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Say more? It would sound worse in a more acoustically refined setting because the noise in a vinyl playback would be more evident?

JohnBooty 5y ago
My initial post wasn't phrased very well; my apologies. I edited it for (hopefully) increased clarity. You are absolutely correct. In an acoustically refined setting such as this (or, with a nice pair of headphones) the differences between vinyl and digital would be more obvious. However, in a more typical residential setting with background noise and non-ideal acoustics the differences are masked and mooted to a large extent.
- jonahbenton 5y ago
  Thanks. I am puzzling about this because of the experience of visiting a friend's this weekend, playing records on his turntable. Old records, low end turntable and speakers, but bizarrely the listening experience was strikingly better- more engaging, transporting, interesting- than my higher end digital setup. The records were noisy, to be sure, but it was almost that I could hear through the noise to actual musicians playing actual instruments. Like the cocktail party effect, my brain was more engaged by the experience of listening. Makes me wonder if adding noise to a digital system would for some use cases improve the experience.
  - Animats 5y ago
    Much of the unreality of modern recordings is collateral damage from the loudness wars.[1] For noisy environments like cars and for casual listening, lots of dynamic range compression helps. Most recordings are made for that market. You can get more dynamic range from the hardware than most listening environments support. This is a problem for serious music. Even for serious loud rock music. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      To add to this -- vinyl and CDs/digital always have at least some mastering differences, and often are completely different. If the vinyl edition has better mastering choices, it can sound better than the digital edition. But if the digital had equal or better mastering choices, it will sound better than the vinyl and will retain that through generations of direct copying.

JohnBooty 5y ago

My initial post wasn't phrased very well; my apologies. I edited it for (hopefully) increased clarity. You are absolutely correct. In an acoustically refined setting such as this (or, with a nice pair of headphones) the differences between vinyl and digital would be more obvious. However, in a more typical residential setting with background noise and non-ideal acoustics the differences are masked and mooted to a large extent.

jonahbenton 5y ago
Thanks. I am puzzling about this because of the experience of visiting a friend's this weekend, playing records on his turntable. Old records, low end turntable and speakers, but bizarrely the listening experience was strikingly better- more engaging, transporting, interesting- than my higher end digital setup. The records were noisy, to be sure, but it was almost that I could hear through the noise to actual musicians playing actual instruments. Like the cocktail party effect, my brain was more engaged by the experience of listening. Makes me wonder if adding noise to a digital system would for some use cases improve the experience.
- Animats 5y ago
  Much of the unreality of modern recordings is collateral damage from the loudness wars.[1] For noisy environments like cars and for casual listening, lots of dynamic range compression helps. Most recordings are made for that market. You can get more dynamic range from the hardware than most listening environments support. This is a problem for serious music. Even for serious loud rock music. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    To add to this -- vinyl and CDs/digital always have at least some mastering differences, and often are completely different. If the vinyl edition has better mastering choices, it can sound better than the digital edition. But if the digital had equal or better mastering choices, it will sound better than the vinyl and will retain that through generations of direct copying.