The Vinyl Frontier

[Sal1950]

Real pure analog, not even microphones were used.
Get with it!

 

[LewisWaddo]

Real pure analog, not even microphones were used.
Get with it!
View attachment 308556

seriously though. Lay it on me. I want decent all digital recordings worth listening to. I want to listen to this perfection, and sit in awe of what I’m listening to. Surely it must sound incredible, like getting my ears tongued by God!

 

[Sal1950]

seriously though. Lay it on me. I want decent all digital recordings worth listening to. I want to listen to this perfection, and sit in awe of what I’m listening to. Surely it must sound incredible, like getting my ears tongued by God!

They can sound exactly like their masters, there are millions of them, some glorious, some not so much
Do your own homework.
Vinyl never sounds anything like the original master, they physically can't do it.
So they all end up distorted in these ways.
Once more, do your own homework

The Truth About Vinyl Records

The year is 1877 and Thomas Edison presents his “Phonograph” to the world. It wasn’t the only device able to reproduce recorded sound but it was the most reliable. The medium in this early machine was the “Brown Wax” cylinder, which was not actually composed of wax but made of a metal soap...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[LewisWaddo]

They can sound exactly like their masters, there are millions of them, some glorious, some not so much
Do your own homework.
Vinyl never sounds anything like the original master, they physically can't do it.
So they all end up distorted in these ways.
Once more, do your own homework

The Truth About Vinyl Records

The year is 1877 and Thomas Edison presents his “Phonograph” to the world. It wasn’t the only device able to reproduce recorded sound but it was the most reliable. The medium in this early machine was the “Brown Wax” cylinder, which was not actually composed of wax but made of a metal soap...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I’m not saying that, I’m also not trying to be a knob, although it may come across like that… haha I’m genuinely interested in what recording from top to bottom have taken advantage of digital. I’m not talking about transfers from analogue masters.

For example, Daft Punk, Random Access Memories, that’s considered an audiophile recording was done in the analogue realm for the majority of the production. It’s also an awesome sounding vinyl record that was cut well.

What, in your opinion, is a great album that’s produced entirely in the digital realm. I want to know what I’m missing. What recording convinces you that digital is king. None of that horrible analogue garbage with its inherent flaws. Recordings that haven’t required noise reduction, no hiss, a 24bit full range recording that makes you say, ‘this is why I choose digital’.

 

[Timcognito]

It all about the front end digital or analog

The Search for Roy DuNann

Roy DuNann

jazzprofiles.blogspot.com

I have both vinyl and CD of this superb recording. The CD is better but almost indistinguishable from the LP. Node2 > Topping E30 and VPI HW 19/Rega 330 arm/ Ortofon 2m Bronze

 

[LewisWaddo]

It all about the front end digital or analog

The Search for Roy DuNann

Roy DuNann

jazzprofiles.blogspot.com

I have both vinyl and CD of this superb recording. The CD is better but almost indistinguishable from the LP. Node2 > Topping E30 and VPI HW 19/Rega 330 arm/ Ortofon 2m Bronze
View attachment 308580

I have a good few cases where I get the same results. I can’t tell the difference at all. I have albums from the 60’s that are indistinguishable from their later CD releases.

I guess the unfair comparison is that older recordings were made with the lead format, at the time, in mind.

I’m honestly after an example of an all digital audiophile contemporary recording that truly takes advantage of digital. I mean, that’s what this strife for perfection of sound reproduction is all about, isn’t it?

I hear sound engineers listen to mixes through crappy mono Bluetooth speakers to make sure their mix sounds good on what most people consume music through, and that goes for most current productions, but the same could be said for old recordings, where the mix would be previewed on a tinny mono transistor radio before it got the green light. All that dynamic range falls by the wayside when it has to sound decent on some crappy, average consumer level setup. Don’t forget, we are a niche of a niche. No one has hifi in their houses now, so audiophile productions are scarce.

I understand that our listening equipment should not get in the way of the music, even if it does have flaws in the production process , but I want to see something that truly flexes my equipment and ears.

I have a Chord DAC, I have £6k worth of speakers, that I consider to be just a bit past entry level. How can I really take advantage of it all, instead of just being quite happy with my vinyl.

 

[Timcognito]

How can I really take advantage of it all, instead of just being quite happy with my vinyl.

Get Qobuz ($10/mo) with all CD or "HiRes" titles, about 70 million last I read, a tablet as a remote/browser and search for music. If you have eclectic taste taste try this, looks to be 7- 8000 album reviews, I find many are on Qobuz.

KFJC 89.7FM

 

[CarbonMakerU]

but I want to see something that truly flexes my equipment and ears.

Okay this one is simple. Be nearby when a JDAM comes in, all boxes checked.

 

[LewisWaddo]

I’m saying that I have all the kit. I just want to hear an example of a contemporary, all digital, audiophile production that utilises digital for all its capabilities, the dynamic range, zero audible noise, the bees knees references for modern digital production. One that makes me question my love for vinyl, and lap up digital streaming. Are there any? It should be an easy one to suggest. It’s being championed left right and centre. No one has used analogue tape, unless requested by the artist, for decades. I want to purchase it on as many formats as possible, and be wowed by the difference. Hell, I’ll lower the bar, and say that I don’t even have to like the music I’m listening to. It can be utter tripe. I just want to hear this difference.

Tell me what track, album I need to listen to. In your opinion. Not some 500 page list on the interweb.

 

[LewisWaddo]

Okay this one is simple. Be nearby when a JDAM comes in, all boxes checked.

Hahaha

 

[Timcognito]

Welcome to the Audiophile Society!

Specializing in the creation of the best Hi-Resolution 3D audio recordings of emerging and established artists.

theaudiophilesociety.com

 

[LewisWaddo]

Welcome to the Audiophile Society!

Specializing in the creation of the best Hi-Resolution 3D audio recordings of emerging and established artists.

theaudiophilesociety.com

that’s a link to a website. Name an album. You must know! Put your money where your mouth is. What contemporary album convinced you that high resolution digital is the only way to go. I could name hundreds of vinyl, all analog records that sound incredible.

Listen to ‘John Renbourn -Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & Ye Grene Knyghte’ on vinyl. From start to finish, it’s a full frequency recording with incredible sense of depth and positioning. It sounds amazing on vinyl. One of the best acoustic recordings ever made. It will help convince you that vinyl can sound incredible. So long as you have ears.

I feel like I must reiterate that I’ve nothing but respect and love for the lot of you taking part in this discussion. I hold no resentment to anyone here. I respect you opinions. I find your jokes and poking fun amusing. I just want you to quantify them with an example that I can play through my system tonight, and be amazed. I want to experience something that I cannot achieve with any of my vinyl records. Something that’s a noticeable difference.

I’m here to learn.

 

[Sal1950]

Listen to John Renbourn -Sir John Alot of Merrie Englandes Musyk Thyng & Ye Grene Knyghte on vinyl.

 

[LewisWaddo]

View attachment 308605
Hahaha

Come on. Give me an album.

The irony of you avatar is that, the excellent, ‘On an Island’ was mixed on an all analogue console and mastered with vinyl as the lead format. It was engineered by Andy Jackson and mixed by Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music fame. And every step of the way was analogue. Only later stitched together with pro tools. But with a crappy analogy format as its target platform. His 2015 release ‘Rattle that lock’ he went all in on digital. It was an absolute tragedy of an album IMO. I’ve heard better ring tones than that tripe. All 5.1 and no soul.

 

[Timcognito]

Tell me what track, album I need to listen to. In your opinion. Not some 500 page list on the interweb.

It's not about gear its about music. It's about music and how it's recorded and stored. Storing it on a flat piece of plastic that requires a mechanical transducer and the RIAA curve to restore the bass is not state of the art. There have many fantastic recordings from the late 50's on and vinyl can sound great. I have Sir John Alot that I bought in 1970 and it predates digital recording. Thanks for bringing it up because I was beginning to think that you had no taste in music and was only about gear. I sent a link about Roy DuNann who made great sounding records. The much of front end has been great for decades. Its the digital playback, quality, convenience and access that have improved without digital end to end. Its about good music and good recording that predates digital. Think about getting into music and less about gear. Digital gives you access to more and different genres and artists and try before you buy download or LP.

Pick some, this what David Chesky says. Not sure if the music is any good.
"These recordings are compatible with your home and portable systems and can be played back on anyone's home speaker system or headphones without the need for buying any other audio equipment. Our Mega-Dimensional audio is more than some application. It is a process that is thought out from the ground up on each recording," says David. “When you hear our new Audiophile Society recordings on speakers, you should feel like you are in the space with the musicians. The sound of our music is not stuck to the speaker grills like a normal recording but should float up before you. You should experience a sense of height and a wider and deeper soundstage. It should be a more enveloping realistic experience.” Audiophile Society recordings use multiple sample rates, rendering and outputting at the highest sampling frequency to ensure the best sound for the creation of 3D audio."

 

[LewisWaddo]

It's not about gear its about music. It's about music and how it's recorded and stored. Storing it on a flat piece of plastic that requires a mechanical transducer and the RIAA curve to restore the bass is not state of the art. There have many fantastic recordings from the late 50's on and vinyl can sound great. I have Sir John Alot that I bought in 1970 and it predates digital recording. Thanks for bringing it up because I was beginning to think that you had no taste in music and was only about gear. I sent a link about Roy DuNann who made great sounding records. The much of front end has been great for decades. Its the digital playback, quality, convenience and access that have improved without digital end to end. Its about good music and good recording that predates digital. Think about getting into music and less about gear. Digital gives you access to more and different genres and artists and try before you buy download or LP.

Pick some, this what David Chesky says. Not sure if the music is any good.
"These recordings are compatible with your home and portable systems and can be played back on anyone's home speaker system or headphones without the need for buying any other audio equipment. Our Mega-Dimensional audio is more than some application. It is a process that is thought out from the ground up on each recording," says David. “When you hear our new Audiophile Society recordings on speakers, you should feel like you are in the space with the musicians. The sound of our music is not stuck to the speaker grills like a normal recording but should float up before you. You should experience a sense of height and a wider and deeper soundstage. It should be a more enveloping realistic experience.” Audiophile Society recordings use multiple sample rates, rendering and outputting at the highest sampling frequency to ensure the best sound for the creation of 3D audio."

I’m definitely not about gear, I’m about decent performance, and if I can get that cheap, I’m all in. I appreciate your response, but still… what’s your go to album that will wow me. I’m being quite sincere in my request. It’s not a trick. Im looking for something that I cannot achieve with my turntable.

When I listen to my first pressing of Gentle Giant - Octopus, track 8 ‘River’ on vinyl, it’s the last track on side B. It’s as close to the inner groove as you can get, but it has been cut so well that all the fidelity is still there. The sound of the whooshing towards the end of the track is so good, you can close your eyes and follow it round your head, as you sit in your listening position (I may have been under the influence the first time I heard it), but it sounds incredible. It’s an awesome example of what can be achieved with this limited format. It blows me away, to this day.

I just want something that can show me the rift between vinyl and digital. Something that quantifies the benefits. Not numbers or stats. I love those! But what pushes these numbers and stats.

I understand that my turntable, on paper, is the Achilles heel of my setup. I just want to know what album people go to to justify the mockery, contempt, ‘snap crackle and pop’ memes that are directed at vinyl.

It should be easy.

 

[Timcognito]

I’m definitely not about gear, I’m about decent performance, and if I can get that cheap, I’m all in. I appreciate your response, but still… what’s your go to album that will wow me. I’m being quite sincere in my request. It’s not a trick. Im looking for something that I cannot achieve with my turntable.

When I listen to my first pressing of Gentle Giant - Octopus, track 8 ‘River’ on vinyl, it’s the last track on side B. It’s as close to the inner groove as you can get, but it has been cut so well that all the fidelity is still there. The sound of the whooshing towards the end of the track is so good, you can close your eyes and follow it round your head, as you sit in your listening position (I may have been under the influence the first time I heard it), but it sounds incredible. It’s an awesome example of what can be achieved with this limited format. It blows me away, to this day.

I just want something that can show me the rift between vinyl and digital. Something that quantifies the benefits. Not numbers or stats. I love those! But what pushes these numbers and stats.

I understand that my turntable, on paper, is the Achilles heel of my setup. I just want to know what album people go to to justify the mockery, contempt, ‘snap crackle and pop’ memes that are directed at vinyl.

It should be easy.

I guess you missed my point: digital recording does not trump analog recording. I believe that digital playback trumps vinyl playback, equal or better in sound, access, ease of use, variety, cost and set up. There is some fantastic LPs but the discriminating factor has to do with who and how it was set up when made and its easily transfered to digital. Not many feel an all digtal end to end is somehow the key as you suggest. It's about playback. Chesky seems to think he has something but it too limited selection, when Qobuz give me 70 million songs at my fingertips with no pops/clicks, skip bad tracks and pause when the phone rings or I have to take leak.

 

[LewisWaddo]

I guess you missed my point: digital recording does not trump analog recording. I believe that digital playback trumps vinyl playback, equal or better in sound, access, ease of use, variety, cost and set up. There is some fantastic LPs but the discriminating factor has to do with who and how it was set up when made and it’s easily transfered to digital. Not many feel an all digtal end to end is somehow the key as you suggest. It's about playback. Chesky seems to think he has something but it too limited selection, when Qobuz give me 70 million songs at my fingertips with no pops/clicks, skip bad tracks and pause when the phone rings or I have to take leak.

I absolutely take on board your argument of the convenience and accessibility. I absolutely appreciate that excellent quality mastered music has been achieved for decades. I just want to hear the flex of digital. What album absolutely knocks it out of the park where vinyl can’t. I feel like the tools are there, and now the technology is accessible to more, yet I’ve not personally heard an example that takes advantage of the numbers my hifi claims to achieve. My DAC is far more capable than my turntable, on paper, but what’s the album that shows this, clearly.

What’s the point of having a daft DAC that’s set you back thousands? Is it unnecessary? What’s the recording that really takes advantage of the benefit. Something that really leapfrogs a good sounding vinyl record.

 

[rdenney]

I have a good few cases where I get the same results. I can’t tell the difference at all. I have albums from the 60’s that are indistinguishable from their later CD releases.

I guess the unfair comparison is that older recordings were made with the lead format, at the time, in mind.

I’m honestly after an example of an all digital audiophile contemporary recording that truly takes advantage of digital. I mean, that’s what this strife for perfection of sound reproduction is all about, isn’t it?

I hear sound engineers listen to mixes through crappy mono Bluetooth speakers to make sure their mix sounds good on what most people consume music through, and that goes for most current productions, but the same could be said for old recordings, where the mix would be previewed on a tinny mono transistor radio before it got the green light. All that dynamic range falls by the wayside when it has to sound decent on some crappy, average consumer level setup. Don’t forget, we are a niche of a niche. No one has hifi in their houses now, so audiophile productions are scarce.

I understand that our listening equipment should not get in the way of the music, even if it does have flaws in the production process , but I want to see something that truly flexes my equipment and ears.

I have a Chord DAC, I have £6k worth of speakers, that I consider to be just a bit past entry level. How can I really take advantage of it all, instead of just being quite happy with my vinyl.

Where I see it is in classical music--vinyl's more limited dynamic range demanded at least some compression to keep the quiet bits out of the noise and the loud bits from bouncing the stylus out of the groove. Where I hear it is when I'm listening to a classical work with an extended pianissimo and I do my own gain-riding. If I gain-ride a needledrop, the vinyl background noise can become really apparent.

And older recordings on vinyl are often quite compressed because the systems they were played on were noisy. I have, for example, Ralph Vaughan Williams's 2nd Symphony in half a dozen versions, some of which were recorded on wax directly, some on tape, and some digitally. The later digital recordings are usually cleaner sounding when cranked up. That particular work starts very soft, but about a minute in the whole orchestra plays a crashingly loud (modal) chord that will cause mothers to take their children off the streets if the volume was set high enough to make the quiet opening at "normal" volume. The old recordings used gain-riding to keep the quiet bits up, and the tape-based recordings depended on tape compression to keep that big chord under some control. The best digital recordings let it all hang out.

That does not diminish my enjoyment of my vinyl library. Despite Sal's trolling, it is altogether possible to enjoy vinyl playback while still recognizing its limitations.

For fun, I ordered a fairly recent Rick Wakeman album on vinyl, and it came with a big honking scratch across track 1. I also ordered it on CD. They sound pretty similar on my system, except for that thump, thump, thump for the first 20 seconds of Side 1. Vinyl is definitely more fragile than CD's, but I still want physical media as proof of my p license to listen to that music.

Rick "sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't..." Denney

 

[LewisWaddo]

Where I see it is in classical music--vinyl's more limited dynamic range demanded at least some compression to keep the quiet bits out of the noise and the loud bits from bouncing the stylus out of the groove. Where I hear it is when I'm listening to a classical work with an extended pianissimo and I do my own gain-riding. If I gain-ride a needledrop, the vinyl background noise can become really apparent.

And older recordings on vinyl are often quite compressed because the systems they were played on where noisy. I have, for example, Ralph Vaughan Williams's 2nd Symphony in half a dozen versions, some of which were recorded on wax directly, some on tape, and some digitally. The later digital recordings are usually cleaner sounding when cranked up. That particular work starts very soft, but about a minute in the whole orchestra plays a crashingly loud (modal) chord that will cause mothers to take their children off the streets if the volume was high enough to make the quiet opening at "normal" volume. The old recordings used gain-riding to keep the quiet bits up, and the tape-based recordings depended on tape compression to keep that big chord under some control. The best digital recordings let it all hang out.

That does not diminish my enjoyment of my vinyl library. Despite Sal's trolling, it is altogether possible to enjoy vinyl playback while still recognizing its limitations.

For fun, I ordered a fairly recent Rick Wakeman album on vinyl, and it came with a big honking scratch across track 1. I also ordered it on CD. They sound pretty similar on my system, except for that thump, thump, thump for the first 20 seconds of Side 1. Vinyl is definitely more fragile than CD's, but I still want physical media as proof of my nonrevocable license to list to that music.

Rick "sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't..." Denney

I can definitely agree with you on classical recordings. That’s one area where dynamics can be tested to the n’th degree.