Hi Res Vinyl

Much as I loved LPs, they were best in their heyday, before CD arrived and when all-analogue. I'm not sure there is too much benefit in spending up to double the price of a hi-res master just for the sleeve!

Maybe I'm not imaginative enough, but I'm more convinced that digital sources should be played that way - digitally.
 
The manufacture and cutting of the record isn't the problem with vinyl, it's the ability of the stylus to trace the groove accurately on playback.
 
nopiano said:
Maybe I'm not imaginative enough, but I'm more convinced that digital sources should be played that way - digitally.

I've always thought this way too. People rave about the SQ of records, but for 30+ years they've nearly all been cut from a digital file. For 40 years at least they've been cut using a digital delay line, even when the master tape was analogue. I'd be happier if they gave us access to the digital file they used to cut the lacquers, which these days often sound better than the CDs and downloads, which is frustrating.
 
I think the most important difference between digital and analogue is the way the music signal is constructed from its storage media, even when the original recording is the same, digital or otherwise. They are fundamentally different, and sound that way too.
 
It's pretty obvious that an extra process (cutting and replaying a vinyl disc) added to an audio signal can't improve the sound quality.
 
nopiano said:
Oldphrt said:
It's pretty obvious that an extra process (cutting and replaying a vinyl disc) added to an audio signal can't improve the sound quality.
Absolutely, and though I've not bought any recent LPs to verify this, there are numerous reports that the master from which some new LPs are made is 'better' - e.g. less compressed - than the equivalent CD. Some despite the extra process, not because of it, the end result may be preferred.

That's also unlikely because CD requires less audio compression than vinyl. Not that compression is much of a guide to audio quality anyway.
 
Oldphrt said:
That's also unlikely because CD requires less audio compression than vinyl. Not that compression is much of a guide to audio quality anyway.

It might require less but in these days of the never ending loudness war, it's not digital's inherrently huge dynamic range that's exploited, but its ability to tolerate dynamically-smashed brickwalled audio that a cartridge wouldn't track.
 
MajorFubar said:
Oldphrt said:
That's also unlikely because CD requires less audio compression than vinyl. Not that compression is much of a guide to audio quality anyway.

It might require less but in these days of the never ending loudness war, it's not digital's inherrently huge dynamic range that's exploited, but its ability to tolerate dynamically-smashed brickwalled audio that a cartridge wouldn't track.

Only carp 'music' is recorded like that, and of course a cartridge would track it providing the level of the cut wasn't too high.
 
Oldphrt said:
It's pretty obvious that an extra process (cutting and replaying a vinyl disc) added to an audio signal can't improve the sound quality.
Absolutely, and though I've not bought any recent LPs to verify this, there are numerous reports that the master from which some new LPs are made is 'better' - e.g. less compressed - than the equivalent CD. So despite the extra process, not because of it, the end result may be preferred.
 

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