DSD to Vinyl Versus Analog Tape to Vinyl

[wil]

Which is it? Am I saying that my preference for vinyl over digital may be due to my genetic makeup, that different genetic makeups may be what determines which (analogue or digital) playback system any individual prefers, and that I hope a radiologist with access to a PET scan and volunteers from this website does the experiment to find out? Or am I saying that in all cases digital audio is not emotionally involving but that vinyl is? Try not to push your agenda in your answer.

You seem to be saying both. Both of which I disagree with. And they're not mutually exclusive. I can certainly understand if someone has a preference for vinyl (OR digital) given their experiences. Maybe they've never had the opportunity to hear good digital/vinyl, maybe they are basing their preference on widely different levels of gear, and maybe they just like to believe their way is better than another way. Human nature.

But, I think the notion that a preference for vinyl or digital playback could be reliably tested with a PET scan is really shaky -- just as is the Liberal/Conservative PET study. Studies like this seem to driven by an agenda to classify people and their behaviors into neat boxes -- or maybe it's just academic busy work.

Idea for a useless Phd study: use PET scans to correlate political persuasion with vinyl/digital preference.

 

[Rensselaer]

Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans

Liberals and conservatives exhibit different cognitive styles and converging lines of evidence suggest that biology influences differences in their political attitudes and beliefs. In particular, a recent study of young adults suggests that liberals and conservatives have significantly different...

journals.plos.org

perhaps you should read one of the studies before opining?

 

[wil]

I have skimmed it and I'm not saying these types of studies aren't interesting.

I remember reading about studies of psychopaths having neutral brain responses to horrific stimuli. And another study of a famous big wall rock climber. A movie was made about this guy. The calm he showed while performing exceedingly risky moves while free-climbing in Yosemite was correlated with a relatively flat-line response in his amygdala to stimuli that would send most humans into extreme reactions of anxiety and revulsion and a lit up amygdala.

A researcher, James Fallon, who studies psychopath MRI studies discovered that his own MRI looked like the other criminal psycho MRI's, yet he has led a non violent life.

I think these types of studies are valuable but full of pitfalls, as humans are far more complicated than conclusions drawn from MRI and PET scans.

I don't know what my brain scan would show from PET scan re the conservative/liberal dichotomy. I don't think I fit into a box, as I have always had liberal values, but have started valuing/understanding conservative attitudes more in recent years.

I don't give much value to thinking in terms of us/them, +/-, good/bad. Hence my rejection (back to audiophildom) of the whole digital/analog divide that comes up so often. I actually believe this type of thinking is more due to vanity than anything else!

 

[Atmasphere]

A researcher, James Fallon, who studies psychopath MRI studies discovered that his own MRI looked like the other criminal psycho MRI's, yet he has led a non violent life.

IIRC, wasn't that one the topic of an episode of This American Life on NPR?

 

[Gregadd]

...he has lived a non-violent life.

How do you know that?
The return of Dexter this fall.

 

[Al M.]

...he has lived a non-violent life.

How do you know that?
The return of Dexter this fall.

Such kinds of analyses are not about individuals, but about statistical trends within and between different groups that are subjected to comparative study.

 

[Rensselaer]

You might consider that an all in one box (Amp, DAC, Streamer, etc) -- in your kitchen -- compared to a high- end dedicated system with a listening chair -- is hardly a meaningful comparison when judging which system is "emotive " or not. But, no doubt, you're happy with your vinyl system which is wonderful. Why the need to put down digital playback with a meaningless comparison?

Wil,
First let me say that I looked at a review of your Taiko Extreme server and it appears to be a very well put together high-end piece of equipment. I am sure that it is a most competent design and sounds (to those who listen to digital music) top notch.

That said, I never compared a digital all in one box in my kitchen with my high-end dedicated analogue system, but what I should have pointed out is that my preference for analogue over digital comes from (years of experience and) comparisons that I make on my high-end rig between vinyl records that were recorded Analogue whether cut pre-digital, or by companies specialising in such (like Analogue Productions), and vinyl records that had cut from a digital source (or excessive digital processing in the making thereof). I do not believe that tweaking processors or adding effects on a sound mixing console can make digital sound like analogue because none have sounded like a live recording to me (which I would argue is the goal when recording and playing back performances).

When digital-sourced, they sound (to me) bright and clear, sharply etched, dynamic and still somehow not right (Atmosphere recons it be distortion from higher odd order harmonics, I think). Whatever the reason, they do not relax me at all and I end up giving them away. I did say however, on a different thread, that I found one particular digital-sourced recording on vinyl (AN-2002 AudioNautes direct from original "Chesky Records 24bit/96KHz digital master) sounded very close to analogue and praised Fabio Camorani of AudioNautes for his success in making a digital-sourced vinyl LP sound nearly (just a tad off) as good as analogue sourced (to me), and that I will probably keep that one.

 

[Atmasphere]

When digital-sourced, they sound (to me) bright and clear, sharply etched, dynamic and still somehow not right (Atmosphere recons it be distortion from higher odd order harmonics, I think).

Actually inharmonic distortion, as the distortions relate to the scan frequency rather than instrument tones. And aliasing, which in the digital world is not shown as distortion in the spec sheets but it very much is distortion. And very audible.

If these two things are handled properly in the digital recording/playback chain the result can be very convincing.

 

[wil]

Wil,
First let me say that I looked at a review of your Taiko Extreme server and it appears to be a very well put together high-end piece of equipment. I am sure that it is a most competent design and sounds (to those who listen to digital music) top notch.

That said, I never compared a digital all in one box in my kitchen with my high-end dedicated analogue system directly, but what I should have pointed out (previously to now) is that all my comparisons (and judgements made from such) were all done on that same high end dedicated system upstairs in my music room.

My preference for analogue over digital comes from comparisons that I made on my high-end rig between vinyl records that were recorded Analogue throughout (whether pre-digital, or by companies specialising in such like Analogue Productions), and vinyl records that had digital source or digital processing in the making thereof. I do not believe that tweaking processors or adding effects on a sound mixing console can make digital sound like analogue because, except for one pretty close but still discernibly lacking digitally sourced LP, none have sounded like a live recording to me (which I would argue is the goal when recording and playing back performances).

When digital-sourced, they sound (to me) bright and clear, sharply etched, dynamic and still somehow not right (Atmosphere recons it be distortion from higher odd order harmonics, I think). Whatever the reason, they do not relax me at all and I end up giving them away. I did say however, on a different thread, that I found one particular digital-sourced recording on vinyl (AN-2002 AudioNautes direct from original "Chesky Records 24bit/96KHz digital master) sounded very close to analogue and praised Fabio Camorani of AudioNautes for his success in making a digital-sourced vinyl LP sound nearly (just a tad off) as good as analogue sourced (to me), and that I will probably keep that one.

Wil,
First let me say that I looked at a review of your Taiko Extreme server and it appears to be a very well put together high-end piece of equipment. I am sure that it is a most competent design and sounds (to those who listen to digital music) top notch.

Wil,
First let me say that I looked at a review of your Taiko Extreme server and it appears to be a very well put together high-end piece of equipment. I am sure that it is a most competent design and sounds (to those who listen to digital music) top notch.

You've never listened to a well put together system with the Taiko, so the damning with faint praise doesn't have much credibility.
And I'm not sure what your experiences with digitally sourced vinyl has to do with state of art digital playback.

But we might agree on one thing: PET scans of our respective brains would likely show dramatic differences! Lol.

 

[Rensselaer]

You've never listened to a well put together system with the Taiko, so the damning with faint praise doesn't have much credibility.
And I'm not sure what your experiences with digitally sourced vinyl has to do with state of art digital playback.

But we might agree on one thing: PET scans of our respective brains would likely show dramatic differences! Lol.

As to what my experiences with digitally sourced vinyl has to do with state of the art digital playback? The title of this thread is "DSD to vinyl vs Analogue tape to vinyl". Yes, I agree, PET scans of our respective brains would likely show dramatic differences.

 

[wil]

As to what my experiences with digitally sourced vinyl has to do with state of the art digital playback? The title of this thread is "DSD to vinyl vs Analogue tape to vinyl".

That ship sailed long ago, I believe after someone started going on about not being emotionally involved by digital. But good point -- let the thread return to origins.

 

[Atmasphere]

And I'm not sure what your experiences with digitally sourced vinyl has to do with state of art digital playback.

I can address that bit if I've not already on this thread. LPs are often made from digital source files. But unlike the file used for digital release, quite often the file for the LP release has less DSP, in particular compression, since there is no expectation that the playback will be in a car. As a result the LP release can often sound better than the actual digital release. You might argue that the LP has less dynamic range than the CD and that is true but the two are closer than most people realize. But a car doesn't allow for that.

 

[Solypsa]

I already suggested this once. Perhaps a reminder:

If this is really an issue (?) then one needs to find a good recording ( not so easy ) captured in both DSD and TAPE (can be argued about bits and ips) and pay for a small run of vinyl- say 300 pressings. Sell said vinyl and digital files to the punters and wait for the opinions.

Otherwise it feels like a lot of posturing...

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I already suggested this once. Perhaps a reminder:

If this is really an issue (?) then one needs to find a good recording ( not so easy ) captured in both DSD and TAPE (can be argued about bits and ips) and pay for a small run of vinyl- say 300 pressings. Sell said vinyl and digital files to the punters and wait for the opinions.

Otherwise it feels like a lot of posturing...

been there, done that.

Ilya Itin, classical pianist, was recorded 3 or 4 years ago from the same mic feed to Quad dsd (Pyramix DSD recorder) and 30ips 1/2" tape (ATR-102)......here;

Ilya Itin Debussy-Preludes Book 1-DSD Quad Rate 112MHz256fs Download|Acoustic Sounds

Acoustic Sounds Audiophile Vinyl Records

store.acousticsounds.com

i have these 'source' quad dsd files, and downsampled 2x dsd files also. i also have 1st gen tape dubs of the 30ips, 1/2 work parts, and 15ips 1/2" dubs too.

the quad dsd is not close to either of the tapes. the tapes are much better. were you to master vinyl from the digital and analog sources it would not be close. the plan is to do that at some point, but it's not happened yet. i think all they have done is a few test pressings. come on over and we can play the tapes and the dsd files. no place to hide.

30ips, 1/2" tape is silly good. drop your jaw good.

the quad dsd recording is really fine, maybe as great sounding digital as i have heard. it does not need to be as great as the tape......and i assure you it's not.

 

[Rensselaer]

In fairness, I think Paul means that there is something less inherently digital (and more inherently "analog-like") about the one bit sampling system of DSD than tne sampling system of PCM -- not that DSD literally is not digital.

I don't understand Paul's point myself, because I don't know enough about the technical differences between DSD and PCM. To me, sampling, even at DSD's one bit, is inherently digital. Once one is involved in sampling and conversion to 0s and 1s I do not understand the notion of distinguishing between different degrees of "digital."

I agree Ron, and I don't know much about the technical differences between DSD and PCM either, but did find some information from those who know on the PS Audio forum (of all places)

Why does DSD sound better than PCM (or why do they sound different from each other)

and believe those out there who are not engineers are looking a one-bit as captures of a moment along a sine wave, and if the speed at which those snapshots are taken and read is fast enough, that it would look indistinguishable from an analogue wave form, and with greater headroom and no compression, should sound better.

I must admit I wondered about that too until I read some of the entries on that forum, especially by Ian B52 and dvorak who, when discussing DSD and PCM sound (and if both perfect copies of actual event, why do they sound different?), who relate that ultrasonic noise produced in such devices is causing intermodulation distortion, and that filters can't keep up with microsecond timing or fast transients causing phase shifting and pre-ringing, etc., and perhaps it is those distortions that alert the conscious mind more than analogue tape distortion does that one is not listening to live music.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

the techie side of the PCM and dsd debate is one thing, as far as how that 'should' play out in performance. i don't pretend to have any insight into that other than parroting things i read.

20 years ago i was a huge dsd proponent and apostle, touting how much more i preferred dsd. this was based on what i heard then. i even built a dedicated room much based on what it took to play 5.1 multi-channel SACD's properly. i'd say until 7-8 years ago i continued to think that way.

but something changed. dac technology got much better, the noise and edginess of PCM was getting solved. again, the techie side of why that happened is not my thing, but it was easy to hear this. the best dacs moved away from upsampling to bit perfect. and then it became clear that the big thing was to play whatever file in it's native resolution for optimal performance.

we can still pick nits in whether we prefer quad dsd or dxd (24/352); with my 75+ or so native files of each i slightly prefer dxd to quad dsd, but both are great. it's easier to work with the PCM files so we see many more, and therefore we get a wider choice of music, and the recording quality and performance are statistically more likely to attract us to PCM. but we are now in a place where both dsd and PCM are equivalent to my ears......if slightly different when playing native files. the idea that somehow one is better to source vinyl than the other is like counting angels on head of pins. but sometimes that's what we like to do here.

and i'm guessing a (most) dsd sourced pressing(s) likely had a PCM moment in it's birth......somewhere.

 

[Jake Purches]

I know what the problem with DSD is for cutting lathes. DSD has a shed load of noise in the ultrasonic regions. Its way past our hearing, but its there. For DSD 2.8 mHz or DSD64 as its known, the ultrasonic hash comes in at 30 kHz and then increases in power. This needs to be filtered out as its putting unwanted energy into the moving coils of the cutter. Its probably worse with DMM mastering as to do that, the signal needs a carrier frequency, and the audio is digitally processed as well. I hate to think. In my view the DSD would be better served if it was at least at DSD 128 (5.6 mHz) as the noise levels reduced and are pushed much further up the band, hopefully out of harms way. PCM at 192 kHz or more exceeds the resolving power of both 2.8 and 5.6 mHz and is pretty silent when it comes to noise, so I think this is the best format to work with. The 'digital-ness' is just BS talk. I suspect that DSD sounds 'better' because it has some noise in it. Most things do seem better with a bit of noise. Look how much more natural a photograph with grain looks compared to a pristine digital photograph. Even PCM downrated to 44.1 kHz has dither noise. Life is full of noise and perhaps we like it that way!

 

[DetroitVinylRob]

My take on all this is that it seems to be truly difficult, perhaps improbable to create any kind of real apples to apples comparison in sound reproduction given the huge degree of variables in the signal chain between capturing a given formats, and our reproduction. Though it is an interesting idea to ponder…

Has anyone mentioned or utilized the 2004 John Atkinson Stereophile offering of comparative discs of Mozart, Michaelangelo Chamber Orchestra, Antony Michaelson – K622 Clarinet Concerto?

I have these but my digital hardware is woefully incomparable to my analogue setups. So I could hardly offer anything noteworthy in conclusions, yet I had purchased these discs initially out of that curiosity.


Here is the run down on how they were captured:
Producer: John Atkinson
Engineer, analog editor: Tony Faulkner
DSD editing: Finesplice
LP mastering engineer: Stan Ricker
SACD booklet and LP sleeve design: Michaelson Rock
Microphones: Two Neumann M50c omnis on a 27" AEA stereo bar (main pickup), with an AKG C24 crossed figure-8 (clarinet spot) and three Schoeps CMC65ug cardioids (wind spots)
Mike preamps: EAR 824M
Mixing console: Tim de Paravicini custom design
Cables: Mogami (mikes to preamps), Belden 11-way "snake" (preamps to console), van den Hul carbon-fiber (console to recorders)
DSD converter: dCS 904
DSD data storage: Genex GX8500 hard-disk recorder, archived on an external Panasonic SCSI DVD-RAM drive
PCM downsampling for "Red Book" SACD layer: Sonoma digital audio workstation
Analog recorder: Studer A80RC two-track, modified by Tim de Paravicini, using ¼" tape at 15ips with Dolby-A noise reduction
Control-room monitoring: Quad ESL-989s driven by EAR monoblocks using Naim speaker cable; Sennheiser HD-600 headphones driven by Musical Fidelity amplification.

An interesting take on “audiophile” grade production

​

 

[Atmasphere]

I know what the problem with DSD is for cutting lathes. DSD has a shed load of noise in the ultrasonic regions. Its way past our hearing, but its there. For DSD 2.8 mHz or DSD64 as its known, the ultrasonic hash comes in at 30 kHz and then increases in power. This needs to be filtered out as its putting unwanted energy into the moving coils of the cutter. Its probably worse with DMM mastering as to do that, the signal needs a carrier frequency, and the audio is digitally processed as well. I hate to think. In my view the DSD would be better served if it was at least at DSD 128 (5.6 mHz) as the noise levels reduced and are pushed much further up the band, hopefully out of harms way. PCM at 192 kHz or more exceeds the resolving power of both 2.8 and 5.6 mHz and is pretty silent when it comes to noise, so I think this is the best format to work with. The 'digital-ness' is just BS talk. I suspect that DSD sounds 'better' because it has some noise in it. Most things do seem better with a bit of noise. Look how much more natural a photograph with grain looks compared to a pristine digital photograph. Even PCM downrated to 44.1 kHz has dither noise. Life is full of noise and perhaps we like it that way!

If there is that kind of ultrasonic noise going on, that really would mess with a cutter head since there is a 6dB/octave pre-emphasis. The power of the signal at 30KHz could be quite a lot- perhaps putting the cutter head at risk of being fried.

I'm probably old school in this regard but having that kind of noise as part of the signal strikes me as technically inept.

 

[Rensselaer]

My nephew has taken up an interest in hi fi recently, built a couple of rear loaded horns (a la Mau Horn design) in his basement and dropped by yesterday to listen to my analogue rig for some ideas. He was born after the advent of CD, and totally unfamiliar with the artists who made pre-1980 records (what I have). I decided to test the premise of this thread on him by playing DSD to vinyl recordings followed by pure analogue recordings of the same music. I know there are differences in productions and recording methods but I compared all eight pieces of music that I had a copy recorded in each method (he also asked to listen to some Amy Winehouse, digital to vinyl without a pure analogue source to compare to, but he knew that musician and wanted to hear how she sounded on my system.

His take was that the pure analogue sounded "silkier" and noted a better sound stage. He didn't mention emotive aspects so I suspect it was because the music was unfamiliar to him, but said that the digital source sounded off, slightly edgy, and he thought listening to it for any length of time would give him a headache.

After this listening experiment I advised him that he should probably not get into this hobby, but instead buy himself a good streamer from Naim or similar. He could use his horn speakers with that.

Why? Because he is totally unfamiliar with every recording artist who made records before digital. Everything he is familiar with was recorded in digital so why spend considerable sums of money to listen to digital to vinyl on an expensive analogue rig if it doesn't sound as good as analogue to vinyl?

I told him to save his money and buy a decent streamer, perhaps purchase Tidal for his computer so he can record from Qobuz or whatever the musicians he knows and likes in high definition and play that back whenever the mood strikes. He will also be able to find new and interesting music on digital radio that may become favourites in the future.