Why do records sound so much better than digital?

[Robin L]

Both can be true, right?

Not really. Digital's issues are due to operator error. It is always possible to get the best results in the digital domain. The fact that the possibilities of the medium are abused is not the fault of the medium. A Steinway is of no use if you can't play the piano. On the other hand, the mastering required for LPs requires compromises. One can never get the best possible results with an LP mastering. The fact that sometimes the mastering of an LP sounds better than the digital version has to do with choices made at the mastering stage. If the right choices are made, the LP will always display sonic errors compared to a digital version. There is no escaping IGD.

 

[Sal1950]

A Google of your classic Philips CD104 turns up a some interesting stuff. This owner describes the 14-bit DAC chip, the CD104 uses. He reports that 16-bit resolution was achieved through use of oversampling and error correction/filtering.

My first CD player was a Magnavox CDB560, it sounded incredible to me. The Phillips base was used by a number of high end builders for their expensive redesigns. Only reason I replaced it was 1. The BS being tossed out in the media distorted my bias. 2. I lost it in a divorce. Replaced it with an expensive (for me) JVC XL-Z1050TN, built like a tank, heavy as one, and a very sexy design, if nothing else visual bias took it's sound up 10 points.

 

[Marc v E]

I've heard the argument about all the rituals concerning vinyl a lot. I even heard it concerning cds. In the end my user experience is much better now I can select my music on my phone. I honestly don't understand why anyone but a few would care about the rituals.

If we're talking vinyl and why its still popular that's all about habit and harmonic distortion if you ask me.
Same thing will happen with internal combustion cars being a collectors item. Stick to them beyond 2030 and you're a trendsetter.

 

[Wes]

If we're talking vinyl and why it's still worthwhile - that's all about performance that are unavailable or poorly recorded on digital media, if you ask me

 

[Sal1950]

Talk about heresy, here's a shocker for ya's, I just bought a turntable !!!
I got a good price on a RCA 45-EY-2 that needs work but I've been wanting one for a while now. Pure nostalgia
for sure, as I had a couple of them as a kid back in the 50s. The platter spins but the arm mechanics aren't working correctly
and all I get from the speaker is a hum. Maybe I send it to @restorer-john and get him to tune it up.
Now this is real High End for ya bro's

Otherwise I'll get-er done myself at some point. Now along with the table I got a stack of around 50 discs thrown in with the deal.
At least one of them is a ultra collectors item and a recording I've been longin fer all me life, check this jewel out.
And "Ultra High Fidelity" too, look, it says so right on the disc !!!!

How could this dude ever have released this disc, had he no shame. I think that was the frickin saddest thing I've ever heard.
Better he would have hung himself.

 

[GGroch]

Not really. Digital's issues are due to operator error. It is always possible to get the best results in the digital domain. The fact that the possibilities of the medium are abused is not the fault of the medium....

Production "errors" and format limitations don't determine production quality alone. The technical constraints of a medium has always been one factor in production choices, but the audience and likely listening environment of a medium is just as important.

In the mid 20th century, the loudness wars were driven by judgements on who would be playing a record, and where & when it would be played; not the relative fidelity of LPs vs. 45s. Today, if marketers judge that the primary audience for a particular format, say 180 gram vinyl, is audiophiles, then wise producers make choices to please audiophiles. Audiophiles most frequently listen using component audio in a quiet room and hate compression. This often results in increased dynamic range compared to digital releases despite vinyl's limitations. The end goal is happy customers, not just maximum fidelity.**

I do not think we disagree on this. But, blaming bad digital on "errors" sometimes misses the point. In any case, the media choice is a big part of the message, right?

** One example, there was a Telarc audiophile pressing of the 1812 Overture where the styli of lesser turntables would fly totally out of the groove at the first cannon shot. Dropping the cannon a couple of dB would have produced the greatest fidelity on most systems; but not the satisfied smile of an audiophile who's system passed the test. The 1812 became Telarc's biggest selling album of all time.

 

[Pluto]

Audiophiles have been evolving for less than a 100 years but look at the amazing golden ears they've achieved in such a short time!

What worries me is that, up until about 200 years ago, few humans ever heard anything much louder than about 80dBA and, when they did, it was typically highly transient (a thunderclap, that kind of thing).

Now people regularly and willingly subject their hearing to 95dBA++

Those golden ears are likely to become leaden before too long…

 

[Sal1950]

Now people regularly and willingly subject their hearing to 95dBA++

Those golden ears are likely to become leaden before too long…

Yep, it's a loud, mean, mechanized world.
And I love it.

 

[Inner Space]

What worries me is that, up until about 200 years ago, few humans ever heard anything much louder than about 80dBA and, when they did, it was typically highly transient (a thunderclap, that kind of thing).

They say the 1883 Krakatoa eruption reached 180dB SPL, audible 2,000 miles away, probably the loudest sound in history. The compression wave circled the earth three times. Glad I wasn't there.

 

[Robin L]

Production "errors" and format limitations don't determine production quality alone. The technical constraints of a medium has always been one factor in production choices, but the audience and likely listening environment of a medium is just as important.

In the mid 20th century, the loudness wars were driven by judgements on who would be playing a record, and where & when it would be played; not the relative fidelity of LPs vs. 45s. Today, if marketers judge that the primary audience for a particular format, say 180 gram vinyl, is audiophiles, then wise producers make choices to please audiophiles. Audiophiles most frequently listen using component audio in a quiet room and hate compression. This often results in increased dynamic range compared to digital releases despite vinyl's limitations. The goal end is happy customers, not just maximum fidelity.**

I do not think we disagree on this. But, blaming bad digital on "errors" sometimes misses the point. In any case, the media choice is a big part of the message, right?

** One example, there was a Telarc audiophile pressing of the 1812 Overture where the styli of lesser turntables would fly totally out of the groove at the first cannon shot. Dropping the cannon a couple of dB would have produced the greatest fidelity on most systems; but not the satisfied smile of an audiophile who's system passed the test.

I don't think we disagree in principle. However, having a disc that has the needle flying out of the groove in a lot of cases is a kind of operator error in itself. And bragging rights for gear that can handle that kind of error indicates one of the more neurotic aspects of audiophilus nervosa. The fact is, a CD could be made of the same music with an even greater dynamic range than that LP. And one might claim bragging rights with a recording of such wide dynamic range that one could be blowing out amps and speakers left and right instead of creating an untrackable LP. I'm sure you might recall or actually have one of the old BIS CDs with a dynamic range warning. I remember going to audio shops, late 1970s, early 1980s, where the Telarc "Firebird" LP was displaying those drum thwacks from an adjacent room. It was such a big deal at the time. As were Direct to Disc discs of limited musical value.

Yes media choice is part of the message. But it doesn't make it right or sensible or useful. Then again, being an audiophile in the first place is neither sensible nor useful.

 

[mohragk]

Both can be true, right?

Well, if you state one or the other, it's confusing when you later flip your statement. He stated that vinyl sounds better than digital, because digital is badly mastered. He later stated that vinyl is worse because it's technically inferior. So, what is it? Doesn't make sense.

 

[Frank Dernie]

In the mid 20th century, the loudness wars were driven by judgements on who would be playing a record,

Mid ?????
Surely end?
I don't remember any loudness wars levels of excess compression until the 1990s at the earliest and it is more a 21st century thing, since weird compression would have been hard to impossible in the 1950s, and certainly not what anybody was craving.

 

[Frgirard]

He stated that vinyl sounds better than digital, because digital is badly mastered.

the vinyl do not be mastered as the cd :'LOUD'. for technicals/mechanicals and of course commercial reasons

He later stated that vinyl is worse because it's technically inferior.

Electronic comb filtering in bass frequency when bass has recorded in stereo.
Inconstant pitch (in french called "pleurage") making the vinyl unsuitable for reproducing a piano. you haven't vibrato with the piano.
Decentering

do you understand ?

 

[GGroch]

....I don't remember any loudness wars levels of excess compression until the 1990s at the earliest and it is more a 21st century thing, since weird compression would have been hard to impossible in the 1950s...

Frank I think we are using the term differently.

In my view dynamic compression, the limiting of dynamic range, requires no technology. It can simply mean telling the artists to play or sing closer to the same volume or to step closer to the microphone. If your view of compression is restricted to the use of specific digital technologies, then of course it did not exist before the technologies existed. However, the ultimate source of all truth, Wikipedia, agrees with me dating the start of the loudness wars to 1940's 7" singles.

My point in the context of this discussion was that reduction of dynamic range was sometimes due to format limits (as in mastering for AM radio and early 78 phonographs). Just as often it was a decision based on audience preference and likely playback environment. Dance music, as well as any music designed to be played in loud environments like cars, bars, parties, was compressed. Frequently the 45 rpm and broadcast versions of a work were more highly compressed than the LP for these reasons. Whether this compression was a mistake or not is subjective.

 

[Robin L]

Frank I think we are using the term differently.

In my view dynamic compression, the limiting of dynamic range, requires no technology. It can simply mean telling the artists to play or sing closer to the same volume or to step closer to the microphone. If your view of compression is restricted to the use of specific digital technologies, then of course it did not exist before the technologies existed. However, the ultimate source of all truth, Wikipedia, agrees with me on this dating the start of the loudness wars to 1940's 7" singles.

My point in the context of this discussion was that reduction of dynamic range was sometimes due to format limits (as in mastering for AM radio and early 78 phonographs). Just as often it was a decision based on audience preference and likely playback environment. Dance music, as well as any music designed to be played in loud environments like cars, bars, parties, was compressed. Frequently the 45 rpm and broadcast versions of a work were more highly compressed than the LP for these reasons. Whether this compression was a mistake or not is subjective.

Before there was Dolby, recordings of Classical music used manual gain-riding on the fly to prevent the recording medium from being overloaded on peaks or swamped by noise in the dynamic valleys. And anyone listening attentively to pop [particularly in the sixties] will hear various creative and deliberate uses of dynamic compression. Complaints about dynamic compression often don't take the history of its use or the aesthetic intent of its use into consideration. The one recording I have that has the widest dynamic range [the Chailly/RCO Mahler's 3ed Symphony on SACD] could have used a little gain riding: if the peaks are at a comfortable playback level for that recording, the quietest passages are inaudible.

 

[Frgirard]

The compressor is an artitistic choice : the beattles.
The high compression is a commercial choice: High compression is not only the strong decrease of the dynamic range but the change of the tonal balance to attract the buyer's ear: Make Loud than the competition

 

[Frgirard]

he one recording I have that has the widest dynamic range [the Chailly/RCO Mahler's 3ed Symphony on SACD] could have used a little gain riding: if the peaks are at a comfortable playback level for that recording, the quietest passages are inaudible.

in an appartement, in a non treated room, at domestic spl: yes.

 

[Robin L]

in an appartement, in a non treated room, at domestic spl: yes.

Just about anywhere, in this specific case. And why make make a recording that requires manual gain-riding on the user's behalf in typical environments? This is just another in a series of essentially neurotic audiophile first-world problems.

 

[Frgirard]

Just about anywhere, in this specific case. And why make make a recording that requires manual gain-riding on the user's behalf in typical environments? This is just another in a series of essentially neurotic audiophile first-world problems.

it is fortunate that the production in classical music is not stereotyped

this label do not use compressor. http://www.passavantmusictest.fr/. in an appartement, in a non treated room, at domestic spl: NO.

 

[Robin L]

it is fortunate that the production in classical music is not stereotyped

this label do not use compressor. http://www.passavantmusictest.fr/. in an appartement, in a non treated room, at domestic spl: NO.

That's nice. Another boutique "audiophile" marque for recordings that aren't selling, presenting music people don't listen to.