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Frankly, I'm moving back to vinyl. I'm aware that most albums have finally been properly remastered to be in a digital format, eliminating the disparity in soun

Frankly, I'm moving back to vinyl. I'm aware that most albums have finally been properly remastered to be in a digital format, eliminating the disparity in sound quality, but I feel like something purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, crazy as that may sound. Plus, Bandcamp is nice. Artists I've discovered through there frequently have a vinyl pressing available, which entitles me to download the lossless digital version as well.

knaik94 9y ago
Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on? The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor (hearing the amplified sound of the needle pushing the vinyl during supposed silence, as well as random pops). I am curious to know if that's seen as a feature and not a bug.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  That sounds like vinyl crackle. It's such a sought after thing that people make entire sample libraries of it.
- squarefoot 9y ago
  "Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on?" Many CD are remastered if not remixed, so they aren't perfect equivalents of the original vinyl; they usually also add compression to raise the perceived average volume (sometimes beyond clipping!), which kills the original dynamics and quality of the media. Some early CDs may have been direct conversion of the master into digital form, but if we take an old record and the equivalent CD issued recently, they're not the same thing anymore. "The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor" That's because of the needle friction and other interference by motor and other mechanical parts etc. all noise which is getting amplified. They've made miracles with pickups, RIAA preamps and other stuff, but we can't make a mechanical device that doesn't generate friction otherwise we would have invented perpetual motion. So yes, records are more noisy and have a much smaller dynamic range, although most modern overcompressed music would falsely suggest the opposite. A search for "loudness war" can bring some interesting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
  - busterarm 9y ago
    You know that vinyls get a mixdown from a tape (open-reel) or DAT master also, right? Vinyl, like CD, has format limitations that need to be overcome. Most notably with vinyl, bass has to be converted to mono and high frequency content needs to be heavily EQ'd. Vinyl isn't the "original" sound, and you should never mixdown a CD from a vinyl source (since in most cases you have the original master or a tape copy of it) unless you have absolutely no other choice.
    - squarefoot 9y ago
      Of course I know about limitations, I stopped using vinyl over 20 years ago. The OP was wondering why vinyl and CD sound different and besides the obvious media limitations I added that even a perfectly new record that doesn't crackle will produce noise because of friction. I also pointed out that today CDs don't come from the same master (1) used for vinyl. Sometimes they're also remixed (2) then compressed and limited (sigh). This may suggest that modern CD sound worse than vinyl while it should be the other way around, but greedy producers force their engineers to ruin the sound to make music louder. FWIW, I am one of hose Rush fans who stopped buying their CDs when Vapor Trails came out. I don't even have the mp3s of that awful sounding crap:( 1. stereo master tape, not the record press 2. from the same multitrack tape (often transferred onto digital) and sometimes with other audio added.
- brusch64 9y ago
  Well you have to master differently for a vinyl. At least you have to take it into consideration when mastering for digital and vinyl. So it is possible to sound differently to the digital signal. The phono amplifier has to do some filtering, so this influences the sound too. All in all records are a pretty bad medium for conserving music nowadays.. but for many people the experience is the most important thing.
lawlessone 9y ago
>purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, I wonder could a make an needle that only works with specific records now..
lmm 9y ago
> I feel like something purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, crazy as that may sound. Yeah that's crazy. CD (when appropriately mastered) is as good as it gets (unless you're looking to make remixes or something): perfect sound reproduction as far as human ears are concerned, and losslessly copyable. Vinyl you wear away slightly every time you play it.
- poelzi 9y ago
  Wrong. Many good Lables release 24 bit mastering quality flac releases, better as CD. But, to hear a difference, you really need highest quality equipment and even then, depends on the sound. I hear the different of flac vs mp3 on my Shure SRH 940 and some other high quality headphones. On medium quality speakers I don't.
  - lmm 9y ago
    > Many good Lables release 24 bit mastering quality flac releases, better as CD. But, to hear a difference, you really need highest quality equipment and even then, depends on the sound. A properly mastered CD can represent the whole audible range; to properly represent the very quietest sounds (mosquito-in-an-empty-room level) requires doing dithering as part of the mastering process, but any competent masterer should be able to do that. AFAIK no properly blinded (ABX) listening test has ever shown a human-detectable difference between 24-bit and correctly mastered 16-bit. > I hear the different of flac vs mp3 on my Shure SRH 940 and some other high quality headphones. On medium quality speakers I don't. mp3 is a long long way below CD quality.
    - poelzi 9y ago
      Unfortunately my A&H Xone:K2 does not have a 24 bit DAC so I can't really test with equipment and songs I know. I think people who like vinyl more the CD just like the noise floor on top of the music and not that vinyl actually has higher quality. Everything before the pressing is digital anyway these days, just with higher resolution. And that's what I meant, your sound can't get better then the 24 bit releases used for mastering. You may like the sound more, but the quality is necessarily worse then the digital original.

knaik94 9y ago

Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on? The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor (hearing the amplified sound of the needle pushing the vinyl during supposed silence, as well as random pops). I am curious to know if that's seen as a feature and not a bug.

rainbowmverse 9y ago
That sounds like vinyl crackle. It's such a sought after thing that people make entire sample libraries of it.
squarefoot 9y ago
"Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on?" Many CD are remastered if not remixed, so they aren't perfect equivalents of the original vinyl; they usually also add compression to raise the perceived average volume (sometimes beyond clipping!), which kills the original dynamics and quality of the media. Some early CDs may have been direct conversion of the master into digital form, but if we take an old record and the equivalent CD issued recently, they're not the same thing anymore. "The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor" That's because of the needle friction and other interference by motor and other mechanical parts etc. all noise which is getting amplified. They've made miracles with pickups, RIAA preamps and other stuff, but we can't make a mechanical device that doesn't generate friction otherwise we would have invented perpetual motion. So yes, records are more noisy and have a much smaller dynamic range, although most modern overcompressed music would falsely suggest the opposite. A search for "loudness war" can bring some interesting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- busterarm 9y ago
  You know that vinyls get a mixdown from a tape (open-reel) or DAT master also, right? Vinyl, like CD, has format limitations that need to be overcome. Most notably with vinyl, bass has to be converted to mono and high frequency content needs to be heavily EQ'd. Vinyl isn't the "original" sound, and you should never mixdown a CD from a vinyl source (since in most cases you have the original master or a tape copy of it) unless you have absolutely no other choice.
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    Of course I know about limitations, I stopped using vinyl over 20 years ago. The OP was wondering why vinyl and CD sound different and besides the obvious media limitations I added that even a perfectly new record that doesn't crackle will produce noise because of friction. I also pointed out that today CDs don't come from the same master (1) used for vinyl. Sometimes they're also remixed (2) then compressed and limited (sigh). This may suggest that modern CD sound worse than vinyl while it should be the other way around, but greedy producers force their engineers to ruin the sound to make music louder. FWIW, I am one of hose Rush fans who stopped buying their CDs when Vapor Trails came out. I don't even have the mp3s of that awful sounding crap:( 1. stereo master tape, not the record press 2. from the same multitrack tape (often transferred onto digital) and sometimes with other audio added.
brusch64 9y ago
Well you have to master differently for a vinyl. At least you have to take it into consideration when mastering for digital and vinyl. So it is possible to sound differently to the digital signal. The phono amplifier has to do some filtering, so this influences the sound too. All in all records are a pretty bad medium for conserving music nowadays.. but for many people the experience is the most important thing.

lawlessone 9y ago

>purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, I wonder could a make an needle that only works with specific records now..

lmm 9y ago

> I feel like something purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, crazy as that may sound. Yeah that's crazy. CD (when appropriately mastered) is as good as it gets (unless you're looking to make remixes or something): perfect sound reproduction as far as human ears are concerned, and losslessly copyable. Vinyl you wear away slightly every time you play it.

poelzi 9y ago
Wrong. Many good Lables release 24 bit mastering quality flac releases, better as CD. But, to hear a difference, you really need highest quality equipment and even then, depends on the sound. I hear the different of flac vs mp3 on my Shure SRH 940 and some other high quality headphones. On medium quality speakers I don't.
- lmm 9y ago
  > Many good Lables release 24 bit mastering quality flac releases, better as CD. But, to hear a difference, you really need highest quality equipment and even then, depends on the sound. A properly mastered CD can represent the whole audible range; to properly represent the very quietest sounds (mosquito-in-an-empty-room level) requires doing dithering as part of the mastering process, but any competent masterer should be able to do that. AFAIK no properly blinded (ABX) listening test has ever shown a human-detectable difference between 24-bit and correctly mastered 16-bit. > I hear the different of flac vs mp3 on my Shure SRH 940 and some other high quality headphones. On medium quality speakers I don't. mp3 is a long long way below CD quality.
  - poelzi 9y ago
    Unfortunately my A&H Xone:K2 does not have a 24 bit DAC so I can't really test with equipment and songs I know. I think people who like vinyl more the CD just like the noise floor on top of the music and not that vinyl actually has higher quality. Everything before the pressing is digital anyway these days, just with higher resolution. And that's what I meant, your sound can't get better then the 24 bit releases used for mastering. You may like the sound more, but the quality is necessarily worse then the digital original.