Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[MattHooper]

Sure when the music is playing the surface noise is masked until a quiet portion starts then there it is again. Try listening via headphones and let me know if you think the same. I only listen to vinyl when I am digitizing it and I only use headphones during that process.

Then you’re doing it wrong.

My system is a no headphone zone!

What I get is an often amazing amount of sonic information from records when the music is playing, similar to what I get from CD, with noise rarely being audible or obvious. Occasionally in quiet parts, yes.
But that’s rarely for me a distraction, since I’m enjoying other aspects of the sonics.

 

[MatrixS2000]

But why want you to re-digitize data loss?

I rarely re-digitize but I have had to mainly when there was a skip that I missed while listening.

 

[MatrixS2000]

My experience is that I can still spot a vinyl rip through headphones even after removing surface noise and so on: it's far easier to do if there's a digital version of the same track somewhere for comparison, of course, but I've found vinyl rips just by listening to music on streaming services. It's much harder (and probably an irrelevant exercise) over speakers, especially outside of nearfield, unless there's obvious wow, or the LP was badly warped or off centre - and I wouldn't be bothered anyway if I did know.

Agreed! But what I meant was that the artifacts that are a dead giveaway of it being a vinyl rip are no longer there. Now you have to listen to the music to know and that is where DR/loudness comes into play.

 

[MatrixS2000]

Then you’re doing it wrong.

My system is a no headphone zone!

What I get is an often amazing amount of sonic information from records when the music is playing, similar to what I get from CD, with noise rarely being audible or obvious. Occasionally in quiet parts, yes.
But that’s rarely for me a distraction, since I’m enjoying other aspects of the sonics.

I get the same but without the distraction.

The best way for me to show this is with a few pictures. This example will be Crown Lands Starlifter. There is a portion at approx. 7:06 where all the instruments stop and a solo starts of a Native American Flute, then later the guitar comes back in.

Here is what the raw needle drop for the flute (first) and the guitar looks like on a vector scope:

And here is what it looks like after the surface noise has been attenuated:

 

[MattHooper]

I get the same but without the distraction.

The best way for me to show this is with a few pictures. This example will be Crown Lands Starlifter. There is a portion at approx. 7:06 where all the instruments stop and a solo starts of a Native American Flute, then later the guitar comes back in.

Here is what the raw needle drop for the flute (first) and the guitar looks like on a vector scope:

View attachment 426414

View attachment 426416

And here is what it looks like after the surface noise has been attenuated:

View attachment 426413

View attachment 426415

What’s interesting there is it sort of a visual representation of what I seem to hear between vinyl and digital on my system. (and also to an extent differences I sometimes hear after I have cleaned a secondhand record with my ultrasonic record cleaner).

Broadly speaking, I find there is a similar level of sonic information on a good record, pressing to a digital counterpart. in fact when I’ve done direct comparisons between a record that came from the same digital origin as the CD, the differences can be very subtle.

However, even then, there’s a Sonic difference to be heard,

And I hear it as a slight level of obscuring distortion on the vinyl, so that on the digital versions, I am hearing a slightly clearer view to the instruments, where the nuances of timber, for instance, even between drum symbols, or where a drummer is tapping the drum cymbal and the subtle harmonic differences, are slightly more clearly revealed.
If I want the most transparent sound to the recording and to the finest nuances, I would select a digital.

However, as I have said numerous times, I find that very slight type of vinyl distortion to add a type of texture to the sound, which to me has a bit more textural presence and solidity. Things pop out just a little bit more from the recording, and a way that I find can remind me a bit more of the real thing. It’s an artifact. But to me, it’s one that has some pleasant consequences.

So to me, it’s a trade-off and I enjoy both.

The reason I can enjoy vinyl as much as I do despite that, I am recognizing some added distortion, is because in the bigger picture it is a very tiny amount of distortion, and there is still plenty to distinguish very tiny levels of detail and timbral nuance in instruments and voices. I found it the distortion was too homogenizing of details and timber, I would not enjoy listening to records on my system.

 

[MatrixS2000]

And I hear it as a slight level of obscuring distortion on the vinyl, so that on the digital versions, I am hearing a slightly clearer view to the instruments, where the nuances of timber, for instance, even between drum symbols, or where a drummer is tapping the drum cymbal and the subtle harmonic differences, are slightly more clearly revealed.
If I want the most transparent sound to the recording and to the finest nuances, I would select a digital.

Yes, could we say that digital removes a….veil???? The clarity difference is what is shown in the diagrams. Question is could you hear a clarity difference between the cleaned up vinyl and digital?

Before I post some more pics, note that the stream version is limited, so the waveforms are different (as you will see further below). So I will start with that.

Here is the DR Trace for the streamed. Note the box in the mid right - about 43% is above DR9:

Here is the DR Trace for the vinyl rip:

99% is above DR9. So clearly the streamed version has been limited and the loudness driven up. So there is no way they are going to sound the same.

Now for clarity, here are the flute and guitar vector scope captures again but this time for the streamed version. Note they look different because of the above and it doesn’t really matter for this clarity discussion. From a clarity perspective, they don’t look better than the cleaned up vinyl imo.

So to me, it’s a trade-off and I enjoy both.

Couldn’t agree more! Choice is always a good thing!

The reason I can enjoy vinyl as much as I do despite that, I am recognizing some added distortion, is because in the bigger picture it is a very tiny amount of distortion, and there is still plenty to distinguish very tiny levels of detail and timbral nuance in instruments and voices. I found it the distortion was too homogenizing of details and timber, I would not enjoy listening to records on my system.

It would be interesting to see if distortion, DR or even a slight narrowing of the stereo width is what you are noticing between vinyl and digital playback. Limiters are a trade off between loudness and DR and impact stereo width because the contrast between elements that are panned left and right may become less pronounced, leading to a perception of reduced stereo width.

Here are a few more captures of the opening keyboards to Starlifter and then another capture as all the instruments join in.

Streaming (keyboard then all instruments):

Now the same for the cleaned up vinyl rip:

For the keyboards, note how much the digital version has been pushed up in level and that it is spiky when compared to the vinyl which is more rounded.

For the all instruments, note the limiting shown by the 45 deg lines coming off the Y axis on the digital version and the width is smaller than the vinyl indicating a narrowing of the stereo image due to a limiter compressing or chopping off anything that is outside of that 45 deg line.

Just some more things for you to consider as to why you can enjoy vinyl even with all of the format’s playback problems...

 

[Snarfie]

Yes, could we say that digital removes a….veil???? The clarity difference is what is shown in the diagrams. Question is could you hear a clarity difference between the cleaned up vinyl and digital?

Before I post some more pics, note that the stream version is limited, so the waveforms are different (as you will see further below). So I will start with that.

Here is the DR Trace for the streamed. Note the box in the mid right - about 43% is above DR9:
View attachment 426614

Here is the DR Trace for the vinyl rip:

View attachment 426613
99% is above DR9. So clearly the streamed version has been limited and the loudness driven up. So there is no way they are going to sound the same.

Now for clarity, here are the flute and guitar vector scope captures again but this time for the streamed version. Note they look different because of the above and it doesn’t really matter for this clarity discussion. From a clarity perspective, they don’t look better than the cleaned up vinyl imo.

View attachment 426615View attachment 426616

Couldn’t agree more! Choice is always a good thing!


It would be interesting to see if distortion, DR or even a slight narrowing of the stereo width is what you are noticing between vinyl and digital playback. Limiters are a trade off between loudness and DR and impact stereo width because the contrast between elements that are panned left and right may become less pronounced, leading to a perception of reduced stereo width.

Here are a few more captures of the opening keyboards to Starlifter and then another capture as all the instruments join in.

Streaming (keyboard then all instruments):
View attachment 426623View attachment 426622

Now the same for the cleaned up vinyl rip:
View attachment 426625
View attachment 426624

For the keyboards, note how much the digital version has been pushed up in level and that it is spiky when compared to the vinyl which is more rounded.

For the all instruments, note the limiting shown by the 45 deg lines coming off the Y axis on the digital version and the width is smaller than the vinyl indicating a narrowing of the stereo image due to a limiter compressing or chopping off anything that is outside of that 45 deg line.

Just some more things for you to consider as to why you can enjoy vinyl even with all of the format’s playback problems...

As far as i know the people who digitized their vinyl are doing that 1 on 1 so no digital clean up as i did an demonstrated to some of them in the past with my Allen & Heath Xone 4D digital workstation (at the time in 2009 state of the art). They and i definitely could not here a difference between the Analog vinyl sound and the digitized version including artifacts. But what you do is quite a step further interesting combining a digital clean up so you enjoy a better cleaner Vinyl version with all it charms.
.

 

[beagleman]

My pop and click issues are not with my records I have had since the late 70's and early 80's. Those sound fine other than the normal record surface noise they all have. My pops and clicks were on over two dozen brand new records I just took out of the package. Did I somehow damage them on their first play? I have several friends that love vinyl again and a couple that have spent over a grand on a TT setup. They talk about how good their vinyl sounds. Problem is when I listen to records with them I hear pops and clicks and they simply ignore them and only hear what they want from their records.

I'm all for people enjoying vinyl and music in any way they seem fit. However, I personally had enough with the poor pressing quality and high prices and I happily went back to CD and Blu-ray audio. I'm spending less and I don't have to "take care of them" other than just putting it back in the case when done and I don't need an expensive and fussy playback system. That works for me, but I'm all for physical media and if records are popular I still say it's a good thing. I just hope the labels don't continue to price people out of the hobby.

I have found, some that "adore" vinyl tend to romanticize it, now that it is antiquated. (it has come back, or is now seen as something from another time)
Back in the day, when I had literally over 1000 records, All my friends and I that were into audio did, was BITCH about the bakers dozen of issues with vinyl, and in agreement was many audio mags of the time.

They would ponder over how to get better dynamic range, more channel separation, reduce noise, and distortion on loud sections, and how inner grooves lost fidelity compared to the outer grooves.

Maybe THAT ALONE irks me about this new small vinyl renaissance. It seems based on partially nostalgia and the ability to ignore flaws, based on emotional connections and other issues not grounded in just fidelity of the sound.

For all that fun and interesting things about vinyl, I found that being honest to myself, it has not really changed or gotten much different since even the 1960s.

 

[beagleman]

That's true, vinyl's failure modes tend to be more graceful than most other media.

As much as I love Apple Music (especially Apple Music Classical), it has way more issues (audible and otherwise) in practice than vinyl.

Can you elaborate please?

I use Spotify (Pay version of course) and find it to sound almost flawless in use with classical music, and have done many A/B comparisons with CDs and can not tell which is which really ever.

 

[MattHooper]

Yes, could we say that digital removes a….veil???? The clarity difference is what is shown in the diagrams. Question is could you hear a clarity difference between the cleaned up vinyl and digital?

Before I post some more pics, note that the stream version is limited, so the waveforms are different (as you will see further below). So I will start with that.

Here is the DR Trace for the streamed. Note the box in the mid right - about 43% is above DR9:
View attachment 426614

Here is the DR Trace for the vinyl rip:

View attachment 426613
99% is above DR9. So clearly the streamed version has been limited and the loudness driven up. So there is no way they are going to sound the same.

Now for clarity, here are the flute and guitar vector scope captures again but this time for the streamed version. Note they look different because of the above and it doesn’t really matter for this clarity discussion. From a clarity perspective, they don’t look better than the cleaned up vinyl imo.

View attachment 426615View attachment 426616

Couldn’t agree more! Choice is always a good thing!


It would be interesting to see if distortion, DR or even a slight narrowing of the stereo width is what you are noticing between vinyl and digital playback. Limiters are a trade off between loudness and DR and impact stereo width because the contrast between elements that are panned left and right may become less pronounced, leading to a perception of reduced stereo width.

Here are a few more captures of the opening keyboards to Starlifter and then another capture as all the instruments join in.

Streaming (keyboard then all instruments):
View attachment 426623View attachment 426622

Now the same for the cleaned up vinyl rip:
View attachment 426625
View attachment 426624

For the keyboards, note how much the digital version has been pushed up in level and that it is spiky when compared to the vinyl which is more rounded.

For the all instruments, note the limiting shown by the 45 deg lines coming off the Y axis on the digital version and the width is smaller than the vinyl indicating a narrowing of the stereo image due to a limiter compressing or chopping off anything that is outside of that 45 deg line.

Just some more things for you to consider as to why you can enjoy vinyl even with all of the format’s playback problems...

My previous turntable was a micro seiki which I enjoyed quite a lot. But I did notice a bit more fuzziness in the sound, especially when music mixes got really dense, or during orchestral climaxes.

When I replaced it with a “better” turntable cartridge, and arm (a German made high mass turntable) the most obvious thing that struck out was the amazing clarity, separation and detail was more along the lines of CD.
It didn’t matter how many instruments were in the mix, they tended to be beautifully delineated clear and clean sounding, same with many orchestral climaxes (unless there was an issue with the record pressing).

So I found the advantages between my digital playback, and my vinyl playback shrunk. What was left was mostly the subtle type of distinctions I’m talking about, in which sometimes I can favour vinyl, and sometimes I can favour digital, but I never feel like I’m slumming it listening to vinyl.

 

[Thomas_A]

Fridays small rip. This is 32 minutes classical crammed on one side and this is the part end of the LP. This one is by far noisier than many other classical I have, and is ok by speakers, but not headphones. But why on earth should one cram 32 minutes classical music on an LP side...

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[MattHooper]

Maybe THAT ALONE irks me about this new small vinyl renaissance. It seems based on partially nostalgia and the ability to ignore flaws, based on emotional connections and other issues not grounded in just fidelity of the sound.

Nothing wrong with emotional connections.
That’s what we’re trying to do, I presume, when listening to our music.

We are very often reminded that progress isn’t always a zero sum process, and that some of value - or at least that some people value - can be left behind the progress.

Witness how many of us who grew up before smartphones - and even people who grew up with smart phones! - can’t help feeling that some aspects that were valuable in life having lost despite the obvious benefits of Smart phones.

Or just take transportation. We used to ride horses for transportation at one point, but of course cars are much more advanced and efficient and less hassle. And yet they remain plenty of people who enjoy riding horses. Despite the work of owning a horse, there’s something of value they get out of it that they don’t get out of driving their car.

Having grown up with records and then moved on to CDs/digital for almost 40 years, and having gotten back into records, I discovered things of value that I don’t get from digital. Fortunately, I don’t have to choose between them and I can play both.

For all that fun and interesting things about vinyl, I found that being honest to myself, it has not really changed or gotten much different since even the 1960s.

Could be I don’t really know.

But I can certainly say that I’ve experienced changes in Sonic quality during the vinyl age.
My dad was an audiophile and I’ll never forget when he replaced our existing audio set up with flagship KEF 105.2 speakers and carver amplification and a high-end techniques turntable. It was an astonishing.
That’s when I truly discovered features like sound staging and imaging and some level of realism. My friends used to come over to my house just to listen to records on that system.
Earth, wind and fire sounded so incredible, big powerful spacious expansive, like the instruments occupying the room.

And now when I play Earth, Wind & Fire records on my current system, it sounds even more impressive than I remembered. Absolutely incredible.

For me, it’s far from just being nostalgia

 

[Robin L]

Fridays small rip. This is 32 minutes classical crammed on one side and this is the part end of the LP. This one is by far noisier than many other classical I have, and is ok by speakers, but not headphones. But why on earth should one cram 32 minutes classical music on an LP side...

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

A: What's the music?
B: Who's doing it?

C: Either way, it sounds overloaded.

 

[Thomas_A]

A: What's the music?
B: Who's doing it?

C: Either way, it sounds overloaded.

Capriccio Italien op.45 by Slovac Philharmonic OrchestrA. It will never be good results with 32 min. 18-20 min max.

 

[Robin L]

Capriccio Italien op.45 by Slovac Philharmonic OrchestrA. It will never be good results with 32 min. 18-20 min max.

Is Bystrik Rezucha the conductor?

 

[Thomas_A]

Ith

Is Bystrik Rezucha the conductor?

Vaclav Smetacek.

 

[antcollinet]

based on emotional connections and other issues not grounded in just fidelity of the sound.

Surely it is the emotional connection to the MUSIC - regardless of sound fidelity, that is important to our enjoyment of it.

Sometimes lack of fidelity can get in the way of that connection. More often, it doesn't. If it doesn't, why is that a problem for you?

 

[Thomas_A]

Is Bystrik Rezucha the conductor?

BTW, I have two DG Original Source which I will pickup tomorrow. More of an interest what it is, but I’ll make a short rip for comparison.

 

[J.M. Noble]

Can you elaborate please?

I use Spotify (Pay version of course) and find it to sound almost flawless in use with classical music, and have done many A/B comparisons with CDs and can not tell which is which really ever.

Sure:

- Bandwidth issues (either internet proper or local network) cause nasty skips/glitches or stop it in its tracks.
- Airplay 2 (over wifi) will suddenly decide not to work (I connect to an AppleTV from various devices, and then go HDMI -> HDMI switcher/toslink audio extractor -> Schiit Modius E), with results varying from no music to sound coming from my laptop speakers or whatever.
- Computer/iPad/iPhone/AppleTV or other device will decide it's sleepytime.
- $DEITY help me if someone calls while I'm streaming music, especially on the computer. This depends on how I'm connecting to the Airplay 2 device, but it's obnoxious.
- Not directly related to home use, but don't get me started on the ^$%#^#$ autoplay crap that goes on when I start my car and my phone makes a bluetooth connection.

There's plenty more where that came from.

The file quality of lossless streaming can be the same as or better than CD, with mastering caveats amply provided upthread, but my actual irritations with streaming are much greater than anything I encounter with vinyl. I have topflight hardware (current model firebreathing Macbook Pro, excellent network gear, etc) and real-world 6-700 megabits from a major ISP so it's not like I'm set up to fail.

I was one of the people who got over-the-net music off the ground way back when, so I'm definitely not biased against it! Indeed, this is all a dream come true in a lot of ways. But I basically have zero issues with vinyl playback. The occasional surface noise barely registers.

 

[beagleman]

Sure:

- Bandwidth issues (either internet proper or local network) cause nasty skips/glitches or stop it in its tracks.
- Airplay 2 (over wifi) will suddenly decide not to work (I connect to an AppleTV from various devices, and then go HDMI -> HDMI switcher/toslink audio extractor -> Schiit Modius E), with results varying from no music to sound coming from my laptop speakers or whatever.
- Computer/iPad/iPhone/AppleTV or other device will decide it's sleepytime.
- $DEITY help me if someone calls while I'm streaming music, especially on the computer. This depends on how I'm connecting to the Airplay 2 device, but it's obnoxious.
- Not directly related to home use, but don't get me started on the ^$%#^#$ autoplay crap that goes on when I start my car and my phone makes a bluetooth connection.

There's plenty more where that came from.

The file quality of lossless streaming can be the same as or better than CD, with mastering caveats amply provided upthread, but my actual irritations with streaming are much greater than anything I encounter with vinyl. I have topflight hardware (current model firebreathing Macbook Pro, excellent network gear, etc) and real-world 6-700 megabits from a major ISP so it's not like I'm set up to fail.

I was one of the people who got over-the-net music off the ground way back when, so I'm definitely not biased against it! Indeed, this is all a dream come true in a lot of ways. But I basically have zero issues with vinyl playback. The occasional surface noise barely registers.

Oddly I use my Spotify Premium on a simple Roku box connected to my decent enough AVR Via HDMI and the roku runs Wifi.

I see you do have major issues, but even with my relatively lowish speed internet (about 80kbps) mine works fantastic.