Article: Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

[Unclevanya]

Data: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Vaw3d9HViEGXRElGteVO_r8ub&cshid=1579124915052

Now clearly this assumes that adding a dac/adc stage is not destroying what's loved about analog. I can't argue that there might not be some hidden disconnection from the vinyl experience. But this type of comparison is the best I can find.

I do recall reports of subjective measurements in a double blind study where the emotional responses of listeners was inferred based on body language and movements and the analog/tube system was shown to give stronger positive emotional reactions.

But that test could really have been measuring nostalgia rather than music. The test was also long ago and I cannot find it now. The data could be skewed by intentional or unintentional failures of setting up the comparison conditions.

I can also remember the early days when CD's were first introduced and they were shown to be superior by the measurements of the day. My Revox unit was a ghastly expensive product that was vastly inferior to my heavily modified AR XA turntable, Premier SST tonearm and Supex 900 low output Moving Coil cartridge fed into a Sota head end before reaching my Luxman L100 phono stage... Or were the early CD's junk? Poor mastering and bad source tapes perhaps?

But the Revox B225 was if memory serves a 14bit DAC maybe oversampling 2x? Maybe not at all? It had a brick wall filter and while it tried it wasn't up to today's standards. It was built fantastically. Per this user it can be dramatically improved http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/Revox B225/RevoxB225.html

My point is that I'd love to see similar comparison on emotional reactions done using modern equipment and samples of listeners that likely don't all remember Vinyl with nostalgia.

 

[xr100]

I can also remember the early days when CD's were first introduced and they were shown to be superior by the measurements of the day.

The measurements used in the early days of CD weren't so useful; e.g. compared to vinyl, digital obviously wiped the floor for THD, and "wow and flutter" was absolutely irrelevant. Later on, FFT swept sine plots showing aliasing/spuria and jitter tests etc. would be published in some of the hi-fi press.

But the Revox B225 was if memory serves a 14bit DAC maybe oversampling 2x? Maybe not at all? It had a brick wall filter and while it tried it wasn't up to today's standards. It was built fantastically. Per this user it can be dramatically improved http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/Revox B225/RevoxB225.html

According to that page, 2xTDA1450 14-bit mono DACs with SAA7030 filter.

From the SAA7030's datasheet:

I still have an old Marantz CD-65II sitting in a cupboard which contains a TDA1541A DAC (16-bit/4x oversampling.) Measured performance is surely abysmal by today's standards but it sounded fine "back in the day" and last time I bothered to turn it on, a couple of years ago, in brief casual listening, it still did.

The best memory I have of it, though, has nothing whatsoever to do with sound but its lovely green VFD dot matrix display.

 

[Unclevanya]

The measurements used in the early days of CD weren't so useful; e.g. compared to vinyl, digital obviously wiped the floor for THD, and "wow and flutter" was absolutely irrelevant. Later on, FFT swept sine plots showing aliasing/spuria and jitter tests etc. would be published in some of the hi-fi press.



According to that page, 2xTDA1450 14-bit mono DACs with SAA7030 filter.

From the SAA7030's datasheet:

View attachment 46003

I still have an old Marantz CD-65II sitting in a cupboard which contains a TDA1541A DAC (16-bit/4x oversampling.) Measured performance is surely abysmal by today's standards but it sounded fine "back in the day" and last time I bothered to turn it on, a couple of years ago, in brief casual listening, it still did.

The best memory I have of it, though, has nothing whatsoever to do with sound but its lovely green VFD dot matrix display.

Thanks. The Revox was a little harsh in my opinion and recollection but again the badly mastered CD's could have been part of the issue. My copy of Poco Legend on half speed mastered vinyl was far more fun to listen to than the CD... today on modern equipment I don't think it's so bad. but my turntables are all put up and I don't own a high end Moving Coil step up stage anymore.

 

[Wombat]

Frank listens to 3 channel open reel? Mac MX-110. Looks like another tuner underneath. Don't see the Johnny Walker.

https://www.kcrw.com/music/articles/frank-sinatras-classic-hi-fi-system

 

[xykreinov]

Hot take, on average:
High-resolution lossless digital (I consider it to be 2mbps+ whether it's DSD or PCM) >>Normal-resolution lossless digital>>>>>Well encoded lossy digital>>>>>>>>>>Vinyl>>>>Poorly encoded lossy audio>>>>>>>Cassette tape

Spoiler

Obviously, I left some analog formats out like reel-to-reel. It's just for brevity; you get the idea

 

[Echoa]

"Sound better" is kind of subjective isn't it?

AFAIK realistically from a measurement stand point and the method of making vinyl they don't sound better. Vinyl has many potential issues physically with the medium which digital simply isn't prey to. There's also the fact that vinyl made these days is usually from a digital master so does it really matter? Pick what sounds nice to you

That said I enjoy Vinyl because of its flaws, and the feel of holding/owning it. This doesn't make it better than my digital music, just different.

 

[Robin L]

Hot take, on average:
High-resolution lossless digital (I consider it to be 2mbps+ whether it's DSD or PCM) >>Normal-resolution lossless digital>>>>>Well encoded lossy digital>>>>>>>>>>Vinyl>>>>Poorly encoded lossy audio>>>>>>>Cassette tape

Spoiler

Obviously, I left some analog formats out like reel-to-reel. It's just for brevity; you get the idea

Cassette tape, done right, can be better than LP. Most pre-recorded cassettes are dubbed at high speed, making them worse than really lossy MP3. But real-time dubs on Metal tape can exceed LP playback because of greater consistency of resolution [no inner groove distortion, which can't actually be "fixed", BTW] and better s/n ratios.

 

[xr100]

Data: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://linearaudio.nl/sites/linearaudio.net/files/v10%20mu.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjWkfuPyobnAhVSJt8KHYDTDGcQFjADegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3d9HViEGXRElGteVO_r8ub&cshid=1579124915052

Thank you.

Usability test -- Participants used a turntable; however, unknown to them, a DVS control system was used--timecode stored on vinyl that controlled PC (iMac!) playback. What they heard was in fact the original digital file, albeit with "crackle" added to the "lead-in" before tracks.

Listening test -- Modified MUSHRA methodology was used. Web-based interface, digital original vs. "vinylised" (see above flow-chart) version.

 

[xr100]

Cassette tape, done right, can be better than LP. Most pre-recorded cassettes are dubbed at high speed, making them worse than really lossy MP3. But real-time dubs on Metal tape can exceed LP playback because of greater consistency of resolution [no inner groove distortion, which can't actually be "fixed", BTW] and better s/n ratios.

I agree that compact cassette could provide surprisingly good performance; every last ounce was wrung/engineered out of such an unfortunately specified but "de-facto" format. Here's a useful overview of tape:

Glossary of Terms Used in Magnetic Tape Recording (Memorex, 1966.)

It can be seen that there are a multitude of mechanisms at work; basic "saturation" is not the only non-linearity.

Lossless vs. MP3 is a useful way of thinking about the question of "vinyl sound." Anyone familiar with MP3 (or similar) knows the tell-tale signs of lossy compression. In the same way, the characteristic effects of both vinyl and tape recording can be heard, and it is surely somewhat odd to talk about a good transfer to vinyl sounding "better" than a bad lossless digital copy without mentioning that it still sounds like... vinyl?

As an extremely crude analogy, it is akin to saying that a VHS copy of a film looks better than a Blu-ray. One way or the other, it still "looks like VHS"...

 

[Robin L]

I agree that compact cassette could provide surprisingly good performance; every last ounce was wrung/engineered out of such an unfortunately specified but "de-facto" format. Here's a useful overview of tape:

Glossary of Terms Used in Magnetic Tape Recording (Memorex, 1967.)

It can be seen that there are a multitude of mechanisms at work; basic "saturation" is not the only non-linearity.

Lossless vs. MP3 is a useful way of thinking about the question of "vinyl sound." Anyone familiar with MP3 (or similar) knows the tell-tale signs of lossy compression. In the same way, the characteristic effects of both vinyl and tape recording can be heard, and it is surely somewhat odd to talk about a good transfer to vinyl sounding "better" than a bad lossless digital copy without mentioning that it still sounds like... vinyl?

As an extremely crude analogy, it is akin to saying that a VHS copy of a film looks better than a Blu-ray. One way or the other, it still "looks like VHS"...

Something people don't like to talk about is how inner groove distortion [one of the most ubiquitous distortions found in LPs] cannot be fixed. Linear tracking tonearms simply expose that distortion in a more precise manner than pivoted arms. For years I thought that sound was the fault of my inability to properly set up my turntables. Now I realize that one has to mentally tune out that sound in order to accept the sound of LPs. The last 5 minutes of a 25 minute LP side sounds worse than a low bit lossy MP3 file.

 

[xr100]

Something people don't like to talk about is how inner groove distortion [one of the most ubiquitous distortions found in LPs] cannot be fixed. Linear tracking tonearms simply expose that distortion in a more precise manner than pivoted arms. For years I thought that sound was the fault of my inability to properly set up my turntables. Now I realize that one has to mentally tune out that sound in order to accept the sound of LPs. The last 5 minutes of a 25 minute LP side sounds worse than a low bit lossy MP3 file.

I must admit I know very little about the "error" mechanisms in vinyl. What does inner groove distortion sound like?

 

[Robin L]

I must admit I know very little about the "error" mechanisms in vinyl. What does inner groove distortion sound like?

The groove loses energy as the stylus moves towards the deadwax. The speed of the groove reduces 60% by the time the music content reaches the end of a long LP side. This results in a loss of ability of tracing high energy signals, notably at frequency extremes. Most LPs of popular music were sequenced with the lowest energy songs at the end of an LP side. The reason so many "deluxe" LP editions are pressed to two LPs, even though the original LP might have been a single disc [Like Fleetwood Mac's Rumors] is in order to upgrade the sound quality due to this issue. If you aren't familiar with the sound of LPs, I can describe the distortion as a much greater tendency to expose groove noise, with loud peaks having a spray of high-frequency distortion. Also, if a record is off-center, that distortion also increases the closer the stylus gets to the end of a side.

 

[xykreinov]

Cassette tape, done right, can be better than LP. Most pre-recorded cassettes are dubbed at high speed, making them worse than really lossy MP3. But real-time dubs on Metal tape can exceed LP playback because of greater consistency of resolution [no inner groove distortion, which can't actually be "fixed", BTW] and better s/n ratios.

Interesting, seems to make sense. Though, given the performance of some of the most high end cassette players, the goofiness of analog-devoted hipsters really shows. If high end players like that have the best case scenario s/n for a cassette (including metal, supposedly) and it's still better than vinyl in accordance to what you said, it really goes to show how much "benefit" remains in the clouds of these peoples' heads.

 

[Robin L]

Interesting, seems to make sense. Though, given the performance of some of the most high end cassette players, the goofiness of analog-devoted hipsters really shows. If high end players like that have the best case scenario s/n for a cassette (including metal, supposedly) and it's still better than vinyl in accordance to what you said, it really goes to show how much "benefit" remains in the clouds of these peoples' heads.

I have a lot of experience transferring digital tapes to cassette. Less, but a still significant level of experience transferring LPs to analog and digital formats. With all cassettes there's some audible softening of the upper partials and in your face noise with any tape other than the best metal tape. There's still a touch of high-frequency reduction with good metal cassettes, the self noise with dolby b was less than any LP if you include rumble and other low-frequency noises common to LP playback. The self noise of a metal cassette without noise reduction was about the same as an LP, and far easier to ignore as it was so consistent. But more to the point, there's no inner groove distortion, no clicks and pops, no off-center pressings, no non-fill. I made thousands of real-time transfers of digitally sourced classical music concerts. I ordered custom loaded TDK SA cassettes in clear blank housings, running as long as 50 minutes a side. A lot of these tapes were of major choral works, such as Bach's Mass in B minor or Handel's Messiah.

By the way, there's plenty of ways a cassette deck can go out of alignment and it looks like this Nak was out of whack on arrival. And bad cassette sound is far more likely in most cases, particularly with pre-recorded cassettes.

 

[xr100]

Interesting, seems to make sense. Though, given the performance of some of the most high end cassette players, the goofiness of analog-devoted hipsters really shows. If high end players like that have the best case scenario s/n for a cassette (including metal, supposedly) and it's still better than vinyl in accordance to what you said, it really goes to show how much "benefit" remains in the clouds of these peoples' heads.

It might be interesting to look at measurements of a more recent (say, mid-1990s) Dolby S deck.

S/N ratio doesn't begin to capture what is going on, though; and the mechanisms aren't the same in vinyl and tape--an obvious example being print-through.

From the "Glossary of Terms Used in Magnetic Tape Recording" that I previously linked to:

"Surface asperities Small, projecting imperfections on the surface of the coating that limit and cause variations in head-to-tape contact. A term useful in discussions of friction and modulation noise."

Both tape and vinyl add a kind of "texture" to the sound--like film (not just grain but effects such as reflection/scattering between the layers that make up the film stock), you know it when you see (hear) it.

 

[0bs3rv3r]

Something people don't like to talk about is how inner groove distortion [one of the most ubiquitous distortions found in LPs] cannot be fixed. Linear tracking tonearms simply expose that distortion in a more precise manner than pivoted arms. For years I thought that sound was the fault of my inability to properly set up my turntables. Now I realize that one has to mentally tune out that sound in order to accept the sound of LPs. The last 5 minutes of a 25 minute LP side sounds worse than a low bit lossy MP3 file.

Records have a lower surface to stylus speed the closer to the label you get, so yes inner grooves are less capable of reproducing higher frequencies. Most commonly, the term "inner groove distortion" IGD, is used to refer to the audible problems that a normal tonearm/stylus have in tracking these slower inner grooves. The problem is made worse by tracking error, hence linear tracking tonearms were invented. Also, the problem is made much better by using fancy stylus shapes with thin profiles (like line contact, micro-ridge etc) as they avoid the "pinch effect" caused by the lower record surface speed.

The degree to which the problem can be overcome is much better than you seem to have experienced. On a good undamaged record, even the inner grooves are capable of producing excellent sound. You will not hear IGD, or any deterioration of sound, on a well engineered undamaged record on a high turntable and tonearm, and one of these fancier stylus shapes. Where you will hear it is on records where they fill the record up too close to the label (exceeding recommended specs) and then record the loudest passages right at the end (as in the end of a symphony etc). Even then, it is only very apparent if the record has been played before with an inferior stylus, incorrectly setup. That IGD you hear is often simple groove damage.

If you want even better sound, remember the records can spin at faster speeds, and the inner grooves of a 45 rpm record, or 78 rpm record will never have any problems reproducing all the audiophile information you require.

 

[mhardy6647]

polyester (Mylar)...

Mine.

Otari MX5050 010215 2 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Not mine.

 

[xr100]

Another blast from the past...

Shure - High Fidelity Phonograph Cartridge Technical Seminar (1978)

 

[mhardy6647]

Speaking of old things...
On the off chance that anyone here isn't aware of this -- there is a tremendous resource of scanned documentation (most of it OCR'd and searchable) related to the commercial broadcast/radio/television/audio (and entertainment) industries (and hobbies) all under one roof at https://www.americanradiohistory.com/
For example, there are nearly complete collections of Audio, Stereo Review and High Fidelity magazine scans.

And I -- ahem -- assume you're all familiar with http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ and its sister site http://www.alliedcatalogs.com/

source: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1977-06.pdf

`


Oh, and as long as I am semi-off-topic, and wasting forum bandwidth , I will also put in a plug for Pete Millett's wonderful resource at:

http://www.tubebooks.org/

 

[jsrtheta]

I do recall reports of subjective measurements in a double blind study where the emotional responses of listeners was inferred based on body language and movements and the analog/tube system was shown to give stronger positive emotional reactions.

"Subjective measurements in a double blind study"? "emotional responses...[were] inferred based on body language and movements"?

What the heck does that mean? And is it as terrifying as I suspect?