Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[thecheapseats]

I've started buying some of these new Deutsche Grammophon The Original Source LP releases. Basically 4 track master tapes downmixed to 2 track and cut in real time all analog. Intriguing.

I remember being very particular that any Deutsche Grammophon vinyl purchases/releases I made were Hanover manufactured in origin... they still sound great today... wish my domestic u.s. jazz collection LPs were done with such care...

 

[MattHooper]

I believe that it can be good enough through speakers in a "normal" room. To the point that I would feel like a troll if I held it against someone for being perfectly happy with the medium for the rest of their lives. Better: I believe it can let one appreciate an excellent recording. But for me this is with proper set-up and by following the science. I'd probably hate most people's set-ups, however (lol), as I do not believe most people follow or don't have the means to follow audio science. And that's not fair to the medium when pit against another. And that's not fair of me to think of such a set-up as representative of what the medium can do. And I think my samples can help demonstrate what I mean.

With most good AB tests of things close to each other I can often differentiate but I try to be honest with myself enough to admit that I often cannot make a value judgement. Here I wouldn't go THAT far but still it is close enough to illuminate things for me. I chose the track because it plays with quiet, sound stage, instrument position, etc. I can tell during the quiet moments in the middle which is vinyl and which is digital, but IN MY ROOM it is not a make or break difference. And if I never heard the digital I could believe it is simply the recording. I don't write this to brag but to make a point: I am using Revel F226Bes, subs, Benchmark AHB2, miniDSP SHD with room correction. I am adding as little as possible to the sound and this helps me be more confident in knowing that I am not introducing anything to alter the recording and can make a sound judgement about it. My system has practically no distortion (not that that is needed with vinyl) and I am allowing a wide soundstage (Revel) for things to bloom. What is striking to me is that I am not hearing the limits of crosstalk as the sound stage width, instrument separation, etc. sound about as good to me in the vinyl version. I really can't say I hear the approximately approximately -48 to -40dB distortion in the most audible areas of the FR but honestly I think the room is covering it up to the point that I am not hearing anything I can call added warmth or euphonics. The bass sounds as deep. The dynamics of the bangs, the bells, and the left and right channel interplay sound pretty much the same to me. And this is not a crap recording. Haroumi Hosono produced it. He's as good as it gets.

BUT ON MY HEADPHONES - reviewed here and shown to have amongst the lowest noise and distortion and with an ASR created EQ - the crackling on the opening absolutely kills it for me. I can hear far more pops. What is important is that I CANNOT hear the crackling on my stereo, at least from my distance of 10 feet. I encourage everyone to compare. I'm not afraid to put myself out there. Something like this is the real value of the sample. I really do believe that a lot of critics use the known limits of hearing to judge the medium while skipping real world use limits. Those limits are much more evident in the enclosed space of a headphone. To me vinyl is not meant to be heard on a SOTA headphone set-up--but isn't that obvious? Speakers and headphones are two different things and that's what I mean when I say people live in theory land. (If you knew me you would laugh at me for saying that.) It doesn't mean you are wrong but the world is seldom up to it. So I encourage everyone: listen to the samples. Listen on your stereo and on headphones. You may disagree and you may hear the issues on a stereo more than me, you may have a better room, but you will know more about my limits and experience and likely treat me more like a human being than dismissing me and everyone else altogether. You can say I can hear that issue a bit more than he can, but he's not crazy, I can see where he is coming from. And before anyone responds with...but this one example doesn't represent all vinyl. Well, its relatively easy to fully capture vinyl performance. Let's hear what you are talking about. I'd be curious to know/hear what is considered a medium specific issue that can't be fixed with proper use. Maybe it can help me re-evaluate my samples. But please be able to discuss the set-up and how it relates to audio science.

And to add one thing: I encourage vinyl lovers to scrutinize the sample on a SOTA headphone set-up to better know what people are criticizing. Technically they are right.

Interesting take. Particularly the difference you hear with headphones.

I don't use headphones myself. I listen in a room that is if anything on the over-damped side, very quiet. I just did a quick iphone measurement from my listening seat, using the Decibel X app (A weighted) and got an average of about 25dB for the noise floor.

At least in my set up/room I continue to be astonished that a rock scraping through plastic can produce a sense of such high resolution. I was listening to some ambient electronica last night, which would have long passages of very quiet subtle sounds going on, in a massive deep soundstage, and reverbs that "stretched to infinity" and the sense of hearing the subtlest sounds down in to the noise floor of my room, was amazing. (Even if, technically, that wasn't the case).

 

[IPunchCholla]

I believe that it can be good enough through speakers in a "normal" room. To the point that I would feel like a troll if I held it against someone for being perfectly happy with the medium for the rest of their lives. Better: I believe it can let one appreciate an excellent recording. But for me this is with proper set-up and by following the science. I'd probably hate most people's set-ups, however (lol), as I do not believe most people follow or don't have the means to follow audio science. And that's not fair to the medium when pit against another. And that's not fair of me to think of such a set-up as representative of what the medium can do. And I think my samples can help demonstrate what I mean.

With most good AB tests of things close to each other I can often differentiate but I try to be honest with myself enough to admit that I often cannot make a value judgement. Here I wouldn't go THAT far but still it is close enough to illuminate things for me. I chose the track because it plays with quiet, sound stage, instrument position, etc. I can tell during the quiet moments in the middle which is vinyl and which is digital, but IN MY ROOM it is not a make or break difference. And if I never heard the digital I could believe it is simply the recording. I don't write this to brag but to make a point: I am using Revel F226Bes, subs, Benchmark AHB2, miniDSP SHD with room correction. I am adding as little as possible to the sound and this helps me be more confident in knowing that I am not introducing anything to alter the recording and can make a sound judgement about it. My system has practically no distortion (not that that is needed with vinyl) and I am allowing a wide soundstage (Revel) for things to bloom. What is striking to me is that I am not hearing the limits of crosstalk as the sound stage width, instrument separation, etc. sound about as good to me in the vinyl version. I really can't say I hear the approximately approximately -48 to -40dB distortion in the most audible areas of the FR but honestly I think the room is covering it up to the point that I am not hearing anything I can call added warmth or euphonics. The bass sounds as deep. The dynamics of the bangs, the bells, and the left and right channel interplay sound pretty much the same to me. And this is not a crap recording. Haroumi Hosono produced it. He's as good as it gets.

BUT ON MY HEADPHONES - reviewed here and shown to have amongst the lowest noise and distortion and with an ASR created EQ - the crackling on the opening absolutely kills it for me. I can hear far more pops. What is important is that I CANNOT hear the crackling on my stereo, at least from my distance of 10 feet. I encourage everyone to compare. I'm not afraid to put myself out there. Something like this is the real value of the sample. I really do believe that a lot of critics use the known limits of hearing to judge the medium while skipping real world use limits. Those limits are much more evident in the enclosed space of a headphone. To me vinyl is not meant to be heard on a SOTA headphone set-up--but isn't that obvious? Speakers and headphones are two different things and that's what I mean when I say people live in theory land. (If you knew me you would laugh at me for saying that.) It doesn't mean you are wrong but the world is seldom up to it. So I encourage everyone: listen to the samples. Listen on your stereo and on headphones. You may disagree and you may hear the issues on a stereo more than me, you may have a better room, but you will know more about my limits and experience and likely treat me more like a human being than dismissing me and everyone else altogether. You can say I can hear that issue a bit more than he can, but he's not crazy, I can see where he is coming from. And before anyone responds with...but this one example doesn't represent all vinyl. Well, its relatively easy to fully capture vinyl performance. Let's hear what you are talking about. I'd be curious to know/hear what is considered a medium specific issue that can't be fixed with proper use. Maybe it can help me re-evaluate my samples. But please be able to discuss the set-up and how it relates to audio science.

And to add one thing: I encourage vinyl lovers to scrutinize the sample on a SOTA headphone set-up to better know what people are criticizing. Technically they are right.

Your experience sounds close to mine, though my usual music might be more forgiving on headphones than yours.

 

[USER]

Interesting take. Particularly the difference you hear with headphones.

To me it makes sense. The can afford really good isolation, which means lower noise floor. So issues general room noise mask are heard.

 

[MattHooper]

To me it makes sense. The can afford really good isolation, which means lower noise floor. So issues general room noise mask are heard.

What issues do you hear? Is it the basic noise floor of the records, hiss/rumble/crackle? Does it vary or do you find it never goes below a certain audible point?
How low of a noise floor do you think you need in order to hear the issues? Have you measured the noise floor of your room?

I would expect on a good pressing it would take quiet parts to hear the noise floor. Much of it would be masked by louder parts in the song. As I and others have observed, most of my music seems to mask noise floor issues in much of what I listen to. (Though I also listen to a significant amount of music with quiet parts, and even when I detect some background noise it usually isn't enough to bother me. Which is where personal sensitivities come in).

 

[beagleman]

What issues do you hear? Is it the basic noise floor of the records, hiss/rumble/crackle? Does it vary or do you find it never goes below a certain audible point?
How low of a noise floor do you think you need in order to hear the issues? Have you measured the noise floor of your room?

I would expect on a good pressing it would take quiet parts to hear the noise floor. Much of it would be masked by louder parts in the song. As I and others have observed, most of my music seems to mask noise floor issues in much of what I listen to. (Though I also listen to a significant amount of music with quiet parts, and even when I detect some background noise it usually isn't enough to bother me. Which is where personal sensitivities come in).

Here is something maybe even more interesting. I have had access to some professional Master tapes, (2 Track 15 ips) as far as being able to listen to them only in a location they were made.

I consequently heard the vinyl record made directly from those masters, and in some ways, almost thought the vinyl sounded "Better" or had something the "plain" master tape lacked.

I know it was not eq'ed at all, in fact I know the entire chain of how it was made. Now this was a few decades ago, and still sticks in my memory!
Again there was NOTHING altered as far as compression or EQ, just straight transfer to vinyl.

To me, that may be saying that vinyl add some characteristics that are not on Open reel, but they can be enjoyable and maybe seem even better, but possibly not as accurate.

 

[levimax]

What issues do you hear? Is it the basic noise floor of the records, hiss/rumble/crackle? Does it vary or do you find it never goes below a certain audible point?
How low of a noise floor do you think you need in order to hear the issues? Have you measured the noise floor of your room?

I would expect on a good pressing it would take quiet parts to hear the noise floor. Much of it would be masked by louder parts in the song. As I and others have observed, most of my music seems to mask noise floor issues in much of what I listen to. (Though I also listen to a significant amount of music with quiet parts, and even when I detect some background noise it usually isn't enough to bother me. Which is where personal sensitivities come in).

I seldom use headphones, but if I do when playing vinyl, noise that is not apparent to me when listening on speakers is much more noticeable, this includes any type of noise from "vinyl roar" to pop's and clicks. So to get around this I never listen to vinyl on headphones. For me personally when I only had vinyl any noise really bothered me, now that I have both vinyl and digital versions of most of the music I like to listen to the issues with vinyl noise bother me much less because I know I have a quiet digital version.

 

[USER]

What issues do you hear? Is it the basic noise floor of the records, hiss/rumble/crackle? Does it vary or do you find it never goes below a certain audible point?
How low of a noise floor do you think you need in order to hear the issues? Have you measured the noise floor of your room?

I would expect on a good pressing it would take quiet parts to hear the noise floor. Much of it would be masked by louder parts in the song. As I and others have observed, most of my music seems to mask noise floor issues in much of what I listen to. (Though I also listen to a significant amount of music with quiet parts, and even when I detect some background noise it usually isn't enough to bother me. Which is where personal sensitivities come in).

First and foremost the one I described on the post: the crackle at the beginning of the track. I'm sure that's wear. It's always a distraction on headphones. But issues definitely vary for me record to record and depending on condition. I could hear a difference in the quiet parts of the track here but it wasn't night and day. If a record is noisy or a little more worn I'll hear it on speakers and I certainly own such records. I don't buy modern records so I don't know if they can sound better. Not interested in trying as I will always buy the digital version of anything. I do have very good phono preamps and I can always hear the noise floor on my headphones. On my system you can put your ear up to the speaker and you won't really hear anything so I am starting off from a disadvantage in a way. In fact I am going to post something for anyone interested:

Check out UPEPO.wav on the samples link. It's a dorky, 1970s, self-released, white guy global influenced band from Portland. Terrible, I know, but the front man was briefly in one of Ric Ocasek's first bands and they were a popular hyperlocal band.

The first 10 seconds are my Flat MM phono preamp. Frankly, it's as good as it gets. Let me know if you want measurements. To me it is silent on headphones. If you play it on speakers put your ears up to them. If you can normally hear silence from a source I'm sure you will here. Then I drop the needle, the noise floor is clear but below that is the sound of something that is also very clear. An industrial machine sort of noise. Not sure what it is but it has to do with something the tapes ran through. I'm sure people here would be able to tell what it is. I can barely hear it on my stereo--wouldn't think about it too much about it and would have assumed it is part of noise floor if I hadn't heard it through headphones--but it is clear as day on my headphones.

Edit: I added another sample from a record that anyone can find on Spotify. Won't name it here as the record was a minor hit. In case anyone thinks I am cherry picking. I've had the record forever and it is well used. Could use a cleaning. In my collection a beater. I can certainly hear a bunch of it on speakers but see if it is a decent approximate overall. Is it warmer or more euphonic? Plus it was a test recording so not up to my standards. But it has good bass for people that don't think vinyl can produce usable bass. Not saying it is the perfect medium for it, as it is not, but for many people it won't be a detriment. Enjoy.

 

[beagleman]

I would always tend to hear a faint sound, almost similar to how a bowling ball sounds rolling down the lane...

Not truly rumble, nor surface noise, but almost like an ambiance of the needle riding through the grooves.

 

[Axo1989]

I would always tend to hear a faint sound, almost similar to how a bowling ball sounds rolling down the lane...

Not truly rumble, nor surface noise, but almost like an ambiance of the needle riding through the grooves.

Gutter ball? Aim for the middle ...

 

[Karmacoma]

When i listen to modern digital classical recordings and i get sucked into the delicate restitution of the atmosphere of a concert, vynils to my mind are just a vague ruin of the past.
I can come back to it occasionally but only for poorly recorded stuff like a Led Zep or some old reggae/ragga tunes.
Honestly from my experience of the people around me still buying some, the Vynil revival is for people in search of a totem.

 

[Leporello]

Question for those who are not vinyl enthusiasts on this thread (or really, anyone):

Even if you hold digital sound to be both technically and sonically superior overall:

Would you agree that vinyl can sound excellent (or impressive, or some such positive descriptor)? That one can experience "high quality" sound on a high quality sound system, from a good recording/vinyl pressing?



(Since we are rating the sonic perception of the sound, there is necessarily subjectivity entailed in answering the question).

I do not think I would agree. Vinyl sounds what it sounds like - compared to digital not very accurate or truthful to the source signal. Obviously many listeners think it sounds great but that is a property of the listener, not a property of the medium.

 

[Sal1950]

Would you agree that vinyl can sound excellent (or impressive, or some such positive descriptor)? That one can experience "high quality" sound on a high quality sound system, from a good recording/vinyl pressing?

We all have our opinions and personal levels for which a recording or media can be said to sound impressive or excellent.
But how can you tag a recording as "high quality" if it's known ability to reproduce the sound of the master is severly compromised by 2023 standards?
I've read all sort of ad copy from the 1920s and 30s of products from the time stating all sort of superlatives, "his masters voice, just like the real thing, on and on. And in 1920 or 1930 it was very "High Quality" or "High Fidelity". But to state the same today when listening to a 1890s Edison Cylinder or 1920s disc would be laughable. The same extends to vinyl in todays world, no one has ever said it can't sound nice, but High Quality = High Fidelity? Not since around 1985.
But if you insist on saying vinyl can deliver High Quality sound by 1970s standards, OK - fine. LOL

 

[antcollinet]

But how can you tag a recording as "high quality"

This is essentially (IMO) semantics.

'high quality' doesn't mean 'best quality'. It becomes a judgement thing. Where on a spectrum of - I don't know - 'white noise' to 'perfect' do you draw the lines demarking 'terrible' 'poor' 'mid' 'high' 'superb'

(Does it become easier for you if we add 'superb' or similar, as a category between high and perfect?)

In any case, part of the judgement will be down to how intrusive a person finds the imperfections.

 

[Sal1950]

In any case, part of the judgement will be down to how intrusive a person finds the imperfections.

All very true Tony, I completely agree.
But I could make the statement that as a medium for delivering audio to human beings,
16/44 digital has yet to be proven to have "imperfections" LOL

 

[beagleman]

All very true Tony, I completely agree.
But I could make the statement that as a medium for delivering audio to human beings,
16/44 digital has yet to be proven to have "imperfections" LOL

I have seen many "Claim" 16/44 does have issues, such as jitter, "digital sound", and a few others, but never found these issues proven or agreed upon by all audiophiles.

In fact there is a whole subculture on many audio forums, simply debating if digital, mostly 16/44 is "Good enough" for music, or to sound natural.
I never found proof definitive, but I think it is related to the "Vinyl sounds better" thing, in an inverse way.

 

[JP]

I did some null comparisons in a thread on SHF. No matter what the evidence folks will grasp at anything because they can “hear” it.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I did some null comparisons in a thread on SHF. No matter what the evidence folks will grasp at anything because they can “hear” it.

Excuse me, what is the meaning of SHF abbreviation? And what did you do there? I can not understand your post.

 

[JP]

Excuse me, what is the meaning of SHF abbreviation? And what did you do there? I can not understand your post.

Steve Hoffman Forum. I used DeltaWave to do null comparisons of 16 vs. 24 and 44.1 vs. 88.2 through a DAC/ADC loop. The claim being made was that high res had better bass. Differences were as expected.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Honestly from my experience of the people around me still buying some, the Vynil revival is for people in search of a totem.

Doesn’t this just beg the question? I mean we all use totems, it’s a human trait. The same as we are all biased in our hearing and acknowledging that bias doesn’t make it go away (unless we somehow are always listening to music blind). So all this has done is change the question from “ why the vinyl resurgence?” To “Why the increase in vinyl totemic seeking?”

ETA: These kind of responses so irk me. People are doing activity X because of some “primitive” reason (fad, totems, cognitive issues) that the person making the claim implicitly excludes themselves from. A hidden “I am superior since I don’t do totems, fads, have these cognitive issues.” It’s like hating vinyl becomes a badge of superiority. It remind’s me of many of my students reactions when I assign Barbara Kingsolver’s High Tide in Tucson. They love the idea, but are convinced everyone else is the hermit crab, not them.