Quiet_Hollow Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 My problem with typical analog media is, quite frankly, I tend to play the snot out it. I've been a sound addict my entire life. I wore out my grandparent's records*. My siblings and I played our parents' tapes until they squealed to high heaven or faded into the mylar abyss. CD's, and subsequently digital storage, was, and has been the only format and media that could physically keep up with my listening demands. * Still have'em. Beat to hell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJT Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 Is analog dead? I don't think so. A few of tidbits I picked up after attending seminars regarding vinyl and digital media at the NY Audio Show this weekend: According to Michael Fremer in 2013, "33 million plus records were pressed worldwide" and some of those was digitally sourced. VPI can't make enough turntables to keep up with demand. I've heard really great digital and vinyl and on the flip side really bad renderings of each also. Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 1982 was a long time ago. Notice any trends since then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_audio_formats Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 How come you and I and some others here know this, and the producers don't? How can the artists stand that being done to their music? How many audiophile gatherings have you been to and the volume knob was not constantly being turned during the music? The thing is the producers "know" and they "care" and they still do it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khorn4 Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 Love music! I'm so glad I don't have to choose between analog or digital. I listen to what ever I'm in the mood for, in what ever format I decide. Like it all and want to keep an open mind to all the available and upcoming formats. Like it's been said, well recorded music sounds fantastic whether vinyl or digital. Bad recordings just sound bad. My audio gear isn't the top of the line but it sound great to me and looks great. Thats what matters the most! No analog is not dead, there will always be music enthusiast to keep it alive! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 (edited) In the UK, I believe that this was the guy that started the "great fidelity decline": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Meek In the US, I'm not sure who to pin it on, but this one comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spector In both cases, the guys turned out to be murderers. That's quite a testimonial: 100% of the sample population were psychopaths. I believe the era of extremely poor mastering started because of the extremely poor quality of the reproduction devices of that time: have you ever listened to an auto AM radio from that time? That, and transistor radios had something like a 1-inch cone driver--full range--to reproduce everything and without EQ or even a tone control. It went downhill from there, IMHO, and led to a culture of trashy mastering, demanded by the producers, all in the name of "sales"--and one size fits all, of course--all recordings must be trashed. YMMV. Chris Edited September 29, 2014 by Chris A 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) How many audiophile gatherings have you been to and the volume knob was not constantly being turned during the music? The thing is the producers "know" and they "care" and they still do it.... None. They and I ride the volume control (moderately, when necessary) to put the dynamics back (crudely). I'll note that we usually don't need to do this with movies on Blu-ray. Edited September 30, 2014 by Garyrc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 have you ever listened to an auto AM radio from that time? Yes, but FM radio (then mostly classical) was pretty good, but not as good as Lp or RtR played back over an approx $700 to $2,000 sound system. Shure made a $400 three piece system with a Shure V15 cartridge, a Dual turntable and arm, a cheap little stereo amp and a pair of speakers that, while there was attenuated deep bass, seemed to impose less compression than is present in some modern recordings. Ampex pulled a neat trick at one of the Hi Fi fairs ... they had one of their RtR recorders set up in front of a large (acoustically transparent?) curtain. They played back a very dynamic tape, then had people try to guess what was behind the curtain. People tended to visualize some big speaker system, like JBL, Klipsch, Altec, or EV, with great dynamics. Then the curtain was pulled back to reveal two of their small (~~~2.5 X 3 X 1.5 feet ???) powered, tubed, speakers. Certain magnetic 6 channel 70 mm movies with extraordinaty, floor shaking, wind causing dynamics were popular then: Around the World in 80 Days (1956 Todd-AO version only), Ben-Hur (1959), and a little less than a decade later, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). People (and producers) were familiar with wide dynamic range, talked about it in school, at work, and on the streets. Nevertheless, somebody, somewhere, probably a few years later, decided that compression was called for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A1UC Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 I might be going to digital for a source 100% we will see in the next few weeks , I will be using a Auralic Vega /Aries combo . I like the sound of vinyl but it takes work vs Digital . If this digital setup sounds as good as its suppose to I will be selling my analog gear . Who knows I might just decide to use both all depends. I'm going to be purchasing some music downloads this week and hope to decide by the end of the month . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted September 30, 2014 Author Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) I might be going to digital for a source 100% we will see in the next few weeks , I will be using a Auralic Vega /Aries combo . I like the sound of vinyl but it takes work vs Digital . If this digital setup sounds as good as its suppose to I will be selling my analog gear . Who knows I might just decide to use both all depends. I'm going to be purchasing some music downloads this week and hope to decide by the end of the month . this is really the crux of the biscuit... convenience. I think you are going to be very surprised. the new master clock's that control jitter to the fractional pico seconds, dual DAC's, high end foil resistors all make for a VERY COMPETENT playback system... and even with out all that, the newer source material is really very exceptional... albeit limited in offering. I think that is where the bottle neck is at really... limited material offering. Edited September 30, 2014 by Schu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A1UC Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 Im looking forward to it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 They and I ride the volume control That's what I'm talking about.....you have a knob and you turn it to your desire. Do you think turning the knob in the same manner that you do is beyond the capability of the studio engineer? What if someone prefers less dynamic range than you? Are they an insane villain because they have different preferences? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted September 30, 2014 Moderators Share Posted September 30, 2014 What if someone prefers less dynamic range than you? Are they an insane villain because they have different preferences? Yes 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted September 30, 2014 Author Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) some folks are simply just into "Loudness"... and therefore compressed dynamic range. Edited September 30, 2014 by Schu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) They and I ride the volume control That's what I'm talking about.....you have a knob and you turn it to your desire. Do you think turning the knob in the same manner that you do is beyond the capability of the studio engineer? What if someone prefers less dynamic range than you? Are they an insane villain because they have different preferences? In an ideal world, instruments should be recorded with full dynamics and let the user decide what level of compression to use (Car, boat, Home Sound Room, headphones, etc.) Blue Ray delivey with 96khz/24bit sampling/resolution can give us 135 db. Let us decide to run it wide open or compress, not some idiot that says "Make everything loud." Analog was limited to 60 db on a good day, whether it was tape or LP (less in the 70's with recycled vinyl for pop music). Edited September 30, 2014 by ClaudeJ1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 some folks are simply just into "Loudness"... and therefore compressed dynamic range. I think that this is a subject of a possible thread, the problem being that we probably already know the answer to the questions: "who", "what on", and "why"--so we typcially assume that everyone knows what we are talking about. Mark Waldrep at Real HD-Audio (www.realhd-audio.com) has been a strong proponent of providing multiple output formatted tracks on the same media disc, or alternatively from download sites. His suggestion is to provide different levels of compression for those that are too lazy to do it themselves after downloading (it isn't difficult to use several types of compression utilities, but you can't really uncompress a compressed track--it's like taking the cream and sugar out of the coffee after someone put it in. Ever go to the supermarket and buy Coca Cola recently? Lot of variants, and those variants cost the company and the distributors money in terms of logistics, but there is a net gain to the companies and distributors to do so. But providing multiple track compression levels on a download site really costs nothing - since the the levels of compression can be automated before posting to a download site, and there are no increased logistics costs. Chris 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 I talked to Mark Waldrep in Chicago. He believes in what he's doing and thinks 192 Khz. sampling is marketing BS. He is not impressed with the quality of old analog stuff vs. the best of digital. I agree, except I own 1,000 LP's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 They and I ride the volume control That's what I'm talking about.....you have a knob and you turn it to your desire. Do you think turning the knob in the same manner that you do is beyond the capability of the studio engineer? What if someone prefers less dynamic range than you? Are they an insane villain because they have different preferences? No, they can turn it quite well. All I want is for the dynamic range to reflect the artists' preferences. Hopefully, there are still many artists who like wide dynamics in music that calls for it. I know there are in orchestral music and jazz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted September 30, 2014 Moderators Share Posted September 30, 2014 (edited) Schu, on 30 Sept 2014 - 1:57 PM, said:Schu, on 30 Sept 2014 - 1:57 PM, said:some folks are simply just into "Loudness"... and therefore compressed dynamic range. I didn't think loudness has anything to do with compressed dynamic range ? I think that this is a subject of a possible thread, the problem being that we probably already know the answer to the questions: "who", "what on", and "why"--so we typcially assume that everyone knows what we are talking about. Good idea Edited September 30, 2014 by dtel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max2 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 I wish I still had all my albums from when I was a kid. I get all jazzed up about getting some basic staples in vinyl and scoring a decent player and cart, then when I actually get around a player, which hasn't been that many in the past few years, its underwhelming. I don't mean this as an insult for the vinyl guys, I think its great albums are still around and I think albums will still be around after CD's are long gone from being produced and lossless uncompressed downloads are the norm. A lot of guys say albums sound better and Im cool with that, however, the ritual, the cleaning of the disk, the sitting through the entire album...well its an experience that is different, yet has been the same for decades. Most of us here were all Analog kids and all have grown into digital men in some way or form, not necessarily by choice for many though. Sorry about the RUSH quip, but it sums most of us up I think. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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