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Digital vs. Vinyl (again)

Barry Diament ...

I presume this relates to the LZ CDs. Diament thinks he may have started from a 1st gen dub of the master tapes for LZII (though he's not specific about which albums had which sourcing)... and then he applied some EQ during CD mastering.

IOW we still aren't sure which LZII tapes Diament had to play with, and we can't know the effect of his EQ because we still haven't heard a flat transfer of the OMTs.

As for the R2R rips , if they are DSD, there are software plugins for e.g. foobar2000 that can play them.
 
Diament was almost certainly working from an LP production master of (to us at least) unknown generation...with all that entails for actual fidelity to the master tapes. Hard to know exactly what relation any of the consumer masterings have, to what's on the master tapes. To make the final call we'd all need to hear a 'flat transfer' of whatever master tapes (or safety copies) still exist.

Was there a reel-to-reel version of LZII released back in 1969? That would make an interesting comparison too.

There was and I have heard it. Friends and myself got together the same albums on RTR, CD, and LP for a group comparison. Our findings were LP is always the odd man out. Some CD and RTR were very close other than tape hiss. Others were merely close. LP was never close. LZ II was one that was almost exactly like the CD. That surprised us as we didn't consider the CD a good transfer.
 
I presume this relates to the LZ CDs. Diament thinks he may have started from a 1st gen dub of the master tapes for LZII (though he's not specific about which albums had which sourcing)... and then he applied some EQ during CD mastering.

IOW we still aren't sure which LZII tapes Diament had to play with, and we can't know the effect of his EQ because we still haven't heard a flat transfer of the OMTs.

As for the R2R rips , if they are DSD, there are software plugins for e.g. foobar2000 that can play them.

We know this; "2. They sound too much like the tapes I was given to work with (to my knowledge primarily 1:1 copies, except for the last two which were "EQd copies" created during vinyl mastering to contain the same changes as made for vinyl."

Barry mastered the following CD's; 1,2,3, (he did not do 4),HOTH,SRTS,Presence, Coda. Since only the last two were eq'd copies ... well ...
 
There was and I have heard it. Friends and myself got together the same albums on RTR, CD, and LP for a group comparison. Our findings were LP is always the odd man out. Some CD and RTR were very close other than tape hiss. Others were merely close. LP was never close. LZ II was one that was almost exactly like the CD. That surprised us as we didn't consider the CD a good transfer.

88, some of my better LZ LP rips are more than close ... however, that's neither here nor there within the context of this discussion.

Q: according to discogs, only 3 1/2 ips reels are mentioned for 1,2,3 while 7 1/2 ips are mentioned for others. Which reels(s) did you hear?

Unfortunately, I've no documentation to go with my R2R > SACD rips.
 
I still enjoy music from the humble CD... Mastering/ digital transfer and quality recording set up permitting...

Up north, we have a local well known music/studio/concert/shop ...
http://curriesmusic.com/

I usually step in, say hi, and pick up something near every trip. Last time there, I ask why they didn't sell any humble CDs. The answer ... "much harder to steal LPs" .
 
Up north, we have a local well known music/studio/concert/shop ...
http://curriesmusic.com/

I usually step in, say hi, and pick up something near every trip. Last time there, I ask why they didn't sell any humble CDs. The answer ... "much harder to steal LPs" .
Cool shop but Nothing for me in there though :D

Not to worry Mike can come back soon and tell us both how crap vinyl AND cd's are :D

If it's not hqplayer up-sampled quad dsd it's bollocks... Apparently :rolleyes:
 
Not to worry Mike can come back soon and tell us both how crap vinyl AND cd's are :D

Yeah, I remember he claimed he tossed all his "crappy" CDs in the trash, and how he'd heard some LP rips that were pretty good, but always followed w/his usual disclaimer ... "but you'd need a $100K turntable to equal DSDxBillionJillion". Everything else was Fisher-Price ...
 
88, some of my better LZ LP rips are more than close ... however, that's neither here nor there within the context of this discussion.

Q: according to discogs, only 3 1/2 ips reels are mentioned for 1,2,3 while 7 1/2 ips are mentioned for others. Which reels(s) did you hear?

Unfortunately, I've no documentation to go with my R2R > SACD rips.
We were using all the album's we collectively owned in all three formats. Some reels were 3.75 and some 7.5. I don't remember LZ II either way for certain as far as tape speed.
 
We know this; "2. They sound too much like the tapes I was given to work with (to my knowledge primarily 1:1 copies, except for the last two which were "EQd copies" created during vinyl mastering to contain the same changes as made for vinyl."

Barry mastered the following CD's; 1,2,3, (he did not do 4),HOTH,SRTS,Presence, Coda. Since only the last two were eq'd copies ... well ...


To his knowledge, recollected >20 years on, all but the last two of his LZ sources were flat dubs of the OMTs. Which he then EQ'd

To me, that report's a bit short of definitive. YMMV. And we've still got no flat transfer to compare.

(Did he do the first CD issue of Physical Graffiti? The one missing the coughs?)
 
:rolleyes:

yes, to his knowledge, unlike your knowledge ... perhaps it's time you did your own research; instead of repeatedly asking others, then casting silly doubt at every turn.
 
:rolleyes:

yes, to his knowledge, unlike your knowledge ... perhaps it's time you did your own research; instead of repeatedly asking others, then casting silly doubt at every turn.


Except, I've read my fair share of Diament's (and a few of fellow Atlantic ME Zal Schreiber's) posts on Hoffman's forum over the years. Does that count? I haven't found him to be particularly reliable, though his wacky audiophile beliefs about digital audio can be mildly entertaining (e.g., FLAC files sound worse than WAV.....)
 
I think my memory is slowly fading away. ...Can we add the missing dots of audio info? ...Me I don't think so; you?

"By now, have you noticed the difference between CDs and vinyl? Okay, even if you not still listening to vinyl, have you at least *felt* the difference between CDs and MP3s?......An MP3 (of a CD) is only about 5 MB. It's remarkable that 7/8 of the information is gone! What does this mean for you, the listener? The song's dimensional information is being thrown out with the bathwater.....

....The basic difference between analog and digital is in the latter's technique of sampling.....the samples, by their nature, leave finite gaps in the wave. These gaps are perceive subconsciously.

It's much like the difference between incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Fluorescents 'flash' on and off 120 times per second. Similarly, digital sound is stopping and starting constantly , as opposed to being a continuous analog wave. And the effect on our psyche is remarkably similar too: Both fluorescent lighting and digital sound can cause stress. (Even though it may be small, this kind of stress is definitely noticeable and even measureable)."
 
I think my memory is slowly fading away. ...Can we add the missing dots of audio info? ...Me I don't think so; you?

"By now, have you noticed the difference between CDs and vinyl? Okay, even if you not still listening to vinyl, have you at least *felt* the difference between CDs and MP3s?......An MP3 (of a CD) is only about 5 MB. It's remarkable that 7/8 of the information is gone! What does this mean for you, the listener? The song's dimensional information is being thrown out with the bathwater.....

....The basic difference between analog and digital is in the latter's technique of sampling.....the samples, by their nature, leave finite gaps in the wave. These gaps are perceive subconsciously.

It's much like the difference between incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Fluorescents 'flash' on and off 120 times per second. Similarly, digital sound is stopping and starting constantly , as opposed to being a continuous analog wave. And the effect on our psyche is remarkably similar too: Both fluorescent lighting and digital sound can cause stress. (Even though it may be small, this kind of stress is definitely noticeable and even measureable)."

We can add that between, and outside of the dots, this is simply wrong. An old argument based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how digital audio works.

Tim
 
We can add that between, and outside of the dots, this is simply wrong. An old argument based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how digital audio works.

Tim

But can we see a bad post quoting bollocks about digital audio, if it's not there? ;)
 
I think my memory is slowly fading away. ...Can we add the missing dots of audio info? ...Me I don't think so; you?

"By now, have you noticed the difference between CDs and vinyl? Okay, even if you not still listening to vinyl, have you at least *felt* the difference between CDs and MP3s?......An MP3 (of a CD) is only about 5 MB. It's remarkable that 7/8 of the information is gone! What does this mean for you, the listener? The song's dimensional information is being thrown out with the bathwater.....

....The basic difference between analog and digital is in the latter's technique of sampling.....the samples, by their nature, leave finite gaps in the wave. These gaps are perceive subconsciously.

It's much like the difference between incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Fluorescents 'flash' on and off 120 times per second. Similarly, digital sound is stopping and starting constantly , as opposed to being a continuous analog wave. And the effect on our psyche is remarkably similar too: Both fluorescent lighting and digital sound can cause stress. (Even though it may be small, this kind of stress is definitely noticeable and even measureable)."
Please not this tripe. It isn't dots. There aren't gaps. The analogy to flickering fluorescent lights is not at all fitting. These are all mythical concepts that simply, demonstrably do NOT match what goes on in reality with digital audio. Sorry.
 
Please not this tripe. It isn't dots. There aren't gaps. The analogy to flickering fluorescent lights is not at all fitting. These are all mythical concepts that simply, demonstrably do NOT match what goes on in reality with digital audio. Sorry.
I eat tripe too on occasion :oops: it's great in curry:)
 
Do a search for a video. Digital audio show and tell. It's the second episode. Monty Montgomery. Watch it carefully. Ask questions if something doesn't make sense. You will then not be taken in by the dots, spaces or flickering ideas about digital audio.
 
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