Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[mppix]

So this pro audio person says that people who think that vinyl is actually "warmer" are actually right due to the limitations of the medium.
He then goes on to show that vinyl is toxic as it emit PM2.5. Ugh

Curious what people here think

 

[MattHooper]

I do think vinyl in general has a warm sound. Dammit, now I'm on the list.

I’m glad you made that post! I was going to get more into the question of vinyl “ sound sounding warm” but you did a much better and more comprehensive take on it than I would’ve.

As I’ve said, I am very cautious about ascribing “warmth” to vinyl as an inherent quality, if only due to the fact that the vagaries of setting up a system for vinyl can change the sound. I’ve heard heard systems in which the vinyl playback was Emphasizing the highs in a way that made the vinyl sound “ cool” and the digital playback sounded more “ smooth and warm” in comparison.

In my own system, if I play around with things like tracking force and impedance, I can get a thinner, lighter cooler sound, or a more warm lush sound. I have my vinyl playback dialled in very close to neutral but with a nudge toward the lush warm.

Could I say therefore, that vinyl playback and my system tends to “ sound warmer?” I suppose I could, but again, I attribute most of that to my set up.

That said, given the long history of vinyl being described as “ warmer” than digital, it’s legitimate to ask what is behind that? Is it purely and only a bias effect from external influences and beliefs? Or is there something to it?

Is there something inherent in how vinyl is created that explains why so many people describe it as “ warm sounding?”

Your post is an interesting attempt to address that. It takes an all the different contingent ways in which vinyl could come off as “ warmer sounding.”

On the other hand, it would be interesting to see if we had as neutral a vinyl playback system as possible, so as to essentially remove the influence of the turntable/cartridge, and so we are just hearing the inherent sound of the vinyl itself, over a large enough sampling with people rate the vinyl versions of tracks “ warmer sounding” then the digital versions on a neutral system?

If that has been done at all, I’m not remembering it at the moment.

In a modern well set up high fidelity system good digital recordings can be extremely good while vinyl, even excellent vinyl, sounds like vinyl.

That’s what I find too. Vinyl can sound very close to, but in my experience, never identical to a digital version.

As I’ve said listeners to my system, usually can’t tell whether I am playing a record or a digital source. A good record can sound both clean and vivid. If I walked into the room without knowing which was which, I’m not sure I would know if it were a clean record playing or a digital source. (maybe I would, but I’m not sure I’ve never done it.)

On the other hand, If I am actually comparing the vinyl version to the digital version of a track, then I pretty much always notice “ oh yeah, that’s the vinyl version.”

The digital version tends to be cleaner and more finely resolved. The vinyl version tends to have a very slight (to more pronounced) “ texture” which I have generally assumed to be whatever combination of minute distortions are part of the medium itself, combined with whatever my cartridge and turntable are adding.

I hear the same thing and some other vinyl versus digital systems. (at other audiophile homes.). This thickening of the sound was more pronounced on my earlier turntable and an older needle. But still slightly there on my current system.

So I wonder if this texture is unavoidable enough to be ubiquitous in vinyl playback, and perhaps along with typical vinyl mastering practises, it might be enough to combine into what many people are calling “warmth?”

I don’t know.

I'll say in my experience comparing steps away from fidelity a warmish tilt can be a bit more engaging and emotional while a coolish tilt is the reverse.

I share that experience. It’s not for nothing that I choose my tube amps.

That said, for my purposes I think of “warmth” into somewhat distinct ways:

1. Tonal balance (EG some emphasis in the bass to lower mid range)

2. Timbral warmth. This speaks more to the type of harmonic structure that distinguishes, for instance, the sound of a woodblock being struck, which has the “ organic warm signature of wood” versus a piece of metal being struck, which has a “ harder cooler” timber.

I make this distinction because I have often enough experienced a system, which is not “ warm” in tonal balance and may even sound somewhat sucked out and thinner, but still strikes me as having a “ warm sonic signature” in terms of timber. These type of systems tend to produce, to my ears, a very authentic sounding signature for wood instruments and such, and so I can still quite enjoy them. Acoustic guitar is very often my test. The type of system I’m describing may produce a thinner version of an acoustic guitar, but the harmonic timber quality will strike me as having the right sparkling/woody/warm tonality that I recognize from acoustic guitars.

 

[Newman]

I do think vinyl in general has a warm sound. Dammit, now I'm on the list.

Your fearful wish is my command! done

Good post BTW. My next post will also address some other parts of it.

cheers

 

[Newman]

All what counts is what ever turns you ON (audio wise ) is fine Vinyl, CD, (digital) radio on a average or high end set it does not matter. If i/you tapp your feet thats for me the measurment of enjoyment an a good time.

For me it's the music, reproduced without colouration. Now you might find this weird, but when put to the test in controlled listening conditions, almost everyone is the same as me in that regard. As.Long.As.We.Are.Talking.About.The.Sound.Waves.Themselves.

Which kind of puts to the sword the much-overused claim of "each to his own", which turns out, when tested, to be a cop-out. And a very much favoured cop-out of the vinyl defenders.

The sense in which "each to his own" is true, is in every sense except sonic. Then it's true. Coolness. Hipness. Retro love. Triggered memories. Collector-ism. Gearophilia. Trading cards albums. Shopping. Drooling. Yep, each to his own.

Your test of 'tapping your feet' is also not necessary for enjoyment and a good time with vinyl. Apparently at least one survey of vinyl buyers showed only about half of vinyl buyers even own a turntable. Now, we could debate the exact percentage - it could be 75%...but it could be 25% - either way it is highly instructive. The vinyl renaissance in terms of numbers, and in terms of 'a good time', doesn't really revolve around playing records at all. These people are definitely getting their jollies from their vinyl ownership, without any sound waves, and they are a very large part of the vinyl game. Each to his own.

There's more. Plenty of audio discussion forums have a (very long) thread dedicated to sharing photos of turntables. Another way to enjoy vinyl without sound waves. You don't see similar threads for CD players and DACs, and if you do they are nothing like the length - even though there is a lot of variety in their appearances, and even though a lot of the record player pictures are really quite 'samey'. "Ooooooh. Aaaaahhhhh. Nice deck!" Each to his own, no sound waves necessary to get mucho jollies.

Like I said, in every sense except sonic.

cheers

 

[MattHooper]

For me it's the music, reproduced without colouration. Now you might find this weird, but when put to the test in controlled listening conditions, almost everyone is the same as me in that regard.

What research are you citing specifically?
There’s the research on loudspeaker and headphone preferences (and even there, variations are found).

As to other types of distortion, in my own blind test I preferred the bit of distortion added by my tube pre-amplifier over my benchmark preamplifier.

But we are specifically talking about preferences between digital and vinyl.

So if you’re going to make the claim that virtually everyone would share the same preferences for digital over a vinyl source as you under controlled conditions, I think it behoves you to cite the research, since you seem to demand that of other people all the time.

The only such research I’m aware of has been posted here a few times. We can take a look at the limitations of those studies (2 songs! Along with some possible methodological issues), and which haven’t been replicated.

If you are a scientifically minded, you would recognize the caution with which a scientist would speak, in terms of what can be reliably leveraged from the data we have.

(since Newman pretends to ignore me, somebody else can ask him to cite his references for vinyl versus digital comparisons under controlled conditions)

The sense in which "each to his own" is true, is in every sense except sonic. Then it's true. Coolness. Hipness. Retro love. Triggered memories. Collector-ism. Gearophilia. Trading cards albums. Shopping. Drooling. Yep, each to his own.

You don't see similar threads for CD players and DACs, and if you do they are nothing like the length - even though there is a lot of variety in their appearances, and even though a lot of the record player pictures are really quite 'samey'. "Ooooooh. Aaaaahhhhh. Nice deck!"

Those vinyl enthusiasts are having too much fun down there!

Like I said, in every sense except sonic.

Once again, you aren’t in a position to actually make that claim. You cannot claim that somebody is not truly enjoying the sound(waves) of their vinyl, nor that they don’t actually prefer it (sometimes or often) to their digital playback system. There are way too many variables involved out there in the real world, none of them controlled for, so people can often be making apples to oranges comparisons. As I remember you yourself have agreed that is quite possible. Someone has a system in which colorations in the vinyl playback front end are compensating for issues or deficiencies elsewhere (for instance in the loudspeaker frequency curve).

So without the necessary information about a particular set up and individual, you really are not in a position to tell someone “ you aren’t hearing and preferring what you think you are, your impressions aren’t derived from the actual soundwaves.”

 

[Galliardist]

Once again, you aren’t in a position to actually make that claim. You cannot claim that somebody is not truly enjoying the sound(waves) of their vinyl, nor that they don’t actually prefer it (sometimes or often) to their digital playback system. There are way too many variables involved out there in the real world, none of them controlled for, so people can often be making apples to oranges comparisons. As I remember you yourself have agreed that is quite possible. Someone has a system in which colorations in the vinyl playback front end are compensating for issues or deficiencies elsewhere (for instance in the loudspeaker frequency curve).

So without the necessary information about a particular set up and individual, you really are not in a position to tell someone “ you aren’t hearing and preferring what you think you are, your impressions aren’t derived from the actual soundwaves.”

Can we work from some measurements, and see if there is a case to answer?

Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up?

Stereo Lab Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up? Are records better than CDs? Alastair MacMaster Richard Brice music electronics music engineering PHAEDRUS AUDIO

pspatialaudio.com

Here we have some actual measurements of vinyl played back on a good modern turntable. It would be nice to know the setup, but I'm not sure how much others vary.

There's actually quite a bit of good news for vinyl here - which is a problem for your hypothesis as much as Newman's.

Let's pull out a couple of highlights.

VInyl has equivalent noise /dynamic range to 13 bit dithered digital resolution. In other words, it's as good as worst case MQA. If you could never tell a difference with decrypted MQA, you probably won't hear it from clean vinyl either. Note that this assumes declicking technology. Noise is higher without that, at -40dB. That might just be audible at times in a quiet environment, and will definitely be audible through a decent headphone setup. The noise is noted as relatively benign. (Note that it doesn't hold true at high frequencies, see the second(!) note 3 towards the end of the article. It drops at higher frequencies to 9 bits equivalent.)

Distortion is mostly second harmonic. It can reach close 3dB at the inner grooves, and there's a distortion graph in the article for that, but it's still mostly second harmonic. The qualified headline figures are 0.44% second harmonic, and 0.2% third. Note that the lower distortion would probably push the visible higher harmonics in the inner groove graphic below noise over most of the disc.

The main problem noted turns out to be rumble and hum from the turntable. (Who would have thought it? Those mad British reviewers of the early 1980s were right - the turntable is the biggest contributor after all!).

The numbers do look like some tube amps in practice. Warm? I couldn't really say. The distortion might make a system with a "warm" amp sound warmer. We could also speculate about the role of what is referred to here as "benign" noise.

And the fact that vinyl does look like a poor amp may give space for the idea that we can treat it as such and lean back on the result that people prefer more neutral electronics as an indication that they wouldn't prefer vinyl either. But that seems also to be speculation. It could be tested, I guess, with a denoising device and a quiet disc to try to hide any really obvious indications of vinyl playback in a controlled comparison.

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to draw a conclusion from these measurements (or those in the Fun with vinyl measurements thread here, either), so I'll leave this for others to draw stronger conclusions.

 

[levimax]

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to draw a conclusion from these measurements (or those in the Fun with vinyl measurements thread here, either), so I'll leave this for others to draw stronger conclusions.

Below is a measurement of a well set up good cart using the script developed by some members here. It more or less confirms the other article but has a little more detail showing distortion is very frequency dependent. The LP's distortion profile matches human hearing quite well. Lowest distortion is in the midrange where human hearing is most sensitive and higher at high and low frequencies where human hearing is less sensitive. The FR is also quite flat. I don't know what "warmth" means objectively.... some say higher 2nd order harmonics which seems dubious to me as distortion below about 5% is hard to hear with music. There is also nothing in the FR that shows rolled off highs so not sure how that is "warmth" either. If there is anything to the "warmth" argument it may be with the LP mastering its self. I have noticed when doing FR analysis of original LP's vs Original CD's that the CD's consistently have more bass and HF content. Whether this is a purposeful "boost" done by mastering engineer to make the CD's stand out or the CD is just closer to the master tape or both I don't know. I do think it is a safe to say that many LP's, when played through average systems, have less LF and HF content compared to the digital versions.

 

[MattHooper]

Can we work from some measurements, and see if there is a case to answer?

Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up?

Stereo Lab Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up? Are records better than CDs? Alastair MacMaster Richard Brice music electronics music engineering PHAEDRUS AUDIO

pspatialaudio.com

Here we have some actual measurements of vinyl played back on a good modern turntable. It would be nice to know the setup, but I'm not sure how much others vary.

There's actually quite a bit of good news for vinyl here - which is a problem for your hypothesis as much as Newman's.

Let's pull out a couple of highlights.

VInyl has equivalent noise /dynamic range to 13 bit dithered digital resolution. In other words, it's as good as worst case MQA. If you could never tell a difference with decrypted MQA, you probably won't hear it from clean vinyl either. Note that this assumes declicking technology. Noise is higher without that, at -40dB. That might just be audible at times in a quiet environment, and will definitely be audible through a decent headphone setup. The noise is noted as relatively benign. (Note that it doesn't hold true at high frequencies, see the second(!) note 3 towards the end of the article. It drops at higher frequencies to 9 bits equivalent.)

Distortion is mostly second harmonic. It can reach close 3dB at the inner grooves, and there's a distortion graph in the article for that, but it's still mostly second harmonic. The qualified headline figures are 0.44% second harmonic, and 0.2% third. Note that the lower distortion would probably push the visible higher harmonics in the inner groove graphic below noise over most of the disc.

The main problem noted turns out to be rumble and hum from the turntable. (Who would have thought it? Those mad British reviewers of the early 1980s were right - the turntable is the biggest contributor after all!).

The numbers do look like some tube amps in practice. Warm? I couldn't really say. The distortion might make a system with a "warm" amp sound warmer. We could also speculate about the role of what is referred to here as "benign" noise.

And the fact that vinyl does look like a poor amp may give space for the idea that we can treat it as such and lean back on the result that people prefer more neutral electronics as an indication that they wouldn't prefer vinyl either. But that seems also to be speculation. It could be tested, I guess, with a denoising device and a quiet disc to try to hide any really obvious indications of vinyl playback in a controlled comparison.

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to draw a conclusion from these measurements (or those in the Fun with vinyl measurements thread here, either), so I'll leave this for others to draw stronger conclusions.

Interesting post thank you.

I don’t think it speaks to the section of my post that you quoted. But it does speak to the other things I was musing about in another post.

The quoted part which was addressed to Newman had to do with whether he or anybody else on the forum is in a position to know that someone preferring vinyl in their set up (or describing it as warmer) isn’t basing their impression off the actual “ sound waves” as Newman likes to put it.

There are too many variables that have pointed up before to make that assumption.
There are all the vagaries of different cartridge responses. as I said, I can make my own systems sound brighter, thinner, or warmer and more dull given different cartridge settings. My friend reviews high and turntables and cartridges, And I’ve heard anything from playback that is very close to his digital source, as well as cartridges that had a obvious high frequency peak they made them sound brighter and spuriously “ more detailed” than his vinyl. Put that together with not knowing specifically how some cartridge response or set up might be interacting with colorations of certain speakers in certain rooms. And add into the fact that plenty of new vinyl enthusiasts Buy new equipment, speakers, amps, etc. in order to listen to vinyl versus whatever they had been streaming on before that, and it’s quite possible the new equipment itself, better speakers or whatever, account for their preferring the sound of vinyl in their system.
There was just so much possibility for uncontrolled variables, a lack of true “ apples to apples” comparison, that you really can’t just declare “ you aren’t really preferring the sound waves when you were listening to vinyl on your system.”

However , on the DIFFERENT SUBJECT whether vinyl has a trend of inherent qualities that strike people as “warm.” Or IF some portion of people will prefer vinyl sound in controlled testing over digital counterparts, then I think your investigation there is interesting. I think we would ultimately need a decent amount of research on that in which subjects actually compare in controlled conditions. We’ve got a good amount of research when it comes to loudspeakers, but the research I’m aware of for actual vinyl versus digital comparisons is extremely paltry.

And in the end, even if using neutral phono playback equipment yields and overall preference for digital in blind testing, It would only go so far to evaluating individual claims for vinyl preference in real world systems, due to a sort of “ circle of confusion” brought about by all the real world variables in peoples systems.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Below is a measurement of a well set up good cart using the script developed by some members here. It more or less confirms the other article but has a little more detail showing distortion is very frequency dependent. The LP's distortion profile matches human hearing quite well. Lowest distortion is in the midrange where human hearing is most sensitive and higher at high and low frequencies where human hearing is less sensitive. The FR is also quite flat. I don't know what "warmth" means objectively.... some say higher 2nd order harmonics which seems dubious to me as distortion below about 5% is hard to hear with music. There is also nothing in the FR that shows rolled off highs so not sure how that is "warmth" either. If there is anything to the "warmth" argument it may be with the LP mastering its self. I have noticed when doing FR analysis of original LP's vs Original CD's that the CD's consistently have more bass and HF content. Whether this is a purposeful "boost" done by mastering engineer to make the CD's stand out or the CD is just closer to the master tape or both I don't know. I do think it is a safe to say that many LP's, when played through average systems, have less LF and HF content compared to the digital versions.

View attachment 395237

I'd think at least in early CD days the CD is closer to the master tape. Due to prerecorded reels and CD being very similar while every LP I ever compared was the odd man out. So I'd think the changes made for cutting the lp disk are responsible.

 

[Newman]

[to Matt] Can we work from some measurements, and see if there is a case to answer?

Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up?

Stereo Lab Stereo Lab - How do LP records measure up? Are records better than CDs? Alastair MacMaster Richard Brice music electronics music engineering PHAEDRUS AUDIO

pspatialaudio.com

Here we have some actual measurements of vinyl played back on a good modern turntable. It would be nice to know the setup, but I'm not sure how much others vary.

There's actually quite a bit of good news for vinyl here - which is a problem for your hypothesis as much as Newman's.

Let's pull out a couple of highlights.

VInyl has equivalent noise /dynamic range to 13 bit dithered digital resolution. In other words, it's as good as worst case MQA. If you could never tell a difference with decrypted MQA, you probably won't hear it from clean vinyl either. Note that this assumes declicking technology. Noise is higher without that, at -40dB. That might just be audible at times in a quiet environment, and will definitely be audible through a decent headphone setup. The noise is noted as relatively benign. (Note that it doesn't hold true at high frequencies, see the second(!) note 3 towards the end of the article. It drops at higher frequencies to 9 bits equivalent.)

Distortion is mostly second harmonic. It can reach close 3dB at the inner grooves, and there's a distortion graph in the article for that, but it's still mostly second harmonic. The qualified headline figures are 0.44% second harmonic, and 0.2% third. Note that the lower distortion would probably push the visible higher harmonics in the inner groove graphic below noise over most of the disc.

The main problem noted turns out to be rumble and hum from the turntable. (Who would have thought it? Those mad British reviewers of the early 1980s were right - the turntable is the biggest contributor after all!).

The numbers do look like some tube amps in practice. Warm? I couldn't really say. The distortion might make a system with a "warm" amp sound warmer. We could also speculate about the role of what is referred to here as "benign" noise.

And the fact that vinyl does look like a poor amp may give space for the idea that we can treat it as such and lean back on the result that people prefer more neutral electronics as an indication that they wouldn't prefer vinyl either. But that seems also to be speculation. It could be tested, I guess, with a denoising device and a quiet disc to try to hide any really obvious indications of vinyl playback in a controlled comparison.

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to draw a conclusion from these measurements (or those in the Fun with vinyl measurements thread here, either), so I'll leave this for others to draw stronger conclusions.

I vaguely recall having seen this, but thanks for linking it and bringing it up. Just make sure you don't copy/paste the cartoon in the article into this thread, like Sal does, or you will get reported, like Sal does. It seems that even journalists are allowed to have a bit of fun at vinyl's expense, but not fellow audiophiles. It's a reportable offence, you know, like burning the national flag.

We have to keep coming back to the issue that isn't raised in the article: high sample variation with vinyl. So someone measures that vinyl can achieve a certain number, great, but it doesn't mean much if we can't trust any one sample of vinyl to deliver on that. Whereas with digital, yes we can trust that, and it's a big deal.

As to my emboldened bit in your post above, can I check with you, what is it that you see as my hypothesis?

Side note: We have already seen Matt's incorrect reading of my post as a claim that there is research on vinyl vs digital sonics and this research favours digital (ie the exact original source sound), and his demand to see the research. I am well and truly sick of my posts being misrepresented by him, and I can only think of three main explanations for it:

• He isn't very intelligent and can't really understand anything I write.
• He is systematically, deliberately, and maliciously twisting and misrepresenting everything I write, in a foul and ongoing attempt to besmirch me in public.
• He is so cognitively biased against me that he can't stop himself seeing everything I write in a twisted and incorrect way, and honestly believing that such was my intent.

I don’t believe the first one at all, so that only leaves the last two. Let's hope it is the third one.

FYI my post was in reply to Snarfie's statement that whatever turns you on, in the sonics, is all that matters. My reply was that the absence of colourations matters. That was my only directly-stated hypothesis: do you see your post as being a response to that hypothesis? The rest of my post was on non-sonic matters.

cheers

 

[MattHooper]

Side note: We have already seen Matt's incorrect reading of my post as a claim that there is research on vinyl vs digital sonics and this research favours digital (ie the exact original source sound), and his demand to see the research. I am well and truly sick of my posts being misrepresented by him, and I can only think of three main explanations for it:

• He isn't very intelligent and can't really understand anything I write.
• He is systematically, deliberately, and maliciously twisting and misrepresenting everything I write, in a foul and ongoing attempt to besmirch me in public.
• He is so cognitively biased against me that he can't stop himself seeing everything I write in a twisted and incorrect way, and honestly believing that such was my intent.

I don’t believe the first one at all, so that only leaves the last two. Let's hope it is the third one.

Suggestion: instead of producing a tortured and deeply ironic list like above, you could instead simply clarify what you meant. Which would involve simply answering the type of questions I asked.

We have been having conversations about whether vinyl really does sound “ warm” or preferable to some people, and this has been also within context of your repeated admonitions that “ people often aren’t responding to the actual soundwaves” but to some biased effect instead.

I didn’t think you had any such research regarding vinyl versus digital. The reason I brought it up and asked you to supply such directly relevant research is that you very explicitly tied your claim of “ research shows people prefer neutrality “ to vinyl:

NEWMAN: Now you might find this weird, but when put to the test in controlled listening conditions, almost everyone is the same as me in that regard.As.Long.As.We.Are.Talking.About.The.Sound.Waves.Themselves.

Which kind of puts to the sword the much-overused claim of "each to his own", which turns out, when tested, to be a cop-out. And a very much favoured cop-out of the vinyl defenders.

The sense in which "each to his own" is true, is in every sense except sonic. Then it's true. Coolness. Hipness. Retro love. Triggered memories. Collector-ism. Gearophilia. Trading cards albums. Shopping. Drooling. Yep, each to his own.

^^^ That clearly implicated a direct link between your claim about controlled tests
showing people prefer uncoloured sound reproduction and the claims made by vinyl enthusiasts about preferring the sound of vinyl. Your aim was clearly to reference the research you did to cast doubt on such preferences in sonic terms. Your posts suggests such research “ put the sword” to the individual preference claims made by “vinyl defenders”.

The logical relationship suggested by your own post is that in controlled conditions you and the vast majority of people would prefer uncoloured digital sound versus the vinyl.

Therefore, everything I wrote in my reply was warranted. I simply asked you to cite the research that you yourself suggested was relevant to vinyl vs digital preference claims. I pointed out that if you were for instance thinking about the data on loudspeaker preferences, that data might not be directly applicable.

And that since we are speaking specifically about vinyl versus digital comparisons, if you were going to make the connection you did in the above between study preferences for neutrality and vinyl versus digital, then we should be looking at studies dealing with precisely comparison. In other words, if you have a case to make, “ show your work.”
(not to mention you didn’t address the issue I raised of the variables involved in individuals sound systems)

You make these type of demands on peoples claims all the time. Why should you be so put off as soon as someone asks that type of rigour or clarity from you?

 

[Blumlein 88]

There was a thread on the WhatsThe Best forum Amir used to be involved with on vinyl. My memory is fuzzy on the details, but some pretty decent measurements were done of response starting with a brand new LP and measuring it after various numbers of plays. The high frequencies fell off at a surprisingly high rate. I think surface noise crept up measurably as well. And this on a good TT. Imagine what some cheap ones that were never maintained would do. I've also known some serious collectors that collected various stamper editions of LPs. I have no way of saying for sure how they were handled other than a few that my friends purchased new in the wrapper. Some various versions of the same LP were rather different in quality. Not grotesquely so, but enough to hear.

 

[MattHooper]

There was a thread on the WhatsThe Best forum Amir used to be involved with on vinyl. My memory is fuzzy on the details, but some pretty decent measurements were done of response starting with a brand new LP and measuring it after various numbers of plays. The high frequencies fell off at a surprisingly high rate. I think surface noise crept up measurably as well. And this on a good TT. Imagine what some cheap ones that were never maintained would do. I've also known some serious collectors that collected various stamper editions of LPs. I have no way of saying for sure how they were handled other than a few that my friends purchased new in the wrapper. Some various versions of the same LP were rather different in quality. Not grotesquely so, but enough to hear.

I’ve posted this comparison before. I wonder what you think about it.

Included in the comparison is a recording and waveform of records brand new and then after 100 plays on a decent turntable.

I haven’t revisited this in a while and haven’t listened to it on a Good system.

But as I remember, the differences in sound and waveforms (and even in record noise) seems negligible after 100 plays. The author of the video concluded that as well:

I have records that I’ve played very often, and if some high frequencies were lost, I haven’t noticed it FWIW.

 

[Galliardist]

I vaguely recall having seen this, but thanks for linking it and bringing it up. Just make sure you don't copy/paste the cartoon in the article into this thread, like Sal does, or you will get reported, like Sal does. It seems that even journalists are allowed to have a bit of fun at vinyl's expense, but not fellow audiophiles. It's a reportable offence, you know, like burning the national flag.

We have to keep coming back to the issue that isn't raised in the article: high sample variation with vinyl. So someone measures that vinyl can achieve a certain number, great, but it doesn't mean much if we can't trust any one sample of vinyl to deliver on that. Whereas with digital, yes we can trust that, and it's a big deal.

As to my emboldened bit in your post above, can I check with you, what is it that you see as my hypothesis?

Side note: We have already seen Matt's incorrect reading of my post as a claim that there is research on vinyl vs digital sonics and this research favours digital (ie the exact original source sound), and his demand to see the research. I am well and truly sick of my posts being misrepresented by him, and I can only think of three main explanations for it:

• He isn't very intelligent and can't really understand anything I write.
• He is systematically, deliberately, and maliciously twisting and misrepresenting everything I write, in a foul and ongoing attempt to besmirch me in public.
• He is so cognitively biased against me that he can't stop himself seeing everything I write in a twisted and incorrect way, and honestly believing that such was my intent.

I don’t believe the first one at all, so that only leaves the last two. Let's hope it is the third one.

FYI my post was in reply to Snarfie's statement that whatever turns you on, in the sonics, is all that matters. My reply was that the absence of colourations matters. That was my only directly-stated hypothesis: do you see your post as being a response to that hypothesis? The rest of my post was on non-sonic matters.

cheers

I was referring to your long standing proposal that vinyl necessarily is audibly inferior (leaving "different" to one side for now) to digital playback: and to @MattHooper who has an equally long standing claim that in his system vinyl has particular distortions that make the sound more "solid" or "real".

In the case of the data point provided in that article, I suspect that neither of your proposals would necessarily stand up, assuming a good disc, their system with de-clicking/de-noise in place, and playback over decent speakers, nobody would complain about poor fidelity.

The elephant in the room, as you say, is high sample variation. Neither you nor I can tell what anyone else with a vinyl playback system is hearing. Even where we get the "you haven't heard a well setup turntable" claims, sometimes they are accompanied (I've not checked this thread for the pairing) by the claim that vinyl sounds warm. My suspicion is that a modern, decent turntable system will sound reasonably close to the neutral balance of CD, because any half decent engineer or designer working on a turntable now is probably designing with a cartridge/range in mind, and will use decent digital playback as a reference to the design. It's likely that one or the other claim (proper setup and warm sound) is incorrect, the LP being played notwithstanding.

What I don't see, though is either a definitive case that vinyl is always audibly inferior to a point of seriously impaired fidelity (unless snap crackle and pop make their presence felt), nor any reason to assume that distortion is there other than as it is in some amplifiers with high second harmonic distortion. And while a warm sound may be present, I don't see that it would be a definite in an otherwise neutral high fidelity system. Through headphones, I would expect differences to be clearer.

It seems to me hard to support generalisations about the sound or our reactions to it, without a fair bit more work.

 

[Newman]

@Galliardist having read your post above, sorry, I am still not clear what it is that you see as my hypothesis? Surely it can't be "vinyl is necessarily audibly worse sounding than digital"? That would be an absurd straw man. After all, I have multiple times posted in this thread the following diagram I made, which shows clear overlaps:

I also posted a few weeks ago in this thread, something like, "there are plenty of reasons why any individual might experience higher sound quality in the sound waves from vinyl than digital". I will add a link if I find it. [Edit: found it. And my words were, "there are numerous ways that it would be entirely understandable for any one individual to prefer vinyl over digital sonics, even in controlled listening".]

Just seeking clarity on what it is that you see me saying, and that the article you posted on vinyl measurements makes difficult for me to justify saying?

cheers

 

[Galliardist]

@Galliardist having read your post above, sorry, I am still not clear what it is that you see as my hypothesis? Surely it can't be "vinyl is necessarily audibly worse sounding than digital"? That would be an absurd straw man. After all, I have multiple times posted in this thread the following diagram I made, which shows clear overlaps:

View attachment 395372​

I also posted a few weeks ago in this thread, something like, "there are plenty of reasons why any individual might experience higher sound quality in the sound waves from vinyl than digital". I will add a link if I find it.

Just seeking clarity on what it is that you see me saying, and that the article you posted on vinyl measurements makes difficult for me to justify saying?

cheers

No…no!

I find the opposite: people are manipulatively taking offence at something they spotted, in order to score points. You being a prime offender.

I was repeatedly describing the concept of ‘settling’. In the same post I described it as “Happy with lower standards of reproduction than necessary.” So, one only had to read the whole short post, to realize that there was some more nuance to it than my initial description of ‘settling’ as “having low standards”…but do you think the eager beavers quoted that bit or acknowledged the nuance? Nope. They just picked out those three words, and cashed in their emotional cheques at the bank.

How would you characterize it, when repeatedly reading comments in this thread along the lines of, "Vinyl, with all its audible artefacts, is plenty good enough for me." "TBH I don't even notice them." "2-channel sound, with all its limitations, is all I ever need or want."? They seem, to me, to be a statements about one’s standards in regard to demanding high fidelity sound reproduction. No? And if they are statements about one’s standards, do they read like high standards to you?

Let’s look at the format options available today for making and distributing a recorded music production intended for playback at home on speakers. If the recording is already done, the ultimate that the studio engineer can probably aspire to is a multichannel mix and master, eg Atmos. Call that the highest standard, and let’s make a list where each subsequent version is audibly inferior to the one above it:-

1. Multichannel mix and master eg Atmos, distributed in lossless format
2. Multichannel mix and master eg Atmos, distributed in lossy format (providing it is so lossy as to be audible)
3. 2-channel mix and master, distributed in 24/48 or better
4. 2-channel mix and master, distributed in CD quality (arguably equal to #3…in fact I would argue it for practical purposes)
5. 2-channel mix and master, distributed in 320 mp3 or sonic equivalent
6. 2-channel mix and master, distributed in 192 mp3 or sonic equivalent
7. 2-channel mix and vinyl master, distributed on vinyl
8. 2-channel mix and master, distributed in no more than 128 mp3 or sonic equivalent

That would be a very defensible ranking of where they would rank for sonic preference, in controlled listening tests that only allow one to judge the sound waves themselves. I don’t see any reason to describe the choice of vinyl as representing a standard that is neither high nor medium… I won’t use the actual descriptor for fear of igniting offence…

Of course the above ranking is for the same mix and master, with the vinyl master being minimally adjusted to suit the playback of microgroove LP on typical gear. For those specific cases where the digital was mastered badly and there is an LP alternative that has been lovingly crafted for audiophiles… one would have to study them on a case by case basis.

cheers

I think it was this post I had in mind. That the typical standard attainable by vinyl is low, and that the best standard available by vinyl will only be superior to digital if the digital master is very poor. The graph you posted allows for that, and this post also has wriggle room, but you appear to be claiming that the vinyl medium will, assuming similar mastering, be audibly inferior. You allow lower fidelity for the medium, and I agree in principle, but I am not sure that it will always be audibly inferior for the same level of mastering, over a normal stereo speaker system, as perceived.

 

[goat76]

I don't own a turntable so I can't test this on my own, but to you who find you more than often prefer the sound of vinyl playback, do you find the particular vinyl playback qualities you love are preserved when the vinyl is digitized? In other words, do you find a vinyl rip to sound the same as the direct playback on the turntable?

 

[Galliardist]

Interesting post thank you.

I don’t think it speaks to the section of my post that you quoted. But it does speak to the other things I was musing about in another post.

The quoted part which was addressed to Newman had to do with whether he or anybody else on the forum is in a position to know that someone preferring vinyl in their set up (or describing it as warmer) isn’t basing their impression off the actual “ sound waves” as Newman likes to put it.

There are too many variables that have pointed up before to make that assumption.
There are all the vagaries of different cartridge responses. as I said, I can make my own systems sound brighter, thinner, or warmer and more dull given different cartridge settings. My friend reviews high and turntables and cartridges, And I’ve heard anything from playback that is very close to his digital source, as well as cartridges that had a obvious high frequency peak they made them sound brighter and spuriously “ more detailed” than his vinyl. Put that together with not knowing specifically how some cartridge response or set up might be interacting with colorations of certain speakers in certain rooms. And add into the fact that plenty of new vinyl enthusiasts Buy new equipment, speakers, amps, etc. in order to listen to vinyl versus whatever they had been streaming on before that, and it’s quite possible the new equipment itself, better speakers or whatever, account for their preferring the sound of vinyl in their system.
There was just so much possibility for uncontrolled variables, a lack of true “ apples to apples” comparison, that you really can’t just declare “ you aren’t really preferring the sound waves when you were listening to vinyl on your system.”

However , on the DIFFERENT SUBJECT whether vinyl has a trend of inherent qualities that strike people as “warm.” Or IF some portion of people will prefer vinyl sound in controlled testing over digital counterparts, then I think your investigation there is interesting. I think we would ultimately need a decent amount of research on that in which subjects actually compare in controlled conditions. We’ve got a good amount of research when it comes to loudspeakers, but the research I’m aware of for actual vinyl versus digital comparisons is extremely paltry.

And in the end, even if using neutral phono playback equipment yields and overall preference for digital in blind testing, It would only go so far to evaluating individual claims for vinyl preference in real world systems, due to a sort of “ circle of confusion” brought about by all the real world variables in peoples systems.

Initially I was trying to address the part of your post that I quoted. However, I found that I couldn't really get to that point.

However, on reflection, I find myself drawn to a couple of different questions regarding vinyl sound. Firstly, that article, and I think I've seen some similar material in the past, may just point towards the particular distortions and noise of vinyl playback maybe not being so far from that of different non-neutral amplifiers. It's possible that the entire gamut of vinyl playback, even sharply upward tilted, is still dominated by second harmonic distortion and benign noise, in which case it would still be in the range of the majority of tube amplifiers: in which case the "neutral sounds better" research could be extrapolated to vinyl. This seems to me to be drawing a long bow, but the argument could be made.

The second question is whether one of those two dominating features (noise and second harmonic) may have a subconscious effect on some listeners, at a very low level of audibility, saying "this is a recording". What then happens might be that the brain becomes, say, more tolerant of imperfections in the sound? Again, speculation.

The absence of noise may be what makes some people hear some DACs as "sterile", the other side of the same coin.

 

[egellings]

I always had a negative reaction to this…

Hork! About hork! A shout of derision from a grandpa bullfrog.

 

[mppix]

I think it was this post I had in mind. That the typical standard attainable by vinyl is low, and that the best standard available by vinyl will only be superior to digital if the digital master is very poor. The graph you posted allows for that, and this post also has wriggle room, but you appear to be claiming that the vinyl medium will, assuming similar mastering, be audibly inferior. You allow lower fidelity for the medium, and I agree in principle, but I am not sure that it will always be audibly inferior for the same level of mastering, over a normal stereo speaker system, as perceived.

I think we should accept that SQ vinyl < digital. This is true because of pops and clicks alone.
Then, the format introduces even harmonics (is this what people mean with warmer?), crosstalk, and heavy forward/reverse EQ, etc. Some may prefer this (and tube amps) but I don't see how this is better.