CD/Record Comparison

[letsavit2]

It is a emotional thing, Music is about memories, experiences and how it makes you feel, today I blasted faithless, sounds great on my system and reminded me of the music festivals that I have seen them at. Now CD worked just fine for faithless today and is the type of music (electronic) I have no concern to collect on vinyl.

Now Pink floyd, well that must be played on vinyl, its the law.....!

 

[davedotco]

You can point out all the flaws in vinyl over and over again, but if it communicates the music in an involving and convincing way then that is ultimately all that really matters. You can't keep bringing everything back to facts and figures, some things have to be about the experience and, as drummerman says, emotion.

Sorry matthew but that is, by and large, nonsense. In my experience at least.

Inexpensive systems tend to be 'flattered' by the warmth and 'colourations' of budget vinyl players and the result is nothing more than the modern equivelent of a radiogram 'having a nice tone'.

You are hearing the sound of the player, not the vinyl record, the better the player becomes the more the vinyl sounds like cd which I think is very telling.

Don't stop enjoying your records but be aware of what it is that you are hearing.

 

[davedotco]

It is a emotional thing, Music is about memories, experiences and how it makes you feel, today I blasted faithless, sounds great on my system and reminded me of the music festivals that I have seen them at. Now CD worked just fine for faithless today and is the type of music (electronic) I have no concern to collect on vinyl.

Now Pink floyd, well that must be played on vinyl, its the law.....!

What about new music? The vast bulk of my listening is to new acts (or new material) that i have not heard before. To me it is essential that I hear the music as close to the original sound as possible.

As for Pink Floyd, as a teenager I missed school to see them at the Arts Lab and the UFO club, the last days of Sid Barratt, when he bothered to turn up. I also saw first ever live performances of Atom Heart Mother, DSOTM and WYWH, started to lose interest after this point and the dreadfull rubbish ("The Wall") that followed.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Now Pink floyd, well that must be played on vinyl, its the law.....!

Is that because you can, erm, "roll your own" on the sleeve? :shhh:

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

IMHO the difference depends on four things:

1, The recording;

2, The mastering / remastering process (iff any) from analogue to digital;

3, The turntable based hfi setup;

4, The CD based hifi setup.

Screw up 2 and a CD will sound cr*p despite the amount of moolah spent on the hifi, and 3 and 4 obviously have their own rules. The acid test, however, is which one YOU like best and whether or not you feel the need to get up half way through an album to flip it over.

 

[lindsayt]

A couple of things to remember:

1. It is not possible for a vinyl to achieve the same accuracy as a CD due to the inherent limitations in the analogue process; however a good (Usually expensive) vinyl system can get close.

2. The studio equipment that was used when vinyl was in its heyday has moved on considerably since then, with younger engineers having their own ideas how to get the most accurate sound.

Producers and musicians regularly use older type equipment (Either real or virtual) not because they are more accurate, but because it allows them to get a particular characteristic sound. (And vinyl sounds nice)

Bill

Whilst remembering those 2 things have you forgotten:

1 the amount of distortion on CD's increases as the recording volume decreases. With vinyl it's the other way round.

2 For the albums that I've compared in both formats it's the low level details that have been most lacking on CD when compared to vinyl. All those low level details that are essential for an accurate sound. A sound that gives you clues that you're listening to real, life sized professional musicians, playing real life sized instruments, in a real room with real acoustics and in the case of studio albums with various real production effects added in. With CD there's a tendency to make it sound like you're listening to ogre sized musicians playing giant sized toy instruments. The finesse of the recording gets scrubbed out with the CD's I've compared to vinyl. There is no way that I would call CD more accurate than vinyl. Maybe it's impossible for CD to be as accurate as vinyl when it comes to low level details due to limitations in the CD format?

 

[matthewpiano]

You can point out all the flaws in vinyl over and over again, but if it communicates the music in an involving and convincing way then that is ultimately all that really matters. You can't keep bringing everything back to facts and figures, some things have to be about the experience and, as drummerman says, emotion.

Sorry matthew but that is, by and large, nonsense. In my experience at least.

Inexpensive systems tend to be 'flattered' by the warmth and 'colourations' of budget vinyl players and the result is nothing more than the modern equivelent of a radiogram 'having a nice tone'.

You are hearing the sound of the player, not the vinyl record, the better the player becomes the more the vinyl sounds like cd which I think is very telling.

Don't stop enjoying your records but be aware of what it is that you are hearing.

You like telling people they are talking 'nonsense' don't you?

Actually it isn't. As I've said time and time again, the only thing you can achieve 'high fidelity' or 'accuracy' to is the recording. As the large proportion of recordings are flawed to one extent or another (and many to a large extent) this is very rarely the same as being accurate to the sound of the original performance. What you are achieving fidelity to is the recording equipment used and the choices made by the recording engineer. To me, this is not particularly important and far more important is that, through judicious choice of replay equipment, some kind of convincing and involving communication of the musicians' performance and their instruments is achieved.

Music and musicians are master here, not technical specs or studio technicians.

 

[davedotco]

You can point out all the flaws in vinyl over and over again, but if it communicates the music in an involving and convincing way then that is ultimately all that really matters. You can't keep bringing everything back to facts and figures, some things have to be about the experience and, as drummerman says, emotion.

Sorry matthew but that is, by and large, nonsense. In my experience at least.

Inexpensive systems tend to be 'flattered' by the warmth and 'colourations' of budget vinyl players and the result is nothing more than the modern equivelent of a radiogram 'having a nice tone'.

You are hearing the sound of the player, not the vinyl record, the better the player becomes the more the vinyl sounds like cd which I think is very telling.

Don't stop enjoying your records but be aware of what it is that you are hearing.

You like telling people they are talking 'nonsense' don't you?

Actually it isn't. As I've said time and time again, the only thing you can achieve 'high fidelity' or 'accuracy' to is the recording. As the large proportion of recordings are flawed to one extent or another (and many to a large extent) this is very rarely the same as being accurate to the sound of the original performance. What you are achieving fidelity to is the recording equipment used and the choices made by the recording engineer. To me, this is not particularly important and far more important is that, through judicious choice of replay equipment, some kind of convincing and involving communication of the musicians' performance and their instruments is achieved.

Music and musicians are master here, not technical specs or studio technicians.

Sorry matthew if that comes across as harsh, but, within the context of this hobby/fixation some things are important.

None of what you say in your last post is wrong, it just misses the point.

Sure all recordings are flawed but why should that stop us making the best attempt we can to reproduce the the original performance as well as we can (once again within the usual constraints)? To me that is crucial, making the attempt and doing the best that you can is, to me, pivotal.

I mentioned earlier that there is a discussion to be had as to whether hi-fidelity means accuracy (in a literal sense) to the recording itself or accuracy to the essence, the spirit of the performance, your post above seems to show a very balanced view that sits nicely within the two extremes.

Now in hi-fi terms I am something of a purist, to my mind good recording technique is all about the accuracy of the recording to the performance. I am well aware that in many cases there is little in the way of a 'real' performance to capture, the sound is simply 'manufactured' in the studio but I see no reason why we should not attempt to recreate a real performance when one does exist.

Back on topic, the CD v LP debate revolves around the issues I mention above, on genuinely good systems and comparing like with like, the difference is minimal. I stand by the assertation that at the less exalted end of the market you are mostly hearing the player rather than the vinyl and that the sound of the player is somehow more suited to less capable systems.

 

[davedotco]

A couple of things to remember:

1. It is not possible for a vinyl to achieve the same accuracy as a CD due to the inherent limitations in the analogue process; however a good (Usually expensive) vinyl system can get close.

2. The studio equipment that was used when vinyl was in its heyday has moved on considerably since then, with younger engineers having their own ideas how to get the most accurate sound.

Producers and musicians regularly use older type equipment (Either real or virtual) not because they are more accurate, but because it allows them to get a particular characteristic sound. (And vinyl sounds nice)

Bill

Whilst remembering those 2 things have you forgotten:

1 the amount of distortion on CD's increases as the recording volume decreases. With vinyl it's the other way round.

2 For the albums that I've compared in both formats it's the low level details that have been most lacking on CD when compared to vinyl. All those low level details that are essential for an accurate sound. A sound that gives you clues that you're listening to real, life sized professional musicians, playing real life sized instruments, in a real room with real acoustics and in the case of studio albums with various real production effects added in. With CD there's a tendency to make it sound like you're listening to ogre sized musicians playing giant sized toy instruments. The finesse of the recording gets scrubbed out with the CD's I've compared to vinyl. There is no way that I would call CD more accurate than vinyl. Maybe it's impossible for CD to be as accurate as vinyl when it comes to low level details due to limitations in the CD format?

This is an interesting argument that has some merit, certain dac configurations do show remarkably high levels of distortion at low levels, but these are very low levels indeed and in modern designs are much reduced.

You need to balance the limitations of vinyl with the limitations of CD, on good recordings both formats can be very good and as the system gets better, and with well produced discs of both formats, the differences are vanishingly small.

I know that you favour vintage equipment of various types and I wonder if that could be a factor, the strengths of such systems are very different from modern systems and I wonder how much that could affect your point of view.

I appreciate that you use this equipment because it sounds better and as someone who prefers his own setup to be well off the mainstream I wonder if someting similar is going on.

Ie prefering music reproduced on a system that does not sound like most modern hi fi systems, even some quite 'good' ones.

 

[the record spot]

That's only part of the story Matthew. Get the process wrong and you have a very poor recording or one that's devoid of the spirit of the music.

 

[BigH]

It is a emotional thing, Music is about memories, experiences and how it makes you feel, today I blasted faithless, sounds great on my system and reminded me of the music festivals that I have seen them at. Now CD worked just fine for faithless today and is the type of music (electronic) I have no concern to collect on vinyl.

Now Pink floyd, well that must be played on vinyl, its the law.....!

I thought multi-channel was the way to play DSOTM and WYWH?

 

[Frank Harvey]

You can point out all the flaws in vinyl over and over again, but if it communicates the music in an involving and convincing way then that is ultimately all that really matters.

Totally agree.

If the boot was on the other foot and it was CD that delivered emotion etc, I bet there wouldn't be the same opposition because it is 'technically better' 🙂

 

[The_Lhc]

Now in hi-fi terms I am something of a purist,

But only for frequencies above 100Hz eh?

 

[Frank Harvey]

It's a fashion thing David! I don't think vinyl is inferior because it is an old format. I know that it is technically inferior because it can't help but be.

It may be a fashion thing for some, but don't put that on those that enjoy vinyl far more than any other format.

In the early 90's, a few of us pitched a Pioneer PL12D (£30-40 in the mid 70's) against a Meridian 208 CD player (£1000 in the 90's) just for a bit of fun. Yes, you could tell the deck was flawed as it is a budget design, but it was so much more enjoyable to listen to. And the 206 was a good CD player.

 

[davedotco]

Now in hi-fi terms I am something of a purist,

But only for frequencies above 100Hz eh?

Not at all, I do not consider my current system to be remotely hi-fi, which is very much the point I am making.

Fun and quite enjoyable sure, hi-fi, not in a million years, but in my current situation it is what I have, simple.

 

[Electro]

Can you please tell me what affordable equipment can take a recording from vinyl to CD and make it sound exactly the same?

My vinyl to CD recording equipment is a looooooooooooooong way short of that.

And if vinyl is less hi-fi than CD, how come every recording that I have on both formats sounds better on vinyl? The difference isn't subtle either.

It seems to me, frog, that you don't realise how good vinyl can sound. Maybe you've never compared a genuinely top notch record player against CD?

A Phillips Cdr 760

http://www.cdrecorders.org.uk/cdr760.php

As I said in a previous post I have recorded rare pieces of vinyl to Cd using this machine and there is no difference at all that I can hear or indeed anybody else that has tried to tell the difference especially when they do not know whether it is the original or the copy they are hearing (blind test 🙂 ) .

The Cdr copy captures everything including the original vinyl character colourations and warmth .

I know my vinyl replay system is not as good as some more modern equipment but it is still pretty reasonable 🙂

Oh I forgot to say the comparison was between vinyl played on my Linn based set up and the Cdr copy played on my EMC1up .

 

[Frank Harvey]

You like telling people they are talking 'nonsense' don't you?

I call it "AJ Syndrome" 🙂

Music and musicians are master here, not technical specs or studio technicians.

Their "art" comes through no matter what you listen to it on.

 

[the record spot]

...and in 2011 I gave up my record collection for th esimple reason that my CD player(s) were able to deliver the level of performance I wanted that matched and/or exceeded my RP3 / AT-440MLa combo which I still rate highly, but which these days sits on top of the wardrobe in my bedroom. The cartridge has less than 50 hours on it I think. It'll go one day when I get round to it.

Oh, and the music is as emotionally enjoying, satisfying and pleasurable as ever it was on vinyl. 🙂

 

[lindsayt]

Davedotco, my CD player was made in 2012. My record players in the 1970's.

The vast majority of my CD's are recordings that I don't have on vinyl. Some of them sound really good. It's possible that some of them sound better than vinyl versions - where vinyl versions actually exist.

All I can do is report on albums or singles where I happen to have versions of both - through buying job lots. So far the score is Vinyl 5, CD 0. Which is a crazily small statistical sampling size. Other people will have different scores depending upon the CD's and records that they have and the digital and vinyl sources that they have. A lot of people will have a score of 0 0 because they don't own a record player.

 

[drummerman]

Their "art" comes through no matter what you listen to it on.

Best statement I've heard for a long time.

Despite my OP I can listen to Spotify, a clock radio, lp or high resolution files ... if I enjoy it I enjoy it.

In absence of the originally mentioned Brubeck recordings on lp, I would have enjoyed it on the CD. Point was I did a back-to-back comparison and on my system with the recordings at hand the LP just happened to be more enjoyable.

Its not always like that of course. Point in case ... Pat Metheny. Some of the LP's I have sound, well, no so good. Still enjoy them though.

regards

 

[The_Lhc]

Now in hi-fi terms I am something of a purist,

But only for frequencies above 100Hz eh?

Not at all, I do not consider my current system to be remotely hi-fi, which is very much the point I am making.

Fun and quite enjoyable sure, hi-fi, not in a million years, but in my current situation it is what I have, simple.

So your denigration of everybody else's choices just makes you a hypocrite then? Ok, I get that...

 

[Frank Harvey]

Their "art" comes through no matter what you listen to it on.

Best statement I've heard for a long time.

Thanks DM. As a case in point, Stevie Wonder's Superstition doesn't lose its 'groove' no matter what you hear it on, whether it is a high end 'hi-fi', a ghettoblaster, or a transistor radio.

 

[davedotco]

You like telling people they are talking 'nonsense' don't you?

I call it "AJ Syndrome" 🙂

Music and musicians are master here, not technical specs or studio technicians.

Their "art" comes through no matter what you listen to it on.

Nah, if I had AJ syndrome I would be much, much more rude......

Not entirely sure about your second point either, I kind of understand what you are getting at but it is often not the case.

An example was back in the 70s when my mates were all huge Little Feat fans but I simply was not 'getting it'.

It was not until I got my first LP12 that it all made sense, the complex rhythms all came together and for the first time I realised that they were a band that you could dance too. Made all the difference.

Edit. I see your Superstition and raise you my Dixie Chicken......

 

[BigH]

Edit. I see your Superstition and raise you my Dixie Chicken......

I'll agree to that.

 

[Covenanter]

You can point out all the flaws in vinyl over and over again, but if it communicates the music in an involving and convincing way then that is ultimately all that really matters. You can't keep bringing everything back to facts and figures, some things have to be about the experience and, as drummerman says, emotion.

I don't dispute that. If it sounds "better" to you then that's fine by me and good for you. I think you are wrong but life is full of disagreements.

Chris