NJAS Wall Posting

Which are true?
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This was a great conversation that had input from John Curl, Bob Rappoport and Tim De Paravicini and yours truly at the bottom or the caboose depending on your point of view.

John
I'm posting in Retro Audio Appreciation to see how many people are going back to Vinyls and turntables

Michael Wulfsohn •I never left. Vinyl and tables have always been a part of my life and stereo system(s). At KUVO, 89.3 FM in Denver (public jazz radio) we still use 2 tables (if we want to) and manually feed CDs into 3 different players. We don't use hard drive music; still real people picking out and playing CDs and vinyl of their choice. A truly "beautiful" sounding CD is still rare to my ears. Most CDs have inherent harsh ultrasonic, dissonant, non-harmonic frequencies, that aren't "heard" but the ears can feel, causing listener fatigue. I get CD listener fatigue in about 1/2 hour of listening. That problem doesn't exist with vinyl. Tics, pops, and scratches, yes, but listener fatigue? No.

Stefano Papini •Hi there, I built my first so-to-say serious TT something like five years ago...

Karl Cripe •Just got back into it out of boredom.Using vintage Denon DP-11F TT with grado cart. I like the sound , but clean up of record and you just start getting into the music and time to flip LP. That is why I put a lot of it on Reel to Reel-TEAC A-7300/2T.

Rahul Ramachandran •Just building up a collection of vinyl. Also getting interested in tapes.

Eric Cross •I have worked in audio for over 35 years and now can not keep up with the demand for vintage turntables on my site www.vintageaudioworld.com. Vinyl has never died

Greg Schmidt •When listening, I believe psychological effects can be powerful. I would be interested to know if anyone has tried doing a blind comparison test between a clean vinyl pressing and the same material on CD (as in the "Pepsi Challenge" test). A related test, would be to record the vinyl on CD and perform the test with original vinyl vs. recorded CD (the point of the latter test would be to eliminate the possibility that there is some artifact of vinyl transcription which some people find appealing and is independent of digitization). Has anyone tried anything like that?

Vlado Angelov •I've rediscovered vinyl after 40 years now! Being with lossless and High definition digital audio /up to 12000 bps vinyl rips/ nothing compares to vinyl! I've got 4 TT recently /only last 6 months/ enjoying 150 LPs. Great! "Back To Analog"!

Guntis Veisbergs •Sound itself, our hearing and our brain - all it is analog. Analog audio signal transmission, amplifying and RECORDING is much closer to real sound. No unwanted processes - converting, quantization, digitization, calculation, logic, processing, filtering, etc. - only mechanic, molecular and electron level processes. Even if analog recording is relatively noisy, has more distortion, wow and flutter, etc. - our hearing and brain is fast adapting to it and feels good. You can compare analog recordings in between, it is interesting and artful process - they are very different, colorful and LIVE.

Different picture is with digital audio. "Recordings" are converted as minimum 2 times (but most case much more), quantized, digitized, processed, summed, filtered, etc. - it is very virtual sound DESCRIPTION. It change things by nature, because it is something very different for human hearing and brain. No reason to compare it with analog recording. You can try to compare digital recordings-descriptions in between, but it is not interesting process, because they all are dry, robotic, less informative, with zero energetics.

Greg Schmidt •Well I realize this can be a controversial topic, and outside this thread, not everyone necessarily agrees that analog necessarily sounds "better". Given that psycho-acoustics could be involved, I think it would be useful to perform some blind A-B tests. I've seen plenty of arguments each way based on faulty or questionable "theory" so it would help to see some objective results. I'm open to supporting arguments each way, but a convincing test would involve blind comparison.

Vlado Angelov •Technically human sensitivity is analog. Going deeper in sound digitalization everyone with basic technical knowledge can understand the Nos of compromises passed during digital to analog sound conversion. It's away from any psychology and blind tests, I believe and hear as well.

Greg Schmidt •Again, we're dealing with impassioned arguments. The issue is by no means settled. Here's one point of view that differs:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/audio-designline-blog/4033509/Vinyl-vs-CD-myths-refuse-to-die.

Frank Alles •I know a lot of people here feel a certain romantic connection to analog and I do too. But I have to admit my digital playback is sounding extremely musical and convincing these days. I definitely feel connected to the music and do not hear the "inherent harsh ultrasonic, dissonant, non-harmonic frequencies" that Michael W. refers to. That said, I have taken steps to eliminate such things from the digital presentation. I feed my digital pure regenerated AC power for one thing and in addition I've picked my gear and associated cables/wires very carefully by ear to achieve the best, most musically involving presentation possible. And I've been very successful in doing that because I can listen to my digital gear for hours at a time without any listener fatigue.

To get the best sound from a turntable system there are even more variables that need to be addressed as far as turntable setup, arm/cartridge matching, and cartridge loading, etc. are concerned. Still the results can be very rewarding and well worth the effort.

Like Michael I grew up with analog so I'm not at all predisposed to liking digital better. To me it's more of an apples vs. oranges kind of thing.

Mike Pearson •Hi Sean, "Going back to Vinyl and turntables" - I never left. A lot depends on what turntable you use, the cartridge and the phono stage and subsequently down stream of that with amps and speakers, but the pleasure of Vinyl is there to be heard

john curl •I am still a believer in Vinyl reproduction. However, I don't play vinyl very often, it is just too cumbersome, sort of like having to change TV channels manually, like we used to. We all get lazy with digital doing most everything for us. However, I have NEVER been completely happy with digital, and I think analog reproduction, DONE RIGHT, is better.

Greg Schmidt •@john (et. al.) - Could it also be digital "done right" (e.g. with high enough sampling rates to negate any audible harmonic effects) would transcend even the best vinyl recordings due to eliminating any physical limitations of the mechanical medium?

Guntis Veisbergs •ANY additional process is degrading audio.
Even not talking about problems of digital process.
AD and DA convertors long calculation algorithms filters are additional processes.
So there are not to talk about.
Sorry - we can talk about better commerce ;)

Guntis Veisbergs •40 years in Pro Audio as sound engineer and technician, and the same time with pro musical instrument fine tuning.
I have a funny ~3 month period, when under external informative pressure I start to tend to change thinking position - digital audio is rather fine, better, even more better, perfect, excellent, etc...
Then I take someone old original studio tape, put on my recorder, push PLAY button, and after some 2 minutes say - ***k digital audio !
This result is always the same.
I several times made very quality digital copies from these tapes, and started listening from them, comparing, etc.
Open tests and blind tests.
Day and night, real and virtual, recording and description.
Longer listening - bigger difference, especially in energetics and in informative content.
Many important things are lost in digital audio.
But not lost even on old cassette tape recording !

* I am not a vinyl fan, it is commercial format too - copy of tape, often processed digital (!), with some additional mechanical (wow & flutter noise, etc...), and additional analog audio (low signal level from cartridge, deep corrections, etc...) problems. Tape recorder has similar, but it is one time only. Vinyl is doubling initial problems and adding some new.

** Above was about recording, but approximately the same difference is in live or studio sound if signals are going true analog or through digital process. Analog reducing of some technical parameters are not important for human hearing. Digital process is changing things principle.

Frank Alles •John C, to me, my vinyl usually sounds a bit more natural and correct on voices and acoustic instruments. I think it may have to do with more apparent high-frequency extension, or "air", although I'm not sure this can't be attributed to the rising treble response of many cartridges. Still, in my system I hear greater high-frequency extension and seemingly faster transients from my vinyl than I hear from my digital sources. The bass is a little plumper but ultimately less extended with vinyl but the whole effect is very musical and satisfying.

For me it's always been a problem to get both my vinyl and digital sources sounding their best in the same system at the same time. Often when I optimize for one the other is a tad diminished. But I've done pretty well balancing the two lately.

Frank A

Reuben Johnson sr •Love vinyl having hard time getting good copy's any help ?

Michael Hullevad •A comparison of the "Pawn shop" recording on vinyl and hires download has showed VERY little difference between them. (it does not get better than the recording).
I prefer the vinyl edition for ease of use.
Gear used NAD M51 DAC and The Grail MC/RIAA amp.

Mike Pearson •Hi Reuben,
Where are you buying your vinyl records from? There are many outlets and records shops in the US that sell great second hand vinyl albums and there is a big resurgence now with 180gram and even 200gram vinyl of both new and old recordings? A vinyl rebirth almost! And hence the number of turntables and cartridges that have now become available.

Tim De Paravicini •I said in 1984 that we need 400 Khz and 24 bit sampling to equate to my 1 inch 2 track tape machine. Several hits have been recorded on that format.
Just think of this. Vinyl has a half a giga Hertz sampling. That is the number of vinyl molecules passing the stylus every second! Vinyl carefully made can provide 90 dB dynamic range and in excess of 40 KHz high frequency response. My system at Mobile Fidelity on "Half Speed" mastering can give astonising results.

Digital just cannot get away from sucesive approximation methods which is in reality a feedback mechanism that is always one clock pulse behind the event.
Disc cutting and also analogue tape recorders are direct feedbackless systems. No Latancy period.

FM radio is also capable of stuning quality but unfortunately the commercial broadcasters don't care. FM Tokyo and FM Osaka were absolutely purist. No compression no Equing just play the records or tapes as they are loud or soft.
That is NAB 5cms velocity on vinyl or 200 nWb NAB tape level to equal 40% modulation level. You needed a good tuner such as the Yamaha 7000 to appreciate the quality. Even the BBC once apon a time did almost no processing.
Unfortunately, the latest crop of vinyl is being cut from digital masters. sadly the Beatles mono re-issues are via digitaly processed masters.
Digital did not bother with the dynamic range but ended up in the old Juke Box wars with Loudness the king. Zero dynamic range.

Bob Rapoport •It seems incredible to me that after 40 years of steady progress in our software's storage capacity, bandwidth, and dynamic range that the audiophiles choose a format that can only hold 12 songs, must be equalized through the phono RIAA curve, and is compressed 10 to 1, allowing only 60 dB dynamic range. CD's can hold 12 songs on one side of a single disc, provide full bandwidth, and still have room for another 30 dB of dynamic range. That got us to 90 dB in 1980, still compressed 4 to 1 on 700 MB of storage capacity.

Now we have Blu-ray, it can store 50 Gig un-compressed, able to deliver a bit-for-bit identical copy of the original studio master recording with 120 dB, and let you also see the artist making the music in 1080p HD resolution at the same time. Its simply preposterous that anybody would hold on to the past when the holy grail of high fidelilty is right under your noses. There has never been a better time than right now for audiophiles, yet they resist, holding on to 1977 for dear life.
Sorry Facts are facts. Until you learn the actual specs of these media, you cant have a valid opiniion. Before stereo, there was mono. It took over 10 years for most people to adopt stereo, the so-called audiophiles could not let go of the past then, just as now.

Guntis Veisbergs •Just summing, without talking about problems:
1.Analog audio has analog audio problems.
2.Digital audio has analog audio problems digital audio problems analog audio problems.
What is better ?

Tim De Paravicini •Bob Rapoport, Got a point to make? Blue ray whooppy doo. Will it still play in 100 years time? The more you cram down to a single molecule the more problems there are with recovery.
I would love to invite you to the facility at Sabastopol of Mobile Fidelity and cut a
laquer for you to hear. 60 dB is rubbish. I put my money where my mouth is.

Quote "Now we have Blu-ray, it can store 50 Gig un-compressed, able to deliver a bit-for-bit identical copy of the original studio master recording with 120 dB," end quote.

I think you should hear that when James Guthrie mastered the Pulse album for Pink Floyd from analogue masters with no digital processing to digital. He made about 15 first generation digital copies so as to send to the various CD plants around the world.
Funny, bit perfect. but the CD that came back from each plant sounded different?
Never would he copy digital to digital in the belief it is perfec bit for bit.

I'm affraid that the 120 dB quoted must be a weighted figuer. An ideal noiseless 600 Ohm resistor has a noise figuer of 126 dB relative to 1.22 volts.band limits of 20 to 20KHz minus 3 dB. The best studio microphones add about 10 dB of noise.
Even our own ears have the noise of the blood rushing around. Just that the brain has learnt how to ignore it.

I have had these arguments over the years. I remember every one jumping on the CD as perfect sound for ever. Huh why then they change their tune when an improved higher speed system comes along. now we are up to 384 KHz/24 bit. maybe 768 will be the new perfect?
Store the library of congress on a sugar cube sized block? I try to live in a real world.

Bob Rapoport •You forget Tim, I introduced MFSL to the world in 1977 as their sales rep for the world, I worked with Stan Ricker, Gary Georgi, and Brad Miller and they knew full well the space limitations of vinyl records. I also introduced dts in 1997 with Brad Miller, the first DVD-A "CD's" had to be played on a DVD player and ended up as SACD, but it was better than analog by a mile.

You are in denial. Until you actually listen to a Blu-ray concert, observing all the security protocols against piracy, you have not heard the best software in history. Try the AIX Records Blu-rays, recorded live, direct to Blu-ray. Btw, you can hear these soundtracks in LPCM 2.0 channel fold-down of the DolbyTruHD mix.

My first audiophile listening experience was Triple KLH 9's playing an open reel live recording at 15 IPS of a symphony orchestra with no compression in 1975. The problem with those tapes is that they were not commerically available. We were stuck instead with vinyl, ticks and pops, wow and flutter, surface noise.

Meridian Lossless Packing brought the compression down to 2 to 1 with Bob Stuarts ingenius algorythim in the early 00's. We gained another 10 dB dynamic range. For you and others to have missed the holy grail is embarrassing to say the least. It proves the so-called audiophiles dont know what they are talking about.

Tim De Paravicini •Quote"You are in denial. Until you actually listen to a Blu-ray concert, observing all the security protocols against piracy, you have not heard the best software in history. Try the AIX Records Blu-rays, recorded live, direct to Blu-ray. Btw, you can hear these soundtracks in LPCM 2.0 channel fold-down of the DolbyTruHD mix." End Quote

I will hold you to this, If after another 5 years you still believe this.
Where is this "Best software in history"? Who's opinion of the best software.
Lossless packing is fine but cannot be done in real time. ie zero latency. Yes, one can compress data extensively if you spend a lot of time going over a whole say one hours worth of data.
I am never in denial. I said again I said it in 1984 that 400KHz 24 bit digital would equal the best analogue staight line no recording mic to speaker system to satisfiy the human hearing mechanism. It was the remainder of the world that said 44K1 16 bit was perfect sound forever. I assume that the algorithm that you are refering to is for noise shaping?

As to Stan Ricker and others. They were dealing with standard disc cutting. I spent a lot of time in 1984 designing the system that was first used by Island Records as their cutting room the Sound Clinic. Wow flutter on the lathe is well below audibility.
poor turntables maybe. Space limitations. What do you mean? not small?
The Tape Project makes available 15 ips tapes that are copy masters. not cheap but the best is never cheap.
What do you mean by "Observing all the security protocols against piracy"? Nothing ever stopped people devising ways to break systems. Not yet anyway. Enigma comes to mind.

Bob Rapoport •Tim, I dont want to argue with you, needless to say, I am trying to turn you on to a joyful experience. One guy at amazon.com wrote:

Five Stars on Amazon.com The Ultimate Mahler Cycle June 20, 2011 By Carl J. Weber “After being dazzled by opera on Blu-ray, I have now come to realize how live concert performances in this medium can offer even more listener involvement in the music and the performance than audio-only. It is totally engrossing, totally enjoyable. Not only does it exceed the hi rez audio-only listening experience, but in some ways, it exceeds even live performance because of the deftly done, intimate close-ups on stage. This set has smitten me to an absolutely unprecedented degree. And, I will be seeking out and collecting concert Blu-rays from here on in. It is truly a fantastic new dimension in classical music enjoyment in the home, with close-ups of conductor and performers. It gets us closer to live performance than anything in any medium to date“.

Get an Oppo, get a couple of BR discs, then make an informed decision.

Mike Pearson •Hi Bob,

You made two comments: "We were stuck instead with vinyl, ticks and pops, wow and flutter, surface noise" and "There has never been a better time than right now for audiophiles, yet they resist, holding on to 1977 for dear life".

To which I would comment, "Vinyl, ticks, pops, wow and flutter and surface noise' - I don’t know which turntable, cartridge, phono stage combination and record you were listening to, but I don’t experience those issues with my 30th anniversary Japanese direct drive turntable and an album collection of over 600 LP's, of which the larger majority of the LP's were purchased second hand. A tick and pop on the odd one maybe, but certainly not all and if a record is some 30 years old and no longer available in any other format, then it is easy to forgive such an issue.

And "holding on to 1977 for dear life" - sure I am, as there are a lot of my 600 LP's that I own that are not available on CD and as it is that era of music that brings me personally great joy and the ability to re live many memories, then why not?

You choose to enjoy blu ray reproduction along with quite a number of other people, but there are a huge amount of people that enjoy vinyl reproduction and hence the plethora of turntables, cartridges, phono stages and records that are now enjoying a great re birth.

It should be noted also, that you do not have to be an audiophile to enjoy vinyl records, just being a music lover will suffice.

Bob Rapoport •With all due respect Mike, once you hear Blu-ray, you cant go back to any other format, its spoils you forever. I lived through the vinyl era, I still have all my albums too, they are unlistenable by today's standards. Resistance is futile, get an Oppo, and join the fun, its more exciting than you can imagine.

Mike Pearson •Hi Bob,

No thanks, I will stick with what I enjoy and have enjoyed for years - Vinyl.

I am not keen on digital reproduction and only bought CD's and a CD player some 30 years ago, because some of my favorite musicians and bands were obliged to go that way, owing to the demise of vinyl at that time.

My preference is stereo and music to listen to rather than watch and listen.

I don’t have 5.1, 7.1, blu ray etc and even listen to music DVD’s in stereo (not on my reference system) but that is only on the odd occasion for music DVD’s like Leonard Cohen – Live in London and Songs from the road where you get to see Javier Mas playing his banduria, laud and archilaud, which is truly spectacular as well as a pleasure to listen to. Both of which are now available on vinyl, which I have yet to purchase.

Tim De Paravicini •I thought this thread was about going back to Vinyl? I am trying to keep it that way.
An observation made many years ago and I still maintain holds true. many people can listen to a piece of music over and over again without getting bored but Film or Video buy the time you have seen it a second time know every move. I'll take an example:- The Blues Brothers I can only watch/listen to about once every 3 years.
In the concert hall such as the Queen Elizabeth Southbank London Where I sit maybe 30 metres from the conductor. I don't have TV cameras to see close ups but still very much enjoy the experience.

Pink Floyd of course made most of their work in a QUAD format so making a 5.1 SACD was very easy. But to get an idea of their perfectionism, I suggest viewing albeit in a much lower quality on youtube James Guthrie "The Missing Piano"

Mono ludites still exist. You can still buy a new Mono cartridge. However Stereo did not happen commercially untill the late 1950s even though Blumlien at EMI had done stereo (Binaural) in 1931 but television became far more important commercially for the mass market.

I also enjoy radio and in the UK we still have many plays and soaps that only require the minds imagination. The American DJ Wolfman Jack once said "Radio is the theatre of the mind"

I am still persuing DSD audio for the market place. However Sony and Philips have tried very hard to keep the system technology locked up. This has hampered the take up more widely of DSD. The software available is not very exciting as yet. There also is a lot of deceit as to the purity of each format. that is up/down scaling and/or converstion such that you really do not know the authenticity of the music path. Much like Vinyl being cut from digital masters but not telling you the full truth.

john curl •Well said Tim.

Rich Teer •I'll chime in here and say that like others, I never abandoned vinyl. If anything, as my system as grown in its resolution, so has my enjoyment from the music I play on it.
While one can't deny the convenience of digital, I also can't deny that vinyl--on a decent system--trumps digital from a sound quality perspective.

John Pluta •I find this discussion really interesting.I too have been listening to music systems (my own) for 40 years. Bob, I have scanned your profile and If I am taking advice from creative audio folks; I have to say that a John Curl and a Tim De Paravicini trump a Bob Rapoport any day of the week.
Bob, you, Tim and John are arguing over a lot of numbers. I am not an audio engineer but I know you all cannot be right.

John Pluta •I picked up an original AR-XA TT, had the TA rewired. I then had someone change the two motor unit to a single motor unit (with a motor from an AR 77B, I think) and get some new spings. Amazing how a TT that is almost as old as me sounds. Right now it is paired with a Jolida hybrid Int Amp. that uses tubes and solid state. Added a Micromega MyDac to an older NAD CDP and thru the coax it really improved the old girl. I also have an inexpensive Bellari phono pre to the Jolida. Also some private speakers and I have a second system that is really listenable.