Lies about vinyl vs digital

[lucretius]

29 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I truly don't know the specific reason why feral-A occurs

 

"feralA", "feral-A".  Congrats on evolving the english language.  Just so I'm clear, by "feralA", are you referring to the cases where the signal had originated from a DolbyA encoded source (i.e. tape) and was never decoded in the production of various CDs? These specific CDs are where "feralA occurs"?

[marce]

16 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Nevertheless, quite a few members are able to even hear differences between different types of RAM.

 So much for your numerous buffers .

 N.B.

 I haven't made that claim, I am simply reporting it.

You do understand that a digital signal is regenerated every-time it goes through a buffer, often depending on the signal through differing voltage/clock domains, if the data is the same from beginning to end, then the information it represents is the same...

[marce]

15 hours ago, lucretius said:

What problem?

Bit identical files sounding different every time you play them.

[lucretius]

4 minutes ago, marce said:

Bit identical files sounding different every time you play them.

 

That is Alex's "problem".  Sounds the same to me each time.

[marce]

Ah I read the post wrong...

[lucretius]

19 hours ago, sandyk said:

IF the files were truly IDENTICAL , you would not hear any differences.

 

Yet you claim that two bit perfect files sound different.  I'm confused.

[Richard Dale]

11 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Yet you claim that two bit perfect files sound different.  I'm confused.

I don’t think it’s you who are confused.

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

"feralA", "feral-A".  Congrats on evolving the english language.  Just so I'm clear, by "feralA", are you referring to the cases where the signal had originated from a DolbyA encoded source (i.e. tape) and was never decoded in the production of various CDs? These specific CDs are where "feralA occurs"?

I have listed a few elsewhere..  BY FAR, most CDs that I have are compressed as feral DolbyA.  (That is, DolbyA that got outside of its controlled environment, and is left to live in the outside world.)   That is where I coined the term -- not quite technically correct, but gets the point across.  I short cut usage to feralA simply because of being a lazy typist.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

7 hours ago, John Dyson said:

The ABBA Gold uses a slightly different feral EQ than the ABBA albums, that is what I mean.  The resultant decodes are really good -- in fact, ABBA Gold was my first test DolbyA material because it is closest to true DolbyA of what I have, except for the cut from I have the music in me and Nena 99 Red Balloons.  The 'Music' and 'Nena' recordings are really close to true DolbyA (nice and shrill.)

 

The ABBA Gold CD (not more ABBA Gold) doesn't appear to have as much of the feral HF eq (that is, the EQ in the above 3kHz region), and only the normal MF boost between 750 to 3kHz range (which means that my EQ has to have a dip.)   The HF region is molested less on the ABBA Gold CD only.  

 

The other two (The I have the music in me and Nena) can be decoded almost straight out...  The Nena CD also has the CD pre-emphasis, so it has two layers of harshness.

 

I have included a snippet decoded from ABBA Gold 1992.   I can give you the parameters if you want.  There might be a few errors in the numbers, might not be 100% correct, but this will give you an idea when comparing with the CD or vinyl.  Let me know how close to the vinyl, if you have it?  (cut 6, SuperTrouper, starting approx 30seconds for 55 seconds length.)

 

John

 

06.stFromGold.mp3 1.68 MB · 3 downloads

I got a critique that the demo was too dull -- here is one with slightly different (actually less) EQ.  This shows even more that the ABBA Gold is close to raw DolbyA.  (I removed all EQ at 9k and 12k -- only about 4.5dB cut between 3k and 6k.)

 

John

 

06.stFromGoldA.mp3

[StephenJK]

16 hours ago, STC said:

snip

If you think you can rip the vinyl and it will sound like the vinyl playback then the answer is no. It is hard to replicate the identical sound from a vinyl playback through the vinyl rip.

snip

 

I've done a vinyl to digital comparison with my system and in my experience a digital recording of an LP at 24/96 or better sounds identical to the LP.  I do agree that there are many variables, and each one can have no small effect.  

 

This was the result of testing a few years ago when looking at failings with playback of digital LP recordings.  I had three sources:

1.  Turntable - Clearaudio Innovation Compact, Clearaudio Universal tonearm, Dynavector Te Kaitora Rua cartridge

2.  Korg MR-2000S digital recorder, used to record LPs, playback from 1 bit/5.66 MHz digital file

3.  Dell laptop, playback with JRiver of digital file "mastered" with VinylStudio, minimal crackle filter applied, saved as FLAC 24/96

 

Options 1 and 2, once level matched were identical.  Option 3 was with a collapsed soundstage, but still had all of the clarity and detail of the original recording.  I ended up going to a digital player rather than with the laptop to resolve the issue.  
 

 

 

 

[John Dyson]

About rip no sounding like direct play vinyl...  I have the same kind of mental/psychological thing happening when I DA decode material in realtime vs. doing the decoding offline.  Somehow, it doesn't sound the same - but it does.  It always *seems* to sound better when I do the realtime decode, even though there is every reason that the offline decode is better (because I use better decoding modes offline, and KNOW that they are better.)  There is something weird psychologically going on -- and I am just as likely to manifest the issue as anyone else.

 

The key to getting repeatible results is to be careful and control the experments (and/or control the methods.)

 

John

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

Of course, your results may vary, but when I stepped up to a pro grade ADC (Antelope Audio Pure 2), I find the vinyl rips utterly indistinguishable from the direct vinyl playback.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

I got a critique that the demo was too dull -- here is one with slightly different (actually less) EQ.  This shows even more that the ABBA Gold is close to raw DolbyA.  (I removed all EQ at 9k and 12k -- only about 4.5dB cut between 3k and 6k.)

 

John

 

06.stFromGoldA.mp3 1.68 MB · 1 download

 

Wow!  This new version is pretty darn good! Like the CD but with harshness removed and very natural sounding.

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, marce said:

You do understand that a digital signal is regenerated every-time it goes through a buffer, often depending on the signal through differing voltage/clock domains, if the data is the same from beginning to end, then the information it represents is the same...

 

 Tell that to the quite a few members who are reporting hearing differences between different types of RAM especially the more expensive " industrial"  types.  The information that it represents may be the same, but that does NOT necessarily mean that the output ends up being a " text book" perfect waveform with no noise riding along with it.

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, marce said:

Bit identical files sounding different every time you play them.

It wouldn't surprise me if they do in YOUR system

 

See #2163

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Yet you claim that two bit perfect files sound different.  I'm confused.

 

What I am saying is that Checksums are incapable of revealing the audible differences, which, as even John Dyson and a few other members are now confirming, may be as small as even + or - 0.1dB !!! 

 

 For the benefit of the Richard Dale's and Mansr's of the forum, I was referring here to the levels of the differences that John and several other members are now routinely hearing between different changes that John has made with his Decoder. Don't take my word for it , ask John, who is almost certainly way more experienced than most members of this forum in this particular area.

[Ralf11]

"Ride-Along" Noise - yup, that's it

[fas42]

10 hours ago, John Dyson said:

 

My problem is that there is a strong general sense that the feralA problem doens't really exist.  Frankly, I didn't believe it for a long time myself -- even with the data in front of me.  It is hard, very hard, to believe that so many of the CDs have been sold in such a relatively mangled state.

 

If the feralA problem can be better publicized -- I am doing my very best to do so, then maybe we can get more people to actually accumulate the information.   I can/have contributed access to the decoding software, and willing to do the decodes to verify -- but that isn't good enough.

 

Your idea about people who have both, doing the comparison -- maybe not so much under the guise of feral DolbyA, but instead the poor state of CD mastering, then we might awaken more people to the problem...

 

John

 

 

FeralA doesn't exist ... what exists are CDs that were mastered using the full scope of the media, that didn't take into account the fact that many playback systems would have issues with generating unpleasant distortion with certain styles of mastering, and this would be especially obvious with more ambitious rigs. Vinyl had existed for many decades, the people producing the source for that had an understanding, intuitive or otherwise, of how to "make it sound good", on normal setups. When CD arrived, people had to 'relearn' how to master so that the very different distortion characteristics of sub-optimal digital replay weren't made obvious, by how the mastering was done.

 

Of course, the real solution is to evolve the digital playback to be optimal, in each individual instance - this means the results always sound good, irrespective of whether 'care' was taken to in creating the recording, "to make it suit".

[fas42]

4 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I got a critique that the demo was too dull -- here is one with slightly different (actually less) EQ.  This shows even more that the ABBA Gold is close to raw DolbyA.  (I removed all EQ at 9k and 12k -- only about 4.5dB cut between 3k and 6k.)

 

John

 

06.stFromGoldA.mp3 1.68 MB · 2 downloads

 

I note that very recent remasterings of ABBA, on CD, are atrocious - got one from the local library ... all bass, zero treble, max compression. Obviously made for the current generation who are used to gross manipulation - fine if you consider it a completely new act, but useless in a side by side comparison.

[sandyk]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

FeralA doesn't exist …

 Australian Protestor buries his head in sand.

This helps to explain why he can't hear the huge amount of excessive brightness in these corrupted releases on CD.

[John Dyson]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

FeralA doesn't exist ... what exists are CDs that were mastered using the full scope of the media, that didn't take into account the fact that many playback systems would have issues with generating unpleasant distortion with certain styles of mastering, and this would be especially obvious with more ambitious rigs. Vinyl had existed for many decades, the people producing the source for that had an understanding, intuitive or otherwise, of how to "make it sound good", on normal setups. When CD arrived, people had to 'relearn' how to master so that the very different distortion characteristics of sub-optimal digital replay weren't made obvious, by how the mastering was done.

 

Of course, the real solution is to evolve the digital playback to be optimal, in each individual instance - this means the results always sound good, irrespective of whether 'care' was taken to in creating the recording, "to make it suit".

Untrue -- feral A is undecoded DolbyA.  Therefore it does exist, and DolbyA was never intended to be let out in public, therefore feral.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I note that very recent remasterings of ABBA, on CD, are atrocious - got one from the local library ... all bass, zero treble, max compression. Obviously made for the current generation who are used to gross manipulation - fine if you consider it a completely new act, but useless in a side by side comparison.

That is why I resolve the feral-A to true DolbyA -- no problem.  Just requires a set of EQ that I have developed to undo the distortion of the frequency response.   Once resolved to true DolbyA, then the material can be converted to represent the artists intent.

 

(I never use recent, hyper compressed, worse-distorted material than feralA, except for an example of worse-badness than feral-A.)  Once in a while, they still produce straight feral-A masterings, most good stuff comes before 1994.

 

John

 

[fas42]

Just now, John Dyson said:

Untrue -- feral A is undecoded DolbyA.  Therefore it does exist, and DolbyA was never intended to be let out in public, therefore feral.

 

John

 

 

Again, you actually believe people in the industry were so incompetent that this occurred for years and years, and not a single indvidual associated with recording didn't notice, in this whole time ... ?

[John Dyson]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Again, you actually believe people in the industry were so incompetent that this occurred for years and years, and not a single indvidual associated with recording didn't notice, in this whole time ... ?

They are not incompetent, instead they expected the listeners to be unwary, and to accept the relative garbage that is being sold to them.   The distributors are smart -- saving lots of cost to do real time decoding . Quick digital file copying and filtering is fast and cheap.   It took a relatively persistent person with the correct skills to ferret out the problem.   I guess that there aren't many of me out there, but it is true.

Beancounters prevail.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

2 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

They are not incompetent, instead they expected the listeners to be unwary, and to accept the relative garbage that is being sold to them.   The distributors are smart -- saving lots of cost to do real time decoding . Quick digital file copying and filtering is fast and cheap.   It took a relatively persistent person with the correct skills to ferret out the problem.   I guess that there aren't many of me out there, but it is true.

Beancounters prevail.

 

John

 

BTW, with my decoder, it is almost as easy to decode the material as it is to do the cheap, quick, dirty feralA creation.   Back before the DHNRDS DA, it was more expensive to do the job correctly.   Also, listeners are now used to the *mush* anyway.

 

John