Does vinyl really sound better?

Skipped

“Aoccdrnig to rsereach at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

We do the same thing with sound: if there is enough information, our brains can fill in the gaps.

1. Do forum members accept that the human brain is capable of forming an impression from incomplete information, or "filling in the gaps"?

2. If so....Does this present us with difficulty in accepting the outcomes of double-blind testing (of audio presented at 2 different bit rates) at any point after the first exposure to the higher bit rate sample.

3. Is a double-blind test.... which consists of a single hearing of A followed by a single hearing of B, in which both tester and listener are perfectly aware that the lower bitrate sample will always appear first.....arguably compromised?


http://www.asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edition/asterisk-book-html-chunk/asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-SECT-3.html

http://www.asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edition/asterisk-book-html-chunk/asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-SECT-3.html#ftn.asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-FN-4

beed84

Personally, as much as I enjoy vinyl - especially soul records - in most cases I cannot distinguish a discernible difference between said format, CD and iTunes at 256kbps*.  So long as the music sounds good through my more than reasonable hifi, which it does, I couldn't say which one is better of the three, and at the time of listening, or after for that matter, I couldn't really care less about the technicalities. 

What I can say is that vinyl has undeniable charm in more ways than one, CDs deliver well, and mp3s are incredibly convenient and don't have to sound as bad as what people make out. 

Finally, if listeners of vinyl have the ability to pick up on the subtleties of a record, ones that potentially cannot be heard on a CD, then that's all they are, minor nuances.  It's then up to the listener to how highly they regard such intricacies. 

Overall, I hope everyone enjoys whatever they listen to, through whatever format.  That's the idea, right?

*As an honest admission, Stevie Wonder's I Was Made to Love Her (mastered by iTunes) does sound disappointingly pale in comparison to the original vinyl version.

imalone

Skipped said:

“Aoccdrnig to rsereach at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

We do the same thing with sound: if there is enough information, our brains can fill in the gaps.

1. Do forum members accept that the human brain is capable of forming an impression from incomplete information, or "filling in the gaps"?

2. If so....Does this present us with difficulty in accepting the outcomes of double-blind testing (of audio presented at 2 different bit rates) at any point after the first exposure to the higher bit rate sample.

3. Is a double-blind test.... which consists of a single hearing of A followed by a single hearing of B, in which both tester and listener are perfectly aware that the lower bitrate sample will always appear first.....arguably compromised?

Well, I can see the letters are out of order without reference to the 'correct' text. Your analogy is more like 'can I still understand speech over a noisy line', or, musically, 'can I still make out the tune'.
As for 3. that sounds unlike a double blind test. Unless you mean the other hearing is either the same again or the original. In which case, no, that's what it's testing.

monquixote

Skipped said:

“Aoccdrnig to rsereach at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

We do the same thing with sound: if there is enough information, our brains can fill in the gaps.

1. Do forum members accept that the human brain is capable of forming an impression from incomplete information, or "filling in the gaps"?

2. If so....Does this present us with difficulty in accepting the outcomes of double-blind testing (of audio presented at 2 different bit rates) at any point after the first exposure to the higher bit rate sample.

3. Is a double-blind test.... which consists of a single hearing of A followed by a single hearing of B, in which both tester and listener are perfectly aware that the lower bitrate sample will always appear first.....arguably compromised?


http://www.asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edition/asterisk-book-html-chunk/asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-SECT-3.html

http://www.asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edition/asterisk-book-html-chunk/asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-SECT-3.html#ftn.asterisk-UnderstandingVoIP-FN-4

Double blind audio tests are fine. I do them all the time for work for the most insignificantly tiny differences (I'm talking stuff where I may have to listen to a 3 or 4 seconds of audio 30 or 40 times in a silent room with studio grade headphones on to tell the difference). If the difference is perceivable and you put the time in you will get there. 

The amazing thing is that sometimes you just get an indefinable feeling and feeling like you are guessing, but guess the right answer 15 times in a row while others you are convinced and get no statistical significance at all.

They aren't flawless and there are quite a few issues you have to deal with, but it's the best tool we have and worth considerably more than any other mechanism available. 

Cacofonix

monquixote said:

Cacofonix said:

I see.  So there is no such thing as a stereogram, then?  That's the visual equivalent.

A stereogram has information encoded in it to be found.

White noise by definition does not. 

Unless it's a sonic signal.  Your earlier post said nothing can possibly be encoded in it due to [physics].  I sense a shift.

monquixote

Cacofonix said:

monquixote said:

Cacofonix said:

I see.  So there is no such thing as a stereogram, then?  That's the visual equivalent.

A stereogram has information encoded in it to be found.

White noise by definition does not. 

Unless it's a sonic signal.  Your earlier post said nothing can possibly be encoded in it due to [physics].  I sense a shift.

Er no 

What do you mean by a sonic signal?

Vinyl is a physical displacement. 

Just to be clear noise is what is not signal (hence signal to noise ratio) anything you show me that has data in it is not noise by definition.

imalone

Danny1969 said:

Drew

It's nothing to do with floating point, if you sample something 44.4k times a second that's all the information you have whever there was more information there or not. From that point you can't improve on it, same as blowing up a picture that only contained 1 mega pixels won't get you higher res, it will just pixel-ate 

Rounding up to the nearest number is irrelevant 

Imagine you looked at a record groove with a massive massive telescope, it's possible you could detect more than 44.4K changes of amplitude in a one second run .... therefore the record holds more resolution that the CD as the CD has only got it's 44.4K levels the rest is provided by the filters

You're confusing continuous with infinite bandwidth, it's not the same. With sampling it's easy to see what the limit is, with analogue systems it's not so obvious but it is there. Limits on the lathe of the vinyl have already been mentioned, also the read needle, these are physical systems with mass, there's a limit to how fast they can move in response to the grooves, there are also (probably higher) limits set by the material itself, its elasticity and hardness for example which will determine how sharp the variations in the track you can cut are and whether they'll survive being read. Photographic analogy, if you blow up a film frame you'll find out that it has grain, people like Ansel Adams who took landscape pictures intended to be reproduced very large used gigantic negative frames of film. I was actually at university early enough to have pictures taken with that kind of kit before it all went digital (believe it or not that was this millenium).
The opto-electronics in a CD player can respond much faster than a record needle ever could (as can the memory bandwidth in your computer), the limits become what it's reasonable to store and how good the filters for ADC / DAC need to be.
Actually, quote from this thread http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=98178 puts it rather well:

"This is wrong, i believe. Vinyl has inherent theoretical high and low end frequency limits due to the material medium. It also has inherent limits in other areas such as, among other things, distortion and noise.

What it lacks is a theoretical upper frequency limit due to the encoding. Digital overcomes the inherent physical limits of the medium and replaces these with an inherent high frequency limit due to the encoding."

An interesting tangential read is something called CD4, which was an analogue quadrophonic encoding. http://www.reddiamondaudio.net/quadraphonic_sound_reproduction.html#CD-4 for the vinyl version they had to be able to put ultrasonic frequencies onto vinyl (as a carrier frequency, the audio playback was filtered to <20kHz). I haven't found rpm, so I guess this is still at 33, but it required improvement to the disc materials, pickup cartridges, distortion, all the things you might think would limit the playback of vinyl, which is still a good reason to low pass filter when recording the discs.
Ultimately CD, vinyl/celluloid and tape were all compromises on what the technology could achieve and listening quality. There's a reason records play at 33.
As for lossy, it's a necessary evil that can be quite good. It's a pity MP3 is still the most widely used standard, since that's a bit like still using shellac records.
And for all that, if you prefer the sound of a particular medium that's fine. There's probably someone out there who likes 128bps MP3 (it's just not hip to admit to it).

Drew_TNBD

I did see a report that suggested younger listeners prefer low-bitrate mp3's to high quality lossless formats. Very odd. Will try and dig it out.

Clarky

I prefer CD to vinyl.. always have..

and I've never bought into the analogue is better cos it has all the information and digital loses stuff thing..

that's just not true..

another thing to consider about all this is the source.. like before the audio makes it to CD or vinyl..

things were recorded and processed very differently back when vinyl ruled the roost..

so everything is different..

Cirrus

Drew_fx said:

I did see a report that suggested younger listeners prefer low-bitrate mp3's to high quality lossless formats. Very odd. Will try and dig it out.

Some of that is just that your ears get accustomed to a sound - just like listeners of a certain generation got used to Vinyl, or guitar players have come to believe that valve distortion sounds good. It's just what we're used to. I have to admit when mixing music I like to pseudo-master it before listening in other environments; I'm simply used to the sound of mix compression and limiting when listening in the car after 15 years+ of over-loud commercial releases and I've become conditioned to expect that sound.

Whereas in the studio when actually recording/ mixing I approach the sonics from a different perspective and can hear limiting and overcompression for what they are; dynamics and clarity destroying compromises.

Reverend

I like mp3s. They are more than good enough to listen to whilst taking the tube to work.

Overall I prefer vinyl, but sadly have more CDs at the moment. At least until I buy another 500 or so LPs.

Emp_Fab

TheMarlin said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

@TheMarlin I still have my JVC JA-S11G, bougt in 1978 from a mate's mum's catalogue.. For cheap Japanese electronics, it's excellent except the switchgear needs a good cleanup but that's do-able.

I love top end valve hifi, but I always keep a JAS11 under the bed as a backup - I like them that much .  

I keep buying them on eBay for under £10, give them a clean, then, usually, give them away to friends interested in hifi.  It's a fantastic starting point.

M

@TheMarlin  Under £10 ???   I'm after one and I can't find anything less than £50 :-/  What are you searching for ? 

I adore 80's kit.  Visually it's beautiful...  I've been trying to get hold of a champagne TEAC Reference system for ages - not because I have any knowledge of the quality but because it's just so damned sexy to look at :-)

   

Danny1969

imalone said:

Danny1969 said:

Drew

It's nothing to do with floating point, if you sample something 44.4k times a second that's all the information you have whever there was more information there or not. From that point you can't improve on it, same as blowing up a picture that only contained 1 mega pixels won't get you higher res, it will just pixel-ate 

Rounding up to the nearest number is irrelevant 

Imagine you looked at a record groove with a massive massive telescope, it's possible you could detect more than 44.4K changes of amplitude in a one second run .... therefore the record holds more resolution that the CD as the CD has only got it's 44.4K levels the rest is provided by the filters

You're confusing continuous with infinite bandwidth, it's not the same. With sampling it's easy to see what the limit is, with analogue systems it's not so obvious but it is there. 

I didn't explain myself very well. What I mean is with a 16 bit CD sampled at 44.1 we have about 65 thousand levels of amplitude which are then effectively joined up by the filters. The groove in the record can contain more data then this and ironically the failings of the mechanical lathe will actually contribute to the amount of data as a mechanical component can't do exactly the same cut each time. So under a very powerful means of observation or laser measurement you could find more than 65 thousand different heights in the groove, thus the record is capable of holding more data or information as nonsense and unreadable as it will be it's there. Now the CD contains more than 65 thousand levels of amplitude but the deficit is constructed by the filters in a predictable way. There will be more randomization in the record groove if we studied that as data. 

None of which would help in the reproduction of music and none of it will help in the area of frequency response and dynamics range ...... in both areas the CD will out perform a record. 

Another interesting point in terms of what sounds better rather than what is technically better is digital mixing (called in the box when the whole thing is mixed in the digital domain of your DAW) or out the box where we feed out of the DAW's multiple outputs into the analog channels of a mixer. Now the in the box method is obviously immune from any noise or distortion but the out of the box mix with added distortion and inevitable noise if often preferred despite being more expensive. Because again what sounds better isn't whats technically better on paper 

Heartfeltdawn

Cirrus said:

A side effect of the above is that cheaper converters, with poor filters, often sound better at higher sample rates while top end pro stuff has much less of a sonic hit at 44.1 because the filters are simply of a higher quality. Then there's other quality-dependent effects like clock jitter and the slew rate of the op amps which can also limit fidelity.

 Bit depth is much more important IMO. At 16 bit, I can hear some detail, the really quiet stuff like cymbal tails and room reverb, sounds flat and less real. 24 bit and higher sounds better.

Absolutely. Audio through my SPL Crimson at 44.1khz sounds so much better than the old RME and M-Audio PCI cards I had at 88.2khz due to the better converters on the SPL. 

Likewise, going from 44.1 to 88.2 on the SPL doesn't reveal a huge improvement in sound. On the RME and M-Audio cards, there was. 

 

Fretwired

Another interesting article .. Rega recently sold 5,000 turntables in a single month, the most since the company was founded 41 years ago. I still have my old Rega 2 and 3 decks ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/style/international/music-technology-comes-full-circle.html?src=twr&_r=3

ICBM

Fretwired said:

Another interesting article .. Rega recently sold 5,000 turntables in a single month, the most since the company was founded 41 years ago.

Is that because they're one of the only few makers left?

I can't imagine overall turntable sales are at anything more than a tiny fraction of the level in the 80s.

Fretwired

ICBM said:

Fretwired said:

Another interesting article .. Rega recently sold 5,000 turntables in a single month, the most since the company was founded 41 years ago.

Is that because they're one of the only few makers left?

I can't imagine overall turntable sales are at anything more than a tiny fraction of the level in the 80s.

I would have thought so .... not bad though for a small BRitish manufacturer.

Phil_aka_Pip

ICBM said:

Fretwired said:

Another interesting article .. Rega recently sold 5,000 turntables in a single month, the most since the company was founded 41 years ago.

Is that because they're one of the only few makers left?

I can't imagine overall turntable sales are at anything more than a tiny fraction of the level in the 80s.

They're not, but there are still makers of turntable gear such as Pro-Ject (Henley Designs), Michell, SME, Thorens, and probably even Linn still peddling their wares. Good luck to 'em

Fretwired

Phil_aka_Pip said:

ICBM said:

Fretwired said:

Another interesting article .. Rega recently sold 5,000 turntables in a single month, the most since the company was founded 41 years ago.

Is that because they're one of the only few makers left?

I can't imagine overall turntable sales are at anything more than a tiny fraction of the level in the 80s.

They're not, but there are still makers of turntable gear such as Pro-Ject (Henley Designs), Michell, SME, Thorens, and probably even Linn still peddling their wares. Good luck to 'em

But there are fewer makers than in the 1970s ...

Fretwired

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5626058/vinyls-great-but-its-not-better-than-cds