[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:12:50 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 18, 10:36 pm, Sonnova wrote:

Because I'm making a very specific point. The point is (as I have said)
given that LP is fraught with problems, both mechanical and electrical, how
come the medium can often elicit positive emotional responses from
listeners, while the CD of the same performance does not?

Euphonic distortion, probably mixed in with a bit of nostalgia.

Agreed (except for the nostalgia bit. I personally care not for nostalgia).
My point is that if euphonic distortion makes a recording sound more real,
then I'm all for it!

Obviously the CD is
more accurate - in every way- than is the LP, but the LP sounds more alive,
more palpably THERE than the CD.Not that this is always the case, but it is
the case often enough to raise in my mind the question of the importance of
"accuracy" in the recording an playback of music. If we assume that the CD
is
more accurate, but the LP -with all of it's flaws- SOUNDS better, then which
approach is better?

Depends on what your goal is. If your goal is, "what sounds best to
me" or "what evokes for me a sense of live music" or "what gives me
goose bumps" then whether it's technically accurate or not is beside
the point. Enjoy your euphonic distortion, if that's what gets you
off. Just be careful not to make technical claims about the
superiority of the gear that produces those distortions.

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.


bob

[willbill]

Randy Yates wrote:

willbill writes:

i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?

at this point i have no opinion one way or the other!

Bill, you asked Arny, but in my opinion, good-ol' 16-bit "Redbook" CD
audio "done right" is incredibly good.

major agreement!

otoh, afaik CD do not have any error correction

correct me if i'm wrong

i'm guessing (at this point) that SACD
audio disks do have error correction?

If reasonable care was taken in
the recording process (good equipment, the mastering engineer doing his
job right, etc.), the reproduction of stereo audio on many (most?) CD
players will be as close to perfection (in terms of frequency response,
dynamic range, and D/A conversion accuracy) as required outside of a
laboratory environment.

the one major problem i see with CD audio
is that there is no error correction

correct me if i'm wrong


Let me put it to you this way. I own a pair of Klipschorns that are
capable of producing over 110 dB SPL (unweighted) in my living room.

sounds good to me.

That means that if I were to listen to material at 110 dB SPL on a
well-made CD, the quantization noise floor would be at about 30 dB SPL,
allowing for 10 dB of headroom in the digital recording and a few dB
derating below the ideal quantization floor for the dither levels.

odds are my speakers are a cut below

i'm running front L/R a 10 year old Mission
set of medium sized 2 way speakers, rear L/R
is a recent set of smaller (but not small)
PSB Alpha B1s (~$300), front center is a
recent/cheap PSB (~$350) center, and sub
is a surprisingly small/decent martin login


Understand the signficance of this performance level: the quantization
noise will be wideband, "white" (uncorrelated) noise with a _total_
power of 30 dB SPL. Now you may know from the old Fletcher/Munson curves

Fletcher/Mumson ringes a bell.

that 0 dB SPL is the threshold of human hearing, but that was for a
SINE WAVE at around 3 or 4 kHz (our most sensitive area of hearing).

fwiw, i'm an early senior but my hearing
is *still* very very good!


Then if you averaged 30 dB of wideband noise in
a narrow band, say, 10 Hz,

give us all a break!

i mean, 10 Hz!

i'll cut you some slack

did you really mean 10 Hz?

you'd be BELOW the threshold of hearing in that band.

agreed


So what you would experience in my living room is music at
ear-splitting, damaging levels with a corresponding noise level that is
(since it is wideband) *BELOW* the threshold of hearing when that noise
is measured in 10 Hz bands.

Do ya' think that's good enough?

"good enough"??? see above

bill

[bob]

On Nov 19, 10:23 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
\ 1997 0.7
1998 0.7
1999 0.5
2000 0.5
2001 0.6
2002 0.7
2003 0.5
2004 0.9 - peak LP sales 10 years - also when digital scratching started
becoming widely accepted.
2005 0.7
2006 0.6 - sales drop 1/3 from peak of 0.9

I'm afraid you're playing games with statistics here, Arny. There's no
peak at all in these numbers--all are well within the margin of error
of each other. What these numbers really show is that LP's market
share essentially flatlined more than a decade ago. 2004 was just an
outlier--probably sampling error.

bob

[bob]

On Nov 19, 5:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.

You are confused on a number of levels. First of all, "sense of
realism" has relatively little to do with quality of reproduction, and
relatively much to do with the listener's--to borrow a phrase--willing
suspension of disbelief. You can't engineer for that, except perhaps
to give people tone controls and DSP and such, to allow them to get
for themselves whatever sound promotes that suspension of disbelief--
for them. (Note that the high-end gods decree this approach to be
anathema.) Or it might be sufficient to give people a dial to turn
that doesn't actually do anything to the sound--that they simply
believe they are altering the sound may be all it takes to convince
them it sounds "more real."

You're also confusing the specific with the general. A particular
distortion profile--that associated with vinyl playback--may well be
euphonious for some number of listeners. That does not mean that
distortion in general is benign. There's plenty of research--as Arny
said, dating back to the 30s--showing that in general, most people
prefer non-distorted sound most of the time.

Audio gear has been made since Thomas Edison by profit-seeking firms.
The emphasis has been on lowering distortion because that's what the
public at large wanted, and profit-seeking firms always try to give
the people what they want. That there exists a handful of people who
like something else doesn't change the general case.

bob

[Arny Krueger]

"willbill" wrote in message

Randy Yates wrote:

willbill writes:

i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?

at this point i have no opinion one way or the other!

Bill, you asked Arny, but in my opinion, good-ol' 16-bit
"Redbook" CD audio "done right" is incredibly good.

major agreement!

otoh, afaik CD do not have any error correction

correct me if i'm wrong

You're wrong. The CD format has error correction. About 1/3 of the bits on
the disc are there for that purpose.

i'm guessing (at this point) that SACD
audio disks do have error correction?

Yes, but it is not a practical advantage because the CD format has had
it for almost 30 years.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:18 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

willbill wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

willbill wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:

Hardly anybody buys into the pseudo-science behind those overpriced,
oversold toys. Note that the SACD and DVD-A formats are slowly dying
in the marketplace.


i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?



The SACD has great merit because it is multichannel. Many
of the SACDs I have are really really good heard on
my 5-speaker system.

Doug McDonald

1st thanks to you, steve sullivan and sonnova for
your very recent answers in the "impressions" thread

to me, of the "big 3" (read inexpensive, yet very good;
SACD, CD and vinyl), the clear current volume leader
has been and continues to be CD

(i'm discounting mp3 coz what little i know about it
is that it is a compressed sound format (2 channel?),
similar to the compressed DD and DTS multichannel
formats used with DVD movies)

It is, but 1) you may not be able to tell an
mp3 from a lossless source by ear, if the mp3 is well-made and 2) mp3 sales
and popularity *far* outstrip SACD's and vinyl's.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

Depends on the music. I can always tell an MP3 on classical, but a well-made
MP3 can fool me on pop stuff.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:43:54 -0800, willbill wrote
(in article ):

Randy Yates wrote:

willbill writes:

i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?

at this point i have no opinion one way or the other!

Bill, you asked Arny, but in my opinion, good-ol' 16-bit "Redbook" CD
audio "done right" is incredibly good.

major agreement!

otoh, afaik CD do not have any error correction

correct me if i'm wrong

i'm guessing (at this point) that SACD
audio disks do have error correction?

If reasonable care was taken in
the recording process (good equipment, the mastering engineer doing his
job right, etc.), the reproduction of stereo audio on many (most?) CD
players will be as close to perfection (in terms of frequency response,
dynamic range, and D/A conversion accuracy) as required outside of a
laboratory environment.

the one major problem i see with CD audio
is that there is no error correction

correct me if i'm wrong

CD does have error correction it's called Reed-Solomon error correction. It
also does full interpolation in case of an error too large to correct.

[jwvm]

On Nov 19, 6:43 pm, willbill wrote:


otoh, afaik CD do not have any error correction

correct me if i'm wrong


Audio CDs do have error correction but it is not as robust as error
correction on a CD ROM. However, audio CD players do provide error-
hiding techniques that are pretty effective with modest uncorrectable
error rates.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:55:40 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:36:12 -0800, wrote
(in article ):
snip

but I'll give you an
example, anyway - just to show where I'm coming from with this line of
thinking.

I have two copies of the Mercury Living Presence recording of Stravinsky's
"Firebird" ballet with Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony. One is
the
CD mastered by the recording's original producers Wilma Cozert Fine, and
Robert Eberenz. It sounds OK. Then, several years ago, I purchased the
Classic Records re-mastering of the same work on vinyl.

snip

Right, so on the basis of two totally different masterings (i.e. the
actual spectral composition was changed between formats, not 'just' the
requisite RIAA curve application) of the performance, you think you can
make a valid comparison of formats? Sorry, not possible - whatever
format comparison you choose (MP3-Vinyl-CD-SACD-etc.).

Keith Hughes

That's not important. The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre. I'm
not inferring ANYTHING from that other than what I said. There are four ways
to buy that performance: 1) find a used original issue or later Phillips
issue of the LP, 2) buy the Classics Records 45RPM disc set, 3) buy the
original CD and 4) get the recently re-mastered SACD release. I have all
four. The Classic Records 3-sided 45 RPM CD sounds the most like real music
and is, without a doubt, one of the best sounding recordings I've ever heard.
The SACD sounds better than the original CD release, but not as good as the
Classic pressing. The original LP sounds better than both CD releases but not
as good as the Classic Records pressing.

[Jenn]

On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned the
LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many things that they don't
publicly obsess over so frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority
who still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most people who like
some LPs are not particularly "noisy" about it, IMO. It seems like
those who talk/write so much about something they don't like are more
noisy.


A lot of recent LP sales were
related to "scratching" in dance clubs. Since digital
means for simulating scratching have become readily
available, LP sales dropped by about another 1/3 per
RIAA statistics.
Cite, please.

http://76.74.24.142/E795D602-FA50-3F...8A40B98C46.pdf

1997 0.7
1998 0.7
1999 0.5
2000 0.5
2001 0.6
2002 0.7
2003 0.5
2004 0.9 - peak LP sales 10 years - also when digital scratching started
becoming widely accepted.
2005 0.7
2006 0.6 - sales drop 1/3 from peak of 0.9

Which, as I read it, is something near only 10% of the margin of error
(.3% with a 2.8% margin of error).

I thought that you might have something based on sales, rather than a
small phone survey.

What would be interesting is a stat that shows numbers of LPs sold for
listening, rather than for scratching. Impossible to know, I know.

[Jenn]

On Nov 19, 2:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

My point is that if euphonic distortion makes a recording sound more real,
then I'm all for it!

Obviously the CD is
more accurate - in every way- than is the LP, but the LP sounds more alive,
more palpably THERE than the CD.Not that this is always the case, but it is
the case often enough to raise in my mind the question of the importance of
"accuracy" in the recording an playback of music. If we assume that the CD
is
more accurate, but the LP -with all of it's flaws- SOUNDS better, then which
approach is better?

and:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.

Amen to that! The point of listening to music at home through an
audio system is to enjoy what you are listening to, isn't it? I don't
care what makes recording/media/system/room A sound more like actual
acoustic music than does recording/media/system/room B. It could be
any reason at all. Simply give me what sounds more real and I'm
happy. I WISH that it was always CD that wins this race (as it
usually does), as CD is so much easier and readily available. But
sometimes it's not, to my ears (the only ears that matter).

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message


First of all, let's get straight what we are talking
about here. I'm not interested in, or talking, about
billions of people. I'm talking about high-end
audiophiles - people to whom the reproduction of music is
important.

The myth here is very self-centered. It is the false claim that reproduction
of music is important to only high end audiophiles.

The average consumer doesn't really care.

In fact the reproduction of music is so important to the average consumer
that the average consumer dropped the LP like a hot potato as soon as a
superior alternative in the form of the CD became generally available.

They buy cheap receivers,

Which happen to sound very good when hooked up to good sources and good
speakers.

cheap speakers

High end audiophiles don't shop at Best Buy or Circuit City. Yet both chains
sell speakers in the $1,000 and up range, and that's for just one speaker.
The average consumer wants quality when he can afford it.

and cheap CD players,

Which happen to sound very good when hooked up to good receivers/amplifiers
and good speakers.

No vinyl playback system can compare its sound quality to the accurate
reproduction that is available in under-$100 optical disc players.

then they turn the bass control all the way up and the
treble control all the way down (OK so maybe they don't
any more,

If its not true, why say it?

but a little hyperbole to make a point is no crime)

False claims do nobody any good.

and have zero interest in achieving real-sounding results.

Another self-deception.

Most have probably never heard live, unamplified
music to start with.

Another self-deception.

I just won't deal any further with so many statements that have no useful
basis in fact.

[Keith Hughes]

Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:55:40 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:36:12 -0800, wrote
(in article ):
snip

Right, so on the basis of two totally different masterings (i.e. the
actual spectral composition was changed between formats, not 'just' the
requisite RIAA curve application) of the performance, you think you can
make a valid comparison of formats? Sorry, not possible - whatever
format comparison you choose (MP3-Vinyl-CD-SACD-etc.).

Keith Hughes

That's not important.

What's not important? Your comparison?

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. 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. There is a hugely confounding
variable, for which the impact is unknown, besides medium/format.

Keith Hughes

snip

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:16:41 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message


First of all, let's get straight what we are talking
about here. I'm not interested in, or talking, about
billions of people. I'm talking about high-end
audiophiles - people to whom the reproduction of music is
important.

The myth here is very self-centered. It is the false claim that reproduction
of music is important to only high end audiophiles.

Yeah, that's why most listen to so-called rack systems and MP3 players with
$2 ear-buds.

The average consumer doesn't really care.

In fact the reproduction of music is so important to the average consumer
that the average consumer dropped the LP like a hot potato as soon as a
superior alternative in the form of the CD became generally available.

The CD was adopted universally because of it's form factor, not it's sound.
It's small, portable, doesn't deteriorate as it's played, has no ticks-and
pops and skips. The sound quality meant little to the average buyer. Still
doesn't.

They buy cheap receivers,

Which happen to sound very good when hooked up to good sources and good
speakers.

cheap speakers

High end audiophiles don't shop at Best Buy or Circuit City. Yet both chains
sell speakers in the $1,000 and up range, and that's for just one speaker.
The average consumer wants quality when he can afford it.

Most non-audiophiles would think that $200 is a lot of money to spend on
speakers.

and cheap CD players,

Which happen to sound very good when hooked up to good receivers/amplifiers
and good speakers.

No vinyl playback system can compare its sound quality to the accurate
reproduction that is available in under-$100 optical disc players.

Under some circumstances you're right. Under other circumstances you are dead
wrong

then they turn the bass control all the way up and the
treble control all the way down (OK so maybe they don't
any more,

If its not true, why say it?

but a little hyperbole to make a point is no crime)

False claims do nobody any good.

Arny, no offense meant, but you take this stuff MUCH too seriously.

and have zero interest in achieving real-sounding results.

Another self-deception.

Which happens to be true.

Most have probably never heard live, unamplified
music to start with.

Another self-deception.

I just won't deal any further with so many statements that have no useful
basis in fact.

Probably best. You seem to be totally out of touch with the real world.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:09:08 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 19, 5:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if
we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.

You are confused on a number of levels. First of all, "sense of
realism" has relatively little to do with quality of reproduction, and
relatively much to do with the listener's--to borrow a phrase--willing
suspension of disbelief.

Since I agree with you fully, I must not be too terribly confused.

You can't engineer for that, except perhaps
to give people tone controls and DSP and such, to allow them to get
for themselves whatever sound promotes that suspension of disbelief--
for them. (Note that the high-end gods decree this approach to be
anathema.)

But that's my point.

Or it might be sufficient to give people a dial to turn
that doesn't actually do anything to the sound--that they simply
believe they are altering the sound may be all it takes to convince
them it sounds "more real."

That might work with some people, not with others

You're also confusing the specific with the general. A particular
distortion profile--that associated with vinyl playback--may well be
euphonious for some number of listeners. That does not mean that
distortion in general is benign.

I never said it was benign. You read that into my words.

There's plenty of research--as Arny
said, dating back to the 30s--showing that in general, most people
prefer non-distorted sound most of the time.

As do I. You really don't have a clue as to where I'm coming from, do you?

Audio gear has been made since Thomas Edison by profit-seeking firms.
The emphasis has been on lowering distortion because that's what the
public at large wanted, and profit-seeking firms always try to give
the people what they want. That there exists a handful of people who
like something else doesn't change the general case.

No, you don't get it. I'm sorry for that. I was hoping for a nice discussion.
All I get is people purposely misrepresenting what I write, followed by an
inordinate amount of hostility. Too bad.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:15:32 -0800, Jenn wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 19, 2:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

My point is that if euphonic distortion makes a recording sound more real,
then I'm all for it!

Obviously the CD is
more accurate - in every way- than is the LP, but the LP sounds more
alive,
more palpably THERE than the CD.Not that this is always the case, but it
is
the case often enough to raise in my mind the question of the importance
of
"accuracy" in the recording an playback of music. If we assume that the CD
is
more accurate, but the LP -with all of it's flaws- SOUNDS better, then
which
approach is better?

and:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if
we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.

Amen to that! The point of listening to music at home through an
audio system is to enjoy what you are listening to, isn't it? I don't
care what makes recording/media/system/room A sound more like actual
acoustic music than does recording/media/system/room B. It could be
any reason at all. Simply give me what sounds more real and I'm
happy. I WISH that it was always CD that wins this race (as it
usually does), as CD is so much easier and readily available. But
sometimes it's not, to my ears (the only ears that matter).

Exactly. It would be nice to figure out just what constitutes a system or a
recoding medium sounding like actual acoustical music, but people are so
afraid to think outside the box, that I doubt if we'll ever figure it out. I
didn't expect that when I started posting (although I was warned about Arny
Krueger).

[isw]

In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

Depends on the music. I can always tell an MP3 on classical, but a well-made
MP3 can fool me on pop stuff.

If you actually can reliably tell the MP3 from the AIFF it came from,
the person who did the encoding chose too low a bitrate. Or the encoder
used was not a good implementation.

Isaac

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message


The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre.

LPs go tic-tic-tic and rumble, rumble, rumble. I've never been to a live
concert that had inner groove distortion. Have you?

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message


I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this
discussion is that if we can't make an audio system
convey the sense of realism associated with live music by
making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean
as is technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of
accuracy is not all that important to the reproduction of
music.

This is incredibly poor logic. It is as if we would be standing back in 1950
saying that since we can't fly man to the moon, doing so is unimportant, and
we should drop space exploration all together.

In fact tremendous progress has been made with the over-all realism of
reproduction of music and drama, partcularly within cost and space
limitations.

For example in the past two weeks I was at a friend's house, enjoying his
HDTV video and 8.2 channel multichannel sound system. He might have had
$10,000 invested in this system.

About 30 years earlier, we had a similar experience with the then-current
technology. Instead of the HDTV and Blu-ray player, a different host had set
up a then-modern motion picture theatre in his basement, complete with
contemporary 35 mm prints obtained by less-than-legal means, a modern 35mm
projector with arc lamp, and theatre-sized speakers. The only thing that was
down-sized was the screen. The investment was more like $100,000 not
including the media, which was essentially priceless.

The modern system was based on off-the-shelf products, and off-the-shelf
media. Not only did it cost less than 1/10 th as much not including
inflation, but it simply worked better and was far easier to operate and
maintain.

[Arny Krueger]

"Jenn" wrote in message

On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned
the LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any
more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of making noise about a
medium that almost nobody can stand to bother with any more/

It seems like those who talk/write so
much about something they don't like are more noisy.

It's just a matter of presenting a balanced picture. If the noisy minority
would let the LP be in its proper place, then there would be less criticism
of its well-known and rather gross failings.

A lot of recent LP sales were
related to "scratching" in dance clubs. Since digital
means for simulating scratching have become readily
available, LP sales dropped by about another 1/3 per
RIAA statistics.
Cite, please.

http://76.74.24.142/E795D602-FA50-3F...8A40B98C46.pdf

1997 0.7
1998 0.7
1999 0.5
2000 0.5
2001 0.6
2002 0.7
2003 0.5
2004 0.9 - peak LP sales 10 years - also when
digital scratching started becoming widely accepted.
2005 0.7
2006 0.6 - sales drop 1/3 from peak of 0.9

Which, as I read it, is something near only 10% of the
margin of error (.3% with a 2.8% margin of error).

People keep talking about margins of error. I see no justification for
saying that the margin of error is that high. It appears to me that people
are confusing variation with error.

I thought that you might have something based on sales,
rather than a small phone survey.

"Small phone survey?" LOL!

What would be interesting is a stat that shows numbers of
LPs sold for listening, rather than for scratching.

Since there is no longer any need to scratch LPs in order to create the
audible effect, we may be able to determine that by simply watching LP sales
drop like a stone.

Impossible to know, I know.

It is well known that for a while, the number of turntables sold for
scratching exceeded the sales of guitars. Since the guitar is one of the
most popular instruments in the music store, this says that for a while, a
lot of LPs were being scratched. A huge amount!

Right now turntables sales and new models are increasing, but a lot of them
are very low cost, fitted with built-digital interfaces, and being sold for
the purpose of archiving vinyl. Hardly the image that the high end wants to
project for the LP.

[Arny Krueger]

"Jenn" wrote in message


The point of listening to music at home
through an audio system is to enjoy what you are
listening to, isn't it?

That is exactly why the LP died in the marketplace. That's why sales dropped
from about 100% to less than 1%.

True music lovers don't want to bother with a tedious, frustrating ritual of
cleansing, followed by lsitening to music interrupted and masked by audible
noise and distortion.

I don't care what makes
recording/media/system/room A sound more like actual
acoustic music than does recording/media/system/room B.

Adding noise and distortion to music is never the most logical or effective
means to accomplish realism.

Worship of the LP format is an example of hype and sentimentalism triumphing
over sound quality. Only a tiny noisy minority have ever been seduced by
these kinds of claims.

[Arny Krueger]

"isw" wrote in message

In article ,
Sonnova wrote:

Depends on the music. I can always tell an MP3 on
classical, but a well-made MP3 can fool me on pop stuff.

If you actually can reliably tell the MP3 from the AIFF
it came from, the person who did the encoding chose too
low a bitrate. Or the encoder used was not a good
implementation.

Or it wasn't a good listening test. I can tell the difference between any
MP3 and any WAV file if the comparison is:

Not level-matched
Not time-synched
Not dealing with listener bia

[Arny Krueger]

"Sonnova" wrote in message

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:16:41 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message


First of all, let's get straight what we are talking
about here. I'm not interested in, or talking, about
billions of people. I'm talking about high-end
audiophiles - people to whom the reproduction of music
is important.

The myth here is very self-centered. It is the false
claim that reproduction of music is important to only
high end audiophiles.

Yeah, that's why most listen to so-called rack systems
and MP3 players with $2 ear-buds.

No matter how high end true believers posture, there's usually nothing wrong
with the sonics of the electronics in most mid-fi components. Every
high-ender who has ever been given the opportunity to compare good mid-fi
amps and CD players to high end components (the ones that aren't actually
sound effects boxes in drag), comes up random guessing.

OTOH, the phrase rack system includes a lot of bottom-feeder ilk, that nets
out to be a $50 boom box in a different shaped box. The average Joe buys a
few of these, but the bulk of the market aims somewhat higher.

There are no $2 ear buds on the general consumer market - check your local
Best Buy or Circuit City. The cheapest ear buds start out around $10.
Admittedly, you have to pay more than that to get something worth listening
to, but there are some pretty well-regarded earphones in the mass market
stores, and someone is buying them. One example would be the Sony EX71
series.

The average consumer doesn't really care.

In fact the reproduction of music is so important to the
average consumer that the average consumer dropped the
LP like a hot potato as soon as a superior alternative
in the form of the CD became generally available.

The CD was adopted universally because of it's form
factor, not it's sound.

Again we hear this from high end true believers, but is there any proof?
The CD is approximately the same form factor as the 45. Theoretically, the
45 should be a high end analog-lovers dream because the more rapid
rotational speed allows more bandwidth. Didn't turn out that way, did it?

It's small, portable, doesn't
deteriorate as it's played, has no ticks-and pops and
skips. The sound quality meant little to the average
buyer. Still doesn't.

I see obfuscation of the simple fact that tics, pops, inner-groove
distortion, rumble, tone arm resonance, flutter and wow are exactly sound
quality issues. I guess we can learn from posts like this that there are
people to whom none of those things are sound quality issues, because they
keep dismissing them.

They buy cheap receivers,

Which happen to sound very good when hooked up to good
sources and good speakers.

cheap speakers

High end audiophiles don't shop at Best Buy or Circuit
City. Yet both chains sell speakers in the $1,000 and up
range, and that's for just one speaker. The average
consumer wants quality when he can afford it.

Most non-audiophiles would think that $200 is a lot of
money to spend on speakers.

Again we have proof by assertion. No facts, no statistics, just dogmatic
posturing. For better or worse, Joe six-pack spends a lot of money on Bose
systems that start out around $500. If the guardians of the high end weren't
so self-absorbed with their tweeks and boutiques, maybe they could be doing
a little education among the masses with money to spend.

No vinyl playback system can compare its sound quality
to the accurate reproduction that is available in
under-$100 optical disc players.

Under some circumstances you're right.

Since I restricted my comments to the player and not pathological examples
of hyper-compressed, over-produced media, I'm always right.

Under other
circumstances you are dead wrong

More proof by assertion.

then they turn the bass control all the way up and the
treble control all the way down (OK so maybe they don't
any more,

If its not true, why say it?

but a little hyperbole to make a point is no crime)

False claims do nobody any good.

Arny, no offense meant, but you take this stuff MUCH too
seriously.

I take things too seriously? Who is it around here who is still singing the
praises of equipment that has been obsolete for almost 30 years?

and have zero interest in achieving real-sounding
results.

Another self-deception.

Which happens to be true.

More proof by assertion.

Most have probably never heard live, unamplified
music to start with.

Another self-deception.

I just won't deal any further with so many statements
that have no useful basis in fact.

Probably best. You seem to be totally out of touch with
the real world.

I seem to know a lot more about mass-market stores and the preferences and
habits of joe sic-pack.

[bob]

On Nov 20, 10:41 am, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:09:08 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 19, 5:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if
we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all that
important to the reproduction of music.

You are confused on a number of levels. First of all, "sense of
realism" has relatively little to do with quality of reproduction, and
relatively much to do with the listener's--to borrow a phrase--willing
suspension of disbelief.

Since I agree with you fully, I must not be too terribly confused.

You may agree with it, but it's the opposite of what you've been
saying so far.

You can't engineer for that, except perhaps
to give people tone controls and DSP and such, to allow them to get
for themselves whatever sound promotes that suspension of disbelief--
for them. (Note that the high-end gods decree this approach to be
anathema.)

But that's my point.

Then you haven't made your point very well, I'm afraid.

Or it might be sufficient to give people a dial to turn
that doesn't actually do anything to the sound--that they simply
believe they are altering the sound may be all it takes to convince
them it sounds "more real."

That might work with some people, not with others

Oh, yes, it'll work with everybody. The research on psychoacoustic
bias (which this is an example of) is quite clear. I could easily fool
you with something like that.

You're also confusing the specific with the general. A particular
distortion profile--that associated with vinyl playback--may well be
euphonious for some number of listeners. That does not mean that
distortion in general is benign.

I never said it was benign. You read that into my words.

Your exact words were, "not all that important." Extensive research
suggests you're wrong about that.

There's plenty of research--as Arny
said, dating back to the 30s--showing that in general, most people
prefer non-distorted sound most of the time.

As do I. You really don't have a clue as to where I'm coming from, do you?



Audio gear has been made since Thomas Edison by profit-seeking firms.
The emphasis has been on lowering distortion because that's what the
public at large wanted, and profit-seeking firms always try to give
the people what they want. That there exists a handful of people who
like something else doesn't change the general case.

No, you don't get it. I'm sorry for that. I was hoping for a nice discussion.
All I get is people purposely misrepresenting what I write, followed by an
inordinate amount of hostility. Too bad.

No one is intentionaly misreading wqhat you said. We are trying to
understand your very muddled (and apparently not particularly well-
informed) arguments. If everyone is getting them wrong, perhaps the
problem is not with everyone, but with the person who isn't expressing
himself very well?

bob

[Steven Sullivan]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Sonnova" wrote in message


The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre.

LPs go tic-tic-tic and rumble, rumble, rumble. I've never been to a live
concert that had inner groove distortion. Have you?

The CD (and SACD) sounds incredible to me. Is Sonnova suggesting
that everyone would certainly find the LP better-sounding?

Really, what is the point of such testimonials?

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Jenn]

On Nov 20, 7:47 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message





On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned
the LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any
more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of making noise about a
medium that almost nobody can stand to bother with any more/

It seems like those who talk/write so
much about something they don't like are more noisy.

It's just a matter of presenting a balanced picture. If the noisy minority
would let the LP be in its proper place, then there would be less criticism
of its well-known and rather gross failings.



A lot of recent LP sales were
related to "scratching" in dance clubs. Since digital
means for simulating scratching have become readily
available, LP sales dropped by about another 1/3 per
RIAA statistics.
Cite, please.
http://76.74.24.142/E795D602-FA50-3F...8A40B98C46.pdf

1997 0.7
1998 0.7
1999 0.5
2000 0.5
2001 0.6
2002 0.7
2003 0.5
2004 0.9 - peak LP sales 10 years - also when
digital scratching started becoming widely accepted.
2005 0.7
2006 0.6 - sales drop 1/3 from peak of 0.9
Which, as I read it, is something near only 10% of the
margin of error (.3% with a 2.8% margin of error).

People keep talking about margins of error. I see no justification for
saying that the margin of error is that high. It appears to me that people
are confusing variation with error.

I didn't comment about the height of the margin.


I thought that you might have something based on sales,
rather than a small phone survey.

"Small phone survey?" LOL!

Yes. What was it? 1200 nation wide?


What would be interesting is a stat that shows numbers of
LPs sold for listening, rather than for scratching.

Since there is no longer any need to scratch LPs in order to create the
audible effect, we may be able to determine that by simply watching LP sales
drop like a stone.

Impossible to know, I know.

It is well known that for a while, the number of turntables sold for
scratching exceeded the sales of guitars.

Cite? NAMM stat, for example?

[Steven Sullivan]

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned
the LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any
more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of making noise about a
medium that almost nobody can stand to bother with any more/

Besides, the analog-loving faction shouldn't be touting LP, with all
its foibles and fussiness and generational loss,
when there is now the possibility of high-quality 15ips half-track
reel-to-reel at home

http://www.tapeproject.com/

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Steven Sullivan]

Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:18 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

willbill wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

willbill wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:

Hardly anybody buys into the pseudo-science behind those overpriced,
oversold toys. Note that the SACD and DVD-A formats are slowly dying
in the marketplace.


i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?



The SACD has great merit because it is multichannel. Many
of the SACDs I have are really really good heard on
my 5-speaker system.

Doug McDonald

1st thanks to you, steve sullivan and sonnova for
your very recent answers in the "impressions" thread

to me, of the "big 3" (read inexpensive, yet very good;
SACD, CD and vinyl), the clear current volume leader
has been and continues to be CD

(i'm discounting mp3 coz what little i know about it
is that it is a compressed sound format (2 channel?),
similar to the compressed DD and DTS multichannel
formats used with DVD movies)

It is, but 1) you may not be able to tell an
mp3 from a lossless source by ear, if the mp3 is well-made and 2) mp3 sales
and popularity *far* outstrip SACD's and vinyl's.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

Depends on the music. I can always tell an MP3 on classical,

Color me skeptical. 'Classical' isn't necessarily harder to
encode than nonclassical music.

If I could ensure you wouldn't use any wav analysis tricks
to identify the mp3 from source, I'd be happy to test your
hearing on this.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Jenn]

On Nov 20, 7:48 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



The point of listening to music at home
through an audio system is to enjoy what you are
listening to, isn't it?

That is exactly why the LP died in the marketplace. That's why sales dropped
from about 100% to less than 1%.

Part of the reason.


True music lovers don't want to bother with a tedious, frustrating ritual of
cleansing, followed by lsitening to music interrupted and masked by audible
noise and distortion.

Do I not qualify as a "true music lover" (tm) to you, Arny?


I don't care what makes
recording/media/system/room A sound more like actual
acoustic music than does recording/media/system/room B.

Adding noise and distortion to music is never the most logical or effective
means to accomplish realism.

Worship of the LP format

I don't personally know of any person like that, but I'm sure that
they exist.

is an example of hype and sentimentalism triumphing
over sound quality. Only a tiny noisy minority have ever been seduced by
these kinds of claims.

Again with the "noisy". Some of just enjoy some of them, Arny. I
hope that is OK with you.

[Jenn]

On Nov 20, 7:47 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of making noise about a
medium that almost nobody can stand to bother with any more/

Who made a claim of no noise, Arny? And, perhaps it is noise to you,
but others would simply refer to it as what it is: a response to your
statement.


It seems like those who talk/write so
much about something they don't like are more noisy.

It's just a matter of presenting a balanced picture. If the noisy minority
would let the LP be in its proper place, then there would be less criticism
of its well-known and rather gross failings.

The LP IS in its proper place, Arny: enjoyed by those who enjoy some
of them; ignored by others. What's the problem with that?

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:33:09 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 20, 10:41 am, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:09:08 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Nov 19, 5:04 pm, Sonnova wrote:

I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this discussion is that if
we
can't make an audio system convey the sense of realism associated with
live
music by making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean as is
technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of accuracy is not all
that
important to the reproduction of music.

You are confused on a number of levels. First of all, "sense of
realism" has relatively little to do with quality of reproduction, and
relatively much to do with the listener's--to borrow a phrase--willing
suspension of disbelief.

Since I agree with you fully, I must not be too terribly confused.

You may agree with it, but it's the opposite of what you've been
saying so far.

You can't engineer for that, except perhaps
to give people tone controls and DSP and such, to allow them to get
for themselves whatever sound promotes that suspension of disbelief--
for them. (Note that the high-end gods decree this approach to be
anathema.)

But that's my point.

Then you haven't made your point very well, I'm afraid.

Or it might be sufficient to give people a dial to turn
that doesn't actually do anything to the sound--that they simply
believe they are altering the sound may be all it takes to convince
them it sounds "more real."

That might work with some people, not with others

Oh, yes, it'll work with everybody. The research on psychoacoustic
bias (which this is an example of) is quite clear. I could easily fool
you with something like that.

You're also confusing the specific with the general. A particular
distortion profile--that associated with vinyl playback--may well be
euphonious for some number of listeners. That does not mean that
distortion in general is benign.

I never said it was benign. You read that into my words.

Your exact words were, "not all that important." Extensive research
suggests you're wrong about that.

Why don't you be a little more honest and quote me in context? I said that
given that euphonic colorations can make music sound more "real" then perhaps
accuracy is not all that important (I'm paraphrasing here for brevity, but
that's essentially what I said). Oh, yes, and you notice that the "perhaps"
makes my assertion a rhetorical query, not a statement.

There's plenty of research--as Arny
said, dating back to the 30s--showing that in general, most people
prefer non-distorted sound most of the time.

As do I. You really don't have a clue as to where I'm coming from, do you?



Audio gear has been made since Thomas Edison by profit-seeking firms.
The emphasis has been on lowering distortion because that's what the
public at large wanted, and profit-seeking firms always try to give
the people what they want. That there exists a handful of people who
like something else doesn't change the general case.

No, you don't get it. I'm sorry for that. I was hoping for a nice
discussion.
All I get is people purposely misrepresenting what I write, followed by an
inordinate amount of hostility. Too bad.

No one is intentionaly misreading wqhat you said. We are trying to
understand your very muddled (and apparently not particularly well-
informed) arguments. If everyone is getting them wrong, perhaps the
problem is not with everyone, but with the person who isn't expressing
himself very well?

I'm expressing myself extremely clearly. What is happening is that there are
a few of you on this NG who purposely misinterpret, and misread other
people's posts with the intent of discrediting anyone who doesn't agree with
them.

The last time I was in this group was about 5-6 years ago and there was lot
more activity than there is today. I now think I know why.

To set the record straight, my assertions in this thread a

1) Modern CD technology is excellent, but I have *some* phonograph records
that sound better than the best CDs. I am a recording engineer. I think I
know what real music sounds like.

2) Since it is a given that LP is fraught with inaccuracies and mechanical as
well as electrical distortions and compromises, If there are LPs that sound
better than any CD, then it must be a fortuitous arrangement of circumstances
whereby the colorations inherent in the medium have combined to make the
whole better than the sum of its parts.

3) I never said that distortion, in and of itself, was good or in any way
desirable. I did say that certain euphonic colorations MIGHT be beneficial to
achieving at least some of the emotional impact of music in the home.

4) It is my contention that most people don't care about accurate sound at
all, they just want to hear the tunes.

As for not being well informed, what have I said to give you THAT impression?

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:46:30 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message


I'm not. The whole point of my participation in this
discussion is that if we can't make an audio system
convey the sense of realism associated with live music by
making each link in the chain as perfectly squeeky-clean
as is technologically possible, then perhaps that kind of
accuracy is not all that important to the reproduction of
music.

This is incredibly poor logic. It is as if we would be standing back in 1950
saying that since we can't fly man to the moon, doing so is unimportant, and
we should drop space exploration all together.

As usual you've missed the point I'm making completely. I'm not making a
statement here, I'm posing a question. Nobody is advocating that we stop
exploring the edge of the envelope in either audio or space!

In fact tremendous progress has been made with the over-all realism of
reproduction of music and drama, partcularly within cost and space
limitations.

I agree fully.

For example in the past two weeks I was at a friend's house, enjoying his
HDTV video and 8.2 channel multichannel sound system. He might have had
$10,000 invested in this system.

Easily. I have a similar system.

About 30 years earlier, we had a similar experience with the then-current
technology. Instead of the HDTV and Blu-ray player, a different host had set
up a then-modern motion picture theatre in his basement, complete with
contemporary 35 mm prints obtained by less-than-legal means, a modern 35mm
projector with arc lamp, and theatre-sized speakers. The only thing that was
down-sized was the screen. The investment was more like $100,000 not
including the media, which was essentially priceless.

I have a friend who STILL has a motion picture "theater" set up in his
garage. He has both 35mm and 16mm equipment although most of his films are
16mm. And since it's actually illegal to own a film print of a Hollywood
feature film, in either 16 or 35mm, all of his acquisitions are "illegal".
His films are also old because his main source was ex-military 'Special
Services" prints. Since videotape and now DVD came along, that source has
dried-up and they don't strike 16mm prints very much any more. Kind of a
parallel with LP vs digital, isn't it?

The modern system was based on off-the-shelf products, and off-the-shelf
media. Not only did it cost less than 1/10 th as much not including
inflation, but it simply worked better and was far easier to operate and
maintain.

Yep.


What you overlook is that I'm not making a statement here, I said "perhaps"
that makes my comment a rhetorical query . In other words I'm asking others
if this COULD be a possibility. I'm not saying that it is.

Also, you seem to have somewhere gotten the idea that prefer LP to CD. That's
not true at all. I have thousands of both. A much higher percentage of my CD
collection sounds excellent to superb than of my LP collection - most of
which are mediocre at best. BUT, I have several LPs that sound more like real
music than ANY CD I own or have heard and I'd like to understand why. I have
recorded for both LP and CD and I know the steps involved. For all intents
and purposes the LP mastering process is a nightmare, a lash-up that
shouldn't work at all. Yet it does. Many people don't understand that most
LPs were mastered from third generation tapes that have been specifically
EQ'd . Modern cutting heads require hundreds of Watts to get them to move at
all, and just a few more to burn them out! Therefore the electronics driving
the cutters and the lathe have acceleration limiters, power limiters, look
ahead tape pickups to allow the equipment to pre-condition the signal and set
the variable-pitch on the lathe, etc., etc, etc. So it's a wonder that they
work at all. But still, there is that occasional glimpse of reality that the
very best phonograph records produce that CD just doesn't seem to be able to
muster. It would be nice to know why.

[Sonnova]

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

Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:55:40 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:36:12 -0800, wrote
(in article ):
snip

Right, so on the basis of two totally different masterings (i.e. the
actual spectral composition was changed between formats, not 'just' the
requisite RIAA curve application) of the performance, you think you can
make a valid comparison of formats? Sorry, not possible - whatever
format comparison you choose (MP3-Vinyl-CD-SACD-etc.).

Keith Hughes

That's not important.

What's not important? Your comparison?

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.

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.
Instead of discussing it, we sit here arguing back and forth over who said
what to who.

There is a hugely confounding
variable, for which the impact is unknown, besides medium/format.

I don't disagree in the least!

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:45:16 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message


The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre.

LPs go tic-tic-tic and rumble, rumble, rumble. I've never been to a live
concert that had inner groove distortion. Have you?


No. And it's been many years since I've heard rumble-rumble or inner-groove
distortion. Modern turntables are belt driven by low speed motors. They do
not rumble and modern tone-arm geometries have reduced inner-groove
distortion to a less than tertiary effect. I can live with the occasional tic
and pop as long as the sound of the orchestra is compelling enough. Sure, I'd
rather not hear it, that's probably the reason why I have thousands of CDs
and listen to them almost exclusively these days.

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:45:33 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:18 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

willbill wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:

willbill wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:

Hardly anybody buys into the pseudo-science behind those overpriced,
oversold toys. Note that the SACD and DVD-A formats are slowly dying
in the marketplace.


i'm sure that others here know the answer,
but are you a fan of SACD, or not?

again, i'm not trolling! if you think that
SACD has little merit, then what does have merit?



The SACD has great merit because it is multichannel. Many
of the SACDs I have are really really good heard on
my 5-speaker system.

Doug McDonald

1st thanks to you, steve sullivan and sonnova for
your very recent answers in the "impressions" thread

to me, of the "big 3" (read inexpensive, yet very good;
SACD, CD and vinyl), the clear current volume leader
has been and continues to be CD

(i'm discounting mp3 coz what little i know about it
is that it is a compressed sound format (2 channel?),
similar to the compressed DD and DTS multichannel
formats used with DVD movies)

It is, but 1) you may not be able to tell an
mp3 from a lossless source by ear, if the mp3 is well-made and 2) mp3 sales
and popularity *far* outstrip SACD's and vinyl's.

___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

Depends on the music. I can always tell an MP3 on classical,

Color me skeptical. 'Classical' isn't necessarily harder to
encode than nonclassical music.

Why don't I color you "not thinking about it enough" instead? No, classical
isn't necessarily harder to encode than pop. But because of the much larger
dynamic range of classical music (ppp to fff) it's easier to hear the
artifacts than with pop and rock which tends to run the gamut from ff to fff!
While this isn't always the case with pop, it is with the vast majority of
it. The limited dynamic range (read that LOUD) that most pop music has masks
most of the audible artifacts.

If I could ensure you wouldn't use any wav analysis tricks
to identify the mp3 from source, I'd be happy to test your
hearing on this.

It's not that hard. Believe me, when the dynamic range changes suddenly there
is an accompanying, uncorrolated artifact that is as unmistakable as it is
unpleasant that you cannot miss once you've heard it.

You don't actually think that a lossy compression algorithm could throw
portions of the waveform away without it being noticeable at least
occasionally, do you?

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:44:55 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message

On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned
the LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any
more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of making noise about a
medium that almost nobody can stand to bother with any more/

Besides, the analog-loving faction shouldn't be touting LP, with all
its foibles and fussiness and generational loss,
when there is now the possibility of high-quality 15ips half-track
reel-to-reel at home

http://www.tapeproject.com/

I have some of those. They are jaw droppingly good! I also have many 15ips
masters of major symphony orchestras that I have made. They sound even
better. But I just bought a new stereo microphone from Avantone called the
CK-40

http://tinyurl.com/yu89c5

And it coupled with the Apogee Duet and my trusty Apple Powerbook:

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet.php

Makes better recordings yet (at 24-bit, 96KHz )!

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:40:27 -0800, Steven Sullivan wrote
(in article ):

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Sonnova" wrote in message


The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre.

LPs go tic-tic-tic and rumble, rumble, rumble. I've never been to a live
concert that had inner groove distortion. Have you?

The CD (and SACD) sounds incredible to me. Is Sonnova suggesting
that everyone would certainly find the LP better-sounding?

Really, what is the point of such testimonials?

NO, NO, NO! please read and understand the entire thread before commenting. I
have an LP (ONE three disc, single-sided, 45 RPM release by Classic Records)
that stands head and shoulders above all other commercial recordings that I
own in terms of REALISM. It is simply incredible. I also have an earlier
release of the same performance on a single 33.3 disc and I have both the CD
of that performance and the recent SACD of it. NONE of them sound as REAL as
that Classic Records release. From that, more than half the people on this NG
have fabricated an opinion that I prefer ALL LPs to all CDs/SACDs. I have
never said or meant anything of the kind!


___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

[Codifus]

Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:55:40 -0800, Keith Hughes wrote
(in article ):


Sonnova wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:36:12 -0800, wrote
(in article ):

snip

but I'll give you an
example, anyway - just to show where I'm coming from with this line of
thinking.

I have two copies of the Mercury Living Presence recording of Stravinsky's
"Firebird" ballet with Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony. One is
the
CD mastered by the recording's original producers Wilma Cozert Fine, and
Robert Eberenz. It sounds OK. Then, several years ago, I purchased the
Classic Records re-mastering of the same work on vinyl.

snip

Right, so on the basis of two totally different masterings (i.e. the
actual spectral composition was changed between formats, not 'just' the
requisite RIAA curve application) of the performance, you think you can
make a valid comparison of formats? Sorry, not possible - whatever
format comparison you choose (MP3-Vinyl-CD-SACD-etc.).

Keith Hughes


That's not important. The LP sounds incredible, the CD sounds mediocre. I'm
not inferring ANYTHING from that other than what I said. There are four ways
to buy that performance: 1) find a used original issue or later Phillips
issue of the LP, 2) buy the Classics Records 45RPM disc set, 3) buy the
original CD and 4) get the recently re-mastered SACD release. I have all
four. The Classic Records 3-sided 45 RPM CD sounds the most like real music
and is, without a doubt, one of the best sounding recordings I've ever heard.
The SACD sounds better than the original CD release, but not as good as the
Classic pressing. The original LP sounds better than both CD releases but not
as good as the Classic Records pressing.
That's the problem with most comparisons of LP and CD. The reference is
always relative to the other recording, not the original master
recording. Sure, LP may sound better than CD or SACD, but how do you
really know how good it is unless you've heard the original master
recording? The LP could have made the original recording sound more
pleasant with less dynamics and a less harsh top end. I'll admit that
LP recordings tend to sound more plaeasant to me than alot of CDs I
have. But that, to me has alot to do with CD having a way superior
dynamic range, so dynamics hit you harder, and probably harsher, than
LP. CD has no limit in its high frequency response compared to that of
LP, whereas LP has to roll off the high frequencies because the medium
just can't handle it. Therefore, any unpleasantness or hardshness in
higher frewquencies is presented to you, full blown from the CD. The
mastering engineer has to work much hard to make a pleasant CD because
it deliver's everything to you, warts and all. In the LP, some mistakes
are swallowed up or pleasantly washed over due to its limitations.

I know 2 people who have access to master tapes, and they say when CD is
done right, no question. LP does not even come close. The issue lies
with duplication and mass production.

Now, with SACD, I gather that Sony made a considerable effort to make
sure it sounds great, so they employed some great mastering engineers in
their productions. Also, SACD is inferior to even CD in technical
ability in terms of high frequency noise above 10 Khz. I get the feeling
that the noise shaping algorythms used in SACD that tranfer the noise to
the upper frequencies tend to make a performance sound more pleasant. A
loose analogy I would make is with the audio cassette. When you make a
cassette recording with no noise reduction, the resulting recording has
alot of hiss. When playing that recordning, the hiss makes the recording
seem to have a higher frequency response than it actually does during
playback. I get the vague notion that the noise shaping circuits in SACD
have a somewhat similarly pleasant effect on a recording.

Just my 2 cents.

CD

[willbill]

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Doug McDonald wrote:

The SACD has great merit because it is multichannel.

It isn't necessarily so . And it's not the only
multichannel-capable format.

for audio only, besides SACD and DVD-A, what else
is there for decent multichannel sound?

(not that DVD-A is decent!)

bill

[Arny Krueger]

"Jenn" wrote in message

On Nov 20, 7:47 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message





On Nov 19, 7:23 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message



On Nov 18, 8:10 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
In fact about 99% of all music lovers have abandoned
the LP. Only a tiny noisy minority bother with it any
more.

Not all are "noisy", Arny. Some of us just like what
some LPs bring to the sonic and musical table.

It's not a matter of just liking. People like many
things that they don't publicly obsess over so
frequently as we see, with that tiny noisy minority who
still bother with LPs.

Again, I'm part of that tiny minority, and I and most
people who like some LPs are not particularly "noisy"
about it, IMO.

This is irony - a claim of no noise in the midst of
making noise about a medium that almost nobody can stand
to bother with any more/

It seems like those who talk/write so
much about something they don't like are more noisy.

It's just a matter of presenting a balanced picture. If
the noisy minority would let the LP be in its proper
place, then there would be less criticism of its
well-known and rather gross failings.



A lot of recent LP sales were
related to "scratching" in dance clubs. Since digital
means for simulating scratching have become readily
available, LP sales dropped by about another 1/3 per
RIAA statistics.
Cite, please.
http://76.74.24.142/E795D602-FA50-3F...8A40B98C46.pdf

1997 0.7
1998 0.7
1999 0.5
2000 0.5
2001 0.6
2002 0.7
2003 0.5
2004 0.9 - peak LP sales 10 years - also when
digital scratching started becoming widely accepted.
2005 0.7
2006 0.6 - sales drop 1/3 from peak of 0.9

Which, as I read it, is something near only 10% of the
margin of error (.3% with a 2.8% margin of error).

People keep talking about margins of error. I see no
justification for saying that the margin of error is
that high. It appears to me that people are confusing
variation with error.

I didn't comment about the height of the margin.

What did you do, besides throw some numbers around?

I thought that you might have something based on sales,
rather than a small phone survey.

"Small phone survey?" LOL!

Yes. What was it? 1200 nation wide?

Since you seem to think that this is an issue and that you have definative
evidence from a reliable source, its up to you to follow through. If you
can't, then we'll put these claims over in the speculation bucket.

What would be interesting is a stat that shows numbers
of LPs sold for listening, rather than for scratching.

Since there is no longer any need to scratch LPs in
order to create the audible effect, we may be able to
determine that by simply watching LP sales drop like a
stone.

Impossible to know, I know.

It is well known that for a while, the number of
turntables sold for scratching exceeded the sales of
guitars.

Cite? NAMM stat, for example?

I'll start coming up with cites when the old business gets settled.