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The best 'source' for music? Download 24 bit? Vinyl? Or ?


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On 7/5/2018 at 10:34 AM, codewritinfool said:


Yes, and as I’ve said before, Mark Waldrep from AIX records has written volumes on this topic. His email newsletter and book are fantastic. Highly recommended.
 

Have any of you taken the high-resolution audio challenge thatWaldrup is doing?

 

Very illuminating. 

 

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6197

 

 

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On 5/25/2017 at 5:55 AM, 32blownhemi said:

What's the best source to get music from? I was going to get a CD player but the place I got my 2nd amp from said to download 24 bit from a site like HD Tracks. Guy tried to sell me something that stored the music & then something else he said I needed to play it. I just got confused & figured I'd better ask questions here first. All I've used as a source so far is Apple I Tunes from my computer running to my pre amp. So what's the best set-up? And is downloading 24 bit better than SDCD's? or Vinyl?   Thank You!   Bill


Vinyl is best, methinks! Except for digitally generated music, most all other music and anything coming from a loudspeaker or instruments to your ear is analog, as are vinyl albums. So a vinyl album contains ALL the analog waveform of the music, not just a digitally sampled representation.

John Kuthe...

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Well, I'm not so sure about that.  While many are obvious analog LPs from beginning to end of their manufacturing process, and the way they sound, that's not true of all of them. 

 

I'm most of the way through looking over and sample-listening to my hundreds or thousands of LP albums, and have found maybe 50 or 100 clearly labeled DIGITAL LPs.  Those uniformly had a flat, grainy, lifeless, non-musical sound to the music.  Probably the worst sound of any music medium!  "Digital LP" is virtually a contradiction in terms.  I threw all of those away.

 

I also was suspicious of many1970's or 1980's LPs that had the same dubious qualities but weren't labeled digital.  I threw all those away, too!

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What's the best source to get music from? I was going to get a CD player but the place I got my 2nd amp from said to download 24 bit from a site like HD Tracks. Guy tried to sell me something that stored the music & then something else he said I needed to play it. I just got confused & figured I'd better ask questions here first. All I've used as a source so far is Apple I Tunes from my computer running to my pre amp. So what's the best set-up? And is downloading 24 bit better than SDCD's? or Vinyl?   Thank You!   Bill



CD


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  • 5 weeks later...

Me too lol. I listen to both. I listen to digital when it is convenient to do so. I listen to physical media when I want to "escape" and listen for a few hours. The fact taht I can pull out a old CD read the liner notes see the scratches on the jewel case brings back memories of when I bought the CD and what I was in to back then, it's a way for me to "connect" to my music, I dont get that "connection" with digital media, kind of like driving a stick shift vs an automatic. Now when an artist is about to drop a new CD I always screen it on spotify and if I like the offering I go out and by the physical media. I will admit here lately I have been using the convenience of digital and always strive to get the best example I can.

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On 8/16/2018 at 7:25 AM, 32blownhemi said:

Thank You Everyone! I'm still using Apple iTunes running through Amarra... Other than the obvious answers to me such as CD or Vinyl the other stuff just confuses me...  Bill

Nothing wrong about that...

It depends on your convenience..

 

If I'm out and about i would use a media player... In certain circumstances... But don't own one..

 

Have a cd player... Went that route in the early 80's... 

 

But I'm back to vinyl... As my main listening environment...

 

Cds are great for the car... But it also

Becomes inconvenient.. Space wise..

 

Vinyl also becomes that too... At home... But much added care to the media.. Has to be taking... There's more involvement... And as a pleasant one...

 

so it helps.. Psychology to get in too.. Or in tune with the artist...

 

It's like having coffee first thing in the morning feel... On a weekend..

 

or a beer with friends after work..

 

or great meal with a bottle of wine..

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Good time perhaps to remind folks that some LPs are DIGITAL which, at least in classical music, do not IMO have a natural musical sound.  Having found this to be consistently true, I've been tossing DLPs whenever I find them.  It's not always possible to identify them from the album cover and liner notes.

 

To Wit:  Today, I pulled out and listened to a beautiful German print album LP album of Bach's st Matthew Passion (orchestra, soloists and chorus).  Part way thru, I began to recognize an unnatural violin and vocal sound, so I entered the album brand and number into Google -- and, sure enough, the listings came up with "CBS Masterworks Digital" from 1974, without a HINT of the dreaded D-word on the cover or in the liner notes!  It's going in the trash, obviously, but it looks like some companies were beginning to realize by then that digital LPs were not a positive seller in their catalogs,  This LP was "Columbia [] Masterworks 79403". Note they forgot the "Digital"

 
You can find out a lot about classical recordings thru Google by just entering the record brand and album number + pressing Enter.
 
Larry
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  • 3 months later...
On 7/15/2018 at 11:17 PM, dwilawyer said:

Have any of you taken the high-resolution audio challenge that Waldrup is doing?

 

Very illuminating. 

 

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6197

 

 

I met Mark Waldrup about 4-5 years ago at Axpona in Chicago. I walked up to him and said "Do you agree that any recording over 96Khz./24 bit is ridiculous overkill that only Bats can hear?" To which, he smiled and replied YES, almost immediately. Then I sat through his program in the Auditorium the following day and bought several of his original recordings. Now the question I posed was after watching a few videos featuring Tomlinson Holman, the "inventor" of THX and 5.1. so the "bat" part of the question was not an original thought on my part, so I stole that one.

 

Dr. Waldrup knows what he's' talking about. IOW, he's right about all the BS of companies like HD Tracks, where you take the contents of a shoe box, put it in Sea Containter, and mark up the price of old analog recordings (as though magic will improve the anemic dynamics of the originals).

 

The biggest problem with his recordings are the color management of the video files, and the fact that I'm not impressed with multi channel presentation as I am with stereo, but he does provide choices in the Blue Ray format he uses to get the full 135 db dynamic range of live instruments!! Even if you use "flat masters" from the Fifties or 60's and beyond, which were all Analog and somewhat deteriorated by now, where you are lucky to have 60 db dynamic range, and expect it to perform with 135 db dynamics of the uncompressed Blue Ray standards. That is technically impossible unless your ORIGINALs were recorded digitally on the Blue Ray standards, which, obviously, did not exist back then. The world needs to catch up, but it won't because the big money is 52% of the market of teens downloading compressed noise (RAP) that tries to pass as real music nowadays (old fart rant alert fully on).

 

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I have been a die hard vinyl addict for many years. That said, digital has closed the gap nicely. Especially when listening to digital files streamed from a hard drive. This beats a cd player all day long in my system. Even using a transport to my DAC, the digital file sounds better than the disc 100% of the time.

 

I have also been streaming Tidal lossless for about a month now. Very, very good. For 20 bucks a month, the SQ is excellent and so is the library. It's money well spent for me.

 

Still spinning rekkids though.........

 

Shakey

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My setup is

 

Allo Digione Raspberry Pi player running Picoreplayer through Logitech Media Server

Synology two bay NAS with two Western Digital 3.5" drives

MHDT Pagoda DAC

 

This is all hard wired to a router which is hard wired to my network upstairs.

 

I use a Samsung Tab A running Squeezectrl to control my music loaded on the NAS, stream internet radio and stream Tidal (lossless FLAC account).

 

The sound quality I get is very good in my opinion.

 

Shakey

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To the original question, I moved away from downloads and returned to LP and CD/SACD as my predominant source of music after putting those more or less in storage.  With classical music, maintaining a digital library in iTunes became such a chore, the quality was OK because I was traveling a lot for work.  Granted these are compressed files and I have not tried these newer HD sites, but for a while I was also using Amazon Music and it had the same problems.  So I am turned off by downloads. I bought most of my LPs in the mid-90s and they were already then used, but most of them in good condition.  But they are starting to show their age and I have been replacing them with CDs.  I am especially impressed with the Japanese pressings of CD/SACD. For example, for years I listened to the Klemperer Das Lied von der Erde on LP and then replaced it with a Japanese CD pressing and was blown away with the sound quality from a recording of the early 1960s. Or the Beethoven String Quartets of the 1950s Budapest Quartet recording are gorgeous on a newer release.  I have always craved the analogue LP sound but I have to say the newer CDs in general sound better now then in the past or with the ADD conversions at first with hiss accompaniment.  Also for symphonic/orchestral I now prefer new pressings on CD even of transfers (Kleiber’s Beethoven 5th sound even better on the SACD than the DG LP), my LPs are still great for smaller ensembles,  solo piano and voices of important historical recordings, which of course is a different listening objective.

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On 8/25/2018 at 11:43 PM, LarryC said:

Good time perhaps to remind folks that some LPs are DIGITAL which, at least in classical music, do not IMO have a natural musical sound.  Having found this to be consistently true, I've been tossing DLPs whenever I find them.  It's not always possible to identify them from the album cover and liner notes.

 

To Wit:  Today, I pulled out and listened to a beautiful German print album LP album of Bach's st Matthew Passion (orchestra, soloists and chorus).  Part way thru, I began to recognize an unnatural violin and vocal sound, so I entered the album brand and number into Google -- and, sure enough, the listings came up with "CBS Masterworks Digital" from 1974, without a HINT of the dreaded D-word on the cover or in the liner notes!  It's going in the trash, obviously, but it looks like some companies were beginning to realize by then that digital LPs were not a positive seller in their catalogs,  This LP was "Columbia [] Masterworks 79403". Note they forgot the "Digital"

 
You can find out a lot about classical recordings thru Google by just entering the record brand and album number + pressing Enter.
 
Larry

 

 @LarryC  You may use this as a guide if you are intent on throwing things away... They list a lot.

 

https://www.discogs.com/label/199054-CBS-Masterworks-Digital

 

While harder to discern on rock albums, one of the best vinyl LPs I own is Dire Straits 1985 album "Brothers in Arms", the first DDD (all digital album). That's right, recorded on a Sony digital multitrack and processed all the way to a CD release and vinyl release.

 

There are tons of reasons why a release sounds bad, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with digital recording/processing.

 

Bruce

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55 minutes ago, Marvel said:

 

 @LarryC  You may use this as a guide if you are intent on throwing things away... They list a lot.

 

https://www.discogs.com/label/199054-CBS-Masterworks-Digital

 

While harder to discern on rock albums, one of the best vinyl LPs I own is Dire Straits 1985 album "Brothers in Arms", the first DDD (all digital album). That's right, recorded on a Sony digital multitrack and processed all the way to a CD release and vinyl release.

 

There are tons of reasons why a release sounds bad, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with digital recording/processing.

 

Bruce

 

Sadly, that Dire Straits LP is the worst sounding one they ever produced. Love Over Gold, Making Movies, and Communique are far better IMHO. The self titled LP is not that great, but bad in a different way than BIA.....

 

Shakey

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1 hour ago, Shakeydeal said:

Sadly, that Dire Straits LP is the worst sounding one they ever produced.

If that is the worst of the lot, then they sure know what they are doing.:D  Like Steely Dan(well maybe not that good), their worst is better than most.

 

Bill

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