the importance of analog sound in prog - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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presdoug

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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!

Edited by presdoug - September 18 2012 at 17:24

moshkito

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Posted: September 18 2012 at 13:35

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!

Edited by moshkito - September 18 2012 at 13:35

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presdoug

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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

moshkito

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Posted: September 18 2012 at 12:57

JediJoker7169 wrote:

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'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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moshkito

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Posted: September 18 2012 at 12:34

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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Catcher10

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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: September 18 2012 at 03:57

JediJoker7169 wrote:

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.

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.

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.

Edited by Dean - September 18 2012 at 04:02

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friso

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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.

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Posted: September 18 2012 at 03:00

Catcher10

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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: 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.

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

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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.

Edited by Ytse_Jam - September 17 2012 at 19:32

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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.

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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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Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:39

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.

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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pitfall

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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.

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Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:13

Hercules wrote:

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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moshkito

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Posted: September 17 2012 at 17:10

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 ... !!!

Edited by moshkito - September 17 2012 at 17:11

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Manuel

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Posted: September 17 2012 at 16:50

cstack3 wrote:

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.

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Posted: September 17 2012 at 16:33

Dean wrote:

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!

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

- Peter Hammill