Everyone agrees...

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Admin M@

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"Everyone agrees vinyl sounds better than CDs, except audio engineers and the people who invented the compact disc"

Why CDs May Actually Sound Better Than Vinyl - Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly

Also...
"In double-blind tests conducted by Levitin and others — some results of which were published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society — listeners cannot tell the difference between high-resolution audio and CD-quality audio."

"Every way you can measure it, digital is going to be superior," Metcalfe says. "It really does come down to the preference of the end user."


 Ya think?
 
Interesting read:
"I think some people interpret the lack of top end [on vinyl] and interpret an analog type of distortion as warmth," says Jim Anderson, a Grammy-winning recording engineer and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It's a misinterpretation of it. But if they like it, they like it. That's fine."

BUT, I gotta be honest M@-man, I got distracted by the Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time.

Drum roll please:

1. Dave Matthews Band

lol

Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time: The Complete List - Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
 
I think the current generation of music buyers (or stealers) have never heard vinyl, 8 track or cassette so their only points of reference are maybe CDs and MP3s. Vinyl is dead has been forever the few clinging to it are in denial.
 
CD's can sound very good. MP3's on the other hand cause me ear fatigue fairly quickly.

I couldn't figure out why I didn't listed to as much music as I used to, especially since I now had it located in a central database that could be accessed anywhere in my home. Then a buddy loaned my his DAC and a bunch of albums in FLAC format and I tore through them non-stop. Some of the FLACs were generated from HD masters as well. I gave him his stuff back and went out and grabbed an Audioengine D1 DAC for myself, for listening to music on my PC. I went on a bit of a FLAC album purchasing tear as well as converting a bunch of CD's.

So I grabbed an album that I had in 256K MP3, 16/88.2K FLAC, and CD (Pearl Jam - Ten) and compared them using headphones and the D1 DAC. I found that I couldn't tell much difference between the FLAC and the CD, but the MP3 just made me want to stop listening. I grabbed VH1 in 24/96 FLAC and I've never heard it sound better or more clear. Once I hit play I don't stop till it's finished.
 
ibanezfreak4 said:
Interesting read:
"I think some people interpret the lack of top end [on vinyl] and interpret an analog type of distortion as warmth," says Jim Anderson, a Grammy-winning recording engineer and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It's a misinterpretation of it. But if they like it, they like it. That's fine."

BUT, I gotta be honest M@-man, I got distracted by the Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time.

Drum roll please:

1. Dave Matthews Band

lol

Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time: The Complete List - Los Angeles | Los Angeles News and Events | LA Weekly
Click to expand...

Oh good, a listicle. That's a novel approach to journalism.
 
"It really does come down to the preference of the end user."

"Then our half-assed argument about anything to do with music is pointless." - No one ever.
 
I prefer vinyl if I'm going to purchase a physical copy of something, mostly because they are more interesting than cds as objects, and they also hold value infinitely better.
 
Pretty much all my vinyls sound better to me than my MP3s and CDs. I think I'm not rating them on quality, but feeling - I get much more from a vinyl with it's scratches and crackles than I do from a clinically perfect digital source. If I was in the mood for clinically perfect, then I would obviously go the digital route, but for me I prefer the warm characteristics that I get from vinyl. I'm pretty sure even though you don't hear all those analogue frequencies, your body still interprets them somehow with feeling.
 
I've always professed this. Personally I want to hear the music and not the medium.

There was also a very good seminar given by Andrew Scheps on the quality of streaming audio services in which he brought up the topic of mp3's having less information and the brain's 'patching' of the lost information as being tiring. It makes sense when you consider the tiring effect of fluorescent tube lighting rather than a steady continuous light source, even though the flashing is consciously undetectable.

On a related note I sold my 160gb iPod classic last week for a premium as they don't make them any more and bought a Fiio X5. 2 x 128gb cards and the option to expand the storage once larger sized mini SD cards become available means I am a very happy bunny. :)
 
luke said:
I think the current generation of music buyers (or stealers) have never heard vinyl, 8 track or cassette so their only points of reference are maybe CDs and MP3s. Vinyl is dead has been forever the few clinging to it are in denial.
Click to expand...

Sales numbers would show otherwise.

Vinyl Sales In 2014 See A 52 Percent Boost In U.S.

Although, vinyl could just be another fad right now. I do find it interesting however that subscription services showed an increase, and all forms of actual sales of music showed a decrease.... except vinyl.
 
luke said:
I think the current generation of music buyers (or stealers) have never heard vinyl, 8 track or cassette so their only points of reference are maybe CDs and MP3s. Vinyl is dead has been forever the few clinging to it are in denial.
Click to expand...

Can I augment this a bit? I think if all you've ever listened to is modern music that's mastered for digital consumption, you might not understand source material with a wide dynamic range. Producing for digital, where there are no physical limitations on what the reproduction system is capable of doing, has lead to the ability brick-wall limit your material with no consequence. You couldn't do this in a vinyl world because vinyl wouldn't let you -- the needle would pop out of the groove.

Older CDs that were mastered with the care and ears of mastering engineers who were pushing to both CD and vinyl sound great; lots of dynamic range. And the having it on CD meant no wear and tear, not dust pops, no RIAA filtering/defiltering, etc. -- a better overall sonic experience IMO.

If you listen to those older CDs today they sound quiet in comparison to modern CDs because they're not compressed to shit. But that's a good thing and we need to work to bring back that way of thinking. If having vinyl get popular again helps bring about this needed change, so be it. But I hope the changes can make it in to our digital audio offerings as well -- I believe they'd be better in all ways if that kind of vinyl-care was taken when mastering for them.
 
Hellbat said:
So I grabbed an album that I had in 256K MP3, 16/88.2K FLAC, and CD (Pearl Jam - Ten) and compared them using headphones and the D1 DAC. I found that I couldn't tell much difference between the FLAC and the CD, but the MP3 just made me want to stop listening. I grabbed VH1 in 24/96 FLAC and I've never heard it sound better or more clear. Once I hit play I don't stop till it's finished.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see you have someone set this up for you as a blind test.
 
Far too many other factors to consider even though they addressed a good number of them. First and foremost is placebo because the sad truth is that much of the early digital gear just wasn't very good. Once that stigma is assigned it becomes a predisposition. The other is that digital didn't have any of the natural compression of say tape which has a saturation point and tends to sound warmer. People were recording with lower quality converters and at 16 bit which is fine, but they were also recording and mastering very conservatively and with the old school though. Just listen to early original CD releases compared to remastered releases and the volume is much louder....louder equals better to a lot of people including myself at times.

The really big one to me though is the public's tendency to classify MP3 and other lossy formats with CD or just assigning it all to "digital" where if you have good quality converters and use the right levels and use a lossless or low compression format the quality is very, very good. Just the difference between 128kbs and 192kbs in MP3 turns a track from unlistenable to great for me.

And lastly the fact that digital has made recording very accessible because of cost means that we went from a highly trained and skilled group of engineers and producers to any chucklehead being able to put out a track. We had a lot of bad recordings and still do sometimes. Another is that because of the ease in which we can manipulate audio from bad or mediocre into passable means that performances suffer....and any time you manipulate the audio in that manner you are going to introduce some kind of anomaly. Instead of working for a perfect take we have people editing a perfect take.
 
Lots of epic/legendary names on that "bottom" 20 artist list... gotta' love music critics.

Those that can't do point and 'meh' at those who can.
 
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