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Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

OK - seeing as you want to be pedantically precise with your math, perhaps we can be pedantically precise with the linguistics also.

I stated orders of magnitude. You stated it as "only" 31dB and that "orders" would have to be 40dB. However 31dB is more than one order of magnitude. Something like 1.55 orders of magnitude.

You'd be the first person in a surprisingly long life that ever used the expression in this way this around me.

And do you really think that the "exaggeration" even if it had been such - needed to be "called out?" :rolleyes: The point was clear, whether it was 31dB or 40dB, or 1dB, it still demonstrates that claim of vinyl superiority is not supported by the facts. Even ignoring all the other areas of deficiency.

I already addressed this above, repeatedly. You seem to be struggling to follow the thread of the conversation. (I'm not a big fan of stacking gerunds ...)
 
This is what happens when engineers argue.

I'm having flashbacks to work meetings.

More like when they bring sales staff into the engineering meeting from my point of view.

It's all in good fun. :)
 
You'd be the first person in a surprisingly long life that ever used the expression in this way this around me.
I'm having a similar experience of finding myself - for the first time in a likely similarly long life - in a technical nit picking session because of the inclusion of the letter s on a word. Still, life sometimes gets weird. :)

This is what happens when engineers argue.

I'm having flashbacks to work meetings.

More like when they bring sales staff into the engineering meeting from my point of view.

It's all in good fun. :)


No, this is what happens when an engineer and en ex-engineer turned project manager argues.

I too am having flashbacks - it's triggering my PTSD. :p
 
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This is what happens when engineers argue.

I'm having flashbacks to work meetings.
Oh yes, so true.....memories. Now where's my whisky?

More of a personality thing I've always found, but engineers (whatever the specialty) do seem to have more than their far share of that than other professions.....
 

A typical example of these articles, which may even be written by AI at this point :-(

One of the reasons given for why people are turning to records:

Unique Sound Quality​

While a streamed song sounds ‘cold’, vinyl produces a rich, warm, and more organic sound with unobtrusive pops and crackles that add a unique quality to the experience. Even if these effects are added to digital music, it still lacks the more ‘real’ sound of records.

How could you possibly argue ? :)

It’s 2025, this stuff is still being propagated, which must keep the anti-vinyl-revival crusaders up at night.
I mentioned this aspect many dozen pages back, or maybe a few hundred by the looks of the thread...(( :facepalm: ))

Unrealistic attributes are often used and said in a way that "sounds" factual" when in reality, it is simply a subjective opinion of some or a few.
I have owned tons of vinyl product and tables over the years and a few great Open reel tapes and machines, and while I did love vinyl and it had a unique sound, I never thought more "Real" sounding, but merely some lowish level artifacts and at times some limitations and distortions that could be heard "At times"

My audiophile level open reel classical and jazz ((7.5 ips 2 track, duplicated a VERY low speeds)) did sound more real than my best vinyl for sure, but with some tape hiss........:facepalm:
 
Unfortunately, very few original analog recordings from the late 50' through the mid 80's were remastered to digital in 24/96 format. Even those that were were not done great. For those classics of the analog era, modern remasters on vynil sound better than publicly sold or streamed digital files! Lets be clear, the ones that do are usually 45 RPM "audiophile" releases that are expensive limited series. However, anyone that A/B them picks the vinyl one every time! Furthermore, there is the physicality of handling your music, the ritualistic aspects that are sorely lacking from just picking a song by touching a screen. Finally, though 24/96 recordings are technically superior you virtually never listen to digital tracks at that resolution, unless you download them from somewhere like HD tracks. Most of the digital music consumed is at best CD format 16/44 or, more commonly, an awful MP3. Thus, even in regular listening, vinyl is as good, if not better, than what you stream.
Here's a small sampling of vinyl releases that sound better than any digital file you can ever get of them.
BTW, just a little inside info that most people don't quite get. All these 45 RPM records are actually made from digital remasters from original tapes! But, those masters are not sold as digital files!
We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release and a digital file were the same (Foo Fighters). We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release was better than its digital counterpart (Tool). We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release is worse than a digital release (Boston).

What all this points to is mastering upstages the format.
 
No, this is what happens when an engineer and en ex-engineer turned project manager argues.

I too am having flashbacks - it's triggering my PTSD. :p

Well, I'm glad the Peter Principle got you to project management. :)

It got me to co-founder/CTO. ;)

We all have different levels of incompetence.

But part of my career was spent in audio specifically (LinearX LEAP and LMS owner back in '93 or so), and another chunk of it in the technical end of the online music sausage factory. It's a near certainty that you've heard the results of my work if you're in the USA and get out of the house once in a while. Now that I know you have an engineering background (electronics? civil?) I feel even more justified in gently reminding you to not get carried away.

I would also appreciate less focus on personality and more attention to the substance of the debate, which you have ignored for a few posts now.
 
Time for some more car pics to lighten the mood...

Machine at rest:
IMG_20160808_173559.JPGIMG_20200815_131339.JPGIMG_20200815_131358 copy.jpeg

Machine in motion (doing what it does best):
14.png33.png20070722_5376.JPG

And finally, this could have ended very badly:
Rotor.jpg
 
Time for some more car pics to lighten the mood...

My mood is always light, this is playtime.

Nice S2k! There are so few proper latter-day "sports cars" like it: Mazda 3rd gen RX-7 is the only other one I'd be interested in.

Which track was this at? All that green is lovely. I was a track worker for some SCCA/POC races but being on the west coast (Willow Springs/Las Vegas/Laguna Seca/etc.) means standing on bare dirt in the desert or wind-blasted hills.

And finally, this could have ended very badly:
View attachment 422440

Yikes. Semi-race pads got that stock(?) rotor a little toasty?
 
OK since we got into music, prog rock like Rush in particular, I’m wondering if anybody else here into Prog or Rush have updated their taste.

A while back I discovered some of the new bands that have taken the mantle… hard to perfectly categorize, but offshoots of things like Prog, Math Rock etc.

This is where virtuosity has been taken to brand new levels. The facility of these players is simply mind-boggling.

And yet, at least for me, I don’t find the virtuosity offputting or facile or superficial.
I find that their virtuosity is allowing them to explore and create quite fresh and new sounds and directions.

Some of my favourites are here, and I wonder if anybody else has investigated these groups.

Animals As Leaders;



Polyphia:
(guitarist, Tim Henson, who starts the song off, is probably the most predominant guitar God)


Plini:


 
More like when they bring sales staff into the engineering meeting from my point of view.

It's all in good fun. :)

Ah, yes. Make it go twice as fast on one-half the hardware. And add these 265 features while you're at it. Piece of cake, right?
 
My mood is always light, this is playtime.
Good to hear. :)

Which track was this at?
The first two in motion pics are at Dunnville Autodrome in southern Ontario. The 3rd one is at Mosport Driver Development Track. <— one of my personal favourites. The top speeds are not as high as Dunnville, but there is a reason why they call it the Driver Development Track.

Yikes. Semi-race pads got that stock(?) rotor a little toasty?
Not the stock rotors, but yes, it got toasty. I was tracking my car for years, I swapped rotors every 3-4 tracks days. Once I start seeing micro-cracks (not sure if that describes it best), I swap them out. This happened on the first day of use at the track - so completely unexpected and has only happened to me once and I have gone through many of rotors. This is why I think it was either defective or the wrong rotor sent to me. I had a track trailer that I towed behind the S2K that I carried a bunch of stuff, including R compound tires, various spare parts including an extra set of rotors for all wheels. Put those to good use that day!
 
We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release and a digital file were the same (Foo Fighters). We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release was better than its digital counterpart (Tool). We have shown in this very thread that a vinyl release is worse than a digital release (Boston).

What all this points to is mastering upstages the format.
Yes, but those things were basically shown in only one resect, dynamics.

Yes, dynamics are important. But they aren't everything. For me, in direct comparison and especially through headphones, I'm aware of the necessary and inherent distortion in vinyl playback, and it will generally override differences in perceived dynamics for me in that circumstance. So for me mastering does not fully upstage the format.

Having said that, my preference for digital pretty much carries over into more general listening but that may be because I don't own a turntable, or just plain bias acquired since I dropped vinyl.

There's a perception difference involved here. We need level matched comparison or measurement to prove distortion issues, just like with hardware. However, the dynamic difference is more of a musical value, so dynamic compression will be noticeable without that level matched comparison. That may well give advantage to vinyl with better dynamics in "normal" listening (and itself lead to a learned bias towards vinyl over time if you listen to genres that are regularly squashed in digital formats).
 
Yes, but those things were basically shown in only one resect, dynamics.

Yes, dynamics are important. But they aren't everything. For me, in direct comparison and especially through headphones, I'm aware of the necessary and inherent distortion in vinyl playback, and it will generally override differences in perceived dynamics for me in that circumstance. So for me mastering does not fully upstage the format.

Having said that, my preference for digital pretty much carries over into more general listening but that may be because I don't own a turntable, or just plain bias acquired since I dropped vinyl.

There's a perception difference involved here. We need level matched comparison or measurement to prove distortion issues, just like with hardware. However, the dynamic difference is more of a musical value, so dynamic compression will be noticeable without that level matched comparison. That may well give advantage to vinyl with better dynamics in "normal" listening (and itself lead to a learned bias towards vinyl over time if you listen to genres that are regularly squashed in digital formats).

I can certainly see your point of view.

You got me thinking: if I was into headphones I wonder if I would be so enthusiastic about vinyl.

I would still get all the non-Sonic benefits that I like from the physical format. But on my system, I also very much like how vinyl sounds. But I don’t know how that would translate to headphone listening.

I couldn’t be arsed to try because I don’t like listening on headphones anyway.
 
I can certainly see your point of view.

You got me thinking: if I was into headphones I wonder if I would be so enthusiastic about vinyl.

I would still get all the non-Sonic benefits that I like from the physical format. But on my system, I also very much like how vinyl sounds. But I don’t know how that would translate to headphone listening.

I couldn’t be arsed to try because I don’t like listening on headphones anyway.
Nearfield listening has many of the same virtues/vices as headphone listening. Getting some distance from the speakers offers some diffusion of the sound, rendering surface noise and some of the distortions as less troublesome. I want to hear the recording all by its lonesome, without the contributions of the room acoustic coming into play. I listen to my speakers at a distance of about a meter.
 
Good to hear. :)


The first two in motion pics are at Dunnville Autodrome in southern Ontario. The 3rd one is at Mosport Driver Development Track. <— one of my personal favourites. The top speeds are not as high as Dunnville, but there is a reason why they call it the Driver Development Track.


Not the stock rotors, but yes, it got toasty. I was tracking my car for years, I swapped rotors every 3-4 tracks days. Once I start seeing micro-cracks (not sure if that describes it best), I swap them out. This happened on the first day of use at the track - so completely unexpected and has only happened to me once and I have gone through many of rotors. This is why I think it was either defective or the wrong rotor sent to me. I had a track trailer that I towed behind the S2K that I carried a bunch of stuff, including R compound tires, various spare parts including an extra set of rotors for all wheels. Put those to good use that day!
Well supposedly slotted and even more so drilled brake rotors due to being a stress rise are more likely to crack and the crack did start near a slot. But most motorcycles rotors are drilled and I haven't seen them crack much. I agree with you it's probably a defective rotor.

What year is your S2000? One of my fav cars is the Honda/Acura NSX, the early 90s models before electric steering and drive-by-wire throttle took away the linear analog purity :) .
 
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Nearfield listening has many of the same virtues/vices as headphone listening. Getting some distance from the speakers offers some diffusion of the sound, rendering surface noise and some of the distortions as less troublesome. I want to hear the recording all by its lonesome, without the contributions of the room acoustic coming into play. I listen to my speakers at a distance of about a meter.

1 m wow!

I find when I get too Nearfield I start to get the headphone effect, which is not only some of the benefits of more direct sound, but also I get less “ feel” from the sound, it feels a bit less live and more weightless. So I like to split the difference, my listening distance covers around 7 feet or so from my speakers.
 
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