Lies about vinyl vs digital

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1 hour ago, MetalNuts said:

Back in the 80's, my vinyl system was so sucked and with the debut of CDs and CDP,  with the same price, I had a better SQ.  Since then, I never looked back at the LP expecting it to improve whereas the digital gears and music are improving day by day. 

If your vinyl rig was worse than digital in the 80s, it must have been pretty bad.

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8 minutes ago, firedog said:

In the early 80's, if you had a typical entry level vinyl rig for people who cared about audio (say Shure or Ortofon cartridge and Dual Turntable), you may have been very favorably impressed by the sound of CD: no surface noise, lots of dynamics (louder than vinyl!), no clicks and pops.

 

But Vinyl actually has gotten better. Now that it is more of a specialty item and  considered expensive, the average  new disc is much better made and uses better raw material than back in the 70's and 80's. Cutting, mastering, etc are all more precise. 

Cartridges, turntables, and phono pre's have also improved (yes, I am talking in generalities and am not including "junk" equipment in my assessments, but stuff that is supposed to be good sounding). 

 

But, don't get me wrong. I have a turntable I never use and I prefer good digital to analog. It is orders of magnitude better than it once was, even compared to the beginning of this century. 

And the entry level CD players that I checked out sounded worse still IMO. To this day, I will often take a mediocre vinyl rig over a mediocre CD player. The caveat is that that vinyl rig would be typically a lot more expensive than it's digital counter part.

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20 minutes ago, firedog said:

I'm not arguing with what you hear(d). I'm just saying that for a lot of people, CD was an upgrade in SQ from vinyl. It's very fashionable these days to say "I never thought CD sounded good". Well, some of the people who say that are full of it. They liked the sound and started buying CDs instead of vinyl. Some of them over time started to change their idea of what sounded better, yes.  Others didn't. 

Thank you for the vote of confidence... I am not looking to get into it with you about this. It is obvious from your posts over the year(s) that you greatly prefer digital. So be it and who am I to argue. That entry level turntable you describe was one such as found in any home. Typically they were set up poorly and in awful circumstances.. Shoot, I've even seen a turntable on top of a speaker. My simple point was that the first affordable digital players I heard sounded like shit. I was into audio back then, and had friends who worked in the business. I also spent a lot of time building and listening to other systems, especially those of two close friends. It was an interesting learning experience to share systems and insights back when I had the time to really chase audio.

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31 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

I recently was very dissatisfied with a SACD in comparison to the original vinyl. Turned out the SACD was made from dubious source, the original tapes being lost : and that bothered me tremendously, far more than the advantage digital has in my system thanks to eQ etc. As much as I take the vinyl revival as marketing BS, I'll stick to and keep most of my vinyl collection for, right or wrong, they bear the original sound. Take Soultrane, I regret selling my LP ; maybe (obviously) the various audiophile editions are closer to the actual performance but they miss the tubey mastering ; not to mention the sped up side 1 of Kind of Blue... Though twisted, the sound that made history is in the grooves

I feel this approach is completely spot on. It's based on subjectivity over technical merit of course, but pleasure is subjective in the end. I retain my interest in vinyl for just such reasons. I have little interest in modern vinyl unless it is a purely analog venture. That's despite the possibility that some digitally recorded vinyl is very good. I want to maintain the vinyl experience as I pursue newer music on digital. I wouldn't start into vinyl these days unless I simply had play money to add to my fun. Vinyl is more difficult and expensive than digital. I also find it entirely more rewarding at times. I suppose I play around making DACs and such as it is akin to tweaking a turntable...

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20 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

With modern DSP, I can get those same vinyl effects in digital if I feel like listening that way. Or I can just run everything through some tube equipment and it has much the same result.  I sometimes do it with analog era recordings (even digital versions) as that sometimes sounds "authentic" to me -not better, just more like what I think the recordings "should" sound like. 

Seriously? This would have to be one of the more outlandish things you have said IMO then. I prefer to listen to analog recorded and mastered for analog and digital recorded and mastered for digital. If I get you, you are suggesting that your DSP can not only make up for the A>D conversion(which typically includes a remastering process of sorts as I understand it), but replicate specific tube gear AND do room correction.

 

Gosh, forgive me, but I call bullshit on that one. Even if the hardware could somehow do this, you are suggesting that there is some sort of universal EQ that you could apply or that you have the time and talent to reverse engineer the works of people such as Barry D who have made the CDs from the tapes.

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22 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

That..... blabla.

Starting from rips, this seems more plausible than what firedog suggests, but has its own issues as you suggest. I haven't put the effort into ripping what I have or pursuing other's rips.

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1 minute ago, semente said:

 

You may find these two videos interesting:

 

 

 

 

Please, you are suggesting that I am saying something I am not. I am not saying that analog or digital recording OR playback is better. I am saying that I try to pursue how/what the original was initially recorded and mastered for. I am pretty agnostic on analog vs digital, PCM vs DSD, tube transistor, speaker vs HP et all. I put effort into and use all of them.

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14 minutes ago, firedog said:

No, wasn’t saying that. Why such an extreme interpretation? Was simply saying with DSP you can add analog or vinyl type effects to digital playback that makes digital sound more analog like to most people. Just adding a little upper bass or midrange boost or rolloff of the high end is very appealing to many listeners and mimics what some people like about analog. 

 

And yes, there are plugins designed to mimic specific tubes or specific analog devices. Do they sound just like the real thing? Of course not. But they do sound similar. 

I do not think my interpretation is extreme at all. I agreed with about listening to how the recording was originally recorded and not a conversion. You stated that you could have all of that with some DSP. There can be and are some big differences in the different analog and digital recordings of the same album.

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3 minutes ago, firedog said:

No, you just understood something I didn’t say. People like certain aspects of analog playback. You can mimic many of those characteristics in digital, so that for many people the digital then sounds the way they like things to sound, and that they assume they need vinyl for. I do it often for digital playback with specific recordings that I think need it (usually 80’s digital).

In some cases it only takes a little boost here or reduction there to add  the “warmth” and reduce “harshness” to make digital sound analog like for them. In other cases, you can run digital playback through a tube component and it will make them happy. Or you can do other types of digital manipulations that will please them. I didn’t say the end result would sound exactly like some great analog system. I was trying to say you can get what for many people is what they think they prefer about the sound of vinyl - without the vinyl. 

You apparently have never done it, but are willing to tell me how outlandish my suggestion is anyway. 

I never said you couldn't add tube warmth or EQ and make is seem like something. I said you couldn't make it sound like something specific. I am no stranger to DSP, but have never heard your Kiis and cannot comment on them. What I do believe to be true is that your DSP is not transparent enough to make up for all of those conversions and approximations. I felt it is outlandish to suggest that the only difference between analog and digital of the same recording was a little EQ and tube mimicry.

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6 minutes ago, firedog said:

I never suggested that, It’s an understanding of what I wrote that exists only in your mind. Please show me where I wrote that “the only differece..”. In fact I never wrote anything here where I was talking about comparing the analog and digital versions of the same recording. You simply projected some concepts of yours onto something i wrote that was entirely different. 

I am sorry if I misunderstood you, but I felt that was an implied assumption from your quotation of me when I stating I wanted availability to the original format.

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2 hours ago, semente said:

 

Let's stick to shopping shall we; there are people using cars and motorbykes and boats and planes and helis for recreation too. A long hall trip for a single passenger can waste as much fuel a that same person's whole year of driving.

Goods travelling across the planet by boat, plane or lorry, and local deliveries use a lot of fuel. In many civilized countries electricity is produced by clean sources like sun, wind or water.

Then let's stick to the the truth, unless there is hard evidence that vinyl is any better or worse on the environment than digital.

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14 minutes ago, mansr said:

Vinyl contains toxic chlorine. Digital doesn't.

That is a very shallow view considering all of the toxic stuff involved with making computers. All I am suggesting is that unless there is some verification one way or another, we leave it be. Do you have any ACTUAL studies on the veracity of the claim that vinyl is worse on the environment than digital? I am just trying to keep on topic.

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4 minutes ago, mansr said:

Computers are used in vinyl production too.

Whatever. Go ahead and be petulant, but you are too smart to play dumb... Objective data then, or let's please move on. Besides, I cannot recall vinyl being pushed as specifically greener than digital.

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15 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

Not quite. Many like the large artwork of a cover that size.

Or as Shelby Lynne put it:"You can't roll a joint on an iPod.". ?

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On 5/17/2019 at 9:12 PM, lucretius said:

 

That's makes sense, since Alex is Barry's number 1 fan.

Barry deserves a bit more respect than this...