Analog: Still Better?

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I have a modest vinyl source (cost: around 700 euro) and am floored by the sound quality it provides in my system. 

 

If I were to start over in this hobby, I would probably choose to invest in a vinyl collection, to listen in my living room, and just use spotify on my computer to listen to all the rest. 

 

Not all records sound good, obviously, but well recorded acoustic music on good pressings sound spectacular. 

 

However, I have hope that digital will still improve. As some of you may know, I am a big fan of ECDesigns products and trust they are on the right path to unlocking further potential from those damn files. We'll see!

 

The sad thing is that you can spend 10.000 euros or more on a digital system today, and it will not offer the lifelike reproduction of a simple vinyl rig. 

 

Note: 99% of what I listen to is acoustical music (jazz mostly). 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

On 9/17/2020 at 1:37 AM, fas42 said:

 

"More organic" is another way of saying that distortion that "I can't point to" as being obviously present, is no longer subjectively audible. Digital system were once notorious for injecting this in vast quantities, but have steadily improved over the years to the point where even very low cost units are capable of getting this right - with a little help from a knowledgeable practitioner, 🙃.

 

Vinyl rigs, and digital rigs, will sound equivalent in the level of their 'organicness' - if both are tweaked to the necessary level. The type of tweaking that's essential will differ between the two formats in many areas, but ultimately deliver identical results, as far as listening satisfaction is concerned.

 

 

 

I could not disagree more...

 

Digital systems do not YET offer the same fidelity - regardless of cost. Noise, errors/glitches in DAC conversion, jitter, are well known sources of degradation in digital sound reproduction. 

 

No level of tweaking can correct the issues of digital systems. You can make compromises, but you are fooling yourself in thinking that you can "compensate" for the inherent flaws of a DAC by tweaking everything around it. No level of tweaking will ever correct noise/glitches INHERENT in current digital conversion systems. 

 

The solution may come, but certainly not from all the futile amateurish attempts that you can read about from enthusiastic audiophiles.

 

There are over 700 pages in a "how to massively improve the quality if digital audio" thread. These are all "peripheral" solutions, and do not address the shortcomings of the DACs that are available today, regardless of price. 

 

Sure, a low noise power supply, an optimized seever, an audiophile switch, or any similar gizmo may improve things somewhat, but will not fundamentally correct DAC flaws. 

 

There is still much progress to be made in the digital domain, and this is no secret! Audiophiles know this (witness all the discussions on digital audio on this forum) and most engineers working on this topic know this also and will admit it. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

30 minutes ago, firedog said:

And I could not disagree more....

"engineers know ...and will admit"???? I call this just you making a baseless claim to backup your POV. Base for the claim?

As usual, this is a silly discussion. Some people like digital better, and some people like analog better. There is no one better.

 

The base for the claim is that every serious DAC manufacturer will admit that digital sources/digital cables matter when theoretically they should not! And they will also admit that they do not know why! 

 

You can read about this in interviews with a number of engineers from high end brands such as Mola Mola, CH Precision and others. 

 

Do your homework... 

 

P. S. I use both digital and analog. The point is just to be realistic and informed (not delusional) about the limitations.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

39 minutes ago, sandyk said:

You appear to be a wee bit the other way as shown by the  choice of these components.

 

 

Yes, I had not included my analog source in my profile. Just did.

 

In terms of listening, its 50/50, depending on what I want to listen to. That's the thing people tend to forget: there are a lot of albums that are only available on vinyl, and vice versa. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

They matter - because digital playback chains are very sensitive to noise. Not in the digital domain of course, but rather in the the digital to analogue conversion area, and subsequent pure analogue circuitry. Just putting things in different boxes, and giving a couple of feet clearance between them, is close to useless if you want to solve these sort of problems - very few people have the right mindset to properly grapple with what needs to be done, it seems. Which is why there is so much floundering, using 'crazy' methods to try and improve things ...

 

Its not a question of mindset. The facts are there - and the people who actually manufacture the equipment you listen to know it and say so!

 

Your method, whatever it is, is not going to tranform a digital system into an analog system - if you think so you need to spend more time listening carefully to a vinyl source. 

 

Digital certainly has many advantages. But I perfectly understand why many people enjoy vinyl as well. 

 

Serious audiophiles should have both. You can then easily remind yourself, when testing new digital gear, what is achieved and remains to be accomplished. 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Have heard plenty of vinyl. Including one which was a copy of Harry Pearson's original Absolute Sound setup - this was 3 decades ago. That was exceptional - but not better. In fact, recent vinyl has gone backwards - last audio show was disappointing, on every LP setup.

 

Have an audio friend up the road, who does both vinyl and digital; who I visit often. His vinyl, at its best, is way ahead of most TT systems I've heard - which is better? His digital, or his vinyl? ... The answer depends upon which visit I care to recall ... 🙂.

 

 

You don't "test new digital gear"- you debug it! Most audio rigs are the equivalent of car lemons - they need attention to bring them up to scratch; because they have so many obvious flaws in the sound, that need to be sorted.

 

Yes, I am aware that you are on a crusade to convince everyone on this forum that you can get great sound from basic components with your secret recipes. 

 

I enjoy listening to Spotify on my phone with a pair of Koss PortaPro. So what? We can't do better? 

 

The fact that digital has some flaws does not mean we have to completely give up and listen to music using a DVD player (as your profile suggests). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

50 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The "crusade" is to make people aware that highly satisfying playback is available from most audio systems - but which fail to deliver because of weaknesses in the overall integrity of the chain; something which is only rarely solved by throwing money, and a high churn rate of bits, at the situation. If it were otherwise, I would be blown away by how magnificent the exceedingly expensive rigs I've come across the years sound - unfortunately, my usual thought is, how long will I have to put up with the highly irritating nature of what I'm listening to ... 😉.

 

The "secret sauce" is, attention to detail - worked 35 years ago, and still works. Most people want to play with expensive kit, for the sake of doing that - that's a separate hobby, and has not much to do with getting best SQ, unfortunately.

 

Most people can't understand that using a $100 DVD player, versus a $30,000 CD transport, is not what matters - you see, in audio, money isn't that important - it might help you feel better about the rig; but only plays a minor role in getting the best out of recordings ...

 

 

It is certainly a refreshing viewpoint, and I am all for thinking outside the box, but this topic here is analog versus digital. You cannot make abstraction of the limits/issues of digital, which are well known, and think that you can transform a digital system into an analog system. It is as simple as that. Nothing more to add in this thread...

 

Edit: attention to detail is something everyone does, I hope, and therefore not meaningful in itself. I pay attention to details, and many others certainly do, yet our systems are all different! You'll have to be more specific (in your other threads) if you want to be convincing. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

8 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Who would want to, other than a blinkered vinyl person ? 😜

 For starters, you are also dismissing the high res formats such as 24/192 LPCM and DSD as a waste of time, even though some may have genuine musical content to >57kHz .

 How many vinyl recordings in your collection have much more than a top frequency response of >22kHz , and will still have that high a response after being played quite a few times? 

Yes, some vinyl half speed recordings available mainly at Hi Fi shows had HF detail to around 30kHz when new, but how many cartridges are able to do this justice, let alone the poor channel separation right across the recorded frequency spectrum ?

 Very few cartridges even have 35 dB separation, which results in the larger than life ,diffused, rarely pinpoint centre image  that so many appear to prefer

 

P.S. 

 Do they even make multi channel vinyl recordings these days ?

 I used to have a great logic controlled SQ vinyl set up until a nearby lightning strike fried the I.C.s . 

 

Once again I use both analog and digital. There are limits to both. How these limitations translate in terms of musical enjoyment is for everyone to figure out - I have my opinion, and don't expect everyone to agree with me! 

 

As you mentioned, digital is not a "mature" technology (and I fully agree with that) so there is hope... When well respected engineers in digital audio admit that they don't understand everything, i don't think we can argue with them... 

 

That being said, I don't believe high resolution solves any of the issues of digital - but am willing to keep an open mind. I never said it was a "waste of time". I will admit I have never listened to DSD, simply because there is little music that interests me that is available in this format. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

33 minutes ago, semente said:

 

"Sounds good" is subjective, a matter of preference, it depends on the listener.

For every audiophile who prefers vinyl there is another one who is "floored" by digital.

 

LP sound is not analogue sound: vinyl playback adds quite a bit of its own set of mostly signal-correled distortions, things like surface noise, static, channel bleeding, monaural low-bass, high-passed sub-bass, high-frequency roll-off in inner groovers, off-centered records, speed stability, arm and cartige resonances, airborne and platter vibration pickup, RIAA filter, cartridge transduction, etc.

 

And whilst CD can sound almost indistinguishable from the master tape it cannot sound like an LP unless it has been digitalised from one (I have some very old jazz and blues digital recordings which where made by the Bibliothèque nationale de France which sound like the shellac records they were made from, warts-n-all).

 

Yes, I have some of those as well. I have very bad sounding vinyl (ex: Lester Young broadcasts from the 1940s, bad sound but fantastic music). 

 

In my system, with my ears, I am just surprised how good a relatively modest vinyl rig can sound. So the only explanation I have is that these flaws are maybe not so important for musical enjoyment? It seems to me that vinyl is doing something right that even the most sophisticated digital systems fail to achieve, still today, some decades after the introduction of the CD. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love listening to digital as well, but I think it can improve further (just not with tinkering). 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Which means that you're not so far from intuitively understanding what's going on ... the vinyl playback is not highlighting the deficiencies of the recording, by exaggerating them with the wrong type of added playback chain distortion. Something that digital systems often have troubles with.

 

What you seem intent on confirming, to yourself, is that digital is inherently incapable of "getting it right" - this was wrong thinking, over 3 decades; and is even more wrong these days. Which means you will probably unconsciously always sabotage every listening session you're at - because it's more important for you, to hang onto that belief as compared to being able to hear competent digital sound.

 

 

I only bought a turntable this year (first a very cheap one, second hand, two months ago a decent entry model AT). I bought a turntable not out of dissatisfaction with digital, but in order to listen to some albums which are only available on LP. I also bought a few recent good quality pressings, but the objective is certainly not to replace my files. Once again, listening to a relatively modest turntable, I am surprised by the quality. 

 

In this context, it is hard to claim that I have been sabotaging every listening session over the last 20 years (before that I was not an "audiophile")! 

Moreover, my digital system has never sounded as good. 

 

Anyway, no big deal, just wanted to offer my point of view, which is that vinyl is not to be dismissed (in spite of some obvious flaws). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

I wouldn't have reacted as I did, if you hadn't come storming into the thread, responding to a post of mine,
 

 

... does not quite reconcile with, "my digital system has never sounded as good" ...

 

Yes, I did come in a little strong - sorry for that.

 

Vis à vis your second comment, I see no contradiction here. 

 

My digital system consists of equipment from ECDesigns (you can refer to the thread in the DAC section). I have been using their equipment for the past few years, and it has constantly improved. I don't think I could significantly improve upon it today by "tinkering" - I use their DAC with their source, which is a low noise USB key player (UPL), so no network (it does not bother me). They are working on a new version which I will upgrade to when it is released (sometime this year). Anyone who has read that thread knows how enthusiastic I have been over their products. I have obviously listened to other digital systems (high end stuff as well). The current issues of digital are well know - as I mentioned earlier - and they (ECD) are striving to understand them and to find solutions, undoubtedly other manufacturers as well. We will see what all this leads to.

 

My turntable is certainly not "high end". The funny thing is - and it really does surprise me - I feel no need to invest more (I prefer spending money purchasing records). To my years, it is very satisfying as is. Why ? Very hard to explain...

 

I recently bought this album: https://elusivedisc.com/frank-sinatra-sing-and-dance-with-frank-sinatra-numbered-limited-edition-180g-lp-mono

 

When I put it on, I told myself: damn this sounds good, maybe I should have started collecting vinyl 10 years ago ! 

 

This one also impressed me (also available on CD, which I ordred out of curiosity, to compare): https://www.discogs.com/Earl-Hines-Hines-Comes-In-Handy/release/5456308

 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Comments ...?

 

The turntable looks nice. Otherwise, how do you expect anyone to comment on sound quality using a youtube video ?

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

After spending a lot more time listening to vinyl and comparing it to digital  I have come to the conclusion that the main differences are mostly due to the quality of the "mastering".

 

My initial point, that a fairly basic vinyl rig is very satisfying, remains true (in my opinion) simply because it is a more mature technology. Of course, there are many ways to get vinyl "wrong" as there are also many parameters (and every part of a vinyl rig can be tweaked!). It is easy to get digital wrong as well (and we probably have not yet unlocked the full potential of digital playback).

 

The idea that vinyl is more pleasant because it is "distorted" is questionable - if you do find identical masterings, it is not so easy to tell them apart (aside for obvious issues related to cracks/pops, whether due to static electricity - a real PITA - or wear). 

 

It is surprisingly difficult, however, to find identical masterings of digital and vinyl albums to make those comparisons. 

 

Rather than waste time arguing about the superiority of vinyl versus digital, it would be more beneficial to have recommendations on the quality of releases.

 

I love listening to my files, and  I have invested a lot of time and money building and documenting my  collection, but I will certainly continue buying records when:

- the album is not available in digital format (there are still quite a lot of those)

- the digital versions are poor and I am confident that an orignal vinyl version is superior (ex: Mosaic Record box set only issued on vinyl, also available on poorly mastered CDs by other distributors).

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

10 hours ago, March Audio said:

When I have played this to people elsewhere they also tend to prefer 2, the one they think is more "life like".

 

However 2 is the version that had been compressed, equalised and reverb added.

 

1 has has just been panned and levels changed.

 

Version 2 is the "distorted" and more "produced" version and quite different to what came off the microphone feeds.

 

2 definitely has way too much reverb - this is what killed it for me. It also seems louder (played on my computer speakers, about 30 sec of each). I preferred 1 (choice made before seeing your post). 

 

I had posted a similar comparison here: 

One of the tracks was mastered by Robert Parker, who was known for purposefully adding reverb, to simulate the experience of listening in "live settings". Does not make any sense to me, but I guess some people prefer it.

 

Reading back my blog post now, I see I commented that the Mosaic version sounds more natural, and I used also the term "real". "Realism" is currently debated in another thread, in which I expressed the opinion that "realism" does not matter. I should have added "up to a certain point". In this  case (the Robert Parker track and number 2 in the above test) the added effects (reverb) simply do not sound convincing and are "grotesque", so I see no contradiction here.

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

21 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Early digital wasn’t good and many people had that impression stamped on their brain before the paint was dry. 

 

Probably - here is a somewhat similar point of view on the topic by someone who seems to have a large collection of both CD and vinyl (and I would suspect a lot of older recordings): https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/for-audiophiles/cd-or-vinyl/. 

 

To summarize - digital caught up, but with the recent popularity of vinyl there may be more "audiophile" pressings where extra attention has been placed on the quality of the remastering/pressing, and that could make a difference again in some cases ?

 

To quote him: "Much modern vinyl (pressed in the last two decades)  is  disappointing and offers little advantage over CD, often little more than a CD transferred onto 180gm vinyl.  But bear in mind, not all modern vinyl is equal. In just the last couple of years (2019-21), some audiophile vinyl manufacturers have made incredible improvements through all analogue processing mastering from original vintage tapes with quality pressing (Blue Note Tone Poet, Music Matters Jazz 33, Vinyl Classics Series)."

 

I assume that in those cases, the original CDs were not produced with the same care.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I ripped a track from a record that I also have on CD. This Qobuz version is identical to my CD version:

- https://open.qobuz.com/track/24210590

The LP version is this one: https://www.musiconvinyl.com/catalog/duke-ellington/indigos#.YLOm9qgzaHs

 

I used a Tascam DR-05X with the line input plugged in to the output of my preamp (The Truth). Wav file is 24/96, versus 16/44 for the CD version. My turntable is an entry model Audio Technica at-lp5x, with a Shibata stylus, and an external preamp (Hagerman Bugle 3). Nothing "high end". I did not edit the ripped wav file.

 

Here's the CD version: https://storage.googleapis.com/cloudplayer/samples/01 CD.wav

Here's my LP rip: https://storage.googleapis.com/cloudplayer/samples/02 LP.wav

 

Let me know what you think !

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Here's the spectrum of the CD file:

 

 

And the LP file, converted to 16/44:

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Some noise is introduced by the recording of the vinly - the cable going from my preamp to the Tascam recorder acts as an antenna and picks up RF. I need to get a cable with better shielding. Obviously there are also some clicks and pops, but it is not so bad. 

 

What strikes me is the missing bandwidth on the vinyl rip - that's clear from the spectrum analysis, and you can hear it as well. As a result, the piano is "brighter" on the CD version (listen to the first few seconds of the track), and the trumpet has a wider range. I'll listen to the album again on my turntable to check that it is not the recording process that is to blame. The mix seems slightly different as well on the two versions. Otherwise, I would not say that the recorded vinyl version has significant "distortion".

 

I usually only purchase vinyl when the content is unavailable in digital format. I bought this album out of curiosity, to compare it to the CD version. I want to digitize some of the albums I have, in order to "document" them in my music collection app, and be able to listen to them on my computer. While the quality can certainly be improved, this first attempt does not seem to be all that bad. 

 

I'll prepare another recording of the Vegh Quartet (Beethoven string quartets) as I have the original LPs from the 1972-74 recordings and a CD version to compare. 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

The example does illustrate the difficulty in comparing different releases. 

 

Keep in mind that the recording "equipment" used here is really basic (the Tascam costs < 100$).

 

Concerning the bandwidth, I'll record the CD version with my Tascam recorder. This should be interesting, to me at least, to see if the spectrum looks better.

 

@John Dyson your file does not fix the bandwidth issue, but the dynamic range may be wider? It sounds different (quick listen on my PC, not my speakers). 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 hours ago, Rexp said:

The analoguesness of the vinyl rip is missing, you can hear it on this YT video so try a different recorder:

 

The rig used in that rip is 100x better than mine !

 

I'll work on it with the same recorder, tweaking the settings (and need to get proper Rca-mini jack cables - mine are not shielded and pick up a lot of noise, had to lower the gain too much). Hopefully I can improve things. 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I also bought an original 1958 mono version of the album (https://www.discogs.com/Duke-Ellington-And-His-Orchestra-Ellington-Indigos/release/2407670) and am curious to hear how it sounds. Will report back when I receive it :)

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

On 2/18/2022 at 7:32 PM, Iving said:

One of the reasons analogue tends to be more satisfying than digital is because digital systems are way more susceptible to electrical noise. "Digital harshness" spoils music. Assuming good amps and really good speakers [and an ordinary urban electricity supply], I'd rather listen to low-end record decks than mid-range digital front ends - even if the latter are more resolving

 

Ah, a clearer post than your rant on copyright (said with some humor).

 

Yes, digital is indeed highly susceptible to noise, and (practically) no DAC manufacturer has solved this issue. Even with very high end DACs (with indecent prices) you still see users investing in high end sources, and finding variability in sources/DAC inputs.

 

This point is not new, it is a well known weakness of digital ever since its origins. 

 

The question then becomes: is there an optimal digital configuration (a combination of source and DAC) that offers low noise and can be comparable to the best analog rigs? Who is to say what is a "low noise" digital source? We don't know, do we? 

 

Then of course there is the much more pessimistic consideration that many recordings that have been made using digital processes (starting in the early 80s?) were ruined. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Here is  a good point of view on this issue: http://www.high-endaudio.com/philos.html#Anlg

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

2 hours ago, Dynobot said:

A Topping dac has 124dB SNR 0.0004% THD.

 

What analog piece of gear has a better noise floor?

 

Errrrrr 'sound floor'

 

Oh and lets not forget the most important factor.....the threshold of human hearing....make that a middle aged male hearing....BTW your hearing only gets worse with age, your wallets might get bigger but hearing shrinks.

 

😁

 

All of this has been debated before. Those who do think that noise stil has an audible impact on the DAC's analog output point out that the performance of a DAC may vary between sending a single tone (measurement) and playing an actual music track (too complex to measure). 

 

Moreover there may be other aspects that are loosely encapsulated under the banner "noise", such as so-called "glitches" (https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/posts/what-s-with-all-this-glitch-ing) which may escape measurements as well and are of course specific to digital. 

 

So perhaps some humility is in order and we have to allow for the possibility that we don't have all the science to explain/measure everything when it comes to DAC performance?. 

 

DAC manufacturers themselves (well, maybe not Topping) admit that they don't understand it all, so why should we know better? 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 hours ago, Dynobot said:

A Topping dac has 124dB SNR 0.0004% THD.

 

What analog piece of gear has a better noise floor?

 

Errrrrr 'sound floor'

 

Oh and lets not forget the most important factor.....the threshold of human hearing....make that a middle aged male hearing....BTW your hearing only gets worse with age, your wallets might get bigger but hearing shrinks.

 

😁

 

Out of curiosity, if a Topping DAC is so good and any noise below hearing levels why do you bother tweaking software as you do?