Yes. I've owned many over the years. The tone arm pivots on most turntables, and this creates subtle but definable pitch variations. You also get pitch variations due to warping of the vinyl, which cause the needle to speed up and slow down as it climbs and falls over the warp.
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Does vinyl sound better?
- Thread starter Nowhere Man
- Start date
Yes. I've owned many over the years. The tone arm pivots on most turntables, and this creates subtle but definable pitch variations. You also get pitch variations due to warping of the vinyl, which cause the needle to speed up and slow down as it climbs and falls over the warp.
Not quite the same, even I can tell the difference between CDs and standard 128kbps mp3s.
I ripped all my CDs to mp3s at 128kbps. Sounded fine on the computer. But when I got an mp3 player I plugged it into my home stereo (which is low end for a home stereo). The difference was obvious. My wife came in and told me my tape was bad
So I re-ripped the entire collection with variable bit rate and now I can't tell the difference between the CD and the mp3.
I'll concede that a warped record will result in pitch fluctuations.
I'm also 100% certain that my turntable revolves at a constant 33 1/3 rpm regardless of where the needle is. There is no drop in pitch toward the center of the record on my system, sorry.
You may be confusing this with the well-known phenomenon that sound quality degrades toward the center of the record because the needle isn't moving as fast through the groove. This might result in distortion, loss of high frequencies, etc. but not fluctuation in pitch.
I believe vinyl sounds different than CD, but I also believe that anyone who claims that one sounds "better" than the other is really only confessing that they are less bothered by the artifacts of one than the other.
As I once read, vinyls inherent coloring required a lot of specific audio mastering and equalization to get the 'right' sound to come from the users turntable and it was an art to do so.
When CDs came out, audio engineers continued using the same mastering and equalization techniques on a medium with diffrerent characteristics and the result was cold, sterile sound that defined impressions of early CDs.
When engineers stopped coloring the sound for the medium and just put the clean master on the CD medium without excess coloring normally done for vinyl, the recordings improved immensely.
I don't know if that is true but it makes sense to me and fits my observations.
If people like vinyl better, in my opinion it is because they have developed expectations and an affinity for the particular background noise of that medium. Beyond a certain point, the ear simply cannot distinguish between digital and analog sound and the only real difference is the coloration of the medium itself.
When CDs came out, audio engineers continued using the same mastering and equalization techniques on a medium with diffrerent characteristics and the result was cold, sterile sound that defined impressions of early CDs.
When engineers stopped coloring the sound for the medium and just put the clean master on the CD medium without excess coloring normally done for vinyl, the recordings improved immensely.
I don't know if that is true but it makes sense to me and fits my observations.
If people like vinyl better, in my opinion it is because they have developed expectations and an affinity for the particular background noise of that medium. Beyond a certain point, the ear simply cannot distinguish between digital and analog sound and the only real difference is the coloration of the medium itself.
svtb15
Inactive
- Mar 22, 2004
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- I play it all. Whatever works for the gig. Q+
What? The increased resolution DIRECTLY affects the noise floor. The amount of dynamic range does affect recording techniques, because if your are not efficiently using the available amplitude, you will decrease the SNR.
I would like to be very clear about the semantics on this - it's not only the distortion, but also the upper and lower frequency rolloff and the limited dynamic range that I unabashedly adore about the vinyl format.
Simiarly, I like CDs way better when they lose the extreme lows and highs and have some distortion from a tube stereo amp. I had my bands CD mastered to replicate a vinyl EQ curve. In my opinion, for most music anything below about 60 hz or above about 17k is only a detriment. Too much low content is counterproductive, it makes the lows muddy and hard to track the pitch, and too much high end is annoying.
I don't necessarily blame the digital formats for this - just because you can include audio in those frequencies in no way makes it required.
This opinion of mine is not obscure or unusual. If you ask most people who have good stereo systems what they think of the low end on Beatles records, you typically hear a lot of praise for the clarity and presence of the lows. All of those records whether on LP or CD have little information below 80hz. These are not contradictory observations - they have a direct relationship to one another.
That's part of it but it is also because record players cannot duplicate recordings with 100% accuracy. There is always some frequency loss.
No, it doesn't. Again, it affects it only indirectly because since we have greater dynamic range available to us in a larger bit depth (and in fact more than our analog signals can use) it makes sense to use more of that range by recording at lower average levels.
The noise floor in any modern practical application is determined by the analog front end, not the converter. If you don't change your input level to the converter, the noise floor can only be ever so slightly differently located as a discrete value in 24 bit vs 16 (which is not necessarily going to mean lower); this possible distinction is far, far below what a person can perceive.
Dunno what all the argument is all about because 8-tracks sounded best forever!
There is a certain warmth from vinyl but I prefer CD for it's convenience and consistency. About the only time I spin vinyl is to burn one of my old Lps into a digital copy.
There is a certain warmth from vinyl but I prefer CD for it's convenience and consistency. About the only time I spin vinyl is to burn one of my old Lps into a digital copy.
All recording mediums involve some sort of selection of frequency response and various other compromises and selections compared to real world events being recorded. There is no such thing as a perfect recording, thus far anyway. Sounds are complex, 3 dimensional real world events whose perception is always subjective. Even if you and I were in the same room listening to the same thing, we're hearing it two different ways. Which one is the "right" one so that you could claim a recording of it compared to that hearing represents a perfect recording ?
That said, yes, LPs are clearly more limited in frequency response than digital formats. Which I think is GREAT.
Do you actually know anything about sample theory? I have a degree in electrical engineering specializing in signal processing. I'm no expert, but bit depth DIRECTLY affects noise. See this video starting at 45:49 for an example.
Invalid Link Removed
Why yes, as a matter of fact I do. I know a thing or two about recording practice, as well.
I'm hardly going to go to the trouble to wait for 45 minutes of Youtube video to load to see whatever it is you are using as your reference. Surely you can find an article on a web page from some sort of authority on the subject to make your point.
You know you can click the progress bar at anytime on the video and it will start loading from that point.
As 3506 said, just click the progress bar and it will load from whatever point you want. I'm not using it as a reference, I'm using it as a concrete, real world example. I don't feel like digging out my old textbooks right now to scan a suitable derivation, but here's a poor reference I found through the amazing google: Link Removed
Edit: a better reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(signal_processing)#Bit_depth_.28quantization.29
Although I respect what Gio S is saying in the first part of his post, this second part is what always gets to me. When comparing formats under the premise "Does vinyl sound better" two sorts of answers pop up. One addresses the mathematics of the different of the two formats. CD has a greater dynamic range and higher frequency response. Sampling aside (because I've never seen the study that says that the same shlub can choose between CD and vinyl under ideal conditions reliably, but I'm willing to be enlightened) The CD ought to be able to capture the performance more closely, which would sound more realistic. This could easily qualify as better.
However, there is another sort of answer that crops up. It takes the form of "Vinyl sounds better because of extra-musical properties" or "Vinyl sounds better because of something that isn't/cant be measured, or just how it makes me feel." In my opinion, these answers don't qualify in the realm of this question, because they don't fit the scope of what we are dealing with.
Let me explain. Let's say I drive an original VW Beatle. It's in horrible condition, almost never starts without a a struggle, and has an exhaust leak in the cabin. You may ask "Lumps, Why don't you drive something better, like almost anything?"
In this case, If I reply that I can't afford anything better, I answer the question "why? If, however, I say "Because this car is yellow." I'm actually addressing the qualification "Better" more closely than "why? The car being yellow has nothing to do with its ability to operate; it's a reflection on my aesthetic preferences. That might qualify the car as better, but only under a skewed understanding of better. When we talk about better in reference to cars, it's logical to address the driveability, resale, safety, and such.
In back to the debate at hand, even if a vinyl recording has a certain extra musical something (better album art, nostalgic connections) These seem to be qualifications outside of the sorts of things we talk about when comparing the sound of one medium to another. If the breaking point was the ability to feature enormous album art and nothing else mattered, you can bet your grandma that CD's would be the dimensions of laserdisks and come in limited runs of production.
When comparing two mediums, we can also talk about artifacts, harmonics, distortion. My view is this. The medium that most closely represents the performance intended qualifies as the better medium, so long as the difference is audible. It does no good to nitpick over things that are beyond the trained ear's ability to perceive. This said, any additional distortion or EQ my provide a pleasing result, and may in fact be the intention of the artist. A vinyl may in fact produce a pleasant distortion (it certainly becomes distorted the more its played) and this may be in line with the performance. If it sounds better to the individual, then that is certainly one thing. This is the aesthetic preference of the individual. Go team. However, the discussion of which medium sounds better because its more accurate is a mathematical debate, and the argument about which is more pleasing is an aesthetic one.
Also, and not to pick on anyone, but the sciences of physics, audiology and the particular application to musical mediums are very well understood. We posses the ability to measure with stupid precision exactly what is happening when we turn data into sound. To think that there is something happening that is beyond the realm of our ability to measure when it comes to vinyl is a startling thought to me. I'd be interested to learn about a new type of energy transmission or interaction between a vinyl record and the listener, but I'm skeptical that there is anything going on that is beyond our ability to at least describe.
The above post is entirely too long and should not have been read by anyone. Also, the height of my nose in the air is entirely subject to interpretation.
