"vlad" wrote in message
...
Serge Auckland wrote:
wrote in message
...
Or the short answer to this post:

You know how objectivists are irritated that they are told "You don't
like vinyl because you've never really listened to a good rig?"

This post is an exact parallel. I'm confused about the qualities of
analog because I've never heard good cd's, or never heard the same
music on both.

It's pretty near impossible to hear the same music on CD and vinyl due to
the mastering process. If a recording is well mastered for vinyl, the
mastering engineer will make allowances for the disc-cutting process. This
results in a completely different sound going on vinyl and CD, which
doesn't
have the same limitations.

I don't know of any commercial recordings which have been mastered
deliberately identically, although I suspect that some of the early CD
releases were done using a disc-cutting master rather than a specific CD
master, either out of ignorance or economy, with the result that the CD
was
less than ideal.

It would be an interesting exercise if someone were to press a vinyl
record
from a CD master, I suspect that the resulting record would be pretty
nasty.
This is why, in my view, questions of which is better, CD or vinyl, can
never be answered properly, as one is never comparing two identical
recordings. Also, there is no accounting for taste, and some may genuinely
prefer vinyl, in spite of all the measurable limitations.

S


Serge,

I think situation is not so hopeless :-)

Let's say we will take LP that is made very well. By this I mean only
one thing - it is prized highly by high-enders. Then we will take
SOTA (again judged by high-enders) equipment and very good A to D box
(judged by competent engineers). We will digitize the signal from LP
the best way we can, say 192kHz/24bit. After that we will down sample
it to 44.1/16 the best way we can - dithering and all this. There are
people here who can advise how to do it. But no fiddling with the
sound, no additional mastering.

After all this we will cut CD from 44.1kHz/16bit file.

My naïve understanding is that we will get exact copy of LP on CD. I
wander if it will preserve all analog 'beauty' and 'magic' in a
blind test.

I would run very basic version of blind test - I would collect dozen
of golden ears high-enders in a room and offer them the sound of
equipment of their choice with only one component unknown - the
source CD/LP.

My guess is they will be unable to tell CD from LP.

Would it work?

I would be particularly interested if Jenn can recognize CD by
deterioration in violin's timbre.

vlad


What you suggest would create an accurate digital copy of the LP, and
preserve all the Vinyl attributes, so it would be a valid test. I would
suggest that it would then be impossible to tell if one was listening to the
CD copy of the LP or the LP direct.

S.


..

Friend had a good collection of pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes in the two
higher speeds. Some of them barely played. In the early days of CD, using
a Studer Revox in good repair, we compared those to LP's and CD's for a
dozen or so recordings we had in all three formats.

Most of the time, the general sound of the reels and the CD were fairly
close.
LP's always sounded quite different. Equalized or effected in one way or
another.

I find it odd so many high enders proclaim LP the standard of fidelity by
which
others are judged. When obviously if you wanted to use an older format of
high quality to make the standard of comparison, high speed reel to reel is
the one you should pick. And well done CD's will sound more like those
reels than LP's.

Dennis