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Is vinyl the new black?
http://thegardenforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=379		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  cat on the wall [ Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is vinyl the new black?
I wish I could afford vinyl I know how it sounds and for ROM it's definitely preferred to the digital sound. If I had the cash I'd get them for sure.
Author:  checkered [ Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is vinyl the new black?
bluesman905 wrote:
I agree that ROM should be heard on vinyl to really feel it. Dry & 4-Track Demos as well. Some recordings just drip analog and don't translate well to digital IMO. And yes I'm one of those folks that's always banging on about LP's but I can't help it...... really :grin:

I traded my Peterson Strobe Tuner for a restored Akai GX-4000D recently. The first thing I did was record my 4TD album onto a fresh reel. Now I can listen to 4-Track on my 4-track :laugh:


You win, and you're awesome.

Actually, I was thinking of getting 4-Track on tape. Lo-fi, but still in an analog format.
I definitely agree with you, but only because I have digital versions of Dry, ROM, and 4TD, and they sound quiet and uncomfortable. All her other recordings sound great, though. I just wish I could get ROM on vinyl... please, Steve Albini, do a reissue... again...
Author:  olivier101 [ Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Is vinyl the new black?
zappa61 wrote:
To put it simply when data is placed onto a CD the data is placed onto the CD in miniscule data segments. This data segment gives you small gaps in between, thus in theory, breaking up the song. These breaks are inaudible, but are said to disrupt the flow of the music.


Sorry but this is pure fantasy... What you describe is called sampling and is exactly what happens when you take a digital picture: pixels are discrete color samples of the subject, but they are so close to one another that the human eye cannot distinguish them. Same with CD: the sampling resolution is far higher than what the human ear can perceive. Of course no "gap" occurs because of extrapolation, just like there is no blank between pixels in a digital image. There is no such thing as a "disruption in the flow".

This does not mean that CD sound is "better" in an absolute way: just like some people prefer analog pictures, because the nature of the film adds a "personality" to the resulting image, some people prefer the vinyl sound; but you need to be conscious that both are actually "deformations" (also in a good way) of the original sound/picture, and those can easily be reproduced with digital filters.

The bottom line is: vinyl can't be as accurate as CD, but sometimes the most pleasing sound is not the most accurate...

And also: you shouldn't blame CD for the poor quality of the analog part of mainstream digital players.
Author:  Kueken [ Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Is vinyl the new black?
I prefer Vinyl, too. If available, I buy the Vinyl, then record it to my computer as a 24Bit/96kHz lossless FLAC for convenience (making playlists, etc.).

However, I don't make a religion out of it. Although I do like the slightly "softer" sound of Vinyl, as opposed to the more "strident" sound of a lot of CD releases, I still think that the CD is a really good medium if used properly. But exactly here is the problem. Because of the "Loudness War" probably 99% of modern releases (except for maybe instrumental music like classic) suffer from high amount of dynamic compression. This means, that all sound elements are normalized to the same loudness level to make it appear more "thick". Thus, percussion/beats don't have any punch anymore, because they are as loud as the rest of the song. Often the singer only reads or even whispers the lyrics, but still the drums are quieter than the singing and don't really sound like drums but rather like someone tapping with his fingers on the table. Then for CD releases high frequencies are often amplified, which results in the typically "shrill" and "sterile" digital sound.
The only "advantage" of the Vinyl format is that mastering engineers are much more limited in destroying the original sound material, because Vinyl can only handle a moderate amount of dynamic compression and such, and that's why current releases often sound better on Vinyl as the sound is just less tiring to the ears. However, this doesn't necessarily make the Vinyl format better. If done correctly, a CD can handle much more dynamics and clarity than a Vinyl. And we should not forget that we already have new and better formats like high resolution digital downloads which have better quality than CDs. They just aren't really used yet. All the popular download stores like iTunes are still stuck in the late 90s with lossy 256kBps files.
And of course even the best medium or file format doesn't help if 99% of the new releases are just terribly recorded and mastered and only enjoyable on a crappy mono radio.

That's what I like about PJ Harvey. Although she has used an increasing amount of dynamic compressions on her albums, compared to most other releases of that time it has always been rather moderate and therefore the sound has been still quite intact. The only exception is maybe "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". This one is pretty horribly compressed and I find it quite hard to listen to more than three songs of this album in a row because it is so loud. This is also confirmed by the "Dynamic Range Database", which lists the used dynamic range in dB for each song/album (The values are calculated by looking at the 20% loudest parts of a song and then taking the average difference between the average volume of the track and the peaks [the louder parts like drums] in dB):

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.p ... &order=asc

Kueken
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