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On 2 Mar 2006 00:35:08 GMT, wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

If you *genuinely* want to compare CD to LP, then you must either
choose the very best of which each medium is capable, or stick to
standard 'mainstream' commercial output. If the latter, then LP
vanishes without trace - which you tacitly admit by your biased
argument.

Sorry but you do not get to dictate the rules of comparing LPs and CDs.
I will spell out how I compare them and how I reached my position on
their merits. You can complain then about my choices but you don't get
to tell me what initial choices I have to make about comparing them.

I get to point out that you are comparing apples with nutmegs, because
we all know where you're going with this phony 'fact-finding'
exercise.

This would be akin to my comparing 1970s 'Music for Pleasure' vinyl to
JVC XRCDs, to the exclusion of everything else.

No it wouldn't.

Sure it would. You wish to compare badly made CDs to immaculately made
'audiophile' label LPs, which is ridiculous. BTW, even those LPs still
suck compared to CD in accuracy terms, but you already know that.

The "real world"
for audiophiles is the vast catalog of commercail releases of CDs and
LPs the world over. by the way, one does not need to find a D2D to find
an Lp that has not had to have the mastr adjusted for the pupose of
cutting it. I'm not really sure why you are fixating on D2Ds.

I'm not the one who brought Sheffield Labs into the debate.

Indeed,
your risible reference to Sheffield Labs as a 'real commercial
company' is a complete giveaway.

Ridiculous. I cited the Shefields *along with other LPs* only to show
that certain claims made about *all* Lps were eroneous. Nothing more
nothing less.

No Scott, because you are reaching in one direction for badly made
CDs, but in the other for the *tiny* minority of heroically made LPs,
in order to create an unrealistic comparison of LP and CD.

If you want to refer to Sheffield output, then you must compare
'Treasury' LPs to the equivalent CDs, otherwise you're just concocting
a fairy tale.

'Real world' vinyl is full-speed mastered from a tape cutting master,
has its bass summed to mono below 100Hz and rolled off below 40 Hz,
has its dynamic range compressed to lift the 'low level' detail above
surface noise and soft-clip sharp peaks, and has its treble rolled off
above 13-15 kHz to protect the cutter head. That's the *real* world of
commercial vinyl, in the same way that a straight transfer of the
master tape to the glass master is the *real* world of commercial CD.

Wrong. Real worl vinyl is *any* vinyl that really exists from the best
to the worst.That goes way beyond the scope you are trying to set here.
It seems you want to argue the best vinyl out of existance to justify
your beliefs. That would be quite unfair and unreasonable for anyone
genuinely interested in what is better.

Nope, quite happy to accept the very best direct-cuts, versus a
mainstream' classical or jazz CD. You see, supporters of CD don't
*need* to make your outlandish stretches in order to establish the
truth about the accuracy of CD vs LP.

My statement above is simply a return to the reality of what you can
find in your local record store, rather than in your local 'high end'
audio store - where I bought all my Sheffields, Crystal Clear, Water
Lily etc etc.

In CD, mastering basically involves not degrading the sound of the
master tape on the way to the pressed CD, whereas in LP it involves
many 'dark arts' to squeeze as much as possible of the master tape
onto a medium which can only a encompass a part of the master tape
sound. This has nothing to do with which medium you may prefer, but it
certainly *does* have to do with the thread title.

This is not an accurate view of the art of mastering. Not even close.
It is a belief that IMO has lead to a large number of highly
compramised CDs which IMO is a root cause for many a preference for
vinyl. It does strike me as ironic that those who are willing to have a
blind faith in CD superiority are willing to do so to the point that it
would lead to an inferior product. Excellent mastering is not a simple
thing for either Lps or CDs.

For CD, it certainly is. Shame that you don't understand this.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering