Xeric wrote: 
I actually prefer the crackle, emotional and not a technical response I know, but the bottom line is I actually prefer vinyl. Just too bad I don't have any or a means to play it.

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 

Funny—it's that "first little crackle," so inevitable on vinyl, so blessedly absent on CD that, for me, simply ends this argument. RIP, vinyl. I loved you once, but in retrospect, you sucked.

 swell_sailor wrote: 
I can understand the confusion of my comments.  I guess that given the system of my desires, I would take vinyl over CD, but only if the vinyl was premium hard Japanese virgin vinyl and a Japanese pressing.  There are some excellent quality English pressings as well.  I would probably rip them and burn them to CD however, for playback, as I did with cassettes back in the day.  But does ripping them defeat the purpose of having them in the first place ?  I don't know for sure, if the masters were analog, then at least I can control the DAC.  But taking a digital master and converting it to an analog master for vinyl would defeat the purpose in the first place, eh ? 

I haven't bought any new vinyl lately, the last was Pearl Jam's Mirror Ball, so its been awhile.  Perhaps the quality for American vinyl has come up a little from the old days as the product must compete with CD's. 

I probably have confused my intent more than clarified it, but hey, I don't have many functioning brain cells left.  I pretty much wrecked them listening to vinyl back in the old days.

Edit:  Actually, I would probably rip the vinyl to wav. files on the puter and take it from there, and play the wav. files rather than CD's.  Now that a tera byte is a $100, space is no longer an issue.  Mp3s, just are not acceptable for big rig listening.  I'm ripping CD's now to wav. files for playback on the home rig anyway as it is.    Easier to find a file on a puter, than the disc itself.

 swell_sailor wrote: 
Yep. Should have left it at ritual.
 
IMO vinyl is across the board inferior in every way except the rituals involved with playing. These rituals invoke memories of the first time we played that particular record, the tactical feel of the album in your hands, and our first discoveries of music that didn't come from friends or the radio... we have threads around here for "first album/CD you ever bought" but it's the albums I bought that I knew nothing about, that I bought because of my own research or knowledge... who produced it, what label is it on, the band members' side projects, etc. It has nothing to do, really, with the fact that it's on vinyl but anytime we play vinyl it naturally reminds us of the time in our own lives when music first meant something to us and started to build us up into the people we are today. I apologize right now for the wobbly random inconclusiveness of that sentence but hey.
 
We have a discussion here from time to time with people not liking downloaded music, they want the physical CD in hand to look at or just to have. Same reasons, really. There will be a sense of longing expressed somewhere, I'm sure, from the generation of kids who discovered music during the wild west Napster days, when they could download anything that caught their eye and really finally pushed commercial radio into the pile of irrelevant technology.

 kurtster wrote: 
 This part has me a bit confused. It looks as though you are comparing the equipment required to play vinyl (the medium) with the cd itself, rather than the equipment reqired to play the cd. If we're to break it down to a discussion about the medium and the equipment, it would make more sense (to me at least) to compare medium to medium, and equipment to equipment. If we do this we might discuss, among other things, the potential defects in vinyl, like contamination of the vinyl itself, warp, out of round, etc, while at the same time discussing cd errors. Neither medium is perfect. 

If we choose to discuss the equipment, as well as those components you've mentioned that are required to play vinyl, we might also want to discuss the influence the transport and DAC have on cd play quality. 

Some additional thoughts on the topic.

Vinyl is dependant on more variables than a CD.  Turntable, tone arm design, cartridge type, belt vs.direct, and the vinyl itself and how long the pressing plates were used befor being discarded as well as country of origin.  A CD is a CD, basically.

I didn't backscroll enough to actually remember who made the point about the CD being a reliable medium in that it is going to sound the same everytime it is played, whereas a vinyl record will sound different as time and wear and tear go by.  The CD is a reliable and predictable source, that is its primary benefit.  And it is a most excellent one as well.  That's where it surpasses the LP, and with no real industry wide vinyl pressing standards, it always will for that reason.  Plus it is portable, but that is not a sonic advantage, so never mind about that.

To a music lover, LP's involve more than listening; it involves ritual and ceremony as well.  Cleaning, the way one removes it from the sleeve, careful to only touch the edge and the label and never the grooves. queing the stylus, etc. Then you have to turn it over halfway through.  Getting up, walking through the piles on scattered covers and whatnot and making it to the turntable without tripping and then flipping the record, without scratching it.  Seems that the longer one played tunes through the day, the degree of difficulty became higher, because the listener usually got higher as well.  CD's just require pushing a button and that's about it.

To another point, the master, the source for the actual pressing or burning.  When its all said and done, that matters the most regardless of the medium.  The variables are well known in the vinyl cycle, but CD's are very different.  With the CD, it seems that the marketing is more important than what's on it.  Quality has always been held down to the lowest acceptable level by the industry and pushed up by the audiophile.  The industry holds quality back to make more money and keep what is sold, never as good as the source material itself.

The Industry got fat, when everyone went out and replaced their worn out or missing vinyl with new CD's that didn't have crackles and skips and other extraneous artifacts.  Now that most everyone has replaced the albums they are going to replace, CD sales have fallen like a Led Zeppellin.  For all kinds of reasons.

So in order to keep making money, the industry goes back and remasters the stuff they already put out, because the belief that just because it is on a CD, it has to be better, no longer works.  16 bit to 20 bit to 24 bit to gold CD's, SACD, DVDA, 5.1 and so on.  I admit that I own a couple of titles with as many as 3 copies of the same, purchased with the hope, that "they" must have done something to make it sound better.  In some cases the subsequent versions are better, but usually not really better enough to think that the money was well spent in the end.  In the end, if one loves a song, any version is better than no version.

Now I get to the point I hoped to make in my original post.  What passes for better and who decides ?  And how do you really know before you buy ?  I put up the Cream song Strange Brew to try and make my point.  I bought the 2004 "deluxe edition" before I learned how to affect and remaster or what ever it is that one wants to call what I do.  It wasn't better than the MFSL "non remastered, remastered" gold version I had but it was different from that and different from my BMG club version.  The 2004 version is supposed to be "the best of the best", with direct access to the original master tapes and the best people, the best equipment and the best technology.  Bull Puckey.  Now that I know what I know and can do to music, I find it worse, much worse, not better.  But once again, I recognize that listening is subjective as all get out.  Why Strange Brew ?  Well since only one person has actually listened to all 3 tracks (I can tell how many plays and how many downloads, but not by who), I'll just put it out there.

The difference between the raw BMG track was just louder and in my ear, one hell of a lot "muddier".  I thought that my version was a little louder than the original and one hell of a lot clearer.  Now I know that rock is full of intentional distortion, but one hopes that its the instrument itself and not some engineer making it worse, trying to make it better.  I am a rank amateur, yet I actually prefer my version to the best of the Industry, at least in this case.  There is some really well done stuff out there that cannot really be improved, but it is not very common.  I don't do this to say how good I am (cause I only get lucky sometimes), I only use this as an example of how poor a job that the industry does in most cases of cleaning up and "improving" the sound enough to make you want to spend money on the same thing you already have, again.  Or am I the only one who thinks the Industy's best is not very good (in this case, at least) because of my personal preferences ?  That's the reason I asked for feedback.  Is it just me or are there others out there ?  So in the long run, like a record, a CD will only be as good as what's on it.  The 2 will never be the same, because one medium requires a compensation curve (the RIAA) and the other is not dependent on anything, except what is put on it.  This for sure is only a personal observation / opinion based on nothing more than pure subjectivity.  There is no proof for my remarks as I am not a professional, just a long time consumer of the products discussed; its just my opinion.

So where was I  ?  Oh, yeah ... um, 

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 
Excellent point!  There's something to be said about the ritual part of listening to an LP.

I have happy memories of listening to good music in my first apartment.  Since this was a time before I was 21, and enjoyed herbal smoking products.  As a non-smoker of cigarettes, I didn't care for the smoking part so much, but I loved the ritual of "cleaning" and grinding up the herb by hand, often atop a 12" record sleeve.  It was like High Tea is for the British...

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 
Same here as I even enjoy the not so good sounding ones like bootlegs and counterfeits. There is also something therapeutic about taking the records out and cleaning them and being able to actually read the labels and artwork.

for me personally I would always prefer listening to the vinyl version of any album. It's not even about sound quality with me, just something about the process of taking vinyl out of it's sleave, puuting it on the turntable and hearing that first little crackle. Seem a bit more involved in the music somehow, I feel like i listen more.

 mzpro5 wrote: 
Your failure to to participate in a polite manner is 100% your fault.

You blame your refusal to cooperate on me, and I'm the arrogant one?  That's rich!

 mzpro5 wrote: 

 Servo wrote: 
You certainly are arrogant.  You seem to feel that the exchange of knowledge is a one way street.  You offer knowledge and the rest of us are just supposed to put up our hands and proclaim your genius because well we are insane.

Whatever you aren't worth my time.

 mzpro5 wrote: 

 Servo wrote: 
I might agree with you if there were not a number of people on RP that seemed to be offended or put off by various remarks you have made in various threads.

And I beg to differ - the written word most certainly can have a tone to it. 

Check here.

And here

 mzpro5 wrote: 
Don't take this the wrong way, but please consider that you might be projecting, or mistaking terse language for hostile language.  The written word has no tone, so...

I have worked in industries that have their own precise and very technical language for most of my life.  I've learned to speak in precise terms, and often use technical jargon that doesn't mean exactly what it can mean out of context.  I'm not here to stir up trouble; there are plenty of people who can do that.  But I do invest a lot of time in saying what I mean and meaning what I say.

I also took a social psychology class in college that introduced me to the wide world of logical fallacies.  Sad but true: a lot of posts here employ logical fallacies in place of a solid, logical position that can be defended.  Those posts tend to degrade rapidly because of the inherent dishonesty, or failure to admit an honest mistake.  I'm just the messenger who gets shot a lot for stating the obvious.

I've been to college, and have had to defend my positions there as part of the traditional academic methods.  I've been in business, and have had to defend my positions as part of corporate culture, and to keep up with other ambitious people (many who don't play fair, BTW).  I see the art of making and defending positions on subjects as inherently neutral.  I don't have the same problems face-to-face, only on Internet forums.  Many of my peers report the same problems on Internet forums, enough that I can conclude that many people don't communicate effectively in that format.  I do my best to improve at my end, and expect at least some effort at the other end.  I think that's more than fair.

Please feel free to stop me and ask "what do you mean by that?" if you have any doubt about my intentions.

 Servo wrote: 
I find the content of your posts to be pretty informative at times but more often than not the "tone" you project is insulting IMO.

interesting site for Hi Quality downloads   https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php
(sorry, dont mean to be off topic).

 kurtster wrote: 
Absolutely!!!  I got into both the profession of sound engineering and into serious listening as a hobby at an age (and gender; males hear better at their peak) when my hearing was an exceptional gift to be used and enjoyed.  I was devastated when an injury left me slightly deaf, and with a permanent case of tinnitus!  I didn't listen to music for years after that.  My story illustrates extremes regarding hearing abilities, of course.  Taste in music is a subjective thing!  There is no right or wrong music, or right or wrong way to listen to music.

Having said that, I should point out that there is a certain segment of the consumer products industry propagates some pretty dubious notions for the purposes of profit.  I've spent lots of time with the sales and consumer side of this industry segment since I was a teenager, and have come to the expert conclusion that this particular segment are phonies who willfully commit fraud.  If it can't be measured, or even quantified, it's not real.  It's this part of the industry who are behind the entire "vinyl is better" movement.  IMHO it's important to know the historical background to any issue.  And with this issue, its historical background tells me that "a grain of salt" will be needed very often.


I commend you for taking the time to understand this complex and often contradictory definition of how the music production industry works.  It's nice to see sincere efforts to communicate on Internet message boards, which says something about Internet message board people in general...

While hippie works producing music (although not necessarily as a music "Producer", more jargon that can confuse...), he remasters post-produced music for fun.  Just like you.  And, with all credit that hippie is due, his way of remastering a CD is no more right (because he's a pro) than yours is.  It's all for enjoyment.  It can also be for other purposes.  For example, BillG uses sophisticated broadcast quality tools to process the music that he streams, so that there's consistency and an overall good sound.  BillG's form of "sweetening" is part of professional broadcasting, and was necessary to meet strict technical requirements back when he worked on the air.  Back when I worked on the air, I had to do many of the same things, although my focus was more on the video that I broadcast over the audio.  Radio or TV, every veteran broadcaster knows what an OPTIMOD is!


That's good!  I was only giving my own advice, which is worth very little.  But I've seen some people get lost in the equipment and one-oneupmanship to the point that they lose all good taste in music.  It reminded me of the simple pleasure of listening to music that has the occasional sustained open E-string bass note, my quest for a system that got over the "one note bass" limitations of the day, and how so many kids will never know that E-string pleasure because they only listen to drum music: "thump thump thump" and call that "bass".

I got into music at the time when Thiele-Small equations were all the rage.  For a long time I thought that they were Manna from Heaven.  Today, not so much.  I have a new respect for sealed enclosures, and their constant, low-Q bass rolloff.  Especially so in a time when amplifier watts are a lot less expensive than they were in the '70s!  Now if I use a phase-shift-free FIR filter in the digital domain to extend the bass, I have enough power to do it, and I don't have to suffer the 12 dB/octave drop that Thiele-Small alignments cause.


I wasn't as clear about it as I could have been.  IMO the only reason not to use 32float internally is if you're CPU and/or storage bound.  Actually, 32float might even lower CPU usage, because your software is probably using Long Words no matter what you select, and the "float" part offloads work to the FPU/MMX/SSE part of the CPU.  Saving your work as 32float does make some big files, that's for sure!

A good compromise is to set your software so that it does the manipulations in 32float, and saves to s16le (which is what a standard .wav file uses).  Most sound cards/chips support 32float, and will convert it to whatever output bit depth (16, 24) you're using by default, all in hardware with no CPU overhead.  I had to do a lot of very boring technical reading to find this little gem.


Also, music is better when it's shared!


Sounds like an excellent plan!  I can live with that!  You didn't need to make that pledge, but I'm impressed that you did.  I'll remember that act of nobility when I evaluate what you write in other topics.  Let this serve as an example for certain people who don't make the effort to meet others half-way.  Bravo!

 DaveInVA wrote: 
And here I thought it was only me.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
I've since looked at some of the other threads he's been involved in and seems he uses the same "tactics" at least in the ones I saw. I like civil discourse and debate but that's not what he offers as I found out. I have better things to do with my time so I won't give him any more of it.