Vinyl Versus CD SDA Soundstage

afishkind

Any reason why vinyl would have a "wider" SDA soundstage than a CD?

[Deleted User]

Larger disc?

afishkind

I'm not a physicist or audio engineer so it just perplexes me that all my CDs have a narrower soundstage compared to vinyl. I don't mind it at all ... just curious if there's some physics and math behind this effect ... or whether I'm crazy and nobody else observes this. Obviously there are many potential confounding variables. My son likes it better because he feels many albums have too wide an SDA soundstage on vinyl.

MrBuhl

Does seem strange that ALL of your CD catalog is narrower, that should not be the case, I agree with Dskip, seems like you have a mismatch in quality somewhere in the chain between the two.

F1nut

What CD player are you using?

Schurkey

Am I wrong? SDA soundstage is entirely dependent on the difference between R and L. More difference = wider SDA soundstage.

Given the limitations on stereo separation with vinyl, I'd have expected the CD to have wider SDA soundstage.

afishkind

Using an NAD CD
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_745C516BEE/NAD-C-516BEE.html

I'm going to try a different preamp etc and see what happens.

F1nut

Ok, I've no experience with that player.

Nightfall

It's not just you. I find my vinyl setup to have a wider soundstage than digital/CD too and that's with the Oppo player on MIT cable and my turntable on stock Yamaha cabling.

nooshinjohn

I have yet to hear something that approaches my table, but then again, it is my one toy worthy of being in DK's or Joey's setup. I would go as far as saying DK would keep his vinyl rig if he heard this one...

voltz

I have many SACD's that I also have in Vinyl, I have started both at almost the same time/point and then using my remote switched sources and the Vinyl sound warmer & richer then the SACD's. which sounded maybe a tab bit brighter, but not sure they sounded wider just better by a smudged or tiny bit but to close to call a winner as I enjoy them both!

nooshinjohn

I pulled out my MoFi Brothers in Arms and just did the side by side with my SACD copy of the same... they sound like two very different recordings, with the MoFi carrying far more weight in the bottoms end as well as soundstage.

F1nut

I'm not surprised as you're still using that Pioneer.

F1nut

My Japanese SHM-SACD copy of BIA blows away the Mofi copy, which blows away the original SACD release and not a single tick or pop to destroy the experience.

nooshinjohn

F1nut wrote: »

I'm not surprised as you're still using that Pioneer.

The Pioneer has a decent reputation, but yes, I agree that could be a weak link, given the rest of the gear in the chain. As far as snap,crackle and pop go, those artifacts are few and far between, and only detectable between tracks on pretty dirty discs.

[Deleted User]

That seems to be the way MOFI masters there product in general...

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I pulled out my MoFi Brothers in Arms and just did the side by side with my SACD copy of the same... they sound like two very different recordings, with the MoFi carrying far more weight in the bottoms end as well as soundstage.

pitdogg2

nooshinjohn wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

I'm not surprised as you're still using that Pioneer.

The Pioneer has a decent reputation, but yes, I agree that could be a weak link, given the rest of the gear in the chain. As far as snap,crackle and pop go, those artifacts are few and far between, and only detectable between tracks on pretty dirty discs.

you still rocking the Pioneer PD-D9

I ended up with one darn nice player IMHO beat all my Denon's and Sony's

K_M

http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/114.html

This explains a lot. About half way down the article.
Lot of stuff going on to make the sound on vinyl.
Not even close to straight forward. No wonder it sounds differnt.

[Deleted User]

DSkip wrote: »

It could be that your vinyl rig is just better than your digital. Cabling could work better, component ability could be better... something is better there. I know many feel vinyl is king but I don't feel that way. I think both are exceptional, though it does tend to be a little easier to set up a good sounding vinyl rig, especially when vintage records sell for pennies.

Sell for pennies ? Not since the hipsters got on board the vinyl train. A decent used record is 15 buck and up. CDs are really cheap.

As far as the comparison with the soundstage between the two, my wife who doesn't care anything about equipment , commented that the Polks sounded like they were made for vinyl. To my ears, much more involving.

nooshinjohn

As I recall, one of the reasons SDA's were discontinued was they were not digital ready.

[Deleted User]

I only find well worn records at Goodwill or stuff I have no interest in. Some of the old Telarc CDs sound pretty good.

F1nut

K_M wrote: »

http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/114.html

This explains a lot. About half way down the article.
Lot of stuff going on to make the sound on vinyl.
Not even close to straight forward. No wonder it sounds differnt.

An excellent article.

"With each generation, some small amount of detail is lost, and as a result the final pressings never seem to sound quite as good as the original acetate."

So, what ends up on the LP isn't as good as what ends up on a CD.

mikeyb128

Too many new pressings sound just like the cd anyway, so what's the point? Especially when new black discs are selling for 30-40 bucks. And I can get the cd for 5 bucks new. I enjoy all medias, and I like the vinyl experience. But my shanling smokes my anolog and digital. Tubes baby! Get some tubes in that signal path!

Schurkey

F1nut wrote: »

So, what ends up on the LP isn't as good as what ends up on a CD.

I don't think it's that simple. There's plenty of tomfoolery going on in the processing before the CD bits are finalized. Vinyl requires playing games with bass and loudness to make the best use of the three-dimensional "real estate" allowed on a production vinyl disc. The sound is modified to make the groove playable by an enormous variety of "record players" including "bottom-feeder junk", "High-End" and everything in-between. By comparison, the CD medium has considerably less limitation on channel separation and dynamic range, less limitation on deep bass, but a hard upper limit on treble (the only place vinyl exceeds CD). The issue for CD is largely "marketing", by which I mean excess compression. The CD is less "inherently" compromised than vinyl, but it's as-much or more commercially compromised. The content is altered so it "sounds good" on deeply-flawed ("mainstream", "boom box", "rack system") equipment, to people without musical training or an appreciation for nuance. One could argue that all the commercial compromises inflicted on CDs should also be present on vinyl, and for the same reasons. In the context of this thread, only channel separation matters.

If you've got wider soundstage with SDA speakers when playing vinyl, I'd be asking myself why the CD rig or source discs (apparently) have less separation between L and R. This is about stereo separation, (the difference between the L and R channels at any instant in time) not analog vs. digital, not vinyl vs. polycarbonate, not grooves vs. pits. The theoretical advantage goes to the CD. If that's not what you're hearing, 1) there's something wrong with your playback system that is blending L and R on the digital side, 2) there's something wrong with your system that's exaggerating L/R separation on the phono side; or 3) the theoretical advantage in channel separation that CDs have is not being utilized when the CDs are mastered. There were numerous discussions about CDs being mastered "Hot" (excess treble) when the medium was new. There is considerable proof that dynamic range has been compromised on CDs for years--the so-called "Loudness Wars". It would be no surprise to discover that CD masters have deliberately-blended the two channels to some kind of "glorified mono" rather than the real "stereo" that they're capable of.

If the problem is what's recorded on the discs, everyone who compares CD to vinyl is going to experience the same thing. I don't think that's happening, but I've got no personal experience to back that up.

First Guess: You can verify the performance of the CD side of the system with any one of multitudes of "CD Test Discs". If you have good channel separation on the test discs, the problem is not in the CD side of the playback stream unless it's in the music CDs as discussed above. Conversely, if the channel separation is poor on the test disc, the CD playback system is flawed.

honestaquarian

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/101234/The_Alan_Parsons_Project-I_Robot-DSD_Single_Rate_28MHz64fs_Download

Look at the very last review at the very bottom for what I have to say.

DarqueKnight

afishkind wrote: »

Any reason why vinyl would have a "wider" SDA soundstage than a CD?

If your vinyl consistently has a wider sound stage than your digital, your vinyl equipment has better resolution than your digital.

I've done lots of comparisons of multiple digital and multiple vinyl versions of the same album and the results were usually mixed based on the care that went into the mastering and manufacturing of the respective digital or vinyl disc.

I am currently transferring my vinyl collection to DSD digital. I have been frequently struck by how much better some of my 20 to 30 year old "ordinary" 33-1/3 rpm albums sound compared to expensive "audiophile" albums pressed on "premium" heavy weight vinyl after being carefully "remastered" by revered record producers.

The biggest shock has been that, without exception, the DSD transfers of my vinyl records sound better than the records.

nooshinjohn wrote: »

As I recall, one of the reasons SDA's were discontinued was they were not digital ready.

What qualifies a loudspeaker for being "digital ready"?

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I have yet to hear something that approaches my table, but then again, it is my one toy worthy of being in DK's or Joey's setup. I would go as far as saying DK would keep his vinyl rig if he heard this one...

At this point, I doubt that I would keep a vinyl rig in my 2 channel rig no matter how good it sounded. I no longer want to deal with the inconveniences.

I gave some serious consideration to selling my vinyl rig, but I realized I need to keep it for the occasional record I might buy and need to transfer to digital.

I did sell my Pass Labs XP-25 phono preamplifier after I had transferred all my audiophile and 45 rpm records to DSD.

nooshinjohn

Wish I would have known you were selling that one... if I could have found the dang quote from Mr Polk, I believe he said something about the digital format and SDA. Could be it was mentioned in passing as part of his commentary on the changing nature of the business as a whole. Too much going on in life these days for me to keep up.

daddyjt

F1nut wrote: »

My Japanese SHM-SACD copy of BIA blows away the Mofi copy, which blows away the original SACD release and not a single tick or pop to destroy the experience.

I had the same experience with the Japanese release of Aja on SACD - absolutely buries the vinyl. No pops or ticks, and I can navigate the album from the couch with my remote:-)

Nightfall

Imagine if someone made a source that could be manipulated with just your thoughts. Then you wouldn't even have to move.

DarqueKnight

I recall Matthew Polk saying the market was going to smaller (and cheaper) speakers and that was the main determinant behind discontinuing SDAs.

F1nut

Polk had the all digital copy of BIA as one of the recommended demo CD's in their SDA literature.