"Discovered" vinyl...

[Whisperfang]

Rummaging around under my bed i found my grandfather's (i live with him since he's 81) ancient 78rpm singles. After tossing out half of them due to physical damage i bought a turntable and digitized them all. Today i bought my first modern LP. Chinese Democracy from Guns 'n Roses. Regardless of how you think of the group, this LP is masterfully done. The sound quality even from my less than audiophile grade turntable is astonishing.

I've been forced to re-evaluate what i thought of analog audio. I've known for many years that quite a few people maintain that analog can sound better than digital under the correct circumstances. I believe that now. I don't have the CD version to compare this to, but it can't sound any better than this. It may be equal in that you couldn't tell the difference, but it can't be better. I am now in the process of trying to figure out what albums i want in vinyl. Some of Pink Floyd's stuff is at the top of my list. What else would you guys suggest? Nothing that is rare and expensive please, i am very limited on budget right now.

[phide]

I don't have any suggestions for LPs (since I own very few, and only for the purpose of collecting), but I want to make a couple points.

The first point being: the concept of the analog recording will always be superior to the concept of digital recording. Any type of digital recording involves a quantization process, yielding a certain degree quantization error and potential audible artifacts of aliasing. Analog media isn't necessarily bound by the constraints of quantization (though they can still suffer from it, to a certain extent, due to physical constraints like the molecular size of polyvinyl chloride).

That being said, is there a real analog medium that's superior to 16-bit/44.1 kHz PCM? That I'm not so sure of. Even 1/2" stereo tape, which has a track width of nearly 1/4", has shortcomings, both nonlinear and linear distortions, that digital does not. At sufficient sample rates, the only major shortcoming with PCM is quantization distortion, which is easily suppressed with dither. A 16-bit bit depth is theoretically (and observably) sufficient.

Usually the differentiating factor is the master itself. Vinyl just doesn't lend itself to very loud masters, so the vinyl is usually cut from a less aggressively-compressed master (often a digital master). At the same average playback volume, the less-compressed master is almost always going to sound better than the hotter master destined for CDs. In cases where both the vinyl and CDs are "cut" from the same master, the CD will most likely sound better than the record, or will at the least more closely approximate the original master.

In any case, the trick to finding good LPs is generally just trying to stick with 180 gram, 45 rpm releases. These are dubbed as "audiophile grade". The higher the weight, the less the record will wear over time. The higher the speed, the greater the "resolution", but the trade-off is reduced play time. You might also want to invest in a good, reputable vinyl treatment to minimize static-induced pops and clicks (supposedly).

[Arkangyl]

Makes sense that all-analog sounds better :-P

Sound by nature is analog, so any digital media is analog -> digital -> analog, now those conversions can be done very, very well but they'll never be perfect. Not to mention the character that analog systems have. Same as the character of a V8 with a stick shift vs. a tubo-4 with twin-clutch auto, never underestimate character & feel versus technological prowess.

[criccio]

Always like to post these when vinyl is brought up. Very interesting if you didn't already know.

How Vinyl Records Are Made (part 1) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGRRUecBik) , (part 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IReDh9ec_rk)

[EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

Vinyl brings back some good memories, pink floyd dark side of the moon on vinyl, OMFG, every kid should be forced to have to listen to that when they are at school so they get a taste of real music once in their lives, instead of all this loud noise and shouting and swearing that passes for music nowadays...

And no I aint even 40 yet, so I am not old, but I do think the sound of vinyl played through a stereo that has vacuum tubes just sounds magic.

[nathancipher]

lol ok there gramps, could you be more generic with your stoner rock?

let me guess...any music you don't personally like is "loud noise and shouting and swearing that passes for music nowadays"

anyway as to the topic at hand...vinyl is not inherently better like a lot of people would try and lead you to believe, and the reason why it sounds better is nicely explained above by phide. a properly mastered digital audio track would sound just as good.

producers and engineers have been pushing the envelope with the so called "loudness war" overcompressing and maximizing the music they handle to a point where digital listening fatigue sets in almost immediately. these tracks peak at like -0.01db whereas iirc vinyl is somewhere around -9db. a track with that high of a threshold is going to lose a lot of audio information to the compressor, but a track levelled to even -6db will have plenty of headroom for the audio to breath.

vinyl does impart a certain amount of what people will refer to as "analog warmth," also known as noise. this does make the audio sound better psycho-acoustically, but this is not something that only records can do. any halfway decent analog pre-amp will give you similar warmth. unless you just love that snap crackle and pop of a dirty record.

[phide]

let me guess...any music you don't personally like is "loud noise and shouting and swearing that passes for music nowadays"
I'm not sure why you care, but...

these tracks peak at like -0.01db whereas iirc vinyl is somewhere around -9db.
Two different types of the decibel here. In the digital realm, 0 dB is 0 dBFS (full scale), which can be "calibrated" against any particular analog reference level (like -6 or -9 dBVU) during authoring. The grooves in a record peak where they peak (it's cal'ed to itself, like digital). Headroom isn't an applicable factor in a reproduction chain.

[nathancipher]

nice i did not know that

[Whisperfang]

So, seeing how i paid for the album, i downloaded a CD rip of it in lossless format. Aside from some dust noise in a couple places on my version, i can't tell the difference. Hell, if anything, the highs might be clearer on the vinyl!

Btw, im listening to it through professional studio quality headphones, not computer speakers.

[kniff]

The Metallica LP's would be on my list at least :-)

[Joe Average]

Wonder how Death Magnetic would sound on LP compared to the absolute fucking trash that made it onto commercial CDs...

Be interesting to find out. I grabbed some FLACs of the Guitar Hero version where they had remastered the tracks down to where they should have been and it's a whole new world of audio compared to the commercial CD in stores.

It's a damned shame what they do to music nowadays, it really is. It's like most recording engineers and whoever has the final say for mastering is like "It's where, 89 dB? Crank it up to 99 dB and let me know when it clips..." or words to that effect. It's a god damned shame, it really is...

[phide]

Gotta lay the blame on the labels for loud CDs, unfortunately. According to a fairly recent interview with mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, the mixes he's getting these days are hotter than ever, but he's still paid to do effectively whatever producers and labels want in terms of achieving loudness. So, mixing engineers, or more likely producers, are partially at fault, but mastering engineers are essentially just doing what they can to scare up work. Unfortunately, that also includes making loud records. Thankfully, a good mastering engineer can make loud records semi-tolerable (up to the point of no return, anyway). The bad ones just destroy whatever passes through their studios :)

Ted Jensen, who mastered Death Magnetic, even publicly stated that he isn't "proud" of his work on the album. He claims the mixes he received were already clipped, so there wasn't much he could do to smooth things out in any meaningful way.

[Joe Average]

I've read similar things by that guy about the work on Death Magnetic, that's why I did a comparison of the commercial CD and the FLAC rips from Guitar Hero... amazing difference, really. Wonder who was responsible for that remastering for Guitar Hero because it's truly phenomenal just how much better it sounds.

Rush is my fave band ever, and it's been sad to see their material basically destroyed over the years. There's a great article (it's been linked before here in other articles about how volume is killing actual music and what the recording industry does to ruin the products) by Rip Rowan here:

http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/247/Over-the-Limit.aspx

He uses multiple examples of how over time the progression has gone from "lots of headroom with great dynamics" to "HOLY SHIT MAN, MAX IT OUT, IT'S NOT LOUD ENOUGH... YET" with Rush albums over the years.

There's the third edition of Rush - Retrospectives (http://www.amazon.com/Retrospective-3-1989-2008-CD-DVD/dp/B001G8SWXM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1241221028&sr=8-1) (sorta like a greatest hits collection) out now and several of the Vapor Trails tracks were remixed for that collection of songs, and if you read through the comments there at Amazon (not the greatest opinions but it's something) you'll note that far more people are happy with the results of the remixes than are dissatisfied.

I'm one of 'em, for the remixes, that is. Big difference, and they just work. It would be awesome if it were possible for all of Rush's materials to get redone that way at some point. I know it's just wishful thinking, but... they really do some great work, it's just that god damned shame again when it gets absolutely ruined at the last stages of the recording process. I don't believe for one second that any of the three members of the band would sit back and say "Hell yeah, max it out" because they're musicians, first and foremost.

I just can't believe that more artists actually allow that crap to happen - if I was a musician I'd make sure I'd have some kind of clause in a contract stating I've got final approval before anything gets pressed. No clause, no contract, move on to someone that will... or publish it myself...

Damned shame... :(

ps
The name of the engineer that handled those Rush remixes is apparently Rich Chycki, guess I need to do some research on the guy...

[riffer]

Like said above, I too find the most influential factor to be the mastering.

I recently compared my copies of AC/DC Powerage - The original Vanda/Young vinyl versus the CD versus the digital remastered vinyl. The original Vanda/Young was vastly superior, although the digital remaster vinyl had some good points, mainly in additional detail.

Recordings today are clearly mastered in a different style that really isn't the best for audiophiles. For example, I recently listened to both the CD and Vinyl of Audioslaves second album (I believe). Both sounded atrocious. The songs sounded great on the radio though :)

[MR_PERFECT]

This is all you need to know why lp sounds better.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=375592

[phide]

I can pick that "answer" apart pretty easily, and will do so now :)

Natural sound is by definition analog.
If a digital representation of an analog source is perceptibly identical to the analog source, the digital source sounds just as "natural" as the analog. What defines a sound isn't relevant if there are no perceptible differences. Perceptible differences can only be correctly identified in a well-administered double-blind test.

by definition a digital recording doesn't include all the sound information.
Nor does an LP. Not even the finest 180 gram records are able to retain the characteristics of an analog or digital (high resolution or not) source. Significant trade-offs must be made in some scenarios where the dynamic range is impressively wide (such as with classical compositions).

A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform.
See above :)

There basically is an infinite number of 'snapshots' and 'possible values' [with records]
Nope. This would only be true if a polyvinyl chloride molecule were infinitely small. In reality, it isn't. Some have suggested the effective sample rate of an LP is less than Redbook PCM, though a perfect estimate is impossible due to the heat-induced deformation of the stylus (which can reach temperatures of up to 500F at the tip). This deformation is attributed to many of the record's often audible anomalies.

[Zenshi]

Nice post phide. I think people forget that as with digital, analog has limits. In the case of vinyl or LPs, the recording signal is not digitized into bits but basically "scribed" onto the actual LP using the transition from electrical impulses to mechanical ones. A moving needle and inductively coupled coil took the analog electrical signal and "drew" the corresponding pattern onto the master disk. Then this master disk was used to stamp out thousands of LPs. Although digital is limited as one poster said by the resolution of the bits, if the resolution is high enough, then one can basically reproduce this signal. Similarly for analog, if there is any problem in the signal to noise or calibration, etc of the signal, it can skew the electrical to mechanical signal. That is why for awhile in the old days, linear tracking turntables were all the rage since the linear tracking re-created the same mechanical movement as when the master disk was cut so that it minimized errors in translation. Harman Kardon and Phase Linear were quite famous for their linear tracking turntables in the 80's. The stamping of the LPs themselves cause imperfections to appear in the LP after numerous stamping. Thus there were the limited stamped albums that sold for a lot more than the standard LPs. Even with this, eventually a needle could wear out the grooves in the LP and cause the sound to get muddy, even if it was analog.

So analog doesn't always mean it is better or that there is less loss of information due to lack digital translation of signal. It all depends on the situation. If the signal-to-noise of the analog recording and playback system is higher than the bitcount resolution of the analog-to-digital translation, then analog would be inferior to digital. The limitations in analog is what made so many people turn to CDs in the first place back in the 80s. We have come full circle. JMO.

Oh and as you say phide, bad recordings will just sound bad regardless of analog or digital. Sometimes its not the equipment but the people using the equipment thats the problem.

[Whisperfang]

That would be why i played my new Chinese Democracy LP *once* on the turntable and recorded it onto the computer at the highest sampling rate i was allowed: 48KHz 16bit. Slightly better than CD but it's the best i could do. I won't play the LP again unless i get a truly professional turntable and a better sound card to rip at 96KHz.

[phide]

I'd actually recommend doing vinyl rips at multiples of 44.1 kHz, if you can swing it. So, when you get yourself some new 96 kHz-capable converters, go for 88.2 kHz. If you get 192 kHz converters, record at 176.4 kHz. By doing so you're able to do relatively "simple" integral resampling to down to 44.1 kHz for your CDs, iPod, etc.

With modern resamplers, it doesn't make much of a difference in the end though.

[Whisperfang]

I don't have an ipod. :D

My card is capable of 96KHz playback, but not recording so the 48KHz is fine.

[Whisperfang]

Gah! I just found out my card IS capable of 96KHz 24bit recording. Should i re-rip the vinyl? Even though i have studio quality headphones (AKG K271 Studio), i really doubt i could hear the difference.

[phide]

Nope, I wouldn't bother. The limiting factor(s) won't be the sample rate :)