Vinyl records outsell CDs for first time in decades

[COF]

These discussions are mostly a tempest in a teapot.

Hi marty. I didn't see any tempests here. Just audiophiles/music lovers discussing what they like and why. No biggie.

Enjoy whatever floats your boat. LPs are attractive for many reasons that were cited. It's kind of like asking where you like to sit in concerts. I like sitting in halls in the first tier and not in the orchestra parquet floor. Others like the orchestra parquet floor further back and others enjoy a closer up presentation. It's all good.

Agreed!

David asked which I'd prefer; a vinyl copy from a digital master or a Hi-rez file. The answer is- if it was something I didn't enjoy, it would be neither. If it was Beethoven or Coltrane, probably either. Preferences for these things are fine. But at some point they become moot because isn't the music the thing? Whatever delivers it to you the way you like best is really all you can hope for.

Totally agreed with your last sentence. Though what we audiophiles discuss is mostly the various ways in which we get there. Hence...so much talk about equipment, formats etc. It may be ultimately about the music, but audiophiles care specifically how the music is presented to a degree that distinguishes us from non-audiophiles.

I also post a lot in some forums that are more explicitly oriented to notions of technical accuracy. I'm a bit of an outlier in being a tube-and-vinyl-head. To the question that is always arising "why would anyone want to deliberately let distortion in to their playback system?" I keep pointing to the underlying assumptions that make sense of why any of us are doing this: The end result is how any of us enjoy our system. If you ask "why care about accuracy?" the bottom line will inevitably lead to how it will affect one's appreciation of music through the system - a subjective preference/goal.

 

[bonzo75]

I completely understand!

Vinyl is a pain in the butt if you don't actually enjoy that stuff.

If anyone is vinyl for the chore they don’t deserve the vinyl.

 

[COF]

I found early digital to be pretty dang good on my California Audio Labs Tempest CD Player ... It likely didn't have the resolving power to show all of the shortfalls of the format and I'm sure the tubes helped some also but I thought it was great at the time! Then I got my first high end table and then couldn't believe I had spent that much for that CD Player and all the little shiny discs ... LOL

George

CD was a really exciting format for most people, including me. Hearing music without any added noise at all, the greater precision in the sound, it really did make things sound new. Not only did I enjoy new releases on CD, but I couldn't wait to hear music I grew up loving re-released on the snazzy new format. It was a blast.

Ironically now I'm back to "hoping they release the music I love on vinyl." What a turn around!

It's not because of any sonic superiority to vinyl though. Yes I often prefer the vinyl sound, but also appreciate what digital still tends to do better. So my current infatuation for vinyl is mostly having fun with changing things up from spending decades mostly with digital.

 

[rando]

A lot of stuff is performed, and recorded today, for which I will choose recordings from the past. If, as an audiophile, you are trying to recreate a sound to satisfy your auditory template, while your auditory template might have been formed from modern performances, that live sense of realism is recreated by old recordings. The recordings of the modern performances don't cut it - save exceptions as some from harmonia mundi. Modern represses of old performances don't cut it as well as old pressings of old performances, either.

A lot of TT and concerts would go silent if they were still suspended every time a plane flew or a truck drove within their near proximity. Much less A/C kicking in. Warehouses packed to the roof full of vinyl pressing machines going hell for leather signify this distortion better than a large number of other examples one might summon.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I keep pointing to the underlying assumptions that make sense of why any of us are doing this: The end result is how any of us enjoy our system. If you ask "why care about accuracy?" the bottom line will inevitably lead to how it will affect one's appreciation of music through the system - a subjective preference/goal.

+1

 

[Rekmeyata]

In your dreams. Yes, perhaps among aficionados, but not among the masses. Pure analog will still sell only in the thousands or at best tens of thousands -- or make that a few hundred thousand in the most optimistic case, but not in the millions.

Some musicians are recording their masters in BOTH, digital and analog at the same time, so it's not a dream. And some are now even skipping recording their masters onto digital and doing only analog, these bands that are doing strictly analog say it's because it makes their music honest, with digital they can cover up errors, and add in fake instruments, with analog they can't do that. It's not just jazz and blues doing this, rock is doing it as well, Slash is big into analog, and even heavy metal is getting into it like Slipknot. Tool bounces between digital and analog, their 10,000 Days album is true analog. More and more bands are moving away from digital.

 

[Al M.]

Some musicians are recording their masters in BOTH, digital and analog at the same time, so it's not a dream. And some are now even skipping recording their masters onto digital and doing only analog, these bands that are doing strictly analog say it's because it makes their music honest, with digital they can cover up errors, and add in fake instruments, with analog they can't do that. It's not just jazz and blues doing this, rock is doing it as well, Slash is big into analog, and even heavy metal is getting into it like Slipknot. Tool bounces between digital and analog, their 10,000 Days album is true analog. More and more bands are moving away from digital.

Yes, some bands prefer analog recording; Slash likes to record to two inch tape. The question is, do they monitor that everything is all analog in the chain until the vinyl is pressed? For vinyl to be truly analog, there must not be any digital step anywhere, including in mixing/mastering.

You also must not have digital delay during vinyl cutting, see this video, "Digital Delay: The little dirty secret of vinyl mastering (including past AAA records)":

 

[COF]

Seems to me that the Mo-Fi "debacle" (not to mention digital theory/practice) put the lie to the idea there is some sound to analog that digital can not reproduce. Analog does (or can) have it's own sound vs digital, but digital is nonetheless capable of transparently reproducing that sound in A-D conversion. This is one reason why I don't care if there are digital steps involved even if there are analog sources involved.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Seems to me that the Mo-Fi "debacle" (not to mention digital theory/practice) put the lie to the idea there is some sound to analog that digital can not reproduce. Analog does (or can) have it's own sound vs digital, but digital is nonetheless capable of transparently reproducing that sound in A-D conversion. This is one reason why I don't care if there are digital steps involved even if there are analog sources involved.

get your hands on a new recording and pressing, Kristen Edkins, 'shapes and sound'.

recorded on an all tube Studer C37 and mastered by Kevin Gray. no digital step. mind blowing sound. and i like the performance and recording. it was out of print, i got one from the 2nd run, it's gone from some places but Music Direct apparently has some which is what i linked.

it will show you why you would prefer not to have the digital step. tubes in the chain don't hurt either.

OTOH i'm as much concerned about the recording process and performance, as the source for modern vinyl. there are plenty of fine sounding pressings with digital somewhere. but i'm not paying a premium for a one-step with a digital step, especially if it starts out as analog. i'll find an earlier analog pressing.

i'm all in on digital, as much as anyone on the forum.

 

[COF]

get your hands on a new recording and pressing, Kristen Edkins, 'shapes and sound'.

recorded on an all tube Studer C37 and mastered by Kevin Gray. no digital step. mind blowing sound. and i like the performance and recording. it was out of print, i got one from the 2nd run, it's gone from some places but Music Direct apparently has some which is what i linked.

it will show you why you would prefer not to have the digital step. tubes in the chain don't hurt either.

OTOH i'm as much concerned about the recording process and performance, as the source for modern vinyl. there are plenty of fine sounding pressings with digital somewhere. but i'm not paying a premium for a one-step with a digital step, especially if it starts out as analog. i'll find an earlier analog pressing.

i'm all in on digital, as much as anyone on the forum.

Thanks. I'm sure the sound is fantastic, and perhaps very "analog" but it wouldn't solve the question of whether digital is capable of transparently reproducing an analog master. For that one would have to have two versions of the above recording: the pure analog master, and an alternative with a high quality digital step/transfer, to compare.

 

[Gregadd]

The real question is the quality of ADC. If that is transparent then certainly the digital copy of an analog master would be. Itt would be a matter of converting the electrical signal to digital and back.
But then again, why bother?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Thanks. I'm sure the sound is fantastic, and perhaps very "analog" but it wouldn't solve the question of whether digital is capable of transparently reproducing an analog master. For that one would have to have two versions of the above recording: the pure analog master, and an alternative with a high quality digital step/transfer, to compare.

i have 12 MoFi pressings which contain a digital step. prefer my pure analog version every time.

and likely 1000 of my 12,000 records are digitally sourced. many of which i like. but the vast majority my other 11,000 pressings which are all analog are better.

this question is not really even a question. it's obvious. there is more to pressing performance than analog or digital sourced, but it's quite a large issue. many earlier pressings also have better performances, and are more simply recorded and mastered. so there are lots of factors.

no; the A to D conversion is not entirely transparent. it can be really, really great, but it's not transparent. it is accurate, but not complete. analog is not quite exactly accurate, but it can be relatively complete. these concepts are not absolute, but are evident.

turns out our senses prefer complete as closer to real. YMMV.

 

[COF]

i have 12 MoFi pressings which contain a digital step. prefer my pure analog version every time.

and likely 1000 of my 12,000 records are digitally sourced. many of which i like. but the vast majority my other 11,000 pressings which are all analog are better.

this question is not really even a question. it's obvious. there is more to pressing performance than analog or digital sourced, but it's quite a large issue. many earlier pressings also have better performances, and are more simply recorded and mastered. so there are lots of factors.

no; the A to D conversion is not entirely transparent. it can be really, really great, but it's not transparent. it is accurate, but not complete. analog is not quite exactly accurate, but it can be relatively complete. these concepts are not absolute, but are evident.

turns out our senses prefer complete as closer to real. YMMV.

Cool. Though put against your experience, I have not found that all analog production simply sounds better than any records I own that have digital steps.

Analog has some wonderful sonic qualities (as I've said, I tend to prefer vinyl to digital fairly often), but there is nothing magic going on technically in an analog recording that can't be captured by transfer to digital, as far as I know.

I still believe it would warrant a well-controlled test to determine that a pure analog version would be audibly detectable vs
a high quality digital transfer of exactly the same master. For instance take precisely the same analog master (at a specific time, since they can degrade), do a transfer to vinyl one with a digital step, one without (or even reel to reel) and see under controlled listening conditions if people can tell a difference.

I mean...some of the people saying: "I make sure to buy the Mo-Fi all analog transfers because I hear obvious benefits to all analog chain transfers" had their pants were pulled down by the Mo-Fi revelations.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Cool. Though put against your experience, I have not found that all analog production simply sounds better than any records I own that have digital steps.

Analog has some wonderful sonic qualities (as I've said, I tend to prefer vinyl to digital fairly often), but there is nothing magic going on technically in an analog recording that can't be captured by transfer to digital, as far as I know.

I still believe it would warrant a well-controlled test to determine that a pure analog version would be audibly detectable vs
a high quality digital transfer of exactly the same master. For instance take precisely the same analog master (at a specific time, since they can degrade), do a transfer to vinyl one with a digital step, one without (or even reel to reel) and see under controlled listening conditions if people can tell a difference.

i have multiple examples of analog and digital media sourced from the same mic feed. both with SOTA recording and mastering. the result is consistent. a well controlled test if you will. but individual anecdotal examples is not really truth. a blind test no better. it's the big picture of years of listening with top level analog and digital hardware and media where i get my bearings.

I mean...some of the people saying: "I make sure to buy the Mo-Fi all analog transfers because I hear obvious benefits to all analog chain transfers" had their pants were pulled down by the Mo-Fi revelations.

not really. many were not impressed by those MoFi pressings. and did not pursue them. none the less those recordings are not proof of anything. it's thousands of events over time. for 20 years i've done it. and always kept my digital state of the art.

 

[microstrip]

i have multiple examples of analog and digital media sourced from the same mic feed. both with SOTA recording and mastering. the result is consistent. a well controlled test if you will. but individual anecdotal examples is not really truth. a blind test no better. it's the big picture of years of listening with top level analog and digital hardware and media where i get my bearings.

In your extremely tweaked particular system according to your preference with a great expenditure of resources and plenty of listening time ( please consider this part of the sentence a jealous congratulation ... ) and according to your preference.

not really. many were not impressed by those MoFi pressings. and did not pursue them. none the less those recordings are not proof of anything. it's thousands of events over time. for 20 years i've done it. and always kept my digital state of the art.

The subject is meaningless, but overall the critics and opinions along the years were very favorable to the MoFi digitally sourced cheat pressings. Surely some people had different opinions, even on their pure analog pressings, based mainly on mastering criteria.

 

[COF]

i have multiple examples of analog and digital media sourced from the same mic feed. both with SOTA recording and mastering. the result is consistent. a well controlled test if you will. but individual anecdotal examples is not really truth. a blind test no better. it's the big picture of years of listening with top level analog and digital hardware and media where i get my bearings.

Ok. Sounds fun. I'm not saying you are wrong. Personally, when it comes to settling such propositions I prefer more rigorously produced data (measurements/tests controlling for bias). FWIW, I work in pro sound - post production for film/tv and have done so starting in the analog/tape era in to the digital era, so have some experience with high quality analog and digital sound as well.

not really. many were not impressed by those MoFi pressings. and did not pursue them. none the less those recordings are not proof of anything. it's thousands of events over time. for 20 years i've done it. and always kept my digital state of the art.

Truly great analog can be costly. Fortunately these days it doesn't take heroic efforts (or tons of money) to have state of the art digital sources.

Though perhaps we may disagree on that.

 

[Al M.]

Truly great analog can be costly. Fortunately these days it doesn't take heroic efforts (or tons of money) to have state of the art digital sources.

Though perhaps we may disagree on that.

State of the art digital, I don't think so. But perhaps somewhat along the lines of what you saying, I do think that excellent digital can be had for much less money than excellent analog.

If the very best analog is still better than the very best digital is a different issue.

 

[COF]

State of the art digital, I don't think so.

Why not?

One can buy, say, a Topping D90SE DAC for around a grand:

Topping D90SE Review (Balanced DAC)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping D90SE flagship balanced USB DAC. It was sent to me by the company for testing and I believe costs US $899. The D90SE comes in the same clothes as current class of Topping products which is just fine with me: We have the usual inputs...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I'm curious: can you point to something that costs significantly more with better measured technical performance (in any way likely to be audible, or demonstrated as such)?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Ok. Sounds fun. I'm not saying you are wrong. Personally, when it comes to settling such propositions I prefer more rigorously produced data (measurements/tests controlling for bias). FWIW, I work in pro sound - post production for film/tv and have done so starting in the analog/tape era in to the digital era, so have some experience with high quality analog and digital sound as well.

i have tape sources.

Truly great analog can be costly.

yes.

Fortunately these days it doesn't take heroic efforts (or tons of money) to have state of the art digital sources.

maybe, maybe not. i would agree that good quality digital playback can be found at a reasonable cost, in audiophile terms.

state of the art digital playback at a reasonable cost? no. but pro audio is a bit of a closed society with their own views and truths.

Though perhaps we may disagree on that.

let's just agree to disagree and not get into comparing source hardware quality.

 

[COF]

state of the art digital playback at a reasonable cost? no.

It's a good thing there's more than one take on this in the audiophile world. Makes the world go 'round.

but pro audio is a bit of a closed society with their own views and truths.

Well, the same could be said of the (largely subjective-oriented) audiophile crowd.

I've had a foot deep in the pro world and the audiophile world for many decades so it's fun (and helps keep some perspective IMO) to see things from both sides.

let's just agree to disagree and not get into comparing source hardware quality.

Good call. Audiophile pissing contests with people trying to trump one another - "have you listened to the gear I have at my disposal?"- are a drag.

Cheers.