Lies about vinyl vs digital

[The_K-Man]

9 minutes ago, hifitommy said:

it is amusing to me that the chorus here is all in lock step with the glorification of digits.  the gang is banded together to exclude any variation from the mantra.  regardless, analog sounds more natural than most digital .  

 

More natural than a low-bitrate mp3, for sure!  

 

But Red Book, and higher bit depth and sampling rates will kick analog's a$$.

[Nordkapp]

My 2 cents.......the days of analog rule are over. Finally.

[John Dyson]

18 minutes ago, hifitommy said:

it is amusing to me that the chorus here is all in lock step with the glorification of digits.  the gang is banded together to exclude any variation from the mantra.  regardless, analog sounds more natural than most digital .  

i have incredibly picky hears -- having to listen all of the time -- but one thing for sure, analog is everywhere.  If you are speaking of recorindgs -- most of your recent analog recordings are done digitally.

 

J

[semente]

19 minutes ago, hifitommy said:

regardless, analog sounds more natural than most digital . 

To you perhaps.

[John Dyson]

8 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

More natural than a low-bitrate mp3, for sure!  

 

But Red Book, and higher bit depth and sampling rates will kick analog's a$$.

I cannot even consider using mp3 in my work.  There is a severe severe quantifiable problem with it -- when you have things like quickly repeated vocals, then mp3 can totally miss them.  The loss of detail is astounding -- even at 320k full out.  Opus is a little better - but detail  still a little bit fading in and out.  Since I am working on recording studio software, I have to catch/perceive every little detail.  However, since I have no hearing about 14k, I have been fooled from time to time.

[John Dyson]

31 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

By "least mastering" I meant least abusive mastering - as represented by the example in my avatar.  If that means mastering as we knew it before the mid-'90s, then I concur.

 

As far as 'flat transfers' are concerned, I prefer those in a reissue context.  I'm generally not a fan of remastering, considering the evident abuse that were sold to the public as 'remastered'.

I often use ABBA for my test material, because the recordings are so very difficult for gain devices to process without splatting IMD all over the place.  That said,  the original ABBA recordings  on DolbyA masters have  a crest factor of between 7 and 13, and a peak to RMS ratio of approx 16-22dB.  This 'complete studio recordings'  nonsense or somesuch result in a crest factor of between 4.5 and 5.5 anda a peak to RMS of approx 13.5 to 14.5dB.  THAT is an example of abuse, only enabled with broadcasting type audio processors.  Superficially the processed audio sounds 'okay', but then when I turn my 'analysis hearing' on -- the distortion is horrendous.  Doing that much processing cannot happen without significant distortion.

Point being -- a lot of recent material is heinously processed, but such evil isn' t just recent -- because even back sometimes when Karen Carpenter was being recorded, they actually purposefully used a DolbyA to enhance her voice.  That is so very sad, and I hear the effects on my DolbyA copies of her music ALL OF THE TIME for my testing.  I have (DolbyA digital) copies of every one of their albums betwen 1969 and 1981, and only the 1970/1971 wasn't severely over enhanced.  The 1977/1981 albums were pretty severe, with 1981 being the worst. (didnt mention 1969, because it was very amateurish.)

Of course, the ABBA wall of sound is another story...

 

John

[marce]

45 minutes ago, hifitommy said:

it is amusing to me that the chorus here is all in lock step with the glorification of digits.  the gang is banded together to exclude any variation from the mantra.  regardless, analog sounds more natural than most digital .  

Of course when the wave is reconstituted it is an analogue waveform, the same as the waveform that was initially picked up by transducers... with a bit of mastering of course. So the argument is a bit moot...

In the same tone do you watch a CRT based TV from videos or even analogue channels, if you can find them.

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Point being -- a lot of recent material is heinously processed, but such evil isn' t just recent -- because

 

Hey John, I have been reading your posts with interest but actually can't place much of what you are saying, except that nothing in me tells me that you're making up any of it. But small problem: maybe I was that guy who is able to squeeze so much out of any 16/44.1 that it is very hard for me to imagine what could actually be so destructive that it would be close to hell itself. Understand ?

 

In-other-words ...

 

By now I am super eager to experience what you mean. Also, you talk about Dolby as the worst of all evils while you yourself have (made ??) the best of all best, and ...

what would I myself possess of that ? I select on "non-masters" and generally the highest DR -  maybe that is not the way to go. But then I never ever heard of "Dolby" in the realm you talk about it ever (of course I am blind and thick and such in your eyes, but I am serious anyway).

Many albums I have in several versions (54K or so in total), so what can I do to perceive what you are talking about ? or ... can I obtain a few examples from you ?

 

Really, day in day out I am improving on Redbook. This now seems a whole new opportunity ...

 

Thank you, John,

Peter

[PeterSt]

53 minutes ago, hifitommy said:

regardless, analog sounds more natural than most digital .

 

Over here, ALL analogue sounds infinitely under par to digital. We can't blame the masters because I just don't possess any analogue which sounds better than the digital version (but 100% always skip the remasters).

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, marce said:

Of course when the wave is reconstituted it is an analogue waveform, the same as the waveform that was initially picked up by transducers... with a bit of mastering of course.

 

That is totally beyond me. Unless of course you claim that all digital sounds the same (which you do, inherently and implicitly). IOW, if it only were that simple.

[The_K-Man]

6 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Over here, ALL analogue sounds infinitely under par to digital. We can't blame the masters because I just don't possess any analogue which sounds better than the digital version (but 100% always skip the remasters).

 

But you have to agree that mastering does make the *biggest* difference between one issue of an album and another reissue.

[marce]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

That is totally beyond me. Unless of course you claim that all digital sounds the same (which you do, inherently and implicitly). IOW, if it only were that simple.

This is totally beyond me. Unless you have totally missed the change from analogue signal transmission to digital signal signal transmission and here I do not just mean Ethernet, USB, etc. but the fact that analogue signals are digitised as soon as possible these days and the information transmitted as digital... Things like CERN and LIGO are examples of the accuracy analogue/digital can achieve.

[John Dyson]

14 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Hey John, I have been reading your posts with interest but actually can't place much of what you are saying, except that nothing in me tells me that you're making up any of it. But small problem: maybe I was that guy who is able to squeeze so much out of any 16/44.1 that it is very hard for me to imagine what could actually be so destructive that it would be close to hell itself. Understand ?

 

In-other-words ...

 

By now I am super eager to experience what you mean. Also, you talk about Dolby as the worst of all evils while you yourself have (made ??) the best of all best, and ...

what would I myself possess of that ? I select on "non-masters" and generally the highest DR -  maybe that is not the way to go. But then I never ever heard of "Dolby" in the realm you talk about it ever (of course I am blind and thick and such in your eyes, but I am serious anyway).

Many albums I have in several versions (54K or so in total), so what can I do to perceive what you are talking about ? or ... can I obtain a few examples from you ?

 

Really, day in day out I am improving on Redbook. This now seems a whole new opportunity ...

 

Thank you, John,

Peter

I am posting a quick response here right now. After I produce some examples from the most recent DolbyA compatible decoder, I'll post an URL with some undecoded and decoded examples.  They will likely be an original Carpenters snippet, ABBA snippet and a Louis Armstrong or maybe Simon & Garfunkel (not sure exactly yet.)

 

The reason for multiple examples is the style  (technical attributes and genre.

 

The slower response will be in about 1-2Hrs while I set it up (it isn't that much work, but just a matter of pulling it together.  The computer does all of the work.)

 

I am currently restricted from distributing a demo release of the decoder without permission from my team partner (he is the marketing/sales/recording expert, I am the software nerd and audio processing person.)  I do own the software, but must keep the project coherent because of the interface with the recording industry.  (I have been considering a limited release, but need to discuss with my partner.)

 

Expect a response again soon (very few hours, not days and certainly not minutes :-)).

 

John

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

But you have to agree that mastering does make the *biggest* difference between one issue of an album and another reissue.

 

Sort of. But there will be no LP to be found which sounds better because of the mastering. But please, leave out Remasters with which I refer to completely overblown "masters" by means of compression. Btw, this can happen on LP just the same - not sure whether there was dealt with in this thread; this works out a little differently, like squeezing 25 minutes on one LP side. Thus just will crush everything and would also be a "wrong master". But I don't really see that happen regularly. Squashed digital, yes.

 

LP's by now sound so flat (relative to digital) that they will lose always because of that alone. Unless channel separation is judged. Then that comes first. It is just killing (depending on what you are used to of course).

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Expect a response again soon (very few hours, not days and certainly not minutes :-)).

 

John, take your time.

 

Can I take this as the lead in to a commercial product ? that's how it comes across a little.

BUT

Count me in (for my playback software).

 

Sending something to 

sales

phasure

com

is also fine, if that is more "free" for you. But inform your Team Partner.

 

PS: It would also be interesting to know how you got hold of that commercial pop music, which *is* from my times, but with literally zero track time.  Is it related to Dolby somehow ? (I have in mind you already talked about this - no rush to answer anyway).

[PeterSt]

21 minutes ago, marce said:

This is totally beyond me. Unless you have totally missed the change from analogue signal transmission to digital signal signal transmission and here I do not just mean Ethernet, USB, etc. but the fact that analogue signals are digitised as soon as possible these days and the information transmitted as digital

 

Now I don't have a clue what you are talking about. And no, I don't listen to any form of radio any more. Completely unlistenable because of your "hobby horse" (?).

marce, this is not your work. This is au-di-o.

 

For the 100th time (to you): so nothing makes a difference, right ?

(it would be the first time that you are going to respond to this, so keep that up)

[The_K-Man]

32 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

But there will be no LP to be found which sounds better because of the mastering

 

I don't want to use the word 'delusional' to describe this statement, but at this point I know of no alternative.

 

I could think of, and probably own, at least a dozen pop albums from the '70s or '80s on vinyl that are downright pleasant to listen to, compared to pop releases on CD from the late-'90s or later, because of loudness war era mixing and mastering processes executed during production of the latter releases.  Not to mention more enjoyabale to engage with, not just listen to, than so-called remasters, on CD, of those '70s pop albums.

 

Peter: Do some reaearch on how a song or album is made, from concept to writing to performing to recording, mixing, and mastering, etc.  An artist or band doesn't just go into a booth or room on the beach boardwalk, drop some coins into a slot, and perform their song and have it cut directly to a record or CD and release it in stores.

 

Seriously.

[PeterSt]

19 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

I don't want to use the word 'delusional' to describe this statement

 

Delusional ? I wouldn't know why. But maybe read better what I said ?

This implies that what's produced today is completely unlistenable. Well, for the "pop" genre that is, Mr Bleeper ahead.

 

I am not delusional for any reason. I just listen. But I also listen to a system which was developed (for you btw) explicitly for Redbook. You apparently have no idea, which is fine. But calling me delusional ... now THAT is delusional. Funny eh ? Anyway I take no issue with that, it is just funny to notice, particularly from you (I value your stances).

 

Where we may talk passed each other is how I will just never play any failed CD for more than 10 seconds. That doesn't prevent playing an LP from playing more than 3 seconds (to exaggerate "somewhat"). This was all dealt with in this thread (by me).

In other words: all CD's (or digital downloads) can be tried because they have a chance. No LP can be tried because they have no chance at all for various and numerous reasons, and this gets worse weekly.

Also seriously.

 

Of course recording and mastering matters (hugely). But of the medium is flawed nothing works. Listen to John and his MP3 little story (not that I am judging that) - it tells exactly what I am talking about. For the reasons which are inherent, it just can't make it, regardless the recording and effort.

 

Right now I am listening to War which is before our times (almost undoubtedly). Not that you could recognize it is so old. But have the LP version and you're gone. Flat, mono, no dynamics, all sounding the same which is killing. So yes, The World is a Ghetto. 

[The_K-Man]

20 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Delusional ? I wouldn't know why. But maybe read better what I said ?

This implies that what's produced today is completely unlistenable. Well, for the "pop" genre that is, Mr Bleeper ahead.

 

I am not delusional for any reason. I just listen. But I also listen to a system which was developed (for you btw) explicitly for Redbook. You apparently have no idea, which is fine. But calling me delusional ... now THAT is delusional. Funny eh ? Anyway I take no issue with that, it is just funny to notice, particularly from you (I value your stances).

 

Where we may talk passed each other is how I will just never play any failed CD for more than 10 seconds. That doesn't prevent playing an LP from playing more than 3 seconds (to exaggerate "somewhat"). This was all dealt with in this thread (by me).

In other words: all CD's (or digital downloads) can be tried because they have a chance. No LP can be tried because they have no chance at all for various and numerous reasons, and this gets worse weekly.

Also seriously.

 

Of course recording and mastering matters (hugely). But of the medium is flawed nothing works. Listen to John and his MP3 little story (not that I am judging that) - it tells exactly what I am talking about. For the reasons which are inherent, it just can't make it, regardless the recording and effort.

 

Right now I am listening to War which is before our times (almost undoubtedly). Not that you could recognize it is so old. But have the LP version and you're gone. Flat, mono, no dynamics, all sounding the same which is killing. So yes, The World is a Ghetto. 

 

I'm not misreading you at all.  But you seem to insist a well - or even adequately - mastered vinyl record has no chance of sounding better than a loudness war or otherwise compromised master on CD. "No LP can be tried because they have no chance at all..."    Your exact words!

 

"War" - 'Low Rider' War?  'Why Can't We Be Friends' War?   I'm quite familiar with them.  I was young, but definitely around when War was in the charts.

 

 

[The_K-Man]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

. But I also listen to a system which was developed (for you btw) explicitly for Redbook.

 

You're not the first individual on here to mention such a system.  Can you describe this system "developed explicitly for Redbook"?

 

I'll describe mine:  A Sony 2001 model year CD carousel, and a JVC model year 1995 80W/Ch receiver.  Sounds pretty adequate for Redbook to me!

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, The_K-Man said:

I'm not misreading you at all.

 

Then maybe read differently. By now I fail to understand what you are talking about.

 

38 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

I'll describe mine:  A Sony 2001 model year CD carousel, and a JVC model year 1995 80W/Ch receiver.  Sounds pretty adequate for Redbook to me!

 

[John Dyson]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

By now I am super eager to experience what you mean. Also, you talk about Dolby as the worst of all evils while you yourself have (made ??) the best of all best, and ...

what would I myself possess of that ? I select on "non-masters" and generally the highest DR -  maybe that is not the way to go. But then I never ever heard of "Dolby" in the realm you talk about it ever (of course I am blind and thick and such in your eyes, but I am serious anyway).

Many albums I have in several versions (54K or so in total), so what can I do to perceive what you are talking about ? or ... can I obtain a few examples from you ?

 

 

Right now, I am doing my best!!!  (There is info about the DEMO pieces below -- PLEASE read the section about what to expect)

 

The DHNRDS decoder (there is a www site by the same name, but everything is super preliminary) is still being fine tuned, but the vast majority of the development is complete.  Sometimes there are bugs, and sometimes we run into material that causes the decoder to do the wrong thing.  Most of the recent problems are associated with the filtering and attack/decay shaping (it is complex -- requiring an emulation of a rather tricky diode network -- not just a detector or something simple), but I just knocked off a few more bugs.  I'd suspect that the version that I have just finished & just used to do the example decodes will be going out as demo versions (1 month timeout) in a few days.  if you are REALLY interested, get in touch with the www site 'www.DHNRDS.com', and/or I'll see if I can strategically be allowed to distribute time-out versions of the decoder.  (I am the owner of the software, but not sole owner of the project, and the project&contributors are necessary for the success of the project.)  We don't expect to make lots of money on the decoder, but a real version will cost a little bit of money (IMO, CHEAP considering the complexity and unique technology.)  Please don't think that we are wanting to 'jab' anyone for money -- I have spent approx $200k/$300k of billable time on the project, of course not doing it for money, but for the TRUE interest in being able to help optimally recover a lot of old recordings.  BTW -- I don't mention the name of my project partner out of respect for him -- I tend to be a loose canon, and don't want to negatively affect his reputation -- however, I am REALLY trying to be a 'good boy.' :-). (AFAIR -- and my memory sucks -- the planned price is in the $350-$500 range more or less, but I am not a sales or marketing person, so I have no authority on the subject of price.)

 

The DEMO web site is different from the project web site.  You are allowed to download or listen to anything on the repository (including the nice, 3band RMS compressor software with source code.)  This repository is solely controlled by me, so I can upload demos or whatever.  (There might be a potential project of changing the compressor program into a plugin -- truly it is likely one of the better SIMPLE compressors available.  It is not a MAXIMIZER, and only meant to tighten up recordings a little bit -- it will self-limit on damage, so it is hard to make it totally destroy material.)

 

I did provide some  demos for decoding DolbyA material on the DEMO site, and LET ME EXPLAIN WHAT TO EXPECT -- or maybe your expectations JUST MIGHT NOT be met.

 

DolbyA encoded material is weird.  It can sometimes have harsh HF, it can sometimes be hissy, it can sometimes have very apparent HF compression, but almost always -- encoded material has a very, very thin perceptive spatial depth.  DolbyA compression is not like a normal compressor as the compression curve is mostly active below -20dB and squeezes the music in the range of approx -20 to -42dB, and changes that range into approx 10dB range (10dB compression for 0-74, 74-3k, 3k-9kHz, and 15dB for 9k-20+kHz.)  DolbyA encoded material that is already compressed by the studio REALLY doesn't appear to have a horribly large HF emphasis, but uncompressed material tends to manifest the entire 10-15dB of gain-up (esp at high frequencies.)  There IS LF distortion in non-decoded material because of the approx 60-180msec decay time constant for LF/MF.  DolbyA is weird also in that it doesn't really have a fixed attack/decay time -- which makes it *interesting* to emulate!!!

 

Bottom line DO NOT EXPECT THE DOLBYA ENCODED (nondecode) MATERIAL TO BE UNLISTENABLE, but like I wrote above, it tends to be very 'thin' sounding.  The encoded/decoded state is obvious in the filenames, and I did have to limit the examples to reasonable  length (I might have made them a bit longer than they should be, but they are certainly not complete recordings.)

 

One more thing -- the recordings are imperfect, and many (not all) of the imperfections come from the source.  Also one of the Carpenter's examples comes from a Carpenters album from HDTRACKS.  So, DolbyA encoded material is somewhat common, it is just that one needs to know how to recognize it. (Please dont' hurt my feelings if you don't like something, but CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is super welcome!!!)

 

Repo: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/yDG3L339Rn

 

[One and a half]

I had this topic on ignore as the quarrels started to mount, but reviewed and found @John Dyson‘s posts very commendable and even better has a solution. 

 

Right, for ABBA, and quite a few CDs from that era, the bass was wrong, does it exist? There’s the debate on phase polarity being wrong, wrong RIAA curve applied. Now this  kind of audio engineering accounting driven mediocrity makes a lot of sense.

 

Very keen to listen to the samples with the Dolby A decoding at the end of this flight. Even the consumer Dolby C was too bright to listen to without flicking the switch on cassettes, Dolby A decoding should bring this back and jerk the accountants. 

 

Im also very keen how @John Dyson software can be integrated into existing players such as Roon. Perhaps a meta data switch from the file to trigger a plugin , probably early days yet. There are hundreds, thousands of titles that the lack of decoding applies to, but the loudness wars titles would have to be clawed back to the beginning.

 

Would SACD releases have the same problem? My purchases for SACD are sourced from Japan, and did find the Carpenters compilation album a little on the thin side, but Karen’s voice still sends the chills down the spine.

 

Please keep the dialog going, fascinating concept.

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

I

 

Right, for ABBA, and quite a few CDs from that era, the bass was wrong, does it exist? There’s the debate on phase polarity being wrong, wrong RIAA curve applied. Now this  kind of audio engineering accounting driven mediocrity makes a lot of sense.

 

Very keen to listen to the samples with the Dolby A decoding at the end of this flight. Even the consumer Dolby C was too bright to listen to without flicking the switch on cassettes, Dolby A decoding should bring this back and jerk the accountants. 

 

 

 

Right now, I am decoding ALL of ABBA's mainstream albums, but only uploaded one song (which wasn't really an extreme example.).  In  a short while, I'll upload a few 'just decoded' examples, and maybe one or two more undecoded examples.

One really frustrating issue with ABBA is that I do have the DolbyAs, but the decode results down't always sound like the digital albums (and a few songs don't sound like even the vinyl, even though most of the time they do.)  SOMETIMES, the ABBA stuff seems to be sweetened -- even like the better stuff from Polar.

On the other hand, the personally decoded versions REALLY sound good, and are often very, very close to the original vinyl (but cleaner.)

It is 21:59EST/USA time, 20Jan, and it will probably take me about 1-2Hrs to uploade more than just 'Bobbys Brother.'  The "Brother' example DolbyA doesn't really sound bad, but I kind of like the song (and it iisn't so common.)

I'll upload 45-60 seconds of a few more very soon.  If someone proves to me that they have original copies, I might (if desired) decode a few songs completely and return them to them.  (The copyright rules are frustrating, and don't even know if that is legal.)

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

If someone proves to me that they have original copies, I might (if desired) decode a few songs completely and return them to them.

 

Hi John,

 

At this moment it is unclear to me what it takes to provide this proof. Also, a layman regarding this like me, wouldn't even know what to look for regarding Dolby(A). Would it "definitely" be printed on the back cover somewhere, for example ? Would, for example, a remaster never comprise of Dolby compression ? (but it wouldn't be regarded an original to begin with)

 

I must learn a few things ...  (I guess I am not the only one)

 

Would there be a way of you referring to a concrete example (artist doesn't matter) of two production versions, one properly encoded, the other not at all or badly or whatever it takes to audibly LEARN what this is all about ?

 

And now I am even browsing through an AES paper. You guys are serious ...

Peter