[Sonnova]

On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:07:44 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:39:21 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):

snip

The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre. I'm
not inferring ANYTHING from that other than what I said.
The point is, the mastered version used for the LP could well sound
superior (to LP) if recorded on CD. You don't, and can't, know unless
you hear the same mastering on both formats.

Sigh! Look, I already stated that I transferred this 3-record set to CD and
that the CD I made sounds essentially like the record with all of the
excitement and visceral impact of the LP.

Sorry, I must've come in too late in the thread to see that statement.
That's not something that happens here (IME) - i.e. an LP 'enthusiast'
recording an LP to CD for comparison. Most find reasons why this just
cannot be a valid test. Clearly you've found that it is. And also that
the 'magic' is not in the playback, but further upstream.

Not necessarily. When transferring these LP sides to CD I still used my
turntable, my cartridge, and my phono preamp. But the point here is that
whatever makes this LP sound so damn good is transferrable to another medium
(digital) with the "magic" intact. . I.E. whatever it is, it's on the
records!


So there is no basis (in
this example) for concluding, as you clearly seem to have done, that one
format is more *real* than the other.

But in this case it IS. Like I said in another post, this LP sounds better
than any of the more than 2000 CDs I own. I would just like to know why.

Likely you'll never know, with all the 'hidden' variables in the process
that you have no information about. Then again, it might just be you -
your preference - a response to subtle artifacts that others would not
find miraculously realistic at all. That's the biggest buggaboo, IMO,
trying to relate how *you* identify realism relative to anyone else.
Yes, I know "sounds like live music", but that's not really much help,
since it's hard to directly compare peoples perceptions.

Personally, I have a number of LPs that sound better than their initial
release CD counterparts, but do not compare to the remastered CD
versions. None make me believe it's live music however. Ah well...

Keith Hughes