Excerpt from Tim de Paravicini regarding the state of digital

FrantzM

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Read your comment about CD .. It's all good... One inquiry: Have you ever heard a CD recording of an LP? Do you think you would be able to separate the two? Reliably? By the way this inquiry is not to dispute your preference. One likes what one likes ...
On my side it seemed to me the last time I conducted a serious comparison that the LP was as you say more realistic above 8 KHz... I did however find many CD on the Burmester system more satisfying than their (few and rare) LP counterparts... (Basis, Graham, Koetsu). The Mercury CDs in particular sounded very good on equal (different) but sometimes "better" than what I got from the few LPs I had... For the better piano recordings (Nojima plays Lizt Reference Recordings or the Stereophile Rhapsody by Hyperion Knight) and even for voices the CDs seemed better in term of verisimilitude of reproduction and when the LP was available as in the case of the RR Nojima...were IMO superior
YMMV but CDs on the better DAC are far from "thin" IMO ...
The sense of decay was a fault of earlier DACs up to the early 90's, the better contemporary DACs don't seem to have that problem...
 

mep

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Tom-Sounds like you are a bit confiicted. I do find your comments very interesting though.

Mark
 

Ethan Winer

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I am leaning on something to do with the double low pass filtering in the CD format verses in LP you inverse filter, and there is that mechanical interface in LP that may add something we can't quite put our finger on. The differences show up in the soundstage depth and width to my ears and in the decay and initial attack, but are subtle on some recording for sure.

I can't see how filters that operate at the extremes of the audio range would have any effect on soundstage. The background noise on LPs is much louder than digital whose self-noise is inaudible. And LP noise is stereo. Stop me if you've heard this before: I once mixed stereo pink noise at varying levels into a clean mono recording. Once the noise was loud enough to hear, the imaging seemed to get wider because the noise was different left and right. That's the best explanation I have for why people think LPs (and analog tape) sound "larger" than digital. So it may be true that LPs sound wider than digital, but it's an artificial effect and a less-accurate representation of the music.

--Ethan
 

Ethan Winer

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remember the tone that guy was going to cut for you on an LP

The last I heard, he called me and promised to send me an LP "real soon now." That was like a month ago.

Although we agree they sound different, it would be great to know more of the reasons why. When talking about filters, as for CD and LP I mean the entire 20 to 20K if you will. The CD low pass filters everything before ADC then low pass filters it again after DAC. So, as far as a filters effect of smoothing out waves into sinewaves, the CD chain does it twice. The LP chain also filters but then as you pointed out reverse filters and so there should be some cancelling going on there.

Filters that operate at the frequency extremes should not be audible unless they're at least a dB or three down within the audible range. So I doubt it's that.

This is like wondering if Coke tastes different from Diet Shasta because of slight differences in carbonation, while ignoring that one uses corn syrup and the other contains Splenda. The reason LPs and CDs sound different is very clear to me. One is a highly accurate reproduction of the source, and the other has frequency response errors of at least several dB within the audible range, audible cross-talk, and distortion that's difficult not to notice. And that's without even considering the clicks and pops and surface noise.

This can possibly also add more transient energy and create more overtones that make the music sound livelier.

If that were true it would show up as a difference in frequency response.

I played the 5th dimension song Aquarius/Let the sunshinen it from their original album and from an Arista Heritage CD called the 5th dimension.

Those recordings were likely made from different master tapes, with the LP's tape EQ'd to optimize / offset the cutting process. Since you liked my stereo noise story, here's another one that's directly related:

There was an interesting article a few years ago in Mix magazine where columnist Eddie Ciletti theorized that some people prefer LPs because vinyl recordings almost always employ high-frequency compression. Recording lathe cutter heads are very expensive and can be destroyed if too much high frequency content is applied, so a limiter that controls only the high frequencies is generally put in the chain. And the high frequency limiting is what makes music recorded on vinyl sound smoother and more "airy" etc. It probably helps to know what compression sounds like generally, to appreciate why compressing only the highs can add a sense of smoothness and air.

I think I know that CD tends to take away something in I suspect the double filtering or whatever ... Ethan, you know I am looking for the technical reasons they sound different

And I'm just being as technical as possible. Competent digital does not "take away" anything, and this is easily proven by recording a source and comparing that source to the digital playback. As always, my home studio is open to anyone who would like to visit and perform tests like this. I'll do the switching, you listen and tell me what you hear. :D

--Ethan
 

muralman1

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You must be referring to some other thread, as your remark is clearly out of bounds in regards the last ten posts.

Tom

I wrote too little to say much. I read all the posts. They do seem to be comparing CDs to Vinyl in an as fact way. It has been my experience CDs sound radically different on different systems. The same thing goes for Vinyl.
 

Ethan Winer

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Seems to me you did some tests of this sort if I recall correctly, where you recorded something digitally a lot of times, and it seems it would tend to disprove what I am saying above.

Yes. :D

frequency response variations are big difference, cartridge to cartridge, quality of pressing record to record et al.

Exactly, versus CDs which are all identical and faithful to the original source the digital recording is made from.

Perhaps not necessarily with sinewave testing. Again, not to argue but to discuss.

No need to sugar-coat anything. I take all comments as discussion unless they include "Ethan, you ignorant slut."

It doesn't matter how the frequency response is measured, as long as it's done correctly. All sounds and all music are comprised of sine waves having varying frequency, amplitude, and time relations. So other than lossy compression coding such as MP3 which changes frequency response dynamically over time, static sine waves are perfectly valid for measuring frequency response.

As for a square wave versus a sawtooth, IMO what matters for testing is impulse response and ringing / overshoot. So a pulse wave with other than a 50 percent duty cycle would work well too, and like a sawtooth a pulse wave contains both odd and even hear tonics.

--Ethan
 

Lee

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Thank you for the article Myles. I consider Tim a living legend.

I wonder what Tim De Paravicini thinks about digital now. Dan Meinwald told me at RMAF that there is a new Acute CD player on the horizon with USB capability.
 

flez007

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Thank you for the article Myles. I consider Tim a living legend.

I wonder what Tim De Paravicini thinks about digital now. Dan Meinwald told me at RMAF that there is a new Acute CD player on the horizon with USB capability.

I do too... Besides the great sonics of the TdP RtR deck in my room, having something that came out from his mind convinced me to get my new deck.
 

Al M.

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The reason LPs and CDs sound different is very clear to me. One is a highly accurate reproduction of the source, and the other has frequency response errors of at least several dB within the audible range, audible cross-talk, and distortion that's difficult not to notice. And that's without even considering the clicks and pops and surface noise.

[...] Since you liked my stereo noise story, here's another one that's directly related:

There was an interesting article a few years ago in Mix magazine where columnist Eddie Ciletti theorized that some people prefer LPs because vinyl recordings almost always employ high-frequency compression. Recording lathe cutter heads are very expensive and can be destroyed if too much high frequency content is applied, so a limiter that controls only the high frequencies is generally put in the chain. And the high frequency limiting is what makes music recorded on vinyl sound smoother and more "airy" etc. It probably helps to know what compression sounds like generally, to appreciate why compressing only the highs can add a sense of smoothness and air.

And I'm just being as technical as possible. Competent digital does not "take away" anything, and this is easily proven by recording a source and comparing that source to the digital playback. As always, my home studio is open to anyone who would like to visit and perform tests like this. I'll do the switching, you listen and tell me what you hear. :D

--Ethan

That is fascinating.

I grew up with vinyl, but as an audiophile later in life I built my systems on CD playback since I cared about availability of music and always had strongly disliked the clicks and pops of vinyl (CD, even with all its initial shortcomings compared to today's high-quality playback, made me breathe a sigh of relief, and I never looked back at vinyl). When after my first excursions into high-end I heard vinyl on highly resolving systems, I was impressed by the airiness on some recordings, an airiness not found on CD. Yet paying attention to the sound at live concerts of unamplified music (mostly classical, old and modern) changed that positive reaction over the years.

In live situations I heard not just many degrees of air but also many different kinds of air, all depending on hall acoustics and seating position, close to or far away from the stage. Sometimes the sound was rather earthy, with quite little air, other times it was immensely airy (Boston Symphony Hall, row 4 close to the stage; in other concert halls I did not hear this air sitting so close, and when you sit further back in Boston Symphony Hall, the sound is more 'normal' as well).

Yet even with all these different degrees and kinds of air, I never heard live the kind of air that quite often I heard from vinyl (and still do from that source, such as on quite recent occasions). I have now concluded that the 'air' on vinyl is frequently an artefact, which is in line with your observations. I rather preferred the comparative lack of air that I heard from CD to the nice sounding but artificial airiness from vinyl. Yet recently, with the addition of BorderPatrol external power supplies for my amps, which do not generate the electronic noise that previously was emitted by the amps' internal power supplies and entered the signal pathway, I finally heard resolution from CD that previously was buried in noise. And this resolution includes an airy bloom that I had thought could not be extracted from CD. See my review of the BorderPatrol units:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...trol-MB-external-power-supplies-for-tube-amps

And guess what, the airy bloom from CD does strike me as rather similar to what I hear live, thus as quite real and not as an artefact like from vinyl. For me, CD now clearly wins on this point.

My question would be, how could high frequency compression, applied to vinyl, create artificial airiness? Is it because of sonic byproducts generated in the process?
 

Ethan Winer

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I got your PM and I'm glad to comment further.

how could high frequency compression, applied to vinyl, create artificial airiness? Is it because of sonic byproducts generated in the process?

As I mentioned in the post you quoted, it helps to know what a regular compressor effect sounds like. Basically, a compressor varies the volume raising soft parts. So a singer's breath intake will be exaggerated. Since "airy" is associated with higher frequencies, a compressor that does this to high frequencies only will add even more "air."

My own philosophy for playback is to be true to the original recording. I assume the mixing engineer and producer already decided exactly how much "air" they want to hear, so adding even more is not useful. Sort of like boosting the bass and treble with a smiley curve EQ makes music sound "better" to an unsophisticated listener, but a true audiophile wouldn't want that effect added to everything. What I want is as close as possible to what the microphones captured, and CD clearly beats vinyl (and analog tape) for that.

There's a lot more to the big picture than this brief explanation of vinyl artifacts. Our hearing is very unreliable, so what sounds great at one moment might sound very different the next day, or even five minutes later. Aside from imagined differences, moving even a few inches in your seat really does change the sound. This is just the tip of the iceberg!

--Ethan
 

cjfrbw

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An Audiophile Butt Positioner? Sounds like it has market potential in the 5k range.
 

MtnHam

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One of the joys of large electrostatic panels is that the 'sweet seat' becomes the 'sweet zone' which you can move around like a holograph and experience different perspectives of the 'stage.' The full frequency range doesn't collapse because you moved! The music is full and rich where ever in the room you are.

U-1PX.jpg
 

microstrip

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That is fascinating.

I grew up with vinyl, but as an audiophile later in life I built my systems on CD playback since I cared about availability of music and always had strongly disliked the clicks and pops of vinyl (CD, even with all its initial shortcomings compared to today's high-quality playback, made me breathe a sigh of relief, and I never looked back at vinyl). When after my first excursions into high-end I heard vinyl on highly resolving systems, I was impressed by the airiness on some recordings, an airiness not found on CD. Yet paying attention to the sound at live concerts of unamplified music (mostly classical, old and modern) changed that positive reaction over the years.

In live situations I heard not just many degrees of air but also many different kinds of air, all depending on hall acoustics and seating position, close to or far away from the stage. Sometimes the sound was rather earthy, with quite little air, other times it was immensely airy (Boston Symphony Hall, row 4 close to the stage; in other concert halls I did not hear this air sitting so close, and when you sit further back in Boston Symphony Hall, the sound is more 'normal' as well).

Yet even with all these different degrees and kinds of air, I never heard live the kind of air that quite often I heard from vinyl (and still do from that source, such as on quite recent occasions). I have now concluded that the 'air' on vinyl is frequently an artefact, which is in line with your observations. I rather preferred the comparative lack of air that I heard from CD to the nice sounding but artificial airiness from vinyl. Yet recently, with the addition of BorderPatrol external power supplies for my amps, which do not generate the electronic noise that previously was emitted by the amps' internal power supplies and entered the signal pathway, I finally heard resolution from CD that previously was buried in noise. And this resolution includes an airy bloom that I had thought could not be extracted from CD. See my review of the BorderPatrol units:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...trol-MB-external-power-supplies-for-tube-amps

And guess what, the airy bloom from CD does strike me as rather similar to what I hear live, thus as quite real and not as an artefact like from vinyl. For me, CD now clearly wins on this point.

My question would be, how could high frequency compression, applied to vinyl, create artificial airiness? Is it because of sonic byproducts generated in the process?

Al M.

Great post, small world. I was reading your words on air, airiness, little air, artificial airiness, and I was linking them to some great sessions and talks I had with two friends about twenty years ago, when I owned the more airy speaker ever existed, the Ensemble Reference with the matching and mandatory Landmark stands. One of these friends later got the speakers from me and I know he re-sold them to some one in the neighborhood - the speakers should not be far from me now. These speakers tell you -stop, please look how airy the sound is! And now I found you own them looking in your profile.

There is however one aspect that I would like to remember - the Ensemble Reference always sounded much better with CD than vinyl. The great victim of our comparisons was the Misa Criolla sang by Jose Carreras - we listened to it tens of times. Great days. BTW, at that time we also found that only a Forsell Air bearing CD player and DAC could supply all the air they needed - I am not joking! ;)

I also listen to classical orchestral music almost exclusively in CD format - my strong preference for vinyl shows mainly in jazz and a little rock or opera.
 

Al M.

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Al M.

Great post, small world. I was reading your words on air, airiness, little air, artificial airiness, and I was linking them to some great sessions and talks I had with two friends about twenty years ago, when I owned the more airy speaker ever existed, the Ensemble Reference with the matching and mandatory Landmark stands. One of these friends later got the speakers from me and I know he re-sold them to some one in the neighborhood - the speakers should not be far from me now. These speakers tell you -stop, please look how airy the sound is! And now I found you own them looking in your profile.

Interesting, I don't know how the Ensemble Reference speakers sound with Landmark stands which were introduced after I bought them in 1991. I have stands from De Jong Systems, and in my set-up the speakers don't sound particularly airy -- but just right, if anything, rather on the earthy side. It does depend on the cables as well -- my Monster Sigma cables give a much less bright balance (comparable to MIT cables that I had recently for auditioning) than Ensemble's own cables from that time, for example. I found the Magico S1 that I auditioned recently to be more airy sounding (on those MIT cables). I found that speaker inferior, not necessarily because of the airiness (which just gave a different perspective on possible live sound), but for other reasons.

There is however one aspect that I would like to remember - the Ensemble Reference always sounded much better with CD than vinyl. The great victim of our comparisons was the Misa Criolla sang by Jose Carreras - we listened to it tens of times. Great days. BTW, at that time we also found that only a Forsell Air bearing CD player and DAC could supply all the air they needed - I am not joking! ;)

The reason why the speakers sound better with CD apparently has to do with subsonic trouble on LP. From Dick Olsher's review:

The specter of subsonics
While the lower mids always sounded smooth, I became aware over time of grain and roughness through the upper mids and lower treble—but only with LP program material. Violin overtones lost sweetness and smoothness. A sense of strain would creep in that was not volume-related. The Ensemble PA-1 appeared to be performing better with digital than with LP program material. I decided to investigate this discrepancy using the Wilson Audio recording of the Beethoven Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op.96. David Abel's Guarnerius on the LP version of this was not as pure-sounding as CD. By comparison, the LP was beset with noticeable levels of grain and roughness riding along with the violin's harmonic envelope. The CD also managed to develop a better sense of space, the Guarnerius occupying an almost palpable space within the soundstage. What! CDs sounding better than LPs? I can't have that.

Naturally, I began to strongly suspect subsonic energy as the culprit. With the grille off, it was easy to see the wild gyrations executed by the woofer; the introduction of FM and IM distortion became real possibilities. The fact that the PA-1's passive radiator is tuned high means that it is vulnerable to subsonic energy. The woofer is on its own in the deep bass and below, without any damping from the air spring of the cabinet.

I decided to test this theory. Not having a subsonic filter handy, I introduced the Threshold PCX crossover into the chain, using only the high-pass feed above 75Hz. The deep bass and subsonic frequencies were attenuated at the rate of 18dB/octave below 75Hz. This really did it—the transformation was dramatic. The Guarnerius began to sing sweetly and with excellent focus. All grain and strain were removed from the upper mids. At last, the proper balance was restored: the LP sounded better than its CD equivalent. I missed the lost deep-bass information; there wasn't that much to begin with, but when you have none at all you notice it. But the accrued benefits were so great through the upper mids that I could not imagine listening to the PA-1 full-range again

Apparently, the designer is aware of his speaker's subsonic vulnerability, because in the Owner's Manual the use of a subsonic filter is recommended as it "banishes all those non-musical signals (such as record warps) below the lowest musical spectrum, thus allowing a very clean bass." To be fair, I should point out that most minimonitors, and especially vented designs, would greatly benefit from the use of a subsonic filter. Properly executed, the real benefits of such a filter should greatly outweigh the potential disadvantages of introducing another active device into the signal path.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/pawelensemble-pa-1-amp-reference-loudspeakers-page-4
 
Last edited:

LL21

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That is fascinating.

I grew up with vinyl, but as an audiophile later in life I built my systems on CD playback since I cared about availability of music and always had strongly disliked the clicks and pops of vinyl (CD, even with all its initial shortcomings compared to today's high-quality playback, made me breathe a sigh of relief, and I never looked back at vinyl). When after my first excursions into high-end I heard vinyl on highly resolving systems, I was impressed by the airiness on some recordings, an airiness not found on CD. Yet paying attention to the sound at live concerts of unamplified music (mostly classical, old and modern) changed that positive reaction over the years.

In live situations I heard not just many degrees of air but also many different kinds of air, all depending on hall acoustics and seating position, close to or far away from the stage. Sometimes the sound was rather earthy, with quite little air, other times it was immensely airy (Boston Symphony Hall, row 4 close to the stage; in other concert halls I did not hear this air sitting so close, and when you sit further back in Boston Symphony Hall, the sound is more 'normal' as well).

Yet even with all these different degrees and kinds of air, I never heard live the kind of air that quite often I heard from vinyl (and still do from that source, such as on quite recent occasions). I have now concluded that the 'air' on vinyl is frequently an artefact, which is in line with your observations. I rather preferred the comparative lack of air that I heard from CD to the nice sounding but artificial airiness from vinyl. Yet recently, with the addition of BorderPatrol external power supplies for my amps, which do not generate the electronic noise that previously was emitted by the amps' internal power supplies and entered the signal pathway, I finally heard resolution from CD that previously was buried in noise. And this resolution includes an airy bloom that I had thought could not be extracted from CD. See my review of the BorderPatrol units:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...trol-MB-external-power-supplies-for-tube-amps

And guess what, the airy bloom from CD does strike me as rather similar to what I hear live, thus as quite real and not as an artefact like from vinyl. For me, CD now clearly wins on this point.

My question would be, how could high frequency compression, applied to vinyl, create artificial airiness? Is it because of sonic byproducts generated in the process?

Fascinating and very well articulated post...for a non-vinyl guy, I am fascinated to read your impressions built up over clearly a fair amount of time and experience. Thanks for that. Also appreciated the follow up discussions as well from Ethan.
 

Al M.

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As I mentioned in the post you quoted, it helps to know what a regular compressor effect sounds like. Basically, a compressor varies the volume raising soft parts. So a singer's breath intake will be exaggerated. Since "airy" is associated with higher frequencies, a compressor that does this to high frequencies only will add even more "air."

Thanks, Ethan, for the response. I am trying to understand a little better. The compressor raises soft parts, but isn't the purpose of high-frequency compression to lower the amount of high-frequency energy, so that cutterheads are not destroyed by the energy, as you pointed out? I would then assume that the compressor at the same time that it raises soft parts also lowers the high intensity parts of high-frequency content, and that everything is more equalized (compressed) towards the middle of the volume scale. Is that right?

Also, why not simply have a high-frequency roll-off instead of compression? Or would uncompressed signal at, say 12 or 15 kHz, still have too much energy?
 

JackD201

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Hmmmm. That was basic alright. It's been a while since I used one so be nice. :) Compressors will drop levels above a set threshold. The amount is determined by the ratio applied. At this stage compressors act and for all intents and purposes are peak limiters (depending on ratio selected). They make no distinction as to frequency, just everything that is at and over the threshold, are brought DOWN. The only time the soft parts come "up" is when the makeup gain is applied. At this stage EVERYTHING is brought up. Typically make up gain is set so you will have the same peaks (reference) so in a sense you could say that only the soft parts were brought up. As I've explained however, that isn't exactly what really happens. Everything is altered. ;)
 

Ethan Winer

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The compressor raises soft parts, but isn't the purpose of high-frequency compression to lower the amount of high-frequency energy, so that cutterheads are not destroyed by the energy, as you pointed out?

A compressor actually lowers the loud parts, but then you can turn up the overall volume which ultimately raises the soft stuff. This article is mainly for recording types, but it explains in more detail:

Compressors and Limiters

--Ethan
 

Al M.

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A compressor actually lowers the loud parts, but then you can turn up the overall volume which ultimately raises the soft stuff. This article is mainly for recording types, but it explains in more detail:

Compressors and Limiters

--Ethan

Thanks, Ethan. Your reply with the link to your article was very helpful. I believe I now understand better the phenomenon of artificial 'air' on vinyl.

The more general lesson seems to be, if the listener is not producing recordings like yourself, check the veracity of audio reproduction by comparison with the real (unamplified) thing, not by comparing formats or components amongst one another. One item that appears to sound "better" or "nicer" than another may actually sound worse -- less real -- in absolute terms.

That lesson appears to have been disregarded for a large part during the 'analog vs. digital' wars -- and I am afraid, also by professional (or "professional"?) audio reviewers.
 

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