Comments on: Intelligent Design vs Science, analog vs digital, CD vs LP--and the winner is?

If you love music you gotta check out vinyl.

[Raithah]

Decaying musical medium: 75$.

Because, of course, there are many people willing to drop seventy five bucks to experience low-quality audio piped over their speakers - not to mention using one of the least efficient data storage devices known to modern man. Technology moves foward, not backward, for a reason: the better things are out there in the future while the outdated are way back in the past.

If you want to experience the 'real' analogue experience, plug a pair of headphones into your soundcard - yes, don't be surprised to learn that it most certainly does produce an analogue signal - and run your favorite music player with the equalizer randomly messed around with. Add some generated noise and presto, you've got an LP on your computer.

[PSiebert]

A-D converter and D-A converter Basics

Sound cards in computer are merely glorified analog to digital and digital to analog converters. So by plugging your headphones into your computers sound card you are merely listening to a digital signal converted back to analog.
Sound in its natural form is analog. In order to convert it to a digital signal you must sample the audio signal. Sampling the signal is a process that records an instantaneous portion of the audio and then waits, and records another portion. This process leaves out a majority of the actual analog signal. The faster the sampling rate the more tidbits of audio the converter records, but it can never no matter how fast the sampling rate is, record the complete song.
Another thing that analog to digital converters do is apply a filter to the analog signal. For example in order ot save "digital" space the converter may cut out all sounds below and above a certain frequency. Thus creating a tunnel effect on the digital audio. The best example of this is using an off the shelf FM transmitter. The highs and lows of the digitized signal being sent to your receiver are being drastically cut out to save bandwidth, and even to the untrained ear, one can tell the difference.
Even with the modern 'efficient' digital storage methods of today one would be disastified with how fast their memory can be sucked up by broadening the bandwith of recordings and increasing the sampling frequency.
Now onto the process of recovering that digitized tunnel music and outputing it to your headphones you plugged into your computer. The computer reproduces that "original", and I use the term original loosely, analog signal by taking the recorded samples and playing them together with dead space between them. Let's say you recorded the audio with a sampling frequency of 60Hz (Completely unreasonable, CD's use a frequency of 44.1kHz). This would mean that every second the computer would produce an audio sound. Then nothing would be produced by the computer until a second passed.
So you dig-o-philes keep buying your CD's which represent a "Sample" of the actual song played in the recording studio. I'll stick with my "low-quality" and "least efficient" and "Complete" music.

[soldier9599]

The fact is that the individual sounds produced digitally are so close together that their pitches are so close together that the human ear would never be able to distinguish between them. Maybe it they were played simultaneously, we would hear very very slow interference, but I don't even know about that. Also, analog is not perfect, it is noticeably distorted. I'll stick to my "Incomplete," "Correct," "high quality," "indistinguishable from live" music over "low quality," "distorted," "crackly," "complete" music any day.

View my whole post on the next page for a fuller explanation...

[acardes]

Let's be honest...

If you believe vinyl records sound "better", is it possible you grew up listening to it? Did it define what music is supposed to sound like for you?

I didn't, I grew up with good old analog tape, and it sucked.

Your hearing is limited by a finite resolution, meaning your ears effectively "sample" sound according to the Nyquist?Shannon theorem. If you are old and male, which most audiophiles are, your hearing resolution is probably not so good.

If digital audio reproduction is merely a disgustingly cold and inferior "sampling", then I declare the electromechanical response to grooves imprinted in warm vinyl an imperfect "interpretation" of music.

Don't get me wrong, I like vinyl, but comparisons to digital are like apples and oranges, so let's be honest.

[WhyFi]

Nyquist?Shannon theorem?

In my digging around to understand your post, the only info that I can find on the Nyquist?Shannon theorem is that a signal can be accurately reproduced by samples if x,y,z, blah blah blah. You seem to be stating that the Nyquist?Shannon theorem explains some physiological limitations of our hearing - where are you getting that?

[Johnny Mac 7]

Digital Music

It amazes me that this issue still gets people fired up after all these years. I couldn't be happier that digital music is here. If I wanted snap, crackle and pop I would eat Rice Krispies ( or is it Crispies?). I definitely don't want it going through my ears into my brain. Let me state it this way, I HATE VINYL. For the very few of you who for some etherial reason love vinyl I'm happy for you. Consider this: the majority of people today, for whatever reason, cannot hear the full audio band (20hz to 20khz plus or minus some freqs) so what good is it to them (us). Also, music is a fluid medium. How much do you think your missing when you can sample a 64th note 44 thousand times per second or more?
Can digital be improved? It has been and still can be. I have enjoyed recorded music infinitely more since the digital age than I ever could before. Just in case your wondering, I enjoy my multi-thousand dollar surround-sound home audio system with three powered sub woofers very much.

[andbil]

Analog vs digital

Well usually I love your commentary Steve, but now this tired "discovery" of vinyl thing is just ... well old! Sorry to say, I grew up in the vinyl age and I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. I suppose that "warm' tone just never compensated for the scratches, skips, repeats, static and best of all ... warps that go so well with vinyl discs. Nothing knocks the edge off nice warm tone as quickly as the 500 hz modulation that goes with a disc that is no longer flat. And while you are hardselling the $70 turntable, don't forget to mention that the needle starts knocking the high frequencies off the grooves in the record the first time you play it and every time there after and the needles wear out, also. The last turntable I owned had a Shure V15 Type 3 cartridge. They recommended you replace the needle every 80-100 hours and it cost over $100 bucks, and that was in 1975. And the biggest joke of all, I was reading a recent British Hi-Fi mag and I see now the "high end" guys are shelling out $7000 + for a turntable. To these old ears that just sound dumb! So give me digital any time. It sounds pretty sweet on my $3500 set up, lasts forever and the technolgy just keeps getting better. And you know what else .. it sounds just as good in my car ... try that with vinyl.

[PSiebert]

I resent that remark

I resent the fact that after my previous post I was asumed to have grown up listening to vinyl. In fact I grew up in the age where CD's quickly replaced tapes. I never witnessed an actual record (vinyl) store with my own eyes. The purpose of my post was not to bash surround sound home theatre systems, nor the advances of digital audio technology. It was merely to shed light on the differences between analog and digital audio sources. It is my belief that two channel sound (stereo) cannot reproduce exact duplicated natural audio, even from an analog source. Ears are designed to pick up sound from many angles. Personally I feel the more channels of audio the more realistic outcome you have.
The digital world has made this idea a much more achievable goal. Concerts and movies are now recorded with numerous audio channels or tracks. Technology also, for us vinyl lovers, has made the transportation of music much easier. I love not having to dig through my car looking for cassette tapes or CD's, and being able to turn on my iPod and have access to my complete music collection.
Vinyl does have its flaws as well, such as warping, wearing needles, and the worst of all scratches. My preference when sitting at home, listening to a stereo audio source, where size nor storage matters, would be to select a vinyl record over a cassette tape, CD, or my iPod.
So for those who may still have shelves full of vinyl records which they haven't been able to listen to for fear of thowing hundreds of dollars into a record player, this $70 record player may be just what they are looking for.

[WhyFi]

They each have their place

I have a music server for times when I'm doing stuff around the house and I simply want music in the background and I have a CD player for dedicated listening... but only if I don't have the music on vinyl.

Sure, vinyl has a higher noise floor (but those that are complaining about horribly intrusive pops, clicks and skips, you haven't listened to a decent turn table that was set up correctly with a good piece of vinyl - don't judge the medium based on your dad's crappy set-up that was in storage for 15 years), less dynamic range, and a narrower frequency response range but when it comes to reproducing a life-like performance, sorry - CD will lose. CD isn't as fussy but neither is it as smooth, fleshed-out and palpable as vinyl.

[hely0123]

Conversion tool?FFlash2Video

Flash2Video is an easy-to-use flash to video conversion tool, which supports the conversion of Macromedia Flash SWF files into AVI (uncompressed/compressed using any available codec including DivX and Xvid), and VCD, SVCD, and DVD compatible MPEG files. http://www.MySuperSoft.com

[acardes]

Sorry, you caught me listening to a "sample"

My remark was directed towards a general audience, and the only assumption I made is that everything you hear is a "sample," thus any attempted marginalization of digital medium shaky at best. Can you tell the difference between a vinyl record and a high-quality 192kHz recording of a vinyl record?

I wish people would read an entire comment before rebutting, as I do go onto say I enjoy vinyl. Yay for audio.

[nulldevice]

It mightn't be the medium

One would do well to remember that the mastering and pressing process for vinyl differs from the mastering process for CDs, and that it might not be the actual vinyl medium that casues the pleasing sesnation, but the processing required to make the music listenable on that particular format.

Similarly, just because the format is "analog" doesn't mean that's the reason it sounds better or sounds. Certainly, much vinyl produced today was not recorded with a 100% analog signal-chain start to finish. As with vacuum tube preamps, 1/2" tape, etc, the warmth of sound is likely caused by harmonic distortion that happens to be aesthetically pleasing, not because the medium is inherently more accurate. There are literally hundreds of digital tools that exist to simulate and model this sort of harmonic distortion for pure-digital recordings (and these tools are some of the armament in the "loudness war").

And the loudness war is a whole other problem. Digital recordings can be tweaked and brickwall-limited to truly staggering levels of perceived loudness, which is often exceptionally fatuiging to the ears over time. Vinyl as a medium doesn't support that sort of tinkering as well, so as an advantage, recordings for records end up with more dynamic range preserved - but again, that's the processing and not the medium itself.

So that's a few things to keep in mind. The appeal in vinyl might not be in its analog-ness, but in its own limitations and quirks as a medium.

[WhyFi]

Show of hands -

How many of those disparaging vinyl have listened to a [i]decent 'table[/i] (and an LP that's in good shape) [i]in a decent stereo[/i] this side of 1980? I get the feeling that none of these people have actually experienced decent examples of items they're bashing...

[NYCgoalie]

What about SACD or DVD-Audio

Were'nt these two formats desinged to give listeners the "warm" sound of Vinyl while still retaining all the clarity of digital sound?

I really think the record industry screwed this up. Had they made either of these formats a standard, this discussion of "Vinyl or Digital" a moot point. Something tells me this bit of stupidity will also play itself out in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wars.

Just set a freakin' standard, put out some product and let us enjoy it. Jeez, you'd think these people would be bright enough to figure this out by now.

[pilgrim1629]

Oh, yawn ...

The current resurgence in vinyl is nothing but a fashion. But then, the audio magazines are just fashion magazines for men with money (but not much else going on). Just like fashion magazines, they exist to sell their advertiser's stuff.

The giveaway in articles like this is always the snide, sometimes subtle sometimes not, insinuation that it's oh so cool. "only those hip enough to seek it out have any idea what music is supposed to sound like." Right. More fashion. Don't worry, audio geeks, someday you'll be cool.

Plus, throw in a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with it. "the division into sides" of vinyl? Nice concept, but it has nothing to do with sound quality.

[dcstephens]

Wow, where does the hate come from?

I love digital at its best (I've got a 1-bit 5.6mHz recorder for archiving my vinyl) and I love vinyl at its best. Both can be amazingly vivid and both can be incredibly hard to listen to.

I suspect that anyone that "hates" either medium has not heard it well reproduced. Open up your ears. There's nothing wrong with walking on both sides of the street. Don't diss the other view just because you don't understand it.

Piece,

Dave

[soldier9599]

--Here take this piece.
--Nah, man, I'm too peaceful to kill anyone.

Piece,
Drew
^_^

[fotoguy53]

Yep vinyl is great but...

Okay I get it. And I've got all the toys, a brand new Samsung BD1400 Bu-
Ray player (wow), and my Acura TL even plays DVD-Audio. Sounds
groovy-baby! My favorite speakers (out of the three complete sets I
have, NHT's, Mirage's and two Spica TC50's), are the Spicas. Oh m'God
those Spicas are smooth-with deadly imaging. But there is a limit. All
this worship of analog will just encourage those 'hold outs' and we'll see
a 'comeback' of that much maligned video format. The totally GROOVY
RCA Video Disc. Now there was a great analog format! That together
with an 'old fashioned' CRT tele. Video Heaven!

Ron K.

[soldier9599]

Well actually top notch CRT's have a higher quality picture than any LCD or plasma screen; there is very little debate over that at all.

[soldier9599]

But, yes I do agree lol.

[soldier9599]

It's funny how this confusion exists at all. Digital is so clearly greater than analog it is just ridiculous. People get caught up in the fact that "analog is the real sound!" that they think that digital must be inferior.

Yes, analog has no "gaps" like digital, but it is distorted. Enough so to be very obvious. Know those clicks? They're examples of the distortion. The distortion is constant, to the point that at essentially every point in time there is a level of distortion. No matter how high quality the vinyl, it will always have distortions at a hearable level.

High enough quality digital, on the other hand, is indistinguishable with live music being pumped through speakers. That includes most digital in fact. Digital music is "chopped up," and the end result is a certain pitch being played for a set amount of time, then another pitch for a set amount of time, then another, etc. While, in theory, this is not the true sound, these amounts of time are so small that the human ear cannot distinguish it from analog sound. It has THOUSANDS of these per second, something that the human ear cannot even come close to distinguishing between, and the fact is that even at digitals most inaccurate point in time, it is actually still more accurate than analog.

To put this in perspective, imagine a perfect circle. Then imagine a computer screen that has, rather than the couple hundred, millions of pixels per square inch. The computer screen draws a circle. Yes, it is in pixels, but the slight innaccuracies cannot be even remotely seen by the human eye. Then imagine drawing a circle with your hand, while on a train (to simulate crackling). If you are really careful, it will be a good circle, but a bit distorted, with numerous little bumps because of the train vibrations and such. The hand drawing is analog and the screen is digital; which is better?

The fact is that digital is too precise to sound any different to the human ear. I have a very good ear, being a musician myself, I can tell the difference between two different versions of the same model of a piano made in the same year, while most people would have a hard time distinguishing between any two pianos.

Actually, a test was done once (with musician participants), where they had a blind testing between top notch vinyls and those same vinyls recorded onto regular CD's, and just plain CD versions of the same songs. All of them being hardcore audiophile vinyl fans, the plain CD versions lost miserably, and the recordings of vinyls won with a small margin over the real vinyls. While the small margin was probably nothing, the participants picked out the sound strictly because it had crackles in it; they couldn't tell any difference at all between the vinyls and their CD copies.

A hundred thousand clicks per second sounds no different to the human ear from one clear pitch of analog sound. Sorry.

[hunterwf2002]

I pity the fool!

I'm with you WhyFi. Don't knock what you haven't tried... lately and with a good rig (sorry but IMHO the $75 AT-PL50 rig just won't do).

I have a fine CD rig, a decent SACD & DVD-A box and high-res sound system. My LP setup - a modest one by high-end standards - easily beats digital. This is not 70's HiFi. I have over 2000 LPs that I've collected since I bought my 1st one back in 1970 (none are warped or scratched and all are clean). Many are old and many are new. The pressings made today are much higher quality than those from back-in-the-day.

Top it all off with a S.E.T. Amp (300B tubes are my favorite) and high efficiency speakers (all properly setup of course) and you are in for a real treat. Warm? Who cares. Listen to that resolution, that soundstage width & depth and that glorious midrange. It's like the Santana band is right there in the room... okay, how about J-Lo or Alecia Keys...

If you are in doubt find a high-end dealer and have them show you what I mean. You don't have to go with vacuum tubes, solid state will do nicely too. Have a dealer setup a system with a digital front-end and a comparable analog (LP) front-end. Have both digital & LP software of the same music and do a test for yourself.

Try it, you'll like it!