The Paradox Of Why Vinyl Sounds Better.....

[A9X]

i understand that you like vinyl but you don't need to get the facts the way you're getting.

Liking vinyl or not has no bearing at all upon sampling theorem.

If you solve a mathematical equation using your own rules you'll get a result but not the right one.

My maths is correct, it's your understanding that is flawed.

At least trust your own ears they will tell you that you don't listen to 2 samples per second when you listen to a cd . 2 samples per second are nothing to human ears. I could tell a lie but i don't want.

Your fundamental misunderstanding, that I have corrected twice already, is that two samples per cycle is 2Hz. It is not, rather two samples per cycle is a sampling rate 2x the frequency of the waveform you are sampling.

Using RBCD which uses 44100 samples/sec, if you were to use that to sample a 22050Hz sinewave, there would be 2 samples per cycle: (44100 samples/sec) / (22050 cycles/sec) = 2 samples/cycle.

Using the same RBCD sampling rate of 44100 samples/sec and a 441Hz sine wave, then you would have 44100/44100 = 100 samples/cycle. Similarly, if you have a 2Hz waveform, sampled at RBCD rates, then there will be 44100/2 or 22050 samples/cycle of the original waveform.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NyquistFrequency.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlVnW2kv4tE&NR=1

[covalongacurta]

at least we agree that 2+2=4 simple maths. Einstein was considered a retard by his teachers. Do you believe in negative speed ?

[A9X]

I have tried to explain it to you several times but you are obviously too intellectually limited to get it. Go and google Nyquist and Shannon and read up on sampling theorem and how it actually works.

[flavio81]

at least we agree that 2+2=4 simple maths. Einstein was considered a retard by his teachers. Do you believe in negative speed ?

Can't you understand that 2 samples/cycle referrs to sampling a 22050Hz sinewave? Is it so difficult? Is there really such a need to go on?

Stop it please. We know how you can turn a thread for the worse. Don't do it.

[covalongacurta]

thanks a lot for your information.

[Erin1]

Vinyl sounds better....

To me, the place vinyl beats CD is at high frequencies, the sound of cymbals, acoustic guitars, even the attack of voices or bass, both of which intitially can have high frequecies present....CD sounds to me like it misses the b in bang....

But this is the parodox, that is exactly the place where CD measures far superior to vinyl....so what is going on? is it all down to that 22 kHz brick wall?....anyone got ideas why that is?

Mike

A few thoughts.....
LP can hold high frequency information up to 40khz.
Many analog recordings have information that goes up to 40khz. Can we hear 40khz? No. Can we percieve 40khz intermodulating with lower frequencies? Yes. IMO.

99.9% of CD players use an analog filter to try to remove the 44.1khz sample frequency from the audio information. This filter causes a phase shift in the upper frequencies. The phase shift is part of the digital sound. It sounds different to LP which does not have the phase shift.

So, engineers tried oversampling to move the playback sampling frequency higher, to move the filtered sample frequency higher and out of the audible band. In the process of doing this the oversampling chips created increased jitter which makes CD sound even more unnatural. One "evil" replaced with another.

So IMO why CD sounds "bad" is
1) Not enough HF information
2) Phase shift
3) Jitter

So, I use a non - oversampling DAC with valve output stage, so obviously does not use op-amps and regular feedback circuits.

Advantages are less jitter, and less objectionable phase shift.
Disadvantage: still lack of HF information.

solution: playback digital recordings sampled at higher frequency such as 88.1khz

last problem with CD is more to do with older recordings, compared to the CD version. If you compare a 1960's, 70's or even 80's LP, which was released at the time. It sounds vibrant and upfront and dynamic, whereas the CD often sounds flat and lifeless.

Reason: analog tapes disintigrate, even tapes in good condition, the magnetised oxide trys to return to its original state. The oxide is always moving, so 20 or 40 year old tapes do not contain the same information as they did when they were first recorded. So, the CD "remaster" or even "master" wont sound the same as the LP released in the same year as the recording..

[Whitneyville]

Ummm, very few "masters" that are 40 years old are magnetic tapes. Many decades ago if the LP was a big seller, the tapes were transferred onto photographic film which has a life (we KNOW) of at least 225 years. We have photographs that old that weren't processed "archivially" or made from "archival" materials. Illford, Rollei, and Kodak estimate "modern film" will be with us for at least 500 years with no signs of deterioration. "Read" by a red-line laser (as what sound-on-film movies are left are) even if the silver is invisible to the eye, the infra-red component of the laser light will reflect from the colloidal silver, and be reproduceable for probably another 500 years, all in analog form. BTW, if you've never heard a 35mm film master, you don't know what analog sound is suppossed to sound like.

[Erin1]

2011-40 = 1971. Why do you say few masters on magnetic tape from 1971?? I would have thought there would be lots?

If you know more about it than me, please elaborate.
My understanding of 35mm (film) audio was that the audio track is still recorded on magnetic tape, however uses sprocket holes to assist with reducing wow and flutter, rather than using a pinch roller. Like a movie projector.

AFAIC if the recording is magnetic, it will deteriorate, and the particles will try to re-align to their original position.

Now, if the audio is read by a laser, why is that considered analog rather than digital?

Not disputing you at all, just curious.

Please explain further. Thanks

[WAPFU]

Here is my 2 cents worth,

Vinyl given the limited frequency range has all the harmonics. Digital is a compression as it throws out information for that frequency range. When you piece it back you approximate and make a guess at what is missing. Even at 96hz you are still throwing away information.
Yup.
Closest I have personally found is the Blu-ray and some limited DVD-A's at 192/24 which comes closest to the vinyl original or analogue tapes which they were derived from. Even the blu-ray is from an original 300+ sample rate.
So vinyl doesn't have the dynamic range - it is warmer and has all the information.
Warmer like - I would has a guess a tube amp. Not sterile and lacking.
So I would say yes I like the vinyl.
In answer yup.

If you throw information away it is lost you cannot put back that which you have taken away - you can approximate but it is not the original. In real life we hear an infinite amount over a given frequency range - analogue is the real life situation. digital will compress that infinite information and try to reproduce that which is gone - like trying to peice back a jigsaw with half the parts missing.

[Marine Boat]

If everyone were able to admit when they were wrong if for no other reason that they may have the ability to be right, this would end the vinyl vs. CD argument once and for all. I digress. This is going to roll on.

Which sounds better, big and black or small and shiny?
I'll get to that. But read the whole thing before you dismiss me as being "pro-vinyl" or "pro-CD".

Alright wise guy, get to the point. Which one is more accurate, CDs or albums? Can you at least get that one answered?
You bet your boots I can. By accurate I mean that the waveform recorded is closest to the one that comes out of the plugs on the butt of the thing. In this case, CDs win. This is obviously assuming that you have a decent CD player -- I'm talking about what the technology itself is capable of, not the capabilities of the particular equipment you use it with.

You dumbo! CDs are only itty bitty samples!
Yep, and just enough of them to cover from 20hz to just over 10'000 times that amount. And don't try to say that the 44khz rate is coming through your speakers. That's filtered out by a longshot. And don't try to say that the "grainy" nature means anything. You can literally see that it's not grainy at all if you have an oscilloscope.

Yeah, alright. So what? What if there's something about the sound that we can't measure?
The sound is represented by an electrical signal. LPs and CDs are technologies used to make that representation. We can measure electricity. If there were something about sound we couldn't represent using electricity, or something that microphones and their preamps can't capture into an electric signal, neither technology would have an advantage over the other and this argument is, in this case, rendered moot.


So if CDs are more accurate at reproducing a continuous electrical waveform, why do they sound as bad as you sing?
First of all, I've been told I'm a talented singer and I do not appreciate that down-talk. Second of all, nearly any 'audiophile' vinyl setup will provide the listener with more than enough of a high-fidelity experience to be able to enjoy listening to music. That much should be obvious, because you probably own one! Heck, disregarding surface noise, the average vinyl front end would likely be indistinguishable from a CD to the layperson. Another point is bias. I'm guilty of this and you are too. If you listen to an LP and listen for positive attributes, they'll strike you first and make the strongest impression. Listen to a CD and keep an ear out for what might be described in "audiophile terminology" as clarity, speed, resolution, etc. You'll see what I mean by bias. There's also the fun of collecting albums, and the general asthetic of vinyl.

So IMO why CD sounds "bad" is
1) Not enough HF information
2) Phase shift
3) Jitter

Phase shift from the inductance of the phono cartridge? Not enough information and jitter I can understand the arguments of, but the phase shift argument is flawed.

[flavio81]

LP can hold high frequency information up to 40khz.

Most LPs have almost no content beyond 17KHz, and big amounts of distortion at that freq. Everything you see beyond 20KHz is usually 2nd harmonic distortion, which is 2x the frequency.

Can we percieve 40khz intermodulating with lower frequencies? Yes. IMO.

This is a flawed proposition. If, say, 100KHz intermodulates with a 2KHz signal, and your ears hear up to 20KHz, then that doesn't mean you need to reproduce up to 100KHz.

99.9% of CD players use an analog filter to try to remove the 44.1khz sample frequency from the audio information. This filter causes a phase shift in the upper frequencies. The phase shift is part of the digital sound. It sounds different to LP which does not have the phase shift.

That cover only one type of filter, the brick wall filter, that is not in use anymore and hasn't been used too often since the mid 80s. Other kind of filters can give linear phase from 20 to 20000 Hz.

Cartridges, instead, have phase shifts. The RIAA record curve itself is a big phase shift that hopefully gets cancelled when applying the RIAA playback curve.

In the process of doing this the oversampling chips created increased jitter which makes CD sound even more unnatural. One "evil" replaced with another.

How about flutter in turntables, and wow caused by off-center records?

1) Not enough HF information

Enough HF information AND with less distortion.

2) Phase shift

Much less than in your typical turntable. And both the LP and the CD's phase shifts are minimal compared to the HUGE phase shift introduced by the speakers.

3) Jitter

Overblown issue.

So, I use a non - oversampling DAC with valve output stage, so obviously does not use op-amps and regular feedback circuits.

Nice!

Reason: analog tapes disintigrate, even tapes in good condition, the magnetised oxide trys to return to its original state. The oxide is always moving, so 20 or 40 year old tapes do not contain the same information as they did when they were first recorded. So, the CD "remaster" or even "master" wont sound the same as the LP released in the same year as the recording..

True.

[lojyo610]

I enjoyed all of the posts I have read. I'm so far from a techie that the discussions of bit rates, filters and etc were lost on me, but I'm glad you guys are out there.

I like vinyl, generally, for a couple of reasons:

1. For whatever reason, I find most CD's to sound harsh, especially in the high frequencies. I know someone explained the reasons for that, but I'm basing it on subjective evaluation.

2. I find that I get fatigued listening to CD's and most digital sources. I am not using an external DAC when playing my music files so that may be a contributing factor. My CD player is a good one, from the 90's, but I'm sure a newer one would improve things sonically.

3. Well recorded/engineered CD's will sound better than poorly recorded/engineerd LP's. I even prefer some digitally remastered CD's to the orignal, flat sounding LP's of the late 80's.

4. I like mechanical things and cueing up an LP is more fun than sticking a CD in a drawer. It's also a link to my more laid back college and high school days when vinyl was king and digits were limited to hands and huge mainframes.

[bauzace50]

HI,
my situation is right along with lojyo610, word for word. May I say that even if Vinylistas constitute a substantial niche market, there is a smaller niche market in analog audio tape, too. But even though analog tape has a higher ceiling in terms of performance potential, I still prefer the LP with its peculiar mystique.

Regards,
bauzace50

[Pure_brew]

I think the entire playback chain gives us a variety of issues that cascade until the sound arrives at the ears. I've heard CD based systems, carefully chosen at every step which sound breathtakingly beautiful. However, I don't think that is true in almost all digital audio situations. With so many speakers, amplifiers and CD players with supposedly just fine specifications, how is it that the sound is so wretched to a critical listener. Even more people, not even the audiophiles of the world feel the need to plug the ears on modern mid-fi equipment at anything more than background listening?

If you don't have the interest or sensitivity to make either or sound good, then either format will sound bad.

Right now, vinyl and tubes sound superior on my system, but it is painfully inconvenient and costly in my opinion.