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Topic ClosedWhich is best - vinyl or CD ?

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Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 01:09

The only reason why I miss tyhe Vinyll is because the beautiful art covers.

But CD lasts more, as another person said, the vinyl suffers degradation with  each reproduction and looses quality, it's a fact that a needle scratching plastic material causes damage each and every time you play the album, no matter how much you take care of an old LP it will sound terrible after several listens.

You can't play a vynil in your car and cassettes suck.

The laser beam of a cd player is not solid so it causes absolutely no degradation of the CD, you can listen it 1,000 times and will sound exactly the same if you have a minimum care.

Can be reproduced for your personal use (if you own the original album according to law) with absolutely no loss of quality.

So I have to stay with the CD.

Iván

            
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 04:29
False that vynil is torn after a few passages.
With a GOOD cartridge on a good turntable, playing a good record, it doesn't get torn...

And no, cassette doesn't sucks...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 10:27
Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:



And no, cassette doesn't sucks...


Cassettes were really great when they had the old dbx noise reduction systems incorporated in cass. decks. It would virtually eliminate all hiss without muffling the sound like Dolby would do. Unfortunately it was incompatible. You had to RECORD in dbx in order to PLAYBACK in dbx. If you don't encode it, it sounds like crap. That's why it was dicontinued.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 10:45

Originally posted by Flyingsod Flyingsod wrote:

Be very glad if you can't hear the difference between cd and vinyl. I can't and I love it. No reason for me to spend 1000 bucks just for a cd player, god that would suck. For me it breaks down like this...Cd's are better because they never develop pops and cliks. Vinyl is better just becuase its cooler artwork wise. To me cd's have zero artisitic draw. They just are not big enough to matter. its like having a poster of the mona lisa compared to having just a postcard. no one proudly hangs a postcard over the mantle :)

 For what its worth I still have and play all my vinyl. I buy and play cd's. One  important thing though, you can't clean your stash on a jewel case

Well, I wasn't going to bring that last part up but that was a real advantage of double albums! 

Of course cds and downloads are better than vinyl, that's the nature of technology to improve the sound quality and durability.  You get no argument from me.  Just comparing the LP version of "Selling England" to my new remastered cd is like night and day.  I just miss the emphasis on and importance of album art in the new age.  That's why I treasure my old LPs.

"Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 10:49
Indeed, big DBX systems were working well to remove noise without lowering highs.
But like for Dolby, there's "Dolby" and "Dolby".

I.E my Nakamichi 1000 features two kinds of Dolby:
"Dolby NR" ("Noise reduction") and "Dolby NL" ("Noise limiter"). The Dobly NR is crap as it lower much highs.
The NL one works far better as it removes virtually all the noise, but very few highs.

I simply don't use Dolby for recording.

But indeed, the best to use are big external DBX boxes (there are used in studio). It's far superior to Dolby system. But very expensive.


Edited by oliverstoned
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 11:53
When my Teac cass. deck with dbx I bought in '83 bit the dust, I didn't know what to do for years since dbx became obsolete on standard decks. But then a repair tech referred me to a guy who would buy up old dbx encoder/decoder units and sell them. So I traded him my old dbx 4bx dynamic range expander, which is now pretty much useless these days, for a unit and bought a new cass. deck and now it works like a charm. So I lucked out.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 11:59
As you point out, these DBX boxes expand the dynamic which can be nice also!

What's your new tapedeck?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 12:02
I think the question is unanswerable: it depends entirely upon the
mastering. I have some CD reissues that beat the vinyl originals hands
down for sound quality, and I have some vinyl originals that sound vastly
better than the CD reissues. It's practically impossible to compare like for
like.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 12:07
Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

As you point out, these DBX boxes expand the dynamic which can be nice also!

What's your new tapedeck?

Denon DRM555P, nothing too fancy. All I do is play the tapes I burned off my audiophile vinyls 20 years ago, so I didn't get dual deck.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 12:15
^ and with CDs you don't have any noise ... at least unless you listen to your music at unreal volume.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 12:18

Oliverstoned wrote:

Quote

False that vynil is torn after a few passages.

Torn is a hard word, but I have almost 2,000 vinyls, and even when I can't be more careful with them, after a few passages there are noises, this is inevitable. Some are scratched (What was easier than with CD's), but that's because lack of care in a specific case or an accident.


With a GOOD cartridge on a good turntable, playing a good record, it doesn't get torn...

Physic laws are clear any two solid things in constant contact will sufer degradation. As long as a needle touches the surface of a vinyl, both will suffer, despite the quality. I have a Dual with all those weights at the end of the arm to be graduateds, and always suffers.

And no, cassette doesn't sucks...

Analogic reproduction of an LP to a Cassette causes a certain loss of quality, that's also a fact, that's why each time you duplicate a cassette from another cassette, the quality loss is more evident.

Cassettes are affected by heat, fungus (Well Lma is a city with 95% of humidity average), and also suffer degradation because the tape touches the playing and/or recording head, so in a shorter time than a LP will loose quality.

There was another problem, it was  harder to select songs, and when you did it, the constant FFD or Rewind, will cause that the tape leght change and of course a distortion of the sound.

When you copy a CD to a CDR there's absolutely no loss of quality.

Believe me, I was raised with LP's, I love them, I keep and play carefully each and everyone, but with my CD's I have lets say 1% of the problems than with LP's.

Iván

            
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 14:10
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

^ and with CDs you don't have any noise ... at least unless you listen to your music at unreal volume.


False. High ends players on transparent systems reveals noise on MOST OF the cds, even some DDD ones!!

Surprising, isn't it?

The paradox is that we audiophiles are happy when we hear noise on CDs: cause it shows how transparent and revealant the digital set up is.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 14:16
Originally posted by ivan_2068 ivan_2068 wrote:

Oliverstoned wrote:

Quote


False that vynil is torn after a few passages.


Torn is a hard word, but I have almost 2,000 vinyls, and even when I can't be more careful with them, after a few passages there are noises, this is inevitable. Some are scratched (What was easier than with CD's), but that's because lack of care in a specific case or an accident.


With a GOOD cartridge on a good turntable, playing a good record, it doesn't get torn...


Physic laws are clear any two solid things in constant contact will sufer degradation. As long as a needle touches the surface of a vinyl, both will suffer, despite the quality. I have a Dual with all those weights at the end of the arm to be graduateds, and always suffers.And no, cassette doesn't sucks...


Analogic reproduction of an LP to a Cassette causes a certain loss of quality, that's also a fact, that's why each time you duplicate a cassette from another cassette, the quality loss is more evident.


Cassettes are affected by heat, fungus (Well Lma is a city with 95% of humidity average), and also suffer degradation because the tape touches the playing and/or recording head, so in a shorter time than a LP will loose quality.


There was another problem, it was harder to select songs, and when you did it, the constant FFD or Rewind, will cause that the tape leght change and of course a distortion of the sound.


When you copy a CD to a CDR there's absolutely no loss of quality.


Believe me, I was raised with LP's, I love them, I keep and play carefully each and everyone, but with my CD's I have lets say 1% of the problems than with LP's.


Iván<!-- Signature -->



Indeed, there's a slight degradation, but it's often due to the dirt phenomenon which "bakes" the dirt on the stylus and so "plots" the groove (that's how many second hands vynils are ruined, even if they look new).
I also admit that contrary to digital -when it's well done, not on a computer-, analog copy involves degradation.

But, when you practice both on good hifi equipment (not necessary high end, but good and musical devices), you quick understand the absolute superiority of analog over digital, like tube versus solid state in the highs, and the torn problem become soon a pure theorical issue.

Eventually, it's a matter of choice. For sure, digital is more convenient.

Edited by oliverstoned
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 14:19
Originally posted by marktheshark marktheshark wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

As you point out, these DBX boxes expand the dynamic which can be nice also!

What's your new tapedeck?

Denon DRM555P, nothing too fancy. All I do is play the tapes I burned off my audiophile vinyls 20 years ago, so I didn't get dual deck.


A very cheap and musical "current" tape deck is the Yamaha KX 530. It's very musical with beautiful aerial and open mids/highs. Unfortunatly, it's quite thin in the low.




Among recent decks, you have the Teac V8030s (the biggest they made in 1998) which is good(but not extremely musical).



Edited by oliverstoned
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2006 at 14:55

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

^ and with CDs you don't have any noise ... at least unless you listen to your music at unreal volume.


False. High ends players on transparent systems reveals noise on MOST OF the cds, even some DDD ones!!

Surprising, isn't it?

The paradox is that we audiophiles are happy when we hear noise on CDs: cause it shows how transparent and revealant the digital set up is.

 Of course there is noise on CDs. But the noise you hear on most recordings was already there on the master tape.the signal to noise ratio on a CD is 96 dB (unless I'm much mistaken), which is much more than on any vinyl or cassette. That means that with a perfectly mastered CD with the volume turned up so loud that the loudest parts of the recording would reach 96 dB, the noise would still not be audible.



Edited by MikeEnRegalia
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2006 at 10:01

Originally posted by Politician Politician wrote:

I think the question is unanswerable: it depends entirely upon the
mastering. I have some CD reissues that beat the vinyl originals hands
down for sound quality, and I have some vinyl originals that sound vastly
better than the CD reissues. It's practically impossible to compare like for
like.

you have it there in a nutshell, my son!Big smile

Prog Archives Tour Van
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2006 at 12:12
Mmm...but a good analog always beats a good numeric...

Nothing to do!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2006 at 07:58
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

Digital trumps CD? That doesn't even begin to make sense..


It's odd ... sometimes, when I'm listening to some stuff that I ripped from CD in 192kbps WMA, it sounds really amazing and leaves nothing to be desired ... then again sometimes the compression artifacts jump right at me and destroy my listening experience. I don't know why that happens ... it's not just differences in the quality of the files, it also has a lot to do with your current situation (stress) and a whole bunch of other factors not related to music.


BTW: While it's actually impossible for a compressed version of some source to sound better than the source, there are some explanations:



  • The compressed version was ripped from a better source (e.g. the remastered CD)

  • The compressed version is in 24bit/96khz (my new Creative X-Fi can create that from 16bit/44.1khz).

For a start CD is a digital format, as I'm sure I don't need to explain . Also while surely there are digital formats that are higher fidelity than CD, tracks compressed from the CD source and uploaded to itunes certainly aren't one of them. I'm almost positive that there aren't any companies selling downloads above 16 bits or 44k unless perhaps they're lossless.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2006 at 08:03
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Originally posted by oliverstoned oliverstoned wrote:

Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

^ and with CDs you don't have any noise ... at least unless you listen to your music at unreal volume.
False. High ends players on transparent systems reveals noise on MOST OF the cds, even some DDD ones!! Surprising, isn't it? The paradox is that we audiophiles are happy when we hear noise on CDs: cause it shows how transparent and revealant the digital set up is.


 Of course there is noise on CDs. But the noise you hear on most recordings was already there on the master tape.the signal to noise ratio on a CD is 96 dB (unless I'm much mistaken), which is much more than on any vinyl or cassette. That means that with a perfectly mastered CD with the volume turned up so loud that the loudest parts of the recording would reach 96 dB, the noise would still not be audible.

True enough, but that only holds for peak level. Also is that the noise level with dithering or without? I can't remember the figures offhand

Edited by goose
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2006 at 08:07
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

Digital trumps CD? That doesn't even begin to make sense..


It's odd ... sometimes, when I'm listening to some stuff that I ripped from CD in 192kbps WMA, it sounds really amazing and leaves nothing to be desired ... then again sometimes the compression artifacts jump right at me and destroy my listening experience. I don't know why that happens ... it's not just differences in the quality of the files, it also has a lot to do with your current situation (stress) and a whole bunch of other factors not related to music.



It destroys your musical experience?
That's not odd, that's digital!

BTW: While it's actually impossible for a compressed version of some source to sound better than the source, there are some explanations:



  • The compressed version was ripped from a better source (e.g. the remastered CD)

  • The compressed version is in 24bit/96khz (my new Creative X-Fi can create that from 16bit/44.1khz).
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