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Lies about vinyl vs digital


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10 minutes ago, davide256 said:

 

 

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

 

The level of DRC(dynamic range comp) used 40+ years ago can neither compare nor justify the aforementioned 'nuclear' level of compression I referred to.

 

This is the same attitude I get on Head-Fi, GearSlutz, or any other audio forum I participate: people assume that I think DRC is 'some new thing'.  Well I hate to disppoint you but I don't think that, one bit.  What is relatively more recent is the abuse and misapplication of DRC tools made possible in the digital audio editing domain.

 

Mark my words though: This new thing called 'loudness normalization' is taking over on internet radio streaming platforms, such as iTunes radio and Spotify.  Metering plugins more closely calibrated(even than good old RMS) to how we hear and perceive loudness is steadily replacing peak-based metering in DAWs and digital recorders.  

 

If you submit a master to iTunes Radio with an average level of +1.5dBfs - YES, it has been done - that service will politely apply -17.5dB of gain to make it as loud, within +-1dB, as all other submissions have been adjusted, to iTunes Radio's -16dBfs loudness standard.

 

The Loudness War is DEAD - Long live the Content War!  ?

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6 hours ago, firedog said:

Listen to almost any recent pop/rock/hip-hop/ country  CD  or remaster intended for the mass market and I think you will find the loudness war is alive and well. 

 

Yes, loud, overcompressed albums and remasters of legacy are still being released, but on the metering and streaming side something is being done about it.

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6 hours ago, firedog said:

No, the loudness war  is only one factor.  There are also plenty of CDs without heavy loudness compression that don't sound great. Clearly mastering is crucial. Lots of factors go into making a good sounding CD. 

 

In order of importance, with (1) in my estimation being the most crucial:

 

1. Mastering

2. Artistic composition

3. Recording technique

4. Mixing

5. Acoustic treatment of room.

6. Studio interconnects.

7. ADC converters in studio and DAC in consumer playback.

 

Digital, or specifically the CD,  will just reproduce everything, from overprocessed Sh?t  to well produced music, better than will an analog source.  Catch my drift?  Production choices, as well as how well a song is written and composed, are more critical than the specific delivery format, as well as more important than USD$500 boutique interconnects.

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35 minutes ago, firedog said:

Yes, but several years ago when Apple started doing that for their streaming, we were told that their  volume leveling was going to change the game and the volume wars would end, i.e., the heavy volume compression would stop as there would no longer be an "advantage" to it.

 

Hasn't happened. The production still includes the heavy VC. If we want improved sound, the answer isn't some kind of volume leveling, but a dialing back of the volume wars for the masters being used as the basis of releases. 

"VC"?

 

The metering I spoke of measures average levels, correlated to actual loudness.  The reason it has yet to make a significant dent in the loudness race is that these new meter plugins and standards are not *mandatory*.   It's still up to artists, their producers, and the engineers to fully adopt the new paradigm.

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9 hours ago, audiobomber said:

Mastering ahead of composition? There's no mastering technique that will make music that I hate, appeal. 

 

But I have experienced the opposite: mastering that has sucked the joy of a song I might have enjoyed even more if they had not compressed or brickwall limited the sh- out of it.

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4 hours ago, vmartell22 said:

 

haha

 

Guess that was the case for many of us - just a kid then, was around and upon hearing CDs for the first time, music emerging out of digital silence, yes it was a big deal. And yes it was miles away from my vinyl system then. So yeah, I was one of those that could not wait to drop vinyl...  Might as well, I knew lot less then that I know now about taking care of vinyl, so guessing those records condition was not fantastic... now, well, analog system is way better... 

 

v

 

What has gotten worse, what has driven the quality of releases on CD and digital download into the toilet, is this demand for it to be LOUDER.  You can have LOUD up to a point, where fidelity starts to suffer.  Vinyl simply cannot be driven that hot, or else even the best tonearm/stylus combination will not be able to track it properly, if at all.  Like I said earlier, digital will reproduce S-H-I-T perfectly if that what is desired.  It will reproduce a sonic TURD even better than can any analog format.  It will also handle the guns of 'Overture 1812' just fine, if wanted to.  

 

The sonic limitations Redbook CD imparts on the material transfered to it are infinitely small compared to the hiss of analog tape or the surface noise of even only once- or twice-played vinyl, not to mention inherent channel cross-talk in the stylus & cartridge combination in a phono reproduction system, noises which can be engineered to a minimum, in manufacturing,  but not completely eliminated.  To hear the quantization noise of digital/CD at 16Bit 44.1kHz, you'd need to record several minutes of pure silence to it, finalize it like any other, and play it back on the most powerful sound system in acoustically isolated conditions.  And even THEN, only only 1/5 people might detect it: A hiss comparable to the backround noise on analog tape.  Even at a volume setting that would instantly deafen most people if that disc had actual content on it.

 

Get it through your heads that any 'inferiority' you're hearing in CD nowadays have to do with PRODUCTION values, not with the format itself.  With older CDs, you are likely hearing issues with less-evolved ADC converters, and jitter and timing issues with the recording chain 35 years ago.  But those are NOT lent by Redbook itself!

 

It's what is put ON CD or in digital format, NOT the format itself.

 

Any refutiation henceforth, of the points above, is just that: pure DITHER.

 

Thank you!

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2 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 With some older albums such as " Roberta Flack-Killing Me Softly," where the tracks are at quite a low level, with only one or 2 peaks even reaching -6dB,  you are likely to be limited by the S/N of your gear.

It took me quite a bit of work to find out just how good the title track really is. Just don't assume that with pre - Loudness War albums that the analogue gear they used back then is to blame.

 I have heard a copy of the Master of " Peggy Lee-Fever" before all the other bits were mixed in , and it sounds FABULOUS, even by today's standards. Even some of the old Julie London albums can  sound damn good too with gear of decent quality.

 

In those examples, what mattered is how much of the actual performance - the dynamics, the vitality, the local acoustics - was left in and survived both the mixing and mastering stages.  Any analog imperfections, during production or playback, will be masked by those qualities, and most people, like myself, will readily forgive even an occasional vinyl click, or tape hiss.

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1 hour ago, Rexp said:

Can you explain why digital recordings generally sound better on vinyl than cd?

 

 Because what is sent to vinyl omits the 'final step':  Brickwall limiter and make-up gain.  Those musical peaks omitted from the CD are left in for vinyl.

 

Besides that, the masters for both CD/digital and the record are identical.

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8 minutes ago, mav52 said:

 

But it really depends on which master it really is.  Was it the original or the re-mastered master or the re-mastered re-mastered that is pleasing. So many of these CD' and downloads have been re-engineered to sound, "better" to some or worst than the original . Its a crap shoot sometimes on knowing which copy you really have.

 

For most *current* releases to both vinyl & CD, it is the same master used for both.

 

I already explained the primary difference above.

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46 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

 

In general no  - not from the 80s 90s or beyond - in general , might be exceptions.  That does not imply there are no bad sounding classical CDs, be it the master, the hall, the recording philosophy, etc...

 

v

 

Read my reply to Rexp.  And NO: the earlier the CD release, of any music style or genre, the less likely it was brickwall limited, not more.  

 

(sigh... so many misconceptions to sweep up around here!  I'ma have to let my boy Monte loose up in here pretty soon!)

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21 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

Sure, but putting mastering #1, ahead of composition? I cannot agree with that.

 

Mastering is far down the list of what I need to enjoy my favourite music. As a kid, I listened to music on AM, through a cheap transistor radio, and loved it. I don't need fidelity to enjoy music. Hi-fi is great, but it's a frill.

 

Yes, even on a pocket transistor, or its modern equivalent: the tinny smart phone speaker, a dynamic, well-mastered song will sound far better than something over-compressed and peak-limited to the point of clipping, sounding like a dial tone backed up by a vacuum cleaner.

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38 minutes ago, esldude said:

 

This is a key point that some will overlook.  There is a level of moderate compression that will make most recordings sound more dynamic than one not compressed.  Our problem in the loudness wars is compression way beyond that making it all loud without any appreciable dynamic range. 

 

LP for many reasons must do a a little compressing to fit thru the envelope of the LP medium.   As George is saying, most people would not want and do not find a completely uncompressed recording to their liking.  A little bit of compression will make it seem more dynamic although it really has less dynamic range.  Digital allows someone to mess it all up all the way around in ways that LP can't allow to even happen.  

 

As stated elsewhere, the issue of dynamics isn't a problem with the digital format, it is a problem elsewhere in the production.  LP isn't superior by nature, it simply places a limit on how badly you can muck up the dynamics.  

 

I could not have said it better!  Make this a sticky!

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32 minutes ago, Rexp said:

That 1980's digital recordings didn't use brickwall limiting yet the CD versions still sound poor..

 

That might be due to a number of factors, such as recording technique with the digital recorders, and early ADCs(analog to digital converters).  I explained that in an earlier post.

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2 hours ago, semente said:

 

I only have the "The Very Best of Supertramp" on CD.

Here's the Leq plot for "Rudy" - impressive, even if this is not the widest-range mastering of the track:

 

1.thumb.png.1285148ec689943c2e500879c1e1c574.png

 

Has signature of a typical pop 'remaster' - although many a mastering engineer over on Head-Fi will tell you it's "better than the original relase on CD"  and "use your ears, ignore the brickwall limiting" shown in that DAW".

 

By the way, what tool are you showing that in?

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2 hours ago, Rexp said:

No, the recording is good as it sounds good on vinyl, there must be another reason.

 

What specific CD is it?  Catalog # on the case hinge, year of original release?  Let's look at the source first so we can rule that out.

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54 minutes ago, mordante said:

 

Since I don’t have Tidal, Spotify or a similar service it really does not matter if I buy a cd and rip it to my nas or buy a LP.

 

The only place where I buy digital downloads is bandcamp. Most other sites seem to focus on just jazz and blues.

 "nas"?? 

 

Help!  I don't get all these millenneeyool acronymz!  :D

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1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

Well they should, with only a bout 55 dB available for vinyl and a maximum of 96 dB available for CD, the latter had better show improved dynamic range over their vinyl counterparts!

 

Remember:  The format itself does not make something more dynamic.  The dynamics either exist in the content or they don't.

 

A dynamic source(analog or digital) that was compressed for vinyl could have a more dynamic(less compression used) remaster made for transfer to CD, but the CD itself does not add dynamics.  It simply has more headroom for dynamics than the aforementioned analog playback formats.

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2 hours ago, barrows said:

Yes, but the thread is not about how much compression might be applied to given format, it is about which format is better.  What some engineers (might) do to some releases, or not, is neither here nor there.

CD has more dynamic range capability than vinyl, period, and 24 bit hi res has even more than CD, this much is just a fact.

If one's argument in favor of vinyl is that some vinyl releases use less compression than some highly compressed CDs, that is off topic and not applicable.

Take a look at Channel Classics releases, no way is the range of these recordings going to survive on vinyl without significant compression.  Again, compare apples to apples here to have a relevant discussion.

 

But people on here are using what they hear to determine if vinyl or digital/CD is better.  Very often what they hear, the content itself, has been compromised on one format in a way that it sounds inferior to the way it sounds on the other.  This leads so many to make the false assumption that the format with the inferior sounding version(typically a brickwalled loudness war casualty on CD, or early CD release with ho-hum digital chain - suitcase converters, etc.) is automatically the inferior format.  It's a trap so easy to fall into.

 

You want apples to apples?  Take the exact same master, particularly the one destined for Vinyl LP, with just enough compression and bottom end roll off and all the other compromises, press it to both vinyl and to CD, with NO additional processing to the CD version(brickwall limit, etc). 

 

I challenge you to be able to hear a significant audible difference between the two during playback, aside from the inevitable surface rush of the stylus on vinyl, in such a comparison.

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7 hours ago, firedog said:

When I've heard such flat transfers to digital they don't sound good - lifeless, little bass or treble. 

 

Sighhh.. No sense in even TRYING to convince some folks(!)

 

Digital's frequency response is truly flat - analog, and human hearing for that matter, are anything but.

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