Questions about vinyl

Well I'm no expert and I imagine the more experienced people will pop in on this topic later, but you will now a CD has a 44100 Hz sampling rate, which according to Nyquist's Theorem (maybe I'm wrong, but I now it's one of the things to do with Nyquist) states that the maximum frequencies produced are going to be half the sampling rate i.e 22050Hz which is of course means we get the whole spectrum of the human hearing range and more.

Actually, that was kinda just some of the more basic info that partly explains why vinyls sound the way they do. I can imagine a full on audio-phile with some knowledge of electronics and physics would give you something a hell of a lot scarier than what I said

I've put on weight since CDs took over, no more walks to the record deck every 20 minutes!

Speaking as someone who got into prog in the vinyl age, vinyl sucks.  In a perfect audiophile world with the perfect equipment and a perfect vinyl, maybe it does sound better.  Even if you do have the hearing of a dog.  The norm is needle noise, scratch noise, etc...

For me, I'd rather hear the music than the medium.  And just try taking along the record player in your car.  Now, when it comes to album art, the LP has yet to be beat.

There's a reason why CDs were invented and became a popular format to deliver music and that is the LP, which was invented to replace that cylinder thingy because of it's sonic limitations.

I seriously don't get this whole LPs sounds warmer thing.  What is it, the friction of needle in a groove?  Scratch a CD and it can usually be repaired, scratch an LP and it's permanently ruined. 

Now, many of the early CDs were made from the LP masters, which were structured in a way to compensate for physical limitations of the LP.  Honestly, I'm not entirely sure I can hear the difference, but Mr. Fripp has some choice words to say on the subject.  (sorry, don't have a link handy) Those of us who wound up with them basically got ripped off.  I say go for the latest remaster if it's available.


Edited by Slartibartfast - May 26 2008 at 04:49

Well, however you cut it or listen to it, the invention of recording was revolutionary in the history of music.  But the music is much more important than the medium.  I would alway tape my LPs to cassette to preserve them and make them portable.  DBX anyone?

All this stuff we're talking about was recorded to a tape anyway, if you weren't there to hear and see it live, so much was lost anyway and in some cases the recorded product was much better than the live and in studio version...


Edited by Slartibartfast - May 26 2008 at 04:59

Another cool factoid, those younger folks can actually hear sounds in a frequency range us older people can't.  But guess what, you're going to get older sooner or later if you don't die first.  Sorry, don't want to be the bummer man...

Vinyl vs. CD?  It is dependent on the condition of the vinyl and whether or not the CD has been remastered decently. 

Another advantage to vinyl- you don't have to worry about "vinyl" rot, like CD rot.  Although I have a lot of late 80s/early 90s CDs, I have yet to experience this, but I guess it is inevitable that some day it will happen.  Even my CD-R's that I've made 3-4 years ago seem to play perfectly.  I have a few CDs that have skipping problems, but most of them are pretty badly scratched (need a better copy of Kind of Blue and Oregon's s/t).  And for some strange reason, a few of my CDs have problems being ripped to my computer but they play perfectly on my CD player (My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything and Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements).  Both have minor scratches, but I don't believe that is the problem.

I'll repeat what I said earlier for emphasis- Neither sounds "better".  If you think vinyl is better, than vinyl is better (to you).  If you think CD is better, than CD is better (to you).  This comes up in practically every opinion-based argument, and even pops up in science (contradicting studies: if you think wine is good for you, then you want to prove it; if you think wine is bad for you, then you want to prove it).  So if you're totally neutral to the subject, I recommend buying both, since there are pros and cons to each, but neither "sounds better" - it all depends.  End of debate.  Move on to debating something else or just listening to music.

...i'm starting to sound like a broken record ;)


Edited by Bluesaga - May 26 2008 at 14:49

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Sacred 22 wrote: All things being equal vinyl will sound better than 'Red Book' CD. The sample rate as mentioned before is based on Nyquist's theorem which says that you must double the sample frequency of the maximum frequency being articulated. There are many problems associated with this process of which I am not going to go into here (most of the problems occur with filtering and jitter). Many very talented technicians and engineers have employed all kind of electronic 'tricks' to get better sound from digital, but in the end a analog recording will sound better all things being equal but digital is so much more versatile. It's true that filtering and jitter can produce so called "artefacts" in the signal. However, these artefacts are well above the normal frequency range of the typical listener ... so IMO it's a very theoretical problem.   I disagree with you. I just bought a DAC ($1500.00) that has virtually zero jitter and I can certainly hear the difference on my expensive stereo system. On a budget system it makes little or no difference but on very good systems it most certainly does. Sacred 22 wrote: The analog to digital and the digital to analog process is much better now than it was when CD was first introduced in the early 80's. Recording equipment has also improved dramatically over the years which adds to the sonic purity of the CD.  The proof is in SACD recordings which have a much higher sample and bit rate over Red Book CD. When you listen to a SACD recording and then the same recording using Red Book CD you can hear the differences. SACD which works at 24 bit depth and a sample frequency of 96KHz is far more accurate and also gives you much better dynamic range. SACD is much closer to vinyl in sound quality. The problem is that most of the stuff that we like to listen to is not available on SACD. We are stuck with the Red Book CD but it's much better now than it was when it was first introduced. There are various listening tests which show that even skilled listeners have problems telling high bitrate mp3 from CD ... it's even more difficult for CD vs. DVD-Audio/SACD. But I agree that these high resolution formats are the way to go -  it's simply not necessary to reduce the signal quality during mastering just to meet a 25 year old standard (red book).

Sacred 22 wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Sacred 22 wrote: All things being equal vinyl will sound better than 'Red Book' CD. The sample rate as mentioned before is based on Nyquist's theorem which says that you must double the sample frequency of the maximum frequency being articulated. There are many problems associated with this process of which I am not going to go into here (most of the problems occur with filtering and jitter). Many very talented technicians and engineers have employed all kind of electronic 'tricks' to get better sound from digital, but in the end a analog recording will sound better all things being equal but digital is so much more versatile. It's true that filtering and jitter can produce so called "artefacts" in the signal. However, these artefacts are well above the normal frequency range of the typical listener ... so IMO it's a very theoretical problem.   I disagree with you. I just bought a DAC ($1500.00) that has virtually zero jitter and I can certainly hear the difference on my expensive stereo system. On a budget system it makes little or no difference but on very good systems it most certainly does.

I suppose you mean you hear a difference between CD and vinyl. I don't doubt that - but how can you be so sure that vinyl is closer to the original recording than the CD? Maybe the opposite is true, and you simply prefer the warmer sound of vinyl.

Sacred 22 wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Sacred 22 wrote: The analog to digital and the digital to analog process is much better now than it was when CD was first introduced in the early 80's. Recording equipment has also improved dramatically over the years which adds to the sonic purity of the CD.  The proof is in SACD recordings which have a much higher sample and bit rate over Red Book CD. When you listen to a SACD recording and then the same recording using Red Book CD you can hear the differences. SACD which works at 24 bit depth and a sample frequency of 96KHz is far more accurate and also gives you much better dynamic range. SACD is much closer to vinyl in sound quality. The problem is that most of the stuff that we like to listen to is not available on SACD. We are stuck with the Red Book CD but it's much better now than it was when it was first introduced. There are various listening tests which show that even skilled listeners have problems telling high bitrate mp3 from CD ... it's even more difficult for CD vs. DVD-Audio/SACD. But I agree that these high resolution formats are the way to go -  it's simply not necessary to reduce the signal quality during mastering just to meet a 25 year old standard (red book).   Again I disagree, I have SACD discs and they not only sound better but the dynamic range is far better than that of Red Book CD(24 bit as opposed to 16 bits gives you lots more dynamic range). When you spend a lot of money on a good system($16,000.00 plus) it lets you know the difference. Cheap systems tend to be a bit more forgiving.

Again, vinyl is much worse in terms of dynamic. I actually agree that you might hear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit, and that 24 bit sounds better particularly for very dynamic recordings (e.g. symphonies). But vinyl has not only a smaller dynamic range (usually less than 70dB), but the very silent sounds also don't sound as well and are much more affected by the inaccuracies of the medium.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - May 27 2008 at 05:02