Beatles Mono vinyl box proves analogue superiority?

[Thompsonuxb]

Lol.....

Some of you guys.....

I myself fall on the CD side of the argument. I have not heard a high end TT system but from my own experience even with the best TT system I have heard the 'noise floor' was too high(hiss). The vinyl probably did have something growing in the groves(hilarious comment)

The system could pick up footsteps - noticeable at volume.
Some will prefer the sound but CD to me sounds far superior. Cleaner, sharper, more dynamic and lower 'noise floor' with less stress setting up. (thing that hit me first time I heard CD).

The only people I would think of comparing the Beatles album I can only imagine they are enthusiasts and would say it's superior.

Most digital fans would not bother with it.

I have a cheap budget TT the marantz tt151 bought way back in the day, needs a stylus, I know I could not go back.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

Sorry voe but me thinks you are wrong.

Given a quality amp with speakers capable of delivering, your argument would be blown out the window.

Edges, decay, timbre, sub bass a well recorded CD will deliver without low level noise.

Vinyl will always carry the noise of contact between stylus and grove. And feedback from the sound in the room at volume.

Some won't care but once you get use to that noise not being there it's hard to go back.

Anyone who believes any CD sounds more like real music than an Lp is....well......I'm speechless

 

[cheeseboy]

Anyone who believes any CD sounds more like real music than an Lp is....well......I'm speechless

dude, enough with the lauding it i'm the be all and end all of what sounds good - it's just making you look foolish. We've tried to explain the difference between objective and subjective and you just can't seem to grasp it. Even people who would usually be at loggerheads are all now saying the same thing to you, doesn't that say something to you?

Unless you were there in the studio, how on earth do you know what it's meant to sound like as a reference? To *you* the vinyl version may sound more realistic, to somebody else it might be the CD. There's no right and wrong in this respect, but you think there is.

 

[matt49]

Anyone who believes any CD sounds more like real music than an Lp is....well......I'm speechless

People have made patient and sincere attempts to explain why your arguments are wrong, for instance your ill-informed reference to "stepped sine waves". All you have done is respond with a lot of arm waving. I think you'd be well advised to let it rest.

By the way, did you watch the video I posted? Here it is again, in case you missed it: http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

 

[TrevC]

Anyone who believes any CD sounds more like real music than an Lp is....well......I'm speechless

Have you not liked music since studios went digital?

 

[Glacialpath]

I'm trying to reply to post #76 and without saying anything out of hand but I keep getting the spam filter.

Anyway read my post on page 1 of this thread.

 

[Overdose]

Are you trying to be deliberately awkward or does it come naturally? BETTER AT REPRODUCING MUSIC......

This is surreal folks! You ask what "better" means in the context of a Hi-Fi forum.....

So "better" could mean many things.........

Here's my take on 'better', given that we are talking about hifi.

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }

Adjective: Hi-Fi

Of or relating to the reproduction of music or other sound with high fidelity.

High fidelity:

The reproduction of sound with little distortion, giving a result very similar to the original.

Can you see where this is going yet?

ergo, a system with less distortion than another would be considered more hifi. Digital systems in general, have far less distortion (inaudible in a lot of cases) than vinyl. Some people claim to prefer the sound of vinyl, which obviously infers a preference to this additional distortion and noise, which is fine, but it doesn't mean that this additional distortion and noise does not exist or mean that digital is not a superior format in absolute terms.

 

[Glacialpath]

Making a digital recording of a sound positioning the mic close to the source will give you a true and authentic representation of the sound but as I said, on play back it will sound nothing like our ears and brain heard the sound from a few feet away so our perception of sound in fact is wrong but we can't do anything about that so our perception of the digitaly recorded sound says the recording is wrong.

Our ears and most people on here prefer the analogue sound because it is more like what our ears actually hear even if the sound is recorded with a close mic and through analogue equipment. As has been mentiond numerouse times in this thread the warmth of analogue is because its distorted not clean like digital. The distortion of analogue appears to give the feal of what we hear from a few feet away (see my other comment on page 1) but that is a distorted version of the sound and not a clean version of the sound like the digital one. Meaning technically digital is superior because its clean but inferior because it's not a true representation of how we hear sounds.

If we naturally prefered clean digital sound we would always have out fingers in our ears because we would hate hearing because we can't hear sounds as cleanly as a mic connected to a digital recording device.

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds. So in that respect our hearing is inferior (analogue) meaning digital is superior.

I'm addicted to sound, I love how my ears and brain percieve sounds and do not like how a clean digital recording sounds but I know for a fact digital is "Technically" superior but I don't give a hoot that it is.

 

[The_Lhc]

Man, that's the LAST time I buy a digital microphone!

 

[Overdose]

Making a digital recording of a sound positioning the mic close to the source will give you a true and authentic representation of the sound but as I said, on play back it will sound nothing like our ears and brain heard the sound from a few feet away so our perception of sound in fact is wrong but we can't do anything about that so our perception of the digitaly recorded sound says the recording is wrong.

Our ears and most people on here prefer the analogue sound because it is more like what our ears actually hear even if the sound is recorded with a close mic and through analogue equipment. As has been mentiond numerouse times in this thread the warmth of analogue is because its distorted not clean like digital. The distortion of analogue appears to give the feal of what we hear from a few feet away (see my other comment on page 1) but that is a distorted version of the sound and not a clean version of the sound like the digital one. Meaning technically digital is superior because its clean but inferior because it's not a true representation of how we hear sounds.

If we naturally prefered clean digital sound we would always have out fingers in our ears because we would hate hearing because we can't hear sounds as cleanly as a mic connected to a digital recording device.

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds. So in that respect our hearing is inferior (analogue) meaning digital is superior.

I'm addicted to sound, I love how my ears and brain percieve sounds and do not like how a clean digital recording sounds but I know for a fact digital is "Technically" superior but I don't give a hoot that it is.

 

[davedotco]

Making a digital recording of a sound positioning the mic close to the source will give you a true and authentic representation of the sound but as I said, on play back it will sound nothing like our ears and brain heard the sound from a few feet away so our perception of sound in fact is wrong but we can't do anything about that so our perception of the digitaly recorded sound says the recording is wrong.

Our ears and most people on here prefer the analogue sound because it is more like what our ears actually hear even if the sound is recorded with a close mic and through analogue equipment. As has been mentiond numerouse times in this thread the warmth of analogue is because its distorted not clean like digital. The distortion of analogue appears to give the feal of what we hear from a few feet away (see my other comment on page 1) but that is a distorted version of the sound and not a clean version of the sound like the digital one. Meaning technically digital is superior because its clean but inferior because it's not a true representation of how we hear sounds.

If we naturally prefered clean digital sound we would always have out fingers in our ears because we would hate hearing because we can't hear sounds as cleanly as a mic connected to a digital recording device.

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds. So in that respect our hearing is inferior (analogue) meaning digital is superior.

I'm addicted to sound, I love how my ears and brain percieve sounds and do not like how a clean digital recording sounds but I know for a fact digital is "Technically" superior but I don't give a hoot that it is.

Wow, just Wow....!

 

[Glacialpath]

What?????

I'm clearly a very unscientific person and will never really understand so I have to come up with an explanation that makes sence to me. I guess my understanding of how things work is wrong.

Though we have/use electrical signals in our bodies are they the same as Digital? If not then our perception must be analogue no?

 

[Glacialpath]

Dave don't just exclame WOW! Please help me understand why my understanding of things is skewed. I won't be offended I really don't understand and want to. This is why I come out with these things becuase all the different views and explinations just do my head in and there is already to much missleading info and thoughts on here so help me in Layman's Terms give more educated responces.

 

[Covenanter]

What?????

I'm clearly a very unscientific person and will never really understand so I have to come up with an explanation that makes sence to me. I guess my understanding of how things work is wrong.

Though we have/use electrical signals in our bodies are they the same as Digital? If not then our perception must be analogue no?

Interesting! Certainly sound that hits our ears comes as waves which you could call analogue, they are certainly not digitally sampled. However once you get inside the body things get complicated.

Nerve cells, axons, are digital in the sense that they generate pulses of electrical energy not continuous (analogue) signals. So once the mechanics of the ear has done its job the sound is conducted to the brain by pulses of electrical energy that you could call digital. How the brain interprets those pulses is not well understood.

Chris

PS Of course the principle of digital recording and decoding is that the reproduced and original analogue signals are theoretically identical.

 

[Glacialpath]

What?????

I'm clearly a very unscientific person and will never really understand so I have to come up with an explanation that makes sence to me. I guess my understanding of how things work is wrong.

Though we have/use electrical signals in our bodies are they the same as Digital? If not then our perception must be analogue no?

Interesting! Certainly sound that hits our ears comes as waves which you could call analogue, they are certainly not digitally sampled. However once you get inside the body things get complicated.

Nerve cells, axons, are digital in the sense that they generate pulses of electrical energy not continuous (analogue) signals. So once the mechanics of the ear has done its job the sound is conducted to the brain by pulses of electrical energy that you could call digital. How the brain interprets those pulses is not well understood.

Chris

PS Of course the principle of digital recording and decoding is that the reproduced and original analogue signals are theoretically identical.

Thank you Covenanter. So my big post was not complete rubish. Without being technically correct, we hear in Analogue (distorted signal as so many people keep posting) but our brain turns that to electrical signals ("digital" in the world outside our brain) thus giving us thoughts of the sound. Sounds we as humans have named thus we recognise a sound and we enjoy it or dislike it.

 

[davedotco]

Dave don't just exclame WOW! Please help me understand why my understanding of things is skewed. I won't be offended I really don't understand and want to. This is why I come out with these things becuase all the different views and explinations just do my head in and there is already to much missleading info and thoughts on here so help me in Layman's Terms give more educated responces.

I genuinely do not know where to start. Your basic miss-understanding of the subject is so profound that you really need to get to a library and do some basic study on the subject.

For a basic digital primer, take a look at the video Matt49 linked to.

 

[Glacialpath]

Ok Dave I wathed the video and understood about 3/4 of it, maybe 4/5.

Once he gets into the explination he says something like "our ears take in an analogue signal and our brain turns it into an electrical signal" which I fully understand.

Overdose and Covenanter maybe just one of them but I forget who. They have tried to remind VOE that an analogue signal is distorted which I also knew. Does that not apply to the signal our ears take? Grantedd the amount of distortion wil be no way near that of an analogue system.

So dose that not suggest that we hear a distorted signal whether we like it or not and when our brain turns that signal into something we understand it is actually taking in that distortion also thus we prefer analogue audio playback to digital even though digital is better and more accurate? Isn't this the "why?" you have been trying to understand?

If I'm completely wrong then hey at least I'm trying to understand, just like you but in my own way of thinking.

If I'm right though it just means we have found a way to listen to sound (a mic conected to a digital recording device) in it's purest form without the distortion?

 

[matt49]

Dave don't just exclame WOW! Please help me understand why my understanding of things is skewed. I won't be offended I really don't understand and want to. This is why I come out with these things becuase all the different views and explinations just do my head in and there is already to much missleading info and thoughts on here so help me in Layman's Terms give more educated responces.

I genuinely do not know where to start. Your basic miss-understanding of the subject is so profound that you really need to get to a library and do some basic study on the subject.

For a basic digital primer, take a look at the video Matt49 linked to.

I think Dave does actually know how to help, but he's probably busy listening to some of his weird Texan music on his funny little speakers. So I'll step in.

The first thing you need to do is understand what the words ‘digital’ and ‘analog’ actually mean.

‘Digital’ and ‘analog’ are two ways of conveying information. They're also -- and this is where it gets a bit confusing -- two ways of describing the physical world. For a good account of the basic science of information, you could look at Jim Lesurf’s ‘Information and Measurement’ (Institute of Physics): most of the book is available online on Lesurf’s website here: http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

*give_rose*

Matt

EDIT I now see you've watched the video, but I think you may have jumped to some unwarranted conclusions.

 

[The_Lhc]

Nerve cells, axons, are digital in the sense that they generate pulses of electrical energy not continuous (analogue) signals. So once the mechanics of the ear has done its job the sound is conducted to the brain by pulses of electrical energy that you could call digital.

Or not:

An additional complication arises when discussing human perception when comparing analog and digital audio in that the human ear itself, is an analog-digital hybrid. The human hearing mechanism begins with the tympanic membrane transferring vibrational motion through the middle-ear's mechanical system—three bones (malleus, incus and stapes)—into the cochlea where hair-like nerve cells convert the vibrational motion stimulus into nerve impulses. Auditory nerve impulses are discrete signalling events which cause synapses to release neurotransmitters to communicate to other neurons (see here.) The all-or-none quality of the impulse can lead to a misconception that neural signalling is somehow 'digital' in nature, but in fact the timing and rate of these signalling events is not clocked or quantised in any way. Thus the transformation of the acoustic wave is not a process of sampling, in the sense of the word as it applies to digital audio. Instead it is a transformation from one analog domain to another, and this transformation is further processed by the neurons to which the signalling is connected. The brain then processes the incoming information and perceptually reconstructs the original analog input to the ear canal.

Shamelessly copied from Wikipedia obviously...

 

[The_Lhc]

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds.

But neither does an analogue recording system, so what's the point of that comment?

 

[Glacialpath]

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds.

But neither does an analogue recording system, so what's the point of that comment?

Correct. I should have been clearer. The point is due to what is needed in an analogue system is why the original signal gets distorted more an more. So if we had ears and just a brain there would be less distortion once the signal passes to the inner ear. I'm saying surely our head around our ear and brain rsonate and add distortion to the signal no?

Though clearly different i.e. biological and mechanical a similar situation occours with our ears and head as does an analogue audio system?

 

[The_Lhc]

Not to repeat myself to much but where I'm with you is I think digital, thought technically superior is infact inferior at recording a sound the way our ears and brain record a sound. It doesn't have our skull, ear drum and everything else in our head that will distort the sound from how it acctually sounds.

But neither does an analogue recording system, so what's the point of that comment?

Correct. I should have been clearer. The point is due to what is needed in an analogue system is why the original signal gets distorted more an more. So if we had ears and just a brain there would be less distortion once the signal passes to the inner ear. I'm saying surely our head around our ear and brain rsonate and add distortion to the signal no?

Though clearly different i.e. biological and mechanical a similar situation occours with our ears and head as does an analogue audio system?

So what you're saying is we like analogue recordings more because they distort the signal more than digital recordings?

If that's the case then surely we would absolutely HATE listening to live music? In that situation you've got no distortion at all because there is no recording system, so surely we should find that cold and lifeless and all those others things that digital recording has been accused of.

 

[Glacialpath]

Thanks Matt. I may have a look at the video later.

I think one thing I haven't been mentioning that makes my commentls look worse than they are is.

Yes a CD is fundamantally a Digital medium (data) but as Dave points out and I would hope this is the case. If you make a digital copy of the signal coming from a vinyl record it will be exactly the same. With digital being that accurate it should be.

In the case of the OP Beatles vinyl and the CD versions of the same master tapes if that how both formats were put together. Taking e copy of an analogue tape and making another analogue version on vinyl is going to distort the signal more than it already was if they can't put measures in place to filter out any extra distortion. The CD version will be identical to the tape. Because the vinyl sounds even warmer than the CD does people prefer it. It's the same as peopl ADDING bass to their soure signal when listening to music. It sounds more pleasent to our ears but it is wrong if you want to hear the signal as it was.

So with vinyl already adding that extra distortion/warmth/added bass meaning the listener doesn't have to add any EQ to achive this desired affect vinyl appears to be the better format.

I know it's not and I said that. I was trying to come up with a reason why people might prefer it. we have to remember only the band and the person mixing the music get to hear the original recorded sound. If the verage listener got to hear the orignal tape before listening to either the vinyl or the CD version I'm sure they would pick the CD version over the vinyl one as preference.

Does that make sense?

 

[Overdose]

So what you're saying is we like analogue recordings more because they distort the signal more than digital recordings?

If that's the case then surely we would absolutely HATE listening to live music? In that situation you've got no distortion at all because there is no recording system, so surely we should find that cold and lifeless and all those others things that digital recording has been accused of.

Quite.

Don't all audiophiles strive for the realistic reproduction of a live event?

I find it odd that audiophiles in general are quite happy to spend large amounts of money trying to achieve this 'live event', through the swapping of various components which have the purpose of inducing the least amount of distortion (or not in some cases), but then turn their nose up at cheap digital systems that offer a completely transparent playback.

This situation seems less about listening to music in high fidelity and more about an enthusiasm (elitism in some cases) with equipment and the justification of its price, hence the almost palpable outrage and disbelief when someone suggests that a higher level of fidelity may well be achieved at a 'budget' level rather than 'high end'.

 

[The_Lhc]

So what you're saying is we like analogue recordings more because they distort the signal more than digital recordings?

If that's the case then surely we would absolutely HATE listening to live music? In that situation you've got no distortion at all because there is no recording system, so surely we should find that cold and lifeless and all those others things that digital recording has been accused of.

Not if the desk being used is and analogue desk and the sheer volume the audio is played to us distorts our hearing anyway.

I'm talking about acoustic music, just you and the performer, no mics, no desks, nothing. Nothing to add any distortion. By your logic that would the sound we hate most of all.