[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:42:36 -0700, Robert Peirce wrote
(in article ):

The first letter in the May/June Absolute Sound claims his LPs sound
significantly better than the same albums downloaded from HDtracks.
Ignoring for a moment that this might be true, I wonder how much depends
on equipment?


Excellent question. Truth to tell, LPs are a bit of a paradox. A cheap CD
player always sounds better (to my ears, at least) than a cheap turntable. An
expensive CD player sounds very much like a cheap one. There MAY be a sonic
difference between a $50 CD player and $5,000 CD player, but that difference
is largely subjective and may or may not show up in a DBT. OTOH, a cheap
turntable/arm/cartridge through a cheap phono preamp may sound O.K., BUT, the
same record played on a really good turntable/arm/cartridge costing thousands
and played through a very accurate RIAA phono preamp (such as the Parasound
JC-2) will sound unmistakably better in almost every way.

That leaves the question, will the LP of a superior sounding performance
sound better on an expensive phono rig than will the CD mastered from the
same master tape and played on any CD player?

I've mentioned this before, but I have a Classic Records remastering on 4
single sides on 200 gram vinyl at 45 RPM of Stravinsky's "Firebird" by Antal
Dorati and the London Philharmonic recorded by Mercury's Bob Fine. The
aforementioned Classic Record release was mastered by the recording's
original producer, Wilma Cozart Fine who also remastered all of the Living
Presence recordings (including the CD of this performance) for Philips in the
1990's. Fine said in an interview at the time that the CDs were
"indistinguishable from the master tapes." That being the case, one would
think that her later 45 RPM vinyl remaster of that same master tape would
sound pretty identical to the CD. I'm here to tell you that they sound
NOTHING alike. The LP sounds alive, with palpable imaging and much more
APPARENT dynamic range. It also sounds much cleaner and more real. I have
played the record vs the CD (with matched volume) for dozens of people, and
even though there is no doubt that they are BOTH the same performance, every
single listener has said that the LP sounds more like a real performance than
does the CD.

This is, of course, anecdotal (for whatever that's worth) but it does show
that just because digital is doubtless more accurate than analog ever could
be, that doesn't mean that commercially made CDs are always going to sound
better than vinyl records made from the same source. There are so many
variables in both processes that once cannot simply assume that the CD will
always sound better.

In fact, most newly remastered CDs of previously released pop material will
likely sound significantly worse than the original CD release, and if the
material is old enough to have first been released on vinyl, chances are a
prisstine vinyl copy will sound significantly better than the latest CD
master. That's just the nature of the modern music business.

Obviously, with pre-released material, the best any release can be is for the
final product to sound exactly like master mix. a carefully mastered
"audiophile" LP can indeed sound much better than a sloppily made or
purposefully altered CD release.

I have just begun to convert some LPs to 192/24 digital files using
PureVinyl and a TC Impact Twin. It happens the Impact Twin actually
plays the LP in order to convert it, and it is no problem whatsoever to
play the LP and the digital file through the same device. When I do
that I don't hear any difference.

I suspect, if I played the LP, or the file, through a top of the line
device and the other through something much poorer, I would hear a
difference. However, it would be the equipment, not the source. How
often do you think that might be the case? Maybe my hearing is just
shot.

In the case of high-resolution downloads, you are buying a pig in a poke.
The "masters" that HDTeacks and others sell copies of come from the record
companies which own them. Sometimes the record company makes the digital
conversion to 24-bit, sometimes they farm that out to a third party, and
sometimes the seller themselves do the analog-to-high-res conversion
themselves.

You, the buyer has no way of knowing what you are getting. You might be
getting a high-res conversion of the original master, or you might be getting
an upsampled 16-bit/44.1 Khz digital copy of the master that was made at
some time in the past to make CDs from. You also might be getting a third or
fourth generation copy of the master that was made and EQ'd to make LPs from.
It is also possible that the 24-bit copy sent to HDTracks was down converted
from a DSD master made a decade ago to create SACDs from. Any or all of these
scenarios have built-in room for incompetence, human error, and downright
chicanery.

So, as you can see. It's not a simple question. Yes, LPs can sound better
than the CD of the same material and LPs can also sound worse. But aith all
things being equal (and the seldom are) a well mastered CD from a good master
tape SHOULD sound better than any LP. That they don't is not the fault of
either technology, but rather the people involved.