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The Truth About Vinyl Records

levimax

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What left Rolling Stones Records' pressing plants in '71 is the original and only Sticky Fingers. Pressed on vinyl. Maintaining that the artist and the producer wanted to put on the final release on vinyl some detail but that wasn't possible because of technical limitations, so that now we are justified in rescuing it, is a conceited and mean exercise, arbitrary as a concept and debatable in its outcome.
While I enjoy original LP's for both sound quality and historical and artistic context sometimes the SQ of the original can be quite poor compared to a "good remaster". It is interesting that you mention the Rolling Stones, I have a lot of original release Rolling Stone's LP's including a 1971 UK pressed A3/ B4 "Sticky Fingers" which is rather poor sounding compared to later CD's. While not applicable to Sticky Fingers for me some of the very best remasters are the ABCKO SACD of the Rolling Stones. These sound better to me in every way than any other version I have heard. I like being able to play both digital and LP's and don't see why anyone would think not being able to play something is better than being to play something.
 
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Jimi Floyd

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While I enjoy original LP's for both sound quality and historical and artistic context sometimes the SQ of the original can be quite poor compared to a "good remaster". It is interesting that you mention the Rolling Stones, I have a lot of original release Rolling Stone's LP's including a 1971 UK pressed A3/ B4 "Sticky Fingers" which is rather poor sounding compared to later CD's. While not applicable to Sticky Fingers for me some of the very best remasters are the ABCKO SACD of the Rolling Stones. These sound better to me in every way than any other version I have heard. I like being able to play both digital and LP's and don't see why anyone would think not being able to play something is better than being to play something.
Hello @levimax I have a UK A3/B4 Gatefold Zipper Cover! Thanks a lot for the SACD recommendation, I will try to find some of them. Of course, I am able to play any kind of digital too. Best wishes!
 

Holmz

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During WWII, Shellac started to become unavailable due to it’s use in munitions and a new substance, Polyvinyl Chloride started to be employed for phonograph discs. Interestingly, such was the demand for shellac that there were “record drives” where people donated their shellac records to the war effort.

The Beatles should have been recorded on shellac.
 

MCH

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the ABCKO SACD of the Rolling Stones. .
I have a bunch of those, the early 00s hybrid cd/sacd releases. But ive never listened to the sacd layer. To be honest, i forgot they are sacd as well... Is there a way to play them with a computer optical drive or similar?
 

levimax

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I have a bunch of those, the early 00s hybrid cd/sacd releases. But ive never listened to the sacd layer. To be honest, i forgot they are sacd as well... Is there a way to play them with a computer optical drive or similar?
If you have the time and inclination pretty much anything is possible.... see below

 
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egellings

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(My emphasis)

Most of what people are doing on a forum like this has very little to do directly with the appreciation of music. Page upon page of discussion, and music rarely comes up. This place is devoted to The Gear.

How many musicians, or what percentage of music lovers, in the world concern themselves with SINAD ratings, or minute distortion levels in DACs or amps, or measuring cables, or learning all the technical information about electronics, speakers etc? Most "music lovers" don't need any of that stuff (much less The Most Accurate System Possible) in order to just listen to and enjoy music.

The person who has researched every nook and cranny about his hi-fi system, who has engaged in hours of careful set up, room measuring/digital EQ, getting subwoofer crossovers just right etc....that stuff is just another version of gear fetishism. It may be toward some goal, but most "music lovers" have no need for such gear fetishism to enjoy music. They would see it as having "very little to do with the ability to appreciate music."

In other words: Beware glass houses. ;)
Especially those with glass vacuum tubes in them!
 

SYJ

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In the article, it said the Dynamic Range of CD is 150dB without doing anything.
Howeve, AFAIK it is 96dB and could be 120dB with dithering ????
 

Frgirard

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In the article, it said the Dynamic Range of CD is 150dB without doing anything.
Howeve, AFAIK it is 96dB and could be 120dB with dithering ????
Dithering 24 bit to 16 bit increase the dynamic?

Dynamic =20*log(2exp(r)
r=2exp nbr of bit.

So for 24bit what is the dynamic max?

The dynamic not presente in the record can not be increased.
 

DMill

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I have a bunch of those, the early 00s hybrid cd/sacd releases. But ive never listened to the sacd layer. To be honest, i forgot they are sacd as well... Is there a way to play them with a computer optical drive or similar?
I bet you could pick up a used SACD player for $100 used less or so.
 

egellings

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It's nearly impossible to fit 120dB of dynamic range into the average living room. The bottom end of it would be lost in ambient noise, and the upper end would be deafeningly loud if any longer lasting that a drum beat transient.
 

sofrep811

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End of the day all that you need to understand is:

If you spends $29 on vinyl record, CD, SACD.
Then spends $5K to $500K on playback system.

No matter how incredible your playback system may be--it cannot replace the original audio on the $29 vinyl record, CD, SACD. If it did change anything then it would not be an honest or transparent output.

I'm hoping someone can correct me here? This is how I see it and I know I could be wrong.
 

egellings

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If not anything else, the listening room itself would intrude upon accurate reproduction of the original if it was a live performance.
 

Robin L

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I bet you could pick up a used SACD player for $100 used less or so.
I got a Sony Blu-ray player, SACD included, $7 at a thrift store. It was $10 for the remote via Amazon. I have it hooked up to the Topping E30 via coax, can play back single layer SACDs via the coax out. I'm sure there must be some translation going on here, but the single-layer SACDs sound just fine.
 

KellenVancouver

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(My emphasis)

Most of what people are doing on a forum like this has very little to do directly with the appreciation of music. Page upon page of discussion, and music rarely comes up. This place is devoted to The Gear.

How many musicians, or what percentage of music lovers, in the world concern themselves with SINAD ratings, or minute distortion levels in DACs or amps, or measuring cables, or learning all the technical information about electronics, speakers etc? Most "music lovers" don't need any of that stuff (much less The Most Accurate System Possible) in order to just listen to and enjoy music.

The person who has researched every nook and cranny about his hi-fi system, who has engaged in hours of careful set up, room measuring/digital EQ, getting subwoofer crossovers just right etc....that stuff is just another version of gear fetishism. It may be toward some goal, but most "music lovers" have no need for such gear fetishism to enjoy music. They would see it as having "very little to do with the ability to appreciate music."

In other words: Beware glass houses. ;)
As with your post #38, I was going along with you and agreeing... until I thought about cameras. You're right, most people are reactive and simply driven by the music because high-end quality isn't really the goal, just like most people are happy enough taking pictures with their phone camera because high-end visual quality isn't the point for them. Music is the foundation for the audiophile, just like a picture is the foundation for the camera pro, but really that's just the starting point. There are some people who seek the highest quality, and those people pay very much attention to specs. Most people on ASR impress me that way. When a camera pro buys a Fuji GFX100S they are absolutely driven by specs. When an audiophile buys a Benchmark AHB2 it's the exact same thing, driven by specs. In both cases they're reaching for highest quality, and paying for it. Granted, most people won't appreciate the difference, but they do.
 

Newman

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Yeah, people who come here and tell the core members of this hobby that they are fetishists…those people are so far from belonging here that they should leave. #TrollsOuted

Wanting to experience the closest that they can to the sound created by the recording production team and all the effort that went into making it sound just so, …that's not a fetish, that's an interest.
 

levimax

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Yeah, people who come here and tell the core members of this hobby that they are fetishists…those people are so far from belonging here that they should leave. #TrollsOuted

Wanting to experience the closest that they can to the sound created by the recording production team and all the effort that went into making it sound just so, …that's not a fetish, that's an interest.
Except that the mastering moves made after the recording production team is finished are more significant than any difference between formats so the argument against vinyl on accuracy to the master tape falls apart as neither LPs nor digital are accurate to the source. Unfortuneatly for digital, the mastering trends (fads) of massive compression, especially for digital formats, work against it so all of a sudden a -30 dB technical underdog LP can be preferred even in a blind test.
 

Newman

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Except the only measuring tool you have for that claim is broken. So you've got nothing but ambit claims. And 95% of the claims are about ...some... pop music.

All you are left with is comparing bad mastering on one format vs good mastering on another format. Well duh.
 
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