From: Maurice Rickard <maurice@mac.com>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: Re: (TV) cds vs. vinyl / probably all subjective
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 12:52:02 -0500
At 11:58 AM -0500 2/1/02, Casey, Leo J wrote:
However, if you are meticulous, have taken care
of your vinyl and are willing to dispense with
conveniences and with a good chunk of money
... then vinyl/analogue
(and preferably a tube amp and tube preamp
setup) can outperform digital/cd.
There are *lots* of factors at play here. I agree that if you
haven't taken care of vinyl, it won't sound sound nearly as good as a
CD. There's also the fact that vinyl mastering is a *very* different
animal from CD mastering, as one has to be aware of the effects of
low-end frequencies on the stylus, on groove cramming, etc., so an
album mastered for vinyl only and then transferred straight to CD
without remastering won't sound as good as the vinyl--wrong medium.
Then there's the unpleasant fact that the D/A converters in most
consumer gear is pretty bad. (For example, even 20-bit converters
don't actually give you 20 bits. Maybe 16 or 18 bits with the rest
being just digital noise, and most 16-bit converters are worse.)
Yes, the specs for digital are better
but if one's ears hear things it doesn't
like, then maybe, just maybe we're not
measuring the right qualities. Moreover,
44,000 samples per second is too low a rate
to adequately capture the majesty and
beauty of a lot of music and its overtones
(esp. the guitars in Television).
It's almost a good argument except...that everything over 22 K (if
not lower) has always been rolled off in vinyl mastering, too. But I
will note that tube gear tends to emphasize even-order harmonics,
which even while distorting is a very pleasing kind of distortion.
And I'm a big fan of tube gear myself (still have to restore this
Eico HF-81 here...), but it's still true that digital done right
(which it rarely is in the consumer world) can sound great. It's
also a lot more convenient than analog, but each have their place.
I know I'll get bashed hard for this post,
but that's ok, I'm a tough guy. Besides,
these days I listen to mostly cds!
As do I, but I will mention again my delight at finding Ortofon
stylii for my cartridge at http://www.needledoctor.com/ (OTOH, I'm
also considering digitizing various parts of my vinyl collection
through the crappy 16-bit converters in the PowerBook, and then
throwing out all the good data by converting them to .mp3s....)
--
Maurice Rickard
http://mauricerickard.com/
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