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wrote:
wrote:

Amateur musicians such as myself and even more so professional
musicians such as Jenn are aware that music exists as a balance of
qualties. The only distortion mechanisms you've ever proposed, if they
were the cause of this vinyl preference, would *upset*, not *preserve*
these balances. You have never proposed a distortion mechanism that
would preserve the musician's intentions, and yet that is how I (and
apparently Jenn) experience analog.

Yet more evidence that your perceptions are not necessarily a good
measure of objective reality.

I think ths statement says a lot about your misunderstandings of the
relationship or lack there of between human perceptions and this so
called "objective rality."

Those distortions are there, easily measurable, and--by the standards
of modern audio reproduction--quite large in magnitude.

By any standards? I'd like to see the evidence that the inherent
distortions of the medium are quite large in magnitude in relationhip
to the human experience of listening to stereo playback of commercial
recordings. that is after all the only relevant measure of distortion
in audiophilia other than the same for the recording end of things.

Given that, we
have a limited number of possible explanations for the common
perception that vinyl is closer to the live event (however you may wish
to express that):

While i agree that the number of exlinations are limited I don't agree
that you found all the posible explinations. kind of reminds me of your
previous lists of all poible explinations for things. I think it is
more a reflection of your biases than of rality. Just my opinion.

1) These distortions are euphonic--they may be distortions, but they
sound good to you, and may in some ways evoke things that please you
when listening to live music.

2) Your perceptions are affected by non-sonic
considerations--nostalgia, exclusivity, price, etc.

3) There is some distortion mechanism in digital which we can neither
define nor measure, but is substantially worse than any known,
measurable distortion in vinyl.

1. There are some, many distortions that can be found in the practical
implimentation of digital recording, mastering, transfer and production
of CDs that can be measured but are ignored or simply accepted by many
proucers of commercial CDs.

2. There are considerations in the mastering proccess needed to get the
most life like sound from an original recording in a commercial release
that simply isn't being taken care of in the mastering step of many
CDs.

3. some distortions inherent in LP playback are analogous with the
sound of live music and do make for more life like sound on many
commercial recordings. Not exactly the same as a so called euphonic
distortion but more specific and less identifiable by ear other than
the greater life like quality.

4. people who cannot accept the reality of others finding LPs more life
like in many instances are affected by their own biases based on
limited ideas of what is possible.

Jenn, to her great credit, has been honest enough to say that she
doesn't care why vinyl sounds better to her, it just does. Would that
all vinylphiles could just live with that.

They would still be attacked by some objectivists for simply having an
opinion just as Jenn and I have. Oh well.

Scott