CD vs Vinyl sound

polkfan38

$150 + for a album? Not THAT is retarded! I am sorry if I just some people but, that is very silly.

Cpyder

polkfan38 wrote: »

$150 + for a album? Not THAT is retarded! I am sorry if I just some people but, that is very silly.

polkfan, I love you, but I'm not quite sure what you meant here. Admit it, you were drunk when you wrote this. All of us audio enthusiast love to drink wine and little to music. Sometimes a little too much here and there.

Here's my guess edit:

$150 + for an album? Now THAT is retarded! I am sorry if I just offended some people but, that is very silly.

Satch0922

Most people that argue the LP vs CD don't have the proper equipment or experience to have an intelligent discussion about the subject.

Until you have a "real" turntable (not a $99 Technics from 1982) and know how to do a proper set up of the deck, you really have not experienced the LP in a proper setting. Also, cleaning and maintenance of the LP is key in getting proper results.

To sum it up, I too got sucked in back in 1984. Bought a $1000 CD player, ditched my albums and REPURCHASED (are you listening record companies) CDs of my favorite music. Bought 3 or 4 CD players over the years to "upgrade" equipment even though it was sold as flawless from the word go. Over the years the CDs are now being ripped to ACC or MP3 and over time you get used to the degradation of the sound quality. Wasn't digital supposed to "improve" quality? Not at all. It was just another way to make money.

So here it is 2010, I bring my Denon turntable back out, it is beautiful as ever by the way, and put on my favorite LP that has been played maybe a handful of times (remember "back in the day" we made cassettes of our new LPs on the first play). WOW, listening to an LP brought a huge smile to my face. All that crap that has happened to the music media (cds and now MP3s etc) has taken its toll on the warmth and soundstage that a quality turntable rig can give. Is it convenient? Hell no. Does it take extra care and careful set up to have a quality LP listening experience? Yes. But I am here to tell you it is worth it. Like a fine wine, you don't drink it every day but when you do, you smile from ear to ear and all is good in the world. Hey I listen to my iPod in the car every day and CDs/Mp3s most of the time around the house. But when I want to get serious, I throw an LP on, sit dead center of my system and enjoy music.

Now THAT is my real world take on things. Screw the technical BS, that is the stuff the people pedaling their wares ram down our throats.

Polkersince85

Excellent first post Satch and welcome to the forum.

polkfan38

Cpyder wrote: »

polkfan, I love you, but I'm not quite sure what you meant here. Admit it, you were drunk when you wrote this. All of us audio enthusiast love to drink wine and little to music. Sometimes a little too much here and there.

Here's my guess edit:

$150 + for an album? Now THAT is retarded! I am sorry if I just offended some people but, that is very silly.

The fix you made was correct. I honestly thought I typed that correctly! Who is retarded now? Anyway, after thinking about that price, I suppose if you are VERY serious, it makes sense. To the same people who buy $310k German Physiks speakers and such. I guess I just wish I had that problem.

yepimonfire

alright ive seen enough with people bashing AAC. AAC is a GOOD audio codec, i will show you what the difference between uncompressed PCM and AAC is, i created this by loading both files into audacity and then inverting the AAC one so that all that you hear is the "lost" information. this group plays very complex music, it is an entire metal band backed up by a full on orchestra, a genre called "viking metal" (a style based on symphonic black metal) the AAC file was compressed using LC-AAC at 250kbps, the same parameters used for itunes downloads, now i wont argue mp3 is not all that great, but at 320kbps it is very transparent. http://www.mediafire.com/?mdykjklmzny no musical information is lost, no notes or harmonics either which mp3 ruins harmonics at lower bitrates.

as far as the genre goes it has alot of derivatives, usually it is a base off of either black metal, power metal, or melodic death metal, but the musical atmosphere is the same.

Cpyder

yepimonfire wrote: »

alright ive seen enough with people bashing AAC. AAC is a GOOD audio codec, i will show you what the difference between uncompressed PCM and AAC is, i created this by loading both files into audacity and then inverting the AAC one so that all that you hear is the "lost" information. this group plays very complex music, it is an entire metal band backed up by a full on orchestra, a genre called "viking metal" (a style based on symphonic black metal) the AAC file was compressed using LC-AAC at 250kbps, the same parameters used for itunes downloads, now i wont argue mp3 is not all that great, but at 320kbps it is very transparent. http://www.mediafire.com/?mdykjklmzny no musical information is lost, no notes or harmonics either which mp3 ruins harmonics at lower bitrates.

I haven't checked out your link, but I'm quite sure I've done something very similar using mp3 at all the common bitrates. At lower ones (128kbps) you can hear the song very clearly but at 320 you can't really make out anything clearly. 320 really isn't that bad, although I always use lossless - even if I can't always spot the differences, it's for peace of mind.

yepimonfire

well the reason i use AAC is because i keep all of my music on an ipod and hook it up to my receiver and just listen that way, not to mention i dont own any CDs because back in the days when i didnt have money for them i would buy a song at a time and all i had was a computer and cheap headphones, now that i have 236 albums worth of digital music, i kind of would feel weird randomly getting CDs as of now and i certainly dont have the time to burn all of my other music, i know, im OCD. oh and as far as 128 goes, 128 AAC is equivilant in quality of a 320 mp3, honestly MP3 is an outdated codec. ive done tests using OGG vorbis, WMA (which destroys low frequencies) AAC, MP3, and alot of other random odd-ball codecs and AAC remains king OGG is good past 256 because any lower then that and you lose real musical information, it is similar to MP3 in artifacts, but has a much better method, for instance 128 OGG is equivilent of 256 mp3 etc. and you can rip OGG at 500kbps, at that point it becomes so transparent you will occasionally hear a "static" sound on the test.

cnh

BlueFox wrote: »

Any form of lossy compression losses musical detail, and is unacceptable. This is not up for debate.

I use an iPod and Apple Lossless compression, which gives a bit for bit identical digital file as compared to the original CD file. Along with a Wadia iTransport, which is the only dock that can extract the digital file off an iPod, and an external DAC I have a music server that easily equals a similar priced CD player, but provides a superior playback experience. If I want to improve the sound quality I just need to upgrade the DAC.

A compressed file is fine for the beach, or some other background music experience, but it has no place in this discussion of CD versus vinyl.

Well put....I fully agree. Here's a somewhat related question concerning lossless files on a hard drive. Since the hard drive is an electro-mechanical magnetic device and a CD laser is an optical tracking device. Is ONE more susceptible to jitter and other forms of corruption and distortion or not? In others words would a cheap hard drive and some DACs and a tube buffer, etc. yield 'better' sound than a cheap CDP and the same DACs and buffer? Or vice versa?

cnh

yepimonfire

nope, the music on the hard drive is decompressed and stored in the RAM as PCM, which is directly sent to the soundcards DAC, RAM can be accessed at lightning fast speeds and the transfer speed (the speed it takes to retrieve the data) is only limited by the speed of light, which is the speed electromagnetic energy travels, data in the ram is stored as electromagnetic charges. DACs are also usually better in computer soundcards especially if you use an offboard one because they are 32bit DACs and they can upsample much better. the only way you would have a jitter issue is if your doing too many things at once and your ram space is being totally occupied. or if the cpu is being too used and its unable to decode codecs fast enough to supply a steady flow of PCM to the ram, then you can have easily audible jitter, ive had this before on slow computers when doing too many tasks. it literally sounds like a jittery sound. basically if everything is working right the soundcards suply of PCM is solid-state, no moving parts. not sure if that has an effect on jitter or not.

yepimonfire

i just want to say even with its very minor flaws and issues digital ALWAYS WINS, reason being, it is virtually immortal, you can play the same CD 375837583459345873584953 times and it will sound the exact same as before, every play of an analog tape or vinyl reduces the quality of the sound, and eventually erases itself. you can also copy digital things inumerously without losing quality, ive also noticed alot of vinyls arent very accurate in representing low frequencies (below 50hz) or very high ones (18khz+)

also up for questioning, can every turntable spin the EXACT same speed all the time? i know when playing vinyls i occasionally notice it slowing down or speeding up for a few half seconds.

sometimes it almost reminds me of compression issues, when copying any analog medium, you lose information with each copy, you cannot accuratley reproduce the exact same waveform on a copied vinyl as the one being copied. plus as you mix tracks, this requires dubbing etc, then copying to a master tape, each time, more sound is lost.

TNRabbit

.....

headrott

yepimonfire wrote: »

you can also copy digital things inumerously without losing quality,

This statement is absolutely incorrect. I know that by using numbers some people wil try to convince me that there is not loss of sound quality, but my ears tell me different. Even one digital copy reduces the quality, especially the high end. The more times you replicate a digital source (i.e. a digital copy of a copy of a copy) the more clipping of especially the high end occurs. I can absolutely hear it, can you?

Greg

cnh

Theoretically, if one is using a good program to burn a file that has been stored in a high quality lossless format you should produce an identical digital copy. The question, therefore is 'what' are you using?

I, myself, can't hear what you are referring to on my burns.

It would also follow from your argument that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO STORE SOMETHING ON A HARD DRIVE IN A LOSSLESS FORMAT. That lossless formats don't exist?

cnh

mhardy6647

There is a finite error rate in the digital duplication process, just as there is for DNA replication. The net error rate, after the proofreading mechanisms for DNA replication do their job, is about one in 10^9 bases, i.e., one in one billion "bits". I don't know the actual, absolute error rate for binary (digital) data transcription, but I'd guess it's in the same ballpark.

This is why all digital media have error-correction mechanisims built in (checksums, parity bits, or whatever is SOTA these days).

heiney9

yepimonfire wrote: »

i just want to say even with its very minor flaws and issues digital ALWAYS WINS, reason being, it is virtually immortal, you can play the same CD 375837583459345873584953 times and it will sound the exact same as before, every play of an analog tape or vinyl reduces the quality of the sound, and eventually erases itself. you can also copy digital things inumerously without losing quality, ive also noticed alot of vinyls arent very accurate in representing low frequencies (below 50hz) or very high ones (18khz+)

also up for questioning, can every turntable spin the EXACT same speed all the time? i know when playing vinyls i occasionally notice it slowing down or speeding up for a few half seconds.

sometimes it almost reminds me of compression issues, when copying any analog medium, you lose information with each copy, you cannot accuratley reproduce the exact same waveform on a copied vinyl as the one being copied. plus as you mix tracks, this requires dubbing etc, then copying to a master tape, each time, more sound is lost.

You have a LOT to learn about this hobby

H9

polkfan38

TNRabbit wrote: »

.....

That cracks me up! It all puts things into perspective. At some point, you just have to sit back and laugh! This stuff (in my mind) is not something to lose sleep over. There are so many variations involved with this hobby that there is no one solution to anything. When I started this thread, I was not picking sides. I am still not. Each one has its plusses and minuses. The only format I absolutely hated over the years is 8 track. WTF was that? I have owned TTs, cassette tapes, CDs and reel to reel. They are all cool in my mind. The only one that gets my nod right now is CD. Mainly because I have tons of CDs and it is easy to use. Keep rocking everyone and most importantly, have fun!

reeltrouble1

I tend to favor the funk of mixo-lydian over ionian, its just does something swapping the end and beginning while leaving the middle the same, of course the flat 7 is bound to appear and in the end what mixo is about.

certainly not identical, but oh so musical.

RT1

yepimonfire

headrott wrote: »

This statement is absolutely incorrect. I know that by using numbers some people wil try to convince me that there is not loss of sound quality, but my ears tell me different. Even one digital copy reduces the quality, especially the high end. The more times you replicate a digital source (i.e. a digital copy of a copy of a copy) the more clipping of especially the high end occurs. I can absolutely hear it, can you?

Greg

nope, its either a placebo effect or the recording was bad to begin with, many times when you copy a digital recording the copying program does a bit for bit comparison of the original and the copy and if its not correct, it will tell you.

oh and you can "hear" anything you WANT to hear, this is why people claim different transistor amps have different "sounds" in honesty most of them do not. same goes for 1000 dollar cables versus plain cable.

polkfan38

Maybe someone can do an experiment. Burn a copy of something. Then burn a copy of the copy. Then burn a copy of that copy and so on. See if there is a change. Be honest as well. My main computer died a month ago so I can't do it right now. Otherwise, I would.

yepimonfire

doing right now.

yepimonfire

ripped to FLAC, burnt to a blank CD, ripped from the blank CD to FLAC, copied from the main hard drive to en external one, the burnt back to a CD and ripped to FLAC again, then re-converted to WAV. put the original recording from the CD into audacity, then placed the 6 times copied file in and inverted it, what do i hear? silence. myth debunked. want the WAV file to prove it? just ask....

Fongolio

yepimonfire wrote: »

ripped to FLAC, burnt to a blank CD, ripped from the blank CD to FLAC, copied from the main hard drive to en external one, the burnt back to a CD and ripped to FLAC again, then re-converted to WAV. put the original recording from the CD into audacity, then placed the 6 times copied file in and inverted it, what do i hear? silence. myth debunked. want the WAV file to prove it? just ask....

yepimonfire wrote: »

oh and you can "hear" anything you WANT to hear

Whoops! Maybe myth not debunked!

yepimonfire

:rolleyes:
no, doing an out of phase test is absolute, if there is any difference between the two waveforms you can hear the song if they are the same you cannot hear ANYTHING, it is silence.

hearingimpared

yepimonfire wrote: »

nope, its either a placebo effect or the recording was bad to begin with, many times when you copy a digital recording the copying program does a bit for bit comparison of the original and the copy and if its not correct, it will tell you.

oh and you can "hear" anything you WANT to hear, this is why people claim different transistor amps have different "sounds" in honesty most of them do not. same goes for 1000 dollar cables versus plain cable.

Here we go again!:rolleyes:

yepimonfire

in order to make claims you must provide data to back them up, there is no data for different "sounds" in amps or cables. i just provided data proving a 6x copied file is exactly the same as the original.

yepimonfire

for instance ive known people who claim that solid speaker wire sounds better then stranded, but they forget that all of their components and speakers have stranded wire in them in the first place. therefore, even if solid wire did make a difference, it wont because your still using stranded leading to the voice coil.

hearingimpared

yepimonfire wrote: »

in order to make claims you must provide data to back them up, there is no data for different "sounds" in amps or cables. i just provided data proving a 6x copied file is exactly the same as the original.

Sorry, no we don't and we've been down this path many, many, many times here on Club Polk and it just turns into a slugfest. AS said many times before, my ears are the best equipment to use to choose whatever it is I like what is producing the music the way I like to hear it no matter what the cost, specs, ABX tests, placebo effect, etc etc etc.

From experience here's how this is probably going to go down. You are not going to convince anyone to change their minds on these topics and we are not going to change yours. Search this forum for cable and amp discussions and you will find many and they all end up the same way.

Have fun, enjoy your music however you like!:)

I'm out!:)

heiney9

Noyournotonfire.............you are wrong and have been added to the IL

H9

yepimonfire

i like the lenard audio institute defenition of an audiophile, it fits alot of people on here

"Audiophiles' became one of the most bizarre cults of the previous century. Claiming to be gifted with golden ears, audiophiles can hear electrons traveling in wires, and have the ability to channel thought into crystals to ward off evil harmonics. Cloaking themselves in mystical terms unrelated to music and physics, they can be heard chanting model numbers and superlatives. This delusional mix of paranoia and marketing hype, where descriptions attain to greater meaning than the described, exists in all areas of society."