How pure is the signal when it reaches our ears?
On Saturday, January 25, 2014 6:15:56 AM UTC-8, news wrote:
"ST" wrote in message ...
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On Saturday, January 4, 2014 11:14:59 PM UTC+8, Oregonian Haruspex wrote=
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On 2013-12-29 19:19:45 +0000, ST said:
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That sounds highly dubious at best. One way to tell for sure is to
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acquire a recent high-grade recording that has been printed to a CD and
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pressed to vinyl in the same form, mic up your listening room with some
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lab-grade mics, and play each of them over the same system. I but you
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can predict the outcome quite accurately.
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[For some unknown reasons, my replies being rejected at the server level=
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am trying once more ( maybe my fifth or sixth time) to reply. Now I am=
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using a new account and hope it reaches the mod.]
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That is the kind of evidence I am looking for. Technically, is it possib=
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to press exact replica of CD version on vinyl?
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On Wednesday, January 1, 2014 4:58:25 AM UTC+8, Ed Presson wrote:
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This view seems to ignore that the wavy, wobbly, and jittery signal tha=
t
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arrives the ear from the vinyl will be subject to further wavy, wobbly,=
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and
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jittery distortion once it leaves the speaker resulting in even more
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distortion. Somehow, I doubt that results in a closer representation o=
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live sound. Perhaps I've misunderstood the OP.
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Ed Presson
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Yes, the loudspeakers contribute a fair share of distortion but what=20
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matters here is how much of the sound wave is closer to the live=20
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performance when reaching the ears. Too much distortion in vinyl degrad=
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the sound, but here I am referring to the correct balance. I do agree s=
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digital recordings are very good. In most cases, I can't make out whe=
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it is vinyl or digital. I do not play vinyl but AB'ing the very best of=
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both formats, I find vinyl is musically more pleasant.
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I started this thread because all the discussions about vinyl and digit=
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is based on the ability of each medium to capture and replay the signal=
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close to the original sound recorded at source but not the actual signa=
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quality heard which is wobbling and jittery when reaching our ears.
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At close range, microphones capture a fraction of the total sound. In l=
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music, a bigger slice of the sound of instruments reaches our ears,=20
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although there too only a fraction of the entire sound reaches the ears=
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but the mix is entirely different compared to what's heard at close ran=
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The difference here is the whole sound loses it original wave shape by=
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interacting with other factors creating it own cocktail of coloration w=
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it arrives at our ears.
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Maybe, vinyl with his own distortion makes the sound natural when it=20
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arrives to our ears. So far, I have not seen actual measurement of live=
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digital vs vinyl measured at the ear level which hopefully provides a=
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better understanding about the real sound quality that matters to us fo=
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musical enjoyment (not accuracy).
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I think it was back 10 to 20 years ago and before, they would tailor the=
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sound recordings to produce a Master recording to fit onto a record witho=
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overcutting into adjacent tracks (grooves). That final master was then u=
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to produce the CD. This made CDs back then not sound as good as they cou=
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because the used the vinyl master to make the CDs as well.=20
This makes no sense. This was one of the most common explanations offered a=
s to why some of us find fault with so many CDs. But if we prefer the vinyl=
version cut from the same master it hardly explains what we don't like abo=
ut a CD cut from the same master. Further more, while this was done with so=
me LPs it was hardly done with all of them. Many LPs have been cut directly=
from original masters with none of the assumed rolling of the high frequen=
cies or folding of the bass to mono.=20
Now many=20
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recording companies are making Master Recordings for CDs and if they want=
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cut some vinyl too, they would have to make a separate vinyl master that=
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would cut out some of the bass and use some compression to reduce the rea=
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loud parts so that the record cutter doesn't cut into adjacent grooves.
No. The compression added to the CD mastering to make it as loud as possibl=
e actually is a potential problem. So with many new recordings they have to=
go to the original uncompressed master tape and cut from that or at least =
a copy of it. They don't have to cut out the bass. This is one reason why w=
e find so many people preferring the vinyl version of many new releases ove=
r the CD versions.=20
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So the answer is NO, a CD recording and a Vinyl recording will not be qui=
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the same!
Except when they are. There are a number of well documented examples.
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