Doom9's Forum - View Single Post - Music recorded in digital format what use of vinyl LP?

Ghitulescu · 5th April 2016, 09:23

This is a long standing fight in the analogue audio dedicated fora.

To me the vinyl resurgence is a hoax, designed to get more money from the pocket of the naïve consumer.

Now, there are people, claiming to have golden ears (not the columnists at Stereophile and the like) that claim the CD sounds a bit harsh due to the brickwall filter needed to keep the bandwidth below the half of the sampling frequency. Strangely enough, such people never protested when the cassette (another "revival"

) barely reached 10000 kHz, id est half of what the CD can, and still consider FM to be of a good quality (although also brickwalled at 15kHz not 22, and compressed to death).

The point is that the trebles are a bit overemphased on a CD, because they can. A typical, commercial CD with pop/hip-hop and the like music does not follow the natural 1/f spectrum, wherein the brickwall at 22kHz won't even bee noticeable, but is 20-30dB more, causing the auditive discomfort after a while. It is not a digital problem, it is a mastering one. Jazz, electronic, classic, vocal music greatly benefit from the qualities of the CD.

Secondly, most duplicators use a digital delay in the driving part of the carving lathe (a sort of delay line for colour TVs or TBC) which has more or less the same parameters as a CD/DAT recorder. And they are also low passed. True analogue presses are rare if any left.

Thirdly, most music is still created digital today. Then the digital master (usually 96/24) is used to matrix the mother, via analogue paths (and LoRes AD-DA delay-line conversions), so the idiots will have their piece of cake, they think it's hand make but is actually automatically-done.

Surely, the CD is old by current standards, and DVD-A and BD-A are better alternatives. SACD is worse than both, and in some aspects than the CD (Sony, the inventor, had to admit it), so one can see what importance has the mastering (promoted formats usually use hand-picked sources, use a better mastering, than the "consumer class" formats).

PS: to reach the quality of a 30€ DVD-player (not even a CD player, but a player not essentially designed to play CDs), one has to invest at least 800€ into a turntable, the arm, cartridge and stylus not included.

PS: yes, the CD decline is not due to the vinyl, but due to the digital downloads (legal or illegal).

5th April 2016, 09:23	#6 \| Link
Ghitulescu Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Germany Posts: 5,769	This is a long standing fight in the analogue audio dedicated fora. To me the vinyl resurgence is a hoax, designed to get more money from the pocket of the naïve consumer. Now, there are people, claiming to have golden ears (not the columnists at Stereophile and the like) that claim the CD sounds a bit harsh due to the brickwall filter needed to keep the bandwidth below the half of the sampling frequency. Strangely enough, such people never protested when the cassette (another "revival" ) barely reached 10000 kHz, id est half of what the CD can, and still consider FM to be of a good quality (although also brickwalled at 15kHz not 22, and compressed to death). The point is that the trebles are a bit overemphased on a CD, because they can. A typical, commercial CD with pop/hip-hop and the like music does not follow the natural 1/f spectrum, wherein the brickwall at 22kHz won't even bee noticeable, but is 20-30dB more, causing the auditive discomfort after a while. It is not a digital problem, it is a mastering one. Jazz, electronic, classic, vocal music greatly benefit from the qualities of the CD. Secondly, most duplicators use a digital delay in the driving part of the carving lathe (a sort of delay line for colour TVs or TBC) which has more or less the same parameters as a CD/DAT recorder. And they are also low passed. True analogue presses are rare if any left. Thirdly, most music is still created digital today. Then the digital master (usually 96/24) is used to matrix the mother, via analogue paths (and LoRes AD-DA delay-line conversions), so the idiots will have their piece of cake, they think it's hand make but is actually automatically-done. Surely, the CD is old by current standards, and DVD-A and BD-A are better alternatives. SACD is worse than both, and in some aspects than the CD (Sony, the inventor, had to admit it), so one can see what importance has the mastering (promoted formats usually use hand-picked sources, use a better mastering, than the "consumer class" formats). PS: to reach the quality of a 30€ DVD-player (not even a CD player, but a player not essentially designed to play CDs), one has to invest at least 800€ into a turntable, the arm, cartridge and stylus not included. PS: yes, the CD decline is not due to the vinyl, but due to the digital downloads (legal or illegal). __________________ Born in the USB (not USA)