Vinyl Schminyl...

WithCheesePlease

Will somebody please tell why people still bang on about vinyl like it's the greatest thing ever. I just don't get it. I'm old enough to remember vinyl, and have since gone through tapes, and even dabbled with mini disc when they promised to be the next best thing (even bought Reef's album Replenish on the back of hearing it in the Sony mini disc ad) and am now onto CDs and mp3.

But seriously - why do people still go on about vinyl as if nothing should have ever come after it?? They sound crackly, they're so fussy and finicky, needles on the players break all the time, and they scratch easily. Sleeve notes apart, what is so great about them??

And I know someone is going to say they sound warm... ****!!

pinksoir

They do sound warm though. Because they are analogue, ie they are a physical manifestation of the sound (grooves) as opposed to 1's and 0's.

For example, I recently recorded my album digitally and ran it through tape (analogue) at the end. The sound difference was very slight, but, though subtle, it did make a difference that couldn't be put to words other than "it's warmer".

I don't know the technical explanation but I think it could be something more to do with the bass. Vinyl allows more space for the bass so it rounds off the sound. For example, the optimum length for a side of vinyl is around the 20 minute mark. If the side goes much beyond that the quality begins to be lost as you are compressing more lines of music into a finite space. What usually happens here is that the bass suffers. Whereas before it would have rounded off the sound nicely, now it merely distorts.

Another thing is that our ears are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. We may be played a cd recording and a vinyl recording side by side and we would be able to tell there was a difference, without necessarily being able to put that difference to words.

Either that or the whole vinyl thing is a pile of ****...

damonjewel

I think if you had the top end of the hi-fi spectrum set up for vinyl, it could well may be better. But personally I think that for cost cds and mp3's is the way to go. I remember hearing my first cd back in the 80's it was Power corruption and Lies by New Order, the production and quality of the recording just blew me away and could instantly tell the difference in quality. I love vinyl and have a reasonable set up so that I dont have to go and re-purchase my large collection, and really only buy vinyl today if they are particular rare recordings or oddities.

I also think that there will always be a body of opinion that will champiion vinyl no matter what advances are made in digital

John

pinksoir wrote: »

They do sound warm though.

Do you mind me asking what do you mean by warm? This vague, inconsistant quality arises every time a discussion of analogue versus digital comes up.

Because they are analogue, ie they are a physical manifestation of the sound (grooves) as opposed to 1's and 0's.

Most vinyl are now made from digital masters, only very rarely is the process analogue anymore. What you're getting is an analogue recording of a digital recording so at the end of the day it is slightly less than an accurate recording.

For example, I recently recorded my album digitally and ran it through tape (analogue) at the end. The sound difference was very slight, but, though subtle, it did make a difference that couldn't be put to words other than "it's warmer".

If you were putting it on tape after recording digitally then again it's not an analogue recording. I'm guessing the "warm" quality you're getting is tape hiss, i.e. the introduction of a sound that wasn't there in the beginning.

I don't know the technical explanation but I think it could be something more to do with the bass. Vinyl allows more space for the bass so it rounds off the sound. For example, the optimum length for a side of vinyl is around the 20 minute mark. If the side goes much beyond that the quality begins to be lost as you are compressing more lines of music into a finite space. What usually happens here is that the bass suffers. Whereas before it would have rounded off the sound nicely, now it merely distorts.

This is true, the more space you allow for the grooves, the better the quality. This is why DJs use 12" records mastered at 45rpm as the grooves have ample space to make a decent recording.

Another thing is that our ears are far more sensitive than we give them credit for. We may be played a cd recording and a vinyl recording side by side and we would be able to tell there was a difference, without necessarily being able to put that difference to words.

What most people don't realise is that CDs (and now especially new systems like HD CD, DVD audio, BluRay, etc.) can cover a much larger frequency range than vinyl. There's a myth that vinyl somehow captures things that CDs can't but I've yet to meet someone who can tell me what these things are.

I think it says it all that pretty much all high end audiophile equipment is now digital and traditional audiophile markets like classical music do not use vinyl much if at all.

That being said, I love vinyl precisely because it can be crackly and the aesthetic joy of taking it out of its sleeve, turning it over between sides, etc. Plus there's a lot of music I listen to has either never been reissued on CD or with one particular group of artists, the pressing plant their labels used pressed defective CDs which suffered from bit rot so when buying these old (and out of print) CDs, you come across ones which have essentially rusted. You only have to worry about the odd scratch on the vinyl versions of these releases though.

pinksoir

John wrote: »

Do you mind me asking what do you mean by warm? This vague, inconsistant quality arises every time a discussion of analogue versus digital comes up.

I have no idea how to put it into words, I guess it is a pretty wishy-washy term...

Most vinyl are now made from digital masters, only very rarely is the process analogue anymore. What you're getting is an analogue recording of a digital recording so at the end of the day it is slightly less than an accurate recording.

Indeed, partly because tape is so expensive, partly because it's just far, far easier to record into something like protools, and partly because, at the end of the day, the vast majority of people don't really care whether something was recorded entirely through analogue equipment or through a combination of analogue and digital.

If you were putting it on tape after recording digitally then again it's not an analogue recording. I'm guessing the "warm" quality you're getting is tape hiss, i.e. the introduction of a sound that wasn't there in the beginning.

The tape 'hiss' is certainly an element of it. Though tape does round off frequencies, soften and warm (there's that term again!) the sound and again, like I said before, change the sound subtley in a way that cannot be properly described through words. This apparent alteration has even been emulated by studio plugins like PSP's Vintage Warmer.

Another point I would make is that recording is not the end of the line. There is mastering to go through afterwards. Mastering from tape, especially if the end product is going to be vinyl, is preferred by a lot of mastering engineers.

Though I would agree with you that it's still not an analogue recording at the root of the matter.

What most people don't realise is that CDs (and now especially new systems like HD CD, DVD audio, BluRay, etc.) can cover a much larger frequency range than vinyl. There's a myth that vinyl somehow captures things that CDs can't but I've yet to meet someone who can tell me what these things are.

And I won't be the person to tell you today either!

I once argued with a friend that programmed drums can never fully emulate real, live drumming. He claimed that sequencers can be so accurate, so precise, that they could copy a drum pattern to the point that the differences would be unrecognisable.

I in turn argued that it was the subtle nuances that gave the live drums a human feel and that they could never be realisticly emulated digitally.

Perhaps it is a personal aversion to digital things and a feeling that they somehow dehumanise music that lead me to argue that. Perhaps programmed drums really can emulate live drumming exactly. And maybe digital recordings are indistinguishable from analogue. More than likely it is idealism on the part of the analogue user. Like, does organic food really taste any better than non-organic (whatever that means) or GM food?

I think it says it all that pretty much all high end audiophile equipment is now digital and traditional audiophile markets like classical music do not use vinyl much if at all.

That being said, I love vinyl precisely because it can be crackly and the aesthetic joy of taking it out of its sleeve, turning it over between sides, etc. Plus there's a lot of music I listen to has either never been reissued on CD or with one particular group of artists, the pressing plant their labels used pressed defective CDs which suffered from bit rot so when buying these old (and out of print) CDs, you come across ones which have essentially rusted. You only have to worry about the odd scratch on the vinyl versions of these releases though.

Agree. For me with vinyl, above everything else, it's the 'whole package' thing.

rowlandbrowner

for me the so called "warmth" people speak of in reference to vinyl is not an audio thing but more the ceremony of seeking out rare vinyls in little shops and markets, arriving with them in a paper bag, and when im finished listening packing them away in my locked metal box.
Playing them is more involved, it just feels more organic than playing a cd. There's a lot more to music than sound quality.

this is my favourite quote in reference to the big format debate

Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any surface noise. I said, "Listen, mate, life has surface noise". John Peel

stovelid

It's simple.

You can't sit in your room, smoke your brains out, and endlessly ponder the hidden meaning of MP3 gatefolds and sleeves, can you?

Scubadevils

I don't think there is an actual definitive on which sounds better, it is subjective and hugely dependent on the equipment used to playback the format and the recording quality of the format. I have heard over the years that the frequency response for vinyl has a wider range than CD but the human ear can't pick it up.

I personally prefer vinyl - everything from the hunt of particular tracks to dropping the needle on the record for the first time.

I do also prefer the sound and find it does have a 'richer' or 'warmer' sound in my own audio setup. This really is determined by the equipment in a huge way - I have had Technics 1210's for the last 15 years or so and over time have bought better cartridges and stylus. When comparing a CD playing through the same amp, the Technics definitely produce better sound quality. In contrast though, I bought a cheap turntable a couple of years ago for playing vinyl in my sitting room and the sound was pretty bland by comparison - the cartridge and stylus though on one Technics deck was probably twice the price alone of the cheap turntable so this does prove it is very much equipment dependent.

The biggest problem with vinyl is the lack of releases (although this has improved lately) and the cost.

Nolanger

Vinyl gives out low and high sound frequencies that the ear can't hear but the body feels - ideal for nightclubs. CDs cut out these low and high frequencies.
CDs also compress the volume so that the quiet bits in a song are loud and the noisy bits in the same tune are compressed to the same volume as the quiet bits.
So much for progress.

FruitLover

Nolanger wrote: »

Vinyl gives out low and high sound frequencies that the ear can't hear but the body feels - ideal for nightclubs. CDs cut out these low and high frequencies.

You can't 'feel' high frequencies, only low ones. Plus, the frequency response is down to the DAC, not the CD format. Modern CD player DACs can go as low as 5Hz (not that any music ever contains this frequency).

Nolanger wrote: »

CDs also compress the volume so that the quiet bits in a song are loud and the noisy bits in the same tune are compressed to the same volume as the quiet bits.

Incorrect. Compression is done in the mastering studio, it doesn't magically happen just by recording to CD. If vinyl records were still used for pop albums, the exact same thing would happen with them.

Rustar

You guys are dancing all around the science but not confronting it.

Vinyl records produce a continuous stream of electromagnetic data that is constantly turned into audio waves.

By their very definition, CDs do not contain all the audio information of the original performance.

CD audio is sampled digitally thousands of times per second (44.1K is the Sony/Phillips standard), but no matter how many times per second it is sampled, you will NEVER get a continuous stream of audio data.

This may have a serious effect on bass reproduction, especially on lower sampling rates, as bass frequencies have extremely long wavelengths.

The entire problem is compounded when digital audio data is MP3'd. MP3s not only clip extraneous data from the amplitude of the audio waves, they also lose information from the frequency of audio waves by generally very poor sampling rates.

And that is why 'warmth' is a very real quality.

IanCurtis

With vinyl, when you hear a guitar string being plucked you can feel the force of it.

With digital you can't.

It's the physical needle on the vinyl as opposed to a reading of binary code.

Vinyl is much, much better.

Setun

Well I love vinyl, because I prefer to have my Blue Notes like this instead of this.

lordgoat

I love vinyl for lots of reasons. One of them is the fact it makes you slow down and listen to the music and for me gives a greater appreciation. It's difficult to skip tracks you have to get up to change sides. All this for me just gets me to really sit back and give what i've chosen to put on my full attention.

MY collection mostly consists of mp3 and vinyl, i'll download an album and if i like it get it on vinly.

Listen to Sigur Rós on vinyl really loud... it will blow you away.

padi89

IanCurtis wrote: »

With vinyl, when you hear a guitar string being plucked you can feel the force of it.

Hmmm can't say i agree with you on that one, i would say it has much more to do with system/room setup, its not exclusive to vinyl.

Anyhoo, lately on some of the HiFi forums i see CD blokes freaking out about using hard drive based systems.

pinksoir

Rustar wrote: »

You guys are dancing all around the science but not confronting it.

Vinyl records produce a continuous stream of electromagnetic data that is constantly turned into audio waves.

By their very definition, CDs do not contain all the audio information of the original performance.

CD audio is sampled digitally thousands of times per second (44.1K is the Sony/Phillips standard), but no matter how many times per second it is sampled, you will NEVER get a continuous stream of audio data.

This may have a serious effect on bass reproduction, especially on lower sampling rates, as bass frequencies have extremely long wavelengths.

The entire problem is compounded when digital audio data is MP3'd. MP3s not only clip extraneous data from the amplitude of the audio waves, they also lose information from the frequency of audio waves by generally very poor sampling rates.

And that is why 'warmth' is a very real quality.

What would be the story with recording from analogue (microphones etc) into digital (protools etc) then from that digital source onto tape (analogue), then mastering from tape onto more tape (still analogue), and finally pressing vinyl from those tapes (yet still analogue).

John raised this point earlier, that you are not getting a true representation of the sound as a result of converting analogue to digital and then recording that source to analogue. That is pretty self evident, but most (if not all) engineers I have talked to have still said that the sound quality would be better than purely digital.

So, what's the deal there?

Rustar

pinksoir wrote: »

What would be the story with recording from analogue (microphones etc) into digital (protools etc) then from that digital source onto tape (analogue), then mastering from tape onto more tape (still analogue), and finally pressing vinyl from those tapes (yet still analogue).

John raised this point earlier, that you are not getting a true representation of the sound as a result of converting analogue to digital and then recording that source to analogue. That is pretty self evident, but most (if not all) engineers I have talked to have still said that the sound quality would be better than purely digital.

So, what's the deal there?

As soon as your signal hits the A/D converter in your soundcard or external USB device, you've lost the purely analog quality in your chain, yes. But I'd be more worried about the sheer number of transfers in that chain degrading your audio signal. And the real question is 'why'? High quality recorded audio can be done direct to disk then media can be made from that.

Just because there's an audiophile-discernable difference between vinyl albums and digital CDs doesn't mean that I don't prefer CDs. I consider home hard-disk recording one of the greatest advances ever!
I'd never give up the convenience of the CD format and go back to playing albums again. In fact, I have about 400 albums and want to get them transferred to disk someday.

CDs are so much more durable and convenient. We did lose a few things, like awesome large cover art, and the ability to sift out the seeds of your Mary J. Wiener using a double-album cover (so my friends tell me), but hey, that's the price of progress.



Edit: Another "greatest advance ever" is the fact that today's boomboxes and DVD players play MP3 disks....a boon to music lovers everywhere!

pinksoir

I see... degredation of sound over the number of transfers is a concern I suppose...

Perhaps the mastering would be done to disk and then from disc to media.

My question is, does recording from digital to analogue make a difference to the sound? Or is it just quality loss? Is there such thing as an analogue representation of a digital sound? Can it help to 'round out' the sound. For example, when I recorded from disk to tape the sound was affected in, to my mind, a positive way. It seemed softer, the bass seemed rounder and the lower frequencies seemed to act as a cushion for the higher ones to lie on, if you can understand what I mean. It sounded like the seperateness of each instrument was lost somewhat and each track became a more cohesive listening experience, something that is generally left till the mastering stage.

Naturally there was a slight loss in quality, but to my ears it was undetectable. And the positive aspects far outweighed the necessary quality loss.

Rustar

pinksoir wrote: »

I see... degredation of sound over the number of transfers is a concern I suppose...

Perhaps the mastering would be done to disk and then from disc to media.

My question is, does recording from digital to analogue make a difference to the sound? Or is it just quality loss? Is there such thing as an analogue representation of a digital sound? Can it help to 'round out' the sound. For example, when I recorded from disk to tape the sound was affected in, to my mind, a positive way. It seemed softer, the bass seemed rounder and the lower frequencies seemed to act as a cushion for the higher ones to lie on, if you can understand what I mean. It sounded like the seperateness of each instrument was lost somewhat and each track became a more cohesive listening experience, something that is generally left till the mastering stage.

Naturally there was a slight loss in quality, but to my ears it was undetectable. And the positive aspects far outweighed the necessary quality loss.

I believe what you're talking about here is a preference for 'vintage' or lower-fi sound, which is actually a fairly common occurrence.
As Wiki relates:
The "warmer" sound of analog records is generally believed on both sides of the argument to be an artifact of harmonic distortion and signal compression. This phenomenon of a preference for the sound of a beloved lower-fidelity technology is not new; a 1963 review of RCA Dynagroove recordings notes that "some listeners object to the ultra-smooth sound as ... sterile ... such distortion-forming sounds as those produced by loud brasses are eliminated at the expense of fidelity. They prefer for a climactic fortissimo to blast their machines ..."

I love the blaring quality of many 50's recordings....these days we use distortion boxes to achieve the same thing, even on bass guitar,heheh.

pinksoir

I'd agree with that. I definitely have a love for older 'vintage' sounding recordings. And I tried to emulate that as best I could when we recorded through use of all vintage equipment. We even had a 1930's jazz snare!

I suppose at the end of the day it always comes down to personal preference...

ZakAttak

A good producer and good musicians will get their music to sound good no matter what format its on.

latenia

Daddio wrote: »

Well I love vinyl, because I prefer to have my Blue Notes like this instead of this.

It's not really a 'Blue Note' tune but listening to Holy Thursday by David Axelrod, which appears on one of the Blue Break Beat compilations, proves to me the massive superiority of vinyl. My CD and MP3 versions of the song just sound tinny and lack the soul and depth of the vinyl.

John

I was on holidays there this week and found a great vinyl shop in Amsterdam (well there are a lot of vinyl shops in Amsterdam but this was a music store!). A huge range of stuff and I bought Arva Part's Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem on LP. The sleeve was gorgeous, the images printed in the sleeve notes showed the care and the dedication given to giving a powerful performance of the piece by some of the world's greatest musicians. Then they go and spoil it by cramming 70 minutes of audio onto ONE LP! On one side there is 38 minutes of audio which is normally the amount split between the two sides. It sounded truly atrocious in places; distorted Part is not pleasing to the ear.

Scubadevils

John wrote: »

I was on holidays there this week and found a great vinyl shop in Amsterdam (well there are a lot of vinyl shops in Amsterdam but this was a music store!). A huge range of stuff and I bought Arva Part's Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem on LP. The sleeve was gorgeous, the images printed in the sleeve notes showed the care and the dedication given to giving a powerful performance of the piece by some of the world's greatest musicians. Then they go and spoil it by cramming 70 minutes of audio onto ONE LP! On one side there is 38 minutes of audio which is normally the amount split between the two sides. It sounded truly atrocious in places; distorted Part is not pleasing to the ear.

Amsterdam is brilliant for music shops - did you get to that store called Concerto? Could spend hours in there.

John

No, didn't see that one. I was in a few but the best was the one I mention above, Record Friend I think wasn its name.

Dudess

I simply think records sound gorgeous - and so much more "full of life" or something - not "compressed" by digitalisation.

gsparx

Think I'm a bit late jumping on to this, but my 2 cents:
A lot of it is down to preference. People have mentioned the joy of the vinyl listening experience and younger people are probably going through that with cd's vs virtual music.
I think we all know vinyl records that sound great and some that sound **** and the same goes for cd's. As for mp3's, i won't even go there because by their very definition they have degraded sound quality.
A lot of it comes down to modern mastering techniques.
Vinyl actually has a much smaller dynamic range than a compact disc.
When cd's were invented there was great hope because there is around 90db's of dynmaic range compared to around 50 or 60 with tape or vinyl.
Many classical cd's utilise this range. Modern pop music doesn't and this is mostly because of the so called "loudness wars", where mastering engineers reduce or obliterate any of the music's dynamics for the sake of perceived loudness.
A cd can handle a consistently loud signal but vinyl cannot because of its physical limitations (ie the needle would jump out of the groove) so now, ironically, a vinyl record tends to have way more dynamics.
If i may name and shame, I recently spent quite a bit of cash on arcade fire's, "Neon Bible" on vinyl. I can safely say it is the worst sounding album I own. I've no idea what the cd sounds like but the 12 inch has no definition, it sounds tinny and the last song even has major distortion the whole way through.
I'm not sure if it's technically possible but I figure they must have just taken the cd master and cut the vinyl from that.
On the other hand i picked up the stones reissued "Satanic Majesties" on vinyl and it sounds awesome.
I think most modern cd's sound pretty awful but i do love cd's from the 80's and early 90's before the loudness thing just got ridiculous.
I also agree with the poster who said that a record on vinyl demands your attention much more than a cd or mp3 and in general there's way less room for filler on a 40 minute record!

sedohre

John wrote: »

defective CDs which suffered from bit rot so when buying these old (and out of print) CDs, you come across ones which have essentially rusted.

CDs with "bit rot" or "rusted cds" Can someone explain?

I've never heard of this or seen it, can it be seen? What is "bit rot"

Rustar

sedohre wrote:

Can someone explain?
I've never heard of this or seen it, can it be seen? What is "bit rot"

No one has to, if you know about the twin titans called Google and Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot

John

gsparx wrote: »

I'm not sure if it's technically possible but I figure they must have just taken the cd master and cut the vinyl from that.

Nearly all new vinyl is made from CD masters. In fact, there only a handful of proper vinyl mastering facilities left and only some of them are any good.