Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[dlaloum]

I am not sure if Armor-All a good idea? I once made the mistake of using it on my car's dashboard. It looked great, and then dust seemed to get embedded in it in a way that I could only get it off by using some detergent, whereas normally a wipe with some water would do. Oh yes, another reason not to use Armor-All on dashboards: the sun makes it outgas and stick on the inside of the windscreen. Once it is there, it attracts dust. No amount of wiping gets it off, you really have to go to town with detergents and alcohol.

For records - tiny amounts are used - and subsequent detergent based standard cleaning is used to remove excess - it leaves a tiny amount of coating which has a beneficial effect - the other thing is, it contains plasticiser - aged vinyl tends to gradually lose its plasticiser getting harder, and then accelerating wear as a result - products like armorall include plasticisers, which soak into the top layer and give it back a little of its youthful elasticity....

Use more than a tiny amount- and you will suffer as you spend huge amounts of time trying to remove the excess from the vinyl surface!!!

 

[Holmz]

Pure water is the absolute best solvent known to humanity.... wonderful stuff...
…

Even the aliens know of it.
it is almost beyond being bound to earth, and could be a universal solvent.

…, you really have to go to town with detergents and alcohol.

l’ll take a shower before I grab the bottle.


And bam!
We are right back BG Ripper, and the rainwater and grain alcohol.

 

[fpitas]

Maybe the alcohol is why records sound better

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I still play some vinyl and actually have a second turntable set up in mono.

Oh, I still have turntables in the closets but not for long.

 

[Digital1955]

Oh absolutely. I remember our dream as audiophiles back in the 1960-70s was to have our own perfect copy of the master tape.
Then CD came and our prayers were mostly answered. I can remember hearing my first CD in my system, Dire Straights - Brothers In Arms

Well in this case you practically do own a copy of the master "tape". Since it was recorded in digital anyway.

 

[Ken1951]

My first CD player was a Denon DCD-1500 bought with an Adcom Pre-amp, Adcom 555 amp, and Magnepan MG-IIBs. Set it up and it was glorious from the first listen. Never turned back. Never missed LPs.

 

[dlaloum]

Well in this case you practically do own a copy of the master "tape". Since it was recorded in digital anyway.

"practically" - nope not at all - I have been annoyed with many of the releases of that CD - the early ones were excellent, and 2 years in, they had already "remastered" it and lost much of its dynamics....
That CD was re-mastered over and over (as have many others) - it would be nice to have access to the "Master Recording" (something which is technically viable, but I don't expect it will ever happen)

 

[Holmz]

"practically" - nope not at all - I have been annoyed with many of the releases of that CD - the early ones were excellent, and 2 years in, they had already "remastered" it and lost much of its dynamics....
That CD was re-mastered over and over (as have many others) - it would be nice to have access to the "Master Recording" (something which is technically viable, but I don't expect it will ever happen)

I thought that the bits never changed

 

[Galliardist]

"practically" - nope not at all - I have been annoyed with many of the releases of that CD - the early ones were excellent, and 2 years in, they had already "remastered" it and lost much of its dynamics....
That CD was re-mastered over and over (as have many others) - it would be nice to have access to the "Master Recording" (something which is technically viable, but I don't expect it will ever happen)

This week I’ve had it reinforced that mastering “engineers” have to impose their own “Vision” on the recording. One such turned up in another thread here.

So I went looking for their BS. It’s easy to find. There are a few who get to the extremes. Rupert Neve promoted the idea that you could improve standard resolution digital audio by modifying the 100kHz component of the signal, to give an example.

In the context of this thread, those mastering LP can’t go down some of these roads because they live in that part of the real world where the stylus has to track the groove.

 

[antcollinet]

I thought that the bits never changed

Bitz iz bitz innit?

 

[Newman]

This week I’ve had it reinforced that mastering “engineers” have to impose their own “Vision” on the recording. One such turned up in another thread here.

I know to what you allude.

Paradoxically, Mark Waldrep has written and spoken of his experiences as an audio engineer, where he would embed his vision into a recording, only for Marketing to wipe it all out in search of Loudness.

 

[Newman]

- it would be nice to have access to the "Master Recording" (something which is technically viable, but I don't expect it will ever happen)

Get the 24/88 download of Daft Punk’s RAM. The final production engineer says it is the unadulterated studio master.

I expect it happens more often than you fear, but not in pop-rock-like genres.

 

[Sal1950]

“Brothers in Arms”… I guess I should try it before I knock it..

You may either love or hate the music, that's a personal taste thing.
I was more referring to the sonic quality of the playback.
Hearing for the first time, the replay of an album I'd heard on LP many times
before, only this time minus all of vinyl's noise and distortions was a revelation.
Quoting J Gordon Holt, "all else is gaslight".

"practically" - nope not at all - I have been annoyed with many of the releases of that CD - the early ones were excellent, and 2 years in, they had already "remastered" it and lost much of its dynamics....
That CD was re-mastered over and over (as have many others) - it would be nice to have access to the "Master Recording" (something which is technically viable, but I don't expect it will ever happen)

For quite a long time, the masters used for CD's went to the burners more or less unmolested. The below screenshot from Dynamic Range Database, with the releases ordered by year, shows the CD's leading the pack in DR over Vinyl by a good 2 points. CD's through 1995 measured at 16 and vinyl coming in at 14. Only some years after this did the knob wankers start leaning on compression with things starting to go bad after this.
Somebody get me a rope.
The good news is there's some light at the end of the tunnel, the engineers doing the remastering for Atmos and other immersive tecnologies tend to have more musical integratly than the jerks working on music for the "all loud, all the time" dance music crowds.

 

[Holmz]

You may either love or hate the music, that's a personal taste thing.
I was more referring to the sonic quality of the playback.
…

I never said I was talking about the music or the playback

 

[JP]

Once again I will say that vinyl has some very characteristic distortions, one set that enhances the sensation of complex sound stage, and another that creates a perceptual exaggeration to the dynamic range.

Hi, JJ. Any papers/literature about these characteristic distortions and these effects?

 

[Yannick Willox]

Hi, JJ. Any papers/literature about these characteristic distortions and these effects?

I wonder if they exist.
It is common knowledge that distorted sound sounds "louder". Logic dictates that a medium that adds more&more distortion as the (although limited) dynamic increases, it would give a louder impression on the loud parts.

I often get the comment during soundchecks that the recording "lacks" dynamics - which of course is not possible, given the fact the mics are always closer than the audience. What happens is twofold : a. musicians tend to play with too little dynamics (certainly when not performing live), b. they are not used to recording/playback chains with very little distortion.

Another anecdotal evidence : I recently bought a Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2 Noire, and my colleague was monitoring 12 (!) dB louder on them, than my personal comfortable volume. And he still insisted they sounded not loud enough ...

Most if not all real instruments add harmonics when playing louder, so our ear/brain must be trained in believing more harmonics = louder.

Last anecdote : 20 years ago I had to record 40-something straight piano's in a controlled comparative test. There were also 3 digital piano's. Setting the volume "by ear" resulted in a significantly lower average volume ! We averaged the average of the real piano's to get a target for the digital ones. None of them was able to reach that target volume. They were all on max. and sounded ridiculously loud, while actually being too soft ...

 

[j_j]

Hi, JJ. Any papers/literature about these characteristic distortions and these effects?

This isn't a complete answer, but please look at www.aes.org/sections/pnw for a variety of talks on "loudness". Loudness is a formal term for the perceived intensity.

 

[JP]

This isn't a complete answer, but please look at www.aes.org/sections/pnw for a variety of talks on "loudness". Loudness is a formal term for the perceived intensity.

Thank you. Loudness is the effect I was least interested in, rather the imaging "enhancements" were the core of my inquiry. Apologies for not being more specific. You'd motioned width and sound field here: #93

 

[j_j]

Thank you. Loudness is the effect I was least interested in, rather the imaging "enhancements" were the core of my inquiry. Apologies for not being more specific. You'd motioned width and sound field here: #93

The partial loudness vector is where imaging is extracted from, so the two issues are intimately related, but there is less published on how partial loudness vectors relate to imaging. (Partial loudness is the loudness of each ERB or critical band, if you're not familiar with the term.)

 

[antcollinet]

OK, analogue purists (if there are still any of you around)

Just refurbed my study and turned it into a cinema / music room. As a result there is nowhere near my amp to put the turntable. So I've just hooked up the preamp output to a blutetooth transmitter. That is transmitting to a MiniDSP flex where the muisic is digitally processed to make it sound even better, before being converted back to analogue and sent to the amp. It sounds fine.

I genuinely hope your heads have not exploded.