Chung wrote:
Robert Peirce wrote:

In article , chung
wrote:

Well, I attended a piano recital by the rising star Yundi Li last week.
And throughout the recital, I kept thinking how close my CD rig sounds
to the live piano I was hearing. You know, the solid sustained notes,
the great dynamic range, and so on. There was no way the LP can
reproduce that piano sound without very noticeable degradation. That was
a reminder of why I like digital so much. As someone who owns a grand
piano, I can say without any doubt that the CD sounds so much better
than vinyl on piano music.

I have heard that is the case. I don't know why the piano should almost
always sound so much better on CD when other instruments don't (always).
You might think it is the percussive qualities, which a needle in a
groove might have trouble tracking, but certain drum sounds seem usually
to work better on vinyl, although not as much so as they used to.

The wow and flutter have the biggest impact on solid sustained piano
notes. Any inherent frquency instability (like wow and flutter) in the
turntable, any slight error in the record (off-centered holes) etc., and
of course any distortion and lack of dynamic range will show up readily,
especially on piano solos.

The wow/flutter issue shows up even more clearly on recordings of
instruments where sustained notes don't necessarily decay...like organ and
synthesizers.

In that sense CD was the saviour of Bach *and* prog rock ;

There is no doubt CD is getting very good, which means it must be close
to being replaced.

Assuming there are real advantages in the medium replacing it, of course.

Vinyl showed the most improvement after CD came out.

I am not sure if you can prove that statement. Some of the best discs I
own are direct-to-discs made in the late 70's.

Maybe he means turntable technology. Vinyl itself hasn't
made any technological leaps, AFAIK.


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-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
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