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pwasser wrote:
The record store label from where I bought it states 5-10-82

80's and 90's vinyl was actually pretty low quality compared to what went before and what has come since, as it tends to be very low weight and almost entirely recycled. And it still sounds better than any digital format could ever hope to do.

Slogans aren't solutions.

I still have Beatles albums from the sixties and yes they are thicker. I can remember the oil crisis of the seventies when vinyl records suddenly became wafer thin. I love the sound but if I stream internet radio through a Raspberry Pi and a good dac into the same hifi it also sounds pretty good.

Peter Wasser

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

MP3 recorded at 160Kbps or 192 have all the data to play better than vinyl - of course if the source was that refined itself. Of course a good hi-fi has better audio than a headset: no power consumption contraint, no weight/cost constraint, no size constraint. They have different uses - my headset is almost constantly in use while my Hi-Fi has maybe 30 hours of usage in 10 years.

* CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
* GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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den2k88 wrote:
MP3 recorded at 160Kbps or 192 have all the data to play better than viny

No doubt under certain conditions - the dac being crucial.

Peter Wasser

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

Of course

* CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
* GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
* Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
* I'm a puny punmaker.

DACs can be surprisingly good but ultimately analogue will always beat digital when it comes to sound.

Slogans aren't solutions.

Just like vacuum tubes will always beat transistors in amplifiers.

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There is a real explanation for that: When a transistor reaches the ceiling, it hits the ceiling very hard. The signal peak is clipped, as if the peak of the signal curve was cut off with a knife. That gives an extremely nasty kind of distortion (which is nothing like the dynamic compression that some people refer to as "clipping"). Tube amps doesn't have any such hard ceiling: They may be unable to bring the signal curve to its very top, but first: It can for (very) short periods go way above the rated effect, and second: Even though lower than idea, the curve form resembles the ideal curve quite well.

The answer to this problem: When buying a transistor amp, select one which has at least ten times the output power you will normally need. Now, five watts gives you a lot of sound from most HiFi-class speakers, so fifty watts is plenty for most living rooms. But if you regularly turn up you amp to more than -20 dB (assuming that you have a volume knob graded in dB, with 0 dB as max), you need a bigger amp.

Another thing that is rarely discussed: Even a tube amp can deliver those peaks only if it can draw the power from somewhere. In the old days, the power supply transformer held signifiant energy as an electromagnetic field in the coils and transformer core, and a brief sound burst could tap this energy. Some amps had power supplies designed explicitly for building up an energy reserve: When the amp was switched on, you should let the power supply "charge" for maybe half a minute before playing loud music. Modern, switched power supplies have no such energy storage, unless they are equipped with huge capacitors solely for this purpose (which some of them have).

Again: If you have an amp designed to deliver 10 dB more than you will ever want to listen to, you will not risk emptying the reserve power stores. You do not need the power to play loud (even though some HiFi-freaks use it for that...) but to have power for the peaks when playing at more normal levels.

PeejayAdams wrote:
... but ultimately analogue will always beat digital when it comes to sound.

Until that annoying crackle or rhythmic pop starts up, or the needle comes to that little scratch and skips half the song.

If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.

Doesn't happen if you look after your records!

Slogans aren't solutions.

Not everyone has the ability to care for their records like that, especially not a teen or twenty-something I and my friends were back in the Days of Vinyl. And, stuff happens. To everyone.

If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.

It seems to me that even grown people, so old that they must have handled vinyl records in their youth, now have forgotten how to treat the records. In my youth, we knew never to touch the surface, only the edge and the label, to discharge static electricity and carefully brush all dust off using a special-purpose brush. These days, you hardly see anyone but extreme HiFi-fans handling vinyl in a proper way. Not even in nostalgic TV-programs where you see them putting the record on the player.

You can hear it from the sound quality: In the old days, I sometimes taped (to open-reel tape at 7,5 ips) music from the radio because my own vinyl was worn down due to hundreds of times playing: The copy at the radio station was always without dust, cracks and static noise. Nowadays, vinyl played by the radio station is much worse than my own records, ruined by the kind of noise that comes from improper handling.

Crackle, wow, flutter, hiss. Yes. Vastly superior. Laugh | :laugh:

We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.

Converting vinyl to MP3 and importing to iTunes is one of my hobbies. I agree, sampling the media at 160Kbps or better and using good sound washing software (Sony Sound Forge) to do peak normalization and clean up the pop/wow from the source produces excellent results. I haven't heard a full-sized stereo that can match the sound of a good pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones playing the content, either.

Last year I purchased a SoundBlaster ZXR audio card, Sound Forge S/W, and a computer to run this on. I have something like 600 or so Vinyl records, everything from Peter, Paul, and Mary, Beatles, & Bob Dylan, to Thelonious Monk and even classical.

Plan is to use the Yamaha turntable with Ortofon cartridge connected to the Adcom 500 preamp and make some of those 192 KHz, 24-bit depth recordings. I am waiting to see how this all works out. If I live long enough, I may actually be able to get the majority digitized.

I will say there's one advantage to CD's; you don't have to flip it over every 15 minutes.

One major difference from "then", meaning the 60's and 70's to "now" is that an old-time audio systems typically a small fraction of the THD (total harmonic distortion) that not only acceptable, but even common place in the "now". I've seen modern equipment rated at 5% - even 10% THD (such as boom boxes), and earbuds? Give me a break. My system was 0.5%. An audiophilic friends' system clocked in at 0.2%.

Even now, suddenly there's rediscovery of over-the-ear phones - like they always used to be. Only then, the sound quality between those big cushiony phones was extraordinary.

Vinyl Better? An absolute absurdity on its own. However, the current digital is geared towards the vast armies of the hearing-impaired identified by the constant wires protruding from their ears. Converted vinyl should sound exactly like the original - or more correctly, should sound like it. that, however, assumes a true conversion.

HiFi had a meaning: High Fidelity. Fidelity implies trustworthy accuracy. That once was a goal. Now, it's a four-letter acronym, the fidelity of it's meeting now gone. Among my first few CD's, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. The triangle played in one movement was so real it was astonishing. That, of course, was when CD's were trying to outperform the current popular media. Cassette and eight-track tapes were designed for cars - but became the central audio medium for many. That was an early nail in the coffin.

You're living in an age where jerks will actually pay big bucks for tickets to a live concert - where the (alleged) artists lip-synch! If anything's wrong with digital, it's that the consumers accept crap.

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

W∴ Balboos wrote:
If anything's wrong with digital, it's that the consumers accept crap.

too right

M.D.V.

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W∴ Balboos wrote:
inyl Better? An absolute absurdity on its own.

Not so. Digitised music is clipped and doesnt have the attack you get in an anlog reproduction. It is also less subtle, and lacks depth.

Digital music does not have to be clipped. The general public think loud is better so we have the loudness wars, this pushes down the dynamic range and makes the music sound crap.

Early CD's sound much better than the newly mastered stuff.

But usually is.

The Presence on a well recorded CD is astonishing.

In interesting analogy between movies and recorded music.

Lots of remakes - but not as good as the original. Concentrating on special effects instead of quality. OH BRAVE NEW WORLD!

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

I remember being quite interested in the Barry Diament Audio website, which talked about recording techniques vs. result. Some of his samples absolutely blew me away. (The albums can be clicked on on that page, for samples.)

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Munchies_Matt wrote:
Digitised music is clipped and doesnt have the attack you get in an anlog reproduction. It is also less subtle, and lacks depth.

That has nothing to do with it coming to you in digital format. It has everything to do with songs being over-compressed in the The Loudness Wars[^]

If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.

Could well be, but I remain to be convinced.

For example. Take a live band that uses a drum machine for the backing. Now compare that to a live drummer in a group. You are walking down the road, and you hear the music, the first sounds like a recording, the latter like a like band. It has punch, power, that is the attack I am talking about, and it stand outs a mile.

Same with valve vs digitised guitar amps (with effects). The digital version is soft, lacks the impact.

It is just how I feel it. Smile | :)

Munchies_Matt wrote:
Digitised music is clipped and doesnt have the attack you get in an anlog reproduction. It is also less subtle, and lacks depth.

With 96 dB dynamic range there is certainly no need to clip the signal. I have seen the waveforms from thousands of ripped CD tracks, but never seen any clipping.

I believe that lots of people really don't know what clipping is like, but (ab)use the term to refer to high dynamic compression. If you display the waveform image to fit inside your screen window, it looks like a brick. But it does not bang its head into the ceiling, and if you expand it to see the curve peaks one by one, they are smooth and round. Of course the sound quality may be crap due to the compression. But clipping sounds quite different.

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