Jump to content

Is it Just Because CD's Are Louder?


thebes

Recommended Posts

34 minutes ago, YK Thom said:

I’ve never noticed much difference aside from the CDs not having surface noise which used to drive me up the wall back when I was a vinyl guy in the pre-CD universe.

 

Oh yes, who doesn't love having some snap, crackle, and pop with their music. Funny I never ever heard those attributes at a live performance.

 

 

  • Like 3
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, codewritinfool said:

Have you tried a calibration CD against a calibration LP?  How do you know if you have similar gain in both paths?  Without testing, I don't know how you could.  Playing the same musical material in both formats wouldn't be a good test.

 

Just thinking out loud.

 

Very likely the problem. Many cd players output around 2 volts, where old consumer gear line level was .775 for 0vu.

 

Bruce

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, thebes said:

Let's face it no matter how hard you try if you transition from your record player to your cd, or your favorite internet streaming thingy it's almost impossible to have the same sound  level.  The cd is always louder than a properly recorded record.  And gee, what do we all do when we want to impress others with the glory of our sound system?  Yes, that 's right, we turn up the volume!

 

We fool ourselves and call it "concert levels".  What is really is we are cheating in one sense, because secretly in our heart of hearts we know that a record recording is like a  an honest gent driving down the road at the proper speed and observing the road signs, whilst digital is a brash young fool speeding along in a convertible heading straight towards dead man's curve.

 

Oh Thebes you say, "You're just talking about the " loudness wars" and we've already taken that into account in belief that zeros and one rule.

 

I'm sorry, but while there may be one or two cd's out there recorded at the same levels as vinyl, compression aside, the typical cd is always still louder than wax.

 

Now, realize this, turning up the volume is all good and well, until you go a bit too far, and then once the excitement dies down, it's fatiguing and the sound is soon turned back down to normal listening levels.  And that's why, my friends, I think that every cd I've ever heard  comes with built-in distortion.  It's "clarity" is basically an assault. It's something you can feel in your gut. And that's why vinyl rules.  You can make it equally annoying but you have to work at it.

 

 

 

 

thebes...................................................................

 

you are so out of touch. And so wrong. In fact you've made so many wrong statements (above) that you're basically, no, unabashedly, putting your, um, ugh, dare I say "ignorance", on full display. (don't do that) 😎

 

I don't have time to respond to all the absurdity right now, but I shall return.

 

In the meantime, whilst you have described "digital" as "a brash young fool speeding along in a convertible heading straight towards dead man's curve", I guess it's time to remind you of your age, and how time has passed (you by?). "DIGITAL" is no longer "young". It's been around commercially since the mid/late 70's ---- nearly half a century, thebes ------ almost as old as you? Looks to me like you're the one headed for Dead Man's Curve (along with the rest of us audio veterans). (especially the digital deniers) (who I suspect never actually heard an all digital recording and playback system even though you think you have)

 

:emotion-21::wub:

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok I will admit both formats have their limitations.  Vinyl playback has things like the aforementioned surface noise, and things like wow and flutter and rumble, which is why I seldom play records in my car anymore.

 

Then there is digital.  Let's see, there's the aforementioned dithering, then there's the whole sampling question, compression, aliasing, jitter, quantisation, and computer clicks, pops and glitches.  About the latter, if you ever watched a dvd many such artifacts will be easily visible to the human eye, so don't kid yourself they aren't showing up in your music.

 

Now Arto we both know that the heyday of vinyl began with the 33lp and lasted roughly 30 years. Then digital came along , the early recordings were awful, and for about 20 years recording quality was great and then the loudness wars came along rendering digital into numerical crap. So digital's heyday was only about 20 years, less then vinyl's.  While zeros and ones may dominate today, so do ear buds and do you really consider using them to actually be listening to music?

 

I have two fine dvd players in the house, a tubed output cd playe, a California Audio Labs cd player and a former several thousands dollar Yamaha CDX 1100u player.  No matter which one I use the cd's sound louder at the same sound level.  I usually play at 80 db using my Radio Shack sound meter to set the sound level. I do it because I live in a townhouse and have neighbors on both walls.  With any of these five devices set at 80by by the meter the cd playback is "louder" and more in your face. 

 

And don't call me old. Dagnamit! (Gosh darn youngins, mutter, mutter...)

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites



I seldom play records in my car anymore.


Now you're starting to come around, Thebes. I went cold turkey on my Hyundai's dash mounted turntable a few weeks ago. [emoji106]


Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got a buddy that is a vinyl junkie and its all I hear when Im at his place.  It sounds great on his CW's and his Mac setup.  But what my ears say is that vinyl has to be a hobby and something you're really into. All it takes is a few snap, crackles and pops to stop the goodness and let you know what you've been missing.   For me, ignorance is bliss. Buy the CD, rip it lossless and call it a day.  

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, thebes said:

 

I have two fine dvd players in the house, a tubed output cd playe, a California Audio Labs cd player and a former several thousands dollar Yamaha CDX 1100u player.  No matter which one I use the cd's sound louder at the same sound level.  I usually play at 80 db using my Radio Shack sound meter to set the sound level. I do it because I live in a townhouse and have neighbors on both walls.  With any of these five devices set at 80by by the meter the cd playback is "louder" and more in your face. 

 

... and I'll say it again...  You don't know if your comparison to your turntable is valid or not.  Until you have a calibration LP and a calibration CD to set your signal chain gain with, you can't possibly have any idea what the output level of any source device is relative to a different device.  The best you can possibly say from the above is that between all your CD / DVD players, they all seem to have similar output levels to each other.  It says nothing about your turntable or phono preamp if you have one.

 

  Comparing Album A in LP form to Album A in CD form is not at all a valid comparison.

 

  You may be right, BUT without a scientific test, you cannot know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They used compression when mastering for LPs, many of the same tricks that are used for CDs. And the bass was/is rather severely rolled off.

 

Try some newer movie soundtracks. The production for those is, for want of a better term, more standardized than the variance that takes place for regular music CDs.

 

I have a turntable for the 50-100 LPs I own, and I look at new releases, but the majority of what I own is on CD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
On 6/29/2019 at 6:53 AM, Edgar said:

 

FWIW; I am an electrical engineer, my specialty is digital signal processing, I have designed digital audio firmware professionally, and my favorite source medium is still vinyl.

Why is that?  I mean is vinyl your favorite because of the sound, or some other reason (convenience,  already have everything on vinyl you want, etc.)?

 

Curious as to your thoughts on that.

 

Travis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dwilawyer said:

Why is that?  I mean is vinyl your favorite because of the sound, or some other reason (convenience,  already have everything on vinyl you want, etc.)?

 

Curious as to your thoughts on that.

 

Listening to vinyl is a commitment. It's something of a ritual. The other media are almost too easy -- press the button and go on about your business, even forget that you put music on at all, while you wash the dishes.

 

Also, vinyl is still the only medium that will raise the hairs on the back of my neck, even when played through an otherwise all-digital system. Maybe it's distortion ... but it reaches down to the primal level, whatever it is.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/29/2019 at 8:20 AM, Jeff Matthews said:

I'm no expert, but I don't think a battle over semantics addresses the real issue.  The issue involves the claim that the quality of digitized music is not as good as that of analog.  Whether you add or subtract to analog, you get something different.

And that was the basis for the name of our band Cheep Effects! We actually used pretty high quality equipment, just tweaks my Pioneer CTf-1000 to play a slightly delayed acoustic feedback at very LOW volume levels!! In the evening on the 4th floor of our apt at 608 Kingsland, apt 405 or Novelty Studios! We did 4 songs that late evening into early morning and recorded a fifth outside the next morning, an acoustic Jug Band song "When The Hourglass Turns Baque".

John Kuthe...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Edgar said:

Also, vinyl is still the only medium that will raise the hairs on the back of my neck, even when played through an otherwise all-digital system. Maybe it's distortion ... but it reaches down to the primal level, whatever it is.

I think it was Douglas Self that had an interesting theory about feedback from speakers back into the phono cartridge being part of the equation and maybe help explain why phonographs are desired by some. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, fastpuce271 said:

I am not commenting on the sound, this versus that, BUT, I have always liked the look of a record spinning on a turntable playing one of my favorite songs. 

 

It's all part of the experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, codewritinfool said:

I think it was Douglas Self that had an interesting theory about feedback from speakers back into the phono cartridge being part of the equation and maybe help explain why phonographs are desired by some. 

 

Do you have any quick links for further reading on this? First I'm hearing of it, but sounds kind of plausible given the lengths vinyl guys will go to isolate their tables from the most minor amounts of noise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Thaddeus Smith said:

 

Do you have any quick links for further reading on this? First I'm hearing of it, but sounds kind of plausible given the lengths vinyl guys will go to isolate their tables from the most minor amounts of noise.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/284561-hypothesis-prefer-vinyl-douglas-self.html

 

So it wasn't Doug's theory as I had remembered.  Doug was just kicking off the thread.  1200 posts to that thread, though - people are passionate about their flavor of audio!  More power to them!

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...