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I wonder whether the same 'warmness' people associate with vinyl couldn't be reproduced just as easily using equalizer settings or post-processing of a digital

by w0utert 12y ago

I wonder whether the same 'warmness' people associate with vinyl couldn't be reproduced just as easily using equalizer settings or post-processing of a digital source. The 'information' on a vinyl record is for all practical intents and purposes (ie: limits of the human hearing) the same as a digital copy of the same source at typical (CD quality) sampling. I understand that's not the point of playing vinyl (I frankly don't understand what the point is, but then again, I don't understand the point of collecting a room full of shiny discs in plastic cases either), but the audio quality argument sometimes offered by people who like vinyl sounds like the typical justification bias, a bit what you regularly hear from people who buy gold-plated HDMI cables.

marrs 12y ago
Warmth is usually the result of the electrical noise generated by analogue gear. There are plenty of software processing plugins to simulate this, and they get pretty accurate, but it does amuse me that producers spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to reproduce the sound of a valve amp or an analogue synth when they could just go out and buy a valve amp or an analogue synth.
laumars 12y ago
It's not justification bias, but it is a bias none-the-less. I think it's a case of people warming (if you pardon my pun) to the familiar. For many people who grew up with vinyl, the distortion vinyl adds might be reassuring. For some people of a younger generation, they might have the same tendencies towards the artifacting of medium to high bit rate MP3s. This last point might sound weird, but there have been some (informal?) studies that have suggested that to be the case. http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-prefer-sizzle-sounds-of-mp3-format http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-... Personally I don't like the "sizzle" of MP3s, but I wouldn't say I miss the warmth of vinyl either. I'm someone who have always preferred the clarity of FLAC or CDs. Each to their own though :) I am puzzled why my previous comment got down voted though. Would whoever negative repped me mind elaborating why they considered my post so heinous it deserved to be modded down?

by w0utert 12y ago

marrs 12y ago

Warmth is usually the result of the electrical noise generated by analogue gear. There are plenty of software processing plugins to simulate this, and they get pretty accurate, but it does amuse me that producers spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to reproduce the sound of a valve amp or an analogue synth when they could just go out and buy a valve amp or an analogue synth.

laumars 12y ago

It's not justification bias, but it is a bias none-the-less. I think it's a case of people warming (if you pardon my pun) to the familiar. For many people who grew up with vinyl, the distortion vinyl adds might be reassuring. For some people of a younger generation, they might have the same tendencies towards the artifacting of medium to high bit rate MP3s. This last point might sound weird, but there have been some (informal?) studies that have suggested that to be the case. http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-prefer-sizzle-sounds-of-mp3-format http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-... Personally I don't like the "sizzle" of MP3s, but I wouldn't say I miss the warmth of vinyl either. I'm someone who have always preferred the clarity of FLAC or CDs. Each to their own though :) I am puzzled why my previous comment got down voted though. Would whoever negative repped me mind elaborating why they considered my post so heinous it deserved to be modded down?