Lies about vinyl vs digital

[fas42]

29 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

What "digital noise" are you talking about?  NONE of my CDs exhibits "snap, crackle, or pop" except the one with 'RADIOACTIVE' by Imagine Dragons on it - but that's how ID wanted that track to sound, and they got it.

 

It's obviously not noise as in the vinyl sense - where it's clearly audible - but it's still noise ... it's that aspect of the sound which takes the sparkle out of a sharp transient - if you were to look at the waveform of the signal coming off the vinyl, you would see little sharp peaks everywhere - that's noise. If you look at the waveform of digital playback when it hits the speakers, the required peak has been neatly subtracted somewhat, by the 'noise' of the playback chain - the noise matches what the original signal  put out, but it's inverted; it cancels or nulls the recorded signal. This is why you get the digital "black hole", poor decay of notes, etc - the low level, and transient detail is being 'extinguished' by noise correlating with the signal - in the wrong direction.

[fas42]

21 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

"Get digital right"?

 

Easy.  Stay below true peak during Recording, Mixing, and Mastering.  

 

 

 

Older, 'straight' recordings suffer just as much as overly compressed stuff - pop recordings of the 70's and 80's are spectacularly good to listen to - but you wouldn't know this if you listen on a typical audiophile rig.

[fas42]

As they say, "You can't handle the truth!! ... "

[fas42]

1 hour ago, diecaster said:

 

What a load of dog doo!

 

Sorry, that's the way it is - walk into a room with digital playback, and it has that tired, dead, boring quality to it - whether you wish to call it distortion, noise, signal modulated noise, interference effects ... it's all about the circuitry not working correctly. Always fixable, but you may not wish to attempt to do so ... the industry largely refuses to accept that this behaviour occurs - but unless you resolve it by some method, digital replay will lack that 'magic' that vinyl does comparatively easily.

 

Most playback is not worth listening to, because it lacks that spark that live music making has - it's up the listener to decide if he wants to go to that level or not; by changing his approach.

[fas42]

Compression is overused, because it gives more 'body' on mediocre payback - Adele's 21 is a classic example,  sounding fine on an ordinary car radio; but then almost impossible on a typical audiophile rig; only the highest standard of playback allows this recording to "breathe" properly.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, diecaster said:

 

The B-pillar sticker has no idea what tires are on your car.

 

I developed an interest only just lately in getting tyre pressures "just right" - my days of being interested in how fast I can go round a corner are way behind me; now it's purely about  how comfortable I can make the ride - and there's an optimum: too soft, and the tyre doesn't handle sharp impact boundaries well - the shock is transmitted to one's backside, because the balance between the tyre wall and suspension is poor; too hard, you are aware of the road surface too much. Turns out there is a pretty precise number which gets the best of all worlds - an interesting exercise to do.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Now, I have a group of people speaking of 'air' -- a new term in the context (relatively so), but I do know -- similar to my hearing being able to roughly determine the waveshape of the gain control attack -- the term 'air' should be defined and/or refined to actually mean something concrete and coherent.  If you want more 'air',  then work with the REAL engineers who can actually give you 'air' (people like me ), rather than make me feel like my really hard/accurate thinking and language are both 'mumbo-jumbo'.

 

John

 

'Air ' in an recording is being able to hear the reaction of the environment in which the musician performed to the raw sounds that the instrument makes - the echos, for short. In recording mastering speak, dry and wet - a keyboard synthesizer produces the core, dry waveform, and then there is a feast of effects that can be applied, overlaid, to "wet" it as much as you like  - depending upon how many buttons you push - reverb was the original one.

 

Microphones pick up all the 'effects'  of the recording environment, no matter how much effort the producer goes to "dry" it - the better the playback chain, the easier it is to hear all of this going on - in a complex recording, one can have something like a dozen spaces all existing in front of one; the individual 'air' that each instrument was captured in. Some may consider that this is bad production methodology, but it doesn't disturb me - I find it fascinating to sense "how it was put together".

[fas42]

On 1/27/2019 at 9:13 AM, fas42 said:

 

I developed an interest only just lately in getting tyre pressures "just right" - my days of being interested in how fast I can go round a corner are way behind me; now it's purely about  how comfortable I can make the ride - and there's an optimum: too soft, and the tyre doesn't handle sharp impact boundaries well - the shock is transmitted to one's backside, because the balance between the tyre wall and suspension is poor; too hard, you are aware of the road surface too much. Turns out there is a pretty precise number which gets the best of all worlds - an interesting exercise to do.

 

Talk about timing ... we went for a drive yesterday in the other car - hadn't checked the pressures for a while - and wasn't happy with the behaviour of the suspension over the tiny potholes of the back country road we happened to go down - too much impact coming through. Up came a service station - yep, pressures were, evenly, well down. Stinking hot day, the tyres were roasting, even though the driving was very mild ... 38psi in front, 36 in back ... ahh, much better!!

[fas42]

5 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

So were the pressures initially too high or too low?

 

Too low ... the car is now only normally used for shopping runs, and this was the first decent country run for a long time - it was a last minute decision to use it. The pressures were spot on some time ago, but had slowly lost pressure in the interim.

[fas42]

19 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

What vehicle and what were recommended door sticker pressures?

 

Mitsubishi Magna; 30, 29. These are certainly too low for the construction of the tyres it's using - I settled on 35, 32; cold, when air temp is about 20C - some time ago; they had to have very high pressure when new, the compound is designed for comfort and tread life  ... I just checked, and the pressure is still a touch low, from the garage fill, needs another psi or so.

[fas42]

22 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Then I must be the only driver out there who likes the pressure at exactly the door sticker or even lower.  Not so much for comfort, but lends heft to the steering.  Everyone else like the cold pressures higher than sticker for daily(non race) driving, not me!  Turns most cars I've driven into twitchy over-steering nervous wrecks!

 

I'm also the only person in the US who doesn't like Daylight Saving - the time we're on from spring into summer. I hate waking up in darkness and going to bed when it's still light out!

 

I would say it depends on the vehicle, and tyres used. The Magna steering feel is very balanced, one of the reasons I tuned into it when I first drove it; and it doesn't change much with the tyre pressure - I always feel relaxed driving this vehicle.

[fas42]

22 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Frank

 What a Mitsubishi Magna benefits most from though, is the use of Nitrogen in the tyres which is at a higher pressure than with normal air.  The tyres run cooler, are an improved ride, and are safer in the wet too, with Nitrogen in them.

Nitrogen is readily available at all Bob Jane stores for a one off fee and you won't need to get down on your knees for " top ups" for typically 12 months.

" Top ups" are normally free from Bob Jane stores if you are a customer of theirs.

 

Alex

 

Been there, done that - from Bob Jane ! With a previous set of tyres ...

 

They didn't sell the brand I wanted next time, so ...

 

Yes, extremely stable pressure with N - the tyres wore out, without topping up, once!

[fas42]

Doing things with absolute assurance and refinement is the name of the game - the car equivalent of a capable audio rig is something like this ...

 

 

[fas42]

Just now, semente said:

 

 

Audio Note CD-4.1x, waveform of 1kHz sinewave at 0dBFS (1ms time window).
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-cd-41x-cd-player-measurements

 

I did - and the subjective impressions of the sound tick the boxes ... it isn't the fact that the player produces all sorts of terrible measurments that's the story; it's that key parts of the SQ are done right - the designer is just using another approach to avoid the digital processing originating anomalies that often disturb the pleasure when listening - I heard a CAL player 30 years that had a "nice" sound - its failures were of omission; half of the CD content was completely missing.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

If speed is what a sport car represent than no matter what you modify or “improve”, it is still cannot be the real thing. 

 

 

 

 

But raw speed is not the answer - the F1 would be a nightmare to try and use as an every day transport - a Porche can be used as a shopping basket; and, driven at 10/10ths of its capability with relative ease; it's the engineering that makes it compliant to the user.

 

BTW, have downloaded those MP3s you posted a day or so ago - but haven't been in the space to listen to them properly, yet .

[fas42]

54 minutes ago, STC said:

 

That's where the confusion lies.  That is, what are you after? Ultimate speed and control or little bit of everything?

 

 

A lot of everything ... to be able put on on any recording, and not have the music captured on it compromised by the capability of the playback rig. In the first instance that means that it become impossible to detect that it is in fact a playback system, irrespective of where you listen to it; next goal, to be able to go to any sane volume level - this corresponds to the pure speed of the F1, say; final dollop of cream, to extend the bass to the deepest reaches of the recording with complete integrity - this last one is the most expensive, and the least value for money exercise to pursue - just getting drivers that won't generate audible distortion at reasonable output levels is a major exercise; I'm not interested in false bass.

[fas42]

False levels of frequencies that were never in the recording space, Bob. The lower the bass note, the greater the harmonic distortion, is the rule - so it may often happen that the 2nd or 3rd harmonics of some subterranean note in the recording is what you really hear - it's audible bass that has been invented by the distortion factory of the bass driver.

[fas42]

48 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Now I'd like to have a real life example of what you mean. And not a theoretical one. A real example (album, track).

Curious ...

 

It's not the track that matters, it's the playback system. Find a track which has a synthesized very low note with no overtones - or better still, feed the system with a test track pure sine wave, at 20Hz say. Then monitor what the levels of 20, 40, 60Hz energy in the room are, at different volume levels. Finally, taking into account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves, what are the perceived levels of energy at the frequencies of interest?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

All these are relevant when someone argues that they are buying a Porsche to be used as a shopping basket too. 

 

But would you buy such a vehicle to only use as a shopping basket? If you're mad, perhaps so - but it's highly likely you would be pretty disappointed if in an emergency driving situation that it reacted only as well as a cheap, true shopping value only vehicle.

[fas42]

Some wood ...

[fas42]

Ummm, the purpose is to hear the recording, and only the recording. In my book anyway. Any "speed and control" are part of the recording, what was 'designed into' the music as a creative exercise. In the car world, the road serves the car, in the sense that you're talking about what's possible; in the audio world, the playback rig serves the recording - one can't do better than reveal totally what is on the recording - unless one wants to do one's own mastering of the sound; which is the general thrust of your efforts

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

So you can't. Plus you explicitly avoid the question. Mweh.

 

Peter, I think you're misunderstanding my original point - if you care to examine any testing of bass drivers, including the manufacturer's own graphs; they all "get worse" the lower the frequency - higher and higher levels of harmonic distortion, bound by the limits of the physical nature of their operation. Unless a user goes to a huge amount of, expensive, trouble to lessen the load on individual drivers then there is no real way of getting around this, as far as I know.

[fas42]

Just now, STC said:

 

Have you noticed that he managed to repeat the same stuff without a single picture of his system, the solder, sound, and almost nothing. Yet, he somehow always managed to get others attention. He doesn’t lose patience, always answers questions and skillfully avoids probing ones.  

 

A single picture of the sound??

[fas42]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

Yet again you avoided answering the point that not a single evidence of you tweaks provided so far. 

 

This is getting pretty silly now - you want evidence that I can solder two wires together, for example? As nearly everyone does, you are deliberately avoiding the key point in what I am always talking about - if one deliberately targets audible faults in the sound, determines causes for those faults, and resolves or bypasses the issues; then a very high standard of replay will automatically emerge ... a particular, individual tweak in itself is completely meaningless, as useful as proudly pointing to a bolt that you tightened up on a dodgy bridge.

 

The 'evidence' is whether the SQ delivers or not - which can't be done unless you're there in the flesh, listening to the gear. And I have had plenty of instances already where hard boiled audiophiles are miles from "getting it" - unless their favoured, 'audiophile' recording sounds exactly like they expect it to sound, only 'better' ... well, you haven't scored ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

Useless without example. Frank, maybe it is time that you stop your theoretical blah and get practical.

Example please.

 

No, we'll approach this a different way. Can you tell me what the level of the 2nd and 3rd harmonics of your speakers are, when driven by a 20Hz signal to various output levels? If not, why don't you think that's important?