Too perfect?

[maxg]

I am sitting here listening to Mozart's Symphony Number 40 on a Sony SACD and wondering...

Wondering, not to put too fine a point on it, what is wrong with what I am hearing.

You see the sounds appear at first hearing to be near perfect. The Soundstage is deep and wide. All the instruments sound just about as they should - there is space, scale and lashings of hot PRAT.

And yet....

It is not quite there. For a reason I still cant quite figure out it is simply not as "real" as vinyl. In reality it should be better - there is no hiss, no pops, no indication that this is a recording at all - and yet it is obviously a recording from the first note to the last.

Dynamic range? It is certainly broarder than vinyl. Accuracy - why would it be less? Tonaliy - if it is off I cant tell you why.

But sitting here - with the lighting low and quiet all around save for the music - it just isnt quite.

Switching from SACD to vinyl is no great shock to the system. No - God listen to that or this - merely a pervading sence of rightness after a few minutes, a rightness that lets you settle into the music and forget the system.

Likewise switching back doesnt jolt you with a my god that is artificial. But slowly, over the course of several minutes - you start to notice that the music has lost come of its involvement.

Now this could well be my vinyl trained ears. It could be that it is the adjustment that is the problem. SACD might be the better medium but I am simply used to the vinyl sound and cant make the leap unless I go cold turkey from vinyl for a while and then try to switch back.

Of course one could say this is a cheap SACD all in one player and I should not expect more without investing more heavily in a player.

There is certainly merit in that argument. I cannot deny having boght the cheapest all in one around. Yet - there is nothing obviously wrong with the playback.

The only thing that worries me about both the above arguments is that they are the very same I heard when I bought into CD for the first time.

It wasnt true then - and I am far from convined it is true now.

Nope there is something else - but I have no idea what it could be.

Just as an aside. Switching from SACD to MP3 has the opposite effect. The first 10 to 20 seconds you think - God that does sound bad and then the ear adjusts and it starts to sound quite good again.

I should say - for the record - that this is about as good as digital has ever played in my house. I would even buy new music in SACD format if I were to come across it. I I did not have vinyl I would live with it without missing what I never knew. I just think I would end up listening less to music.

Still it is early days - things might change I suppose - but as it stands now there is little chance of vinyl being displaced any time soon in my affections.

[No Disc]

In my setup it comes down to small but noticible differerences, such as the attatck and decay of the notes, and timber. Vinyl seems to edge out SACD in my setup

I think Vinyl also sounds a bit more natural, less dry, a touch sweeter, a bit more pleasant to listen to. Piano is a good instrument to make these comparisons with.

My SACD is certainly quieter, and in some rare releases, such as with some of the newer RCA Mecrury Living Presence, is as good as Vinyl.

Just curious, is that SACD a DSD recording or PCM?

- Tim

[Parrot]

Max,

There clearly are people who prefer vinyl for whatever reason over digital. I think the bigger mystery is why mp3 is more to your liking than SACD!

I'm listening to Mozart Sym 40 right now too, but the Bruno Walter instead of the George Szell. There is some pleasant natural tape hiss on it, which is great and shows it hasn't been screwed with. Steve Hoffman, in a position to know, says all these early Sony SACDs were straight transfers. Essentially, this is what the master tapes sound like. I don't know why you prefer the vinyl, but considering that you do like the added compression of LPs, that might be some of it. Also, the surface noise of vinyl, even if it isn't obvious while music is playing, is still there and maybe that's something you've grown comfortable with subconsciously. When you face no surface noise with SACD, it might be telling your brain something is weird.

Also, I don't know how neutral your cartridge is. There's a huge range of different frequency responses in different cartridges. Maybe, likely actually, your cartridge is boosting some frequencies and cutting some others, wouldn't have to be much, just a dB here and there even, and you've grown accustomed to this built-in automatic EQ on everything you listen to on vinyl.

[D-MAN]

You know, you vinyl dudes are typically going though another stage of amplification that the digital isn't.

Another layer. Makes things hard to pin down.

DM

[Marvel]

Paul,

He didn't say the MP3 was more to his liking, just that it didn't take long for the brain to adjust to where it sounded good to him.

The brain fills in a lot of missing info. Or masks a lot of bad info maybe. Like going to the theater to see a movie and for whatever reason is grainy. Maybe a blowup from 16mm like Woodstock was. It doesn't take long though, before your brain adjusts and you go along just fine for the rest of the film.

I think it is the same way with most audio. It's the changes that are annoying, like the sound man who can't keep his fingers off the eq and keeps fiddling with it during a performance. Drives me nuts.

Marvel

[No Disc]

Can someone translate that for me?

- No Disc

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On 11/29/2004 5:37:29 PM D-MAN wrote:

You know, you vinyl dudes are typically going though another stage of amplification that the digital isn't.

Another layer. Makes things hard to pin down.

DM

----------------

[Griffinator]

The phono pre is what he's referring to. Digital formats don't use an external preamp, phonographs do.

[jdm56]

I think Paul covered the bases, for the most part, as to what is going on there. All sorts of analog limitations that you may find pleasant sounding, or at least, familiar.

[Colin]

jitter on the SACD (robs the illusions and stresses the ear)?

[scotbuck]

Greetings,

As an unabashed vinyl fan, I'd like to suggest that you're experiencing more "soul" when you hear music coming from an analog source (see the discussion on Wilson speakers vs. KHorns for more on a system component's "soul"...)

I've always described listening to digitized music as "adversely affecting my central nervous system." Something, some x-factor, just seems out of place to me. Then, after I hear the same music from an analog source, a sense of "rightness" prevails.

Although I'm sure there'll be lots of folks who'll disagree with me on this one, I wonder whether it's in the nature of the sound itself. With an analog-to-digital conversion followed by a digital-to-analog conversion, perhaps something special gets lost in the translation.

Something that can't be measured, but *can* be felt.

Just a thought...

Take care,

Scott

[minn_male42]

IMHO....

you "vinyl is somehow better" guys need to get out and listen to more live music.....

my SACD recordings are much closer to the live concerts that I attend then anything on vinyl that I've ever heard - either on my system or on anyone else's vinyl system....

as for the jitter issue..... get a firewire (called i-link or IEEE1394) equipped SACD player and a firewire pre-pro or receiver..... all jitter is eliminated.....

(from the pioneer website)

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,2076_4151_20798228,00.html

i.LINK

i.LINK connectivity, a.k.a. IEEE1394, is an advanced digital interface that provides jitter-free transmission of audio-even high-resolution DVD-Audio and SACD-between similarly equipped components.

Digital Transfer

The i.LINK connection can be found on select Elite DVD Players and AV Receivers. Audio content-for example a DVD-Audio recording-is transferred between i.LINK-capable components in a completely digital state, maintaining the original high quality level.

Digital Transfer, No Noise

Previously, the transfer of audio information required the signal to be converted back and forth between digital and analog, which degraded the signal and resulted in a higher noise level. Plus, up to six analog cables were required for the transfer.

One simple digital connection

Now, just one digital i.LINK cable is required for high-end digital transmission, replacing those six analog cables. Besides yielding higher quality, i.LINK reduces the "wire maze" behind your components.

i.LINK Benefits

Big bandwidth, high-resolution audio signal transfer

Perfect for DVD-Audio and SACD

Content stays digital, for higher signal purity

One digital cable, vs. six analog cable

Also enables two-way communication between similarly-equipped components

[garymd]

I do love my SACD but I'm also in the vinyl camp. The only word I can use to describe the difference, to me, is texture. There seems to be a depth and texture to the music that digital can't capture. I don't know how else to describe it. I can hear more clarity with SACD but I feel the music more with vinyl.

I run tests where I play a CD, wait 15 minutes and play the same album on LP. The CD at first seems more impressive but when I a/b them at the exact same time, the vinyl just sounds better to me. Strange.

[lipinski]

Switching A/B between digital and vinyl.

Very cool!

[No Disc]

Perhaps your vinyl front end is not up to the task? And for what it's worth, I was out two weeks ago listening to the Bolshoi Orchastra's performance of Raymonda. I still prefer my Analog setup 90% of the time. My SACD system is up to snuff, but there are lots of SACD releases that are not mastered to take advantage of DSD, but rather PCM. To me, that's just like purchasing a Digitaly Mastered LP.

- No Disc

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On 11/29/2004 10:27:57 PM minn_male42 wrote:

IMHO....

you "vinyl is somehow better" guys need to get out and listen to more live music.....

my SACD recordings are much closer to the live concerts that I attend then anything on vinyl that I've ever heard - either on my system or on anyone else's vinyl system....

[LarryC]

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On 11/29/2004 5:09:20 PM maxg wrote:

I am sitting here listening to Mozart's Symphony Number 40 on a Sony SACD and wondering...not to put too fine a point on it, what is wrong with what I am hearing.

----------------

Max, were you listening to the SACD on a 2-channel CD player, i.e., listening to the "2-channel layer"? While most by far of my SACDs sound great on my old-fashioned 2-channel CD player, a few have sounded very dull indeed. They've sounded much better when Gary plays them on his multi-channel SACD player, and they dull up again when he switches them to 2-channel. Again, these few were the exceptions among the SACDs I've heard.

Overall, vinyl is better on my system, in the sense of sounding like palpable music, but that is not an absolute across all my recordings. It's also not always been that way -- at various times in building up my system, the LP player would pull ahead and then the CDP after further changes (granting that digital does some things better and vinyl others). While I suspect my LPP is now ahead to stay, I have usually tried to have them about equal in quality and musical appeal, so that I don't have a disincentive to listen to one or the other.

Larry

[garymd]

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On 11/29/2004 10:43:31 PM lipinski wrote:

Switching A/B between digital and vinyl.

Very cool!

----------------

At the Indy gathering earlier this year, I brought Dire Strait's Brother's In Arms on both CD and LP and a few of us in the music room at the time a/b'd them using Craig's Music Hall MMF-7 TT and Sony 333ES CD player. I seem to recall most preferring the vinyl over CD but I'll let anyone else who was there chime in with what they remember. We all know it's a very good recording which is why I chose to bring that particular album. In any case, it wasn't a blowout either way. It took quite a bit of switching back and forth for people to make up their minds.

[minn_male42]

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On 11/29/2004 10:45:45 PM No Disc wrote:

Perhaps your vinyl front end is not up to the task?

And for what it's worth, I was out two weeks ago listening to the Bolshoi Orchastra's performance of Raymonda. I still prefer my Analog setup 90% of the time. My SACD system is up to snuff, but there are lots of SACD releases that are not mastered to take advantage of DSD, but rather PCM. To me, that's just like purchasing a Digitaly Mastered LP.

- No Disc

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as i mentioned - i have listened to many different vinyl setups - including some megabuck systems in dealers showrooms......

my humble home SACD system still gives me much more of a "live sound" - like a live concert - compared to anything i've ever heard on vinyl

[ben.]

yawn

New technolgy isn't better just because we haven't figured out how to measure its flaws yet. To the same end, old technology isn't worse as a whole just because we can measure its weaknesses. The assertion that a few deviations from flat frequency response of a dB or two is responsible for an experienced ear being fooled into a preference for analog is naive at best. What effect do think any of our rooms have on frequency response? We must be fools, I suppose to put up with hellish little clicks and pops just so we can have such a satisfying experience with music we love. And to think - some of us even put up with mono!

[No Disc]

Gary,

Rather than doing a quick A/B comparision I have someone listen to the CD first, one track, no more. Then switch over to the LP version, listen to the same track. Repeat back to the CD again for the same track. Rather than hash out the differences between the two medias, it's interesting to see which people prefer. I never ask "which one is better" I always ask "which do you prefer."

- Tim

[garymd]

Tim,

Good point. I guess that's what I was trying to say when I mentioned how the CD sounded more impressive but the lp sounded better to me when a/b'd. I've listened to entire album sides at a time trying to figure out which I prefer and I do admit that there are some recordings I prefer on CD but all things equal, I'll take vinyl. Also, I wouldn't have said that 2 years ago when using my old Technics SL-1800 and Stanton 681EEE. I'm also sure there's much I could gain on the digital side if I wanted to spend some significant $$$$$.