't trust them.  With a  cutoff point of 22 kilohertz, I would expect

artifacts in the 11~22khz range.

Sampling at 96 khz  or a highest frequency of 48 khz means that the artifacts would be moved into the 24-48khz range, well beyond the limits of human hearing.

 

 

[davide256]

37 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

No, a smaller size can mean data reduction, but in the case of FLACs, it does not.

 

It only means storage reduction for the exact same data. 

 

There is a very significant difference mate, in *any* world.  Your IT people should be able to explain it to you. Buy one a couple beers. 

 

-Paul

Reminds me  of dialup modem days when we used data compression modulation schemes to get 56khz rates out of lines that had a physical limit of 2.4khz.... amazing how much of raw data is just repeated 1's and 0's.

[davide256]

29 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

I look at a CD and I see polycarbonate, aluminum, and lacquer. I'll accept that the shape of the pits can cause some noise when playing in a disc player but I don't see the pits themselves as the noise. In most cases, when playing the CD, I would think that the noise never reaches the speakers. I know some claim it does. And I think you agree that when playing the ripped files, the shape of the pits in the CD are then irrelevant.

wax cylinders, anyone?

[davide256]

 

7 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Alex, that gif is not an example of compressed music. It's made (or put up) by someone who doesn't understand what compression is or looks like.

The gif shows how at first the digital headroom is not used at all. Then a bit better. And then a bit better again. So the first pic is the worst sounding one (least dynamics). I don't say that the last one will be the best sounding.

 

 

Sure.

 

 

But this is compression and it shows the opposite of that gif, right ? All this needs for the loudness war is to level gain again the red version and there you have it. 

 

That's not true compression... its clipping. If compression is done correctly  the wave form should resemble the original but with a lower peak level and reduced differences

between soft and loud passages. Fire the engineer for incompetent use of technology.

 

Compression is nothing new... most vinyl is compressed because otherwise too much distance between grooves would be required to avoid perturbing a neighboring groove

during master cutting

[davide256]

3 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Modifying the comment about the 'lower peak level'.  Not all compression is to lower the peak/avg/RMS level.  Some compression (e.g. my own experimental one) as an option, can keep the peaks the same, but brings up lower level material.  The advantage of doing that (when it is applicable) is that the 'squeze' sound is less.  Compressing the higher signal levels also tends to be a little more obvious.  Some people might do a sidechain kind of thing with a compressor also to get similar effects.

 

Limiters modify the peak level when exceeded (or sometimes do a bit of high ratio compression above a certain level.)  It would seem to be silly to have a limiter bring up the lower levels and not 'compress' the high levels.  'Compressors' can do either/both depending on the design.

 

Otherwise, I agree with your statement.

 

Most of what I observe in badly recorded digital music is music  recorded too close to peak limit so that downstream DAC's misbehave. So perhaps not technically required but from a

"plays well with others" perspective, something that ought to be done.