Hearing is Deceiving: AAA versus ADA Vinyl
- Thread starter mauidan
- Start date
This should be an interesting project.
I know that many on this forum are not fans of blind testing. That said, a number of years ago, we did a blind test of a turntable (VPI) by comparing the feed from the phono stage (Audio Research) to the preamp AND through a 24/92 A2D converter and back. It was an eye opener. There was nothing digital about the converted sound and no one could consistently tell what they were listening to.
Try that today with the far better 24/192 A2D converters and 24/192 DACs. Why would anyone want to commit such a crime? For me it was to be able to use digital room correction on all of my sources.
Just sayin'
I know that many on this forum are not fans of blind testing. That said, a number of years ago, we did a blind test of a turntable (VPI) by comparing the feed from the phono stage (Audio Research) to the preamp AND through a 24/92 A2D converter and back. It was an eye opener. There was nothing digital about the converted sound and no one could consistently tell what they were listening to.
Try that today with the far better 24/192 A2D converters and 24/192 DACs. Why would anyone want to commit such a crime? For me it was to be able to use digital room correction on all of my sources.
Just sayin'
Our own Bruce Brown has been saying something similar. The gap is not as wide as many want to believe or tell you. Most people and that includes most here on this board will repeatedly fail to recognize a digital copy of a Vinyl from the Viny itself if knowledge is removed. There is no need for megabuck ADCs; a simple <$2000 Korg or Tascam ADC will suffice.
Somewhat OT but related to the Audiophile psychology.
I was very proud of my CD collection now approaching 4000. Then I realized that Tidal had most of them and a lot more ... When you put Qobuz in the equation then I don't think there is any question that those can serve most music lovers with more music than time in their lifetime ... For me the problem is that I spend more than 50% in PAP , Haiti and the Internet connections at my disposal keep me from relying on these services (I don't even think they're available in Haiti anyway but there are way to circumvent geographical restrictions) . I , thus, buy through Amazon or other online merchant after discovering music from mostly online resources and of course Spotify. Frankly Spotify 320 Kbps is good enough but the audiophile in me is truly satisfy when he hears at least full CD or he thinks he heard that ...
We are a special bunch
I'd like to think I could tell the difference in every case, but I know I couldn't. However, I'm not really bothered by it and the gap is closing more and more. There are some really good digital vinyl pressings out there such as the MOV Alice in Chains - Unplugged ?to name but one.
this is a excellent record with 2 versions
Direct versus tape: the ultimate analogue showdown
• Double LP & DVD
• LP 1: Direct Cut to Vinyl
• LP 2: Same session via 24-track mixdown to 1/2" tape @ 30ips
[video]http://www.chasingthedragon.co.uk/Big_Band_Jazz_Day_websample.mp4[/video]
We are a special bunch
Some more so than others
You realize, of course, that there is an excellent chance that your audiophile card will be confiscated for making such a blasphemas statement!!
I can't see the point of this Kickstarter project. Even if anyone can hear a difference, it won't satisfy any sceptic:
1. The experiment is not double blind (the cutting guy knows which is which. Do we even know that the 'cut' will be guaranteed the same for both versions? Will there even be a brand new 'cutter' for each 'cut'? etc.)
2. The pressing quality of sides A and B will be measurably different due to simple mechanical tolerances, material composition etc. The insertion of the ADDA will not be measurable in any meaningful sense (it's state of the art apparently). Yet we are invited to conclude that it is the ADDA that makes any audible difference!
I had a listen to the recording itself on Spotify. Not a great recording IMO: it's from 1967 but I would say it sounds much older, like a soundtrack from an old film - could be the style of the piece too. Very dry, acoustically-coloured, not much in the way of top or bottom end. Apparently there were "four Charles P. Fisher ribbon microphones and specially modified tape recorder running at 30 Inches-per-second".
1. The experiment is not double blind (the cutting guy knows which is which. Do we even know that the 'cut' will be guaranteed the same for both versions? Will there even be a brand new 'cutter' for each 'cut'? etc.)
2. The pressing quality of sides A and B will be measurably different due to simple mechanical tolerances, material composition etc. The insertion of the ADDA will not be measurable in any meaningful sense (it's state of the art apparently). Yet we are invited to conclude that it is the ADDA that makes any audible difference!
I had a listen to the recording itself on Spotify. Not a great recording IMO: it's from 1967 but I would say it sounds much older, like a soundtrack from an old film - could be the style of the piece too. Very dry, acoustically-coloured, not much in the way of top or bottom end. Apparently there were "four Charles P. Fisher ribbon microphones and specially modified tape recorder running at 30 Inches-per-second".
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Assuming the number who accurately select the AAA is statistically insignificant, what conclusion can be drawn? That the AtoD was transparent? Maybe. Anything else?
I've bought a number of "ADA" classical vinyl titles in the last few years. I guess I am "lucky" in that living happily in both the analogue and digital camps, I don't necessarily have the same "fears" or concerns others may have. That said, being heavily involved in the digital side of things I also know how easy it is to go wrong and how an incredibly precise, finicky and even obsessive approach is needed to maintain quality on the digital side of things - in my experience at least as much as on the analogue side believe it or not.
I have a few reissues from the majors (DG) which I know are remastered from the 24/96 Universal Masters. These digital masters were made a couple of decades ago I believe and I think they used dCS converters. Whatever the case, there is no way I could tell you if I was listening to an "ADA" or "AAA" LP. I might possibly be able to tell you if I could directly A/B two records sequentially off the exact same press and one of them used the digital master and another the analogue but even then I think I would be using my listening skills to the absolute extreme. I suspect, however, that the colourations from the digital conversion would be too subtle compared to the natural variations inherent from one pressing to the next - even off the same press in the same batch. And even if I could pick the difference, I strongly suspect the digital record would merely have additive colouration and possible some very subtle sins of omission as opposed to it simply "sounding worse".
Still, all that said I will usually still go for a pure analogue title if it is available. But this is not so much because of the "purity" - it is because usually the engineers doing the remastering have a very solid reputation and I know they can produce better results regardless. For example, I would much rather pay more for a Bernie Grundman remastering of a Decca than I would an Abbey Road remastering using the same tapes. One will be very good indeed (Abbey Road), but the Grundman one will be seriously exceptional - almost master tape like. And some of those will be on 2 x 45 RPM disks instead of 1 x 33 1/3. And that is a significant difference in itself.
What I do fear is buying an LP made from a 16/44.1 file or worse still and actual CD. The only exception I make to this rule are any Decca / Mercury Presence reissues, since those 16 bit master files represented an uncharacteristically obsessive approach to perfection and Wilma Cozart-Fine who created them was a wake-up to all the pitfalls of 1990 digital that simply flew over most other people's heads even today. For example, she was one of the first who stated that a digital clone of a digital recording does not actually sound the same as an original - so she did all the transfers in real-time from the open reel, through the mixer, through the desk and into a 16 bit module and then directly to the Sony PCM. And in the case of revealing sources, this is where I wish record companies would be more transparent. I have contacted Decca twice, for example, and never got any reply as to how their reissues are made. DG were honest, however - they use the 24/96 master files and that is fine by me. I notice someone reviewed a recent Decca reissue, however and the title of the review was "Digital!!". They then went on to complain about the thin sound. I am not sure how they would know to be honest, though that particular record was indeed on my suspect list of titles to probably avoid. There are plenty of thin sounding analogue recordings out there and many late analogue era Deccas with Dolby A encoding could be construed to sound somewhat thin, mainly as a result of the heavy use of transistorised 1970s era equipment complete with the very complex discreet circuitry Dolby A boards.
The rule I follow these days is this: If the title can be found as a fully analogue release by a company / engineer with a solid reputation, then get that. Failing that, I will then buy a reissue from the "majors", but only if I know exactly who did the engineering and exactly what they used. A case in point is the recent Decca (majors) reissue of the Collins mono Sibelius. There is a YouTube video of Sean McGee doing the cutting straight from the original analogue tape. So that is a pretty safe bet. And the DG reissues - at least so far - all seem pretty good with absolutely no tell-tale signs of having been sourced from anything other than high resolution digital.
I have a few reissues from the majors (DG) which I know are remastered from the 24/96 Universal Masters. These digital masters were made a couple of decades ago I believe and I think they used dCS converters. Whatever the case, there is no way I could tell you if I was listening to an "ADA" or "AAA" LP. I might possibly be able to tell you if I could directly A/B two records sequentially off the exact same press and one of them used the digital master and another the analogue but even then I think I would be using my listening skills to the absolute extreme. I suspect, however, that the colourations from the digital conversion would be too subtle compared to the natural variations inherent from one pressing to the next - even off the same press in the same batch. And even if I could pick the difference, I strongly suspect the digital record would merely have additive colouration and possible some very subtle sins of omission as opposed to it simply "sounding worse".
Still, all that said I will usually still go for a pure analogue title if it is available. But this is not so much because of the "purity" - it is because usually the engineers doing the remastering have a very solid reputation and I know they can produce better results regardless. For example, I would much rather pay more for a Bernie Grundman remastering of a Decca than I would an Abbey Road remastering using the same tapes. One will be very good indeed (Abbey Road), but the Grundman one will be seriously exceptional - almost master tape like. And some of those will be on 2 x 45 RPM disks instead of 1 x 33 1/3. And that is a significant difference in itself.
What I do fear is buying an LP made from a 16/44.1 file or worse still and actual CD. The only exception I make to this rule are any Decca / Mercury Presence reissues, since those 16 bit master files represented an uncharacteristically obsessive approach to perfection and Wilma Cozart-Fine who created them was a wake-up to all the pitfalls of 1990 digital that simply flew over most other people's heads even today. For example, she was one of the first who stated that a digital clone of a digital recording does not actually sound the same as an original - so she did all the transfers in real-time from the open reel, through the mixer, through the desk and into a 16 bit module and then directly to the Sony PCM. And in the case of revealing sources, this is where I wish record companies would be more transparent. I have contacted Decca twice, for example, and never got any reply as to how their reissues are made. DG were honest, however - they use the 24/96 master files and that is fine by me. I notice someone reviewed a recent Decca reissue, however and the title of the review was "Digital!!". They then went on to complain about the thin sound. I am not sure how they would know to be honest, though that particular record was indeed on my suspect list of titles to probably avoid. There are plenty of thin sounding analogue recordings out there and many late analogue era Deccas with Dolby A encoding could be construed to sound somewhat thin, mainly as a result of the heavy use of transistorised 1970s era equipment complete with the very complex discreet circuitry Dolby A boards.
The rule I follow these days is this: If the title can be found as a fully analogue release by a company / engineer with a solid reputation, then get that. Failing that, I will then buy a reissue from the "majors", but only if I know exactly who did the engineering and exactly what they used. A case in point is the recent Decca (majors) reissue of the Collins mono Sibelius. There is a YouTube video of Sean McGee doing the cutting straight from the original analogue tape. So that is a pretty safe bet. And the DG reissues - at least so far - all seem pretty good with absolutely no tell-tale signs of having been sourced from anything other than high resolution digital.
See also this post on Computer Audiophile:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f...cle-implies-much-18384/index6.html#post282085
That is pretty interesting Al. I wonder if seeing the turntable spinning and playing the record created an expectation bias among the listeners so that they were more likely to assume the sound was from the analog source. It seems they were tricked into believing they were hearing the pure analog feed. If the turntable and digital player were both hidden from view, and the listeners were told that they were being tested and asked to identify the source if the response would have been different? It is also kind of interesting to be testing listeners without their knowledge.
I'm pretty sure I would not be able to identify the differences between the sources or even tell if there was a difference. But If I was looking at a turntable and was told I was listening to that turntable, I'm absolutely certain that identifying the sound as being converted digitally would be impossible.
I believe TTs sound better but have a heard a few where I can't tell any difference. I think that is because of the set up. Some people set up TTs to sound like digital. Which is why I like to audition speakers on digital, you get more consistency across systems
What specific turntable setup, do you think can tilt its sonic character towards sounding more "digital"?
I'd like to know this as well. Not that I'm interested in having my vinyl front-end sound digital, but I don't see how that's even done.
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