Why vinyl?

[Don Richard]

Man Don, I would have loved to just hear that R to R tape of that album (love Kansas) and have had a similar experience listening to an original tape track of Glen Hughes (Trapeze) against his CD release and felt just the opposite but then again R to R tape is still in the analog realm

And the tracking and mastering were all done on analog tape. The only differences in my "test" were in the storage medium and playback hardware. The vinyl sounded very good but the CD was closer to the tape, especially noticeable with dynamic sounds such as drum hits.

[Mallette]

KSS, I know you've been through these discussion with us, so you've heard my whole spiel about how I came to experiment with digital recording to find out why it was so crappy. Won't inflict that whole story on the newer crowd, but it's in the record (yeah, Bruce...as it were) if they are interested.

However, the end product was that I learned by doing that even a dummie like me could make "audiophile" recordings by the simple steps of:

1. Put the mikes where your ears want to be.

2. Be as close as you can to a straight wire with gain to the storage device.

3. Higher res is better...but only when you A/B and even then it's a case of "more accurate" rather than right or wrong.

I will never believe that format or media is remotely as important as engineering.

On "2," you will also recall that also means no mixers.

And finally, that doesn't mean that great recordings can't be made with mixers and other devices or methods, it just means that none of those things are required and every added complexity comes with added risk and requires added skill.

I'd give anything to have spent time at the feet of Stan Ricker. I am awed at how he used the same method as above but with a Neumann lathe as an output device he adjust ON THE FLY as Virgil Fox played on "The Fox Touch" albums. These are my sine qua non of vinyl with their 21hz F# and pitch varying from 70 to 440 lines per inch adjusted by Stan in real time.

It must have been a TRIP to do that as flawlessly as he did. Heck, Virgil made more boosboos (loud and clear in the Widor "Toccata") than Stan.

Anyway, I really believe my signature line below...

Dave

[JJkizak]

Mallette:

Your right on the A/B test with the cymbals. It is very obvious even if you have poor hearing.

JJK

[kaiser SET say]

"Anyway, I really believe my signature line below..."

As do I Dave[] Like a listener Dave, Stan had the ear for what he wanted the recording to sound like[]

JJ, I'd have to hear that digital recording next to those actual cymbals to make that call[]

[Schu]

What camera do you have that records in continuous tone?

Even my analog cameras are limited by the size and quality of the film grain.

hello... mcfly.

[T.H.E. Droid]

The grit and sand you describe is called high frequency content, much of which is missing on LP's.

Oh yeah, the high frequency content on CD's is so accurate,

Golly, an illustration of sample aliasing from a high school computer text book. But I'll bite--- If the sample rate you show is 44.1Khz of a CD, then the HF waveform you show is a 10/11ths the frequency-- we can count in analog, can't we? That makes it approximately 40Khz. So I have a few questions:

1. Do your speakers reproduce 40Khz tones?

2. Can you hear 40Khz tones?

3. Anybody playing music with a lot of 40Khz tones in it?

4. Can your vinyl record 40Khz tones and can your cartridge transduce them?

If you want to discuss technology, please stick to technology and skip the wishful thinking and audiophile mumbo jumbo.

[8-)]

[nu2toobs]

I am most certain, very few have heard just how good digital can sound.

On the other hand, I'm almost certain very few have heard just how good vinyl can sound.

[Invidiosulus]

What camera do you have that records in continuous tone?

Even my analog cameras are limited by the size and quality of the film grain.

hello... mcfly.

is that you Biff?

My point, although somewhat obtuse, was that recording in any medium results in a less than perfect copy.

[artarama]

Bottom line, you can't make it sound any better than it was originally recorded! EQing dosen't count, that's altering the sound, not improving the recording.

For that, you get the coveted

TRVTH

award.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I appreciate that!

[oldtimer]

I never realized it was so coveted. That just made my day, I feel much better now. Thanks Dave. (it's in the forum somewhere)

[kaiser SET say]

I am most certain, very few have heard just how good digital can sound.

On the other hand, I'm almost certain very few have heard just how good vinyl can sound.

Touche' Nu2[] I just love that arm board of yours and everytime I see your avatar I want a beautifully setup 124 like that[]

[kaiser SET say]

" I just changed phono stages and it made a huge difference for the better."

Nu, what did you change too?

I need to change my avatar from the factory shot to mine don't you think[]

[JJkizak]

Oh my God! You have committed a mortal vinyl sin with all those records on top of one another. OOps,looked at it a little closer and the thickness is the turntable platter.

JJK

[RRFL]

The grit and sand you describe is called high frequency content, much of which is missing on LP's.

Oh yeah, the high frequency content on CD's is so accurate,

Golly, an illustration of sample aliasing from a high school computer text book. But I'll bite--- If the sample rate you show is 44.1Khz of a CD, then the HF waveform you show is a 10/11ths the frequency-- we can count in analog, can't we? That makes it approximately 40Khz. So I have a few questions:

1. Do your speakers reproduce 40Khz tones?

2. Can you hear 40Khz tones?

3. Anybody playing music with a lot of 40Khz tones in it?

4. Can your vinyl record 40Khz tones and can your cartridge transduce them?

If you want to discuss technology, please stick to technology and skip the wishful thinking and audiophile mumbo jumbo.

Go the vinyl, lol.

When CD's first came out they were discussing vile and pernicious, then they got better.

The CD was limited by the ability of the chips at the time and that set the sample frequency.

The designers in their efforts to get the most out of the chips in the $2,000.00 AU players limited the upper frequencies captured onto the CD claiming that you would not hear them anyway.

When blind tests were done with vinyl verses CD's on top shelf equipment the lay audience mostly picked the vinyl as being the CD since they expected the CD to sound better.

Then they brought out CD players that recreated the high frequencies "synthesised" that had been filtered on the original CD creation process.

The CD samples at 44.1khz so if it were to replay 22khz then there would only be 2 measurements for the whole of the wave form. Now if you use the analogy of a childs join the dots colouring in book. The CD joins the dots in straight lines where as the vinyl joins then in graceful curves as would the more experienced and refined child.[6]

Therefore the CD is the infancy of digital discs just as this photo was for vinyl before I was born.

[RRFL]

btw when solid state first came out it was even worse than CD's

I always preferred the 2 track master running at 30inches per second, myself.

[Invidiosulus]

btw when solid state first came out it was even worse than CD's

I always preferred the 2 track master running at 30inches per second, myself.

I prefer loge seating.

[Mallette]

I never realized it was so coveted. That just made my day, I feel much better now. Thanks Dave. (it's in the forum somewhere)

You've no idea how much stock, beautiful women, and drugs I am offered for that award...

However, it MUST remain pure.[H]

Dave

[StephenM]

The CD samples at 44.1khz so if it were to replay 22khz then there would only be 2 measurements for the whole of the wave form.

Here's my understanding of how it all works:

First consider the Shannon-Nyquist Sampling Theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

If a function x(t) contains no frequencies higher than B hertz, it is completely determined by giving its ordinates at a series of points spaced 1/(2B) seconds apart.

Now obviously, there's a problem: music can and does have frequencies higher than 22.05kHz, and this can cause problems with aliasing at the higher end of the spectrum if we limit our sampling to 44.1kHz. However, consider that in the studio, instead of sampling at 44.1kHz, lets say they sample at a much higher rate of 192kHz (DVD Audio, Blu Ray) to get a much better digital representation by pushing significant aliasing issues out of the audible band. Now consider applying a low pass filter at 20kHz to that digital representation. Suddenly, we've got something that a CD can work with, and it will be of rather good fidelity. Perfect? There's no such thing, but it's pretty darned good all the same.

[Don Richard]

The CD samples at 44.1khz so if it were to replay 22khz then there would only be 2 measurements for the whole of the wave form. Now if you use the analogy of a childs join the dots colouring in book. The CD joins the dots in straight lines where as the vinyl joins then in graceful curves as would the more experienced and refined child.

One cannot record or play 22kHz on a redbook CD. The low pass filters on the record end and the playback end will not pass that freq. The anti-aliasing filter in the player also smooths the staircase effect so that the curve is smooth. If it were not that way the distortion readings would be higher. If you want to talk about distortion, vinyl playback yields distortion typically over 3%, more at low freqs.

[kaiser SET say]

Oh my God! You have committed a mortal vinyl sin with all those records on top of one another. OOps,looked at it a little closer and the thickness is the turntable platter.

JJK

Too funny JJ, no wonder this table weighs 51Lbs[] Guess I need to stop stacking so many records on top of each other, seemed the easiest way to get my VTA right[:S] LOL