Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[SteveJewels]

mp3 is not a 'sample rate'. Nor is 'mp3' a single, monolithic quality. The quality of an MP3 is a variable that is specified during encoding.

You are correct of course. MP3 is a compression scheme and not a sampling rate, but it is lossy compression and never good.

 

[j_j]

They were also pushing very hard past Redbook... SACD, DSD... high sample rates in general.

No, when Redbook CD came out, it was hard to achieve. People worked with 44.1 48 and 50 (Tom S) for quite a few years.

 

[j_j]

I think you meant, Do we know why "some" records sound so much better than digital yet?

Why yes we do, and we also know why many digital recordings sound so much better than many records

Thanks for asking!

First, I think you missed the sarcasm.

Second, what's your take on the question you claim to know the answer to, there?

 

[richard12511]

Listening to music, obviously. I don't have and don't want a smartphone.

Gotcha! I was assuming you had a smartphone, but if you don't, then that makes sense.

 

[scott wurcer]

View attachment 122239

"Obviously it HAD to be alien technology."

 

[sal]

No, when Redbook CD came out, it was hard to achieve. People worked with 44.1 48 and 50 (Tom S) for quite a few years.

I’ll take your word for that. But I can also say from personal experience, there was a high level of interest in high sample rate recordings in the circles I ran in. Mostly solo recordings for violin artists. (I was in the video end of things, not studio recording)

 

[oivavoi]

Ok, haven't read this whole thread, so sorry if this post adds absolutely no value. Just wanted to say that for me personally listening to vinyl just drives me nuts. Yap. All those defects just annoy the h*** out of me. I've listened to really good vinyl setups, which cost more than my annual salary, and I still disliked it just as much.

Like, why would anyone want to add pops and hiss and tizz and all of that to music, when we have digital recordings where there's just the beautiful music and nothing else? I really don't get it. I understand the fascination with the ritual, the physical sensation, etc. But the sound itself? Nah.

The one blind study we have to date - referenced on the first page - supports that I'm not alone in perceiving it this way, when peeking is not allowed. In my view the vinyl resurgence is about tied with MQA when it comes to "most stupidest thing happening in audio right now". Let's make CDs great again.

 

[ahofer]

I’ll take your word for that. But I can also say from personal experience, there was a high level of interest in high sample rate recordings in the circles I ran in. Mostly solo recordings for violin artists. (I was in the video end of things, not studio recording)

From the consumer side, I remember DAC oversampling as a trend that emerged pretty quickly (1984-1985?), but higher recorded sampling rates were only something we heard happening in studios. I can’t honestly remember when I bought my first SACD player (the beefy Sony SCD-1). I had resisted some of the earlier hi bitrate innovation (there was some label that sold specially coded 20-bit recordings..?)

I remember a salesman at lyric telling me that the new Esoteric transport and DAC were “nearly as good as a turntable”, in 1987. Similar remarks about my Theta in the early 1990s. Yet somehow, in the intervening 34 years, with all our efforts, sampling rates, and imaginary jitter banished, the gap seems to have widened.....

Or maybe they meant “just a turntable, no cartridge”.

 

[sal]

From the consumer side, I remember DAC oversampling as a trend that emerged pretty quickly (1984-1985?), but higher recorded sampling rates were only something we heard happening in studios. I can’t honestly remember when I bought my first SACD player (the beefy Sony SCD-1). I had resisted some of the earlier hi bitrate innovation (there was some label that sold specially coded 20-bit recordings..?)

I remember a salesman at lyric telling me that the new Esoteric transport and DAC were “nearly as good as a turntable”, in 1987. Similar remarks about my Theta in the early 1990s. Yet somehow, in the intervening 34 years, with all our efforts, sampling rates, and imaginary jitter banished, the gap seems to have widened.....

Well, this was the late 90s, early 2000s when SACD came out. And one of the desires was to be able to record and convey the qualities of Stradivari/Guarneri del Gesu violins in the hands of a master artist. I can tell you that in person, the differences between these and lesser violins was quite astonishing. So it was natural to want to capture that in as lossless way possible.

For all the talk about high sample rates not being worth it. I can say that when you are are trying to capture a single instrument, or voice, there is a significant difference between 16/44.1 and "hi-rez" - which at the time was SACD or equivalent of 24/88.2.

What became of all that talk at the time, I don't know. I moved on to a different career, and don't really follow classical music

 

[adc]

Oh, man. A 15 page thread for a topic that's barely 2 days old .... do you guys have jobs, family, or friends?

Since opinions are like ... well, everybody's got one, I'm just gonna go ahead and confess that as soon as I could afford to, I ripped all my vinyl to FLAC, then started replacing most of it with CDs -- going out of my way to find first-release CDs on eBay wherever I could, but accepting whatever I could get in some cases. Cuz seriously, folks -- compression sucks, but it doesn't suck as much as pops, ticks, and sibilance.

The best phono cartridges I could afford in my 20s were elliptical, and in my 30s were line-contact (and that was only because they were being dumped at stupid-cheap because anyone with any sense had moved on to CDs), and still, there was high frequency distortion that drove me to distraction. The amount of money I would have had to spend to make my vinyl sound as good as a cheap CD player is just insane, and I think, for me, that's the nut of this whole debate: ROI.

I'm also objective enough to know that if I did have mid-5 figures worth of cash lying around to spend on a audio equipment (and trust me, I do not), that money would be much better spent on speakers than on anything else in the chain.

But, as Dennis Miller would say, that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

 

[oivavoi]

Well, this was the late 90s, early 2000s when SACD came out. And one of the desires was to be able to record and convey the qualities of Stradivari/Guarneri del Gesu violins in the hands of a master artist. I can tell you that in person, the differences between these and lesser violins was quite astonishing. So it was natural to want to capture that in as lossless way possible.

There have been two or three studies on this, and they indicate that both performers and listeners prefer modern violins over stradivaris. You may be aware of this, but just mentioning it for others reading this thread: Research suggests modern violins outperform prestigious, old Italian models - UPI.com

In the piano playing world (which I come from) this tendency is taken as given, as everybody knows that a musical instrument made of wood (like a piano) deteriorates with age. But for some reason, some violinists and conductors etc refused to believe that this was the case for violins as well.

 

[sal]

There have been two or three studies on this, and they indicate that both performers and listeners prefer modern violins over stradivaris. You may be aware of this, but just mentioning it for others reading this thread: Research suggests modern violins outperform prestigious, old Italian models - UPI.com

In the piano playing world (which I come from) this tendency is taken as given, as everybody knows that a musical instrument made of wood (like a piano) deteriorates with age. But for some reason, some violinists and conductors etc refused to believe that this was the case for violins as well.

I left that world 20 years ago. It was amazing to me that these 300 year old violins were still being played. Some sold for millions of dollars. You can imagine the incentive for hi res recordings

- I don't doubt the study, but you certainly can't sell a new violin for millions of dollars

 

[oivavoi]

I left that world 20 years ago. It was amazing to me that these 300 year old violins were still being played. Some sold for millions of dollars. You can imagine the incentive for hi res recordings

I see your point. I have performed with a semi-pro choir in churches in Europe with church organs of about the same age, and it does inspire a certain awe that Beethoven may have heard the same organ play...

 

[j_j]

Oh, man. A 15 page thread for a topic that's barely 2 days old .... do you guys have jobs, family, or friends?

You were never on USENET, were you?

 

[levimax]

Let's make CDs great again.

That is the problem, as recorded music enthusiasts, which is a very small percentage of the music purchasing market, we have NO power to make CD's or any other digital music "great again" and unfortunately we are forced to look back in time for high quality recordings (I'm talking about popular music not classical). I guess I am not bothered by noise very much but I am bothered by heavy handed compression so I find most old records to sound better than most modern recordings. My absolute favorite recordings are well recorded and mastered older recordings that are well transferred to digital or some of the original digital recordings made in the 80's and early 90's that are not remastered.

 

[oivavoi]

My absolute favorite recordings are well recorded and mastered older recordings that are well transferred to digital or some of the original digital recordings made in the 80's and early 90's that are not remastered.

Very much agree. I listen about 50/50 to classical&jazz vs popular music, and when it comes to popular music it's very much the case as you say. But the 80s and early 90s was also a great period for classical recordings actually, there was more money in recording back then. Still, great jazz and classical recordings are still being made.

 

[Frank Dernie]

DSD is no good for manipulation at any rate. My understanding is that most of the DSD recording lived in PCM at some time...for the purposes of manipulation

As I wrote, DSD is pointless. #274
Having more than 16-bits of dynamic range can be handy if you want to doi a lot of manipulation and allows level setting to be slapdash without losing info.
Care and precision in setting levels was an important skill with analogue recorders, became easy with 16 bit (if you had been using analogue anyway) and any twit can do it in 24 bit (which is, of course only 20 ~bit anyway).

 

[Frank Dernie]

And one of the desires was to be able to record and convey the qualities of Stradivari/Guarneri del Gesu violins in the hands of a master artist. I can tell you that in person, the differences between these and lesser violins was quite astonishing. So it was natural to want to capture that in as lossless way possible.

For all the talk about high sample rates not being worth it. I can say that when you are are trying to capture a single instrument, or voice, there is a significant difference between 16/44.1 and "hi-rez" - which at the time was SACD or equivalent of 24/88.2.

I agree with the first part that you want to capture sound as precisely as possible. Microphone choice and position make a (much) bigger difference than the recorder sampling rate though.
Not the second. Every audible part of music is captured at 16/44 IME.
Higher rate recording has some benefits but not for better SQ.
OTOH it has been very succesfully marketed as better to the technically uneducated.

 

[restorer-john]

Let's make CDs great again.

We need hats and t-shirts.

 

[Wombat]

OP: Ask your audiologist and therapist. They probably can set you right. This knowledgeable forum doesn't seem to suffice.