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the importance of analog sound in prog

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Topic: the importance of analog sound in prog
Posted By: pkos76
Subject: the importance of analog sound in prog
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 07:17
as i understand in order to apreciate prog you should pay attension in detail  especially in the techique of the musicians.this detail only analog sound can offer to you.many prog gems like early genesis albums i started to love them when i listened them in vinyl format.i want to know if other proggers of this forum aggree with me   



Replies:
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 07:31
I prefer CD. Always have done, always will.

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http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 09:59

Early Genesis albums are horribly produced - whatever subjective benefit you think there is in analogue it is wasted on those albums. In terms of dynamic range, signal to noise, channel separation and frequency response digital beats analogue every time. If you prefer analogue then that's a different kettle of monkeys altogether but when it comes to attention to detail and hearing things deep in the mix then digital is the best option. For example while Dark Side of the Moon is rightfully held up as the epitome of analogue recording there is far more detail to be heard in the CD remasters than can be heard in the original analogue masters. You may still prefer the analogue versions (and many people do), but that's not because they are superior in any technical sense, it's purely a subjective liking of what you hear.



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Posted By: altaeria
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 10:15

I prefer the "imperfect" recordings of the classic albums...
because I feel that THAT is exactly what gave each album (and studio) its unique identity.

Modern albums all sound like they were recorded on the same computer...
using the same sterilizing software.. in the same pristine studio environment.

This may not completely be an "analog vs. digital" situation-- but I'm sure it plays a big part.




Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 10:43
Originally posted by pkos76 pkos76 wrote:

as i understand in order to apreciate prog you should pay attension in detail  especially in the techique of the musicians.this detail only analog sound can offer to you.many prog gems like early genesis albums i started to love them when i listened them in vinyl format.i want to know if other proggers of this forum aggree with me   

Good question!  I enjoyed vinyl, but the insistent pops & hiss ruined the aural experience. 

One of my CD treasures is a VERY early CD release of CTTE!  Basically, the label took the actual studio tapes (as Eddie Offord would have heard them) and directly converted these to digital, warts/hiss and all. 

Quite brilliant!  Bruford's drumming (especially his cymbals) REALLY leap out on this one!   Plus, it doesn't have all the "digitally remastered" aspects that I am leery about....who does this re-mastering?  How well did they know the original music? 

The KC re-masters seem fine, but otherwise, I've heard some product that I just don't like.  Plus, the re-releases are jammed with all sorts of "extras" such as studio out-takes etc.  Nice to hear once perhaps, but I don't really need them. 

I'd say that the vinyl of TFTO is superior to my digitally re-mastered set....for some reason, they added all sorts of ambient music before "Revealing Science of God."  Perhaps Yes planned it this way originally, but it is hard to beat the amazing, sudden vocal intro on the original release! 

Oh well, I'm just Grumpy Old Chuck! 


Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 14:13

I used to have a vinyl copy of Aphrodites Child 666 album and it was was obviously superior to the CD equivalent that I now listen to although the CD has the same detail.The track that highlights this fact most is Altamont. An absolute monster on Vinyl that just sounds very ordinary on CD. Vinyl gives you more depth and the bass is very different especially. I think for early recordings (ie 1967- 1971) it may well be that you need Vinyl to appreciate the music best but after that the difference probably gets less noticeable I suspect.



Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 15:47
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Early Genesis albums are horribly produced - whatever subjective benefit you think there is in analogue it is wasted on those albums. In terms of dynamic range, signal to noise, channel separation and frequency response digital beats analogue every time. If you prefer analogue then that's a different kettle of monkeys altogether but when it comes to attention to detail and hearing things deep in the mix then digital is the best option. For example while Dark Side of the Moon is rightfully held up as the epitome of analogue recording there is far more detail to be heard in the CD remasters than can be heard in the original analogue masters. You may still prefer the analogue versions (and many people do), but that's not because they are superior in any technical sense, it's purely a subjective liking of what you hear.

 
Digital is horribly 2 dimensional and has no front to back imagery. And digital does NOT have a better dynamic range - indeed many recordings are very compressed. And the frequency response on a good vinyl is way beyond the range of human hearing (mine is 32 to 33kHz +/- 3db) so digital offers no advantage that you can actually hear.
 
I use a Pink Triangle Anniversary with an SME V arm and Lyra Lydian cartridge and I don't own a CD player because I couldn't find one to compare with my budget of £10k.
 
The vinyl shows much more detail and tonal accuracy than any CD I've heard. Digital does score on signal to noise and lateral channel separation, but that's no compensation overall.
 
As for the early Genesis albums, Trespass and Nursery Cryme sound like they were recorded in a swimming pool with the water in!


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A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life.


Posted By: Josef_K
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 16:33
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Early Genesis albums are horribly produced - whatever subjective benefit you think there is in analogue it is wasted on those albums. In terms of dynamic range, signal to noise, channel separation and frequency response digital beats analogue every time. If you prefer analogue then that's a different kettle of monkeys altogether but when it comes to attention to detail and hearing things deep in the mix then digital is the best option. For example while Dark Side of the Moon is rightfully held up as the epitome of analogue recording there is far more detail to be heard in the CD remasters than can be heard in the original analogue masters. You may still prefer the analogue versions (and many people do), but that's not because they are superior in any technical sense, it's purely a subjective liking of what you hear.


I more or less agree with you here, with the exception (I guess) that I REALLY like the sound of vinyl and I actually enjoy the "horrible" sound of some old analog recordings, at least the Genesis albums. What I can't stand is sterile and dead productions, which is of course not the result you always get with digital production, but it is easier to fall into that trap, especially with the limiting war going on where everything has to get LOUDER and LOUDER all the time for some strange reason... Artists and producers all over the world are killing the art they are creating themselves, but digital technology is not to blame. It can be used properly with smashing results.

Personally I don't look for detail in a good production, not after a certain point at least. I look for warmth in the sound. A perfect example is the intro to "Watcher of the Skies". I had heard it several times on digital media when I first bought Foxtrot on vinyl. Now, I don't know which reissue I have, it might even have gone through some digital treatment (my best guess is that it's from the 80s though, it's not brand new at least), but it sounds much warmer and more balanced, the intro feels more dynamic and you can actually feel all the subtle changes in that mellotron sound. I just can't get that impression from digital media, but I do agree with you that this is all very subjective. If you enjoy your CDs more, then congratulations, you just saved yourself lots of money!


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Leave the past to burn,
At least that's been his own

- Peter Hammill


Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 16:50
Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by pkos76 pkos76 wrote:

as i understand in order to apreciate prog you should pay attension in detail  especially in the techique of the musicians.this detail only analog sound can offer to you.many prog gems like early genesis albums i started to love them when i listened them in vinyl format.i want to know if other proggers of this forum aggree with me   

Good question!  I enjoyed vinyl, but the insistent pops & hiss ruined the aural experience. 

One of my CD treasures is a VERY early CD release of CTTE!  Basically, the label took the actual studio tapes (as Eddie Offord would have heard them) and directly converted these to digital, warts/hiss and all. 

Quite brilliant!  Bruford's drumming (especially his cymbals) REALLY leap out on this one!   Plus, it doesn't have all the "digitally remastered" aspects that I am leery about....who does this re-mastering?  How well did they know the original music? 

The KC re-masters seem fine, but otherwise, I've heard some product that I just don't like.  Plus, the re-releases are jammed with all sorts of "extras" such as studio out-takes etc.  Nice to hear once perhaps, but I don't really need them. 

I'd say that the vinyl of TFTO is superior to my digitally re-mastered set....for some reason, they added all sorts of ambient music before "Revealing Science of God."  Perhaps Yes planned it this way originally, but it is hard to beat the amazing, sudden vocal intro on the original release! 

Oh well, I'm just Grumpy Old Chuck! 

Yes, this is quite close to the way I see it and feel about it.


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:10
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...You may still prefer the analogue versions (and many people do), but that's not because they are superior in any technical sense, it's purely a subjective liking of what you hear.
  
Funny thing on the way to the forum ... I was listening to some of the remasterd KC ... and I can not find any "difference" inside my mind that I had not "seen" before by listening to the music from the LP's!
 
I never have heard music by its "technical" design, and tend to just close my eyes and let the images come to life ... and my definition of "good music" usually tends to be centered around its color and that inner movie.
 
"Dark Side of the Moon" was nice ... but the American pressing was absolute crap. And when I heard the remastered version a while back, guess what? ... it sounded exactly like the English pressing LP, that I bought 28 years ago ... because it was better than the American LP -- WITH the posters and the extras!
 
To me, this "difference" is almost like talking about or reading "The Doors of Perception" ... or listening to music under the influence ... it always seems like it has more "shine", than before ... but I do not believe this is true, and I have never found this to be "true" in my own experiences. I did not have the reactions that Jung, or Huxley or Castaneda had, though in the "dreaming" I do have the same surreal happenings.
 
All in all, TO ME ... it is about the music and how it lives ... and it is rather strange that we think that if it is done left handed it will sound better than right handed! ... so to speak!
 
I wonder if sometimes we are super imposing our own wishes, desires and dreams and visions onto the music itself ... to find another reason as to why we should like it.  To me the music lives or it doesn't live! I don't look at Dean as black and white, and neither do I look at Snow Doc as green or blue, and neither do I look at Trice as yellow or purple ... they are ... who they are and a part of an excellent group that should have gotten an award at the Prog Awards! 
 
It's great already as it is ... !!!


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:13
Originally posted by Hercules Hercules wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Early Genesis albums are horribly produced - whatever subjective benefit you think there is in analogue it is wasted on those albums. In terms of dynamic range, signal to noise, channel separation and frequency response digital beats analogue every time. If you prefer analogue then that's a different kettle of monkeys altogether but when it comes to attention to detail and hearing things deep in the mix then digital is the best option. For example while Dark Side of the Moon is rightfully held up as the epitome of analogue recording there is far more detail to be heard in the CD remasters than can be heard in the original analogue masters. You may still prefer the analogue versions (and many people do), but that's not because they are superior in any technical sense, it's purely a subjective liking of what you hear.

 
Digital is horribly 2 dimensional and has no front to back imagery. And digital does NOT have a better dynamic range - indeed many recordings are very compressed. And the frequency response on a good vinyl is way beyond the range of human hearing (mine is 32 to 33kHz +/- 3db) so digital offers no advantage that you can actually hear.
 
I use a Pink Triangle Anniversary with an SME V arm and Lyra Lydian cartridge and I don't own a CD player because I couldn't find one to compare with my budget of £10k.
 
The vinyl shows much more detail and tonal accuracy than any CD I've heard. Digital does score on signal to noise and lateral channel separation, but that's no compensation overall.
 
As for the early Genesis albums, Trespass and Nursery Cryme sound like they were recorded in a swimming pool with the water in!
I like subjectiveness and I like objectiveness, I can also read product specs and I understand the technology at engineering level so I am perfectly capable of making objective comparisons - all I need for subjective comparisons are two ears and a brain and I as I appear to have those I am capable of that too.
 
How you measure "detail" and "tonal accuracy" [*shudder*] is purely subjective and moreover, it is subjective without a point of reference. And there is nothing wrong in that, except that means it is not absolute and it is not definitive, it just means you preferred what you heard on vinyl, and that's cool.
 
(Please note that it is the recordings that are compressed and that has nothing to do with the storage/playback media, compression happened on analogue recordings too, and if the current fashion for loud playback was around in the 70s then the same mastering "trickery" would have been used then too. As it was compression was used in the 70s to squeeze more time onto a side of a disc, so if you have an album with an hour of music on one disc you can guarantee it is very compressed.)
 
If what you hear pleases you then you have the system you like and that's all anyone can ask. I have the capability to playback both digital and analogue and have no overriding preference except digital is infinitely more convenient and considerably less fragile. Vinyl (especially coupled to a valve amp) is soo cool and esthetically pleasing, but it ain't perfection, but then we've learnt that perfection is absolutely not what we are looking for - we don't want (or like) perfectly flat responses and perfectly noiseless systems - we like the imperfections that the media imposes, we like the indefinable and the unmeasurable essence that each system possesses. Some analogue recordings are great and some are rubbish, some digital recordings are great and some are rubbish because they were made by humans, artistic humans - which is why the early Genesis recordings are not very good even though they were recorded in one of the most state of the art studios at the time (Trident).
 


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Posted By: pitfall
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:25
I do not think that most people listen to music on a technical level, so to say that digital is superior on a technical level is rather superfluous.
My view is that the analogue medium is far more important in the creation of the music in the first place.
I am not anti digital, and have quite a lot of it in my studio, but I hardly ever use it, as analogue instruments and effects sound infinitely better to my ears.
In fact I'd say that the rise of digital has led to a reduction in the quality of music being made.


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:39
Originally posted by pitfall pitfall wrote:

I do not think that most people listen to music on a technical level, so to say that digital is superior on a technical level is rather superfluous.
My view is that the analogue medium is far more important in the creation of the music in the first place.
I am not anti digital, and have quite a lot of it in my studio, but I hardly ever use it, as analogue instruments and effects sound infinitely better to my ears.
In fact I'd say that the rise of digital has led to a reduction in the quality of music being made.
Confused As I have repeatedly said  - it's all down to (subjective) preference. Few here (well, me for certain, but I honestly don't know about anyone else) has the ability to measure any technical responses of any system. Even the most ardent analogue enthusiast simply puts together systems based upon a subjective assessment of what they sound like (and when audiophilist equipment is specified with such non-technical parlance that is all they can do). If you prefer analogue instruments and effects over digital because they sound "better" to your ears then all the better, because if you believe you are using "better" equipment it will encourage you to make full use of it.
 
The implication of your last statement is that the use of analogue instruments should result to an improvement in the quality of music being made, and I think that has yet to be proven. Personally I believe a good craftsman really can make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. Rick Wakeman in his one-man shows tells the story of working with David Bowie, he asked Bowie why he had a battered old 12-string guitar in the studio when he had access to the best guitars money could buy, the answer he got was "If a song sounds good on that it will sound good on anything."


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Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:57
Whether the end medium the user experienced is analog (vinyl) or digital (.wav, CD) has almost no relevance, except in the fact that analog mediums are much more limited in their ability to produce dynamic range and that they degrade faster.

Analog gear in recording is much more important. While we have made a ton of strides in digital processing in the last decade, emulations only get you so far, and the reason a lot of old recordings sound great and pleasing is the consoles, rack gear, effects, and microphones were analog, tube or high-quality condenser, and that gear gave a unique flavor to the audio.


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http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want!


Posted By: Zargasheth
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 18:03
I haven't done much in-depth comparison of CD and vinyl--I've mostly depended on the CD format, for purposes of thrift, and because I don't really care that much.
But the one time I did try measuring up a CD and vinyl album against each other was when, as an experiment, I played my CD of Close to the Edge alongside my dad's vinyl copy and switched off. The CD sounded noticeably clearer and sharper to me. This hasn't impaired my appreciation of CTTE on vinyl or CD, and it could just be that my dad doesn't have a good record player, but I don't really find the "imperfections" of vinyl to be an important or beneficial element of the music.


Posted By: Ytse_Jam
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 19:31
If I have to choose between vinyl and cd I usually choose the first one, firstly because my record player is much better than my cd player, and then because of what vinyl format means to me. It's a matter of form to me, the ritual behind it, the authentic taste that accompanies this format, the hours spent in the dusty record stores. I absolutely am not against technology and innovation, I'm just for a more authentic approach to music, but of course this is MY point of view. However, I think that the differences between vinyl and cd usually become noticeable when comparing expensive hi-fi systems, owned by a reduced number of audiophiles. In most cases, then, talking about "analog sounds better" is pretty ridiculous since most people (me first) do not have the necessary equipment to do a serious comparison.


Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 20:47
All formsof technology have their benefits and their limits.  I still listen to much of my old vinyl, but not that often since I almost never pick up anything new in that format.  I also still listen to my old cassette tapes more often than the vinyl, but that is a matter of convenience. I tend to prefer the cleaner sound of CDs and digital.  The "warmer" sound of vinyl is usually off-set by pops, cracks, and wear & tear - and I keep good care of my records.  There is something tactile and satisfying with vinyl records though, that neither cassettes nor CDs match which is completely different from downloading.

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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 17 2012 at 22:39

As usual Dean makes an excellent technical arguement for digital to analog specs. Tech wise, specification wise, numbers wise...I agree that digital does win. But there also in lies some leeway.....Not all CDP are very good nor do they all sound very good. So here in lies a Y in the road....What are we talking about? The sound that comes from your laptop computer with a US$40 disc drive and $30 internal DAC?? Or a $500 CDP with a high end Wolfson DAC or even better a US$1200 CDP with dual DACs and separate power supply that is top loading? The options can be endless to make a CD sound gorgeous....but you may need a lot of cash. The same CD played on these two different players will give you two very distinctly different sounds....one that will sound like pure A$$ and the other will give you some digital goodness.

I have an excellent NAD C545BEE CDP with one of the better internal DACs, separate power regulators for digital and analog sections...It pulls music off the disc as good as any $1000 players I have heard.
I also have an external DAC which is tube based audio when I want my CDs to sound more "analoguee".
 
Now I have many CDs, and I also have a lot of vinyl, duplicates too. In almost all cases I prefer to listen to vinyl as I want that sound. Nothing beats vinyl/analog for a huge soundstage, if you prefer your music to wrap you up like a warm blanket in winter...then vinyl will do that. Some CDs can do that but at the expense of sounding too digital and causing ear fatigue.....which does exist. As Hercules said, digital is wayyyy too 2-dimensional for me, too much channel separation is not a good thing in music.
 
I too run a higher end vinyl setup a Music Hall mmf-7.1, Pro-Ject 9 carbon fiber arm with a Nagaoka MP-110 cartridge run thru a Phonomena II phonostage into my NAD C356BEE int amp.....I like the British sound so I pump all my music using Epos Epic 2 speakers.
 
My DSOtM anniversary copy blows away my 2 CD copies I have.......Sound wise everyone prefers the vinyl. All my Porcupine Tree vinyl is no comparison to the CD issues.
 
I agree there is the subjective arguement that Dean makes, I do prefer vinyl/analog sound to digital any day of the year..My intelligent mind tells me this cannot be, but my ears in this case is all that matters. I cannot argue the specs..its hard because in this audiophile hobby you are always looking for that better sound and you have to look at specs. But it is easy for me to say..vinyl sounds better. So in this case the tech numbers do not tell the whole story.
 
Now to the topic of old prog bands like Genesis....yea those first few records are horrid on vinyl. They sound like there is a blanket over my speakers. The recent remixes are much better and those are what I play, the original releases are put away for safe keeping since they are originals.
I do prefer the original releases of some though, like KC and ELP.....I use them as reference music where if I start to hear more music coming off the vinyl then I know I am mating certain gear very well.
Most older music released on CD does not sound good at all, if you get some of the recent remixed/remasterd CD issues they are better. But they can have that computer/techy sound to them and that is a turnoff....In some cases I can agree that listening to old prog on vinyl you do hear more, but that is rare, and you need the system that can do it.
With the revival of vinyl in the past 5-10yrs, I am hoping so much stuff gets redone...but cost is always the brickwall.
 
I don't listen to classical music or "elevator music"...so the occasional pop or click goes away once the music starts, but I am meticulous about my vinyl care so I don't experience much of that, its no concern of mine. I have vinyl that is 30+ yrs old and has no surface noise.
 
I appreciate what Dean says, being an electrical engineer you have to respect his knowledge of what the inside of these boxes do.
But when I sit down and listen to my system or go and audition something new I have interest in, usually those thoughts go away and my ears make my decision.
 
 


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Posted By: JediJoker7169
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 03:00
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...we don't want (or like) perfectly flat responses and perfectly noiseless systems - we like the imperfections that the media imposes, we like the indefinable and the unmeasurable essence that each system possesses.

I am a recording engineer, and I want (and like) the lowest amount of noise possible, and you had better believe I want the flattest frequency response possible from my monitoring gear.  Even for pleasure listening, for me, flat is where it's at.  Then again, I haven't had the opportunity to record "outside the box."  And, indeed, I do like the "warmth" of analog recordings and that certain je-ne-sais-quois, often referred to as coloration, of certain (analog and digital) studio gear.  Vinyl as a storage medium, however, is not sustainable.  Every time a vinyl record is played on a standard turntable, the stylus damages the disc.  This is unfortunately true of almost all analog storage media, including magnetic tape.

It is also true that digital recording technology affords greater possible dynamic range, due to a lower noise floor (among other things), but unfortunately, that is an advantage rarely exploited outside of the Classical and Jazz world.  If you're looking for a demonstration of the best aspects of full-digital recording, look no further than Flim & The BB's recordings on DMP Records: super-low noise, incredible dynamics, superior detail and transparency, with none of the sterility or "harshness" often associated with digital recordings.  Impeccable musicianship and formidable composition chops help, too.

What I really want to know is why DSD (SACD) has not become the universal digital audio standard.  It is vastly superior to PCM (CD, DVD-A, Blu-ray Audio and everything else) in its approximation of analog waveforms, leading to a warmer, more "analog-sounding" recording, without the drawbacks of analog technology.  And on top of that, why are optical discs still the primary storage medium of uncompressed (and losslessly compressed) audio recordings?  Other electronic components transitioned to solid state long ago (even if tubes sound great).  It's like we're still living in the '80s when it comes to high-end consumer audio.


Posted By: friso
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 03:47
I think that if all classic prog albums were to receive a great remaster (like some Beatles albums have) the vinyl would only be more attractive for it's experience. If it comes to sound-quality the cd could be really good, but it just almost never is. The argument of specifications doens't apply, because those specifications are almost never used in a proper way.


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 03:57
Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...we don't want (or like) perfectly flat responses and perfectly noiseless systems - we like the imperfections that the media imposes, we like the indefinable and the unmeasurable essence that each system possesses.

I am a recording engineer, and I want (and like) the lowest amount of noise possible, and you had better believe I want the flattest frequency response possible from my monitoring gear.  Even for pleasure listening, for me, flat is where it's at.  Then again, I haven't had the opportunity to record "outside the box."  And, indeed, I do like the "warmth" of analog recordings and that certain je-ne-sais-quois, often referred to as coloration, of certain (analog and digital) studio gear.  Vinyl as a storage medium, however, is not sustainable.  Every time a vinyl record is played on a standard turntable, the stylus damages the disc.  This is unfortunately true of almost all analog storage media, including magnetic tape.
For recording I wholeheartedly (less a smidgen) agree with you, you want to record the instrument with the highest fidelity you can achieve and you want to monitor that as transparently as you can so all you hear is what you recorded. After that you mess around with the EQ on individual instrument and on the mix-downs to your hearts content to get the sound you want - what gets mastered is not a flat response, but it's what the recording engineer, producer and hopefully artist wants it to be. Playback by the consumer is a whole different ball-game. We don't know what it sounded like to you in the studio - a transparent home hi-fi system should replicate that sound at home but that does not mean the listener will like that sound, and home systems are far from transparent - sure I have an amp with no tone controls and another amp where the bass, mid and trebble have never moved off their centre spot since the day I unboxed it and both have flat-responses from here to next Michaelmas but neither of them in a home system will reproduce the exact sound that was heard in the studio because home speakers and the home listening environment are not flat-response and they are not colouration free. [I'm  not getting dragged into discussions on cables, gold connectors and other escoteric nonsense - if you like that stuff then go for it]. And the evident truth seems to be that people don't like flat-response 100% fidelity playback - CD and solid-state coupled to a decent set of headphones can reproduce that but most audiophilists hate it - they like the so-called warmth of their value amps (erm, we call that distortion in the trade) and the imperfections of their analogue media.
 
Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:


It is also true that digital recording technology affords greater possible dynamic range, due to a lower noise floor (among other things), but unfortunately, that is an advantage rarely exploited outside of the Classical and Jazz world.  If you're looking for a demonstration of the best aspects of full-digital recording, look no further than Flim & The BB's recordings on DMP Records: super-low noise, incredible dynamics, superior detail and transparency, with none of the sterility or "harshness" often associated with digital recordings.  Impeccable musicianship and formidable composition chops help, too.
Popular music can handle a greater dynamic range, but the typical listening environment (for popular music) cannot. We don't all sit in the sweet-spot of a purpose-built listening room in subdued lighting and a nice comfy chair to listen intently to every nuance of a recording. For most of us music is the soundtrack to daily life. Even us prog fans will use music as background while we do other things, such as driving or doing homework or just doing the dishes and for that huge dynamic range is a disadvantage.
Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:

What I really want to know is why DSD (SACD) has not become the universal digital audio standard.  It is vastly superior to PCM (CD, DVD-A, Blu-ray Audio and everything else) in its approximation of analog waveforms, leading to a warmer, more "analog-sounding" recording, without the drawbacks of analog technology.  And on top of that, why are optical discs still the primary storage medium of uncompressed (and losslessly compressed) audio recordings?  Other electronic components transitioned to solid state long ago (even if tubes sound great).  It's like we're still living in the '80s when it comes to high-end consumer audio.
Cost more than anything else. SACD has "failed" because most consumers cannot tell the difference between cheap and cheerful CD (or low bit-rate mp3) and anything better, even when the playback equipment was effectivelty free (PS3) no one could be bothered to buy the SACD discs to play on it. CDs are still around because they are stupidly cheap and very easy to reproduce - solid state storage is far more expensive and ultimately redundant since the content can be delivered directly - downloads have pretty much replaced optical discs.
 


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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 09:35
Dean is spot on.....the SACD probably will never "take off" just like Betamax never really "took off". Cost to the consumer is a huge thing. Had SACD format come out 25yrs ago, it probably would be the standard....but today with so many people 100% happy and content with compressed 256kbps mp3 files and streaming audio thru their 1" laptop speakers, the SACD will never enjoy the broad acceptance to threaten the regular CD.
The "high end" CD sometimes does not sound good, so I for one have no desire to spend the extra money when at best it might be hit and miss in terms of sound quality.
I am perfectly happy with redbook 16/44.1 CDs.
 
A good point is brought up about music genre.....the higher quality recordings are usually found in classical music and jazz, very true. There are more quiet passages and less stuff going on than with pop or rock music.....and that listener is more discerning than the standard listener and will pay better money for a better recording and a SACD.
Just take a look at HDTracks.com most of what is offered there as hi-rez 24/96 or 24/192 downloads is classical and jazz.


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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 12:34
Originally posted by pitfall pitfall wrote:

... My view is that the analogue medium is far more important in the creation of the music in the first place. ...
 
Not sure this sounds right, or that you expressed it the way you wanted ... it's like saying that the accoustic is far more important than the electric in the first place ... a few years before the analog/digital thing!
 
I always thought ... it's the same thing, so to speak ... the person's feeling either comes through or it doesn't! And I think this is massive for me, since I can appreciate accapella as well as any other music going back thousands of years.
 
I don't think of Beethoven, Bach, Stravinsky, Beatles, Yea, Amon Duul ... as this or that ... I think of them as "music" from a perspective that is not limited to a time and place ... I listen to all these folks, not because they are "digital" or "analog", or "accoustic" ... I listen to them because of the music they made!
 
The thought that Bach is better digitally than it was 400 years ago accoustically is very scary to me, btw ... like the worst horror movie!


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 12:57
Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...we don't want (or like) perfectly flat responses and perfectly noiseless systems - we like the imperfections that the media imposes, we like the indefinable and the unmeasurable essence that each system possesses.

I am a recording engineer, and I want (and like) the lowest amount of noise possible, and you had better believe I want the flattest frequency response possible from my monitoring gear.  Even for pleasure listening, for me, flat is where it's at.
 
...
 
I'm with you here ... and specially agree with the recording techniques, and I remember that RCA Red Label that had very special recordings of many things, none of which were "progressive" ... but a lot of very good things ... from Tomita to Alan Stivell!
 
(... this is a bit general  coming up!) I've always thought that rock music was too much into an idea of some kind of sound and vision, in order to be able to help define its own ... like you get into the song Gimme Shelter, or Sympathy for the Devil, and why bother making the music better recorded? ... it doesn't make the whole thing any better in my estimation, and a lot of it has to do with the rock music thing that "attitude" is a lot more important than the music itself ... so hearing Janis Joplin scream out in Balls and Chain is more important than the recording of it, and the value of the musicianship behind it.
 
Some of it is good, and like youth, sometimes we're so much into "this and that", that the value of it all is sometimes wasted ... but we can not devalue the emotion and some of the things that came out ... with that "attitude".
 
On a technical level, there is a massively scary point here .... that we're confusing the quality of the recording with the music itself ... and I don't think that is fair ... Tom Dowd did the best he could with what was there ... you do the best you can ... George Martin did the best he could with what was there ... and the differences? ... simply what was there or not.
 
But comparing the "warmth", is a subjective exercise as Dean states, and I agree with it!
 
While that Tom Dowd DVD is not quite about the recording industry and its process a whole lot, it is, by far a massive history of the recording medium covering 30 to 40 years ... and I highly recommend it, btw!


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:16
In classical music, there is a tendency now, which frightens me personally, that "Digital sound" is the be all to end all, and the most important consideration when listening to something.
          Most of the classical music i have is Historical (recorded before 1960) and i can tell you with a straight face that these older recordings are the ones to have. Conductors, singers, instrumentalists, orchestras, were of a much, much higher standard than the scene of today. Today, everybody wants to hear Wagner's Ring by a weak conductor like James Levine in this so called "be all to end all" digital sound, i say, what's the point, when all of the notes sound the same. A lot of people don't realise that you can hear The Ring in a much better way in Mono with Furtwangler, or Krauss conducting, conductors that go deeper into the score, and thus the notes are saying so much more than in this modern, blessed Digital age we live in.
                 Sorry, this thread is about prog, not classical music, but i just had to sound off.Smile


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:35
Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

...          Most of the classical music i have is Historical (recorded before 1960) and i can tell you with a straight face that these older recordings are the ones to have. Conductors, singers, instrumentalists, orchestras, were of a much, much higher standard than the scene of today.
...
 
NICE ... and thank you!
 
There was always a reason why those folks were recorded ... Karajan for this or that, Leinsdorf for his Puccini's, Bernstein for his Tchaikovsky's and Stravinsky's and Stokowski (sp) helped in other ways ... because of their detail to various things and emphazyz on one thing or another, that made the music different ... and still good!
 
But we don't like it when we hear 10 different versions of The Endless Enigma, or 5 different versions of something else ... how progressive of us, makes me think! And there are some very good and very different versions of Tosca ... with different tenors! ... and Pavarotti's is not any better than Gigli's or vice versa! They are totally different!
 
But there is, today, as well as yesterday, just as much subtlety and softness and quietness in Bitches Brew, as there is in Tales From Topographic Oceans, as there is in A Passion Play, as there is in Hot Rats!  ... and I consider the instrumentation in these just as good as some of these "classical" things ...
 
One joke ... ready? ... digital is killing classical music ... people are so into their rap and iPod's and KW sampling the theme from Romeo and Juliet, and the next Rush thread on this board, that I am not sure that the majority actually enjoy and appreciate listening to anyone you or I mentioned! Confused
 


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 17:11
^And thanks to you, for your thoughtful and thought provoking response.
          Yeah, and i also wonder how many really get what moshkito and me are getting at here!


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:01
And there is not as much diversity or individuality in Classical music interpretation today. In the golden age, you had "the Stokowski Sound", "the Toscanini Sound", the "Furtwangler school" of interpretation.
   Nowadays, a lot of important orchestras and their conductors sound so much alike, it's scary.
            As each year passes, people tuned into the older eras die off, and i know you all know that already, but it really is a shame. A lot of today's crowd don't know what they are missing, and that is a crime.


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:06
Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

^And thanks to you, for your thoughtful and thought provoking response.
          Yeah, and i also wonder how many really get what moshkito and me are getting at here!
 
I get it....and its the main reason I listen to vinyl, because I do "get it". Hearing something the same way over and over is not a pleasure for me.
Now I may not listen to classical, but I totally understand why there would be certain recordings you may only want to hear in mono......I have heard some mono recordings and they are ear boggling to say the least at the detail you can hear......It makes sense.
 
The title of this thread is "the importance of analog sound in prog". Its not asking for the tech/specs/detail of analog sound.....you have to read the title carefully to understand that the question does make some sense, especially if you consider older prog rock, jazz and even classical music.


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Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:11
And in the world of progressive music, i must say it is really something to hear from  members of PA that are older than myself, like moshkito, cstack3, TODDLER, and more, with their insights and perspectives on older scenes like the analog sound period, which i find invaluable. Guys, your words are precious to me.Smile


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 18:15
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

^And thanks to you, for your thoughtful and thought provoking response.
          Yeah, and i also wonder how many really get what moshkito and me are getting at here!
 
I get it....and its the main reason I listen to vinyl, because I do "get it". Hearing something the same way over and over is not a pleasure for me.
Now I may not listen to classical, but I totally understand why there would be certain recordings you may only want to hear in mono......I have heard some mono recordings and they are ear boggling to say the least at the detail you can hear......It makes sense.
 
The title of this thread is "the importance of analog sound in prog". Its not asking for the tech/specs/detail of analog sound.....you have to read the title carefully to understand that the question does make some sense, especially if you consider older prog rock, jazz and even classical music.
ThanksThumbs Up


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 19:17
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

The title of this thread is "the importance of analog sound in prog". Its not asking for the tech/specs/detail of analog sound.....you have to read the title carefully to understand that the question does make some sense, especially if you consider older prog rock, jazz and even classical music.
I haven't quoted, pushed or championed technical specs in this thread, or used them to answer the OP question, I have repeatedly said that if people prefer analogue then that is a perfectly acceptable answer, but to understand the question you have to read the actual question (and not just the thread title) and you have to read it carefully because it contains a false assumption:
Originally posted by pkos76 pkos76 wrote:

as i understand in order to apreciate prog you should pay attension in detail  especially in the techique of the musicians.this detail only analog sound can offer to you.many prog gems like early genesis albums i started to love them when i listened them in vinyl format.i want to know if other proggers of this forum aggree with me   
 
The OP wasn't asking whether you preferred analogue, he made a specific comment about detail in the recordings (such as the technique of the musicians).
That detail is present in the analogue recording but it is there more in digital recordings. If people think they can hear more detail in analogue then that's fine but what they are hearing is the perception of more detail. If people prefer recordings from 1950, 1940, 1930 or 1920 then that's just fine too, but do not say it is because those recordings are better on any technical level because they are not, (nor can they ever be) or because they contain more detail because they can't.
 
In the extreme detail is like listening for the tick of a watch while standing next to a 747 jet at take-off, moreover, it's like listening to that watch and trying to tell whether it is an Omega Incabloc Oyster or a Timex - with digital you have the dynamic range where both the watch-tick and the jet engine noise can be present in the recording simultaneously and you have the signal-to-noise ratio such that the watch-tick is "louder" than the noise-floor. Now obviously no human can hear a watch-tick over the sound of a jet engine, but if you now remove the jet from the recording without changing any of the volume levels (on the microphone recording the watch back in the studio or on the playback system in your living room) you can now hear the tick. You don't have that with analogue - the dynamic range is limited by the noise-floor and because the jet-engine is so loud the noise-floor is now "louder" than the tick of the watch, once you remove the jet-engine from the analogue recording without changing the volume levels just as before you still cannot hear the watch-tick because the background noise drowns it out. This isn't some esoteric subjective assessment that can be overcome with fancy cables, sound absorbing/deadening foams or any other audiophilist techniques or with set-ups that have price tickets worth more than the value of my car, it's a physical objective limitation of the recording media.
 
As I said, that example is in the extreme, with good technical artists we are not listening for detail that is anything like as subtle as that. Certainly the majority of the "detail" we are listening too is well within the range of analogue media even if it is not as detailed as digital media can be (emphasis on the "can be") - if it wasn't there we would not have revered those musicians back in the day.
 
I had the immeasurable pleasure of seeing Steve Hackett play live last month and took the opportunity to watch the deftness his techniques at close-hand when he effortlessly played the lead in Firth of Fifth. Standing in a field in the Surrey countryside isn't the ideal listening environment and outdoor stage PA isn't the ideal playback equipment but I "heard" more of Hackett's technique that day than I ever got from listening to the various recordings (analogue and digital) because I could see the fingers that made the notes (and a lot more of the sounds made during that song came from his guitar than I thought from just listening to a recording). Attention to detail is of some importance to Prog, but whether analogue or digital is better for that is purely subjective and purely a matter of personal preference.

 



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What?


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 22:17
You CAN lose more detail in analog because of the scratches and the hissing and all that but you don't in digital, every sound is well separated and clear.  At the most, you may have to adjust the equalizers to push up some sounds you want to hear more clearly.   When people say they don't like digital recording, in all likelihood they only mean they don't like what albums they have heard that were recorded digitally.   Donald Fagen's Nightfly was recorded with some of the earliest and most rudimentary digital systems and it does not lack in dynamics.   It is not digital by itself that kills dynamics but (a) the nature of the music itself and (b) excessive compression.   In what way does 12:5 lack dynamics or detail....even a so called live-in-studio prog recording from the 70s wouldn't have so much detail.   Grace for Drowning is another example often cited in these debates. 

If you like the scratches and the distortion, fine, but those are not details.  Details are the sounds you don't get to hear as well as you could if there was no distortion.  


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 22:47
Originally posted by pitfall pitfall wrote:

I am not anti digital, and have quite a lot of it in my studio, but I hardly ever use it, as analogue instruments and effects sound infinitely better to my ears.
In fact I'd say that the rise of digital has led to a reduction in the quality of music being made.


You seem to have misunderstood the OP.  It talks about analog vis-a-vis digital formats.  Now I agree that simply copy pasting the same 'perfect' drum fill wherever it is required in a track instead of recording the drummer playing it each time sucks out the human element, which is vital to rock and metal recordings.   I don't have strong opinions, one way or the other, on the instruments, which is in any case a matter of preference.  But I believe the question was about ostensibly the same music recorded in analog vis-a-vis digital format?


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 22:51
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

You CAN lose more detail in analog because of the scratches and the hissing and all that but you don't in digital, every sound is well separated and clear.  At the most, you may have to adjust the equalizers to push up some sounds you want to hear more clearly.   When people say they don't like digital recording, in all likelihood they only mean they don't like what albums they have heard that were recorded digitally.   Donald Fagen's Nightfly was recorded with some of the earliest and most rudimentary digital systems and it does not lack in dynamics.   It is not digital by itself that kills dynamics but (a) the nature of the music itself and (b) excessive compression.   In what way does 12:5 lack dynamics or detail....even a so called live-in-studio prog recording from the 70s wouldn't have so much detail.   Grace for Drowning is another example often cited in these debates. 

If you like the scratches and the distortion, fine, but those are not details.  Details are the sounds you don't get to hear as well as you could if there was no distortion.  
 
Hmm...I don't agree with much here. You CAN lose detail in digital, if it is compressed too much and the mids and highs dominate the sound then you do not hear the low end details. For example the long sustain of a bass pedal or bass guitar, digital has a difficult time with low end sounds and an easy time elevating the mids and highs to the point of distortion as you say.
Also digital has the ability to have as much wow & flutter as a turntable....Almost all CDP are tray designed so there IS a moving part that will cause jitter and distortion (I think this word is being used wrong here, but it is what you are using). Also there is digital jitter from a not so good DAC, that does not convert the digital signal to analog very well....it exists and can be heard.
There are many digital albums I have heard I do not like, plenty of CDs I own I do not play.
 
Some of my mishandled vinyl has scratches, but that does not cause distortion.......For example inner groove distortion is due to misaligned equipment, not the vinyl.
 
Fagan's digital album may not lack in dynamics, but in the same respect a lot of my vinyl does not lack in dynamics either......And CD/Digital IMO cannot match the soundstage effect that analog does create, new or old.


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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 22:59

To me it sounds like the ones that oppose analog took the question from the OP as a comparison question/comment between analog and digital.....Where I as a music lover, and I enjoy both mediums, took the question more as a comment that to understand old prog there is a thought that listening to the analog issues gives you the ability/background to understand these old prog rock albums. I find some substance in that thought......

But as Dean states how you eventually listen to the music on an ongoing basis is totally subjective......Do what you feel your ears like best and what gives you the best physical experience......and to me I like how my vinyl takes me to another place when I spin Yes - Tales/Topographic Oceans.


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Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 23:07
I think a lot of people confuse poor mixing and mastering with a flaw in the medium. Over-compression and distortion can occur at all stages of recording up till pressing. It is a fact that CDs have the ability to produce more dynamic range than vinyl. Higher quality digital mediums have that even more so. So the devil is in the mix and master, and the point it that for most "normal" mixes won't even want to use that range because it would be tedious for most songs. The capability for high dynamic range is nice, and if you want a really, really clear mix with as little noise as possible, digital is obviously more for you. Plus, yippee for any medium being able to record frequencies over 22kHz. Good luck hearing it.

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http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want!


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 23:13
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

You CAN lose detail in digital, if it is compressed too much and the mids and highs dominate the sound then you do not hear the low end details. For example the long sustain of a bass pedal or bass guitar, digital has a difficult time with low end sounds and an easy time elevating the mids and highs to the point of distortion as you say.


I did mention over compression.  My argument is that is a conscious choice by the producer, the engineer or the band, whomsoever are responsible for it.  It does not mean any and every digital recording is bound to be over compressed and lose detail.   And what I am saying is not just theoretical. There are digital recordings that are not over compressed, don't sound like one constant, loud wall of sound.  Not every digital recording is as bad as Death Magnetic. 

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:


Also digital has the ability to have as much wow & flutter as vinyl....Almost all CDP are tray designed so there IS a moving part that will cause jitter and distortion (I think this word is being used wrong here, but it is what you are using). Also there is digital jitter from a not so good DAC, that does not convert the digital signal to analog very well....it exists and can be heard.
There are many digital albums I have heard I do not like, plenty of CDs I own I do not play.



I don't use CD players anymore, just play them on the computer with good speakers.  So I am not really aware of this problem and cannot comment on it.   I used CD players earlier but abandoned them, not because I noticed such a problem (though it may have been present) but because the players generally wore out too quickly and I felt it was redundant if I could connect the PC to good speakers. 
 

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
Fagan's digital album may not lack in dynamics, but in the same respect a lot of my vinyl does not lack in dynamics either


So the point is....?  I never said analog lacks dynamics.  I said it is not true that digital inherently lacks the capability to capture dynamics.  Merely because the music recorded on some digital albums inherently lacks dynamism doesn't mean the format itself destroys dynamics.  And a lot of heavy music of today IS very un-dynamic and excessively loud, but that has more to do with the priorities of the musicians and the producers than the capabilities of digital. 

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

......And CD/Digital IMO cannot match the soundstage effect that analog does create, new or old.



I disagree.   Again, it has to do with the decisions made by the technicians involved.   A friend of mine who makes prog rock had a thing against delay or reverb and preferred a dry sound for vocals.  He seems to have finally been persuaded against this but my point is, the dry sound would then be his choice, not a lack of delay in digital systems.

What did the musicians want the listeners to hear on the album, what was the equipment used, how capable were the engineers...without all this information, it is difficult to make generalized comments on digital recording.   Also, do consider that almost every analog recording of a reasonably successful band from the 70s is quite professionally done but there is a lot more DIY involved in today's scene.   I think recordings of mainstream albums are still quite powerful and professional.   They might be consciously recorded too loud or compressed or they might simply have music that you don't enjoy, but that's beside the point.  



Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 23:15
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

To me it sounds like the ones that oppose analog took the question from the OP as a comparison question/comment between analog and digital.....Where I as a music lover, and I enjoy both mediums, took the question more as a comment that to understand old prog there is a thought that listening to the analog issues gives you the ability/background to understand these old prog rock albums. I find some substance in that thought......

But as Dean states how you eventually listen to the music on an ongoing basis is totally subjective......Do what you feel your ears like best and what gives you the best physical experience......and to me I like how my vinyl takes me to another place when I spin Yes - Tales/Topographic Oceans.


That was indeed the original question but the topic has gone well beyond the scope of it.  I don't have any problem with what people prefer because it is their choice.  I am just saying objective claims about the capabilities of one format vis a vis the other may be very difficult to justify.  


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 18 2012 at 23:17
Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

I think a lot of people confuse poor mixing and mastering with a flaw in the medium. .


My point, exactly.


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 08:26
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

You CAN lose more detail in analog because of the scratches and the hissing and all that but you don't in digital, every sound is well separated and clear.  At the most, you may have to adjust the equalizers to push up some sounds you want to hear more clearly.   When people say they don't like digital recording, in all likelihood they only mean they don't like what albums they have heard that were recorded digitally.   Donald Fagen's Nightfly was recorded with some of the earliest and most rudimentary digital systems and it does not lack in dynamics.   It is not digital by itself that kills dynamics but (a) the nature of the music itself and (b) excessive compression.   In what way does 12:5 lack dynamics or detail....even a so called live-in-studio prog recording from the 70s wouldn't have so much detail.   Grace for Drowning is another example often cited in these debates. 

If you like the scratches and the distortion, fine, but those are not details.  Details are the sounds you don't get to hear as well as you could if there was no distortion.  
 
Hmm...I don't agree with much here. You CAN lose detail in digital, if it is compressed too much and the mids and highs dominate the sound then you do not hear the low end details. For example the long sustain of a bass pedal or bass guitar, digital has a difficult time with low end sounds and an easy time elevating the mids and highs to the point of distortion as you say.
Also digital has the ability to have as much wow & flutter as a turntable....Almost all CDP are tray designed so there IS a moving part that will cause jitter and distortion (I think this word is being used wrong here, but it is what you are using). Also there is digital jitter from a not so good DAC, that does not convert the digital signal to analog very well....it exists and can be heard.
There are many digital albums I have heard I do not like, plenty of CDs I own I do not play.
Confused Sorry, José but no.
Jitter is the most misunderstood parameter in digital systems by the layperson, part of this is misinformation by unscrupulous system manufactures, part from the continued disinformation perpetrated by audiophilists and part from the misconception that jitter is akin to wow and flutter.
 
Let's dispense with the last one first - wow and flutter is horrible, it affects every aspect of the playback of a vinyl or tape recording because it varies the speed of the playback which affects the pitch of every frequency in the recording and it affects the timing of every beat in the music. It is so bad that it is immediately obvious and can never be mistaken for anything else - it is rightfully an anathema to any lover of vinyl.  The same mechanical defect on an optical disc can never affect the audio component of the recording in that way, it simply doesn't work like that.
 
Jitter exists - that is a natural consequence of recovering information from a mechanical system - what it does not do is affect the reconstituted analogue signal and there are very good technical reasons why that is. Let's look at the component parts of any system:
 
1. The optical disc: CDs are circular platters with the data stored on a concentric spiral in a fixed spacing of pits, this data is read from the inside of the disc to the outside edge at a constant linear rate. Since the number of pits on the inner part of the spiral is few than on the outer edge the angular speed of the disc has to slow down as the read-laser moves towards the outer edge, this means that the disc has a varying angular velocity to maintain a fixed linear data-rate. This linear speed is fixed to achieve a data-rate of 1.23Mbits/s on a CD player with a transfer speed of "x1" - you can contrast this with vinyl where the angular velocity is constant but the linear velocity slows down towards the centre of the disc - that varying linear velocity can affect what you hear off vinyl.
 
2. The CD transport/player: CD players can read at transfer speeds of greater than "1x". When we use transfer speeds of "8x" or "48x" we do not hear the music played 8 or 48 times faster. What this means is the speed that the digital data is read off the optical disc does not affect the analogue signal coming out of the L & R channels of the DAC. In simplistic terms the Master Clock that reads the data off the CD is not the same Master Clock that the DAC uses to convert then digital data into an analogue signal. Two clocks, two different sources of clock jitter but only one of them affects what you hear, and that's the one in the DAC not the one that reads the data off the disc.
 
3. Jitter: Disc read clock-jitter is caused by minute variations in the read speed of the digital data being read from the disc. This jitter is on the Master Clock which we've already asserted is 1.23MHz and the jitter is measured in picoseconds (10−12) - which is far far above any audio spectrum and simply does not manifest itself as "wow and flutter" in the traditional parlance. On the DAC master clock any jitter is solely caused by the stability of the crystal oscillator used to generate the clock signal - this is completely (and utterly) unaffected by read speeds and all those technical sounding but highly spurious cable transmission factors that audoiphilists love to prattle on about. What jitter can affect is the Signal To Noise Ratio, electronic engineers know all about this jitter and we even have a theoretical maximum formula for it:
SNR(dBFS) = –20log(2πfinσ)
And this formula still comes up with figures that are much much better than the SNR you get off vinyl or tape media even if such variations as read speed and cable effects did have an effect (which they don't).
 
4. Buffering: because data can be read off the CD at speeds between "1x" and "72x" yet what we hear is at "1x" what happens to the digital data between reading off the CD and playing back through the DAC is it is stored in a piece of memory that can be written at one speed using the Master Clock from the CD transport and read at a completely different speed using the Master Clock from the DAC. There is a technical terminology for this and it is called Staticizing:
Originally posted by <SPAN style=FONT-SIZE: 12px id=book_name><B><strong><I>McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Dictionary</I></strong></B></SPAN> McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Dictionary wrote:

(′stad·ə′sīz)

(computer science) To capture transient data in stable form, thus converting fleeting events into examinable information.

This buffering of the data in the digital form completely and utterly eliminates any clock-jitter caused by the reading of the optical CD because the variations in data-rate are during writing are irrelevant: the data bits and the master clock would both be jittering at the same time by the same degree so when you write bit 1 into memory location 1 it fits perfectly and when you write bit 2 into memory location 2 it also fits perfectly regardless of whether jitter causes that write operation to occur a few pico-seconds later than it theoretically should because the clock that clocks the data into the memory is always in sync with the data regardless of the amount of jitter. Once this data has been staticized in the buffer memory we can now read it out at a different rate at a different time using a different master clock, a clock that is not generated by the CD transport and does not get transmitted down co-axial or optical fibre. So the jitter of the CD transport master clock is now totally eliminated - the only clock jitter we have to worry about is in the DAC itself and Mr Wolfson (or Mr Burr-Brown) has got that one licked because the distance the signal travels is so very short.
 
5. Cost: This solution to jitter is cheap, stupidly cheap, and it's been present in CD players for over a quarter of a century: Remember when anti-jog (or anti-skip) was a big selling point of portable CD players? That's buffering, that is the technique of reading the disc, storing the digital bits in a 3 second memory buffer and then converting the digital to analogue using a different conversion clock; Remember when CD transports first became available with 2x or 4x read and write speeds? That's the same buffering but using larger memories than the 2 or 3 second buffers used in anti-jog systems. And all this technology is in every CD player whether it is $10, $100, $1000 or $10,000 or on your PC.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 Some of my mishandled vinyl has scratches, but that does not cause distortion.......For example inner groove distortion is due to misaligned equipment, not the vinyl.
This is true, and it's something that doesn't happen on digital. I have several vinyls that are ever so slightly warped and a few where the centre hole is just a smidgen off-centre - that does cause distortion and they sound awful. Nothing will fix or compensate for that.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Fagan's digital album may not lack in dynamics, but in the same respect a lot of my vinyl does not lack in dynamics either......And CD/Digital IMO cannot match the soundstage effect that analog does create, new or old.
Soundstage is the product of three parameters:
  1. Channel Separation
  2. Bandwidth
  3. Dynamic Range
We've already established that digital has a greater usable dynamic range than analogue and since no one here is going to read any technical blurb I post here I will simply state that digital has far greater channel separation that vinyl. Those who want to check that by reading technical specifications can do so, (just remember that 3dB difference is twice as good, 20dB is 100 times better and 30dB is 1000 times better). So that just leaves bandwidth, so lets disect bandwidth and see what the differences are and see whether that realistically and practically affects soundstage:
 
Bandwidth of digital and analogue causes humongous arguments and its all rather pointless. The audio pectrum can be subdivided into four principle regions:
 
the first is the subsonics, anything that you feel in your chest and not in your ears is subsonic - digital doesn't have much of that - it is removed by filtering prior to being recorded onto the disc to give the maximum headroom to the audio part of the signal. Unfortunately analogue doesn't have much of that either for pretty much the same reason -super low frequencies cause wide variations in the grooves on a disc and thus reduce the playing time per side - the RIAA pre-emphasis filter removes all subsonics before the disc is cut, no amount of RIAA de-emphasis can recreate those lost subsonics.
 
the second is the region that contains the fundamental frequecies of the notes being played, and typically this ranges from 30Hz upto around 4.19KHz (C8 on a piano) - simply put: if you cannot hear those frequencies then you cannot hear music.
 
the third region is the top-end of human hearing, this is the range above C8 that contains the harmonics that colours each note and extends from 8KHz up to around 18Khz - this is the spectrum that all audio media can reproduce.
 
the final region is the supersonic, these are frequencies above 20KHz that no human can hear. Now while it is impossible to hear thiose frequencies it is possible to hear the effect of them on other frequencies - the interaction between two supersonics or a supersonic and a top-end frequency can be heard in the audio spectrum - this is like the beat between two notes that produces a lower frequency component. UNFORTUNATELY, regardless of how good your analogue audio system is and regardless of how flat your system response is all the way up to 33KHz and beyond those frequencies are completely removed by your RIAA de-emphasis (equalisation filter):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RIAA-EQ-Curve.svg" rel="nofollow">
 
That roll-off that starts at 2.122KHz does not stop at 20KHz , it keeps going and it keeps going down further attenuating signals above 20KHz by more than the -20dB shown on the graph - and remember what I said before -20dB is 100 times smaller than 0dB. Ah! you may say, but surely the RIAA de-emphasis simply reverses the RIAA pre-emphasis - and it does, except that vinyl mastering removes supersonics above 20KHz from the recording to prevent overheating of the cutter and subsequent warping of the blank being cut... this is one of the reasons why Quadraphonic discs required specialist lathes.
 
Therefore bandwidth issues between analogue and digital are not that different in reality, however what we see empirically when we do spectral analysis of both system is significantly flatter responses in digital systems  - whether that is important or not is open to debate - what it does not affect too greatly is soundstaging because the tonal soundstage you hear is pretty close to what the record producer wanted you to hear.
 
 
 
Sooo.... all things considered the parameters that contribute to soundstaging are technically better with digital - the wider channel separation will result in clearer left-right positioning, the improved dynamic range will contribute to the front-to-back depth and the more or less equally bandwidth will result in similar "height" - whether you like that possibility of a more open soundstaging is another matter altogether but the actual position of each instrument in that soundstage is a direct product of the studio production, not your ability to recreate it in your city room. With a digital system you get closer to the soundstage that the producer and sound engineer wanted you to hear, analogue mushes that up a bit - if you prefer that then that's fine.
 
__________________________________________________________________________________________
 
tl;dr
 
I'm neither knocking analogue nor am I defending digital. I am merely presenting the absolute technical facts above the emotional mythology. I love vinyl and I love my valve (tube) amps, I also love digital and I love my discrete transistor amps and my solid state IC amps and I certainly love the two turntables I own, the Thorens because it's a Thorens (dagnabit!) and the QED because it's a marvel of simplistic British design and it's got a glass platter and that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen and I'm never going to get that emotional or nostalgic over CDs and CD transports. With vinyl I love the ritual associated with the whole shebang - the truing-up of the platter, the levelling of the deck, the balancing of the tone arm, the care and attention I impart on keeping it lubed and dust free and the loving attention I have to give the discs; I love removing them from their sleeves and de-ionising and de-dusting them before placing them reverently on the platter; I love the slight click as the stylus gets lowered onto the groove and the faint crackling rumble of the lead-in to the first note of the first track - everything about this puts me into exactly the right frame-of-mind to sit down and listen - it sets my mood and it settles my mood - and if that ritual makes me think the music sound sweeter then that's a bonus, but because I am an Engineer with a capital "E" I know that is all psychological but it does not matter. I love it just the same.
 


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What?


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 10:57
Thanks Dean.......certainly as I have said before I cannot argue technical specifications, I also said before that my intelligent mind tells me I should always stick to digital because the numbers tell me it should always sound better, with no sibilance/distortion/jitter/W&F/ un-needed noise...call it what you want, in most cases this can be true.
I completely understand your detailed explanation above, again it makes total sense to me......but I fear that these type of explanations cause the normal listener of digital to give them the impression that regardless of equipment they are hearing pure music with no hint of what I will call "distortion".......I just don't believe that to be true and I don't think you would agree with that.
 
How does the CD spin? What makes it spin? How does the laser housing move from the inner disc to the outer? What does that laser housing ride on? The digital medium is close to perfection, I agree any imperfections are so minute you may never hear them, as well as the the range of music capable on a CD does not matter, you will not hear it...But the spindle motor, the pulley system used to move the laser, the rails the housing rides on.....are all mechanical and can contribute to noise/distortion/sibilance whatever u wanna call it. Just like a vinyl playback system, these parts of a CDP do create noise.....My point is how the music comes off that perfect plastic disc with the perfect 0s and 1s...does not always sound perfect.
 
Forget about mixing and mastering......if a CD sounds bad its bad music. You cannot tell me that people who have abandoned the stand alone CDP for their laptop disc drive thru some laptop speakers are hearing all the music, to my mind that does not make much sense.....Especially when you go thru so much detail above on explaining the behind the scenes goings on of digital medium.
I am probably wrong...but to hear music the way you have described to me would only happen on a system that most of us could not afford or choose not to afford.....What the digital world describes is too perfect, again why I cannot argue what you wrote nor what the CD can do....its pretty close to perfection........100% agree.
 
I have more invested in the sound process of my digital sources. I have a standalone DAC, I have a higher end CDP, I use optical cable to connect my portable media player to bypass its internal DAC, which is krap, and run thru the external DAC. I run coax cable from my CDP to the external DAC, and honestly that is a lateral move, the NAD DAC is better...but the ext DAC is valve based so it gives me the analog sound I want....LOL! I do this because I want my CDs to sound the best they can for what I choose to afford......As far as my vinyl setup, well like you said it is always a tweek in progress and I am very close to where I want to be.
 
Listen, I have heard how bad CDs/Digital can sound.....In most cases the reason is due to the components being used, again forget about mixing/mastering. Since we don't know what the actual recorded music sounded like in the studio, we only have the consumer CD to go by.
If you are a listener of music on your laptop.....I see no way how you can decribe to me soundstage, dynamic range, distortion free music as compared to a well matched hi-fi component system......on the surface. So you are NOT hearing nor taking advantage of what the digital medium can offer, as Dean has described. And please.....I am not advocating you go out and spend US$5,000 or more for a system, that's not my point. That's a different topic/thread......
 
Back to the OP comment......If listening to Genesis or Yes or Pink Floyd on CD takes you to that special place, that's all that matters....keep listening.
But I agree with the words the OP used.......For me to "hear" some older prog, I prefer to hear that in analog form......I remember one of the first CDs I bought about 1985 was Dire Straits-Brothers In Arms, the SPARS code is DDD, all digital processing....Its about as flawless as music gets on CD. My copy of Madonna-Like A Virgin also DDD, again flawless.....nothing better. But...my DDD copy of Saga-Behaviour from 1985 although very good, does not come close to the other two.
 
I'll end this excellent thread with this quote.......have a great day and listen to however your ears like, that's the point.
 
"The new album "Banks Of Eden" was recorded with the band playing live in one room in Varispeed studio in January 2012, a recording much like in the old days of classic prog, before computers hit the market and this time with plenty of original 60's and 70's recording equipment, for a true warm analogue vintage sound. "We aimed for the classic big warm vinyl-sound of old records by Queen, Genesis, Zeppelin or Deep Purple," says Stolt.



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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 12:19
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

.... ..and to me I like how my vinyl takes me to another place when I spin Yes - Tales/Topographic Oceans.

 
Careful ... this is a preference, in many ways.
 
1. If you had never heard it before on vinyl, you might not know what the difference was.
 
2. Who's to say, that it was not the music that takes you to another place? Might have been the radio, the tv, the vinyl ... different ways (which is my case on the post above. I don't hear any difference between "now" and "then" ... because I hear the music!)
 
I think it is important that we grab these subtleties and understand them ... because otherwise, the medium of "recording" or "remembering" music, becomes the very medium that kills it ... the veritable/inevitable "Childhood's End" ... and then we would have been better off with the "remembering" ... not the "recording"!
 
It has to be about the music ... not the "recording". Or, even the live thing, is a dead end and looses its importance.


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 13:56
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Thanks Dean.......certainly as I have said before I cannot argue technical specifications, I also said before that my intelligent mind tells me I should always stick to digital because the numbers tell me it should always sound better, with no sibilance/distortion/jitter/W&F/ un-needed noise...call it what you want, in most cases this can be true.
I completely understand your detailed explanation above, again it makes total sense to me......but I fear that these type of explanations cause the normal listener of digital to give them the impression that regardless of equipment they are hearing pure music with no hint of what I will call "distortion".......I just don't believe that to be true and I don't think you would agree with that.
Unfortunately I cannot agree with you - analogue data in the digital domain cannot be changed by accidental means. I know that's a mahousive pill to swallow but it's true. If the analogue signal has been converted into a sequence of numbers then that sequence can be copied and transmitted as much as you like and nothing will corrupt that sequence of numbers in such away that we would regard it as distortion - sure you can lose the odd bit or two of data, and maybe even a whole packet (this we call drop-outs) but you cannot change the data sequence by accident. You can do it on purpose and that requires some seriously heavy maths and some seriously heavy processing and it's called Digital Signal Processing because you have to process the data-stream in sequence by applying some very complex mathematical algorythms. This isn't something you can do with a resistor and couple of capacitors and it certainly isn't something that an inanimate piece of interconnecting wire can do.
 
Remember I am only talking about the digital data here - once you feed it into the DAC and convert back it into an analogue signal then it is subject to the same external distortions that any analogue signal can suffer - if the output of your CD player sounds carp then it's the fault of the analogue subsection between the DAC output and the unit's output jack. All those expensive modifications that people pay to have done to their iPlods to make them audiophilist do absolutely nothing to the digital subsection, they don't even change the Wolfson/Burr Brown DAC, all they do is change the capacitors on the analogue outputs. That's it... $250 for two $4 capacitors... Bargain.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
How does the CD spin? What makes it spin? How does the laser housing move from the inner disc to the outer? What does that laser housing ride on? The digital medium is close to perfection, I agree any imperfections are so minute you may never hear them, as well as the the range of music capable on a CD does not matter, you will not hear it...But the spindle motor, the pulley system used to move the laser, the rails the housing rides on.....are all mechanical and can contribute to noise/distortion/sibilance whatever u wanna call it. Just like a vinyl playback system, these parts of a CDP do create noise.....My point is how the music comes off that perfect plastic disc with the perfect 0s and 1s...does not always sound perfect.
No. Simply No. If this is what you beleive then you haven't understood anything of my previous post.
 
That's not a criticism of you because I know this stuff is counter-intuitive and I know it's difficult to grasp.
 
First off let's dispense with the laser guidance system - this is the biggest cause of CD transport failure and it's a show stopper - if the laser does not track then the effect is immediately noticable - the disc cannot be read or it sticks or jumps and that is always manifest by the player throwing up some enigmatic error code and freezing - it never results in distortion or bad sound because it cannot, it is as simple as that, it is similar to having the stylus skip on a vinyl disc - it's not distortion, it's skipping tththththththrrrp! - but unlike your turntable when this happens the datastream fails to synchronise to the read circuitry and the logic controller in the player calls a halt to everything.
 
The motor spindle is just like the spindle in a Wurlitzer juke box, it's floating self-centring hub but in this case controlled not by a simple DC motor but by a complex crystal controlled stepper motor driven from some complex control logic - this is necessary not for data integrity but so the spin speed can be accurately controlled as the laser tracks across the disc - as I said before it is variable speed (variable anglular velocity) to ensure that the data comes off at a constant linear speed. Now this digital data is not organised as a continous stream of 16-bit pairs (left and right channels), it is organised in blocks of six 16-bit audio pairs (a total of 24 8-bit bytes), two sets of 4 redundancy bytes of 8-bits each and one 8-bit sub-code so a total of 33 bytes make up each block and those blocks do not contain the audio information in the order they occur in real time, a convoluted algorythm re-orders 6 stereo samples of 24-bytes each and spreads them over 109 blocks. This ensures that the data from byte to byte on the disc contains changing information that the read logic can use to create the Master Clock that reads the data off the disc - again this sounds counter-intuitive because the master clock is created from the data as it is read off the disc, it is not created by the motor spin or the clock that causes the stepper motor to spin - this means that no matter how wobbly the disc spins (within reason) the clock and the data are always in perfect synchronisation - data bit one occurs on clock edge one, data bit two occurs on clock edge two ad infinitum - it can still be wobbly but because the clock and the data are wobbling together the data is not corrupted.
 
Sure - if we were to feed this directly into a DAC and used that master clock to control the DAC then the resulting analogue signal would be as wobbly as the master clock, but it is never used like that - it always goes into a buffer memory which statisized the data (ie "makes static") and it is read out using a seperate (and far more stable) clock derived from the DAC that does not have any of the wobble associated with the spin of the disc.
 
Imagine that this buffer memory is like the cold-water header tank in your loft (or wherever you guys keep your cold-water header tanks), your shower head is your output system and the water flowing out of the shower is at a lower flow-rate than the water flowing into the tank from the rising water main. So if you now turn on your shower the tank will start to empty until the ball-valve drops to allow the tank to re-fill from the rising main - since the inflow is faster than the outflow then the tank will fill quickly and the ball-valve will shut off yet the flow of water out of the shower head will remain constant even though the flow of water into the tank is fluctuating wildly. What you have there is an inflow of data with lots of jitter but the outflow of data is jitter free. That's sort of how the buffer in a CD player works and that's sort of why wobbly spindles and fluctuating motor speeds have no effect on what you hear.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
Forget about mixing and mastering......if a CD sounds bad its bad music. You cannot tell me that people who have abandoned the stand alone CDP for their laptop disc drive thru some laptop speakers are hearing all the music, to my mind that does not make much sense.....Especially when you go thru so much detail above on explaining the behind the scenes goings on of digital medium.
It does not work like that. You have to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Back in the days of purely analogue people were happy listening to cassettes, they were happy listening to the limited bandwith of FM radio and they were happy listening to the even more limited AM radio in all its monaural beauty. Hell, here in the UK we even had a telephone service called Dial-A-Disc that played music down the 3.3KHz telephone system and people were more than happy to pay to listen to that. Yet listening to a CD on a laptop PC is infinitely better than all those systems that people "in our day" were more than happy with. The point is that will all those "apples" systems people are hearing all the music, and we, with our "oranges" systems, are hearing all the same music, just in slightly better quality. If the music is good then it is good music regardless of the quality of the medium. When we start hearing the system rather than the music then it is us that's doing it wrong, not the people listening to music on their laptops.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
I am probably wrong...but to hear music the way you have described to me would only happen on a system that most of us could not afford or choose not to afford.....What the digital world describes is too perfect, again why I cannot argue what you wrote nor what the CD can do....its pretty close to perfection........100% agree.
Nope. Not really - I'm not a fan of price-ticket technology - adequate is good enough and in the digital world adequate is close to perfection anyway. I think we've become bogged down in detail, not the detail that the OP is talking of, but the detail of what is possible rather than the detail of what is actually there. As many posts (including yours and mine) have said - whatever faults we think we don't like it's not the fault of the medium used to carry the music, but of the way it is used or misused.
 
My laptop has a fan - it whirrs - I don't use laptop speakers (I have a nice pair of Kenwoods but seldom use them) -  I plug my headphones into the headphone socket and I can hear the music on a perfect soundstage and it's distortion free and I cannot hear the fan. My desktop has lots of fans - they whirr like crazy - I plug the output from my soundcard into my Audio Innovations amp and blast it out through some humonguous floor standing speakers at such a volume that I cannot hear the fans, or my wife screaming from the next room for me to turn it down so she can hear the telly or my neighbours pounding on the wall. I use that desktop to record and mix music - I use headphones for that because I want to listen to every nuance of every instrument and I want to construct the soundstage exactly how I want it. I have my CD player, NAD amp and Mission speakers in the same room as my laptop and I listen to music while typing away on this thing replying to posts on the PA. I don't notice the fan at all, some times I don't notice the CD has finished either.
 
 


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What?


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 15:12
^ Agree or disagree.....all this technical digital talk gives me a headache, just like I get when I listen to too much digital format music, CD or computer files on my home system or thru a portable media player.
 
Simply from a technical perspective of course you are right, I am sure you are right.....I don't doubt that. You are 100% right, the digital medium, unless introduced on purpose, has no distortion/noise that just appears....I agree, and I get your points with that, no arguement. And I don't think I have said "a CD has distortion".....If I did I was wrong, and I am sure that was not what I meant....If I said that.
 
People complain about the hiss from vinyl......Is that the vinyl or is it the recording? I just listened to my CD copy of VDGG H to He....it has hisss all thru the CD, my vinyl copy does not exhibt any hisss. So I know that was introduced somewhere in the transfer process, I suppose. Being that its "old prog"......I do not want to listen to my CD copy, as I do not want to hear that noise.
 
Moshkito.....it is 100% about the music, I have no idea what the recording sounds like, I don't own any master studio tapes, so I can only go by the consumer copies we all have to buy.....And in a lot of cases to "hear" the music of old prog I prefer vinyl.  I don't think I need to becareful because it is 100% a preference as I do have a choice, we all do.
 
In a lot of cases this discussion of analog-digital is the same as someone having a discussion of who is the better prog band......there is no answer, its a choice......And we all have our reasons why we do what we do.
 
The thought of having to look at my CDs and digital files as Dean explains them, gives me all the more reasons to look at digital as a very sterile medium, it has no life other than black and white....There is no grey area.......Music is not black and white, to me......That's not what I hear. Those early Genesis albums, as veiled by todays hi-fi terms are, back then were special and a lot of people heard the music then. Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad. The new music lovers of prog may not experience what I think people like Moshkito experienced back in the day, it is people like that who need to keep the music alive......and remind the young ones, its not all 0s and 1s......Its way more colorful than that, there are actual musical notes that make the sounds, not a computer plastic disc with pits or a file on a harddrive you cannot see.
 
Moshkito, you say you don't hear a difference in either......That is fine, I will not argue that, its your preference, but when I show my kids music I show them a vinyl record, I show them the grooves where that music lives, I get a magnifying glass and we look at the grooves and how they sway sideways and change shape, go from narrow to wide and I explain to them that IMO that is where the magic is........I choose to look at music that way.
 
Dean I don't think adequate is good enough, this site slams artists who are just adequate. But my choice on whatever media I listen to, I try not to settle for adequate....digital or analog, I prefer better.
 
Thanks again for all your information on the realities of digital.....I certainly look at it differently now.


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 17:56
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^ Agree or disagree.....all this technical digital talk gives me a headache, just like I get when I listen to too much digital format music, CD or computer files on my home system or thru a portable media player.
Do you know what gives me a headache?
 
Doing this  does Tongue
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
Simply from a technical perspective of course you are right, I am sure you are right.....I don't doubt that. You are 100% right, the digital medium, unless introduced on purpose, has no distortion/noise that just appears....I agree, and I get your points with that, no arguement. And I don't think I have said "a CD has distortion".....If I did I was wrong, and I am sure that was not what I meant....If I said that.
You did several times and not in any way that could be mistaken as something else. I would say it doesn't matter but it does. This kind of misrepresentation of what digital media is capable of fuels the arguments that really should not exist. At no point here have I ever denigrated analogue/vinyl or rubished it in any way - I just state the technical facts as they exist, not the subjective, emotional
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
People complain about the hiss from vinyl......Is that the vinyl or is it the recording? I just listened to my CD copy of VDGG H to He....it has hisss all thru the CD, my vinyl copy does not exhibt any hisss. So I know that was introduced somewhere in the transfer process, I suppose. Being that its "old prog"......I do not want to listen to my CD copy, as I do not want to hear that noise.
Another misconception. Hiss comes from magnetic tape. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_hiss" rel="nofollow - tape hiss . The hiss you are hearing on vinyl comes from the studio master tapes and that same hiss will be transfered to the CD media too. Because CD has more dynamic range than vinyl you can now hear more of this background hiss from the tape - the reason you cannot hear it so much on the vinyl is because vinyl doesn't have that dynamic range. The noise floor of tape is much lower than vinyl and the noise floor of digital is considerably lower than either of them. This still does not make vinyl better than digital just because it is incapable of reproducing this master tape hiss - you are hearing a different type of background noise that is relatively louder than tape hiss, but has a different frequency response and subconsciously you have become innured to it - it's always there so you no longer hear it. What you get from the vinyl media is scratch-noise and surface noise - it can sound a little like hiss because it is random (hiss is random noise) but it has a different audio spectra to tape hiss because it is related directly to the angular velocity of the groove so it is of a much lower frequency and therefore less intrusive. The quality of the vinyl material and the quality of the pressing contributes significantly to this noise. It is not only the physical scratches running over the grooves, it is the minor imperfections in the vinyl itself being picked up by the stylus.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
The thought of having to look at my CDs and digital files as Dean explains them, gives me all the more reasons to look at digital as a very sterile medium, it has no life other than black and white....There is no grey area.......Music is not black and white, to me......That's not what I hear. Those early Genesis albums, as veiled by todays hi-fi terms are, back then were special and a lot of people heard the music then. Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad. The new music lovers of prog may not experience what I think people like Moshkito experienced back in the day, it is people like that who need to keep the music alive......and remind the young ones, its not all 0s and 1s......Its way more colorful than that, there are actual musical notes that make the sounds, not a computer plastic disc with pits or a file on a harddrive you cannot see.
José, I'm 55 years old. I've listened to music since I was born (literally). I was there at the beginning of Prog and I have been involved in audio electronics since I was 15. I have been fanatical about analogue technology for all of that time - while I currently analyse ADCs and DACs for a living (among other things), I also design and build analogue amps and speakers as a hobby and have even built my own turntable and cassette deck. I look at everything scientifically but I listen with my heart, not by brain - if I like something I like something and nothing affects that.
 
Today's hi-fi terms are no different to those of 1972 - the quality of those early Genesis albums is shoddy by 1972 standards - there are better quality albums recorded in the same studio at the same time - whatever happened to them back then was not special (well it was, but not in a positive way) - a  review of Nursery Cryme from 1971 states: "... It's the godawful production, a murky, distant stew that at best bubbles quietly when what is desperately needed are the explosions...", that's not a retrospective view seen through murky spectacles or one measured by today's standards - that was a contemporary view from the year it was released. You cannot blame today's technology for that ("Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad").
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
Dean I don't think adequate is good enough, this site slams artists who are just adequate. But my choice on whatever media I listen to, I try not to settle for adequate....digital or analog, I prefer better.
That's not what I said (or meant) - Adequate digital is as close to perfect as anyone needs to be. The returns on going from adequate to absolute perfect are not worth the expense. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating or over-stating the case here - there is so little you can do to improve on a $100 CD player. The technical information I have given over the past 24 hours shows that all the extra money spent on making rock-solid transport mechanics is a wasted effort - its disingenuous marketing to claim that some fancy design of CD transport reduces jitter, because even though it is probably a very true statement, it is irrelevant because transport induced jitter was rendered irrelevant over 25 years ago. A $500 CD player has the same transport mechanism as a $50 CD player and is made by the same manufacturer under licence from Sony or Philips in Korea or China, there is a pretty high probability that they will also use exactly the same DAC chips and controller chips. It is this simple observation that opened my eyes to the dishonesty in hi-fi marketing, not just in these digital systems but across the whole spectrum, from cables through to analogue systems, amplifiers, pre-amps, stands, sound absorption matting and all the other unnecessary paraphernalia they try and sell us. The only two areas that have some integrity left for me are turntables and speakers because they are improved with better mechanical engineering because they are electro-mechanical devices - a better engineered turntable will be better than a cheap plastic one, better engineered speakers will be better than cheap plastic ones.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
 Thanks again for all your information on the realities of digital.....I certainly look at it differently now.
Hopefully in the right direction.


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What?


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 20:12
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:



 
Listen, I have heard how bad CDs/Digital can sound.....In most cases the reason is due to the components being used, again forget about mixing/mastering. Since we don't know what the actual recorded music sounded like in the studio, we only have the consumer CD to go by.
If you are a listener of music on your laptop.....I see no way how you can decribe to me soundstage, dynamic range, distortion free music as compared to a well matched hi-fi component system......on the surface. So you are NOT hearing nor taking advantage of what the digital medium can offer, as Dean has described. And please.....I am not advocating you go out and spend US$5,000 or more for a system, that's not my point. That's a different topic/thread......
 



This sounds like it was addressed to me so I will respond to this.

First off, I never specified that I use laptop speakers and I don't.  I have a desktop and I connect a 5.1 set to its speaker slot.  I never use laptop speakers because they are simply too feeble to listen to music on, let alone dynamic or not.   If I use the laptop to listen to music, it is only with headphones, whereby you can hear every detail in the recording.

As for dynamics blah blah blah, I have remasters of several 60s and 70s albums like Abbey Road, DSOTM, SEBTP, Red, I have CDs that were not remastered like Virgin Killer, Novella and I have contemporary albums of different styles and genres from pop to world music.  I have also attended several concerts of rock, world and classical music so I know what is dynamics and when it is and is not captured on a recording.    Shakti's Saturday Night Live at Bombay recording sounds possibly better than actually hearing it in concert  - and I have seen them live - because there is too much distraction in an actual concert to notice all the details  - even with modern sound systems where the mikes don't play mischief with the musicians.    So I have good reason to believe the medium is capable of faithfully reproducing what the musicians play, IF that is what they want.  Even in the analog age, some artists used delay and overdub in horrible ways to achieve a certain effect so that kind of decision does not reflect the capability of the medium itself.  


So please don't try to tell me I have not heard dynamics on a digital recording because that is patently untrue.  If you don't like digital, that's fine, but it doesn't mean those who use digital format albums cannot derive enjoyment out of those; it only means you with your possibly nostalgic attachment to vinyl cannot.   


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: September 19 2012 at 20:32
Originally posted by presdoug presdoug wrote:

And there is not as much diversity or individuality in Classical music interpretation today. In the golden age, you had "the Stokowski Sound", "the Toscanini Sound", the "Furtwangler school" of interpretation.
   Nowadays, a lot of important orchestras and their conductors sound so much alike, it's scary.
            As each year passes, people tuned into the older eras die off, and i know you all know that already, but it really is a shame. A lot of today's crowd don't know what they are missing, and that is a crime.
I have been doing some further reading of this thread, and thinking.
        It is not the fact that today's classical performances are recorded digitally that is the bad thing. It is the interpretive quality that is lacking.
                  Today's orchestras sound so much alike and are so bland  because of the lacklustre conducting techniques
                        If Toscanini or Bruno Walter or Leopold Stokowski were alive today and could use today's digital technology, we would have great conducting showing itself in up to date digital recordings, and i bet it would sound!
                   The fact that there are no pianists like Artur Schnabel or Claudio Arrau anymore is not the fault of today's digital technology.


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 20 2012 at 11:41
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
Simply from a technical perspective of course you are right, I am sure you are right.....I don't doubt that. You are 100% right, the digital medium, unless introduced on purpose, has no distortion/noise that just appears....I agree, and I get your points with that, no arguement. And I don't think I have said "a CD has distortion".....If I did I was wrong, and I am sure that was not what I meant....If I said that.
Originally posted by dean dean wrote:

You did several times and not in any way that could be mistaken as something else. I would say it doesn't matter but it does. This kind of misrepresentation of what digital media is capable of fuels the arguments that really should not exist. At no point here have I ever denigrated analogue/vinyl or rubished it in any way - I just state the technical facts as they exist, not the subjective, emotional
 
Dean please read my posts in this thread, I have not said that.....from the start I have agreed with you over and over on all the techincal aspects of digital. It does matter when you are saying something I have not indicated, and i don't want anyone on this forum to think I believe the digital medium is not the best for music, from a purely numbers perspective....Again I will state what I have said already....I cannot argue the tech specs of digital, there is no discernable distortion within the digital medium, you can't hear any if it exists in the 0s and 1s.
I have been on the CD bandwagon since 1985, when as a 21yr old I purchased my first player a Sony CDP-302.....The best I could afford at that time I remember it was US$599, at 21 that was a ton of money for me, so I remember. I had enough money left to buy 3-4 CDs.....And I was blown away at what I was hearing.....It was better than sliced bread!
That player was built very well, it finally died on me 2yrs ago......The value that player returned to me for over 20yrs was more than worth it. But as a hi-fi enthusiast, I realized about 5-7yrs ago, it was not sounding as good as what I was hearing at hi-fi stores.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
People complain about the hiss from vinyl......Is that the vinyl or is it the recording? I just listened to my CD copy of VDGG H to He....it has hisss all thru the CD, my vinyl copy does not exhibt any hisss. So I know that was introduced somewhere in the transfer process, I suppose. Being that its "old prog"......I do not want to listen to my CD copy, as I do not want to hear that noise.
Originally posted by dean dean wrote:

Another misconception. Hiss comes from magnetic tape. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_hiss" rel="nofollow - tape hiss . The hiss you are hearing on vinyl comes from the studio master tapes and that same hiss will be transfered to the CD media too. Because CD has more dynamic range than vinyl you can now hear more of this background hiss from the tape - the reason you cannot hear it so much on the vinyl is because vinyl doesn't have that dynamic range. The noise floor of tape is much lower than vinyl and the noise floor of digital is considerably lower than either of them. This still does not make vinyl better than digital just because it is incapable of reproducing this master tape hiss - you are hearing a different type of background noise that is relatively louder than tape hiss, but has a different frequency response and subconsciously you have become innured to it - it's always there so you no longer hear it. What you get from the vinyl media is scratch-noise and surface noise - it can sound a little like hiss because it is random (hiss is random noise) but it has a different audio spectra to tape hiss because it is related directly to the angular velocity of the groove so it is of a much lower frequency and therefore less intrusive. The quality of the vinyl material and the quality of the pressing contributes significantly to this noise. It is not only the physical scratches running over the grooves, it is the minor imperfections in the vinyl itself being picked up by the stylus.
 
Here I feel you are putting words in my mouth and also telling me what I am hearing. I have had a multitude of cassette decks and also still own an Akai reel-reel deck...I know what tape hiss is. And yes you are right the hiss comes from the master recording tapes.....That is all good and fine and I agree. My comment was that the vinyl version I have of this album, you cannot hear the hiss that is present on the CD version. Its what my ears hear, in those cases technical terms do not come into play, its what I actually hear......What the reason is I am not sure because again, your explanation makes sense from a technical position, but the A/B comparison shows me the vinyl has better playback, and again its why I don't listen to this album on CD.....it is what it is.
Your preaching to the choir on vinyl imperfections and how the stylus picks it all up.......Its why I am meticulous on my cleaning and care of vinyl.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
The thought of having to look at my CDs and digital files as Dean explains them, gives me all the more reasons to look at digital as a very sterile medium, it has no life other than black and white....There is no grey area.......Music is not black and white, to me......That's not what I hear. Those early Genesis albums, as veiled by todays hi-fi terms are, back then were special and a lot of people heard the music then. Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad. The new music lovers of prog may not experience what I think people like Moshkito experienced back in the day, it is people like that who need to keep the music alive......and remind the young ones, its not all 0s and 1s......Its way more colorful than that, there are actual musical notes that make the sounds, not a computer plastic disc with pits or a file on a harddrive you cannot see.
Originally posted by dean dean wrote:

José, I'm 55 years old. I've listened to music since I was born (literally). I was there at the beginning of Prog and I have been involved in audio electronics since I was 15. I have been fanatical about analogue technology for all of that time - while I currently analyse ADCs and DACs for a living (among other things), I also design and build analogue amps and speakers as a hobby and have even built my own turntable and cassette deck. I look at everything scientifically but I listen with my heart, not by brain - if I like something I like something and nothing affects that.
Today's hi-fi terms are no different to those of 1972 - the quality of those early Genesis albums is shoddy by 1972 standards - there are better quality albums recorded in the same studio at the same time - whatever happened to them back then was not special (well it was, but not in a positive way) - a  review of Nursery Cryme from 1971 states: "... It's the godawful production, a murky, distant stew that at best bubbles quietly when what is desperately needed are the explosions...", that's not a retrospective view seen through murky spectacles or one measured by today's standards - that was a contemporary view from the year it was released. You cannot blame today's technology for that ("Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad").
 
Now you are trying to argue subjective comments, which is fine, these are not techincal comments I made. Again, read what I stated already. I said that those early Genesis albums are horrid on vinyl, period. I also own the remastered versions on CD and vinyl and I prefer the vinyl and that's what I listen to. The original Genesis copies I stated are put away for safe keeping since they are original copies. The only remaster copy I do not own is The Lamb...I actually like the original vinyl version I have as its not as veiled as the first few. A small tweek on my Treble knob and its much better...My other system I have a 10-band EQ, and I can make the sound much better to my ears.
 
You hit on exactly what I am talking about when you wrote.. "whatever happened to them back then was not special (well it was, but not in a positive way)"
Exactly!!! Not positive from a subjective listening point of view....but very positive in the statement they made and to me that feeling comes out more on vinyl than the remastered CD versions. Its ok Dean.....come to the Dark Side, let your feelings flow!!! LOL 
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
Dean I don't think adequate is good enough, this site slams artists who are just adequate. But my choice on whatever media I listen to, I try not to settle for adequate....digital or analog, I prefer better.
Originally posted by dean dean wrote:

That's not what I said (or meant) - Adequate digital is as close to perfect as anyone needs to be. The returns on going from adequate to absolute perfect are not worth the expense. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating or over-stating the case here - there is so little you can do to improve on a $100 CD player. The technical information I have given over the past 24 hours shows that all the extra money spent on making rock-solid transport mechanics is a wasted effort - its disingenuous marketing to claim that some fancy design of CD transport reduces jitter, because even though it is probably a very true statement, it is irrelevant because transport induced jitter was rendered irrelevant over 25 years ago. A $500 CD player has the same transport mechanism as a $50 CD player and is made by the same manufacturer under licence from Sony or Philips in Korea or China, there is a pretty high probability that they will also use exactly the same DAC chips and controller chips. It is this simple observation that opened my eyes to the dishonesty in hi-fi marketing, not just in these digital systems but across the whole spectrum, from cables through to analogue systems, amplifiers, pre-amps, stands, sound absorption matting and all the other unnecessary paraphernalia they try and sell us. The only two areas that have some integrity left for me are turntables and speakers because they are improved with better mechanical engineering because they are electro-mechanical devices - a better engineered turntable will be better than a cheap plastic one, better engineered speakers will be better than cheap plastic ones.
 
I will clarify, adequate is not good enough for me, maybe for you and that is fine.....I will not argue what you prefer, but I will state my experiences.
I am a very frugal buyer when it comes to equipment. I too am not of the camp that $1000 spkr cable is needed to hear the music, or $500 interconnects are the only way to go and I don't believe in wall treatments or blocks to keep my cables off the floor or that this spkr stand makes the music sound better.....Certainly there are people who swear on it, but that is 100% subjective opinion that it "sounds better so it must be right...here is all my money, I am in!" NO...I am not of that camp. The musical return for me on a set of $500 cables is nowhere near worth it.......I have taken many, many sets for trial and returned everyone of them. The most I have spent was about US$12.25 per meter for 10AWG Belden cable with locking banana terminations...These cables were head and shoulders above the mid level 16AWG Monster Cable I was using. The musical return on my investment is easily double the price.
 
Now I have owned many CDPs, I cannot agree with your conclusion on the build quality of a $100 player compared to a $500 player, and I leave the door open a bit as we are not mentioning any brand names. I think there would be 1000s of R&D, engineers who might have a problem with that, and of course let alone the marketing folks. For example, I have had several $100 DVD players and have connected them to my system and played CDs....completely sound like A$$, the transports make noise, they clank you can hear the disc spinning loudly...I don't have equipment to test the sound, but my ears know the difference and its not good.
Now I agree there is a price point that to me, does not make sense to go over as I agree the upgrade value does not come into play. I have heard many CDP in the $1k to $2k range and I cannot hear an appreciable difference as compared to my NAD player. The dealer I use has Rega, NAD, Rotel, Naim, Marantz......and I have sat and listened to my own CDs and the upper priced, feature loaded players.....nahhh your not getting me to pay $1k+. My auditioning experience has shown me that the price of diminishing returns starts at about $400-$500, after that you are paying for extra features and not sound improvement.....and that is all subjective because if you want to buy it, go ahead its your money. 
So I believe the one misconception that both you and I would agree on is......its not the CD that sounds bad, but the equipment that its playing on...then from there people might state, "CDs are not the best...",
 
I do agree the better engineered CDP are out on the market and have been, not much else they can do although I do believe there are better DACs on the horizon for the audio industry.....The CDP mfgs will need to somehow incorporate higher end DACs that can help fight the download wars and somehow design the plastic CD to allow storage of these hi-rez files and move up from Redbook 16/44.1 (another topic, not going there now)....but maybe not, and there in lies another conversation about is the "CD Dead?". Many listeners here download a lot.......they may not care about CDs anymore.
 
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
 Thanks again for all your information on the realities of digital.....I certainly look at it differently now.
Originally posted by dean dean wrote:

Hopefully in the right direction.
 
Basically you technically confirmed what my mind kinda assumed from 25yrs ago......that digital is the best medium. But yes, I do look at the CD and Digital and now more than ever dislike it from its sterile, lifless mathematical perspective. Yes the music sounds excellent......and at the end of the day its all about the ears and the experience...Music is art, subjective art, and to me analog is better for my ears and heart for experiencing music and that is my choice and I will defend it everyday. Nothing is gonna make me stop listening to my CDs or digital files, because on my system they sound amazing! My vinyl also sounds amazing........
 
But..... a perfect digital photograph copy of the Mona Lisa......is not the Mona Lisa.
 
Have a great day.....enjoy the music.
 


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 20 2012 at 17:06
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

Dean please read my posts in this thread, I have not said that.....from the start I have agreed with you over and over on all the techincal aspects of digital. It does matter when you are saying something I have not indicated, and i don't want anyone on this forum to think I believe the digital medium is not the best for music, from a purely numbers perspective....Again I will state what I have said already....I cannot argue the tech specs of digital, there is no discernable distortion within the digital medium, you can't hear any if it exists in the 0s and 1s.
I have been on the CD bandwagon since 1985, when as a 21yr old I purchased my first player a Sony CDP-302.....The best I could afford at that time I remember it was US$599, at 21 that was a ton of money for me, so I remember. I had enough money left to buy 3-4 CDs.....And I was blown away at what I was hearing.....It was better than sliced bread!
That player was built very well, it finally died on me 2yrs ago......The value that player returned to me for over 20yrs was more than worth it. But as a hi-fi enthusiast, I realized about 5-7yrs ago, it was not sounding as good as what I was hearing at hi-fi stores.
 
Then I have misunderstood what you have been saying everytime you've used the word "distortion" in relation to CD players. If you didn't mean distortion then don't use the word because it has a very specific meaning when referring to audio signals. For example, you said: "But the spindle motor, the pulley system used to move the laser, the rails the housing rides on.....are all mechanical and can contribute to noise/distortion/sibilance whatever u wanna call it" ... after I carefully explained that they cannot. You even drew the parallel to vinyl playback systems which do exhibit those mechanically induced distortions because it is intuitive to assume that if one does then the other must. But that isn't the case.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

 
Here I feel you are putting words in my mouth and also telling me what I am hearing. I have had a multitude of cassette decks and also still own an Akai reel-reel deck...I know what tape hiss is. And yes you are right the hiss comes from the master recording tapes.....That is all good and fine and I agree. My comment was that the vinyl version I have of this album, you cannot hear the hiss that is present on the CD version. Its what my ears hear, in those cases technical terms do not come into play, its what I actually hear......What the reason is I am not sure because again, your explanation makes sense from a technical position, but the A/B comparison shows me the vinyl has better playback, and again its why I don't listen to this album on CD.....it is what it is.
Your preaching to the choir on vinyl imperfections and how the stylus picks it all up.......Its why I am meticulous on my cleaning and care of vinyl.
Sorry, that one is due to my poor explanation, I got a little carried away with my words there.
 
I'll have one more go then call it quits.
 
1. In the studio the album is recorded onto a master tape - this tape has tape-hiss
2. That recording is then transfered from the master tape to vinyl but because the vinyl cannot reproduce the hiss you don't hear it.
3. The exact same recording is transferred from the master tape to CD but because the CD can reproduce the hiss you do hear it.
4. From that you state that the vinyl has better playback because you cannot hear the hiss.
 
I disagree, I accept that you prefer the vinyl version, but I do not accept that it is better - the missing "hiss" also indicates that there are other elements of the actual recording that the vinyl also does not reproduce - all those subtle inflections, the final milliseconds of the decay of a notes and the quiet ambient nuances of each instrument. Of course all those may be irrelevant, but when people start using words like "fidelity" and "audiophile" and decry the modern fashion of over-compression I do start to wonder whether they really want all those things that they strive for, because the opposite of over-compression is no compression at all, and with that the tape-hiss and the subtle nuances of the recording can be heard. To me it seems that what people really want is CD that sounds exactly like vinyl, with all it's flaws and limitations, and I think that is a mistake.
 
The opening track on Secret Green's To Wake the King is the slowest crescendo I have ever heard - it employs the dynamic range of the digital medium to its fullest starting from absolute zero and steadily rising to maximum volume over the space of three and a half minutes - because it was mastered in the digital domain there is no tape hiss, yet it is far from sterile and cold. It's stunning and it's beautiful and you will never reproduce that on vinyl because the beginning of that crescendo would be lost due to the limited dynamic range of the vinyl media.
 
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

   
Now you are trying to argue subjective comments, which is fine, these are not techincal comments I made. Again, read what I stated already. I said that those early Genesis albums are horrid on vinyl, period. I also own the remastered versions on CD and vinyl and I prefer the vinyl and that's what I listen to. The original Genesis copies I stated are put away for safe keeping since they are original copies. The only remaster copy I do not own is The Lamb...I actually like the original vinyl version I have as its not as veiled as the first few. A small tweek on my Treble knob and its much better...My other system I have a 10-band EQ, and I can make the sound much better to my ears.
 
You hit on exactly what I am talking about when you wrote.. "whatever happened to them back then was not special (well it was, but not in a positive way)"
Exactly!!! Not positive from a subjective listening point of view....but very positive in the statement they made and to me that feeling comes out more on vinyl than the remastered CD versions. Its ok Dean.....come to the Dark Side, let your feelings flow!!! LOL 
I have the feeling I have no real idea what you originally meant, I certainly think I totally misread what you were saying. I thought your comment: "The thought of having to look at my CDs and digital files as Dean explains them, gives me all the more reasons to look at digital as a very sterile medium, it has no life other than black and white....There is no grey area.......Music is not black and white, to me......That's not what I hear. Those early Genesis albums, as veiled by todays hi-fi terms are, back then were special and a lot of people heard the music then. Todays technology maybe has made some of that go away, to me that is sad. " was about looking at those early Genesis albums from a modern perspective and finding them lacking, that somehow what we (and I mentioned my age and background to emphasise that I am of that generation who discovered Genesis when those albums were originally released), thought those albums were better than they sound today. That it was the fault of modern technology that we now find those albums to be of poor production. Obviously I see now that is not what you meant, but since that is the case I do fail to see exactly what you did mean.
 
Other than that I'm kind of disappointed that I've given the impression that I am totally objective - sure if we're talking technology and engineering I can be coldly objective - that's why the word "better" has such a narrow definition for me - if A is better than B it is because objectively and empirically it can be measured to be better - that is not a subjective word for me so if I prefer A to B then that does not mean (nor can it ever mean) that A is better than B - objectively B can be better than A but I will still prefer A to B. Mike Portnoy is objectively a better drummer than Nick Mason, but subjectively I'll take Nick every time.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
I will clarify, adequate is not good enough for me, maybe for you and that is fine.....I will not argue what you prefer, but I will state my experiences.
I am a very frugal buyer when it comes to equipment. I too am not of the camp that $1000 spkr cable is needed to hear the music, or $500 interconnects are the only way to go and I don't believe in wall treatments or blocks to keep my cables off the floor or that this spkr stand makes the music sound better.....Certainly there are people who swear on it, but that is 100% subjective opinion that it "sounds better so it must be right...here is all my money, I am in!" NO...I am not of that camp. The musical return for me on a set of $500 cables is nowhere near worth it.......I have taken many, many sets for trial and returned everyone of them. The most I have spent was about US$12.25 per meter for 10AWG Belden cable with locking banana terminations...These cables were head and shoulders above the mid level 16AWG Monster Cable I was using. The musical return on my investment is easily double the price.
 
Now I have owned many CDPs, I cannot agree with your conclusion on the build quality of a $100 player compared to a $500 player, and I leave the door open a bit as we are not mentioning any brand names. I think there would be 1000s of R&D, engineers who might have a problem with that, and of course let alone the marketing folks. For example, I have had several $100 DVD players and have connected them to my system and played CDs....completely sound like A$$, the transports make noise, they clank you can hear the disc spinning loudly...I don't have equipment to test the sound, but my ears know the difference and its not good.
Now I agree there is a price point that to me, does not make sense to go over as I agree the upgrade value does not come into play. I have heard many CDP in the $1k to $2k range and I cannot hear an appreciable difference as compared to my NAD player. The dealer I use has Rega, NAD, Rotel, Naim, Marantz......and I have sat and listened to my own CDs and the upper priced, feature loaded players.....nahhh your not getting me to pay $1k+. My auditioning experience has shown me that the price of diminishing returns starts at about $400-$500, after that you are paying for extra features and not sound improvement.....and that is all subjective because if you want to buy it, go ahead its your money. 
I never mentioned build quality so I could not have given a conclusion on that.
 
I said that $100 and $500 CD players use the same internal transport mechanisms. Just like PC manufacturer they buy them in and install them into their own cases and fit their own electronics - the transport in my LG DVD player is made by LiteOn - the one in my Philips DVD/HDD player is exactly the same as the one in my PC - the one in my Cambridge Audio CD deck was made by Sony. And it's not just limited to $500 decks - there is the http://gizmodo.com/5450893/lexicon-charges-3500-for-a-repackaged-500-oppo-blu+ray-player" rel="nofollow - infamous incident of Lexicon charging £3500 for an audiophile blu-ray player that was in reality an unmodified $500 Oppo player in a Lexicon box.
 
Sure the external build quality of a $500 player is better than a $100 one because it has to be, if only for cosmetic purposes, and perhaps internally it may be constructed a little better, and for the money I would hope that the analogue section of the electronics is at least their own design and is made to a high standard. As I said before, if your CD player sounds crap then it's the fault of the analogue section.
 
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
So I believe the one misconception that both you and I would agree on is......its not the CD that sounds bad, but the equipment that its playing on...then from there people might state, "CDs are not the best...",
I have not said that either.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
 
I do agree the better engineered CDP are out on the market and have been, not much else they can do although I do believe there are better DACs on the horizon for the audio industry.....The CDP mfgs will need to somehow incorporate higher end DACs that can help fight the download wars and somehow design the plastic CD to allow storage of these hi-rez files and move up from Redbook 16/44.1 (another topic, not going there now)....but maybe not, and there in lies another conversation about is the "CD Dead?". Many listeners here download a lot.......they may not care about CDs anymore.
sorry, you've lost me. You are quoting techincal things that you really need to back up with technical information. As JediJoker7169 as already mentioned SACD and how that has failed to catch on, I am at a loss to see where you are going with this.
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
 
 
But..... a perfect digital photograph copy of the Mona Lisa......is not the Mona Lisa.
 
 
Again, you've lost me - an imperfect "analogue" photographic copy of the Mona Lisa... is not the Mona Lisa either. Confused

-------------
What?


Posted By: pitfall
Date Posted: September 20 2012 at 17:47
Yes, I agree that the original topic was about recorded sound, but I think that it is deeply connected to the way that the music was created. They are two ends of the same process.
When I record, I have a deep relationship with the instruments and other equipment that I use.
Personally, I don't feel any connection to a plug-in or a virtual simulation. They just sound and feel phoney to me.


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 20 2012 at 22:39
Dean I am fine with your comments........Some things we agree to disagree on, but not the technical specifications, we are on the same page.
And I am not surprised I may have lost you with my comments.......Its what happens on the internet and forums when trying to explain such things.
Some things are better done in person.........one day we will break bread and share a few pints and walk away understanding each other.
 
Have a great day....


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Posted By: fs_tol
Date Posted: September 21 2012 at 02:43
I just read the whole thread and as a sound processing amateur wanted to thank Dean for making such an exhaustive (for a nontechnical forum) case on the shortcomings of analog versus digital sound. If an objective view is to be taken, I'd say a good summary is that digital has the theoretic (thanks to mr. Nyquist) potential to reproduce analog, but not the other way around. Being young enough to not have experienced all the mysticism surrounding vinyls and be biased by extramusical affairs, I prefer this objective victory.
I think it's important to emphasize that the often critiziced sound of digital audio is not due to format but to mastering practices used by modern producers.
A little offtopic question to Dean: we know bandwidth is not an issue, but what about resolution? Do you think 16 bits is enough to reproduce music?


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 21 2012 at 07:21
Originally posted by fs_tol fs_tol wrote:

A little offtopic question to Dean: we know bandwidth is not an issue, but what about resolution? Do you think 16 bits is enough to reproduce music?
My ears tell me yes it is, but then I don't get listener fatigue and headaches listening to digital like some people do and I don't find it cold and sterile either, so perhaps my ears are not good judges. (A little self-deprication and humility isn't a bad thing Wink)
 
16 bits is a theoretical dynamic range of 90dB - from a signal made of +1step to a maximum of ±32,768step is 90dBs:
 
so if you can hear a baby breathing while stood next to a large truck that is a dynamic range of 90dB. Now some people will argue that the 1step "baby breathing" component of that 90dB dynamic range is a square-wave so cannot be an accurate representation of the original recording, and this is true, but first consider the harmonic content of a square-wave:
As you can see the harmonics are considerably smaller than the fundamental note, and as we've alredy established that the fundamental is -90dB below the maximum volume recorded on the CD then these harmonics are even further down heading towards the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_threshold_of_hearing" rel="nofollow - threshold of human hearing  and probably even below it. For very quiet sounds we cannot tell the tonal quality of that sound, if it is distorted we cannot tell.
 
Now, that's the classical explanation and it all makes perfect sense, so why then do we use 20 and 24 bits in a studio and why to digital guru's swear by 24-bits? The reason for the former is also very simple and makes perfect sense. The ADCs and DACs are linear, they have to be to accurately reproduce the signal voltages, but we don't hear voltage, we hear power and power is a square law of voltage so our hearing is logarithmic - dBs are logarithmic for that very reason. So when we digitise a signal at half the maximum voltage we get a reduction in power of only 6dB - we can barely notice the difference - we are using  ±16384steps (15 bits) instead of  ±32,768steps (16bits) and getting a barely noticable reduction in volume. To get a reduction in percieved volume of a half we need to reduce the voltage by considerably more (loudness is realtive so half as loud as a truck would be something around 45dB) - a 45dB reduction in volume equates to an 180 times reduction in voltage which is 364steps or 8.5-bit resolution. The implications of that are pretty obvious - in the studio if you mix two instruments one of maximum volume and one half as loud the second is being recorded with the equivalent resolution of 8-bits. When you do that at 24-bit resolution the equivalent resolution of the second instrument is 12-bits, an obvious improvement. BUT (and that's a big butt) this does not mean that 24-bits will automatically give better quality in any subjective or objective measures, what 24-bits gives the sound recording engineer is more room to play with, it lifts the quiet passages out of the studio's inherrant noise floor and allows greater headroom for any sudden loud bursts.
 
Remember - this only applies to recording - on playback if you reduce the volume control on your stereo to half volume you are still hearing 16-bits - the volume reduction is applied after conversion to analogue, in the recording studio it is effectively applied before. The aim of a studio is to keep all the components of the mix at as high a resolution as is possible and 24-bits is (at the moment) a technology limit - the dynamic range afforded by 24-bits puts us into the cosmic background-radiation noise region (joke!) - anything greater than 24-bits is way beyond the threshold of human hearing..
 
So, why do digital guru's then swear by 24-bits when saving their treasured recordings to their iPlods and PCs? Part of the reason is peer pressure and techno-envy - if it's good enough for the studio boys then it's good enough for them. In double-blind ABX testing most people cannot tell the difference, but some can - not enough to produce any statitistically meaningful conclusion - but enough to create a psychological advantage for using 24-bits. There is also the psychological advantage that 24 is bigger than16 and 96K is bigger than 44.1K and that must be better (must it not?).
 
 
Some of it is to do with data-rates and file sizes - lossless file formats are still compressing the data - they are not losing any aural information but they are still reducing the file size when storing and the data-rate when transmitting the data. Raw data comming off a pre-recorded CD at 16/44K is a data-rate of 1.35Mb/s (to put that into prespective that is RF - in the UK our national AM radio station transmitted its programming on a carrier wave of 1.2Mhz), for a  24/96K recording the data-rate is 4.49Mb/s ... the resultant file sizes for 3 minutes of music are 30Mb and 99Mb respectively and these are wholey impractical numbers when it comes to storing them on a PC or iPlod. MP3 conversion reduces that by a factor of 10 but with losses (that some can hear and some cannot). I've covered all this ground before in various posts here so I'll not bore everyone further, but what we get with any form of compression are trade-offs between resolution, sampling frequencies, bit-rates and file sizes.


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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 21 2012 at 10:21
^ Perfect......I have always stated redbook playback of 16/44.1 is more than enough. I have a couple 24/96 hi-rez downloads and I cannot hear the difference, it sounds wonderful no doubt....But the added cost and the missing pcs of either a physical record label issued booklet/jewelcase or a vinyl gatefold, its not enough.
 
Even my yellow lab has told me.."dude, even I can't hear any difference...stop already..." he is a funny dog that way.
 
For those people I have concluded its mostly in their head due to peer pressure and the need to have something better than your next door neighbor.......Which is certainly their right to have.
I have no issue paying more for something better, but the return has to be worth it.


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Posted By: JediJoker7169
Date Posted: September 21 2012 at 17:04
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:

What I really want to know is why DSD (SACD) has not become the universal digital audio standard.  It is vastly superior to PCM (CD, DVD-A, Blu-ray Audio and everything else) in its approximation of analog waveforms, leading to a warmer, more "analog-sounding" recording, without the drawbacks of analog technology.  And on top of that, why are optical discs still the primary storage medium of uncompressed (and losslessly compressed) audio recordings?  Other electronic components transitioned to solid state long ago (even if tubes sound great).  It's like we're still living in the '80s when it comes to high-end consumer audio.

Cost more than anything else. SACD has "failed" because most consumers cannot tell the difference between cheap and cheerful CD (or low bit-rate mp3) and anything better, even when the playback equipment was effectivelty free (PS3) no one could be bothered to buy the SACD discs to play on it. CDs are still around because they are stupidly cheap and very easy to reproduce - solid state storage is far more expensive and ultimately redundant since the content can be delivered directly - downloads have pretty much replaced optical discs.

Someone else made reference to Betamax vs. VHS, which is almost exactly apples to apples in the SACD vs. DVD-Audio arena:

- Sony developed both Beta and SACD (the latter with Philips)
- Both Beta and SACD were/are inherently superior to their rivals (VHS and DVD-Audio)
- Both failed because of obstacles to adoption (licensing for Beta, host of issues for SACD)

Given all the givens, I am not surprised that SACD has failed.  I am not talking about consumer choices here, but industry ones.  DSD is better than PCM.  Any discerning artist or recording/mixing/mastering engineer can tell the difference.  Sony and Philips are both bona fide industry giants.  If they had marketed and licensed DSD properly, as they did S/PDIF, it should have overtaken PCM and become the new standard in digital audio off which every digital A/V filetype was based.  Digital audio interfaces (studio and consumer DACs) would be running at 1-bit and sampling at 2.8 or 5.6 MHz instead of 24-bit and 96 or 192 KHz.  CDs and CD players would have disappeared, replaced with lower-priced stereo SACDs.  Download retailers would be selling compressed DSD files instead of PCM ones.

I can't help it.  I'm an idealist.


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 22 2012 at 13:10
Hi,
 
I just came up with something ... that I believe is important.
 
First ... all the kudos to Dean, in showing what "recording" is really all about ... which is something that most of us take for granted.
 
This is a bit of Zen ... and it does not mean that it is right or wrong!
 
There was a moment in time, that was recorded!
 
That moment can not be duplicated, or enhanced. It might get a "digital" idealization that makes it sound "better" because in those days there were not as many tracks as today to make the separation and the combination of these things as good as before.
 
That moment, has, ALL the feelings and details POSSIBLE for that moment to live, die, be remembered, whatever we want to draw out of it!
 
To think that this process, or that process, can better express that moment is, as Dean suggests a totally subjective art, that could be said to be all about preferences!
 
However, in this, we are confusing ... the original ... for our own ideas.
 
I commented that the rehashes of King Crimson, I just heard, were NOT any livelier to my imagination than they were when I first heard them 40 some years ago ... though they sounded much cleaner and obviously better distributed through out the ears on your headset of stereo equipment!
 
Again, this has nothing to do with the original piece ... and how it can get to you! The HOW, or what clothes the musicians were wearing, is an issue today for advertising, not a fact of the music or its very specific moment in time!
 
I have a hard time accepting that some folks can "hear" this today, and could not "hear" it yesterday ... so it what was it like, then, now? Or what was it like now, compared to "then" ... and as Peter Cook once said ... "smelly"!
 
I really think that we're convincing ourselves that something is better than it really is ... it was great already! But for Robert Fripp's ears, it might have realized some recording potential that he might have enjoyed learning about 40 years ago, and worked with sooner than later! It adds to his sonic knowledge of how he plays and works with things, and this Steven Wilson is a very good helper and teacher for Robert!
 
In reality, it tells you how many studios charged so much and created crap in the end ... and a lot of this music was really lucky to get out in one piece. REALLY LUCKY!


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 22 2012 at 16:08
@ Dean
 
"Therefore bandwidth issues between analogue and digital are not that different in reality, however what we see empirically when we do spectral analysis of both system is significantly flatter responses in digital systems  - whether that is important or not is open to debate - what it does not affect too greatly is soundstaging because the tonal soundstage you hear is pretty close to what the record producer wanted you to hear."
 
Unfortunately, any differences in the flatness of frequency response between digital and analogue retrieval equipment will be utterly masked by the speakers in use. No speaker I have ever tested has had a remotely flat response - some major anomalies can occur, particularly round the crossover frequencies. Ironically, this may not affect the subjective performance of the speakers. In the early 80s, my university department acquired a new design - the Tangent RS4 - which we found had an exceptionally fine acoustic performance - but analysis of its frequency response and impedance characteristics showed a very non-linear response. Yet I still have the speakers and use them from time to time and they sound very good to this day. Another design with a much more linear response sounded far worse to all the judges. I spent 6 months with the acoustics team trying to quantify why this was in terms of a mathematical/physical model and we could not put our finger on precisely why.
 
I think that you can get too hung up on measurements; some seem to matter a lot (wow & flutter, distortion) others are far less important. And whether you prefer digital/analogue is extremely subjective - like why some people drink lager and others drink bitter.
 
Me, I'm an analogue/real ale man, but that's just my taste.


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A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life.


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 22 2012 at 17:48
Originally posted by Hercules Hercules wrote:

@ Dean
 
"Therefore bandwidth issues between analogue and digital are not that different in reality, however what we see empirically when we do spectral analysis of both system is significantly flatter responses in digital systems  - whether that is important or not is open to debate - what it does not affect too greatly is soundstaging because the tonal soundstage you hear is pretty close to what the record producer wanted you to hear."
 
Unfortunately, any differences in the flatness of frequency response between digital and analogue retrieval equipment will be utterly masked by the speakers in use. No speaker I have ever tested has had a remotely flat response - some major anomalies can occur, particularly round the crossover frequencies. Ironically, this may not affect the subjective performance of the speakers. In the early 80s, my university department acquired a new design - the Tangent RS4 - which we found had an exceptionally fine acoustic performance - but analysis of its frequency response and impedance characteristics showed a very non-linear response. Yet I still have the speakers and use them from time to time and they sound very good to this day. Another design with a much more linear response sounded far worse to all the judges. I spent 6 months with the acoustics team trying to quantify why this was in terms of a mathematical/physical model and we could not put our finger on precisely why.
 
I think that you can get too hung up on measurements; some seem to matter a lot (wow & flutter, distortion) others are far less important. And whether you prefer digital/analogue is extremely subjective - like why some people drink lager and others drink bitter.
 
Me, I'm an analogue/real ale man, but that's just my taste.
You are absolutely right and it's something I've touched upon in this thread and practically every other where this subject has been broached. System frequency response is totally masked by your speakers (and headphones are not that much of an improvement), it's all well and good having a turntable and stylus that can recover 33KHz from a vinyl, and having an amplifier that can deliver that, but if your speakers cannot reproduce it you are wasting your time (and money). And it's not just the speakers, it's the whole environment - the shape of the room, the placement of hard and soft furnishings, whether you have wood, stone or carpet flooring, where you place the speakers, how many surfaces the sound will bounce off before it reaches your ear.
 
I never get hung-up on measurements because it is what I do for a living. That's why when non-technical people quote things like jitter, skin effect, field induction and group delay I can tell them it isn't important and I can tell them why it isn't important. Measurements tell you a lot but only if you understand them, it is when measurements get misused and abused that I get hung-up on them.
 
As I also have said many times before - audiophilists spent 40 years striving for perfection but when we gave them perfection they didn't want it. If you like what you hear then you have the perfect system for you. That is the be all and end all of it. No better no better no best.
 
Analogue - digital - I'm not that bothered - me and my ears like them both equally.
 
I don't like any gaseous fizzy beer, real ale is the only way to drink beer - that's not just my taste, that's just taste.


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What?


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 22 2012 at 19:15
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Hi,
 
I just came up with something ... that I believe is important.
 
First ... all the kudos to Dean, in showing what "recording" is really all about ... which is something that most of us take for granted.
 
This is a bit of Zen ... and it does not mean that it is right or wrong!
 
There was a moment in time, that was recorded!
 
That moment can not be duplicated, or enhanced. It might get a "digital" idealization that makes it sound "better" because in those days there were not as many tracks as today to make the separation and the combination of these things as good as before.
 
That moment, has, ALL the feelings and details POSSIBLE for that moment to live, die, be remembered, whatever we want to draw out of it!
 
To think that this process, or that process, can better express that moment is, as Dean suggests a totally subjective art, that could be said to be all about preferences!
 
However, in this, we are confusing ... the original ... for our own ideas.
 
I commented that the rehashes of King Crimson, I just heard, were NOT any livelier to my imagination than they were when I first heard them 40 some years ago ... though they sounded much cleaner and obviously better distributed through out the ears on your headset of stereo equipment!
 
Again, this has nothing to do with the original piece ... and how it can get to you! The HOW, or what clothes the musicians were wearing, is an issue today for advertising, not a fact of the music or its very specific moment in time!
 
I have a hard time accepting that some folks can "hear" this today, and could not "hear" it yesterday ... so it what was it like, then, now? Or what was it like now, compared to "then" ... and as Peter Cook once said ... "smelly"!
 
I really think that we're convincing ourselves that something is better than it really is ... it was great already! But for Robert Fripp's ears, it might have realized some recording potential that he might have enjoyed learning about 40 years ago, and worked with sooner than later! It adds to his sonic knowledge of how he plays and works with things, and this Steven Wilson is a very good helper and teacher for Robert!
 
In reality, it tells you how many studios charged so much and created crap in the end ... and a lot of this music was really lucky to get out in one piece. REALLY LUCKY!
I'm with you all the way Pedro. It is no secret that I am a big fan of The Enid - I followed them all over the Home Counties back in the 70s and have lost count of the number of times I saw them play live - their live performances were magical, almost zen-like experiences. I've never been a dope-head - beer and tobacco are the only drugs I've ever imbibed - so I've never experienced any music performance in any state other than sober or mildly drunk, but I guess those shows were as close to mind-expansion as I'll ever get (well, I once was prescribed Codeine and it made me sick but I don't think that counts - I guess my body isn't geared for opiates, wimp that I am). Yet that experience never happened when I got home and played their studio albums - sure In The Region Of The Summer Stars and Aerie Faerie Nonsense are perfectly fine albums, wonderfully recorded and produced, but they lack something that was present at the live shows. Yet their live albums never managed to capture whatever that was either, even ones recorded when I was in the audience - when I play back Live at Hammersmith Odean I don't get that same feeling I got from being in the audience. No matter how loud I play it, even if I sit in a darkened room with a bottle of Hobgoblin ale at my side ... nothing. For years this as bothered me because it doesn't happen to me with any other band - I've seen Floyd many times and they are studio-perfect on stage even when what they played was nothing like what they recorded in the studio and I get that when I play their studio and live albums - Hawkwind aren't quite so "tight" and "perfect" on stage than in the studio and I get that too - even the band I used to manage, I heard them live many times both on stage and in rehearsals before I recorded and produced their first album and I believe we managed to capture the essence of what they were about in that recording. I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head - that is exactly "it"  -  the moment. With all those other bands (Floyd, Hawkwind, Season's End) the moment was there for all to see - the moment was on the surface of the music, in every note and every pause, in the musicianship and in how those musicians plied their craft, but with The Enid that moment was not something that could be captured, because that moment for me (and I suspect for many in the audience gauged by their reactions after the final note has played), was not contained wholly within the music.

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What?


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 22 2012 at 22:57
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

As I also have said many times before - audiophilists spent 40 years striving for perfection but when we gave them perfection they didn't want it. If you like what you hear then you have the perfect system for you. That is the be all and end all of it. No better no better no best.
 


Yeah...I think I mentioned this somewhere earlier in the thread.  Even the advancements in synths and drum machines were driven by musicians seeking more and more perfection.   And I am not sure many from the younger generation have rejected it anyway.   Even though I like a lot of 70s recordings or that kind of recordings, I don't really have a problem with perfectly recorded audio per se and I guess somebody like JS19 actually prefers modern recordings to older ones.  What the older generation wanted when they sought perfect recordings was somewhere disconnected with what they eventually got.  



Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 23 2012 at 02:37
Absolutely agree...whatever system you have if you like it then that is all that matters, the reason you like it is because your ears like it.
There are many audiophile websites I visit and post in....Discussions come up all the time about looking for perfection and what defines this search. In general I appreciate what people who are very serious about their music listening, are doing, which is basically trying to find the best system match possible.
There is a lot of thought process that goes into it and it is very interesting to me to hear other peoples experiences. For many of these audiophiles it means spending a lot of money......but I also understand this is a hobby. Just like vintage cars or motorcycles are for some and are expensive to tweek, revive, rebuild.....its not cheap. Some audio gear is not cheap either...but the good thing is as long as you deal with a reputable dealer the return policy is very generous, I never found this to be the case back in the 80's-90's.
 
I had to read Moshkito post several times, because it made a lot of sense with regard to music, it was a good read. Month in month out I listen to more digital than vinyl because I am working at my desk and I can hit play and not have to change anything for several hours. My serious listening time is spent with vinyl though, when I can sit on the sofa and pay complete attention to the speakers, and I am almost always holding the liner notes and or the gatefold sleeve, which helps take me back to the early days.....technical specs at that point mean nothing.
 
Its all good


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Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: September 23 2012 at 08:17
Some albums are better in vinyl, other in CD or digital formats even from the same period of the same band. IMO Atom Heart Mother is better served on Vinyl and Dark Side Of The Moon requires all of the digital "perfection". And the two albums went from the same producer, too.

It's subjective and depends also on the artists and the producers mindset at the recording time.

I have a little preference for vinyl, anyway. On early CDs and CD readers the dynamic was excessive. 


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I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution


Posted By: hobocamp
Date Posted: September 23 2012 at 09:15
Isn't it a bit like the importance of steam engines in motor cars?
They were needed until a better technology came along. Some steam engine vehicles are more valuable to collectors for their authenticity : but they would almost certainly operate differently if retrofitted with petrol, diesel, or electric engines. Probably faster and quieter without the bulky steam engine; but the chassis wasn't designed for this, creating an uncomfortable and even unsafe experience. My point? be sure to use safety belts when spinning those remasters.


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 23 2012 at 11:36
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

... that is exactly "it" - the moment...
 
Thx ... I am "sensitive" to these moments and have always been, and it's too easy to say that because I read Castaneda, Crowley, Lilly, Monroe and many others, that drugs have something to do with it. I remember the line in Castaneda's books, and Carlos asks don Juan if the drugs were needed and the answer was ... "of course not stupid, but we had to get you to shut up for a minute to see a thing or two!" ...
 
All in all, I'm against the drugs in concept. In experience it is another thing altogether since some folks have to "experience" things to "know". I don't ... I can tell by the colors and the feels of the words and music and such, what is there or not there ... and thus one of the main reasons why "lyrics" rarely impress me ... and the ones that are the most fun, are the ones that are always to the left, right, upside down and ... meaningless, which I find hilarious in many a moment ... like Mona Lisa you got a bird brain!
 
This is the biggest thing that synthesized when I saw the Tom Dowd DVD, that I had few words for ... the "moment", because Tom makes it clear, that if you were not listening or paying attention, you would not find it or see it. And when you hear him separate the two special tracks from all the rest ... they are even more special together! .. and he even says .. he was lucky to capture it!
 
A lot of this for me, has been because I always was a "close my eyes" listener to most music ... and my favorite descriptions for a lot of music can be found in "Disney's Fantasia" and "Nichetti's Allegro Non Troppo", both of which illustrate music in ways that are massive ... you got to see the Dvorak piece in Allegro Non Troppo , btw! You will love it!
 
I think that we have a tendency to "glorify" today's technology ... always ... as the end all a nd be all ... and I am not sure that we care if we hear various differences in Beethoven, or Mozart ... it's the music itself that "delivers" that moment ... that which makes us ... appreciate it as such.
 
As for rock bands, almost none that I ever saw, have ever sounded as good on record as they did live, or vice versa ... other than Pink Floyd, Nektar ... all the others were not the same band, and the music behind it had a completely different feeling. Nektar we all knew already because they showed it to us in "Sounds LIke This" and Pink Floyd was very clean to the recording since Dark Side of the Moon ... but NOT before, when they were completely different and you can attest that to 15 different versions of Atom Heart Mother, another 15 versions of Set the Controls to the heart of the sun, and so forth, and the clear fact that they used sound effects between pieces, and my guess always has been ... to make sure they could setup the intruments and the effects properly between pieces. Later with Dark Side of the Moon, Dave's pedal board itself was insane instead and some controls were not on his feet or hands already! The only exception to this was Led Zeppelin where at least 10 to 12 bootlegs were far superior to ANY of their albums in their first 4 years! The energy and flow was insane!
  
But there are/were some awesome things ... Tangerine Dream was like ... another night with that lovely woman ... it's like a brand new night again! ... and you can't ask for more! It leaves you breathless ... and to me, that is what that "moment" is all about! ... the only "truth" that defines most of life and art that we love so much!
 
((-- On a side note ... now you know why something like Sandy Denny's last song (One More Chance) in that album is so scary and spooky ... and she sings it like she already knew! That's not a lyric for me ... that's "reality" in a way that we don't like to see, or imagine, and we could say that she had already transcended the thought, idea or concept ... now, that is a singer and then some! Only Peter Hammill has come this close in my book, btw!--))


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: JediJoker7169
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 04:43
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Popular music can handle a greater dynamic range, but the typical listening environment (for popular music) cannot. We don't all sit in the sweet-spot of a purpose-built listening room in subdued lighting and a nice comfy chair to listen intently to every nuance of a recording. For most of us music is the soundtrack to daily life. Even us prog fans will use music as background while we do other things, such as driving or doing homework or just doing the dishes and for that huge dynamic range is a disadvantage.


Why make that sacrifice?  I understand the need to compress dynamics in the vinyl mastering process.  But why, other than in the furtherance of transparency, should compression be applied during the digital mastering process?  Why not simply build a user selectable compressor into the DAC, receiver, or preamplifier of all listening systems?  It could even have a preset that matches the FCC mandated compression for radio broadcast.  Or, even better, why not follow the same principle as Dolby Digital Dynamic Range Control?

Quote Dolby Digital uses a novel approach to applying Dynamic Range Control (DRC) to audio program material. Rather than compressing the dynamic range of the audio in an irreversible way, Dolby Digital encoders generate compression gain (also referred to as control) words that are carried in the Dolby Digital bitstream. When the bitstream is decoded, the compression gain words are applied to the audio material according to user settings. Dolby Digital decoders can be commanded to provide full, reduced, or even no dynamic range compression at all. This allows end users to adjust the amount of dynamic range compression to suit individual tastes and needs.

I'm tired of compromise.  I'm tired of otherwise excellent albums ruined by excessive dynamic compression.  Why should I or anyone else have to put up with it?


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 13:07
Originally posted by JediJoker7169 JediJoker7169 wrote:


Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Popular music can handle a greater dynamic range, but the typical listening environment (for popular music) cannot. We don't all sit in the sweet-spot of a purpose-built listening room in subdued lighting and a nice comfy chair to listen intently to every nuance of a recording. For most of us music is the soundtrack to daily life. Even us prog fans will use music as background while we do other things, such as driving or doing homework or just doing the dishes and for that huge dynamic range is a disadvantage.

Why make that sacrifice?  I understand the need to compress dynamics in the vinyl mastering process.  But why, other than in the furtherance of transparency, should compression be applied during the digital mastering process?  Why not simply build a user selectable compressor into the DAC, receiver, or preamplifier of all listening systems?  It could even have a preset that matches the FCC mandated compression for radio broadcast.  Or, even better, why not follow the same principle as Dolby Digital Dynamic Range Control?
Quote Dolby Digital uses a novel approach to applying Dynamic Range Control (DRC) to audio program material. Rather than compressing the dynamic range of the audio in an irreversible way, Dolby Digital encoders generate compression gain (also referred to as control) words that are carried in the Dolby Digital bitstream. When the bitstream is decoded, the compression gain words are applied to the audio material according to user settings. Dolby Digital decoders can be commanded to provide full, reduced, or even no dynamic range compression at all. This allows end users to adjust the amount of dynamic range compression to suit individual tastes and needs.

I'm tired of compromise.  I'm tired of otherwise excellent albums ruined by excessive dynamic compression.  Why should I or anyone else have to put up with it?
What are you going to do? The music industry is notorious for not being consumer driven - the "loudness wars" are not being won by the consumer - discerning artist are fighting their corner but they are in a minority - most pop and rock artists want their latest releases to be as loud and in-you-face as everyone else's. Equipment manufacturers aren't going to build-in features that people won't use (or pay Dolby licences that give no market advantage) - if most of the music available is already compressed then the feature will not be used.
 
The good news for Prog fans is that we do have discerning artists who do want dynamic range in their albums - what the mainstream artists do is their concern, not ours.


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What?


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 13:48
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
 The good news for Prog fans is that we do have discerning artists who do want dynamic range in their albums - what the mainstream artists do is their concern, not ours.
 
Agreed!
 
But the main thing here, though, is really not the "range", as it is the music itself. But if the band is already doing what everyone else is doing, they are not progressive and be remembered for long, or considered progressive. Maybe "prog" ...!!!
 
In most cases, I think that the artists need to have a certain amount of disdain for the "technical" this and that ... and stick to the music. This is one of the reasons why so much of the "prog" material does not appeal to me ... in the end, it still has a "format" and is recorded in one way, and has exactly the same 3rd or 5th chord change ... and it ends in the same theme ... how creative!
 
The analog sound, was about the time and place. Today there are no new instruments and toys for people to play with and not enough rock bands use t-spoons in their playing ... they are too damn stuck to actually do something different.  Analog-synth-sound, to me, is/was another instrument. Plain and simple. Something that too many of today's audience can not fathom and understand ... they never heard a different instrument!
 
The commerciality of the whole thing is another discussion that should be here, but it is too intense and tied up to be added here. To think that you can not make your own choices, and in the country with all the freedoms, you stand up for a top ten ... is bizarre ... when you have the freedoms, they don't mean anything ... except money for some corporation? Maybe one day some folks will get it -- what all this "progressive" thing was all about.


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 14:21
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

You CAN lose more detail in analog because of the scratches and the hissing and all that but you don't in digital, every sound is well separated and clear.  At the most, you may have to adjust the equalizers to push up some sounds you want to hear more clearly.
...
 
I just thought of it ... in the end, this is a VERY UNFAIR comparison ... because there are 30 to 40 years in between these two ...
 
So, the new joke is ... that PA loves to compare Model T's to the Range Rover!
 
I think it ok to consider the new "sound" as a valid instrument ... and the many folks that did so ... otherwise, I am starting to think that this discussion is really ... Embarrassed     Tongue    Shocked  ... for the blarneys to discuss the history of mankind!
 


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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 14:30
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

You CAN lose more detail in analog because of the scratches and the hissing and all that but you don't in digital, every sound is well separated and clear.  At the most, you may have to adjust the equalizers to push up some sounds you want to hear more clearly.
...
 
that PA loves to compare Model T's to the Range Rover!
 


Not PA. Just one individual.


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http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 14:57
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
 The good news for Prog fans is that we do have discerning artists who do want dynamic range in their albums - what the mainstream artists do is their concern, not ours.
 
Agreed!
 
But the main thing here, though, is really not the "range", as it is the music itself. But if the band is already doing what everyone else is doing, they are not progressive and be remembered for long, or considered progressive. Maybe "prog" ...!!!
The main thing here is a misconception that old is good and new is bad.
 
Deriding modern bands for doing what everyone else is doing is like criticising Johan Strauss II for continuing to compose waltzes.
 
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
In most cases, I think that the artists need to have a certain amount of disdain for the "technical" this and that ... and stick to the music. This is one of the reasons why so much of the "prog" material does not appeal to me ... in the end, it still has a "format" and is recorded in one way, and has exactly the same 3rd or 5th chord change ... and it ends in the same theme ... how creative!
 
The analog sound, was about the time and place. Today there are no new instruments and toys for people to play with and not enough rock bands use t-spoons in their playing ... they are too damn stuck to actually do something different.  Analog-synth-sound, to me, is/was another instrument. Plain and simple. Something that too many of today's audience can not fathom and understand ... they never heard a different instrument!
That's more of a topic for the http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=75588" rel="nofollow - Analog Synths sound dated? thread (which I have avoided like the plague) - and I've said before that I don't believe that synths per se were that pivotal to the development of progressive rock as such. New sounds and instruments are not an short-cut to new music, a musician bereft of ideas may be inspired by a new toy, they will not necessarily become more creative as a result. It is ironic that some of the most notable songs that employed new toys used them out of the box and with factory-set presets: Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin, The Who's Baba O'Riley, Pink Floyd's On The Run, Bowie's Space Oddity, Gary Numan's Cars. It was only when we got to hear the Fairlight sampling synth (Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Gentlemen Without Weapons) create a tuned and playable music instrument out of found sounds did we get non-avant garde artists creating music using "new sounds" - but even then, those sounds did not drive the creative process. You can make a noise using by dragging a broken cement mixer across a yard, the sampling synth can take that sound, tune it to concert pitch and create chromatic scale from it - then you can make music with it.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

The commerciality of the whole thing is another discussion that should be here, but it is too intense and tied up to be added here. To think that you can not make your own choices, and in the country with all the freedoms, you stand up for a top ten ... is bizarre ... when you have the freedoms, they don't mean anything ... except money for some corporation? Maybe one day some folks will get it -- what all this "progressive" thing was all about.
I think the day when most folks got that was a sometime ago, you may have missed the memo - you keep telling us "we don't get it" but we do, I assure you, we do. Commerciality is whether you want to make money or not. I think any notion of your average Prog band making a shed-load of money out of music vanished a long time in the past - when bands are asking their fans to finance the recording of their next album I think we can safely conclude that the previous album didn't make a huge profit.


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What?


Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 15:55
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
I think the day when most folks got that was a sometime ago, you may have missed the memo - you keep telling us "we don't get it" but we do, I assure you, we do. Commerciality is whether you want to make money or not. I think any notion of your average Prog band making a shed-load of money out of music vanished a long time in the past - when bands are asking their fans to finance the recording of their next album I think we can safely conclude that the previous album didn't make a huge profit.
 
I'm not even sure that commerciality is a part of it ... Pink Floyd is very commercial, and did just fine ... and we do not worry about it. Same with Rush.
 
What I mean by that, and my words were not clear enough, is that when you hear the lyrics and pay attention to the "progressive" music of yesterday, that started this whole thing, in the end, they were revolting against the social milieu ... and were looking for changes. There is no middle ground in a lot of these things ... except many of the ones that were at Woodstock, many of which were quite meaningless ... like Sly and his crapper ... got my head beat up in Chicago! ... and Joan Baez was a fake, and John Sebastian was just on really good acid!  etc etc etc ... the kind of things that I personally revolt against ... the hippocrisy as an excuse to be hip ... or just sell some more!
 
Now, we can all think like John Lennon, and say that if you're thinking revolution with a gun, you can count me out, but that is completely different when you are talking a revolution with a musical instrument and WORDS. The late 60's were about change ... no one is questioning that ... and the music was a serious part of that "change", and sometimes, calling it "progressive" because of this or that has a tendency to diminish the literary content that it had as an art scene. It WAS an art scene, with literature, painting, film, theater and many other arts! It is, to me, quite an interesting idea ... that the synthesizer became a kind of "spokesperson" for the new time and place in music ... the kind of use and concept having been lost a few years later just like the old joke ... the piece sign is now in plastic ... an oil product no less! The main symbol of "industrialism.
 
And most pop music ... followed that path!
 
The folks here, simply have to decide if they want more pop music or progressive music ... and an in between like "prog" ... is ok, but it distorts the discussion as bad as the digital/analog conversation!


-------------
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 16:06
And it's too bad there were people like Charles Manson ("you can count me out-in-out")

              But, boy, when that lead singer of U2 flashes his peace sign, now that is plastic!


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 07 2012 at 17:39
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
I think the day when most folks got that was a sometime ago, you may have missed the memo - you keep telling us "we don't get it" but we do, I assure you, we do. Commerciality is whether you want to make money or not. I think any notion of your average Prog band making a shed-load of money out of music vanished a long time in the past - when bands are asking their fans to finance the recording of their next album I think we can safely conclude that the previous album didn't make a huge profit.
 
I'm not even sure that commerciality is a part of it ... Pink Floyd is very commercial, and did just fine ... and we do not worry about it. Same with Rush.
Two artists out of seven thousand isn't affirmation that Prog made money - sure in its hey-day a few artists made it big, but the rest did not. And let's be sure we understand I'm not talking about sell-out, sucking up to the man, commercial music, but proper no-compromise progressive rock music that was a commercial success. And those few successes were important - they paid for many of the other less successful bands to record and release albums, and here's how: Mike Oldfield made a ton of cash for Branson, Branson used that money to pay for other prog artists to record albums, some of them, like Tangerine Dream, had chart success and made Branson some more cash, others, like Slapp Happy, Henry Cow, Hatfield and the North, Gong, Faust, Ivor Cutler, Robert Wyatt, Clearlight, etc. weren't such big money spinners - most of them lost money for Branson, but not as much as Oldfield and TD made so all was well. The same is true over at Charisma Records where big sellers like Lindisfarne, The Nice and Monty Python paid for the recording of (early) Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, Audience and String Driven Thing albums. Commerciality is not about deliberately making music that will sell, it's about selling the music you make.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

What I mean by that, and my words were not clear enough, is that when you hear the lyrics and pay attention to the "progressive" music of yesterday, that started this whole thing, in the end, they were revolting against the social milieu ... and were looking for changes. There is no middle ground in a lot of these things ... except many of the ones that were at Woodstock, many of which were quite meaningless ... like Sly and his crapper ... got my head beat up in Chicago! ... and Joan Baez was a fake, and John Sebastian was just on really good acid!  etc etc etc ... the kind of things that I personally revolt against ... the hippocrisy as an excuse to be hip ... or just sell some more!
 
Now, we can all think like John Lennon, and say that if you're thinking revolution with a gun, you can count me out, but that is completely different when you are talking a revolution with a musical instrument and WORDS. The late 60's were about change ... no one is questioning that ... and the music was a serious part of that "change", and sometimes, calling it "progressive" because of this or that has a tendency to diminish the literary content that it had as an art scene. It WAS an art scene, with literature, painting, film, theater and many other arts! It is, to me, quite an interesting idea ... that the synthesizer became a kind of "spokesperson" for the new time and place in music ... the kind of use and concept having been lost a few years later just like the old joke ... the piece sign is now in plastic ... an oil product no less! The main symbol of "industrialism.
Nah, it was never like that. Progressive Rock was never about "the revolution", there are no Prog protest songs (well, don't kill the whale, dig it). There was no Prog at Woodstock, Monterey or Altamount, the hippie dream died at the end of the summer of love, Prog picked over its psychedelic carcass and took away nothing but the music, leaving the flower-power nonsense and student-campus idealism behind in the mud. When Prog arrived (let's pretend it was 1969, it saves a lot of time and argument), the revolution was over and lost. Prog went forward without a message and without a banner to wave (it had a waver waiver) - it was about the music and little else - the concept was the concept - telling stories, not changing the world.
 
There was no art scene associated with prog - no Prog literature, no Prog film, no Prog theatre - what little art that existed was in the cover artwork, and that was also used to sell Science Fiction pulp paperbacks and Motown Chartbusters.
 
The synth was never the "spokesperson" of Prog Rock, kind of or otherwise. It is easier to name 20 great Prog guitarists than it is to name 20 great Prog synth-players (and I will discount any organists, pianists and general keyboardists here - I mean proper Synthesiser players who knew how to play and program the damn thing and who knew how to keep it in-tune on stage). Most of the time the synth was used just as the Mellotron was - playing fill-in pads, substituting for strings and orchestra - the number of lead synth breaks in a typical Prog song are not that many by comparison to guitar, organ, piano or even saxophone or violin. Prog had many names, Synth-Rock was never one of them.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

And most pop music ... followed that path!
 
The folks here, simply have to decide if they want more pop music or progressive music ... and an in between like "prog" ... is ok, but it distorts the discussion as bad as the digital/analog conversation!
Yeah, we get that. (I said we did and we do). If you want music in the 21st century that progresses then you are looking in all the wrong places and that is not the fault of modern progressive rock bands.


-------------
What?


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 08 2012 at 10:07
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:


 
So, the new joke is ... that PA loves to compare Model T's to the Range Rover!
 


Well, one would imagine something's terribly wrong if people insist the Range Rover is not a car just because it doesn't look like a Model T.   And for the last time, I have nothing against analog or digital for that matter.   My point is simply that many of the complaints made of the digital format itself are questionable because they relate more to the way bands - and not all bands at that, not even close - use the format these days.  I am not sure how many of the older demographic on PA would be too happy to listen to Children of Bodom or Lamb of God even if it was only available in vinyl.  A good digital recording has dynamics, has organic warmth, has everything.  Now if you delve any further into incredibly minute differences, you are basically splitting hairs and are more obsessed with the format than the music itself, that's my point.


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: October 08 2012 at 14:22
I for one am glad I can enjoy the formats I listen to...... Vinyl, CDs and Digital Files. I don't have a complaint about either format..CD's and Digital Files serve a purpose in my system, while Vinyl is the preferred format by a long shot.
 
I personally do not think digital recordings have "organic warmth", since you are using adjectives, I would have a hard time thinking or hearing this.
That's cool that you do though.


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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 08 2012 at 20:43
^^^  That depends on what you mean by the word 'organic warmth'.   If on a recording, I can feel - as opposed to merely hear - the effect of 'real' instruments like guitar/drums/violin rather than sterile synthesized/processed tones, I call it 'organic warmth'.   There are digital recordings which still reproduce this effect.  It is probably not going to sound the same as analog because the blending, as opposed to, separation of sounds in analog produced a certain rich, dense tone which you don't normally get in digital.  Does that necessarily make it inauthentic, though....because in a contemporary gig with modern mike setups, you are not going to hear that analog-like rich, dense sound, it IS going to sound not very different from a digital recording of such a concert.  It is probably possible to achieve a more dense mix even in digital because I have heard contemporary recordings with such a mix - though not as dense as analog - but guess what, the audience thumbs it down.   They have grown so used to complete separation of different sounds that they think there's something wrong with the recording if it sounds dense.    As Dean said earlier, neither musicians nor audiences seem to know exactly what kind of recording they want to hear.   They chased perfection in the analog age, then imperfection again in the digital age and then they want imperfection with separation, blah blah blah. 


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: October 09 2012 at 12:46
^^^ No it depends what YOU mean.....I did not state it, you did originally. I know to me it would have nothing to do with digital recordings. In general most CDs do not depict the sound of an acoustic guitar the way I hear a live acoustic guitar for example. To me the sounds are too connected and there is not enough separation in the different string sounds....the lows are just not the same on CD and the highs can be too shrilly.....That to me, using your word, is organic warmth I get from a well done analog recording.
 
Where I do think digital does best is on jazz female vocals, when I listen to Diana Krall on vinyl I really enjoy the piano, to me that is amazing. But the vocals I prefer on CD or my Digital files, in this case I do feel more detail comes through as a whole.
 
So again it has a place in my system and it may not work for all, but for me it does. The reasons why are subjective and I am not going there cause it does not matter.....As it pertains to hi-fi gear and what I use which is all personal choices.
 
Enjoy the music is the key!


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 09 2012 at 13:56
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^^^ No it depends what YOU mean.....I did not state it, you did originally. I know to me it would have nothing to do with digital recordings. In general most CDs do not depict the sound of an acoustic guitar the way I hear a live acoustic guitar for example. To me the sounds are too connected and there is not enough separation in the different string sounds....the lows are just not the same on CD and the highs can be too shrilly.....That to me, using your word, is organic warmth I get from a well done analog recording.
 
Where I do think digital does best is on jazz female vocals, when I listen to Diana Krall on vinyl I really enjoy the piano, to me that is amazing. But the vocals I prefer on CD or my Digital files, in this case I do feel more detail comes through as a whole.
 
So again it has a place in my system and it may not work for all, but for me it does. The reasons why are subjective and I am not going there cause it does not matter.....As it pertains to hi-fi gear and what I use which is all personal choices.
 
Enjoy the music is the key!
Organic warmth has no formal definition, it's whatever you want it to be. Back in 2005 I recorded and co-produced an album for a metal band, in my version of the final mix I eq'd the drums to capture the nice rounded tone of the drummer's very expensive kit so they sounded just as I had always heard them played live on stage and in the rehearsal room - you could say it was "organic" because it was deep and warm and I'd place the drums themselves on a moderately narrow soundstage (to mimic how they sound live - none of this snare in the left speaker, hi-hat in the right and the toms dancing across the full width of the stereo image malarkey), and I was quite proud of what I'd achieved - it was a natural sound that captured the quality of his kit perfectly (IMO). The only problem was the drummer (a young lad half my age) hated it, it sounded too "prog" to him, he wanted more punch, he wanted the snare to be more "clicky" (his words) and "in your face", reluctant to do that myself I suggested the band took the masters back to the studio where we recorded them to mix them as they wanted them, which they did. Needless to say, I hated the resulting drum sound (which was not quite as bad as the drum sound on Metallica's St Anger for example, but still clean, modern and oh so very sterile). But the band was happy so we self-released that version and all was well. Until someone asked why we used a drum machine when we had a first-class drummer in the band LOL... Fortunately, (evidently seeing the error of their ways Wink), after they got signed the band remixed the album again for its "professional" release - the drums are still not as warm and "organic" and proggy as my original eq-ing, but at least they now sound "real".
 
And of course all that was done digitally, from 24-bit digital recordings through to the final mastering, resulting in three versions of the final mix each as different as the other - from the "warm and organic" to the "cold and sterile" with the final release a happy balance between the two. And that's the point I've been trying to make from the outset - there is no "digital" sound, only the sound the producer and artists want.
 


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What?


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: October 09 2012 at 14:33

^ Nice story.....



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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 09 2012 at 15:45
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Commerciality is not about deliberately making music that will sell, it's about selling the music you make.
 
Welearned a lot more about this, when Led Z and the Rolling Stones became the massive money makers in 1974 and on that day, the distribution conglomerate dropped (we estimated) over 300 bands. We know that AD2, Can, Neu, and several others were in that mix, as things went back to "imports".
 
I do not disagree with commerciality/industrialism. The part/side I disagree with is the greed side of it, and paying several million for a 20ft mechanical penis for the stage! For which many artists were dropped from distribution and the chance to make a dollar or two on your next album!
 
But this is distorting the equation. At the time, when Streisand/Kristofferson did their album the "new" price here was "$6.98". I can tell you I produced an album and made 1,000 copies in 1978 of Guy's comedy on Space Pirate Radio and that cost me a total of $1972 dollars, including the hard cover, cellophane wrap and the master. If it had been 5K copies it would have been half that price per unit! Thus, at 100k copies you knew the LP was about 50 cents in America at the most!  Math states that the artist was nowhere near even a 5% take. And we know that both TD and Gong still have a lawsuit on Branson for unpaid moneys!  English Imperialism at its best ... and allowed by the House of Lords and what not!
 
And it was one moment with the Firesign Theater, that one of their "friends" named "Bill McIntyre" was trying hard to tell them NOT to sign with Columbia again and do their own company instead. They did not do that, and got peanuts for the next 5 years, yet again ... and many of them had to go hussle jobs elsewhere to pay for their houses and what not! I think this was already about 1975 or 1976, and got to me somewhat 2nd hand, but it was the first time that it was much clearer that the "colonel" process was going to die off ... but it took almost 20 years for it to die off due to advertising ... and it was the Internet that changed it for good!
 
So yeah, bandX makes 100 million and that money is not going to help 100 other bands in peanuts and almonds anymore ... but then, I don't see the folks that paid Roger Waters sharing the money either ... I see their yearly income looking really good, though ... it's public listing by law in America!
 
Sorry to have gotten off the subject.
 
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Nah, it was never like that. Progressive Rock was never about "the revolution", there are no Prog protest songs (well, don't kill the whale, dig it). There was no Prog at Woodstock, Monterey or Altamount, the hippie dream died at the end of the summer of love, Prog picked over its psychedelic carcass and took away nothing but the music, leaving the flower-power nonsense and student-campus idealism behind in the mud. When Prog arrived (let's pretend it was 1969, it saves a lot of time and argument), the revolution was over and lost. Prog went forward without a message and without a banner to wave (it had a waver waiver) - it was about the music and little else - the concept was the concept - telling stories, not changing the world.
...
 
There was some progressive music at Woodstock ... but when the Incredible String Band did a part of "U" in there, everyone went ... wtf? What was that? Woodstock went after the bigger names, and played the lesser known ones late at night.
 
But you can not say ... for example, in listing that poster that you had that Edgar Broughton Band was not political, when one of their most famous pieces was an anti VietNam song ... that really ripped it! And KC is not political in that first album? ... you're kidding me, right? ... I think they were told to tone it down for the 2nd album, and that just made the music less vital than the first album, and almost a complete copy of the original.
 
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
There was no art scene associated with prog - no Prog literature, no Prog film, no Prog theatre - what little art that existed was in the cover artwork, and that was also used to sell Science Fiction pulp paperbacks and Motown Chartbusters.
 ...
 
Ohhh yes there was ... from the posters to many writings ... even Richard Bach was a part of it all ... and Hipgnosis ... and Pete Sinfield. The Krautrock had Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Paul Handke and many others ... and Malcom Mooney was an "American Actor" ... the mixes is a lot more than we give it "credit" for ... and most of that stuff came off the "bad days" and the "bad dream" that went away with the garbage!
 
I always said that the European scene was the natural element for taking the music further ... because Americans, in a public/commercial sort of way did not, and still don't, have an appreciation for "art" ... and its many forms ... but they will pay someone in Eugene massive amounts of money to teach an art class how to create art with "bombs" ... NO KIDDING! .... Europe has history of the arts ... America doesn't and killed a lot of the indian and black arts for too long in their history and until those get revived the "American" vision and art, will not be remembered, other than the likes of Warhol, which was a media sensation. But then so was Burroughs, Bach, Kesey and others ... and some film makers, the most notorious one? ... the ultimate hippy ... and he went out and did "MASH" with his fingers up in the air, which became a famous TV show later!
 
Massive connection, at least in the "healthy disrespect" for authority and commercial control. And one could easily say that Daevid Allen, Robert Wyatt, and many others ... are still the ultimate hippies in their styles and music work. And they still dress like it!
 
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
The synth was never the "spokesperson" of Prog Rock, kind of or otherwise.
...
 
Agreed. I did say ... kinda interesting that the synthesizer came up at that time ... probably because the time, place and such helped with learning new things ... I doubt someone could get financing today to do what some of those folks did in the 50's ... that helped create the synthesizer ... and with today's media, while it would be easier to share information, the amount of mis-information would also help kill it!
 
Gotta have money for the football team, you know!!!!!!


-------------
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 09 2012 at 19:29
Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

^To me the sounds are too connected and there is not enough separation in the different string sounds....the lows are just not the same on CD and the highs can be too shrilly.....

Eh...if the highs are too shrilly, it is most definitely a poor recording job than a problem with the medium itself.   Anyhow, I think this has been re-iterated several times....that dynamic range is not an issue in CDs but how many people today master them is the issue.   I - and Dean - are talking about the medium and you insist on using some examples of albums to define the medium...fine.  


Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: October 10 2012 at 11:36
^ Then apperantly almost all mastering people are doing the same thing......a very bad job as compared to what the vinyl world is used to hearing. A lot of listeners have been complaining about the sound of CDs for almost as long as they have been out.....regardless of genre.
I have no problem saying the medium of digital/CD is fine, and for music its actually very good. But a majority of what I have been putting into my CDP and hearing is not that great......And since my only control is what I listen to, I wil always prefer vinyl for the reasons that the whole digital process of bringing it to my home is still not very good.
 
This thinking goes back to the thread...."is the CD Dead?" If these recording engineers do not figure out how to make the process sound better and not please the majority of listenerss then maybe it is dead......There are a lot of people who feel the whole CD process needs to get better.
And right now the answer/alternative is high resolution files 24/96, 24/192 and eventually higher......Yes I totally agree maybe that is overkill.....but it is what's available as an alternative to CD listener fatigue and the shrill.
 
And since music is 99.99% about marketing, people will buy what sounds best regardless of what might have happened in the studio or by an engineer........And its why I believe there has been such a huge revival of the vinyl format, and not so much with the older crowd, as we already have tons of vinyl. But the growth has been with the 20-30 yr olds who want better sound. I have asked young kids in the record stores why they are looking for vinyl, the basic reply is it sounds better, its a choice they are making.......Consumers want that warm organic sound of vinyl.
 
Again, CDs will always have a place in my system......Its just not the best sound for my ears in the long run.


-------------


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 10 2012 at 11:45
^^^^  Well, seismic shifts in music tastes like in the 80s are tough to reverse.   That was roughly the point bands decided everything should sound 'perfect' and if that meant making it robotic, it was par for the course.  You'll still find people who prefer recordings that sound that way.   They want to hear 'flawless' recordings, not recordings that sound human.  I am pretty sure that such people are not the ones craving for vinyl; in all likelihood they just rip music to Itunes direct and don't bother with any physical medium.  

The sounds captured on analog in the 70s are lost more or less for good now;  what retro bands, whether in prog or hard rock, play is a pale imitation of those sounds at best.   Forget the medium, the very instruments sound different today.   I have watched Shakti live and the sound is different in that sense from the 70s...that the musicians are still incredible is an entirely different matter.  

If what you are looking for in a contemporary CD is those vintage analog sounds you remember from the 70s, you won't get it.   For that matter, even a remaster is going to sound different because most of the time, they seem to beef up the sound and push rhythm to the front of the mix to 'equalize' it with modern CDs.   The most faithful CDs are imo the ones that were issued before the remaster craze began;  I have a CD of Virgin Killer and it doesn't sound all beefed up and 'powerful' because it is not a remaster.  So my point is simply that if you took a contemporary band with contemporary sounds and recorded them on analog, it would probably have many of the same things that you dislike in CDs of such bands.   Jerry Cantrell used to play heavy guitar in a lively, bluesy way (clearly influenced by Iommi) but many more modern guitarists prefer a very super polished approach to the instrument that I don't really like to hear in heavy music.  


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 10 2012 at 16:54
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Commerciality is not about deliberately making music that will sell, it's about selling the music you make.
 
Welearned a lot more about this, when Led Z and the Rolling Stones became the massive money makers in 1974 and on that day, the distribution conglomerate dropped (we estimated) over 300 bands. We know that AD2, Can, Neu, and several others were in that mix, as things went back to "imports".
Disties do not make records, record companies make records. Obviously I don't know anything of the event you are talking about but 300 doesn't sound such a big deal to me. Back then every month there would be hundreds of new releases. Most of those would never make any money, most would not sell in any significant numbers, most wouldn't sell even a fraction of the stock from their first pressing and certainly would never get a second pressing, most of them would end up in remainder bins with a significant mark-down (and their corners docked to show they had been remaindered). I would imagine that most disties would drop several hundred titles every year from their catalogue and this was neither an unusual event nor was it in any way connected to Led Zepp or Strolling Bones selling lots of albums. And since you never mentioned it, I'm sure record labels also dropped several hundred poorly selling artists from their roster every year. And I see no crime in that (unless I was one of those artists who got paid an advance to record an album that never sold,and I'd be sure to blame the record label for those poor sales too). Unless you could sell sell an album at a steady rate over a long period of time it would be discontinued, this is standard practice in any publishing business, whether that's music, film or print - that has nothing to do with greed and everything to do with expedient business practices.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
I do not disagree with commerciality/industrialism. The part/side I disagree with is the greed side of it, and paying several million for a 20ft mechanical penis for the stage! For which many artists were dropped from distribution and the chance to make a dollar or two on your next album!
Again, disties do not make records, record companies make records, also disties do not construct 20-foot mecanical phalli for stage-sets, and neither do record companies - that honour goes to the "greedy" artist who wants to entertain their audience with a 20-foot mechanical phallus, and if they did (and it would not cost several million even if they did) there is no correlation what so ever between that and a a disty "dropping" many artists from their catalogues.
 
Disties make money by buying albums from the record companies and selling them to the record stores - they add the cost of shipping from one location to another onto the price they pay the record company (with a percentage mark-up for profit and a percentage overhead for their warehouses, trucking and staff wages) and charge that to the record stores, who then factor-in their shop-rent and staff wages and their profit margin and charge that total price to the customer - who in exchange for some real cash walks away with the album of their latest faddist musical hero and all is happy and wonderful. This all goes titsup when the faddish and fickle customer doesn't want to buy a particular album, because then the store has to shift the stock they've bought from the disty by selling them at reduce profit margin, so next time the storekeeper won't buy any of that album, or perhaps even any of that artist, from the disty, and now the disty is stuck with a warehouse full of those albums that the record stores aren't buying, and he has to try and sell them back to the record company, who obviously doesn't want them either, so the disty say - "fair enough squire, I'm no longer going to stock any albums by that artist ever again". All that and nary a 20-foot phallus to be seen and greed certainly does not come into it.
 
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
But this is distorting the equation.
You're not wrong there Wink
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
At the time, when Streisand/Kristofferson did their album the "new" price here was "$6.98". I can tell you I produced an album and made 1,000 copies in 1978 of Guy's comedy on Space Pirate Radio and that cost me a total of $1972 dollars, including the hard cover, cellophane wrap and the master. If it had been 5K copies it would have been half that price per unit! Thus, at 100k copies you knew the LP was about 50 cents in America at the most!  Math states that the artist was nowhere near even a 5% take.
And how much did you pay to have the album recorded; how much did you pay for studio-time and studio staff wages; how much did you pay the graphic artist for the cover artwork and all the publicity artwork; and how much did you pay for office rent and staff wages; and how much for promotion and distribution; and how much for publicity, newspaper and magazine advertisements, billboards hoardings, product placements and in-store promotions, tv-adverts and representation at trade-events; how much for "pay to play" public appearances and travel and subsistence to such events; and how many cities, states, countries did you sell into; and how did you transport and promote in those other locations, did you do it yourself or employ local representation or contractors; and how much was reinvested in artists and repertoire (A&R) scouting and representation; how much was reinvested into the next release or next 10 releases???? If your answer to all of those was "zero" then your selling price is your cost price and you are not a record company, you are a hobbyist making a one-off vanity release that you know will make a loss, and sure you can do that for $2 a disc, you may have even sold a lot of them ... I know in my time of doing that we managed to shift a several hundred discs that way.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
Nah, it was never like that. Progressive Rock was never about "the revolution", there are no Prog protest songs (well, don't kill the whale, dig it). There was no Prog at Woodstock, Monterey or Altamount, the hippie dream died at the end of the summer of love, Prog picked over its psychedelic carcass and took away nothing but the music, leaving the flower-power nonsense and student-campus idealism behind in the mud. When Prog arrived (let's pretend it was 1969, it saves a lot of time and argument), the revolution was over and lost. Prog went forward without a message and without a banner to wave (it had a waver waiver) - it was about the music and little else - the concept was the concept - telling stories, not changing the world.
...
 
There was some progressive music at Woodstock ... but when the Incredible String Band did a part of "U" in there, everyone went ... wtf? What was that? Woodstock went after the bigger names, and played the lesser known ones late at night.
One band. And they were first and foremost a Pschedelic Folk band.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

But you can not say ... for example, in listing that poster that you had that Edgar Broughton Band was not political, when one of their most famous pieces was an anti VietNam song ... that really ripped it! And KC is not political in that first album? ... you're kidding me, right? ... I think they were told to tone it down for the 2nd album, and that just made the music less vital than the first album, and almost a complete copy of the original.
Political is not the same as being part of "The revolution" or making protest songs. EBB (who were not a Prog Band) were signed to EMI - at that time EMI also made guided missiles- if they were truly anti-war they should have changed labels. ItCotCK was recorded during the dying throws of the hippy movement - the album is as much a comment on that  as anything (and confusion will indeed be my epitaph).
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
There was no art scene associated with prog - no Prog literature, no Prog film, no Prog theatre - what little art that existed was in the cover artwork, and that was also used to sell Science Fiction pulp paperbacks and Motown Chartbusters.
 ...
 
Ohhh yes there was ... from the posters to many writings ... even Richard Bach was a part of it all ... and Hipgnosis ... and Pete Sinfield. The Krautrock had Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Paul Handke and many others ... and Malcom Mooney was an "American Actor" ... the mixes is a lot more than we give it "credit" for ... and most of that stuff came off the "bad days" and the "bad dream" that went away with the garbage!
I disagree. That is simply not enough to claim that there was "an art scene, with literature, painting, film, theater and many other arts" - film directors use contemporary music in their films, that in itself does not create "an art scene". Later Wender would use contemporary music from the late 80s that was neither Prog nor Krautrock (for example Crime & the City Solution, R.E.M, Elvis Costello etc etc.). None of those directors made "Prog" or "Krautrock" films, hence it there was no "art scene".
 
I'm sorry, I have no idea who Paul Handke is.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

  
I always said that the European scene was the natural element for taking the music further ... because Americans, in a public/commercial sort of way did not, and still don't, have an appreciation for "art" ... and its many forms ... but they will pay someone in Eugene massive amounts of money to teach an art class how to create art with "bombs" ... NO KIDDING! .... Europe has history of the arts ... America doesn't and killed a lot of the indian and black arts for too long in their history and until those get revived the "American" vision and art, will not be remembered, other than the likes of Warhol, which was a media sensation. But then so was Burroughs, Bach, Kesey and others ... and some film makers, the most notorious one? ... the ultimate hippy ... and he went out and did "MASH" with his fingers up in the air, which became a famous TV show later!
But that was Hippy and Flower Power and Psychedelic and post-Beatnic and all that - Not Prog. It was all before Prog, they all belonged to the "before Prog" generation.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
 
Massive connection, at least in the "healthy disrespect" for authority and commercial control. And one could easily say that Daevid Allen, Robert Wyatt, and many others ... are still the ultimate hippies in their styles and music work. And they still dress like it!
I give up. Hippies =/= Proggies.
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
 
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
The synth was never the "spokesperson" of Prog Rock, kind of or otherwise.
...
 
Agreed. I did say ... kinda interesting that the synthesizer came up at that time ... probably because the time, place and such helped with learning new things ... I doubt someone could get financing today to do what some of those folks did in the 50's ... that helped create the synthesizer ... and with today's media, while it would be easier to share information, the amount of mis-information would also help kill it!
That's just nonsense. I would love to see your documented evidence for this.
 


-------------
What?


Posted By: Surrealist
Date Posted: October 12 2012 at 23:19
Hi everyone,
This is my first post here.. actually first post on any progressive rock forum.  This topic interested me because I feel strongly about it.

I will say that the analog vs digital debate is very real and I know a very sensitive issue for many.  For reference sake I am 48 and was a freshman at University when CD's became the craze.  They were nifty little things, and we all loved the idea at the time of no clicks and pops or scratches, or our cassette tapes being eaten in the player.  I understand however, many here are probably a lot younger and didn't live through that era, but were raised in the digital generation.

My feeling is that analog can sound worse, or far superior to CD depending upon several issues.  First will be your analog set up.  The main critical components are your cartridge, your tone arm and deck, your amplifier, interconnects, speakers of course, the room's acoustic properties and your speaker placement.  Some of these issues are more critical than some of the others.. but none can be completely overlooked if you are seeking a proper set up.

I am going to guess that the posters here whom are die hard digital believers simply have not heard a proper analog set up.
It's understandable, because not a lot of people have proper set ups these days.  If I could give an analogy, I would suggest that digital music is similar to digital photography.  It looks fine from a distance as the eye can't really see the pixel properties.  Same thing in music really.  But if you start to zoom in... you start to see tiny squares of shaded colors.  Upon closer examination it starts to look like a chess board.  It certainly does not get more interesting.

A good analog system really puts the music under the microscope.  Not just the production but the performance, the ambiance and feel of the room or the subtle nature of the processing gear.

If you look at the physics of it.... a 16 bit rendering of an analog source input simply cannot compare to the original data that is being input into the computer or sampler.

Remastering in the digital world can sound better or worse depending upon what the objective was.. and if the listener relates to that objective.  This could also be called remixing the album if one had access to the original source tapes which is often not the case. 

I didn't really "get" a lot of this stuff until I got into a reasonably good analog set up.  I spent money on a cartridge, and a properly restored vintage tube amp which to me is absolutely critical.  I am listening through 4 high efficiency horn and passive radiator speakers, a pair on each side running in serial.  I have a subwoofer just barely audible or bled into my mix to fill in the low end frequencies one would only really feel in the body.

The modern argument suggests that we don't need to be exposed to frequencies beyond what the human ear can process.  I disagree with this.  The lower frequencies that can't be heard can still be felt within the body.  I am sure higher frequencies have an effect on our skin and or other parts of our bodies that can be felt or experienced outside of the ears.

I am not here to boast about my stereo.. only to say that if I have a copy of music on both vinyl and CD, and cue them up and play side by side... there is no real comparison.  It is not very subjective like wine tasting.  It's big stuff. 

I am not crazy into the audiophile world.. but I have about $2000 invested.  It's more than most would spend, but if you are posting on a site like this.. I would assume music is a pretty important part of your life.  To me it's worth it. 
Last year I sold a pair of "Belle's" to a wealthy hardcore audiophile nut who heard my system and said his $100,000 digital system paled in comparison.  He literally shook his head in disbelief, and said he really didn't want to admit such a thing.. but appreciated me sharing my thoughts with him.  He was a nice guy.

A quick thought on speakers.  Horns sound best played back through horn drivers.  And if you are into bass guitar, most of those great electric bassists used a 15 inch cone in their rack.  I suggest putting a 15 inch speaker into your system for playback if you want realism.  I disagree that the smaller cone long throw subs move air the same way.  They just don't.  I remember as a teen in the 70's going to a friends house and they would have these huge stacks of speaker cabinets, often the big JBL's stacked up in the garage and music sounded huge.. it was all about recreating the feeling of a live concert... not as things are now with ipods, earbuds and mp3 files with 500 hours of music conveniently stored in your pocket.  It was robust quality over convenience.  "Back to the Future" was not that much of an exaggeration when Marty gets thrown across the room from the sound waves from his amp .. lol.

The other big affect the digital age has had is on the musicians themselves as players.  In the pre digital age, in some ways you had to be a better player.  While they were punching in and out of tracks.. the musicians still at some point had to pull it off.  You couldn't create it by digitally manipulating sound files with pitch shifters and moving the kick and snare hits to the nearest 8th or 16th note. 

Drummers used to really have to grind out their takes.  Harder to punch drums also.  A good drummer who could really play in great time, and play creatively was very in demand before the invention of a drum machine.  Drum machines were very attractive when they came out for good reason.  A lot of advantages to a producer on the clock, and the fact that the public was open to buying that kind of sound made it even more so.

But getting back on topic here.. in the pre digital age.. as a musician, you kinda had to be better.... and this would be most evident in progressive rock... because of the virtuosity in much of the playing.  I will say that nowadays.. I am always suspicious of playing that sounds a bit "too good".  If often is simply studio digital trickery. 

Even something slickly produced like Floyd's DSOTM.  The drums are pretty loose by today's standards.  Mason's playing still sounds natural.  That record would not be made in that way today.  It would sound "better" technically, but probably not have the same effect.

So my feeling again is that the virtuosity in musicians was more "looked up to" in the 60's and 70's because even though there was studio magic going on.. it was nothing like what is going on today.. and the culture back then was aware of the honesty on those recordings in hindsight.

Sorry for the opening epic here.. just my thoughts on the subject. I hope this gives a couple readers here something to ponder.










Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 01:31
^^^  I actually agree with many of those points and I am going to assume you didn't read my last response to Catcher10.  My question is,what are you, or any other listeners, going to do about it?   Questioning the digitally recorded album as a means of reproduction of music is barking up the wrong tree; there is a sea change in 'culture' from 70s to today, as your own comment captures, intentionally or unintentionally.   You are right, drum tracks in particular often sound robotic and calculated (mostly because they are - calculated and automatically reproduced and pasted wherever required in the song).   But if the music ethos of the 70s was so amazing, one has to wonder what exactly prompted the change.   I was not born in the 70s so I can't really hope to put a finger on it...but I suspect that there's basically too much of a good thing.  Reading what musicians had to say about the changes in the music business at that time, it seems to me that they were in fact immersed in the very pursuit of perfection that is criticized today.   Speaking of 'honesty', even back then musicians lip synched on videos, something that they ought not to have done if they valued honesty so much, at least not prog artists/bands like Steve Hackett/Renaissance.  More mainstream artists like Carpenters made no bones about the fact that they were studio cats through and through.  So perhaps they simply have the tools today to do what they always wanted to do, is that it?

Whether it's music or tennis, the rule is that what we don't have today is always more alluring than what we do have.    Today people crave for serve and volley but the excessive domination of serve was criticized in the 90s.   When CDs first hit the market, there was a lot of gee-whiz excitement about something new and the focus much more on what they didn't get in analog that they could now.   So the real problem may be that since then, we haven't yet found some other physical medium that is completely different from the CD (and is not vinyl either).   The problem with the music scene of today is not that it is so different from the 60s and 70s but that it has stagnated and the pace of change has slowed right down.  People say that 'tis the 21st century paradigm and you ought to get used to it, but what I hear in such rants is essentially a craving for excitement and a longing, in turn, for something that listeners once found exciting.   If there really was something exciting on the horizon, listeners would probably be too busy taking it in to lament the collapse of the 60s and 70s music culture.   It is with good reason that avid musicophiles advocate searching out good albums instead (which are still being made) because that is ultimately the simplest way to derive enjoyment from music.  


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 02:53
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


I am not crazy into the audiophile world.. but I have about $2000 invested.  It's more than most would spend, but if you are posting on a site like this.. I would assume music is a pretty important part of your life.  To me it's worth it. 




$2000 is like, 200 albums worth of money, man.


Posted By: Surrealist
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 03:13
What to do about it?

For me personally, or at least in my own bubble surroundings, I have done a lot about it.  I now have three vacuum tube amps that absolutely sound fantastic scattered around the house.  By really being able to hear the music recorded in the true vinyl era, it's opened my ears to a lot of stuff I would not have listened to 10 years ago... meaning.. I can really hear things I couldn't hear.  I can hear the way they mixed these albums.  I can really understand who were the great sound engineers and producers, and what they were doing.  I can not only hear tracks I didn't know existed, I can feel them.  To my ears, complex sound mixing peaked in the mid to late 70's.  Simpler clean recordings much earlier.
I often find myself listening to Getz Gilberto recorded in 1964 with ambient miking inside the Unitarian Church in NYC.
It's simple and clean and sonically beautiful.  These guys really knew what they were doing.  But you see, I can really now feel the difference where before I could just hear it.

Think of it this way....

One could text a digital photo of the Mona Lisa to a friend on an iphone.  Surely the image is recognizable.  You could say you have the Mona Lisa on your phone now.  I mean you have the image.  You can see the major stuff like the crooked smile, or the major shadows.  However, if you were to actually visit it in person, I do think you would have a different experience.  Even better if it was viewed without bullet proof glass in front of it.  There is texture in the paint strokes and texture to the canvas.  The analog experience offers a deeper experience if you are ready for it.  In music... you might need to get up to speed on a few things.  There is a difference between reading music and playing it.  There is a difference between hearing a snare drum and feeling the resonating qualities of a finely tuned birch or maple shell. 

I think the paradigm shift in the human collective consciousness has gravitated toward convenience.. and away from quality.  In the studio.. it's just easier to fix it in the mix than realize that maybe you shouldn't be there and really need to go home and practice the track.. or make it more interesting and really prepare to nail it... or even better yet.. really and truly strive for greatness.

As far as another physical medium.. I think reel to reel tape machines are fantastic.  There are studios still using them and for good reason.

But one of the big issues I have with modern vinyl releases is that they still sound digital.  I don't think too many pressing plants are getting analog source tape from the artist and cutting the master direct from reel to vinyl like the old days.  The new vinyl might sound better than 16 bit CD.. but more likely you are hearing a 24 bit rendering which is substantially better.. but still light years from a proper tape to vinyl transfer. 

I have a friend who is the bassist for a world class major touring Reggae act, and he dropped some new vinyl by the other day, and it sounds good.. but nothing like depth of say Marley's "Exodus". 

The vinyl itself is not going to make the music sound better... but the vinyl has the potential to offer a much better listening if the source tape is really something special. 

For example.. I was given Zep ll when I was 10, so this was 1974.. and I still have that copy.  It's scratched to hell but doesn't skip.  I bought a copy that was from a much later pressing.. probably in the last 10 years and it sounds really lifeless.  I would much rather listen to my early pressing than a clean modern pressing.  The bass in particular is so full and rich, and the modern pressing sounds like a 16 bit CD pressed onto vinyl. 

As far as honesty... one could argue that even simple multi tracking is dishonest.  But I would not overlook that the fact that the real limitations in editing and signal processing compared to the digital world, did make the musicians of the last generation practice harder and in doing so.. they also spent more time on their instruments and were able to explore more creative options in the moment... and not rely so much on post tracking production.

Sometimes magical things happen if presented a sense of urgency.  Didn't Wakeman record Awaken on a real pipe organ playing live with his YESmates over the telephone lines in the studio miles away?  I don't think the modern sampled keyboards ever sound as good as the real thing.  If you listen to Keys to Ascension, I think pretty obvious... from a standpoint of tonality for sure.






Posted By: Surrealist
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 03:25
$2000 is like, 200 albums worth of money, man.

Sure.. I agree.. more than most will spend.. but there are also lots of guys driving around in classic street rods that they have invested 20K into and are living almost on the poverty line.  I have friends doing that. 

My dad was an electrical engineer who graduated top of the class at UCLA.  He worked on tube gear and saw the change to solid state.  I asked him, why did everything go solid state?  He replied, "well, it was just a lot more cost effective and for most people, more reliable".  Ok I said.. but it was not better was it?  He replied... "Oh, of course not.. it was not better"  He said it as if my comment was an absurdity.  He knew. 

The tube amps can sound great.. even phenomenal.. but if you just pick one up that works but has not been properly restored or serviced.. it can sound dreadful.  So again.. it depends.  Everything needs to be working at the proper voltages inside.  All the capacitors and resistors... the selenium rectifier.. the tubes themselves... the power supplies.

Prior to my vintage tube amp.. I was into NAD stuff.  Everyone seems to think pretty highly of that.  When I switched to the tube amp.. I almost fell over in my chair when I first heard it.  It was like.. good lord.. really?  I had that NAD on ebay within hours, and sold it for more than I paid for my tube amp.  I felt guilty doing that actually.   I could NEVER go back to a solid state amp knowing what I know now.


Posted By: Surrealist
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 03:29
Personally, I would rather own 50 albums that I love and can really hear properly presented than own 2000 albums that I have to listen to on a solid state amp and a pair of Cerwin Vega's.  


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 03:37
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

What to do about it?

For me personally, or at least in my own bubble surroundings, I have done a lot about it.  

You misunderstood my question.  I didn't ask what you have done about it because you have already outlined it in detail.   What can you to fight the tide?  This is the reality, this is the extant music culture.  All you are doing is satisfying your desire to listen to music in a certain way.      

Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

 

There is a difference between reading music and playing it.  There is a difference between hearing a snare drum and feeling the resonating qualities of a finely tuned birch or maple shell.  

That's very subjective, I am afraid.  I can feel the subtle changes in the force of  her fingers on the piano on a Fiona Apple album...on a CD.   Some details are more or less evident depending on the music system, but it also depends on the listener's capability to absorb these details.   Though I am not a professional singer, I am good enough to sing in public without causing major embarrassments to my hosts and I am positive that people who don't sing or play cannot feel the things that I do when I hear a singer...and I feel those things even on poor recordings with some disturbance because it's also a lot about intuition.   

I agree that the photograph of Mona Lisa is not the same thing as the actual painting.  But as far as recordings go, we are only talking about two kinds of photographs....maybe at the most the difference between Kodak film and digital.   But it's still just a photograph.  The actual authentic experience can only be obtained in a concert, there's no substitute for it.  And ever since the Beatles, if not before them,  musicians have attempted to use the studio to create sounds they cannot replicate live.   Which is perfectly fine to me;  I have always believed the studio album is meant to present a certain experience and is not just about bringing musicians you can't watch live closer to you.    

Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

 
I think the paradigm shift in the human collective consciousness has gravitated toward convenience.. and away from quality.  In the studio.. it's just easier to fix it in the mix than realize that maybe you shouldn't be there and really need to go home and practice the track.. or make it more interesting and really prepare to nail it... or even better yet.. really and truly strive for greatness.  

That's YOUR take on it.   There are people who feel older recordings are not perfect and things have got better on that front.   What sounds human and real to you sounds flawed to them.  I like to feel the personality of a musician in the way he plays and the looseness is part of the package; but I am ok with it if that's not everybody's perspective on it.    It is also a big assumption that musicians do not have to practice anymore, as a lot of them do make their mark live and are capable of performing well live.   


Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

 


As far as honesty... one could argue that even simple multi tracking is dishonest.  


Indeed, see above.   It is music, it is art and art is about projection.   There is a lot of make believe in art anyway.   A studio album works well when it creates a frame of reference for this make believe that resonates.   Vinyl won't save them if they can't do that.  


Posted By: Surrealist
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 03:51
What can I do to fight the tide?

I am not really interested in fighting the tide.  I own a record label.  I am able to pay musicians I like. I have released a lot of music into the world.  I am building a new all analog studio without one computer in it.  I am saving 1000s of vinyl records from the landfills.

That's YOUR take on it.

Never said it wasn't my take.  I doubt I am the only one who thinks that way.. but if I am... then maybe others who read this forum might have a second thought about a few things and if it leads them to a better listening experience, then I am glad to have expressed such a "take".

That's very subjective, I am afraid.

I am not afraid of the subjective nature of any experience.  But you have to also bring something to the table when making value judgments.  Experience.. background, education,  communication.  Subjectivity is a two way street for sure. 


Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 04:35
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:



Never said it wasn't my take.  I doubt I am the only one who thinks that way.. but if I am... then maybe others who read this forum might have a second thought about a few things and if it leads them to a better listening experience, then I am glad to have expressed such a "take".



That's fine but it is these claims about the media - analog or digital - that I am not very comfortable with.   You  have talked about background and experience, etc etc and that is actually a big part of the listening experience.   It's three things taken together as far an album goes  - the band, the medium and the listener.  A listener may or may not hear certain things and a band may or may not be interested in presenting certain things.   I don't need a high quality recording to be able to feel the music because I am not so much interested in the texture of the sounds.  I don't listen to music just for the sounds,  I am much more interested in the composition itself.  It is ultimately about what a listener wants to hear in the music, that's my point.   A particular listener may not like to hear the music on digital, or analog as applicable, but it doesn't mean the medium is everything, or should be everything, for all listeners.   Personally, the medium is the least important aspect of the three things I mentioned for reasons already given.  




Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 04:57
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


I am going to guess that the posters here whom are die hard digital believers simply have not heard a proper analog set up.
Not necessarily.
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


It's understandable, because not a lot of people have proper set ups these days.  If I could give an analogy, I would suggest that digital music is similar to digital photography.  It looks fine from a distance as the eye can't really see the pixel properties.  Same thing in music really.  But if you start to zoom in... you start to see tiny squares of shaded colors.  Upon closer examination it starts to look like a chess board.  It certainly does not get more interesting.
I know that sounds all very logical and reasonable, but it's specious. We do not have zoom-eyes or zoom-ears, the only reason you can see pixels on a digital photograph is because you can use tools like Photoshop on a PC to examine them in fine detail, just as you can use tools like Protools to examine the quantised steps on a sampled sound.
 
Also, analogue photographs also cannot be zoomed indefinitely - both the negative film and the photographic paper have " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_grain" rel="nofollow - grain ", this is the equivalent of digital resolution in the photosensitive emulsion used in the process. If you want to continue the photography/music analogy, this is the equivalent of surface noise on a vinyl platter or tape-hiss on a magnetic tape (which is caused by the size of the magnetic particles)
 
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

A good analog system really puts the music under the microscope.  Not just the production but the performance, the ambiance and feel of the room or the subtle nature of the processing gear.
I do not believe it can any more or any less than a good digital system can. The only digitial part of a digital system is the ADC in the CD player - from that point forward the two systems can be identical, so from an electronics point of view you are comparing an ADC with a magnetic cartridge.
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


If you look at the physics of it.... a 16 bit rendering of an analog source input simply cannot compare to the original data that is being input into the computer or sampler.

I cannot argue with that from a "physics" perspective, but from the same perspective I can also say that the vinyl rendering of an analogue source input simply cannot compare to the original acoustic pressure wave that was converted into an electrical signal by an electro-mechanical microphone.
 
The "problem" with analogue systems is there are too many conversion steps that can and do affect the sound:
Live sound = mechanical information
Microphone = electromechanical conversion mechanical -> electrical
Mixing & Production = electrical information
Mastering = electromechanical conversion electrical -> mechanical
Pressing = mechanical transfer mechanical -> mechanical
Turntable/Cartridge = electromechanical conversion mechanical -> electrical
Amplification = electrical information
Loudspeaker = electromechanical conversion electrical -> mechanical
None of those conversions (in red) are perfect (or transparent) and a consumer can only affect the last two -you can buy a better cartridge and you can invest in some quality loudspeakers - and from an analogue argument the only difference is the cartridge because the amp and speakers are the same for both systems.
 
In a digital system the electrical information from the microphone is converted to digital,and there the information remains in the digital domain until the ADC in the CD player converts it back to electrical and while it is in the digital domain it is completely immune from any external influences that can affect the sound - the sound you hear coming out of the CD player is identical to the sound the record producer heard in the studio - you cannot make that claim for analogue.
 


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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 05:05
Thanks Dean, I had forgotten the British spelling of analog.  


Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 05:15
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


Think of it this way....

One could text a digital photo of the Mona Lisa to a friend on an iphone.  Surely the image is recognizable.  You could say you have the Mona Lisa on your phone now.  I mean you have the image.  You can see the major stuff like the crooked smile, or the major shadows.  However, if you were to actually visit it in person, I do think you would have a different experience.  Even better if it was viewed without bullet proof glass in front of it.  There is texture in the paint strokes and texture to the canvas.  The analog experience offers a deeper experience if you are ready for it.  In music... you might need to get up to speed on a few things.  There is a difference between reading music and playing it.  There is a difference between hearing a snare drum and feeling the resonating qualities of a finely tuned birch or maple shell. 
this point has been made before in this thread:
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Catcher10 Catcher10 wrote:

  
But..... a perfect digital photograph copy of the Mona Lisa......is not the Mona Lisa.
Again, you've lost me - an imperfect "analogue" photographic copy of the Mona Lisa... is not the Mona Lisa either. Confused
An analogue photograph (or even a forged copy) is still an image of the Mona Lisa but it's not the same as being there seeing Leonardo's mastery at first hand - I've never seen the real Mona Lisa, but I have seen Constable's Haywain - and yes, no copy can ever capture the real thing, be that digital photograph, an analogue photograph and certainly not a picture in a coffee-table art-book - the real thing is breath-taking, no copy ever can be. Listening to analogue recordings is not the same as "being there" - it's a specious argument because it feels right that information that is kept in the analogue domain is fidelity and honest, but the original analogue domain was mechanical - moving air pressure waves - not electrical signals - anlogue (electrical) signals are as artificial as any digital signal - they are (by definition of their name) analogous.
 


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 05:50
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:

$2000 is like, 200 albums worth of money, man.

Sure.. I agree.. more than most will spend.. but there are also lots of guys driving around in classic street rods that they have invested 20K into and are living almost on the poverty line.  I have friends doing that. 

My dad was an electrical engineer who graduated top of the class at UCLA.  He worked on tube gear and saw the change to solid state.  I asked him, why did everything go solid state?  He replied, "well, it was just a lot more cost effective and for most people, more reliable".  Ok I said.. but it was not better was it?  He replied... "Oh, of course not.. it was not better"  He said it as if my comment was an absurdity.  He knew. 
55 yo Electronics Engineer here, (graduated 5th in class from a piss-pot Polytechnic in the arse-end of nowhere) I learnt my trade in valves (tubes), I have built valve and solid-state amplifiers from scratch; in my professional career I currently design test solutions for DACs and ADCs for all applications from seismic recording (ultra low frequency) through "audiophile" to aerospace applications and as a hobbiest I stilldabble in the analgue world. I'm not presenting that information as an argument from authority here, just levelling the playing field.
 
I have waxed lyrical on this subject before, valve amplifiers are not perfect - the whole ethos of audiophilia grew-up because they were not perfect - audiophilists pre-date solid-state amplifiers, they were striving for perfection in an imperfect medium - valve amplifieres and their very necessary output transformers add distortion (in the voltage/current and the time/frequency domains) to the source signal - that is a fundamental limitation of the physics of their construction - that's not subjective or professional bias, it is a bankable fact. The "warm" sound of a valve amp is real - it is harmonic distortion and it is not subjective.
 
Back in the 70s audiophilists picked up on the similar fact that poorly designed solid-state amplifiers were also not perfect, and because the distortion they could impose was even-harmonic rather than the odd-harmonics of valves, they were not warm-sounding, but well designed solid-state amlifiers (and those have been the norm since the late 60s) do not have that cold-sounding even-harmionic distortion, but because there is still an audible difference between solid-state and valve audiophilists tend to blame the solid-state rather than their treasured valves. Solid-state is "better", it's just that "we" prefer the warm distortions of valves more.

Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


The tube amps can sound great.. even phenomenal.. but if you just pick one up that works but has not been properly restored or serviced.. it can sound dreadful.  So again.. it depends.  Everything needs to be working at the proper voltages inside.  All the capacitors and resistors... the selenium rectifier.. the tubes themselves... the power supplies.
Selenium rectifiers are dreadful period - they degrade over time and are not good at all because as they degrade they affect the life of the valves in the amp. They are also toxic when they fail. They were a solid-state compromise to the horrendous valve rectifiers because back then silicon could not handle the HT voltages of valve circuits. Replacing them with modern high-voltage silicon diodes will not affect the sound of any amplifier.
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


Prior to my vintage tube amp.. I was into NAD stuff.  Everyone seems to think pretty highly of that.  When I switched to the tube amp.. I almost fell over in my chair when I first heard it.  It was like.. good lord.. really?  I had that NAD on ebay within hours, and sold it for more than I paid for my tube amp.  I felt guilty doing that actually.   I could NEVER go back to a solid state amp knowing what I know now.
I've run my NAD amp continuously for 30 years (it only gets switched off when I move house), it is faultless and as good as it was when I first bought it - I cannot conceive a situation where I would ever sell it. My valve amps are equally as "irreplaceable" and I would not part with them either, but I would not run them 24/7. I have no preference - sometimes I like the warmth of a valve amp and I do get a nostalgia-kick out of them, and sometimes I like the clarity and transparency of the NAD.


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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 08:12
I know some people get tetchy and defensive when I use "Specs" and "science" in these discussions because as I have said time after time, listening is all subjective and down to personal preferences and not about specifications and science. But when people use specifications and science in their arguments against digital media I do need to explain that in specifications and scientific terms in order to address those arguments, such as:
Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


If you look at the physics of it.... a 16 bit rendering of an analog source input simply cannot compare to the original data that is being input into the computer or sampler.
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Surrealist Surrealist wrote:


It's understandable, because not a lot of people have proper set ups these days.  If I could give an analogy, I would suggest that digital music is similar to digital photography.  It looks fine from a distance as the eye can't really see the pixel properties.  Same thing in music really.  But if you start to zoom in... you start to see tiny squares of shaded colors.  Upon closer examination it starts to look like a chess board.  It certainly does not get more interesting.
I know that sounds all very logical and reasonable, but it's specious. We do not have zoom-eyes or zoom-ears, the only reason you can see pixels on a digital photograph is because you can use tools like Photoshop on a PC to examine them in fine detail, just as you can use tools like Protools to examine the quantised steps on a sampled sound.
 
Also, analogue photographs also cannot be zoomed indefinitely - both the negative film and the photographic paper have " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_grain" rel="nofollow - grain ", this is the equivalent of digital resolution in the photosensitive emulsion used in the process. If you want to continue the photography/music analogy, this is the equivalent of surface noise on a vinyl platter or tape-hiss on a magnetic tape (which is caused by the size of the magnetic particles)
The point of this is important. You cannot keep zooming in on an analogue signal recovered from a vinyl source and get more and more detail from the signal - the analogue signal is not fractilian in nature, it has a fundamental limitation, and that is the noise-floor, which is the equivalent to digital resolution. Dynamic range is simply the distance between the loudest signal you can record onto a medium and the noise-floor.
Absolute theoretical limit of the noise floor of a digital system is defined by a simple equation:
 
&amp;amp;#10;\mathrm{DR_{dB}} = \mathrm{SNR_{dB}} = 20 \log_{10}(2^n) \approx 6.02 \cdot n&amp;amp;#10;
 
where n is the number of bits being digitised - for a 16-bit sample that equates to -96dB
The best SNR that can be recovered from vinyl also has a fundamental limitation (based upon the physics of the medium) at best this is in the region of -60dB (and gets progressively worse as the vinyl ages). The noise floor is an absolute limit - signals below that cannot be recovered and they cannot be heard above the sound of the noise.
 
You can argue that you cannot hear the noise in your system, and that is correct, -60db of noise approaches the threshold of human hearing when listening to a 0dB sound (all decibel measures are relative to a fixed source, they are not an absolute measure of anything - the values of -60dB and -96dB are relative to the maximum amplitude you can record onto a medium. People make a great deal out of dynamic range, but they invariably get it wrong - dynamic range is not measured relative to the quietest sound you can hear, but to the loudest you can record - this means we can compare analogue and digital because the loudest of each is engineered to be the same "voltage") - but that also means that if you cannot hear the noise at -60dB then you cannot hear any signals at that level either.
 
Putting that -60dB figure back into the digital SNR equation to produce an equivalent resolution for the analogue signal gets you ~10-bits.
ie: log(10^(60/20))/log(2) = 9.97-bits, hence vinyl  10bit sampling.
So essentially the noise-floor of a vinyl recording is no better than a digital recording of 10-bits resolution. This puts 16-bits (and 20 and 24) into perspective. Yes you can use ProTools (or Audacity) to zoom-in and see the individual quantisation bits, but you cannot zoom an analogue signal recovered from a vinyl recording to that same degree of "magnification" - all you see is noise.
 
 


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Posted By: progbethyname
Date Posted: October 13 2012 at 09:42
You know I gotta say this has been a very educational forum and I'm learning quite a BIT....no pun intended.
Anyway, I would love people(s) opinion in this forum about my personal set up for what I think is a fantastic listening experience.

First off. I bought a pair of SENNHEISER HD 800 headphones and as you probably already know they are considered to be the most dynamic sounding headphones on the planet right now. Also the power plant of these headphones is quite large, so these particular Cans have a really high IMPEDANCE LEVEL OF 300 OHMS. With that being said you need sufficient power to run these suckers properly, which brings me to my next point

Second-- THE AMP. I use my 250 Watt JVC stereo and I plug in my headphones with a Grado Extension cable directly I to the stereo unit. I leave the stereo on 10min to warm up the amp because the sound quality gets a bit brighter when I do so. My point here is that just using a stereo amp provides more than enough current flow to run the HD's.

Third. I bypass the single by using the AUXILLARY connection in the stereo using an Analogue single to connect to my I pod or portable cd player. For the I pod, I use a high quality Y CABLE to connect my digital music to my stereo and be Able to listen to it through the masterful headphones. So at this point I am listening to my digital music at 300kps through an analogue connection to the stereo and I feel that this sounds absolutely incredible and I am maximizing the true power that the headphones offer. I do the same thing with the cd player.

Lastly, my point is that you can utilize both digital and analogue sound singles in your listening experience. I feel I am getting a really good personal listening experience with regards to how I've set up my headphones with the proper equipment. So far I have to say that Cd quality sounds slightly better than MP3. My best listening experience is when I get a hold of CDs that are recorded in the 24BIT 96KHTZ PCM format. The headphones really respond well to these types of recordings.   In Conclusion I would love to hear anyone's feedback. Any questions, suggestions and constructive criticism is greatly needed because I know there is always a way to improve your set up. Thank you for helping me and this is all for the greater good of prog! Please don't be shy cause I know I have kind of a unique set up and I think what anyone is this forum has to say will be most helpful. Thank you my prog brothers.

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Gimmie my headphones now!!! 🎧🤣



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