Analog: Still Better?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

But seriously, I've heard the unpleasantness of how many systems present very up front recordings - so, a little bit of analogue 'honey' is added, so make it more palatable.

 

A good example: an audio enthusiast, not the local friend, who uses a DEQX unit, heavily modified, to DSP perfect response curves can't stand the sound of digital being fed direct to the DEQX - which is obviously the "more accurate". No, he takes the analogue of the CDP, feeds to the analogue input of the DEQX - it has gone through a whole extra D/A, A/D path ... but he was adamant that it sounded much better this way - actually refused to try it, even to demonstrate to me.

There’s no accounting for taste and nothing wrong with any of that. We like what we like. 
 

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

[March Audio]

5 hours ago, bluesman said:

Actually, emotion is quite contagious - there's an old saying that it’s easier to catch an emotion than it is to catch a cold.

 

How we feel about and remember an experience is strongly influenced by the reactions of others who shared it with us. If you're surrounded by people who are obviously loving a performance, you're much more likely to love it too.  The phenomenon is also independent of the subject.  So, for example, you'll probably remember having loved a wine that you first tried in great company with others who expressed the same opinion.  This is a common reason for people to buy a wine they enjoyed once while out with friends and find it nowhere near as good as they recalled it to be when they drink it at home.  They "caught" the joy of the social setting, and it subconsciously influenced both their perception and memory of the wine.

 

Here's a great intro to the concept from MIchigan State University, and here's the meat:

 

"Emotional contagion is simply when one person’s emotions or behaviors are mimicked by another person’s. Often times, these emotions or behaviors happen subconsciously. According to “Are You Catching Other People's Emotions?” in U.S. World and News Report, upbeat emotions such as enthusiasm and joy, as well as negative ones such as sadness, fear and anger, are easily passed from one person to another, often without either party realizing it."

 

 

Well yes I agree but that's not really the context of the point I was making. It wasn't about a social experience.

[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.

[March Audio]

31 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

But seriously, I've heard the unpleasantness of how many systems present very up front recordings - so, a little bit of analogue 'honey' is added, so make it more palatable.

 

A good example: an audio enthusiast, not the local friend, who uses a DEQX unit, heavily modified, to DSP perfect response curves can't stand the sound of digital being fed direct to the DEQX - which is obviously the "more accurate". No, he takes the analogue of the CDP, feeds to the analogue input of the DEQX - it has gone through a whole extra D/A, A/D path ... but he was adamant that it sounded much better this way - actually refused to try it, even to demonstrate to me.

Frank don't you see the contradiction in this?

 

If digital was fundamentally bad how can feeding an analogue signal into an additional round of A to D and D to A make everything OK? 

 

BTW we can do an interesting experiment on this if you want.  I can send a track multiple times through a D to A and A to D process and see if you can tell the difference with the original.

 

If digital is causing problems they should become quite evident after multiple passes.

[fas42]

Just now, March Audio said:

Frank don't you see the contradiction in this?

 

If digital was fundamentally bad how can feeding an analogue signal into an additional round of A to D and D to A make everything OK? 

 

The concept would be, that the analogue handling of the signal after the initial conversion would add some, "nice", distortion to the waveform - which would 'balance' the digital "nasties".

 

I don't subscribe to this, of course - true accuracy will always win out, in the end .

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

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: 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 ?

 

You wouldn't read about it - I just had morning tea; and a TV ad came up, "special vinyl edition" of a celebrated indigenous performer's recordings, now on exclusive release! ... was worth the money to run such a promotion; the call is there for it.

 

Sorry, digital still has some way to go, to overcome the sense that normal playback doesn't cut it ...

[March Audio]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The concept would be, that the analogue handling of the signal after the initial conversion would add some, "nice", distortion to the waveform - which would 'balance' the digital "nasties".

 

I don't subscribe to this, of course - true accuracy will always win out, in the end .

Well by that logic one D to A should solve any problems because it's ended up in analogue form.

 

If I get a chance today I will do the experiment I posted above and do multiple DA AD passes and post the files for you to listen to.  See if you can tell the difference.

[Rexp]

1 hour ago, March Audio said:

Frank don't you see the contradiction in this?

 

If digital was fundamentally bad how can feeding an analogue signal into an additional round of A to D and D to A make everything OK? 

 

BTW we can do an interesting experiment on this if you want.  I can send a track multiple times through a D to A and A to D process and see if you can tell the difference with the original.

 

If digital is causing problems they should become quite evident after multiple passes.

Frank didn't say digital is fundamentaly bad, did he? I would say most but not all commercial digital releases are bad. 

[March Audio]

1 hour ago, Rexp said:

Frank didn't say digital is fundamentaly bad, did he? I would say most but not all commercial digital releases are bad. 

Well the context was his friend had to put the audio into the analogue input because digital input sounded bad.  This is rather confounding as the analogue input still goes through another AD DA process.

 

The context of the thread is about analogue being allegedly better.

 

Well the quality of recordings, mastering etc is indeed very variable.  However my question to you is does this actually have anything to do with digital recording and playback?

 

We go back to the point I made initially.  As you have never heard the the original master recording, be it analogue or digital, how do you know what it should sound like?

 

 

[Rexp]

9 minutes ago, March Audio said:

Well the context was his friend had to put the audio into the analogue input because digital input sounded bad.  This is rather confounding as the analogue input still goes through another AD DA process.

 

The context of the thread is about analogue being allegedly better.

 

Well the quality of recordings, mastering etc is indeed very variable.  However my question to you is does this actually have anything to do with digital recording and playback?

 

We go back to the point I made initially.  As you have never heard the the original master recording, be it analogue or digital, how do you know what it should sound like?

 

 

1. As I've said, digital is not inherently bad. 

 

2. You don't know what it should sound like unless you recorded it. 

[Spanna]

I don’t think it matters what the original sounded like. As long as what I’m hearing sounds harmonious and pleasant with no distracting “nasties”, I really don’t mind how the music is packaged or delivered to me.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

Also, how "better" is defined matters. Even though streaming via my current setup sounds worse than both vinyl and local digital files, I'm streaming about 75% of the time right now. Streaming for listening while doing work right now during the COVID pandemic is "better" for my needs because I have access to a much wider variety of music as what I want to listen to changes during the day.

[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:

 

 

 

[fas42]

Pretty easy  ... the CD version is miles in front - this is the one that presents a much greater sense of being where the microphones were; the acoustic around the trumpet is so much better defined. And when the full band comes in, on the LP, the vinyl distortion is just too obvious.

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Pretty easy  ... the CD version is miles in front - this is the one that presents a much greater sense of being where the microphones were; the acoustic around the trumpet is so much better defined. And when the full band comes in, on the LP, the vinyl distortion is just too obvious.

I agree, your analysis seems correct, and correctly not distracted  by the the apparently 'wider bandwidth' of the LP version.

 

1) The horizontal bands above 20khz are signals leaking into the analog before digitization.  Could be on the original LP or could be noise encroaching locally.   Such bands are often manifest on 'high res' versions of recordings also.   Some DSD stuff has massive random noise at higher freqs also.

2)  The apparent varying signal above 20kHz are most likely artifacts from traditional analog noise reduction used on older recordings.   Much (definitely not all) of the excursions above about 15kHz are noise modulation and even modulation distortions depending on the NR system used.   There are boutique recordings that do have substantial true HF content, but not usually pop rock.   Even a lot of classical/jazz have little true HF content above 15-16kHz.

 

It is very possible that there is real HF (at 15kHz or above) signal along with the modulation distortion or vice versa.   In fact, the modulation distortion and noise modulation actually happens also at lower frequencies, but the signal strength is usually so pronounced that the negative effects are hidden.

 

[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. 

 

 

 

 

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

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. 

 

 

 

 

I listened to the CD and LP versions.   They somehow appear to be a slightly different mix.  If the recording was three track, then very possibly could have been.  However, they also appear to be the same session.

 

The differences that you hear are true, and both versions have unfortunately been compressed, so the dynamism of the original recording is weakened (but not totally lost.)

Please be patient with my request for you (and others) to listen to the following analog to your CD version....   The version that I present might be both counfounding, confusing,

prettier, uglier and very different.   However, more than likely, it sounds pretty close to an original session.  YMMV though.

 

I bothered to do this because the original of your example seemed very close to an unadulterated, natural quality recording.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nokrt1oeut84lx/01 CD-FADECODED.wav?dl=0

 

(Here is a 24bit version for those who sometimes have trouble with FP .wav files):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6b9sp0qqd0l064k/01 CD-FADECODED-24bit.wav?dl=0

 

 

[Confused]

16 hours ago, hopkins said:

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 !

I found that to be quite an interesting comparison.  Without getting too much into the digital versus analogue debate, it actually sounded like they were slightly different mixes to me, maybe as a result of compression, or maybe something more fundamental.

 

In the early part of the CD version the solo brass sound is far more prominent.  Some might prefer this, some might prefer the more "easy listening" mix of the vinyl, this might even depend on mood.  When the "band kick in" just before 2 min, the mix seems to go the other way, with the accompanying brass instruments being far more prominent in the vinyl version, making the vinyl version a little less "easy listening" for the rest of the track.

 

I'd make two versions of the track, with the early part from the vinyl mix and the latter part from the CD, and vice versa, then select which to play according to mood.

[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). 

 

 

 

[John Dyson]

9 minutes ago, hopkins said:

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). 

 

 

 

Bandwidth and dynamics are intimately intertwined.   This is especially true because APPARENT bandwidth is not the same as measured with a simple spectral analysis.

The decode of the CD will actually appear to DECREASE the bandwidth if you look at averages, even though the peaks will likely be greater.

 

The recording sounded like it has 'promise as being of good quality at its base', and it really does.   The matter of the vinyl having inferior quality in several ways might be interesting, but there isn't much to worry about beyond that fact.   The CD by itself is NOT a good representation of the original recording (instruments don't even sound real AT ALL), and the LP is even worse.   Sadly, the recording is really GOOD.

 

The reason for the investigation is that I was hoping that the LP had not been compressed like the CD was.   Unfortunately, the bandwidth issue is out of your control as it is an artifact of the recording and the way that it was processed, just like the compression applied to both versions -- the version used to create the CD and the version used to create the LP.

 

There are some older LPs that are 'virgin' recordings, alas -- that LP is not one of them.   Myself, I find it interesting and a challenge to find recordings that sound like they should as they are being mixed.   I had hopes for the LP until I analyzed it.  ( My abiility to hear frequency response balance issues is poor -- but distortions are obvious to me, so I use other techniques to determine quality.)

 

If the LP was a 'pure', unadulterated recording, it would definitely seem to have less bandwidth by some measures, but more by others.

My investigation shows that the difference is so trivial as to be almost unimportant -- the LP is simply a different mastering of the same (probably 3trk) tape, and sadly of poor quality by todays standards.

 

 

 

 

[Rexp]

13 hours ago, hopkins said:

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). 

 

 

 

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

 

 

[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 :)

[Rexp]

38 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

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. 

 

 

Yeah it might not be the recorder, certainly shouldn't be so rolled off.