Why vinyl is kind of a miracle

[artto]

My question was absolutely NOT rhetorical.

 

Many Forum veterans are well aware of my "credentials". While I've never intended to make a living at this, I have plenty of "professional" experience, as a musician and recording. And I wouldn't just post it here on the Forum for listening. I would distribute the real thing as I have done for a few Forum friends. Or, of course you could purchase it directly from my client's website. The experimental stuff is in my personal possession and would need to be listened to in my listening room.

 

There is more to playing recorded music than vinyl. There is so much wrong with the "phonograph" record I could write a book about it. If we had only stuck with Edison's cylinder phonograph, using today's technology we would have a truly wonderful analog sound reproducer, albeit with all of analog's drawbacks such as easily damaged (and not repairable), continuous degradation with every play, it's lousy signal to noise ratio (dynamic range), degradation over time from simply "sitting there". The list goes on and on and on.

 

Seriously, even if you were lucky enough to get the very first vinyl pressing of a recording, between the original analog tapes, the mixing and mastered tapes and the LP production process itself, you are at BEST, 8 to 10 generations away from the "original". In the analog world every successive copy carries with it the cumulative distortions and noise from the preceding copies. Vinyl? LOL. Vinyl was always considered the "poor man's HiFi". Back in the day no self respecting "audiophile" was without a reel to reel tape deck. And what do you think you're going to get from vinyl using the 4000th pressing from the same stamper? The 50,000th? The 1,000,000th? (yes, the major record companies would produce that many copies from one stamper)

[MeloManiac]

@artto

Well, as I thought, you are in a whole different league than I am. I'm just into the vinyl because of nostalgia and the tactile aspect of it, I guess.

I do have some experience with recording video - I make videos once in a while for non-profit organizations, and as I got better at it, the filming and editing became routine, while the audio has always been a struggle. And I'm not talking about recording music now, but about straightforward interviews. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong (inexplicable cracks, wind in microphone, distracting noises by hand holding the microphone...). I can imagine that recording music is exponentially more difficult - if you want to do it right, that is.

 

I want to add two more things.

One, that little Zoom H1 microphone I use, for its price - under $100, is simply amazing. It gives impressive stereo separation. And this is just their entry level model.

 

Second, I have carefully read your criticism towards vinyl and your arguments do make sense. But they are perhaps contradictory to the opinion of vinyl proponents the likes of Michael Fremer, at http://www.analogplanet.com  Here, Fremer writes about Daft Punk's 'Random Access Memory' album. It is relevant to what you wrote/asked, because of this: " Everything was laid down to both analog tape and to digital, with the final choices made based upon which sounded better to all concerned, including mastering engineer Bob Ludwig." Read more at https://www.analogplanet.com/content/daft-punks-random-access-memories-retro-disco-ear-candy#EGQSFAX9DiKIHf5B.99

In the final paragraph, he writes 30,000 copies of this album were sold, which is way less than the 1,000,000 studios would press in the past, as you suggest. If this number is a big success, then the obvious conclusion is that new vinyl will be pretty good quality, as no more than (about) 30,000 were pressed...

[kevinmi]

Many of the new remastered vinyl is taken off the original master tapes, and sounds good. Tape is a format that gets degraded by the tape being pulled over the record/playback heads, causing more damage than a vinyl record being played by a good system.Nothing is perfect, but for some of us the sacrifices of analog playback far outweigh the convenience of a digital format.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/3/2019 at 4:49 PM, artto said:

My question was absolutely NOT rhetorical.

 

Many Forum veterans are well aware of my "credentials". While I've never intended to make a living at this, I have plenty of "professional" experience, as a musician and recording. And I wouldn't just post it here on the Forum for listening. I would distribute the real thing as I have done for a few Forum friends. Or, of course you could purchase it directly from my client's website. The experimental stuff is in my personal possession and would need to be listened to in my listening room.

 

There is more to playing recorded music than vinyl. There is so much wrong with the "phonograph" record I could write a book about it. If we had only stuck with Edison's cylinder phonograph, using today's technology we would have a truly wonderful analog sound reproducer, albeit with all of analog's drawbacks such as easily damaged (and not repairable), continuous degradation with every play, it's lousy signal to noise ratio (dynamic range), degradation over time from simply "sitting there". The list goes on and on and on.

 

Seriously, even if you were lucky enough to get the very first vinyl pressing of a recording, between the original analog tapes, the mixing and mastered tapes and the LP production process itself, you are at BEST, 8 to 10 generations away from the "original". In the analog world every successive copy carries with it the cumulative distortions and noise from the preceding copies. Vinyl? LOL. Vinyl was always considered the "poor man's HiFi". Back in the day no self respecting "audiophile" was without a reel to reel tape deck. And what do you think you're going to get from vinyl using the 4000th pressing from the same stamper? The 50,000th? The 1,000,000th? (yes, the major record companies would produce that many copies from one stamper)

You forgot to mention the crappy RECYCLED vinyl (not virgin vinyl) that they used to make WARPED pressings, some with a piece of paper schmutz in the middle of a warp. One Linda Ronstadt pressing comes to mind as the worst of the worst.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/2/2019 at 4:16 AM, ILI said:

With future proof, I mean this:

In photography, you can scan a century old negative with the most modern equipment and create a the best possible digital image.

You can rip a vinyl record with the best algorithm available to create a digital file.

 

As technology evolves, you can repeat this process in the future, for even better digital files. But in order to do that, of course, you must still have access to your analog source .

Yes, you can scan a glass, plate, which was relatively crappy to begin with (Orthochromatic only, so you could not record accurate skies, so they had to double expose). So now we have highly resolving scans of crap. No thanks, I would rather digitize the original subject  in a digital camera with 14 stops of dynamic range or record the original sounds with modern microphones and the 135 db S/N ratio of 24 bit/96 Khz. sampling, thank you very much.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/2/2019 at 7:01 AM, ILI said:

These are the very first singles I owned. I was 10 years old. They have tremendous emotional value for me. I can't imagine a similar attachment to a digital file somewhere stored on a server in zeros and ones.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn 5047U met Tapatalk
 

Nostalgia (purely emotional) does not supersede good measurement of modern sonic performance. Sorry, but you are wrong.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/2/2019 at 9:49 AM, ILI said:

Some put too much trust in digital files. Digital carriers will not survive the average life span of a vinyl record.

There are real threats such as disc rot (see picture from Wikipedia), bit rot, component and system failures.

Anyone who hasn't lost some important digital pictures, rips, files, documents due to negligent backup protocol... raise your hand?!

Negligence does not impart its evil on the validity of better technology, sorry to tell you.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/3/2019 at 5:55 PM, kevinmi said:

Many of the new remastered vinyl is taken off the original master tapes, and sounds good. Tape is a format that gets degraded by the tape being pulled over the record/playback heads, causing more damage than a vinyl record being played by a good system.Nothing is perfect, but for some of us the sacrifices of analog playback far outweigh the convenience of a digital format.

Yes, and with digital mastering done in the highest quality possible, there is NEVER any degradation. I switched to CD's in 1983, as soon as it was available only Sony only at first), and quit buying LP's immediately.

[kevinmi]

32 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I switched to CD's in 1983, as soon as it was available only Sony only at first), and quit buying LP's immediately.

I did the same thing, and after selling off all my vinyl and amassing a 1000 cd collection, years later I went back to vinyl.

[ClaudeJ1]

1 hour ago, kevinmi said:

I did the same thing, and after selling off all my vinyl and amassing a 1000 cd collection, years later I went back to vinyl.

Well if you did, it's probably because there were no "Loudness Wars" in the vinyl days. It is kind of amazing that your can drag the hardest, tiniest rock though a ditch at 20,000 PSI and have make 2 channel music as well as it does with RIAA Equalization. Like film, it's a non-linear compander system that works pretty well and refuses to die. The WORST sounding recordings I own are on a CD, and the best recordings I own are on CD. The medium is NOT the message and how they are PRODUCED is far more important than the medium itself. I inherited about 500 Classical recordings 2 years ago, (adding to my own 500 pop/rock/jazz on Vinyl),  that were only played ONCE and put on REEL to REEL (someone's rich Uncle who passed away).  I tossed all the tapes, since I sold my Crown RtoR decades ago, but I still have the vinyl, which will be digitized selectively when I get some time in retirement from the workforce. But like I said, I have NOT purchased any vinyl since 1983, and will sell off the vinyl versions of what I bought on CD. "The Nighfly" by Donald Fagen comes to mind, as it was one of the first Digitally Mastered recordings, and the CD sounds better than the vinyl. That is not always the case, however.

[hogwylde09]

Everybody who has heard my system says that the vinyl sounds better than anything else I play.You have to be dedicated to the format to get the best results. I'm sure digital can have better specs, but the same can be said about ss amps compared to tube amps. Specs will never make me get rid of my tubes or vinyl!

Listen to a original pressing with a Pickering XLZ7500s> tube phono pre> any GOOD tube preamplifier> tube monoblocks.
I'll take vinyl any day of the week over
O's and 1's.


Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

[Les Lammers]

On 5/12/2019 at 1:08 PM, kevinmi said:

I did the same thing, and after selling off all my vinyl and amassing a 1000 cd collection, years later I went back to vinyl.

 Me too. But now my CD's get little play because of the convenience of Tidal. Perhaps CD's will go the way of the LP? I did get back into vinyl but bailed again ten years ago.

[glens]

It's a lot easier to rip your CDs to flac and serve them up than to do so with LPs.  Been there done that with vinyl, same with reel tape and cassettes.  It was all great (enough) in its day; good riddance.  Digital is here to stay.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 5/12/2019 at 1:08 PM, kevinmi said:

I did the same thing, and after selling off all my vinyl and amassing a 1000 cd collection, years later I went back to vinyl.

And the reason is? I suspect it's because you got tired of the stupid "Loudness Wars" that kill the dynamics of any recording, good or bad. So eve though Digital Media is ruler flat from 4 Hz to 22,000 Hz., especially with modern D/A converters, it still boils down to the Quality of the PRODUCTION over the delivery mechanisms. Like I said before, the Best Recording I own is on a CD, while the Worst recording I own is on a CD. Now with uncompressed 24/96 recordings from AIX and other Purist companies (very few) Digital Media is better than ever. AIX uses no compression to use a bigger chunk of the available 135 db dynamic range of the Blue Ray Audio Medium that goes beyond our hearing mechanisms. The rest is up to the acoustic space, placement of the musicians, microphones used, and relative level adjustments on the mixing board. Flat Masters RULE!

[ClaudeJ1]

I should add, the my best friend and World Class speaker builder, has an incredible music collection. Over 1,000 LP's (and buying more), 1,500 CD's (and buying more), lots of downloads on his Solid State Drives (and buying more). He would never touch an MP3 with a 100 ft. pole (purist that he is). For him it's MUSIC FIRST, then the medium. He has Twin Turntables, one with a Stereo Moving Coil Cartridge, the other with Mono (you don't want to hear the prices he paid).

 

His LP's are cleaned with a $4,000 cleaning machine (he sold me his cheaper/older one), before he puts them on the tables, so they are as dust and dirt free as humanly possible.

 

However, where he and I differ is that he claims LP's are superior in comparison, which I vehemently disagree with. It's still an inherently different WORKFLOW when mastering for an inferior, Non-Linear,  delivery mechanism, analog or not. But there are audible differences, but it ain't the plastic, silicon, or vinyl that makes the difference, it's the MASTERING and the DEGRADATION of DUPLICATION, which does NOT apply to the Digital Media, PERIOD. (I have been to Artto's house with my friend). BTW, the Audio Purists of the 50's and 60's listened to Reel to Reel TAPE, which were free of ticks and pops. PWK had all tapes of his own, Purist, Twin Spaced Omni Miked, live recordings of Symphony Orchestras. I heard a few at his house and they were FABULOUS sounding.

 

Also, with my eyes closed, ONE single tick, click, or pop noise from the LP spoils the ILLUSION for me as it REVEALS that it's not digital but the after effect of the constant contamination of and wear of VINYL. But hey, in photography, there are people who still make albumen prints and tin types from over 100 years ago, but was also the First Digital Photographer in Michigan and with big Epson printers for output, so I am biased towards Repeatable High Performance. If there's a race between 2 different cars, the better DRIVER will with the race every time, even if they switch cars. It's the PRODUCTION.

[kevinmi]

The really cool thing about our "hobby" is that we can listen to different formats and decide which sounds best to us. I know as I grow older and my hearing changes, things sound different. It's nice to be able to dial in my system to my liking.

[ClaudeJ1]

11 minutes ago, kevinmi said:

The really cool thing about our "hobby" is that we can listen to different formats and decide which sounds best to us. I know as I grow older and my hearing changes, things sound different. It's nice to be able to dial in my system to my liking.

You will not get an argument from me on the THAT, amigo!

 

[Don Richard]

Years ago a friend visited the studio that recorded Kansas' Leftoverture album. He had the engineer make a 1/4" 7 1/2 ips copy right off of the master tape they had on file. I compared the vinyl album and the CD to the tape and found the CD to be nearly indistinguishable from the tape, while the vinyl played on two different turntables wasn't as clear as the tape. 

[ClaudeJ1]

48 minutes ago, Don Richard said:

Years ago a friend visited the studio that recorded Kansas' Leftoverture album. He had the engineer make a 1/4" 71/2 ips copy right off of the master tape they had on file. I compared the vinyl album and the CD to the tape and found the CD to be nearly indistinguishable from the tape, while the vinyl played on two different turntables wasn't as clear as the tape. 

Yep, good ol redbook CD is certainly adequate, and has always been so, until the insane abusers in the Loudness Wars took over the productions. On Kind of Blue, recorded in 1959, you can clearly hear the hiss of the master tape, since CD's are noiseless with their 96 db Signal to Noise ration vs. 60 for Tape.

 

Yep, this whole Expensive return to Vinyl craze makes no sense at all. My good buddy accidentally ordered 2 Police Box sets on 180 Gram Vinyl for $180 per box of 5 LP's. YIKES! That's $360 wasted if you ask me. But to each their own.

[ClaudeJ1]

As a member of the Audio Engineering Society in the late 70's, I remember the battle of the Digital Formats between major Companies with big R&D budgets. I read all the specs from the different companies, and was hoping that Phillips would win. They did, and partnered with Sony to bring the Technology to market. I had heard a jazz recording on a Reel to Reel using a DBX 2:1:2 compander, that pushed the dynamics from 60 to 90 db. This is the same setup that Gene Czerwinski (Czerwin Vega) used to demo his recordings which made him infamous as the "High Priest of High Levels" at all the shows.

 

That was the best sound I ever heard, back then as a 1,000: 1 improvement in dynamics, so when I saw that the CD SNR spec. was similar, I couldn't wait for it to come to market. As a member of the Audio Engineering Society, I attended a local chapter meeting in Michigan, late 1982. I found out I was one of only 3 people who owned a CD player (Sony was all you could buy then). I got my wife a pair of Oiled Oak Heresy's for Christmas and she got me the Sony CD player. Surprise! I remember going into a record store to see that most of the available CD's were $20, with a VERY limited choice, mostly classical. Meanwhile, you could buy an LP for $5.00, just to give you some perspective. Now, LP's cost $30-40 and CD's are about $10-15. What a world!!

 

A better story was when my wife walked into the store to also buy me my very first CD to go with the Sony player (One on One by Bob James/Earl Kliugh), the lady asked her if we actually owned a CD player. "Of course I do, why would I buy a CD if I didn't a player for it?" The lady said that some people had bought CD's and returned them all scratched when they tried to play them on their Vinyl TURNTABLE!! (as seen on the first "Austin Powers" movie) As if the huge hole in the center wasn't enough of a CLUE. Talk about clueless consumers, OMG!!

 

The brilliant/simple thing about the Phillips CD was that you had to have constant bit rate, which meant, the ROTATIONAL speed had to vary from 500 RPM down to maybe 200, I forget. So starting Laser from Center Outward made sense from an efficiency standpoint. Why? Because starting fast and decelerating over the hour of Recorded time allowed for the natural, mild friction of the bearings to slow down the Rotational Speed, without using too much braking power. If they had read from the Outside-In, like an LP,  the total amount of ENERGY used, would have been much greater. Plus, the inside out reading method allowed for the creation of Larger Diameter Discs, which eventually became the I'll fated Laser Disks for VIDEO, whereby the players could play both CD's and Video Discs on the same unit. Good History.