A friend of mine insists that the reason vinyl seems to have more width etc
than a CD is because information is LOST in the "poor" 16-bit, 44.1k digital
domain of the CD. He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl. As for why vinyl has more
"dimension" than a CD, I don't know. My friend feels he can hear "more"
information on the vinyl, and that the vinyl is more accurate than the cd.
My experience was the opposite. One thing I will mention... our comparison
tests were done in quite an inaccurate way at different times, I'm sure
there are a HOST of factors that would more or less render our tests nearly
useless, however, I still tend to disagree that the CD has "less
information" which is causing a degradation compared to vinyl. Perhaps I am
wrong. I'd really like to hear some educated opinions. My experience
listening to vinyl is that it indeed has "color", certain frequency ranges
seem more inflated than others, some seem reduced, does not seem to be as
"accurate" or precise as CD audio, but the vinyl does have that really neat
"wide" effect... sounds like you are listening to a band that is spread all
across the room... with the CD, it sounds more like the band is all stuffed
into one tiny spot right in front. The CD has more of a concentrated "in
your face" effect, where as the vinyl has more of a farther back spread out
WIDE effect. It's very interesting. I'm sure in the grand scheme of
things, the 16-bit, 44.1k digital is indeed "poor", and information is
indeed getting "lost" or distorted in some way in the digital domain, but
after hearing some vinyl, I would say there is perhaps more of a loss going
on with vinyl. Again, this is not an argument as to which medium sounds
"better", but an argument as to WHY a CD seems to have less dimension than
vinyl. Thanks.

WideGlide wrote:
A friend of mine insists that the reason vinyl seems to have more width etc
than a CD is because information is LOST in the "poor" 16-bit, 44.1k digital
domain of the CD. He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.

Most cutting systems start rolling off bigtime well below 20 KHz. If you
DO cut out to 20 KHz (which often means having to restrict the levels you
cut at), that 20 KHz stuff won't stay on the record for more than a dozen
plays before the details just wear off.

Anybody who gives you the "infinite resolution" argument is full of crap.
There is a nice rebuttal to that in the FAQ.

As for why vinyl has more
"dimension" than a CD, I don't know. My friend feels he can hear "more"
information on the vinyl, and that the vinyl is more accurate than the cd.

On a lot of releases this is the case, because the CD is overcompressed,
made through crappy converters, or just generally done hastily without
much care. I have a lot of LPs that sound much better than the CD release.
The horrible butchery that early Beatles albums have suffered on CD is
really inexcusable. I can hear stereo azimuth errors on a mono recording
for God's sake. Whoever is responsible for that should be ashamed.

On the other hand, I also have some CDs that sound better than the LP
release. The Leon Russell and the Shelter People album has easily an
octave better bass extension on the DCC-issued CD compared with the
original LP.

In every case, the guys in the booth have a lot more to do with the
total sound than the release format does. As long as there are crappy
CD issues, though, I am not going to get rid of my turntable.

My experience was the opposite. One thing I will mention... our comparison
tests were done in quite an inaccurate way at different times, I'm sure
there are a HOST of factors that would more or less render our tests nearly
useless, however, I still tend to disagree that the CD has "less
information" which is causing a degradation compared to vinyl. Perhaps I am
wrong. I'd really like to hear some educated opinions. My experience
listening to vinyl is that it indeed has "color", certain frequency ranges
seem more inflated than others, some seem reduced, does not seem to be as
"accurate" or precise as CD audio, but the vinyl does have that really neat
"wide" effect... sounds like you are listening to a band that is spread all
across the room... with the CD, it sounds more like the band is all stuffed
into one tiny spot right in front. The CD has more of a concentrated "in
your face" effect, where as the vinyl has more of a farther back spread out
WIDE effect. It's very interesting. I'm sure in the grand scheme of
things, the 16-bit, 44.1k digital is indeed "poor", and information is
indeed getting "lost" or distorted in some way in the digital domain, but
after hearing some vinyl, I would say there is perhaps more of a loss going
on with vinyl.

There is usually a lot more lost with vinyl cutting than with CD cutting,
but once the mastering guys start adding processing, it's possible to screw
either one up very easily. It's harder to get away with doing abusive things
on vinyl, though.

Imaging varies so much between different playback systems it's hard to say
that there is any one characteristic sort of imaging. No two phono cartridges
have the same phase or frequency response, and they all image very differently.

Again, this is not an argument as to which medium sounds
"better", but an argument as to WHY a CD seems to have less dimension than
vinyl. Thanks.

You need to listen to some better CDs. Try the JVC XRCD issue of Steve Miller's
The Joker. It has a deep sense of depth that you won't find on the original LP.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Vinyl, given the right player and record, can sound very good. of course,
needles, scratches, dust, speakers etc all determine this sound. But the
truth is, technically speaking vinyl is of MUCH higher fidelity than any
digitial format. Now, can you hear the difference? Thats a different story.
Also, 16-bit 44.1 is perfect for most people, and very few need more than
that. Plus, you can listen in your car, your walkman, etc. CDs Very portable
and easy to distribute and copy. I really like vinyl artthough. The big
record sleeves inspired many bands to work hard on them.

Dave
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
WideGlide wrote:
A friend of mine insists that the reason vinyl seems to have more width
etc
than a CD is because information is LOST in the "poor" 16-bit, 44.1k
digital
domain of the CD. He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency
response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the
CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.

Most cutting systems start rolling off bigtime well below 20 KHz. If you
DO cut out to 20 KHz (which often means having to restrict the levels you
cut at), that 20 KHz stuff won't stay on the record for more than a dozen
plays before the details just wear off.

Anybody who gives you the "infinite resolution" argument is full of crap.
There is a nice rebuttal to that in the FAQ.

As for why vinyl has more
"dimension" than a CD, I don't know. My friend feels he can hear "more"
information on the vinyl, and that the vinyl is more accurate than the
cd.

On a lot of releases this is the case, because the CD is overcompressed,
made through crappy converters, or just generally done hastily without
much care. I have a lot of LPs that sound much better than the CD
release.
The horrible butchery that early Beatles albums have suffered on CD is
really inexcusable. I can hear stereo azimuth errors on a mono recording
for God's sake. Whoever is responsible for that should be ashamed.

On the other hand, I also have some CDs that sound better than the LP
release. The Leon Russell and the Shelter People album has easily an
octave better bass extension on the DCC-issued CD compared with the
original LP.

In every case, the guys in the booth have a lot more to do with the
total sound than the release format does. As long as there are crappy
CD issues, though, I am not going to get rid of my turntable.

My experience was the opposite. One thing I will mention... our
comparison
tests were done in quite an inaccurate way at different times, I'm sure
there are a HOST of factors that would more or less render our tests
nearly
useless, however, I still tend to disagree that the CD has "less
information" which is causing a degradation compared to vinyl. Perhaps I
am
wrong. I'd really like to hear some educated opinions. My experience
listening to vinyl is that it indeed has "color", certain frequency
ranges
seem more inflated than others, some seem reduced, does not seem to be as
"accurate" or precise as CD audio, but the vinyl does have that really
neat
"wide" effect... sounds like you are listening to a band that is spread
all
across the room... with the CD, it sounds more like the band is all
stuffed
into one tiny spot right in front. The CD has more of a concentrated "in
your face" effect, where as the vinyl has more of a farther back spread
out
WIDE effect. It's very interesting. I'm sure in the grand scheme of
things, the 16-bit, 44.1k digital is indeed "poor", and information is
indeed getting "lost" or distorted in some way in the digital domain, but
after hearing some vinyl, I would say there is perhaps more of a loss
going
on with vinyl.

There is usually a lot more lost with vinyl cutting than with CD cutting,
but once the mastering guys start adding processing, it's possible to
screw
either one up very easily. It's harder to get away with doing abusive
things
on vinyl, though.

Imaging varies so much between different playback systems it's hard to say
that there is any one characteristic sort of imaging. No two phono
cartridges
have the same phase or frequency response, and they all image very
differently.

Again, this is not an argument as to which medium sounds
"better", but an argument as to WHY a CD seems to have less dimension
than
vinyl. Thanks.

You need to listen to some better CDs. Try the JVC XRCD issue of Steve
Miller's
The Joker. It has a deep sense of depth that you won't find on the
original LP.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"DaveDrummer" wrote in message
.. .
Vinyl, given the right player and record, can sound very good. of course,
needles, scratches, dust, speakers etc all determine this sound. But the
truth is, technically speaking vinyl is of MUCH higher fidelity than any
digitial format. Now, can you hear the difference? Thats a different
story.

The truth is that vinyl is technically much worse than the Red Book
cd-standard.
Vinyl has phase shift, harmonic distortion and problems with the low
frequencies, especially in stereo.
If vinyl sounds better, that's not because of it is of higher technical
standard; more likely, it's because the way vinyl shifts frequencies sounds
quite pleasing to the human ear.
It has nothing to do with represinting a truthful signal, however.

Also, 16-bit 44.1 is perfect for most people, and very few need more than
that.

And if they need more, I certainly wouldn't recommend vinyl for them.

The big
record sleeves inspired many bands to work hard on them.

Well, that's true.

Thanks Scott! By the way, my turntable is a Harmon Kardon T20, belt
drive... about 15 years old. The cartridge is a Shure M750E. I am still
searching for the manuals. Scott, is there a specific cartridge you'd
recommend for this unit? I'd like to change it and tune up the whole unit.
I am not that happy with the overall upper end response of what I am hearing
from this thing, I guess it would make sense to start by swapping in a new
cartridge and giving it a tune up. The albums I am using are in new
condition. Any tips on getting this HK running in tip top shape would be
appreciated. Thanks.

David Perrault wrote:


I've never kept notes but the following seems to be pretty consistent.

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

I find the same trend in my own recreational listening: often I end
up turning down a CD. Often I end up turning the vinyl up. And no,
this is not some disparity between source levels.

IMHO vinyl playback has a smootheness that is hard to find in a CD
player, unless you are getting into high end players.

Not very scientific, but I'll bet you could test this out and find it
to be true.

This has been true of my experience too and I know damn well
it isn't because of more accurate reproduction. In the end,
if an artifact or set of them results in a more interesting
or more pleasurable experience then that is just fine with me.

What if the thing some people are finding "better" about
SACD is in fact such an artifact? I hear that the
possibility is under consideration. When they nail it I'm
planning on a pseudoSACD DX plugin that will make your CD's
sound exactly like SACD's. :-)


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

,,,,, He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.,,,,

I think frequency response is less relevant than over-all fidelity.
Whatever that is!!!

I've never kept notes but the following seems to be pretty consistent.

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

I find the same trend in my own recreational listening: often I end
up turning down a CD. Often I end up turning the vinyl up. And no,
this is not some disparity between source levels.

IMHO vinyl playback has a smootheness that is hard to find in a CD
player, unless you are getting into high end players.

Not very scientific, but I'll bet you could test this out and find it
to be true.




DP

Another related question... if you record music from a vinyl record album
directly to a CDR through a good stereo AD converter, will the imaging be
retained? (Assuming that the AD converter is top notch and the DA converter
on the CD player is top notch as well.) I plan to try this test at some
point, but in the meantime, just wondering. My friend feels that the
"width" of the program from the vinyl would be reduced once it is put on the
CDR format. Your last response would indicate that this would NOT be the
case, but I thought this was an interesting question anyway. If indeed the
CDR would retain 100% of the perceived dimension of the vinyl, this would
quickly prove that the CDR format is not nearly as horrible as my friend
would have me think. It would also prove that the CDR format is just as
capable of reproducing such dimension, even though most "remastered" CDs do
not seem to have the nice wide dimension of most LPs.... generally speaking.

David Perrault wrote:

,,,,, He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.,,,,


I think frequency response is less relevant than over-all fidelity.
Whatever that is!!!

I've never kept notes but the following seems to be pretty consistent.

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

I find the same trend in my own recreational listening: often I end
up turning down a CD. Often I end up turning the vinyl up. And no,
this is not some disparity between source levels.

IMHO vinyl playback has a smootheness that is hard to find in a CD
player, unless you are getting into high end players.

Not very scientific, but I'll bet you could test this out and find it
to be true.




DP





That could very well be because of the 3 weaknesses of vinyl as compared
to CD:

1. Lesser dynamic range. Vinyl music is going to be less punchy, and
hence, easier on the ears at high volume.

2. High frequency headroom. A CD catches all audible frequencies in all
their glory. Records can't even hope to compete.

3. Records wear out, so their high frequencies tend to smooth out, get
more muddled, and reduce in amplitude. CDs just work great at all
frequencies, or not at all. No middle ground.

CD

In article writes:

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

IMHO vinyl playback has a smootheness that is hard to find in a CD
player, unless you are getting into high end players.

This has very little to do with the player, but everything to do with
the way that CDs have been mastered over the past 10 years or so. Have
you ever listened to a serious audiophile CD, or an older CD?

The push for apparent loudness at a given volume setting has created a
CD formula that is significantly clipped and has very little dynamic
range. This sounds louder because there's more energy in the waveform
than if they had left it alone. It's also fatiguing, so eventually you
want to turn it down, or turn it off and do something else.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Another thought... I will assume that most CD remasters were done back
around the time when the CD format first started to become popular. What
year was that? Late `80's? Early `90's? I don't think I had a cd player
until 1992 or so. Anyway, as for the remastering... what digital tools did
they have back in 1992? How were these "remasters" done? With what gear?
What converters? What compressors? Was this done in a primitve DAW, or
were they using analog processing going to a DAT machine or something? This
might answer why a lot of CD remasters sound bad... because the digital gear
back in the day was poor. What were the best converters in 1992? How good
were they? I have no idea... my first digital experience other than CD was
a DA-88 in 1997 or so, and I never really got stellar results on that thing
anyway.

Mike Rivers: The push for apparent loudness at a given volume setting has
created a
CD formula that is significantly clipped and has very little dynamic
range. This sounds louder because there's more energy in the waveform
than if they had left it alone. It's also fatiguing, so eventually you
want to turn it down, or turn it off and do something else.

It is quite entertaining to play current CD's through a digital meter to
discover that there is literally NO dynamic range at all! I also find it
amusing and sad to hear CD's created at homes where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD. A while back I picked up a big set of '50's stuff that
had been completely destroyed by some mastering house. I couldn't listen to
any CD all the way through. And I threw the set in the garbage where it
belongs. I really should have returned the set but there had been some
interval from buying to listening. But actually, that's an idea: everyone
should just take this crap back and demand a refund. They are defective and
unlistenable. Unfortunately, the average listener doesn't know what is wrong.

It is quite entertaining to play current CD's through a digital meter to
discover that there is literally NO dynamic range at all!... And I threw the
set in the garbage where it belongs...
-----------------

A license should be needed in order to purchase and use modern limiting and
multi-band compression tools for mastering, just the same way a license is
needed to purchase and use a gun. Modern limiters and multi-band
compressors are probably more dangerous to society. It's such a shame that
any bozo can open a "mastering house" and violently mangle audio, and
somehow it gets by, often to millions of consumers. Absolutely tragic! I
haven't heard any brand new productions... is it still the trend to crush
everything to death?

WideGlide wrote:
Thanks Scott! By the way, my turntable is a Harmon Kardon T20, belt
drive... about 15 years old. The cartridge is a Shure M750E. I am still
searching for the manuals. Scott, is there a specific cartridge you'd
recommend for this unit? I'd like to change it and tune up the whole unit.

Okay, that's not a great turntable, but it's not a bad one, and it is
probably worth keeping as an entry level thing. You're going to have to
do something to damp the arm down a little bit. It's going to be clangy
stock.

I'm a big fan of the Audio-Technica AT440 cartridge, which tracks really
well and is reasonable on that arm. You might be able to get the Grado
DJ-100 to work reliably on it too. The Shure M97x is also not too bad.

But try the cartridge you have and see how well it tracks to begin with.

I am not that happy with the overall upper end response of what I am hearing
from this thing, I guess it would make sense to start by swapping in a new
cartridge and giving it a tune up. The albums I am using are in new
condition. Any tips on getting this HK running in tip top shape would be
appreciated. Thanks.

If you aren't using a phono preamp, first off you won't have decent
sound. You need to deal with that first. If you can, look for something
like the Adcom that has switchable gain and will give you enough gain that
you can use a moving coil cartridge someday. Rotel also makes a decent
outboard phono preamp that will work well with a good range of cartridges.

THEN worry about the cartridge, and then worry about the arm. And then
get a vacuum machine. Do not forget to buy a copy of the RAP LP for ten
dollars so I can get them out of my living room.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

WideGlide wrote:
Another thought... I will assume that most CD remasters were done back
around the time when the CD format first started to become popular. What
year was that? Late `80's? Early `90's? I don't think I had a cd player
until 1992 or so. Anyway, as for the remastering... what digital tools did
they have back in 1992? How were these "remasters" done? With what gear?
What converters? What compressors? Was this done in a primitve DAW, or
were they using analog processing going to a DAT machine or something? This
might answer why a lot of CD remasters sound bad... because the digital gear
back in the day was poor. What were the best converters in 1992? How good
were they? I have no idea... my first digital experience other than CD was
a DA-88 in 1997 or so, and I never really got stellar results on that thing
anyway.

Some remastering jobs were done by top grade engineers who were familiar
with the original material and who carefully and painstakingly used the
latest technology converters (which today are pretty good) to master a CD.
Labels like the JVC XRCD folks, Dave Chesky's crew, the people doing
the Mercury Living Presence CDs and Bob Fine's work from Everest, and
the guys at Digital Compact classics all did an amazing job.

Some remastering jobs were done by semi-intelligent monkeys at the label
who grabbed whatever materials they could find in the vaults no matter
how many generations down they are, tossed them onto machines without paying
a damn bit of attention to the alignment or tones, then smashed the hell
out of them to make them loud, and ran them through cheap converters. Back
in the early eighties, the majority of the damage was done by those awful
PCM-1610 converters. Today, most of it is done by massive compression. Either
way, some folks just horribly mangle the remastering job. I won't mention
any names, but I can't understand how anyone can listen to the CD issue of
Hotel California without earplugs.

You pays your money and you takes your chance.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"WideGlide" wrote in message
t

Another related question... if you record music from a vinyl record
album directly to a CDR through a good stereo AD converter, will the
imaging be retained?

Nobody knowledgeable who wants the best results does things this way. Vinyl
transcription done right involves doing things that can't be done on most if
not all CD recorders. It takes a PC or a DAW to do a SOTA or even credible
job of transcribing vinyl.

(Assuming that the AD converter is top notch
and the DA converter on the CD player is top notch as well.)

There's no doubt in my mind that everything audible on a LP can be
transcribed digitally and played back without reliably detectable
coloration. Surprisingly most people who transcribe LPs seriously don't
target that goal.

Instead experienced people who transcribe LPs seem settle on the goal of
making a CD that has as many of the positive attributes of the LP ( Mike
River's recent post listed most of them) with as few of the usual
disadvantages of a LP as possible. Two unmistakable unique positive
attributes of a LP - it was never re-released in CD format or the only
re-release was poorly done.

One interesting permutation of this is the fact that there is a track on the
Toscanini CD set of the Beethoven works there is a track that is obviously a
vinyl transcription. It was done to the standards of about 20 years ago. If
it were properly cleaned up using modern tools it would be more enjoyable to
listen to.

I plan to try this test at some point, but in the meantime, just
wondering.

Some of the unique attributes of LP playback are simply audible distortion.
For example, a lot of the imaging that people rave about actually correlates
with fairly massive amounts of AM and FM distortion that lots of playback
equipment has. Digital transcriptions can pick this up very nicely, thank
you!

My friend feels that the "width" of the program from the vinyl would
be reduced once it is put on the CDR format.

I don't think he could support that claim with a blind test.

Your last response
would indicate that this would NOT be the case, but I thought this
was an interesting question anyway. If indeed the CDR would retain
100% of the perceived dimension of the vinyl, this would quickly
prove that the CDR format is not nearly as horrible as my friend
would have me think.

He's just reflecting years of ignorant posturing in the matter that has been
published in high end ragazines and circulated by mislead and misleading
merchants and hobbyists. There's quite a stash of anti-technology-wisdom
that is taken for revealed truth by the vinyl uber alles true believers.
Among some, vinylism is a religion that supercedes modern science.

If you read the AES and IEEE papers about optimizing vinyl from the days
when vinyl was taken seriously by a great many intelligent people, you come
up with an accurate description of what would, and mostly now is, considered
to be a highly flawed legacy medium.

It would also prove that the CDR format is just
as capable of reproducing such dimension, even though most
"remastered" CDs do not seem to have the nice wide dimension of most
LPs.... generally speaking.

In all seriousness, most people who get really good at transcribing vinyl go
beyond the mere LP with their work. They produce a CD that has many positive
attributes of a regular CD, and has a number of highly audible vinyl
artifacts removed or vastly reduced.

"WideGlide" wrote in message
t
Another thought... I will assume that most CD remasters were done back
around the time when the CD format first started to become popular.
What year was that? Late `80's?

Early-mid 80s.

Early `90's? I don't think I had a
cd player until 1992 or so. Anyway, as for the remastering... what
digital tools did they have back in 1992?

Some pretty good ones that worked on high end "Workstations" of the day.

How were these "remasters" done? With what gear?

The audio gear was similar or identical to what was used for regular audio
production.

What converters?

Similar or identical to what was used for regular audio production. The best
of it was really good, the worst was really terrible.

What compressors?

Hopefully none.

Was this done in a primitive sDAW, or were they using analog processing
going to
a DAT machine or something?

Yes, both.

This might answer why a lot of CD remasters sound bad...

IME it wasn't the gear, it was the staff and the context. Some remastering
gets done by skilled people who care and are given the time to do a good
job. They add art to what they do. A lot of it is done by junior staff who
would rather be doing something else, and aren't given the time and guidance
to do a good job. It's pretty artless. One eye on the clock and the other on
a crotch novel.

because the digital gear back in the day was poor.

Not all of it.

What were the best converters in 1992?

That would be a controversy.

How good were they?

The best were as good as was required to do a sonically perfect job. There
were good 16/44 converters in 1970, they just cost a big chunk of a million
dollars. They were out-of-mind for anybody who did commercial audio.

I have no idea... my first digital experience other than CD was a DA-88
in 1997 or so, and I never really got stellar results on that thing
anyway.

I don't think that anybody who worked with DA88s and were well-experienced
were really in love with them.

I'll add a few of my own biased opinions:

1) Even die-hard vinyl people like myself recognize that you can get a lot of
the inherent sound of the vinyl if you burn it to a CD. Sure, you hear
converters and converters sound different, but it's eye opening if you're a
vinyl person and you hate CD's.

2) both CD's and vinyl have distortion. Vinyl has a lot more of it, measurably,
but it's also a different kind. Many people find this euphonic and mistake it
for "room" just like they mistake the phase channel anomalies for a wider
soundstage. The trick here I think, is while these things may be considered
"flaws" in vinyl, like anything, if they sound good, they are assets.

3) While I have heard a lot of bad sounding CD players, vinyl playback is
harder to get right. There's more geometry to it and it does make a difference.

4) one of the reasons CD's have a bad rap is that the early ones weren't over
compressed but they were transferred by people who often didn't give a damn and
with a generation of a/d conversion which has been much improved. Now we have
better stuff and people just butcher CD's with multi band compression. Bob
Olhsson mastered a CD for me recently where I wanted something that wasn't
compressed a whole lot or so forward in the high midrange, like modern CD's
are, because in this particular project, I didn't have to worry about pleasing
an audience that is used to something. It sounds a hell of a lot more like a
good LP playback than the horror we sometimes associate with CD's.

5) I wish the digital camp would drop the idea that in theory digital is
perfect, because they do have to implement it. This is as annoying to me as
vinyl people who say vinyl goes up to 30K (though i have been told you can get
22K half-speed).

6) all this said, I've heard CD's beat LP's and LP's beat CD's, so there's no
standard. My bias, though, having I think an equally good CD playback system as
a vinyl one, is that the best sounding LP's to me still sound better than the
best sounding CD's. Dorati's living stereo firebird, or my nautilus "moondance"
or my original blue notes, make me feel more in the moment than the CD's do.
Call it sentimentality, or love of second order distortion or plain religious
fervor, but CD's arent replacing my LP's any time soon. Life is too short and
music is too large to limit your formats anyway.



P h i l i p

______________________________

"I'm too ****ing busy and vice-versa"

- Dorothy Parker

(Jim Kollens) wrote in message

....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?

J_West


A while back I picked up a big set of '50's stuff that had been completely destroyed by some mastering house. I couldn't listen to any CD all the way through. And I threw the set in the garbage where it
belongs. I really should have returned the set but there had been some
interval from buying to listening. But actually, that's an idea: everyone
should just take this crap back and demand a refund. They are defective and
unlistenable. Unfortunately, the average listener doesn't know what is wrong.

A lot of digital converters have very poor linearity - in other words they
have very high levels of distortion at low signal levels. So all the low
level "finesse" parts of the signal get wrecked. Timing errors also cause
problems - system does not have to "know" only whether it's supposed to be a
one or a zero, it has to know exactly when it's a one or a zero.
http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers/bits.pdf
http://www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers/jitter.pdf


"WideGlide" wrote in message
t...
A friend of mine insists that the reason vinyl seems to have more width
etc
than a CD is because information is LOST in the "poor" 16-bit, 44.1k
digital
domain of the CD. He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency
response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl. As for why vinyl has more
"dimension" than a CD, I don't know. My friend feels he can hear "more"
information on the vinyl, and that the vinyl is more accurate than the cd.
My experience was the opposite. One thing I will mention... our
comparison
tests were done in quite an inaccurate way at different times, I'm sure
there are a HOST of factors that would more or less render our tests
nearly
useless, however, I still tend to disagree that the CD has "less
information" which is causing a degradation compared to vinyl. Perhaps I
am
wrong. I'd really like to hear some educated opinions. My experience
listening to vinyl is that it indeed has "color", certain frequency ranges
seem more inflated than others, some seem reduced, does not seem to be as
"accurate" or precise as CD audio, but the vinyl does have that really
neat
"wide" effect... sounds like you are listening to a band that is spread
all
across the room... with the CD, it sounds more like the band is all
stuffed
into one tiny spot right in front. The CD has more of a concentrated "in
your face" effect, where as the vinyl has more of a farther back spread
out
WIDE effect. It's very interesting. I'm sure in the grand scheme of
things, the 16-bit, 44.1k digital is indeed "poor", and information is
indeed getting "lost" or distorted in some way in the digital domain, but
after hearing some vinyl, I would say there is perhaps more of a loss
going
on with vinyl. Again, this is not an argument as to which medium sounds
"better", but an argument as to WHY a CD seems to have less dimension than
vinyl. Thanks.

Johnston West wrote in message
om...
(Jim Kollens) wrote in message
....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?

Not necessarily. If the mastering engineer normalizes the entire disc to the
loudest signal on the disc, it doesn't hurt anything. But if the engineer
normalizes each track to the loudest signal on that track, then the levels
will be all over the place when you go from track to track. Each track will
sound okay but they won't match.

Peace,
Paul

WideGlide wrote in message
t...
Another thought... I will assume that most CD remasters were done back
around the time when the CD format first started to become popular. What
year was that? Late `80's? Early `90's? I don't think I had a cd player
until 1992 or so. Anyway, as for the remastering... what digital tools
did
they have back in 1992? How were these "remasters" done? With what gear?

Typically with a Sony mastering console and a Sony 1630 recorder, which
stored its signal on a 3/4" VCR. The console and the 1630, compared to
today's gear, stunk. (The console contained the approximate computing power
of a 286, if you remember that machine.) The console didn't have enough
computer juice in it to process at 16 bits unless the master fader was at
unity gain; it reverted to, I think, 14 bits at any other gain.

What converters? What compressors? Was this done in a primitve DAW, or
were they using analog processing going to a DAT machine or something?

The converters were in the 1630, and I believe they were
successive-approximation types rather than the 1-bit types universal today.
The compressors, if used, were the same ones used for good analog work, like
the 1176. If you were lucky, the mastering engineer ran the test tones at
the head of the tape through the analog playback deck and alignedit
properly. Many times you weren't lucky. (I recently found a remastered CD
where I had to slide the right track a couple of milliseconds in the DAW to
make the phase come out half-decent.)

This
might answer why a lot of CD remasters sound bad... because the digital
gear
back in the day was poor.

Yep, mostly. See below.

What were the best converters in 1992? How good
were they?

The first converter I heard whose sound I could stand was in 1991, on a Sony
consumer DAT machine, the DTC-75ES, which had Sony's first generation of
1-bit converters in it. They put out a similar-sounding pro machine a year
or two later. The 75ES wouldn't record 44.1kHz from an analog source, so I'd
record at 48kHz, then edit in analog or convert the sample-rate. But it
sounded comparatively inoffensive compared to the godawful stuff that came
before. Yer average M-Audio Delta box these days, however, will run rings
around anything you could get back in 1992.

By the way, re. vinyl: I copy vinyl discs into the DAW all the time, so's I
can clean up the scratches and play them on the radio without subjecting
good discs to the tender mercies of the station's cartridges. I have a
decent playback setup that minimizes the worst problems of vinyl -- a Shure
V15VxMR cartridge to minimize mistracking, and the good AR turntable (the
one from the 1980s) which is pretty decent-sounding and doesn't add a whole
lot of colorations. I find that, listening back to the 24-bit 44.1kHz
recording from the Delta 66, I'm hard-pressed to hear much difference from
the vinyl; lots of that elusive stuff called "dimension". When I dither down
to 16 bits it sounds a bit drier. Still not bad, but not as good as the
24-bit original. Whether 24 bits are needed for reproduction of sound has
become a religious issue with some folks, and I'm not going to go there, but
I will say that 16 bits, in this setup, slightly degrades the sound to this
pair of ears. Of course, FM radio degrades it a whole lot more.

Peace,
Paul

DaveDrummer wrote:
Vinyl, given the right player and record, can sound very good. of
course, needles, scratches, dust, speakers etc all determine this
sound. But the truth is, technically speaking vinyl is of MUCH higher
fidelity than any digitial format.

In which technical aspect ?

Frequency response, dynamic range, noise, distortion, phase response. Um -
is there anything else ?


geoff

Jim Kollens wrote:
Mike Rivers: The push for apparent loudness at a given volume
setting has created a
CD formula that is significantly clipped and has very little dynamic
range. This sounds louder because there's more energy in the waveform
than if they had left it alone. It's also fatiguing, so eventually you
want to turn it down, or turn it off and do something else.

It is quite entertaining to play current CD's through a digital meter
to discover that there is literally NO dynamic range at all!

The same master has a similar nature on vinyl, except for the higher
distortion and tracking problems. And minus a bunch of the frequencies.

geoff

Johnston West wrote:
(Jim Kollens) wrote in message

....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?


No, not in the slighest.


geoff

WideGlide wrote:
Another related question... if you record music from a vinyl record
album directly to a CDR through a good stereo AD converter, will the
imaging be retained?

Yes.

(Assuming that the AD converter is top notch
and the DA converter on the CD player is top notch as well.) I plan
to try this test at some point, but in the meantime, just wondering.
My friend feels that the "width" of the program from the vinyl would
be reduced once it is put on the CDR format.

They subscribe to a particular religon. There is little tat will convince
them.

geoff

Tim Padrick wrote:
A lot of digital converters have very poor linearity - in other words
they have very high levels of distortion at low signal levels.

Had. Today's cheapo converters are generally beter that the top pro digital
gear was only a few years ago. Unless you are talking about consumer cheapo
game cards (or 'Creative' products)

geoff

"2. High frequency headroom. A CD catches all audible frequencies in all
their glory. Records can't even hope to compete"


This statement is true and is also the cause why some people say vinyl
sounds better.

Let me explain.......

Most people grew up on analog sound and their ears are more acustom to
hearing that sound.Digital music has a much wider frequency range.There are
alot of frequencies on a CD that the ear / mind pick up that actually cause
some listeners to get anoyed with the sound and find they can't listen to it
for long periods of time.I watched a study on this a couple years ago
explaining the differences in the way your ears and subconcious pick up on
some frequencies in digital music that just are not there on Vinyl.The wider
frequencies range on CDs just tend to tire some peoples ears faster than
analog.I love working with digital music but as long as the music is good I
don't care what media its comming from.......to each their own!!!!

Hope I explained this in a way that it makes sense to people.







Codifus wrote in message
t...
David Perrault wrote:

,,,,, He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the
CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.,,,,


I think frequency response is less relevant than over-all fidelity.
Whatever that is!!!

I've never kept notes but the following seems to be pretty consistent.

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

I find the same trend in my own recreational listening: often I end
up turning down a CD. Often I end up turning the vinyl up. And no,
this is not some disparity between source levels.

IMHO vinyl playback has a smootheness that is hard to find in a CD
player, unless you are getting into high end players.

Not very scientific, but I'll bet you could test this out and find it
to be true.




DP





That could very well be because of the 3 weaknesses of vinyl as compared
to CD:

1. Lesser dynamic range. Vinyl music is going to be less punchy, and
hence, easier on the ears at high volume.

2. High frequency headroom. A CD catches all audible frequencies in all
their glory. Records can't even hope to compete.

3. Records wear out, so their high frequencies tend to smooth out, get
more muddled, and reduce in amplitude. CDs just work great at all
frequencies, or not at all. No middle ground.

CD

In article
, "Paul
Stamler" wrote:

Johnston West wrote in message
om...
(Jim Kollens) wrote in message
....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?

Not necessarily. If the mastering engineer normalizes the entire disc to
the
loudest signal on the disc, it doesn't hurt anything. But if the engineer
normalizes each track to the loudest signal on that track, then the
levels
will be all over the place when you go from track to track. Each track
will sound okay but they won't match.

Peace,
Paul


And also be aware that a few "normalize" functions actually offer
options for limiting, or even just do it and don't even tell you. This
is a bad idea, and really is maximizing rather than normalizing. Know
your DAW and how it operates so that you don't get caught.

The other problem with normalization when the process is destructive
(actually does the gain change and creates a new "processed" audio file)
is when you perform further gain changes. In other words, don't
normalize and then decide it's a little too loud and lower it a little.
That's two DSP passes instead of one. In a non-destructive DAW like
Sonic and some others, it always references the original file and does
the gain change in real time DSP so you never lose a generation. Then
you can tweak to your heart's content.

Remember, since it is non-trvial DSP, you need dither to prevent
truncation distortion. The last thing to be aware of is that you should
balance track to track levels by ear. You can't rely on normalization to
provide consistency for you. If you avoid these potential traps,
normalizing done once at the end but before dither isn't going to hurt
anything - as long as it happens to leave the track at the volume you
had hoped for.

--
Jay Frigoletto
Mastersuite
Los Angeles
promastering.com

In article , "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

WideGlide wrote:
Another related question... if you record music from a vinyl record
album directly to a CDR through a good stereo AD converter, will the
imaging be retained?

Yes.

(Assuming that the AD converter is top notch
and the DA converter on the CD player is top notch as well.) I plan
to try this test at some point, but in the meantime, just wondering.
My friend feels that the "width" of the program from the vinyl would
be reduced once it is put on the CDR format.

They subscribe to a particular religon. There is little tat will convince
them.

geoff


He should just say he likes the way the vinyl sounds and leave it at
that. It can, in fact, be very pleasing to the ear under the right
conditions. There's no reason he has to come up with some nonsense
"technical" claim that "proves" his preferred format is better.
Technically, it's not. Infinite resolution does not exist in the real
world, and certainly does not come close to existing in vinyl records.
The dynamic range and signal to noise ratio on vinyl is abyssmal when
compared to CD. CD certainly beats vinyl for low end frequency response,
and while the high end frequency response of vinyl could theoretically
surpass CD at some level, in practice it simply does not. Furthermore,
even if it did, it would only be for a very limited number of plays due
to the physical wear. At least vinyl doesn't have brickwall anti-alias
and anti-image filters. But then again, it does have RIAA emphasis and
de-emphasis filters.

So it scores worse on dynamic range, signal to noise ration, distortion,
and frequency response... doesn't sound like it beats CD on any
meaningful technical ground, though subjectively, he's certainly within
his rights to prefer it. Interestingly, right after they tell you the
technical advantage for their preferred format and you proceed to prove
them wrong, they'll tell you specs aren't everything. This is true
enough. Why didn't they just go with that from the beginning? There's no
arguing with personal preference. You like what you like and that's fine.

--
Jay Frigoletto
Mastersuite
Los Angeles
promastering.com

Another thing that should be made clear is that most re issued music on CD
has not been mastered from LPs as some people do think.The old origional
masters are digitized before mastering occures.Alot of old masters have been
digitized for archiving as analog tape does die after time.

If the origional master is no longer available for what ever reason then you
need to find the second best source available to digitize,this may be an LP
or some other form of analog media.



Fill X wrote in message
...
I'll add a few of my own biased opinions:

1) Even die-hard vinyl people like myself recognize that you can get a lot
of
the inherent sound of the vinyl if you burn it to a CD. Sure, you hear
converters and converters sound different, but it's eye opening if you're
a
vinyl person and you hate CD's.

2) both CD's and vinyl have distortion. Vinyl has a lot more of it,
measurably,
but it's also a different kind. Many people find this euphonic and mistake
it
for "room" just like they mistake the phase channel anomalies for a wider
soundstage. The trick here I think, is while these things may be
considered
"flaws" in vinyl, like anything, if they sound good, they are assets.

3) While I have heard a lot of bad sounding CD players, vinyl playback is
harder to get right. There's more geometry to it and it does make a
difference.

4) one of the reasons CD's have a bad rap is that the early ones weren't
over
compressed but they were transferred by people who often didn't give a
damn and
with a generation of a/d conversion which has been much improved. Now we
have
better stuff and people just butcher CD's with multi band compression. Bob
Olhsson mastered a CD for me recently where I wanted something that wasn't
compressed a whole lot or so forward in the high midrange, like modern
CD's
are, because in this particular project, I didn't have to worry about
pleasing
an audience that is used to something. It sounds a hell of a lot more like
a
good LP playback than the horror we sometimes associate with CD's.

5) I wish the digital camp would drop the idea that in theory digital is
perfect, because they do have to implement it. This is as annoying to me
as
vinyl people who say vinyl goes up to 30K (though i have been told you can
get
22K half-speed).

6) all this said, I've heard CD's beat LP's and LP's beat CD's, so there's
no
standard. My bias, though, having I think an equally good CD playback
system as
a vinyl one, is that the best sounding LP's to me still sound better than
the
best sounding CD's. Dorati's living stereo firebird, or my nautilus
"moondance"
or my original blue notes, make me feel more in the moment than the CD's
do.
Call it sentimentality, or love of second order distortion or plain
religious
fervor, but CD's arent replacing my LP's any time soon. Life is too short
and
music is too large to limit your formats anyway.



P h i l i p

______________________________

"I'm too ****ing busy and vice-versa"

- Dorothy Parker

"you should balance track to track levels by ear"

I agree 110%....trust your ears not the software or the meters!!!!

I set all my track to track levels with my ears and eyes on the meters
second..

I did a compilation master for a very well known punk band thats history has
spanned the mid 70's till now and the hardest thing was geting the track to
track levels just right as the early stuff was recorder analog and the newer
stuff was all digital.In a situation like this I highly recomend forgetting
everything including the meters and TRUST THE OLD EARS first!!!!!



Jay - atldigi wrote in message
...
In article
, "Paul
Stamler" wrote:

Johnston West wrote in message
om...
(Jim Kollens) wrote in message
....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?

Not necessarily. If the mastering engineer normalizes the entire disc to
the
loudest signal on the disc, it doesn't hurt anything. But if the
engineer
normalizes each track to the loudest signal on that track, then the
levels
will be all over the place when you go from track to track. Each track
will sound okay but they won't match.

Peace,
Paul


And also be aware that a few "normalize" functions actually offer
options for limiting, or even just do it and don't even tell you. This
is a bad idea, and really is maximizing rather than normalizing. Know
your DAW and how it operates so that you don't get caught.

The other problem with normalization when the process is destructive
(actually does the gain change and creates a new "processed" audio file)
is when you perform further gain changes. In other words, don't
normalize and then decide it's a little too loud and lower it a little.
That's two DSP passes instead of one. In a non-destructive DAW like
Sonic and some others, it always references the original file and does
the gain change in real time DSP so you never lose a generation. Then
you can tweak to your heart's content.

Remember, since it is non-trvial DSP, you need dither to prevent
truncation distortion. The last thing to be aware of is that you should
balance track to track levels by ear. You can't rely on normalization to
provide consistency for you. If you avoid these potential traps,
normalizing done once at the end but before dither isn't going to hurt
anything - as long as it happens to leave the track at the volume you
had hoped for.

--
Jay Frigoletto
Mastersuite
Los Angeles
promastering.com

"Geoff Wood" -nospam wrote
DaveDrummer wrote:
But the truth is, technically speaking vinyl is of MUCH higher
fidelity than any digitial format.

In which technical aspect ?

Frequency response, dynamic range, noise, distortion, phase response.
Um -
is there anything else ?

Emotional response. This is why it is useless having these types of
arguments.

--
Anthony Gosnell

to reply remove nospam.

"David Perrault" wrote
,,,,, He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and feel that the
CD
has greater frequency response than vinyl.,,,,

I think frequency response is less relevant than over-all fidelity.
Whatever that is!!!

I've never kept notes but the following seems to be pretty consistent.

When I've played a CD loud, at some point someone asks to turn it
down.

When I play vinyl in a similar setting someone invariably asks to turn
it up.

This is because of dynamic range. The CD's have probably had all the
dynamic range squashed out of them.
Old records have the advantage of being made before the advent of digital
mastering.
New releases of old material has the disadvantage of being "digitally
remastered".
Old CD releases have the disadvantage of going through crappy convertors.

--
Anthony Gosnell

to reply remove nospam.

WideGlide wrote:

A friend of mine insists that the reason vinyl seems to
have more width etc than a CD is because information is
LOST in the "poor" 16-bit, 44.1k digital domain of the CD.
He feels that the vinyl has a greater frequency response
than CD due to its "infinite resolution". I disagree and
feel that the CD has greater frequency response than vinyl.

That could end up being about defining "frequency response", it could
also be about defining "distortion", because not all that comes out of a
pickup-cartridge may be what was put into the groove in the first place.

As for why vinyl has more
"dimension" than a CD, I don't know.

It is because the playback is microphonic. Try to get the grammophone
acoustically isolated and most differences vanish. It also makes it very
obvious just how much eigentone range (80 Hz to 320 Hz) mud that gets
created by the grammophone hearing the loudspeakers. Having the
grammophone in an adjoining room is a very good idea, I did just that
while still listening directly to the records.

My friend feels he can hear "more" information on the vinyl

High quality vinyl and high quality digital are not all that different
sounding, if one is drastically worse than the other, then it is broken
or out of its relative quality league. It is easy to take good analog
and crap digital and say "digital stinks", it is also easy to take crap
analog and say analog stinks.

on with vinyl. Again, this is not an argument as to which
medium sounds "better", but an argument as to WHY a CD seems
to have less dimension than vinyl.

Either the above acoustic feedback issue or crap equipment or crap
recording and mastering. The analog that remains for comparison may tend
to be the good stuff .... digital offers many options, including may
free or cheap ways of processing sound and sometimes a processed sound
is expected. All things equal, mostly they aren't, then less processing
will sound cleaner than more processing, be it analog or digital.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

It is quite entertaining to play current CD's through a digital meter to
discover that there is literally NO dynamic range at all! I also find it
amusing and sad to hear CD's created at homes where they have ruined the
music
by normalizing the CD.

How would nomalizing the CD ruin anything? You must mean compression.
Normalization is a different process.

"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in
message
It is quite entertaining to play current CD's through a digital
meter to discover that there is literally NO dynamic range at all!
I also find it amusing and sad to hear CD's created at homes where
they have ruined the music by normalizing the CD.

How would normalizing the CD ruin anything?

In an artistic sense, not technically.

The idea is that the entire CD tells a story composed of a sequence of
songs. Songs have a natural loudness where they sound best. It's not the
same for every song.

Paul Stamler wrote:

Johnston West wrote in message
om...

(Jim Kollens) wrote in message

....where they have ruined the music
by normalizing the CD.

Does normalizing really ruin a CD in mastering?


Not necessarily. If the mastering engineer normalizes the entire disc to the
loudest signal on the disc, it doesn't hurt anything. But if the engineer
normalizes each track to the loudest signal on that track, then the levels
will be all over the place when you go from track to track. Each track will
sound okay but they won't match.

Peace,
Paul

That's exactly what I was thinking, and how I normalize. I take the peak
amplitude of the entire set of WAVs and push it up to 0 db, or -0.97 db.
I'm wondering if he's confusing normalizing with compression, limiting,
and other enhancements. Normalizing is probably the least destructive.

CD

Arny Krueger wrote:
"WideGlide" wrote in message
et

Another related question... if you record music from a vinyl record
album directly to a CDR through a good stereo AD converter, will the
imaging be retained?

Nobody knowledgeable who wants the best results does things this way. Vinyl
transcription done right involves doing things that can't be done on most if
not all CD recorders. It takes a PC or a DAW to do a SOTA or even credible
job of transcribing vinyl.

Why?

And who mentioned a CD recorder anyway?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Troy" wrote in message
news:IMC2c.705259$JQ1.21744@pd7tw1no...

Let me explain.......


Let me continue.
People aren't used to listening any sound sources from a very close
distance;
when you mic up a guitar, the mic is so close it catches all the harmonics
right up to 30kHz, for example.
None of us also listens to a snare drum with our ear attached to it.
Digital mediums are the ones which really can record those higher overtones,
thus they sound more unnatural to us even if they'd be telling the truth.