Vinyl will always sound *different* than digital, right?

[John Dyson]

Indeed. Digital can capture vinyl, but not vice versa. That speaks for itself as far as "information" is involved.

The distortion and some of the noise in vinyl, of course, can "sound better" as far as the stereo illusion is considered. Of course, nothing keeps that from being in a digital track. NOTHING.

Much of this digital vs. vinyl thing originated back in the 1980's when CDs came out with sticky processing on them. The processing is continued to this day, and was originally called by 'golden ears' in the 1980s as 'the digital sound'. Originally LPs didn't have that processing, but of course had other defects. Eventually, LPs mostly caught up, and now the big differences is in the tonality, the 'nice' sound of vinyl distortion/cartridges/preamps/etc. What people really perceive isn't always optimum for the technically best quality.

Frankly, a lot of these discussions are about 'how many angels on the head of a needle' when the 'digital sound' processing has continued... Except for those listening to small scale boutique releases or direct recordings, few have probably heard a true, high quality stereo image through their headphones, let alone typical speakers. There is a more profound quality loss in the 'digital sound' processing than any difference between very high end vinyl vs CD. I can describe the processing upon request, and have discussed this elsewhere -- with pushback, but has apparently been an 'industry dirty secret' for the last 40yrs. I have some personal experience with my intent to disclose, only finding out from my own research -- not any theft of IP.

John

 

[sq225917]

Vinyl will always sound different from digital because they use different master source material for the most part, and even when they do try and use the cd master for vinyl they still have to wind the bass down a bit In level and mono it so that it can be actually be cut to disc.

Then there's the fact that there are a whole whole of geometrically and mechanically generated distortions that you simply can't avoid with vinyl replay.

 

[John Dyson]

Vinyl will always sound different from digital because they use different master source material for the most part, and even when they do try and use the cd master for vinyl they still have to wind the bass down a bit In level and mono it so that it can be actually be cut to disc.

Then there's the fact that there are a whole whole of geometrically and mechanically generated distortions that you simply can't avoid with vinyl replay.

Yes, that is 100% true. When I demaster digital recordings, the bass is usually different -- more tight, less resonant.
LPs often sound a little cloudy, but on the other hand, I have rips offered as examples that have totally fooled me, thinking that they were digital.

 

[j_j]

Much of this digital vs. vinyl thing originated back in the 1980's when CDs came out with sticky processing on them. ''' Eventually, LPs mostly caught up, and now the big differences is in the tonality, the 'nice' sound of vinyl distortion/cartridges/preamps/etc. What people really perceive isn't always optimum for the technically best quality.

And nothing stops me from capturing the sound of vinyl on stock, unaltered PCM, and it still sounds like vinyl. I'm not sure you understood the point.

My point is that CD can capture vinyl accurately, i.e. it sounds like vinyl, but vinyl can never sound like CD.

And yes, it is possible to add the LP "imperfections" to CD directly.

As to your "secret" there is no secret.

 

[j_j]

Vinyl will always sound different from digital because they use different master source material for the most part, and even when they do try and use the cd master for vinyl they still have to wind the bass down a bit In level and mono it so that it can be actually be cut to disc.

Then there's the fact that there are a whole whole of geometrically and mechanically generated distortions that you simply can't avoid with vinyl replay.

Except one can successfully capture the vinyl sound on CD by just recording the playback. My goodness, man, you missed the whole point.

Of course, one can ALSO simply process the CD and make it sound like vinyl. Nonlinear processing does actually work if you think hard about how to do it, and do it right. Many don't.

 

[John Dyson]

And nothing stops me from capturing the sound of vinyl on stock, unaltered PCM, and it still sounds like vinyl. I'm not sure you understood the point.

My point is that CD can capture vinyl accurately, i.e. it sounds like vinyl, but vinyl can never sound like CD.

And yes, it is possible to add the LP "imperfections" to CD directly.

As to your "secret" there is no secret.

The secret is that the last stage of processing is EXACTLY the same for every non-boutique recording. It is an industry secret and I have lost friends in the professional realm because of trying to maintain their positions in the arena. Most importantly,there had been resistance to me calling it 'decoding'. It is real, and I can prove it by decoding almost anything from digial source that isn't boutique. THAT is the secret. If everyone knew this, they wouldn't tell me.

Anyway, the decoder removes it. Any expert should have noticed this also -- I did in 2011 after never hearing a CD in detail since 1990. Of course, as a Bell Labs engineer, my hearing and mental processing had been trained a bit. My position wasn't normal, working on various very far looking consumer stuff... As the chief systems engineer on projects with several others, I had to 'process' lots of various fields -- my background is EE analog, DSP, Computer OS, microprocessors, some digital and probably others. My mind sees/percieves things in audio, and it was easy to detect. Most people have probably become accomodated, even brilliant ones who had listened for 30yrs. It WAS a b*tch to figure out the details, esp the descrambler (dispersive signal corrector.) Evil thing. Also very difficult becuse of my totally varaible 66yr hearing (10kHz to 18kHz variability -- sharp rolloff.) I still hear artifacts better than tonality, so loss of freqs > 10kHz half of the time hasn't been fatal.

PS: the descrambler, which does have gain EQ, but no resistive gain elements or explicit gain control elements of any kind does one heck of a lot of AGC/modulation-demoduatio -- probably more significat amount of processing than the 5 DolbyA equiv software units. It is like 20 FM receivers and recombiners. It does stuff, even someone with my background, that I never even conceived of before... I figured it out without even knowing that it existed in the design, just that previous versions weren't doing everything that they should. Wierd a** thing.

John

 

[j_j]

The secret is that the last stage of processing is EXACTLY the same for every non-boutique recording.

Really, what is this "secret processing"? Do you mean squashing out the dynamic range because the A&R guys want it louder?

 

[CtheArgie]

Yes, that is 100% true. When I demaster digital recordings, the bass is usually different -- more tight, less resonant.
LPs often sound a little cloudy, but on the other hand, I have rips offered as examples that have totally fooled me, thinking that they were digital.

Errr, a rip IS digital!

 

[John Dyson]

Really, what is this "secret processing"? Do you mean squashing out the dynamic range because the A&R guys want it louder?

You are starting to get it. (intended respectfully, not as an arrogant comment) It is 'kind of' a dynamic range reduction/IP protection scheme. If you run through the ubiquitious processing twice, it sounds like hell. Passing it through once, it ends up being what we all hear today. It doesn't produce horrible results, except for my 'virgin' hearing in 2011. It really did sound horrible with buzzing around vocals, for example. I have started becoming accomodated to it, because I must *occasionally* listen to it while developing the software. I have avoided listening directly to commercial recordings for 10yrs during the project. However, I can still detect the damaged stereo image vs. full stereo image upon decoding. Up until about 1mo ago, the decoder wasn't very good, and didn't even start making progress into heading towards accuracy until I figured out the descrambler 6mos ago in desperation (it is a series of FM discriminators at specific multiples of 221.3Hz). Thank God for my quirky hearing.

The descrambler absorbs frequencies between about 1.5kHz to 30kHz, and reorganizes them and spreading the individual frequency ranges back into clean organization. It was TOTALLY necessary, but is implemented in a way that I had never imagined.... No need for gain control or nonlinear resistive type elements, all done in EQ!!! If you want to know more, private message me -- I doubt that everyone wants to know the details. I still haven't fully figured it out. My hearing allowed me to visualize what is going on, and implemented the design based on it. During the development of the descrambler, I found that the 221.3Hz frequency is critical all the way just below 20Hz as a submultiple and as specific mutiples up to 30kHz. 30kHz is the limit in the descrambler because if it also had a 31.5kHz element, cringe factor ensued. it had a wierd distortion not really perceivable as distortion, but just creating a 'cringe' effect. *the descrambler depends on the characteristics of hearing similar to the frequency bands in mp3.

ADD-ON: The descrambler does a LOT of gain control... Most often more than the 5 DolbyA elements!!! The amount of gain control progresses as the frequencies progress... Really ingenius -- has R Dolby's design characteristics in it.

ADD-ON-AGAIN: I forgot to mention the 5 DolbyA decoding elements also -- lots of details inside and outside the elements. I am focused on the descrambler because it deeply interests me. The reasonably accurate DolbyA units are good enough for the FA decoding, so even though they are unique for being in software, they don't interest me as much anymore. Willing to explain details about those also. I give away the source and binaries for free. I doubt anyone could understand the source, because there are very special things that aren't explicit, like the anti-fog processing (removes gain control/noise reduction sidebands, even from in the studio.) Should have probably organized things better, but it is written how I think, and I am strange . It is in C++ with very special classes that help with processing the very specific needs of the decoder. For example, if one would write X=Y*Z, it might mean the stereo signal X becomes the value of the stereo signal Y with a specific gain that might be the same or different for the channels. The gain control variables are even more complex, for more private discussion!!! At least, those C++ classes are designed in a more organized fashion.

Thanks for chatting, and I am certainly willing on discussing this further!!!

John

 

[j_j]

You are starting to get it. (intended respectfully, not as an arrogant comment)

Oh, I get the overuse of level compression to "make it loud". I think you're seriously confused about what it does, but it's not a problem with "digital" rather a problem in SOME quarters involving production requirements.

Vinyl can not be compressed to the same extent, since the vinyl medium can not reproduce it.

But this has nothing to do with "digital" and there are more than "boutique" recordings out there that aren't smashed to toothpaste. Put the blame where it belongs, in the demands of producers and A&R, not with "digital recording", ok?

 

[John Dyson]

Oh, I get the overuse of level compression to "make it loud". I think you're seriously confused about what it does, but it's not a problem with "digital" rather a problem in SOME quarters involving production requirements.

Vinyl can not be compressed to the same extent, since the vinyl medium can not reproduce it.

But this has nothing to do with "digital" and there are more than "boutique" recordings out there that aren't smashed to toothpaste. Put the blame where it belongs, in the demands of producers and A&R, not with "digital recording", ok?

I am not talking about normal compression (I used to work at radio stations during my growth process, including doing recordings way before 1983...), and I am not talking about crazy loudness wars processing. I am writing about processing that ALWAYS occurs after the normal mastering. Sometimes the processing alone is used as mastering. It isn't quite compression, even though compresson is involved < 30dB or so. Scrambling compression occurs over the entire signal level range, mostly useful at higher signal levels. It is primarily a 'scrambling*. Some people in the industry have distracted away from the discussion about the ubiquitious processing. Often distracting directly into pure compression... The scheme bunches up the energy into specific frequency intervals, and tends to compress around through the entire signal strength range. Your hearing perceives a difference, but less difference than what is actually happening. This is alot like what mp3 does.

* On the specific frequency intervals, the discriminators in the descrambler must be at a specific exact multiple of 221.3Hz, or the discriminator puts out garbage, thereby creating distortion in the signal. Each need for discriminaitor precision increases the liklihood of my correctness by 50%. There are 20 (used to be 21) discriminators. So, the liklihood of my correctness is 2^20 : 1. The requirement for discriminator location are the PROOF that it exists, not being able to hear the FA processing notwithstanding.

PLEASE listen to the demos, and PLEASE listen to the originals. I can supply the originals if really necessary. THE DECODING PROCESSING IS NOT JUST EXPANSION, JUST EXPANSION PRODUCES A 'SLIPPERY' SOUND. It requires descrambling to produce the normal sound.

Maybe not everyone can hear the damage -- sadly... Maybe we Neanderthals have hearing that is more capable of perceiving more detail?

I HAVE REVERSE ENGINEERED THIS -- IT IS REAL.
I have a Sheffield Labs example with original ancient LP, RAW CD, and decoded CD if I really need to show it.
BTW, the decoded CD sounds best -- LP had vnyl noise, cartridge rolloff, profound HF phase shift, bass boost, bass resonance (must have been a cheap turntable, a friend gave it to me years ago.)

LP/DECODED CD sounded technically most similar ignoring the vinyl stuff. The response balance vs the RAW CD, ignoring the compression smushing, had most similar bass.
John

PS: I have an off topic anecdote about people immediately in my background... My first boss at a real job knew Thomas Edison on an immediate recognition basis (not necessarily friends.) My second real job, my immediate co-workers and boss designed the cruise missile guidance system that hits the target perfectly. I was the first to start designing the digital version. Next, my work at Bell Labs included the main DSP manager, atellite person, TV person, etc.. working for me on a project -- didn't quite make it though as an Executive VP of AT&T who was pushing for the project (I often had contact), had to stop it because my project really needed help from an organization that was leaving for Lucent. I HAVE been around, and NOT A FOOL. What I say is true, with little reservation. We should all accept the possibility of being wrong, but the stats above are pretty much conclusive proof...

BTW -- the demos had a minor error, just found, that would produce a 'constructive' distortion that almost sounds good, except when it doesn't. Where was the error? The evil descrambler. I forgot to 'pray to the descrambler god' a few days ago.. (with humor.) If interested, I can make corrected versions at the upcoming weekend. It takes a few days to prove the results and produce the release.



HAVE FUN AGAIN!!!

John

 

[j_j]

... I am writing about processing that ALWAYS occurs after the normal mastering. Sometimes the processing alone is used as mastering. It isn't quite compression, even though compresson is involved < 30dB or so. Scrambling compression occurs over the entire signal level range, mostly useful at higher signal levels. ...

No.

 

[John Dyson]

No.

Got proof. YES.
Are you trying to dismiss proof? That is not good. Do you work in the industry?
I know that there are arrogant children everywhere, so afraid of their own self image..
So many people in the industry afraid of their jobs or just dont know..
Remember 'digital sound', talked about so much in the '80s? I guess accomodation diminished the numbers who could detect it.

It is so beautiful, right now, listening to a decode of ABBA (FA -> DA), where the DolbyA settings are *exaclty* in the range that a tape would have. DolbyA is very picky, and it is beautiful. Close to distinguishing each voice in Waterloo, which is usually fairly foggy. It is so nice to actually hear the recording... This is especially true with the last descrambler fix, a very precision (I mean -- VERY) piece of software. They probably never thought that FA decoding could be done.

The output of the FA decoder with the *evil* descrambler is driving a DolbyA emulator -- wow!!!
(PS: I am not so bright to do an enhancer this good, much better than the FFT type stuff!!!)

John

 

[j_j]

Got proof. YES.

None visible. Equivocation and confusing preference with accuracy is not proof.

Are you trying to dismiss proof?

None visible. ibid

That is not good.

No, your mythology is not good.

Do you work in the industry?

Yes.

As to the rest of your attempt at smearing others, myself included, I am doing you the favor, this time, of ignoring it.

Again, the response to your article 171 above remains:

NO

By the way, read this. This is what "compression" means. https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/how-to-use-multiband-compression-for-audio-mastering/

It's often ridiculously overdone. No two people do it the same way, no two people use exactly the same crossover points (in frequency or level), and it's all, still about making things loud.

 

[John Dyson]

None visible. Equivocation and confusing preference with accuracy is not proof.

None visible. ibid



No, your mythology is not good.

Yes.

As to the rest of your attempt at smearing others, myself included, I am doing you the favor, this time, of ignoring it.

Again, the response to your article 171 above remains:

NO

Thanks, as coming from the recording industry, I understand the reason for your answer.

With respect and best intentions,
Sincerely yours,
John

 

[j_j]

Thank, as coming from the recording industry, I understand the reason for your answer.

With respect and best intentions,
Sincerely yours,
John

I'm not from the "recording industry". I invent the stuff they use 20 years down the road.

Here, let me help you figure out how that works:

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3173 Perhaps you should notice the attribution.

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=9136 Ditto the above.

 

[John Dyson]

I'm not from the "recording industry". I invent the stuff they use 20 years down the road.

Here, let me help you figure out how that works:

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3173 Perhaps you should notice the attribution.

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=9136 Ditto the above.

It isn't that I am not claiming that you don't have a good intellect, it is just that you don't know or have IP restrictions... *not everyone knows about this*
No biggie, no hard feelings...
It is just that i am disappointed that not everyone can hear the distortion in consumer recordings... Maybe there would have been a stronger backlash in the '80s.

Apparently, it is a stealth copy protection scheme so that it keeps parasitic companies from doing re-distribution of already processed material. It might be happening at the endpoint. Two passes through the system would start being quite obnoxious, even to those who cannot hear one pass.

What I hear from mastering engineers is thus: It sounds good enough (or something similar.) I haven't heard "it sounds exactly the same".
One more thing: the required calibration offset number is suspciously the same for all recordings (within about 0.0005dB or so.) Yes, I can do *that*. There arent' two DolbyA units that have calibration offsets THAT close. Where is the box? It is strange, but true. These numbers MUST be precise -- too many details that add up to one conclusion.

John

 

[j_j]

It is just that i am disappointed that not everyone can hear the distortion in consumer recordings... Maybe there would have been a stronger backlash in the '80s.

Below, you seem to be thinking of watermarking systems. There were no watermarking systems on digital systems then. The only one proposed was the ridiculously poorly designed A-flat remover that was laughed out of the business.

Apparently, it is a stealth copy protection scheme so that it keeps parasitic companies from doing re-distribution of already processed material.

PCM can always be copied. There are a few watermarking systems on the market. Some good, some bad. Some people use them, some people don't. "Ubiquitous" is not the case.

 

[John Dyson]

Below, you seem to be thinking of watermarking systems. There were no watermarking systems on digital systems then. The only one proposed was the ridiculously poorly designed A-flat remover that was laughed out of the business.


PCM can always be copied. There are a few watermarking systems on the market. Some good, some bad. Some people use them, some people don't. "Ubiquitous" is not the case.

It is easy to copy PCM, agreed. I am not talking about that. It is that the INDUSTRY cannot steal from each other. I ADMIT that I am guessing about the reason for the processing from materials distributed from industry sources. I cannot imagine any other reason, but with your experience, I cannot imagine why you don't understand what is going on. Truly, it confuses me... I KNOW that it is happening, YOU should be able to hear the improvement, esp on the ONJ examples. Can you hear a true stereo image? Not a dynamics distorted, smushed, damaged stereo image? Admittedly there was a bug in the decoder that caused slight shifts (now fixed, I think.) The required precision, or getting total junk, is astounding. It is especially tricky because the bass frequencies bias the gain on the highs by using strong EQ. This thing is a beast. (Consider the accuracy of the 5 DolbyA emulations, at different, very specific calibration offsets, that eat this stuff so that it works!!!)

Privately, to convince, I can send you a copy of the entire ONJ 48, both before and after... I don't like doing it, but this is important.
I haven't found ONE normal consumer recording since 1983 that doesn't have the encoding.

John

Oh, also the bug caused a slight, sometimes sounds good, but wrong 'enhancement' of the sound. The mistake was an incorrect frequency in the 'Evil' descrambler. It is very tedious in some ways, but the discriminators (yes, like in FM) thankfully are repeated, at about 20 different freqs.
Also Oh -- the bug moved the stereo image 'too high'. it is now more 'in front'.
Also Also Oh -- fixing the bug also made the ONJ recordings sound more like a master tape instead of being mastered. The 'smear' is much less. Again, the Decoder is a beast.
Also Also Also Oh -- the kind of 'honk' in ONJs vocals is gone.

 

[dorakeg]

I just saw this thread. I would say vinyls will never sound the same as CD. It's similar but not the same.

Let's just ignore vinyl quality and assume you can create a vinyl disc that sounds the same as cd (in theory).

Even then, the audio from vinyls will be subjective to the turntable, the environment and even the cartridge, tone arm etc... Dust trapped in the groves will affect the sound, the design on the cartridge will affect. Moving coil vs moving magnet (difference in mass). The perfect turntable doesn't exist.

for CDs, it's way less susceptible to such things.. for bits it's just 1 and 0s.