Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[Frgirard]

This is the fate of any subject where subjectivity is considered objective These topics can only go around in circles.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I’ve searched, but I’m not finding the rules you referred to.

I have learned a ton in this thread, both about the objective differences and about how those differences play out in my own listening. I have also been exposed to and taken into consideration many different viewpoints on how people experience this phenomena.

There are certainly many posts I have found disingenuous, as many from people yelling at people for liking vinyl as those mistakenly claiming vinyl is “better”. But overall, I have found this thread to be engaging and illuminating. It certainly isn’t as monolithic as many portray.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I suppose for the millionth time, the only thing wrong with this thread, is it's Title.

 

[Frgirard]

I’ve searched, but I’m not finding the rules you referred to.

I have learned a ton in this thread, both about the objective differences and about how those differences play out in my own listening. I have also been exposed to and taken into consideration many different viewpoints on how people experience this phenomena.

There are certainly many posts I have found disingenuous,e as many from people yelling at people for liking vinyl as those mistakenly claiming vinyl is “better”. But overall, I have found this thread to be engaging and illuminating. It certainly isn’t as monolithic as many portray.

1.A major rule in psychology says that the observed cannot be the observer.

2. The listening is an esthetic experience. Nothing is objective in the listening.

3. It's internet with too much noise.

On a technical aspect the vinyl is inferior to the digital.
This inferiority can be prohibitive for those who attach importance to the reproduction fidelity of a piano.
Just as I know pianists who find that Vinyl or digital the piano is never realistic, never as they hear it and feel it

On an esthetic aspect the vinyl is not inferior to the digital.
It all depends on the preferences of the listener.

In the hifi world, the lack of knowledge in audio production, on what is the relationship between background room noise and dynamics, makes this kind of subject become a pub discussion.

 

[Holmz]

This is the fate of any subject where subjectivity is considered objective These topics can only go around in circles.

Round and Round - good one!

 

[IPunchCholla]

1.A major rule in psychology says that the observed cannot be the observer.

It's funny how my Psychologist and Psychiatrist are always on me to meditate (and implement what I have learned in Cognitive Behavioral therapy) which is really a formalized way of observing myself and learning to manage/change mental behaviors.

 

[Doodski]

It's funny how my Psychologist and Psychiatrist are always on me to meditate (and implement what I have learned in Cognitive Behavioral therapy) which is really a formalized way of observing myself and learning to manage/change mental behaviors.

That sounds very familiar in that when I tell myself not to do something or to do more of something I do that. No shrink needed...lol. My shrink is for other more pressing stuff.

 

[levimax]

This is the fate of any subject where subjectivity is considered objective These topics can only go around in circles.

Well isn't psychoacoustics all about subjective preferences? I think this discussion is vexing to some because it shows that just because something measures thousands of times better doesn't mean it is preferred.

 

[Talisman]

I find it curious that in certain areas the analog still maintains a mysterious charm, supported by thousands of proselytes.
More than anything else happens in the musical field, but for many years it has been in the photographic field when "the infinite shades of color" given by the good old film and the "depth of black and white" could certainly not be reproduced by "stupid" 0 and 1 "of digital cameras.
To date, even in photography almost everyone has had to accept the absolute superiority of modern digital cameras and the use of film remains a vintage hypster fetishism.
In the video this step has happened even before, and no one, seeing an old video in super 8 could ever even remotely argue that it is even vaguely comparable with modern digital cameras.
But we still have people who swear by the superiority of vinyl over digital.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I find it curious that in certain areas the analog still maintains a mysterious charm, supported by thousands of proselytes.
More than anything else happens in the musical field, but for many years it has been in the photographic field when "the infinite shades of color" given by the good old film and the "depth of black and white" could certainly not be reproduced by "stupid" 0 and 1 "of digital cameras.
To date, even in photography almost everyone has had to accept the absolute superiority of modern digital cameras and the use of film remains a vintage hypster fetishism.
In the video this step has happened even before, and no one, seeing an old video in super 8 could ever even remotely argue that it is even vaguely comparable with modern digital cameras.
But we still have people who swear by the superiority of vinyl over digital.

Well, I don’t think photography and audio are completely analogous. But if take your analogy, one of the attractions of analog processes, at least for many of my students, is that it forces you to make images differently due to the restrictions of it. It also has other side effects, in that it is far more social than digital editing, so they talk to each other more and develop not only film and prints, but their ideas.

So there are cultural reasons for keeping analog around.

Technically, while the high end digital cameras of the present outstrip medium format and rival large format, that is something of a very recent development. For large prints (I’m making 60”x80” prints) I still prefer the look of grain over the pixelation or weird smoothness of upsampled images. What’s also of note is an 8k/inch scan of film doesn’t look like film when viewed at that scale. The materiality of black and white analog papers still hasn’t been duplicated with digital. And I’m not sure digital can rival analog B&W tonality unless you are doing piezography.

So while generally correct, digital photography is superior to analog, there are some edge cases where analog might’ve more appropriate. Just like streaming and vinyl.

But it’s really beside the point as AI generated images are going mainstream soon.

 

[Newman]

But it’s really beside the point as AI generated images are going mainstream soon.

And they will NOT be photographs, because photographs absolutely require light rays to pass from an observed subject to a recording medium.

Like you say, they are 'images'. And similarly for audio, AI-generated music or audio won't be 'recordings', because recordings absolutely require sound waves to pass from a subject to a recording medium.

The big issue is that people will use AI for deception, passing AI images off as photographs, and AI audio off as events (eg some pollie saying something abhorrent that he or she didn't).

 

[Talisman]

Well, I don’t think photography and audio are completely analogous. But if take your analogy, one of the attractions of analog processes, at least for many of my students, is that it forces you to make images differently due to the restrictions of it. It also has other side effects, in that it is far more social than digital editing, so they talk to each other more and develop not only film and prints, but their ideas.

If you think about it, even in this we find the analogy with vinyl. The 24 poses granted by the film force you to focus well on every single shot, to think about it, not to shoot burst shots just because you can. Likewise a vinyl allows you to sit back and focus on that record and really listen to it, without getting caught up in the endless possibilities of streaming.
This, however, is a different matter, which has nothing to do with the actual image quality or with the purity of sound

 

[Talisman]

.

Technically, while the high end digital cameras of the present outstrip medium format and rival large format, that is something of a very recent development. For large prints (I’m making 60”x80” prints) I still prefer the look of grain over the pixelation or weird smoothness of upsampled images. What’s also of note is an 8k/inch scan of film doesn’t look like film when viewed at that scale. The materiality of black and white analog papers still hasn’t been duplicated with digital. And I’m not sure digital can rival analog B&W tonality unless you are doing piezography.

Here we enter a minefield, photography forums are full of opinions about it.
My experience is as the son of a professional photographer who in his career had to go from analogue to digital, and personally as an amateur, exclusively digital.
Personally, even for 70x100 cm prints I have had frightening results with an apsc like the D7100 with a sigma art 18/35. Something that even my father, who worked with 4.5x6 films, was amazed to see.
As for the black and white, I think I have never seen anything so three-dimensional and "alive" of some files taken with the sigma with foveon sensor.

But I repeat this is a minefield and is off the topic.

 

[dlaloum]

And they will NOT be photographs, because photographs absolutely require light rays to pass from an observed subject to a recording medium.

Like you say, they are 'images'. And similarly for audio, AI-generated music or audio won't be 'recordings', because recordings absolutely require sound waves to pass from a subject to a recording medium.

The big issue is that people will use AI for deception, passing AI images off as photographs, and AI audio off as events (eg some pollie saying something abhorrent that he or she didn't).

Yep - which makes "High Fidelity" redundant - you cannot reproduce something that never existed in an acoustic space... Hence electronic music is frequently outside the realm of HiFi...(but not outside the realm of audiophilia)

 

[Talisman]

Yep - which makes "High Fidelity" redundant - you cannot reproduce something that never existed in an acoustic space... Hence electronic music is frequently outside the realm of HiFi...(but not outside the realm of audiophilia)

What you write is very interesting, and as a lover of electronic music, I had already thought about it.
With computer-created music, the concept of REPRODUCTION no longer makes any sense.
The music becomes more like a score that the speakers can interpret in their own way, without anyone making a mistake.
However, I believe that even in this case the flatest possible equalization is to be considered "hi fi".

 

[Newman]

Yep - which makes "High Fidelity" redundant - you cannot reproduce something that never existed in an acoustic space... Hence electronic music is frequently outside the realm of HiFi...(but not outside the realm of audiophilia)

It is not outside the realm of High Fidelity, because audiophiles still want the correct tonality, timing, dynamics, sound balance, dimensionality, and (potentially) room experience that the musician (and playback production team) created. Wanting that is wanting HiFi.

 

[Frgirard]

All music acoustic electric or electronic is based On musical notes characterized by pitch, intensity and duration.
High fidelity in electronic existe : heard what is in the track without the room interferences like all the acoustic music.

 

[dlaloum]

All music acoustic electric or electronic is based On musical notes characterized by pitch, intensity and duration.
High fidelity in electronic existe : heard what is in the track without the room interferences like all the acoustic music.

High Fidelity... Fidelity is being true to something - reflecting a truth ... when you produce a sound that has never been acoustically produced before - one that was recorded electronically direct from synth - what exactly are you being true to?

The reproduction of that recording is the first time it has been played - it is 100% authentic, regardless on the qualities of the equipment it is being played on - distortion, voicing, room all become completely irrelevant - it is the first and only performance. Playing it subsequently on a different setup at a different time, is also the first and only performance - they could be dramatically different and still be "true to the original".

If on the other hand, the synth and electric guitars were played through amps (presumably carefully selected amps, by picky musicians) - and that sound was then recorded acoustically using microphones.... then there is an acoustic baseline - one that a High Fidelity system attempts to reproduce.

Both can be audiophile - but only one of those can be high fidelity. (something that was never anything other than an electrical signal, ceases to be high fidelity when you convert it to acoustic sound waves.... by definition!) - Whereas something that started out as acoustic sound waves (even if produced via synths) - has an acoustic soundwave that is being recorded and then attempted to be reproduced with.... yes... high fidelity.

 

[Frgirard]

High Fidelity... Fidelity is being true to something - reflecting a truth ... when you produce a sound that has never been acoustically produced before - one that was recorded electronically direct from synth - what exactly are you being true to?

The reproduction of that recording is the first time it has been played - it is 100% authentic, regardless on the qualities of the equipment it is being played on - distortion, voicing, room all become completely irrelevant - it is the first and only performance. Playing it subsequently on a different setup at a different time, is also the first and only performance - they could be dramatically different and still be "true to the original".

If on the other hand, the synth and electric guitars were played through amps (presumably carefully selected amps, by picky musicians) - and that sound was then recorded acoustically using microphones.... then there is an acoustic baseline - one that a High Fidelity system attempts to reproduce.

Both can be audiophile - but only one of those can be high fidelity. (something that was never anything other than an electrical signal, ceases to be high fidelity when you convert it to acoustic sound waves.... by definition!) - Whereas something that started out as acoustic sound waves (even if produced via synths) - has an acoustic soundwave that is being recorded and then attempted to be reproduced with.... yes... high fidelity.

I not present In the recording, not present in the mastering.
So my definition of high fidelity is the less alterations due to the room and the speakers.
In your case, for all music high fidelity exists only for the mastering engineer.

 

[dlaloum]

I not present In the recording, not present in the mastering.
So my definition of high fidelity is the less alterations due to the room and the speakers.
In your case, for all music high fidelity exists only for the mastering engineer.

No - that would be the Original - which he would be listening to during the recording session... High Fidelity is the attempt to reproduce what the mastering engineer heard.

If there was nothing to be heard in the first place, how can you be true to it?