People born after 1980: what's your take on vinyl?

(Second answer: I of course sound old saying this: I'll always prefer vinyl because of the *sound* but most of all because I like the *interaction* with the turntable.)

absolutely. along with lame fetishism

-- shine headlights on me (electricsoun...) (webmail), May 5th, 2005 3:17 AM. (electricsound) (later) (link)

Liars - They threw us in a trench and built a momument on top

Anything with lockgrooves!

that's what i'm saying.. the shuffle/pause/search, etc. functions on a CD player are great, but you give up so much.

Do you like Radiohead, NYU student man?

Well, of course.. They're not my favorite band, but OK Computer and Kid A/Amnesiac would definitely make my list for Top 100 albums from the 90s and 00s, respectively, but they wouldn't come close to topping either.

Of course it absolutely does not sound better but you could say that it adds some pleasing distortions. The biggest reason why the "vinyl sounds better" argument caught on was the poor mastering on early CDs. So many classic albums were put out that were remixed, edited, artifically stereoized, or even featured different takes, that vinyl was really a superior choice in certain cases.

If you say you like the crackling and popping then you definitely are responding to some sort of nostalgia.

Wah? I always thought you were older. Hm.. I guess you just know your shit.

Sorry about that. Just a bit drunk over here.
-- walter kranz (kranz_walte...), February 14th, 2005 3:24 AM.

This is Geir-esque in its nuttiness.

I know several vinyl threads already exist, but I decided that I am free to initiate any thread I please between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M.

People do eventually wake up, you know.

Also, there's this thing called timezones....

To return to the subject, there's a good example of 2 albums that would probably be impossible to find on vinyl. So, hurray for CDs!

poortheatre, did you ever get those Red Krayola records?

Check out this dude's column if you never have.

So at this point, four years later, I am slowly phasing CDs completely out of my system. Vinyl is my main squeeze now. Those people who say that vinyl "sounds better" are sort of lying; the sound quality on most records is less faithful to the source material, and CDs have this amazing ability to isolate sounds and produce this unholy crisp sound.

But vinyl has something that CDs can never have: vinyl introduces several atmospheric elements that just make you feel good. The record turning, the dig of the needle, the almost inaudible hum of the mostly-grounded pre-amp, the scratch of the fine dust particles, the crackle of the not-so-fine ones.

Not to mention the record as fetish/nostalgia object: something about flipping through your records, pulling the record out of the sleeve... it's exciting and very personal. You will not put your entire vinyl collection on shuffle; vinyl demands your attention and participation. But while it's fun to be able to queue up five hours of music and forget about it, it's also fun to pull out that 45 of "Starry Eyes" and play it over and over again.

This is Geir-esque in its nuttiness.

prove it.

i have read it before but it colours me unconvinced. i buy a lot of vinyl out of necessity (many indie labels *still* don't do cd releases of singles) and not one of them sounds, well, good enough.

Oooh yeah, that could be a problem.

xpost

Is listening to a CD with audiophile headphones any less "the listening experience"? I realize that setup allows you to "listen to the music and not the record player", but if you asked me which was more enjoyable -- the precision of listening in a vacuum or the impressionist experience of vinyl -- vinyl is more enjoyable for me.

I don't know which one is "truer" to the actual sounds happening in the studio; my guess would be that neither CDs nor vinyl are "true," since hearing live music sounds nothing like what comes out of my CD player or my turntable--and in that case, you're just making an aesthetic choice, for the warm fuzziness of vinyl or the clear onslaught of digital. I certainly have never particularly enjoyed listening to my Kompakt vinyl stuff more than the CD; but I do enjoy listening to Murmur and Internal Wrangler more on vinyl. So I don't think it's nostalgia, really; it's just a preference for a certain way of listening. It's kind of like how it's sometimes awesome to change my receiver to 'super-bass' mode so I can listen to Depeche Mode or something.

Here's the other thing: it is totally possible for CDs to have amazing packaging and liner notes that are enigmatic and cool.... Antony and the Johnsons comes to mind, or Saint Etienne have done a lot of cool stuff with CD booklets (like Tiger Bay).

And I haven't lost it!!

Therefore, vinyl is best because it doesn't go missing (and you get bigger pictures of course). I doubt it sounds any better or worse than cd unless your vinyl is pish quality like my knackered Lovin' Spoonful LP. At least knackered records will still play - when your cd is fvcked, it's fvcked and you've gorra REINVEST (typically, in the vinyl)!

ALTHOUGH isn't it the biggest chiz in the world when the sleevenotes are just the same ones from the cd packaging shoved inside, and I'm looking at YOU the Dudley Corporation here.

BTW, if you don't already own Purple Rain it's in the HMV sale on heavy vinyl for 3.99.

AND FOR THAT MATTER! Heavy vinyl! What the fvck is up with THAT! Who cares! In fact I'd prefer it to be lighter so I didnt put my back out carrying the damn stuff about!

Anyway, I only buy vinyl now if it's $1-2 and in NM condition, or if it's something that never made it to CD.

I've also got beef with double vinyl. Obviously improves the sound quality immensely. But too much getting up - you never actually get into an album - just pick out the monster tracks.

QUESTION: is pressing up a limited run of 7"s cheaper than pressing up limited run of cds?

I was born many years before 1980 and when I heard the first wave of CD's I was amazed that they sounded so horrible. Cd's sound pretty good to my ears nowadays which is the most important thing to me.

Also, I like that records have two sides. Oh, and I was not born after 1980.

Man, all of next week I'll be at my granny's. Guess I better listen to all my records this weekend.

this is important for post apocalyptic music listening

absolutely, and this is one of my biggest problems with more recently pressed records. they sound fine for half-to-(maybe)-three-quarters of the disc then the sound progressively deteriorates for the rest of the side. this is particularly noticeable on gzdisc pressings, because usually the sound at the start of the record is well above average.

RECRODS:

1. Take out of sleeve.
2. Open turntable lid and place record on turntable.
3. Put needle on.

CDs:

1. Take out of case.
2. Press button to open CD player and wait for it to open.
3. Place CD in player, press button to close it.
4. Press play button.

Plus with CDs you have to get the booklet out of the case. It's not always easy to get your fingernails under it so that you can do it.

I don't see why CDs are more convenient than records as far as accessing a particular place in a piece of music. Yes, you can go exactly to a particular time marking, but how often do you want to do that? It's not hard to estimate where something is on a record. Plus with a CD player, you have to hold the fast forward button in until you get to the place, whereas with a record you just manually move the needle there with your hand.

No, the Nyquist theorem simply states the fact that you only need two samples to reproduce a sine wave at any frequency. Therefore your sampling rate needs to be double the highest frequency you wish to capture.

In most practical applications, at least three or four sampling points are needed to reliably extract the frequency and phase (which can also play a part) of the wave,

In practical applications, the Nyquist theorem has never been disproven. You still only need to sample a sine wave 2 times to reproduce it accurately. Phase doesn't enter into it AFAIK because phase = time and the sampling rate should take care of that no?

and that's assuming that the signal-to-noise in the readout process is very good.

Also, it isn't enough to just know the frequency, you need to know the amplitude of the signal as well.

The issues of signal-to-noise and the amplitude of the wave both relate to bit depth, not sampling rate. 16 bit already has a dynamic range that is higher than most analog systems and 24 bit adds more dynamic range than anyone could need. Meaning that the noise added by microphones, other analog gear, and even the room itself starts to make the signal-to-noise specs of 24 bit audio look like overkill. 16 bit audio definitely has a wider dynamic range than vinyl. Listen to any classical LP vs. the digital equivalent and I'm sure you'll find that the quiet passages are much clearer and more audible on the CD version.

There is an inherent sampling error in the reading and recording of CD's. Because of the sampling error, the digital information encoded on the CD is different from the analog input sound.

Sampling errors are another issue entirely. Actually I don't know so much about errors on the AD end (is that even possible?) but they are quite common on the DA end. The solution lies in technologies like oversampling, good clocking, etc. and well designed DAs can avoid errors completely.

Yes, the DAC readout process can extract frequency components up to 22kHz, but it can't pin down the amplitudes of those components, moreso in the high frequency range.

Of course it can pin down the amplitudes. That's what the bit depth is for.

I want/need to do it all the time but I realize that's not the case for most people who aren't writing papers or giving presentations or trying to transcribe something.

I don't know how serious you're being about getting CD booklets out of the case, etc. I really find it a drag to have to clean both sides of a record (and usually the needle) every time I play it, which I find pretty necessary with records.

This may have been a bad choice of words. What I wanted to say was, if you have a frequency f that you want to measure, then the sampling rate (acc. to Nyquist limit) must be at least 2f. But obv. sampling at a larger rate 3f, 4f, ... is preferable.

Phase doesn't enter into it AFAIK because phase = time and the sampling rate should take care of that no?

Phase matters. Take two waves of different frequencies and add them together. Then alter the phase between them, add them again, and the resulting waveform is different. Now, I'm not certain to what degree phase matters, intuitively, it should matter more for higher frequencies.

Listen to any classical LP vs. the digital equivalent and I'm sure you'll find that the quiet passages are much clearer and more audible on the CD version.

There's no question that CD's are quieter -- silence is actually silence on a CD, which is main benefit of using the medium.

Sampling error =! bit error. Bit error = misread bits, requiring error correction. Sampling error:

http://www.audiolinks.nl/How%20Compact%20Discs%20(CDs)%20Work_bestanden/cd-sample15.gif

The "true" waveform is the red curve. The digitally sampled curve is the blue curve. To lower the sampling error, you need to either increase the # of pit degradations (there are ten of them in the figure) or increase the sampling frequency. But these are not equivalent -- finer pit degradations don't obviate the need for a higher sampling rate. Again, the sampling error is larger for the higher frequency components in the waveform.

And like I said in my previous post, the analog (red) curve is not the same as the digital (blue) curve. Information is lost in the digitization process, and there's no way to retrieve it.

Aside:

Unless you've got a hell of a player and pristine vinyl, this just isn't likely

Like Scott said, it's very likely.

(Ultimately, this is the biggest issue for me.)

You're misunderstanding sampling theory here. In a bandwidth-limited system all that is required to represent all the frequency-domain information in that system is to sample at at least twice the highest frequency. Now the "at least" here doesn't mean you get better representation of bass in a system restricted to 22kHz by going way beyond 2x22kHz - it doesn't improve that.

If we call the crazy red curve you've drawn above [1], and we filter it to eliminate all frequencies above twice our sampling rate to create [2], we can then sample it and reconstruct it to precisely [2]. Yes, the step from [1] to [2] involves loss of data (arguably inaudible) but the digital sampling and reconstruction of analog waveform shouldn't.

(I was born in 1968, bought nothing but vinyl until I was in my mid-20s, still buy lots of vinyl now, own a good record player, but my preference in sound quality terms is usually for CD.)

You can certainly pick out 22 kHz frequency components by sampling at 2x22 kHz, but to get a better representation of your 22kHz components, you need to sample at a higher rate, which the main advantage of boosting to 96 kHz sampling rates.

Yes, the step from [1] to [2] involves loss of data (arguably inaudible) but the digital sampling and reconstruction of analog waveform shouldn't.

The "arguably inaudible" part is exactly what we're discussing -- the difference *is* audible, and that's one of the reasons that vinyl sounds different from CD. Data is lost when doing the DAC into [2], so when [2] is converted back into an analog waveform, the original waveform [1] isn't recovered.

If you imagine you can get closer to your original waveform off vinyl, I think you're sadly mistaken. If you think vinyl preserves those close-to-Nyqvist-limit high frequencies better than CD you're also off the mark. That's not what it's about - vinyl can (and often does, to me) sound superior due to its happily euphonic technical limitations, not cos it outstrips digital in terms of accuracy.

Wrong. You get an absolutely accurate representation of your 22k wave when sampling at 44k (according to sampling theory). The only place this falls down is in the implementation of the analog filters.

The "arguably inaudible" part is exactly what we're discussing -- the difference *is* audible, and that's one of the reasons that vinyl sounds different from CD. Data is lost when doing the DAC into [2], so when [2] is converted back into an analog waveform, the original waveform [1] isn't recovered.

What you're not understanding is that the "lost data" isn't within the under 22k range, it's the stuff that's being intentionally filtered out above 22k. Then it becomes a different argument about higher sample rates and whether humans can hear over 22k, and whether the average microphone and speaker can even pick up or reproduce frequencies over 22k. That's a completely different discussion that it doesn't make sense to get into if you don't even believe in the basics of sampling theory.

I think the "ear fatigue" phenomenon is as real as it is difficult to express with numbers and charts.

I agree but I think the reasons for this are not hocus pocus. For one there is the massive limiting that goes onto all new CDs lately because everybody wants to be "louder" than everyone else. This definitely causes listening fatigue. I also think that CDs might have too much high end and the brightness of things like cymbals can be much more tiring than the more gentle upper-end rolloff of analog tape and vinyl. There are also all sorts of issues with bad DAs and jitter, errors, etc. which could be unpleasant to listen to. But these are problems of implementation and not problems with the basic technology of PCM digital recording.

I don't understand this. A square wave sounds different than a sine wave, right? So how can you distinguish a 22k sine wave from a 22k square wave when you're sampling at 44k? In both cases your entire waveform is represented by two dots (and the distance between the dots gives you your amplitude), so unless you make some assumption about how those dots are connected, you can't distinguish different waveforms. Is that not correct?

What you're not understanding is that sampling error is introduced when capturing and digitizing frequencies well below 22kHz because the sampling rate is "only" 44 kHz.

If what you're arguing is true, and 44 kHz is sufficient for capturing frequencies up to 22 kHz*, then what would be the advantage of going to 96 kHz sampling rates? It's *not* just a matter of filter cut-off.

*or 16-18 kHz, if accounting for filter cut-off. The point is the same.

No because like MindInRewind said, the 22khz square wave is really a 22khz fundamental sine wave plus a bunch of upper harmonics. When the 22khz square wave is run through the brickwall filters in the AD it becomes a 22khz sine wave. And honestly the average human ear can't really hear the difference between a 22k sine wave and a 22k square wave.

In both cases your entire waveform is represented by two dots (and the distance between the dots gives you your amplitude), so unless you make some assumption about how those dots are connected, you can't distinguish different waveforms. Is that not correct?

You don't have to make any assumption about how to connect the dots because they're always connected as a sine wave. And since all sound can be reduced to complex combinations of sine waves, digital sampling works!

You're right. I'm not understanding how this is the case (and in fact I don't believe it to be true). Can you explain further?

If what you're arguing is true, and 44 kHz is sufficient for capturing frequencies up to 22 kHz*, then what would be the advantage of going to 96 kHz sampling rates? It's *not* just a matter of filter cut-off.

Personally I don't think there's an advantage to 96k. Technically speaking the advantage is that you're capturing all of the frequencies from 22k up to 44k.

I think there's a large marketing push behind the idea that 96k is necessary, both in terms of selling new recording equipment and selling a new delivery format to listeners. On the recording end it might make sense for some people to record at 96k just so they can say they did. This might come in handy in the future if there's a popular 96k delivery format and the labels can say certain albums were recorded in "high definition" or whatever. So it just becomes a buzzword. But from what I've read there are very few speakers (let alone the crap that most people have in their homes) that can reproduce signals over 20k anyway. So I don't think it's a matter of adding something that was already there in vinyl but is missing from CD.

The jump from 16 to 24 bit is a much more important jump for recording as it allows for more headroom. For the end listener I don't think 24 bit is that big of a deal either because the real-world situations in which people listen to music don't really demand a dynamic range greater than 90db.

Walter Kranz is dead right here. The assumption you make about the way dots are connected is imposed upon you by the bandwidth limited system - there are no supra-22k components in this waveform (cos we got rid of them) therefore they can only be connected like this. The thing is, you can't hear the difference between a square wave and a sine wave of the same fundamental frequency if the harmonics start way beyond the upper limit of the ear's range.

The advantage of going up to 96k is chiefly one of simpler, less severe filter design. The advantages of 24bit on the recording side are manyfold - headroom as WK says, also ensures accumulative truncation errors in mixing arithmetic are way down below the level of audibility. The advantages of 24/96k on playback are rather more difficult to discern; if you take a 24bit master and dither and noise-shape it down to 16bit for CD you can retain most of the audible benefits.

I buy a lot of vinyl, but only to support a particular scene of music, and only in a style that I consider useful as a drum and bass dj. I use Serato Scratch, and where possible I prefer to play high bitrate mp3s that were sent to me by the producers themselves because they sound markedly better than those same tunes on vinyl.

Digital (high bitrate mp3 or cd) has a higher dynamic range, and decent stereo separation. I use a pair of high quality nearfield monitors, and I can hear a massive difference between anything on vinyl compared to cd. There's always a lot of extra bass that wasn't intended to be there in the first place (which is probably why people coo about vinyl's "warm sound"), and treble always distorts over time.

I like analogue, but vinyl to me is just a useful control interface when djing, and a waste of time and effort when actually listening to music for pleasure.

however, i like the format as it it very aesthetically pleasing (also more room for cool sleeve art) and sounds good for older music.

but...ultimately music is music and who really gives a shit? im happy listening to 128 kps mp3s on my Zen.

because of how readily available cds are and how easy it is to make them, i dont feel as much of a connection with them.

like many have said above, its not the sound quality. nothing sounds good when your speaker is a small fender guitar amp rigged through the headphone jack of your receiver [a temporary measure until my stereo is fixed]. its all in the actions leading up to and during the act of listening that make owning vinyl rewarding. for me, when i put on a record, i stop what im doing and engage myself in the music. with cds, it just feels like background noise.

now if only they werent such a pain to move...

It's certainly an unexpected twist, younger kids who didn't grow up with vinyl, yet preferring it now over CDs. Judging from the comments though, I think they're pretty rare, and I think my nostalgia theory remains intact.

I'm especially amused by the expensive CD players that use a filter to insert that "warm" distorted sound people are so used to and find comfort in, like an old blankey or plushie.

The so-called "warmth" of the analog sound is just the way the brain perceives a sound that's distorted in a certain way. Keep in mind that recordings haven’t been made directly to vinyl since the invention of magnetic tape in the 1930s. The tape, especially, being non-linear, creates low-order harmonics that are perceived as "warm sound". Just like those high-end CD players, that effect is quite easily achievable through electronic means in a (yes) digital environment. There are boxes that you can buy and insert in the digital stream that will add "warmth" to the sound through means of adding low-order harmonics (e.g. distorting the sound). CDs that are considered too “bright” sometimes reflect faulty mastering. Setting the filter for a smoother roll off of the higher end of the frequency spectrum (e.g. proper digital mastering) in the last decade has pretty much eliminated that problem though.

Basically, it’s just a preference. I grew up not being able to afford expensive turntables and amplifiers and speakers that can make vinyl sound good. I’ve always pretty much disliked vinyl. I was SOOO happy when I bought my first $80 CD player in 1988, that sounded far better than any record player or tape deck I’ve ever had.

Those nostalgic for pops, clicks, limited high-end, diminishing performance on every play of the decaying vinyl, and overpriced turntable cartridges are a dying breed. The Smithsonian will not only have turntables on display, but a stuffed vinyl fetishist too ;)

What I've read about the Nyquist theory is that basically the highest frequencies a digital audio converter can capture or reproduce are equal to half the sampling rate. When filters are used to avoid aliasing tones (unmusical frequencies), it looks like 44.1 Hz sampling is sufficient for filtering out any problems with Nyquist.

"There is a point at which multiplying by large numbers, whether it's high sampling rates or high numbers of oversampling, is done to impress people — in terms of selling things — and not for audio quality. But after a certain point, you're not going to be able to hear the difference anymore." -- Richard Elen, Apogee Electronics.

Paul Lehrman, a composer, educator, and consulting editor for Mix Magazine, feels that most listeners are unlikely to hear the difference. He contends that "99.999 percent of the people who listen to recordings are not in a position to perceive any difference between a 96 kHz recording and a 44.1 or 48 kHz recording. I think that whatever advantages you get out of 96 kHz are far overshadowed by the limitations of the transducers at both ends of the signal chain."

The range of human hearing is generally considered to be 20 Hz to 20 KHz. The exact bandwidth of CDs are:

44.1 KHz sampling rate (44,100 samples) x 16 bits x 2 channels = 1.4 Megabits per second. CDs offer 96dB dynamics compared to about 70dB for vinyl. With a sampling rate of 44.1 you have an effective frequency response of up to 22.05 KHz (above what most people will statistically be able to perceive as sound).

Some of those "gold" CDs and SACDs offer 4.6 Mbps (96kHz, 24 bit) sampling rate, and HD-DVD/DVD-audio 9.6 Mbps, but not really to noticeable effect. While the higher sample rates correct the distortion of high-end frequencies that occur in 1.4 Mbps CDs, those frequencies are only audible to dogs, cats and bats, who wouldn't care one way or another.

There is a hypothesis that the brain can perceive inaudible high frequencies and affect your listening experience. There's an article on the theory of inaudible frequency sounds affecting brain activity. I can see ads for SACD/DVD-A now: Your ears can't hear the difference, but your brain can!!!

But when the average listener can hardly tell the difference between MP3s and CDs, I think it's pretty moot. So hopefully, the music industry's latest attempts at getting people to "upgrade" to more expensive SACD formats will fall flat.

Also, someone touched earlier on this thread about a possible negative effect, that some CDs have too high frequency range, and may cause audio fatigue. That's a possibility that could be researched more.

Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity: Hypersonic Effect,Journal of Neuropsychology, (June, 2000)
http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83/6/3548

Anyway, I dig vinyl because

1) It's cheaper, which also means I can explore lots of different music (If there was a record I think I would be interested, I would be a lot more willing to buy the LP for $3 than the CD for $15).
2) My taste in music runs a few decades back...I suppose if I were more "current" I probably wouldn't be all that satisfied with vinyl.
3) I have a Creative Zen, so my music is mixed into two categories: digital music and non-digital music. If the music is not digital, I'm not going to carry it around, so CDs and LPs are the same in that respect.
4) Yep, there's definitely something aesthetically please about LPs v. CDs
5) Also, there's something much more emotionally pleasing about spening money on a big LP than a small CD
6) And who doesn't love those static-y clicks and pops! I agree with the person who said earlier that as a society we are too obsessed with audio PERFECTION.

In short, vinyl has character. And I'm cheap.

However, my girlfriend is of a different opinion. She continues to buy vinyl, and never CDs. For her music is still about the cover and inner sleeve tossed on to the couch, the photos, the anticipation of raising and lowering the tonearm, ashtrays on the cover, dancing around the living room and laughing and raving to her friends - the ritual of it.

For her, too the size and the shape of the artwork on the album cover and the material - ie cardboard, absence of plastic, which to me, too, is a subtly offensive material - is part of the experience, raising tactile and visual dimensions which are much more pleasing than for a CD. The records, she has told me, are like pieces of furniture or paintings on the wall. She has nothing but contempt for CDs, which she does not even bother to return to their cases, and the technical side of the equation, interesting to me, is just irrelevant to her and her friends. If you made a vinyl sized CD and put it in a cardboard sleeve she would be just as happy.

I've got a Technics 1200 and Shure M97x stylus which, I think, sound great together. A lot of albums sound much warmer and less distorted than CD's. I just like everything about vinyl; it feels like I REALLY got something. CD's feel like a rip-off, in my opinion.

"Hey, Amber, we're playing Records. Not CDs, Records!"

distinction without difference! since you can't hear the music without listening to it, the two are inseparable: vinyl was more fun, unless you think of music as data and yourself as a consumer of same, in which case more power to you & so on - admittedly my take is a romantic & possibly fetishistic one though I don't see how such fetishism is necessarily "lame": I would argue in fact that it opens doors toward great experiences. Is the fetishising of object relations really so lame?