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Digital vs Vinyl

MattHooper

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I was actually vinyl-only for 15 years before I started comparing to CDs (now having done over 800 comparisons) and then I sold a lot of my records, although I still have many.
I think you capture very well a lot of the attraction to vinyl, which in many cases (not all) has nothing to do with the sound:
It's a "fault" of the medium that you have to flip it half-way through, so you become more attentive. It's a "fault" of the medium that you have to manually and carefully lower the cartridge into the groove, so you become more attentive, and it's also a "fault" of the medium that you have to manually and carefully move the cartridge if you want to skip a song instead of pushing a button on a remote for a CD player or create a playlist without that song on a computer. It's a "fault" of the medium that it takes up so much space instead of much less space, such as a CD, or even less space, like a mini-disc, or even less space, like data on a hard drive.
But all of these things are "fun" to many people, and these faults are then being called positive attributes, because geeky people like those geeky things - big covers, beautifully designed turntables, trying out different cartridges, the slow, meticuous process of taking a record out of its cover, putting it on the turntable, etc. The whole tactile pleasure of vinyl as well as the constant hunt for records was probably what was most difficult for me to let go off when I gave up vinyl.
I have a friend who got into vinyl at the same time as me (1998), and he sold most of his enormous collection (mostly one genre, as he was a dj), then later started buying records again, but when he started collecting again it was a purely material thing, because he hasn't opened any of the records he bought, and he streams everything on Spotify.
So, vinyl has such a great appeal that people will buy it without even bothering to listen to it - and my friend is far from the only one. 50 % of people who buy vinyl today don't even own listen to it or own a turntable, one study found.
I haven't even commented on cases where vinyl editions also sound much better than the digital versions to me (and to most people on ASR I'm sure), even though I've found many cases of just that.
Lastly, hopefully we can all agree that the visual and emotional aspect is a much bigger part of audiophilia and/or record collecting than most people want to admit. There is pride of ownership with records as records will make you admired by other collectors and audiophiles as someone "cool" and "in the know", and there's a visual aestethic to records, so much so that almost every woman who has come to my house in the last 2½ years (around 30 of them), and none of them have cared particularly about music, has gone straight to look at my records (one called them "a collection of jewels") rather than look at my more or less equally large CD collection.
Besides that particular visual and tactile aspect there's the visual aspect of the playback equipment with its slow, visual rotation, tonearms, cartridges, counterweights, record clamps, brushes, etc. CD players give absolutely none of that visual appeal except for a digital display and, if you're lucky, slightly sleek design to an otherwise completely square black or silver box. Rega makes red and green turntables. Where are the red and green CD players?
I would dare claim that in a sighted test, playing the exact same song twice in a row, from the same medium, more people would prefer the version they were being told was played on this:


View attachment 130559


Than the exact same song that they were being told was being played on this:

View attachment 130560

Agreed with much of that!

That's why I like looking at and using my turntable (Pic below) over any CD player I ever owned which were mostly utilitarian boxes (with the exception of a Meridian CD player which did have a higher end feel):
TURNTABLE 2 SMALLER PIX copy.jpg
 

MattHooper

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Something else: It's often put forth that in choosing vinyl one is choosing a bunch of things "other than just the music."

But that's the case to some degree no matter which medium you choose. It's never just about the music, there are non-musical aspects of a medium that drive people to choose it as well.

One of the non-musical aspects of current digital music platforms is: Convenience. That's a non-musical "feature" but one people enjoy in the format. Or the incorruptibility of the medium. (Doesn't wear out).

Or even using a digital server, controlled by an iphone or ipad. One of the motivations is the convenience, the immediate easy access to large libraries of music, the fact many enjoy organizing their music on their server, the enjoying of the digital artwork, the aesthetic enjoyment of whatever controller they use, and on and on. There's all sorts of extra-musical considerations that go in to any choice of medium. Some like one, some the other.
 

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The most common is "rigid".
Making a whole record player rigid over the entire audio freuency range is impossible.
Another is "closing the loop" making the link between the headshell and main bearing as stiff as possible.
Both these are static thinking and the device only needs to be rigid enough to maintain alignment because, dynamically, the cartridge body becomes stationary anyway relative to the groove at around 2x the natural frequency of the effective mass on the stylus suspension compliance.
It is actually worse than it seems :) too. Since the output of the cartridge is caused by a relative movement between coil and magnet output comes from both cantilever vibration from the groove and any vibration of the cartridge body and the stiffer the arm the higher in frequency any vibration at the arm mount, from motor or environmental pickup, will be coupled to the cartridge body.
Another is the idea that a lower compliance cartridge feeds more energy into the arm, at audio frequencies it is the cantilever damper not the spring doing this. Given that most cartridges have a polymeric damper this is likely to change a lot with age but is never specified anyway.

In reality things are sufficiently complicated to be hard to visualise, and I think that is why so many people, including some engineers, continue to think about a record player in static terms, and once somebody had absorbed the narrative...

The system has 6 degrees of freedom, two are important for accurate transduction but cross coupling of modes means that today, if one wanted to produce a well engineered accurate turntable at a sensible cost a full distributed mass analysis - certainly feasible today - would show what the stiffness distribution should be and as stiff as possible almost certainly will be the wrong answer.

Len Gregory who was in business for decades as "The Cartridge man" and died last year RIP sold, amongst other things, a cartridge isolator to reduce vibration at the headshell getting to the cartridge body. I have never tried it but it makes complete sense technically (apart from if one has absorbed the stiffer is better mantra). I have seen 2 different versions with different stiffnesses, both are hideous.
Thanks for your explanation. I'm not sure I understand everything completely correctly though.
Rega has a mantra of "as stiff and light as possible" when it comes to their plinths (they then add mass on the platters), and certain other manufacturers also at least follow the stiffness principle by using metals or other hard materials for their plinths.
So, do you mean that the plinth shouldn't be as stiff as possible, but rather it should be less stiff (maybe even slightly soft, like acrylic)? Or do you mean that aiming for as stiff as possible is okay, but it's unnecessary as it only needs to get to a certain level of stiffness and anything above that point is a wasted effort?
 

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Something else: It's often put forth that in choosing vinyl one is choosing a bunch of things "other than just the music."

But that's the case to some degree no matter which medium you choose. It's never just about the music, there are non-musical aspects of a medium that drive people to choose it as well.

One of the non-musical aspects of current digital music platforms is: Convenience. That's a non-musical "feature" but one people enjoy in the format. Or the incorruptibility of the medium. (Doesn't wear out).

Or even using a digital server, controlled by an iphone or ipad. One of the motivations is the convenience, the immediate easy access to large libraries of music, the fact many enjoy organizing their music on their server, the enjoying of the digital artwork, the aesthetic enjoyment of whatever controller they use, and on and on. There's all sorts of extra-musical considerations that go in to any choice of medium. Some like one, some the other.
Exactly! For me having a physical CD with a booklet still feeeeeeeeeels "better" than having the same album on my hard drive, even though I play most of my music from a hard drive nowadays.
Even though my record player doesn't look as extravagant as yours I still catch myself opening the lid and looking at the cartridge or tonearm or something while smiling.
Part of the attraction to vinyl is also the hobby that comes with it - either as a collector or as an audiophile. As a collector, as I mostly was at the time, there's the constant search for gold anywhere you might find records - at flea markets, in charity shops, at your parents' friends' place, online, etc., and they always have to be the right editions in the right condition, or the the hunt for the records you just brought home starts over.
As an audiophile it's also a constant hunt: Trying to get the speed right and constant, which never seems possible with a belt drive unless you buy Phoenix Engineering's products (now made by Sota), trying out new cartridges, putting on new feet on the turntable, trying a new belt, changing the counterweight on the tonearm, or putting on an entirely new tonearm, lubing the bearing, adjusting the cartridge to get rid of that awful sound on that one record, etc. It just never ends.
But with a CD player? You buy one box (possibly two nowadays), and you're set for life. And buying music? You order it on Amazon for €7, and it arrives a few days later - don't even need to leave the house.
Sure, you can search for a few specific CDs for a long time, and you can try out new CD players, but who really does that very often? If you can even hear a difference it's mostly due to the output voltage being slightly different.
 

Frank Dernie

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Thanks for your explanation. I'm not sure I understand everything completely correctly though.
Rega has a mantra of "as stiff and light as possible" when it comes to their plinths (they then add mass on the platters), and certain other manufacturers also at least follow the stiffness principle by using metals or other hard materials for their plinths.
So, do you mean that the plinth shouldn't be as stiff as possible, but rather it should be less stiff (maybe even slightly soft, like acrylic)? Or do you mean that aiming for as stiff as possible is okay, but it's unnecessary as it only needs to get to a certain level of stiffness and anything above that point is a wasted effort?
Rega's mantra is not based on a good understanding of dynamics but has become part of the "common knowledge" which isn't based on fact. That is what I was referring to.
It is not simple at all though, saying it should be less stiff would be equally displaying a failure to understand the dynamics of a structure.
What is best is good engineering, taking thorough engineering analysis of the distributed mass and stiffness to look at all the modes and make sure the headshell is at an anti-node would be the correct approach.
I don't think we will ever get to this point, even though the technology exists today, because the companies still making record players are almost all small artisan groups who don't have the ability to do it or, in many cases, the understanding of physics to realise it is something to do.
As long as all the gurus say stiffer is better and there are reassuringly expensive products using that as its marketing the business model will be successful.
 
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AudioStudies

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Rega's mantra is not based on a good understanding of dynamics but has become part of the "common knowledge" which isn't based on fact. That is what I was referring to.
It is not simple at all though, saying it should be less stiff would be equally displaying a failure to understand the dynamics of a structure.
What is best is good engineering, taking thorough engineering analysis of the distributed mass and stiffness to look at all the modes and make sure the headshell is at an anti-node would be the correct approach.
I don't think we will ever get to this point, even though the technology exists today, because the companies still making record players are almost all small artisan groups who don't have the ability to do it or, in many cases, the understanding of physics to realise it is something to do.
As long as all the gurus say stiffer is better and there are reassuringly expensive products using that as its marketing the business model will be successful.
Do you think there are any exceptions, or any good ones at all? Did I go totally wrong with Clearaudio? Also, I am curious what is your opinion of the old Empire tables and Revox tables?
 

Frank Dernie

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Do you think there are any exceptions, or any good ones at all? Did I go totally wrong with Clearaudio? Also, I am curious what is your opinion of the old Empire tables and Revox tables?
I think that the technology to do the engineering thoroughly came so late after engineering firms had gone digital and the record player business had become cottage industry that it may well be nobody had done it.

Maybe Technics did with their new 1200 series, they have the technology, but maybe not.

Most of the cottage industry people do things by trial and error and not based on an understanding of dynamics based on what I have seen written.

I have a friend who does a lot of FE modelling for speakers, both structural and magnetic, who quoted one of the cartridge makers to do a magnetic circuit analysis since a quick look showed plenty of non-linearities. They decided not to since it was reasonably expensive to do properly and they were worried about losing their particular sound if they eliminated the non-linearities.
He has done a pickup arm analysis but not integrated with the whole assembly, and for a dynamic analysis to be valid it has to be all of it or using known boundary conditions.

The thing is record players and the LPs we play on them are irredeemably flawed technically. The people convinced they are better would be unimpressed by a well engineered turntable at modest cost simply because the whole business is steeped in more expensive = better ethos.
Since fixing one compromise may make another worse, and playing around with the components is inherent in that side of the hobby I just leave them to it!

I have a Goldmund Reference with T3f parallel tracking arm, which seems well thought through to me. I also have a Roksan Xerxes, which has unique isolation strategy. I have a Rega RB300 arm which is probably stiffer than it needs to be and being one piece has very little internal damping but wasn't expensive. I have a direct drive EMT with its own arm which seems OK and a B&O 8002 which has a novel drive system, clever isolation and a parallel tracker.
All have something I like about them.

I have never seen an Empire, the Revox arm is so short warp wow is inevitable on non-flat discs. I have always rather fancied one but never took the plunge.
 

Pennyless Audiophile

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Lastly, hopefully we can all agree that the visual and emotional aspect is a much bigger part of audiophilia and/or record collecting than most people want to admit. There is pride of ownership with records as records will make you admired by other collectors and audiophiles as someone "cool" and "in the know", and there's a visual aestethic to records, so much so that almost every woman who has come to my house in the last 2½ years (around 30 of them), and none of them have cared particularly about music, has gone straight to look at my records (one called them "a collection of jewels") rather than look at my more or less equally large CD collection.

I think we finally found the reason for the vinyl resurrection.

I am all digital, but I am suddenly feeling the urge to buy a turntable and a lot of black disks.
 

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I think we finally found the reason for the vinyl resurrection.

I am all digital, but I am suddenly feeling the urge to buy a turntable and a lot of black disks.
If I hadn't had any vinyl records no women would have come to my house at all, and I would still be sitting here trying to figure out how to get them to like me :cool:.
 

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Rega's mantra is not based on a good understanding of dynamics but has become part of the "common knowledge" which isn't based on fact. That is what I was referring to.
It is not simple at all though, saying it should be less stiff would be equally displaying a failure to understand the dynamics of a structure.
What is best is good engineering, taking thorough engineering analysis of the distributed mass and stiffness to look at all the modes and make sure the headshell is at an anti-node would be the correct approach.
I don't think we will ever get to this point, even though the technology exists today, because the companies still making record players are almost all small artisan groups who don't have the ability to do it or, in many cases, the understanding of physics to realise it is something to do.
As long as all the gurus say stiffer is better and there are reassuringly expensive products using that as its marketing the business model will be successful.
So does this mean that the correct approach would be "as stiff as possible in certain places of the plinth, and a bit less stiff in other places of the plinth"?

On another note: You seem to be pro-digital, and I think you're the only pro-digital person I've come across who owns such an expensive and elaborate turntable as the Goldmund. I'm pro-digital as well, and as you might have guessed I own a Rega.
I actually compared my Rega to a cottage industry one by VPI, and found the differences to be vanishing, maybe even non-existing, so I saved around €10,000 there. I also compared my RP3 to a new Planar 8 that I had on loan, and I recorded soundclips to compare meticously, and they sounded identical.
 

Frank Dernie

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So does this mean that the correct approach would be "as stiff as possible in certain places of the plinth, and a bit less stiff in other places of the plinth"?
Probably, but the analysis needs doing to know what is the best compromise, and there will be many which are probably OK. It is often far from obvious.
I remember a big improvement on one prototype by cutting a slot in the plinth following inspections of the laser vibration measurement. Nowadays one could get 99% of the way there using a computer but AFAIK nobody does.

On another note: You seem to be pro-digital, and I think you're the only pro-digital person I've come across who owns such an expensive and elaborate turntable as the Goldmund. I'm pro-digital as well, and as you might have guessed I own a Rega.
I wouldn't say I am pro anything, except listening to music.
I am an engineer and know the shortcomings of record players, which seems exceptionally rare in the hobby today. I know that technically an LP has, of necessity, baked into the concept, higher distortion and narrower dynamic range but that it is pretty well adequate when the TT is properly set up and the LP is a good one. I definitely have some superb sounding LPs.
There is no doubt that CD has a greater potential in terms of distortion, noise and dynamic range but the actual quality depends on the recording more than the CD player and is variable - I have awful sounding CDs as well as superb ones.

In the end the variability in the quality of recording is bigger than the differences between the bits of equipment we own.

I have owned a turntable and records for well over 50 years. I did sell a few LPs after i went CD but regretted it and stopped.

The biggest down side of LPs is the price now being asked for the equipment.
It is, IMO, way out of proportion with manufacturing cost, though a TT and arm will be much more expensive to make than a DAC, of course.

My choice of digital over LP is entirely dictated by what I want to listen to next. If it is on an LP I play the LP, if it is on a CD I play the CD, if I only have it as a file I will fire up the computer system, wait for it to get going and maybe ask me to do an update and then search for the file and, eventually, play it.
 

q3cpma

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But that's the case to some degree no matter which medium you choose. It's never just about the music, there are non-musical aspects of a medium that drive people to choose it as well.

One of the non-musical aspects of current digital music platforms is: Convenience. That's a non-musical "feature" but one people enjoy in the format. Or the incorruptibility of the medium. (Doesn't wear out).
Bald isn't a hair color, though. "Convenience" (medium reliability, too) is another way of saying "eliminating everything that isn't music" for audiophiles; for other, more "plebeian" people, it can be come "convenience for the sake of convenience", bringing ghastly stuff like bluetooth pool boomboxes.

PS: it's quite the fun coincidence to note that my first sentence is usually used against disingenuous believers who say that atheism is a religion too.
 

Robin L

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I think that the technology to do the engineering thoroughly came so late after engineering firms had gone digital and the record player business had become cottage industry that it may well be nobody had done it.

Maybe Technics did with their new 1200 series, they have the technology, but maybe not.

Most of the cottage industry people do things by trial and error and not based on an understanding of dynamics based on what I have seen written.

I have a friend who does a lot of FE modelling for speakers, both structural and magnetic, who quoted one of the cartridge makers to do a magnetic circuit analysis since a quick look showed plenty of non-linearities. They decided not to since it was reasonably expensive to do properly and they were worried about losing their particular sound if they eliminated the non-linearities.
He has done a pickup arm analysis but not integrated with the whole assembly, and for a dynamic analysis to be valid it has to be all of it or using known boundary conditions.

The thing is record players and the LPs we play on them are irredeemably flawed technically. The people convinced they are better would be unimpressed by a well engineered turntable at modest cost simply because the whole business is steeped in more expensive = better ethos.
Since fixing one compromise may make another worse, and playing around with the components is inherent in that side of the hobby I just leave them to it!

I have a Goldmund Reference with T3f parallel tracking arm, which seems well thought through to me. I also have a Roksan Xerxes, which has unique isolation strategy. I have a Rega RB300 arm which is probably stiffer than it needs to be and being one piece has very little internal damping but wasn't expensive. I have a direct drive EMT with its own arm which seems OK and a B&O 8002 which has a novel drive system, clever isolation and a parallel tracker.
All have something I like about them.

I have never seen an Empire, the Revox arm is so short warp wow is inevitable on non-flat discs. I have always rather fancied one but never took the plunge.
I lived at a place with an Empire turntable, one of my favorites as regards physical design and appearance. Sounded nice enough , considering it was feeding a corner horn in the kitchen. But not my first choice if I were to play LPs again [and there's a good chance I never will]. More likely it would be a Technics 1200 series, as I've had good luck with Technics direct drive 'tables in the past,
 
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AudioStudies

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If I hadn't had any vinyl records no women would have come to my house at all, and I would still be sitting here trying to figure out how to get them to like me :cool:.
When you get it figured out, sell it to the world, and you will make more money than those who sell audio jewelry . . .
 

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When you get it figured out, sell it to the world, and you will make more money than those who sell audio jewelry . . .
I think it's better not to let the cat out of the bag, because if I teach everyone else how to get women, there will be no women left for me :(:(:( .
 
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AudioStudies

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I think it's better not to let the cat out of the bag, because if I teach everyone else how to get women, there will be no women left for me :(:(:( .
If you are in love with every beautiful woman on Earth, you will go broke mighty damn fast . . .
 

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Probably, but the analysis needs doing to know what is the best compromise, and there will be many which are probably OK. It is often far from obvious.
I remember a big improvement on one prototype by cutting a slot in the plinth following inspections of the laser vibration measurement. Nowadays one could get 99% of the way there using a computer but AFAIK nobody does.
I'm wondering if Rega used a computer for figuring out the shape and what parts to cut away from their RP8 and Planar 8. Although those two models look almost the same (Planer 8 is the new version of the RP8), there are actually some small changes in what has been cut away as well as the angles, at least at the front of the turntable:

Planar 8.jpg



I wouldn't say I am pro anything, except listening to music.
I am an engineer and know the shortcomings of record players, which seems exceptionally rare in the hobby today. I know that technically an LP has, of necessity, baked into the concept, higher distortion and narrower dynamic range but that it is pretty well adequate when the TT is properly set up and the LP is a good one. I definitely have some superb sounding LPs.
There is no doubt that CD has a greater potential in terms of distortion, noise and dynamic range but the actual quality depends on the recording more than the CD player and is variable - I have awful sounding CDs as well as superb ones.

In the end the variability in the quality of recording is bigger than the differences between the bits of equipment we own.

I have owned a turntable and records for well over 50 years. I did sell a few LPs after i went CD but regretted it and stopped.

The biggest down side of LPs is the price now being asked for the equipment.
It is, IMO, way out of proportion with manufacturing cost, though a TT and arm will be much more expensive to make than a DAC, of course.

My choice of digital over LP is entirely dictated by what I want to listen to next. If it is on an LP I play the LP, if it is on a CD I play the CD, if I only have it as a file I will fire up the computer system, wait for it to get going and maybe ask me to do an update and then search for the file and, eventually, play it.
If I understand you correctly, many of the problems with turntables can easily be measured but are still often inaudible or at least barely audible.
If that's what you mean then I agree. In the thread "Uncoloured phono cartridges" I showed a picture of the difference in EQ between "Invincible" by Michael Jackson on CD and LP, and despite these fairly large differences the two versions sounded essentially identical to me, so if I can't hear such big changes (although I've seen from tests that I have a good hearing) then I probably couldn't hear smaller issues with turntables either.


Michael Jackson - Invincible - Break of dawn vinyl vs. cd (vinyl booster bas) - AT33PTG.png


As for "pro" this or that, what I meant was that you seemed to acknowledge that digital is a superior technology to analogue. Although I also have plenty of vinyl records that I much prefer to the CD version (and I think almost everybody would), then I consider myself "pro-digital" because I know it's a better technology than analogue, whether analogue tape or vinyl, although I certainly think the imperfections of vinyl and its playback equipment can make certain albums sound lovely.
But yes, digital reveals everything, and the playback system is overall quite unimportant, so if the recording is not great then you'll be able to hear this in ful. That's the "beauty" of vinyl - especially if you have a cartridge with a frequency respone dip in the harshness region like I used to do - the albums that sounded screechy on CD sounded tolerable on vinyl.
 
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