Lies about vinyl vs digital

[The_K-Man]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Please stop polluting this thread with insulting comments .

 

 

Sometimes the truth can sound insulting.

[fas42]

12 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

^^Spoken like a true audiophile^^

 

Totally ignoring the source itself:  The recording, mixing, mastering, the final product as released.

 

Take the most expensive audio playback components, converters, speakers, interconnects worth tens of $thousands, a professionally treated listening room, run an over-dynamically compressed, limited, and otherwise overprocessed piece of crap recording through it, and guess what you'll hear at the other end: An OVER-DYNAMICALLY COMPRESSED, LIMITED, AND OTHERWISE OVERPROCESSED PIECE OF CRAP.

 

Like Stephen King's character Darnell said in 'Christine'..

 

"Ya can't polish a TURD."

 

I've already stated that I have very little interest in recordings from the last couple of decades - if the artists and producers go to great effort to 'damage' what they've put down, then I am far less motivated to 'fix' what they've done.

 

However - this may be a surprise to you - quite a few recordings were made in the decades earlier than this, and some of what was put down isn't half bad ... I compromise by only listening to this output, .

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

Alex, my reputation doesn't depend on agreeing with other audiophiles about what "good mastering" is - the least interesting albums I have on my shelves are ones specially made for audiophiles; and hence extremely rarely played.

 

What counts for me is getting the most out of whatever music I happen to access, come across - that's a pleasure that never has a down side, and makes what I'm interested in worth while.

Frank

 Your POV has already been stated numerous times in various other threads., This thread isn't the place to reiterate them.

 Please ignore the insulting posts aimed at you (and others) by the TROLL , so that this thread can remain constructive and informative to the many members who find John Dyson's research and results of great interest..

 

 I feel sure that if John had the time, he would have started his own thread on the subject and been able to remove off topic and non helpful replies.

 

Alex 

[fas42]

As you say, Alex, John's work deserves its own thread - this one, should be about,

 

Quote

 

Lie: vinyl suffers from heavy dynamic compression — so why do my LPs display vastly better dynamic power/force?

Lie: vinyl has less resolution — macro resolution is greater in my digital that’s true, but why is inner detail and tonal color so much better on vinyl?

Lie: vinyl suffers from a lot of distortion — perhaps, but why do my LPs sound more live and lifelike than my digital?

 

 

and that's exactly what I concern myself with ...

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Sometimes the truth can sound insulting.

 Please stop trying to destroy what many members feel is an informative thread, albeit now "off topic."

 Do we need to ask Chris to have your non helpful posts removed ?

[The_K-Man]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I've already stated that I have very little interest in recordings from the last couple of decades - if the artists and producers go to great effort to 'damage' what they've put down, then I am far less motivated to 'fix' what they've done.

 

However - this may be a surprise to you - quite a few recordings were made in the decades earlier than this, and some of what was put down isn't half bad ... I compromise by only listening to this output, .

 

You just contradicted what you yourself said in #1039.  

 

Make up your mind.

[kumakuma]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Please stop polluting this thread with insulting comments .

 

 

Alex, are you claiming salvage rights on this thread?

 

You should have a good claim as the OP appears to be abandoned it... and this forum with his last visit on Christmas of last year. 

 

👺

[sandyk]

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

Alex, are you claiming salvage rights on this thread?

 

You should have a good claim as the OP appears to be abandoned it... and this forum. 

 

👺

Tom

 No.

 Although this thread is now way off topic, I know that John Dyson simply does not have the time available to him to start a new thread of his own.

It would appear that quite a few members are finding John's research in this area of great interest.

 Have you listened to the snippets that John  recently provided , or a complete corrected track?

Alex

[The_K-Man]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

As you say, Alex, John's work deserves its own thread - this one, should be about,

 

Lie: vinyl suffers from heavy dynamic compression — so why do my LPs display vastly better dynamic power/force?

Because the version on CD was subject to more DRC than what was pressed to the LP!

 

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Lie: vinyl has less resolution — macro resolution is greater in my digital that’s true, but why is inner detail and tonal color so much better on vinyl?"

 

and that's exactly what I concern myself with ...

That depends on what decade the CD/digital version was released.  Early generations of ADCs were not quite up to the caliber of converters from the late '90s to present.

[fas42]

23 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

You just contradicted what you yourself said in #1039.  

 

Make up your mind.

 

Okay, we'll go through it ,

 

Quote

Mastering doesn't matter, formats don't matter - but the integrity of the playback rig does. If you have a car with lousy shock absorbers, you want someone to go on ahead and fill in all the bumps on the road, to compensate for your bad suspension - but, a well engineered mechanism can handle anything thrown at it, and you always enjoy the ride, .

 

Using the car analogy, we have a road, with modern mastering, having continuous, extremely abrupt bumps - only the highest quality suspension will be able to deal with that, and the sheer onslaught of the sense of vibration constantly happening will be tiring, if not in the right mood ... the music has been engineered to constantly demand your attention, and if this is not what you're after, then it's fair dealing to adjust how that source material is structured.

 

[fas42]

38 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

Because the version on CD was subject to more DRC than what was pressed to the LP!

 

LP has bigger issues with physical limitations than CD, of course - like a young kid, they found they could do crazy things with digital - and therefore, do it!

 

Quote

 

That depends on what decade the CD/digital version was released.  Early generations of ADCs were not quite up to the caliber of converters from the late '90s to present.

 

Hmmm, the earliest release of anything I find to be the best, normally - I grab every 80's version of albums; before they were given the 'sanitizing makeover' of later ones.

[sandyk]

Frank

 While acknowledging that you aren't off topic, could you please take your private battle with KMan to a new thread instead of disrupting one of the few threads in the forum that is presently discussing new and innovative ways to further improve the Classic music albums that many already have in their possession.

 

I feel sure that GUTB will not complain about the new direction of his thread either .

 

Alex

[KingRex]

Frank may have some sort of something behind what he says.  Technically, maybe John can answer if he is lopping off dynamic intensity in the higher frequency.  There are 40+pages here.  I bet he addressed the topic.

 

I'm playing a moderately high end system worth about $40K.  I have not specifically listened for high frequency attenuation.   I was very quickly enraptured with a more open, expressive, natural sound.  I will take a more critical listen tomorrow and see if I hear a loss of high end detail.

 

Initially I was struck with how much more pleasant songs were.  More real. More natural.   I like what I hear much more than the original.        

 

 

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, KingRex said:

I was very quickly enraptured with a more open, expressive, natural sound.  I will take a more critical listen tomorrow and see if I hear a loss of high end detail.

 

Initially I was struck with how much more pleasant songs were.  More real. More natural.   I like what I hear much more than the original.        

 

That's what I hear too.

Did you hear the full version of MGH - 03 - The Day Before You Came-corrected  ?

[KingRex]

20 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

That's what I hear too.

Did you hear the full version of MGH - 03 - The Day Before You Came-corrected  ?

Yes, I have that file in flac 16/96.

 

I really like the version of SOS he sent me.

[sandyk]

9 minutes ago, KingRex said:

Yes, I have that file in flac 16/96.

 

I really like the version of SOS he sent me.

Yes, it is a big improvement over the original. 

Please check your PMs

Alex

[fas42]

Sorry about this, Alex, but there is an important point to be made here - the voices, and the backing synthesizer sound elements are two distinct components in the ABBA sound; when a rig is working correctly they no longer merge, fill the same acoustic space  - the vocals occupy one 'space', and are completely natural, sound like real people; all the backing complexity, with as much frilly treble and reverb as they decided they wanted, exists in other 'spaces' ... this is the "magic" of competent playback; the recorded tracks separate out, like hearing the individuals in a jazz combo - and vocals always sound like real people singing, unless deliberately mutilated by an effects unit.

[sandyk]

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Sorry about this, Alex, but there is an important point to be made here - the voices, and the backing synthesizer sound elements are two distinct components in the ABBA sound; when a rig is working correctly they no longer merge, fill the same acoustic space  - the vocals occupy one 'space', and are completely natural, sound like real people; all the backing complexity, with as much frilly treble and reverb as they decided they wanted, exists in other 'spaces' ... this is the "magic" of competent playback; the recorded tracks separate out, like hearing the individuals in a jazz combo - and vocals always sound like real people singing, unless deliberately mutilated by an effects unit.

 Frank

 Can you please take your " important points" to another thread instead of encouraging the Trolls who inevitably appear to follow you around, and  who would deliberately disrupt this thread.

Alex

[Paul R]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I hear what you are saying -- but I am speaking as a developer -- and someone who doesn't want to include some piece of software that will cost many $1k to get access to (and is simply a waste of resources, but needed for crummy sample rate usage.)   It is such an issue that I wrote the decoder to run at the input rate all the way through -- avoids the ugly rate conversion stuff.  (My SW does do multiple/submultple conversions when needed -- but those are essentially perfect -- no error that needs to be measured.)

 

It is so sad to see any thought about converting  to/from odd rates, EVENTUALLY such conversion should seldom be used, and witihout the odd rates being common (odd in the sense of non-integer multiple), the normal conversion would be close to technically perfect AS A GIVEN.

There would always be an occasional need for an odd conversion -- but it becomes a special situation (almost like converting to/from a 32768 sample rate might be today.)

 

For 44.1k and other odd rates -- just say no, unless you have to.  This is all a part of why I advocate 48k as a better solution, even though 44.1k is 'good enough'.  If we had to worry about bit budgets of one kind or another like in the past, then there might be an argument against the general migration to 48k.

 

It is best not to get mixed up with the idea of 44.1k being enough -- then some people will/do start wearing 44.1k as a badge of honor.  If talking about 'what is enough' -- most stuff on vinyl would probably be happy with less than 44.1k and defintitely less than 16bits... But I won't try to change anyone elses minds about it -- if they have already decided for themselves.

 

John

 

 

Well, this engineer and yourself will simply have to disagree on that one. 

 

I can't find any significant resource usage on converting to multiple of 44.1k vs. 48k (i.e. powers of two) and don't see any advantage to hobbling software because of it. The days of saving some intermediate data in the unused 15 bits of a 30 bit word are thankfully, long gone!  

 

-Paul 

 

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Frank

 Can you please take your " important points" to another thread instead of encouraging the Trolls who inevitably appear to follow you around, and  who would deliberately disrupt this thread.

Alex

 

Yep, let it go at that ... note, John already has his very own thread about this stuff, here,

 

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

John already has his very own thread about this stuff, here,

 

 Unfortunately, the bulk of John's material is in this thread.

[Paul R]

6 hours ago, SJK said:

K man.

 

I don’t remember you saying it the first time but if you want to repeat then I’m fine with that.

 

I was simply commenting on an article that has been less than well received in the audio community as having little validity. 

 

Mastering has nothing to do with anything if the source isn’t usable or credible. Beethoven can’t make a kazoo sound good.

 

https://youtu.be/ikJKSqnTylI

 

You knew this was coming the moment you posted that, right?

 

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Why?  Because unlike most audiphiles, the masses of music listeners aren't $loaded$, and have neither the money nor space for multi-terabyte servers to store high-res music on, or the finances to spend hundreds of dollars-per-foot on boutique speaker wire and interconnects.

 

Take a 32bit float, 192kHz studio master, and encode it to 24/192, 24/96, 16/44.1, and even 320kBps mp3, and I guarantee only 1/10 of folks with reasonably good hearing will hear significant differences between that same exact master in all those formats.  Seriously.

 

Now, I am sorry, but that answer makes just about zero sense. 

 

They are streaming 24/192k today. That takes no storage dollars for the average audio / music lover. Even if it did present some kind of storage issue, $150 for 8 terabytes or so is not "loaded" territory by any means and will store quite a bit of high res music. 

 

I get it - you are trying to make a point. I think most people agree with you that mastering makes more difference than just about anything else. (Well, except perhaps Frank.) 

 

But if you think that high-resolution audio does not benefit playback - well - I wish you well in your listening endeavors. It certainly makes a hell of a positive difference here, and I explained why previously.  Why in heavens name do you find that an issue you want to dispute? 

 

And I am not effing loaded by any means.

 

 

[fas42]

4 hours ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Take a 32bit float, 192kHz studio master, and encode it to 24/192, 24/96, 16/44.1, and even 320kBps mp3, and I guarantee only 1/10 of folks with reasonably good hearing will hear significant differences between that same exact master in all those formats.  Seriously.

 

The next step is to take the 24/96, 16/44.1, and 320kBps mp3 encodings - and upsample them all to 24/192 - and now play each 24/192 version through a DAC that's particularly good with the latter format ... I would suggest that most people would struggle to pick the mp3 originated version, let alone the others.

[sandyk]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

... I would suggest that most people would struggle to pick the mp3 originated version, let alone the others.

 

 You are forgetting that this is an Audiophile Forum where the majority of members have long since given up on MegaPoop3  in favour of LOSSLESS .flac