Vinyl Records

[User482]

Indeed we are. Preference for the sound of LPs is just that, a preference.

Yes, I prefer it so it is better.

 

[accountantpete]

Most record companies reserved pristine virgin vinyl for classical records only so any decent music will be on half-recycled vinyl with lots of surface noise.

 

[swee'pea99]

Most record companies reserved pristine virgin vinyl for classical records only so any decent music will be on half-recycled vinyl with lots of surface noise.

Is that a fact? Interesting. I have to say, having recently returned to vinyl, it's really noticeable how the quality varies - and not just down to wear & tear. Some physically pristine records still sound fairly ropey - thin sound, poor separation, distracting noise/fuzziness - others are clear as a bell, and you could almost pluck that sax out of the air, right....there!

 

[threebikesmcginty]

You can get some quality 180g records but most of the LPs that were issued in the dying days of vinyl, as ac'pete said, were poor quality and so thin you could see through them.....especially if they were clear vinyl.

 

[Bodhbh]

I've always thought that vinyl rewards you for putting up with its inconvenience...

I barely use my (very expensive) CD player now - it's MP3s when I'm doing stuff, or vinyl if I want to sit doen and listen to the music properly.

I'm the same, mostly very lazy and use the PC as a jukebox or MP3 player on auto-shuffle. Even CDs seem like too much effort nowadays, doesn't take much to turn as lazy as the younguns.

But for *active* listening, nothing beats 45s and a few tinnies. Get stuck in the collection and leave a big mess of rekkid sleaves on the floor for the morning.

 

[Bodhbh]

Most record companies reserved pristine virgin vinyl for classical records only so any decent music will be on half-recycled vinyl with lots of surface noise.

Ha! And likewise classical music is reserved for virgins! (j/king, j/king).

 

[User482]

I think the same. I've bought new records recently on heavy grade vinyl that have sounded terrible. On the other hand, I've got second hand 70s stuff with a fair few clicks & pops but the sound quality is a million times better.

 

[accountantpete]

In the heyday of reggae, the Jamaican 12" vinyl singles were a joy - incredibly thick vinyl. They weigh a bloody ton! I've got boxes of them and I'm having a great time sifting through them at the mo'.

I bought a 12" copy of Where Have All The Bootboys Gone - not appreciating the difference - and it promptly blew my speakers to smithereens.

Playing the intro to Texas Chainsaw Massacree by The Ramones through the busted speakers was a bit of a buzz though.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Go easy on the ganja Mort

 

[Chromatic]

The ropey ones could probably do with a proper clean, get rid of mould release agents and that sort of stuff.

 

[Mr Pig]

I realise you said it was hard to define but in your opinion where would you say the loss comes in?.

It's the sense of reality, air and space that lets the sounds flow together as a whole. CD tends to sound like a list of events happening one after the other rather than a flow of events.

I believe the dynamic range of CD is too small and lots of very quiet sounds simply don't get reproduced. Sounds stop and start too abruptly making them sound artificial.

Also, the distortion that CD can suffer is unnatural to our ears and we're very sensitive to it. Analog distortion is easier for our brains to tune out because it doesn't grate as much.

I've heard some of the best vinyl systems in the country and the amount of information on those black disks is astonishing.

 

[Davidc]

It's the sense of reality, air and space that lets the sounds flow together as a whole. CD tends to sound like a list of events happening one after the other rather than a flow of events.

I believe the dynamic range of CD is too small and lots of very quiet sounds simply don't get reproduced. Sounds stop and start too abruptly making them sound artificial.

Also, the distortion that CD can suffer is unnatural to our ears and we're very sensitive to it. Analog distortion is easier for our brains to tune out because it doesn't grate as much.

I've heard some of the best vinyl systems in the country and the amount of information on those black disks is astonishing.

Small points (from a former pro sound engineer who spanned analogue and digital!) - CD has higher (much higher) dynamic range and holds much more information than vinyl. The differences are frequency dependent and greater at the high frequency end.

CDs have a nasty form of distortion, which is inherent in the coding. It's called pattern jitter. The maths is nasty and not suitable for here. Suffice to say that pattern jitter's audibility varies with the material. It's predictable mathematically, but not by our ears. It's unlike analogue distortions, which generally vary in ways the ear can predict. Wow and flutter are exceptions, and should be below audible limits on good equipment. In addition jitter (the simple variety) is often present on CD players. Similar to flutter but nastier to listen to. The digital to analogue converters in CD players often leave much to be desired as well, again not nice listening through a poor one. CD uses a low sampling rate, needing excellent filtering. This often leads to aliassing (sounds reappearing at a frequency or pitch they shouldn't be present at)

There are fundamental differences between what we get on vinyl and on CD, mainly because vinyl was always working at its limit with a need to compensate for this. Many of these differences were down to people getting round each other's systems. The list of distortions for vinyl is longer, those for CDs tend to be smaller but nastier.

Many parts of the production process (especially some valve amplifiers, and some individual producers) produced and enhanced second harmonic distortion, which gives the warm and cosy sound many people like. It is possible to add this to CD players, but I haven't seen a device doing it on sale for 20 years.

All of this is insignificant when compared with the distortions and artefacts produced by digital bandwidth compression. mp3s at less than 384kb/s, mp2 as used by DAB radio at less than 512 kb/s, and all other systems I've heard (even mp4 +AAC at less than 256kb/s) have these, and are nasty to listen to on really good equipment. The highest bit rate used for DAB is Radio 3, at 192. My ears are no longer good enough for professional audio but I can hear these nasties with no problem. Digital TV and DVDs seem to generally use higher bandwidth and are much cleaner.

Bandwidth compressed digital is fine for small speakers in small radios, for car radios where there's plenty of other noise around, and for in-ear headphones. If you want decent hi-fi sound hang on to your vinyl and CDs!

The digital audio used for professional mastering recording and storage uses much higher sampling rates, more bits per sample, and coding which avoids pattern jitter, and it isn't usually bandwidth compressed, so it can still be used to produce good quality product if there's a will to do so.

 

[Lardyboy]

I think the same. I've bought new records recently on heavy grade vinyl that have sounded terrible. On the other hand, I've got second hand 70s stuff with a fair few clicks & pops but the sound quality is a million times better.

The newer vinyl has probably been mastered using either digital source material or master tapes that are well passed their best. I've got a Sundazed reissue on 180gm of The Who's "Who's Next" and sounds horrendous. The Polydor reissue is sublime!

There are some great vinyl shops still around. Diverse in Newport are excellent. Even Derricks in Swansea is selling vinyl again!

 

[SamNichols]

I love my record player, it's my pride and joy. I even buy records new, simply because a good amounts of indie labels have been releasing on vinyl for a while now. Today I was listening to some Bright Eyes and some Do Make Say Think. Awesome.

 

[Mr Pig]

CD has higher (much higher) dynamic range and holds much more information than vinyl.

Thank you for the very interesting post. I'm not an expert and it's good to hear such insights. There are things I'd like to know more about, primarily because they don't tally up with my subjective experience.

You say that CD has a much greater dynamic range, and I can believe that. After all you could theoretically set the upper and lower limits as far apart as you liked I guess? However I'm more concerned with the area in between.

Being a digital system I assume that dynamics would be ascribed to a scale, like the steps on a ladder? So that although the difference in levels may be greater the transitions might not be as smooth as an analog system, which is infinitely variable. If this is the case I can see how a digital system could fail to capture subtle dynamic changes as well as analog. Or does it not work that way?

Also, just because this dynamic range is available does not mean it is being used! Many CDs seem to have been very heavily compressed so that they have sod all dynamic range, probably so that they sound better and louder on the radio and the poxy little non-hi-fi systems most people have. The point about having to work to the limits of vinyl. Is it not more that engineers choose to? What I mean is that they will do the same with CD, push the volume as hard as they can at the expense of dynamic range and overall quality?

My other question regards the amount of information. How is it possible to know how much information is actually on an analog LP? Over the years I've heard a great many high-performance Hi-Fi systems. I've known quite a few people who owned both good turntables and the best CD players they could find, the Naim CDS was a popular choice. The pattern of the turntable presenting more information than the CD player was pretty much ubiquitous.

The most memorable incident was staying at the home of John Watson, the guy behind Mana equipment stands, one weekend. He had a CDS and an LP12 with a Norton power supply, Naim Aro arm and Sumiko SHO cartridge playing trough a Naim 52, Stealth amps and Linn Isobariks, all on a shed load of Mana stands. We did listen to the CD player but the turntable was so clearly better that we ended up sticking to that.

I had taken down some records to play, one of which was Genesis 'Trick Of The tail'. A real favorite of mine. I've had this record for about twenty-five years, know it inside out and have played it on everything from a Bush music centre to my own LP12/Isobarik system. However on his system I heard a whole new level of information. In fact calling it information is wrong, it was a new level of realism.

The detail and accuracy of the sound was mesmerizing, tangibly real. It really was like sitting in the room next to the recording studio listening through an open window. As I listened I became aware of something I'd never heard before. I could hear the acoustic of the recording room so clearly that I could get an idea of how big it was and what the walls were made of! It was a warm-sounding room that sounded like it was lined with wood. I don't know if it actually was but that's what it sounded like. Oh and there was zero surface noise, I mean none, from my old record!

I have never heard this kind of realism from any CD-based Hi-fi system. That would include many Naim CD players, the Linn CD12, Krell/Wilson systems costing over £60K, nothing can touch a good record player on its game. John Watson has commented a number of times that he often wonders just how much information is actually on an LP. Every time he thinks it can't get any better he'd improve something and reveal another layer.

So how is it possible to know how much information is actually contained in an analog system when the only ways of measuring it have a lower resolution than the information you're trying to measure?

All of this is insignificant when compared with the distortions and artifacts produced by digital bandwidth compression

I totally agree, I wince when people talk about iPods and Hi-Fi in the same breath. I've tried quite a few of these devices through my system, they might sound ok through computer speakers but shine a big light on them and they sound very sh** indeed!

It's not just about compression though. I've played music recorded onto an iPod with no compression, it still sounds sh**. Putting a music carrier, power supply, analog to digital converter and output stage into a tin can the size of a matchbox is darn clever but you aint getting Hi-Fi out of it. Dream on.

The sad thing is that high-resolution digital could be epic but the troglodytes who would need to provide a market for it don't give a sh**. The sound quality of music in the home is getting lower year on year and no one cares. Such a shame.