Recently I dusted off my old vinyl and am in total agreement. It's more labor intensive but the payoff is wonderful. It takes TIME. We all need to slow down and take a moment to enjoy life.
You probably dont give a shit but does any of you know of a way to log back into an instagram account..? I was stupid forgot my password. I would love any help you can give me
It's so stupid to argue about whether vinyl is better than a CD or the opposite. Both can be equally good! It is 100% impossible to compare apple against apple when it comes to vinyl vs cd. What makes CD sounds good or not? It is a combination of what you save on the format and how well it is mixed and adjusted and what you play it on and not necessarily the audio format or storage media's fault. I have heard many vinyl records that have better sound than the CD has ! Does that mean vinyl is better? NO. I have also heard many CDs that have better sound than vinyl has. Also almost always, the cd version is remastra and adjusted. When it comes to vinyl then everything has to be in a certain way since vinyl is not an easy format like cd. Vinyl is often adjusted and made more carefully than the CD due to its limitations of vinyl. Does that mean vinyl is better than a cd? NO. it depends on what you save on the different formats and how good a player you have and not necessarily the format you used! you can not always blame the audio format! The sound on vinyl is stored thin and with little bass to make room for more on the record. The riaa amplifier is in a way an equalizer that adjusts the sound back so the sound becomes normal again.
Great recording examples are Dire Straits first LP, Tracy Chapman Fast Car, Beatles Revolver Stereo original version... The problem with modern music is insane levels of compression to maximize loudness for radio play
I cannot understand this anxiety around proving which format is "best". Listen to what you enjoy. Full stop. I listen to vinyl (relaxation, appreciation and enjoyment) and streaming (convenience on the go).
The whole business of sound recording production and reproduction, on whatever format, is replete with many different variables. Artistic intent, fashions and trends of a given era, available technological capability, sound engineering expertise or lack of it, the level of quality control over all, and the amount of money invested to create and complete a particular sound recording project, are just some of the variable factors that impact on what the final product will look and sound like to consumers. Specific formats, like vinyl records, tapes, and/or various digital formats (cd's, streaming etc.) for reproducing recordings, will not only be imbued with the sound characteristics derived from the specific recording process, that is unique to each particular recording, but also the unique characteristics of the format and the combination of specific sound reproduction equipment (player, amplifier, speakers, headphones, listening room etc.) being used by the listener. Of course, a very important factor in regard to listeners, is the quality and characteristics of their hearing and the way sound, as with music for eg., affects a persons sensory perceptions and emotional response, which generally determines what they like to hear in regard to music recordings and how they like to hear them. As with most things in life, that is a very personal choice by the most important variable of all, the individual and their preferences and finances. Having said that, there are some perceptibly different qualities between analogue and digital formats but they have been made to seem more different than they needed to be. Much of the difference people perceive are due to the recording and mastering techniques used by sound engineers, deliberately trying to exploit the technical differences between the old analogue format and the new digital format, originally initiated in order to promote a new market for CD's in the 1980's. For commercial marketing reasons, it was important to show a clear difference between the sound of analogue and digital formats to the public, so they created new tonal palettes that made CD's sound sharper and clearer than traditional analogue recordings, by cutting back the mid-range and boosting the bass and/or treble frequencies. This took advantage of the wider frequency and dynamic range of digital recording, that suited much of the electronically infused music of the 1980's. After all they didn't see any point in trying to simply copy in digital what analogue was already well capable of doing. It was also unfortunate, but to be expected, that many sound engineers were not familiar and experienced with the new and technically complex and advanced possibilities of digital recording equipment and many low quality recordings were produced along with many excellent ones. In any case, the big corporations were not always after perfect sound but a new and younger generation of hipsters, looking to the emerging electronic computer age, to market the new sounds and gadgets of the future. Today we have better digital technology, that can very precisely reproduce superb analogue sounding recordings in very high resolution, that are more available then ever, for those who want great sound with digital convenience, at a low cost. This might not suit people who prefer to listen to purely analogue recordings on analogue gear but bear in mind that most recent vinyl records are either recorded, mixed and/or mastered digitally and older analogue recordings are usually remastered digitally before being printed on vinyl, which for many people, is a clever use of both technologies. Overall I believe every recording and format is a marvelous miracle of creative invention and scientific endeavor, that should be appreciated for the pleasure if affords anyone lucky enough to experience them.
Yes, as you said, all the variables. Case in point, I'm a huge Rush fan, but their early produced albums really suck for sound quality. Then there is Fleetwood Mac who knew to spend gobs of money in the studio for quality records. That's a very hard fact to overcome, arguable, Rush focused on live shows, Fleetwood focused on production for legacy. Yeah?
Don, you expose the variables that make "listening to recorded music" such a can-o-worms. For over fifty years I've argued with folks about the very real problem of standing waves and room nodes. A point you make when mentioning listening rooms. Reading your comment should be enough to make anyone's head spin. It ain't just buying a stereo, plopping it down and magically getting great sound, fuhgeddaboudit.
What struck me immediately about CDs when they came out was that they allowed people to get much better sound at the low end of the cost scale than they were getting with vinyl or tape. I had just completed a relatively inexpensive but sound quality focused system around 1983 when CDs became readily available to the public. I remember thinking CDs would be superior and that I'd probably want a CD player as soon as the prices came down, to play my favorite music in the highest possible quality. I never imagined giving up records or tape, especially not tape as it could record and nothing else could. I fully imagined only owning the very best records on CD and never buying a new CD of something I was only partially committed to. Then I actually got the chance to listen to some CDs in HiFi stores and I was shocked to hear that they weren't perfect. Yes they were essentially noise free, but they did have a harsh treble that vinyl usually didn't have. I was less eager to get a CD player after that and didn't get one until 1992 as a result. My turntable and cartridge were good enough that CD offered more convenience than improved audio quality. I do think that CD audio quality improved over the first decade after their introduction, but I try to impress on people that a good vinyl setup is truly comparable in sound quality to a digital one. My personal preference soundwise, if I must choose, would be for CD, but I think the mix and mastering are much more important to which format I'll like better than the storage medium, at least with my level of gear which I would describe as "high MidFi" by today's standards.
Kel - I love your videos! The way you describe the nuances of individual sounds! I love it. So, let me share my memory of getting Donald Fagen’s first solo album The Nightfly in 1985. I remember there was a lot of talk about how it was digitally mastered (which was a brand mew thing at the time). So here I am listening to my digitally mastered recording on a vinyl. It sounded clear as ever. Also at the time, I listened often to Van Morrison’s Moondance LP. Of course that came out in the early 70s and the recording quality didn’t make any impression on me back in the day. But recently I downloaded the new “Apple Digital Master” of it and I was blown away. The album never sounded so clear, so “up front”. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Anyone have any thoughts to share in response?
Love this topic, however I feel something is still overlooked in the digital side and not really mentioned here, and that is the digital/analog conversion or DAC that is used to translate that digital information from a CD. I have used several different CD players with different conversion technologies and chips, for instance burr brown versus TDA chips, a standalone DAC with TDA 1540 or 1541 double crown chips in it or an 8 X TDA 1543 without filtering does give amazing results, that a normal factory CD player is not able to produce, and in that respect it would be a much more honest comparison against vinyl on a good record player. In that respect I want to say that the digital information on a CD becomes much more musical and alive in comparison with streaming….😉
It's magic to me how a tt works so beautifully. But you are right that it takes much more consideration to get the most from your vinyl. I have seen tts on top of speakers, in front of speakers, pennies on the headshell, not level. Also, seems like today it would cost a fortune to gather a nice record collection.
Pricing is currently at gouging level, but, some people, no mention of who, have been convinced that round vinyl discs are the best recorded sound ever - as if the band recorded live to each individual record. 😎 My first music purchase was a 45 rpm, my second was the Meet The Beatles LP. So, I've been around to hear everything since (and some before). To each their own.
I came to your knowledge through the Sony TA1010 review (that I end bying after all :D ) You're the best man! Great content, info, advices... But above all... Love the attitude! Greetings from Portugal!
Hi Kelvin, Hope things are well, great video and your (very well articulated) take on the different sources and platforms music is presented to us. I too love vinyl and agree it sounds great, I too listen to music via streaming services just for the sheer convenience but every now and again I put on the vinyl and I'm always blown away by the interest grabbing effect it has on me. Is digital more technically correct - Yes and without doubt. Does vinyl sound better than digital - well, thats down to the individual to decide. Which Is more enjoyable - to me, at least and without doubt - vinyl. Like you, I have grown up with vinyl, the physical involvement and connection you have with unwrapping the LP, placing it on the turntable, wiping the dust off, lowering the tonearm and then sit back and enjoy is immensely satisfying in its self. to me at lest, it gives you a connection to the artist and the HIFI system, Digital cannot imitate this, and to me I begin to lose interest in streaming music. Its like going into a restaurant like Chinese, Indian, south American etc and ordering your favourite dish, generally you know what you want when you go into a restaurant, you have made your mind up before you've left the house. Streaming on the other hand is like stepping in to the oblivion like going into a restaurant with no name or character associated with the type of food offered and would be like stepping into a white blank room and someone in a white suite asking you "we have no menu, you can chose what you like, what would you like to eat?" Also vinyl LPs, cassettes (and to a degree CD's) gives me the sense of owing the music I'm physically holding, I don't get that with streaming music platforms or mp3 downloads. Now that said, one thing I hate about vinyl is this, most LPs we think is analogue through and through which is (AAA) recorded in analogue, mixed in analogue and mastered in analogue is a bit of a myth too, well, let me tell you... Apart from some and very few cutting lathes, most (say 99%) LP's go through a digital conversion during the vinyl cutting process, this process goes back from the early 40's, the process was/is used to monitor the audio and make adjustments and correct for error effects such as peaking and other distortion issues that may cause the cutting head to miss behave. The most famous and widely used cutting lathe is the Neumann VMS-70, and 80(s) variants, they had analogue to digital - digital to analogue converters to delay the analogue signal a bit to give it enough time to be corrected for cutting issues before cutting to vinyl - so in effect we are listening to a A-D then D-A processed audio signal. This goes back since the 40's with 4bit, 8bit resolution A-D & D-A converters! However, there are some direct to disk cutting LP's out there which is must to listen to if you can find them.
This is an articulate and considered piece - well done and thanks. I've personally gone almost exclusively vinyl, with a Rega RP10 / Apheta II. For me, both can sound amazing, but vinyl when it is good, is really special and sounds more holographic, more real and more exciting. I've heard £150k streaming systems that honestly didn't sound like music - they sounded like a computer playing a simulation of music and were not involving.
There are pros and cons to both vinyl and Digital. But if it's a crap recording, it's not going to sound good on either. It's also a point that extends to the very core of hi-fi. Doesn't matter how much you chew the fat over this amp or that amp, the one thing you have no control over in the end, is recording consistency and quality.
I think he just explain why i like CD more, Vinyl gets old and you really have to take care of it. And if you buy expensive 180 gram vinyl it sounds better, but where to find records? CD you can play 1000 times it will still work as new.
Man, you nailed it.I think most of audiophiles are aware of pros and cons of both formats. After putting them on the scale the choice is made.I personally went the digital way because as a lazy butt music lover all my music library of 6000 albums is contained in a hard disc. Imagine the shelves and space needed to store all that staff in a normal flat had it been vinyl , noway No clicks and pops to annoy my ears. Economical gain, less gear to buy and take care of.Smaller foot print. Making full use of digital music streaming and exploring new music and musician with a click of the mouse.What are the trade offs. Missing that organical sound and that magic of mid register. So be it.
I'd rather a semi load of vinyl than the digital crap, I've heard a terrible iTunes download of The Angels in a friend's car, no bass whatsoever, even full smiley curve boost couldn't fix it
Great reviews. Im back into setting up a budget system. Got a refurbed Pioneer PL112D. Finding your channel really helpful. I had some nice Audioquest cables which didnt work in my old Rotel system. Gave them to my friend for his Thorens, Marantz, Wharfedale system and they were fab! Its a fun try try thing 😎
Absolutely spot on. To reinforce your argument, I've got some LPs which are just transfers from CDs, and they still sound better than the CD they came from! When are you going to do a turntable video?
I remember getting back into vinyl. Just wanting clean, nice records to collect. Then I discovered an old Denon turntable with a denon dl-110, and an old Harmon Karman 330b, with a pair of Epi 100s. My world then changed forever! My journey began then as an Audiophile ❤ !!
Here's an interesting thing: when a needle tracks along an LP's groove, the innumerable ridges and troughs on the sidewalls of the groove that contain the musical information cause the needle to bounce its way along the groove rather than track along the groove with complete contact from start to finish. In other words, a needle 'bounces' along the groove in an alternating contact/no contact manner. Although the innumerable contact/no contact moments are incredibly brief, the very on/off nature of vinyl playback means vinyl a digital medium - it doesn't have to be computerised to be digital. The upshot of all this is that when people listened to The Beatles on vinyl in the '60s, they listened through a digital playback device, and so it is with every single person on the planet who's ever played a record.
"In other words, a needle 'bounces' along the groove in an alternating contact/no contact manner." No, it doesn't; not when it's working properly anyway. When that does happen it's called "skipping," and you can very clearly hear when a record skips. Also, there's no room for that to happen anyway, since the needle is contacting both walls of the groove at the same time, which is how you get 2 channels of sound (stereo). Watch the TH-cam video titled "Electron microscope slow-motion video of vinyl LP" to see a closeup of this. You'll see that the needle is never floating / touching nothing but air. In order for that to happen the needle would have to bounce upward (toward the sky), which generally only happens when someone starts jumping up and down while the record is playing, and you'd obviously hear a skip if that happened. Furthermore, even if your idea of how a record player works were correct (it isn't), that wouldn't make it digital. Digital is more than just on and off, i.e., turning your lights or faucet on and off a few times doesn't make it digital in and of itself. In order to be digital, the on/off pattern has to encode information. A skipping record wouldn't be encoding information (other than informing you that something is wrong with the record and/or the player), its playback would be _missing_ information.
Well said, I agree. I’m 58 and I always knew I didn’t enjoy listening to cds “digititis” as much as LPs when I made that switch (I didn’t jump right away). I had a Marantz CD63SE and never was that impressed with it. I now have a Denon DCD a100 I bought lightly used and it sounds pretty good in direct mode w/o lights and the digital out disconnected, otherwise it would be disappointing. I recently bought a Technics 1500C and it’s just like you say...if a person has old well cared for records that they saved or inherited. The Ortofon red it came with is almost impossible to take it accentuates the ticks and pops so much. Changed it out for a Denon 301mk2 and everything is just beautiful. Keep up the good work your passion and cynicism is very entertaining.
Tell you what : I like both formats. Ithink the sound of CD,s are quite good. (most of the time) as well as the sound of the LP (also Most of the time) When music is digitally recorded,what is the advantage of vinyl (soundwise) So I always try to buy analog recorded music when I buy a record (mostly second hand) Sentimentally it is a whole other kind thing of course I am of an age that the LP was the only Format available and I like the romance of placing a record on the turntable, bringing the cartridge lower and lower and expecting the glorious sound (you ,,know,, the music) Plus of course the big sleeve.
Good argument. They used to add the recording methods on the back of the CD case. DDD meaning digitally recorded, and mastered . ADD meaning analog recording and digital Mastering. AAD meaning analog recording and analog mastering. Depending on the studio and equipment used and the expertise of the engineer any this can sound great.
Have to agree with you Calvin- I still listen to my original Ziggy Stardust vinyl album bought back in the day and have enjoyed re-listening to it after every turntable/system tweak I've made. I know it so well I can hear the improvement (or otherwise!) in the sound quality. I do cheat and record it on my reel to reel deck - the playback is very close to the vinyl experience and it saves stylus wear!
What Turntable cartridge and phono stage do you prefer to use? You need to get yourself subharmonic synthesizer for vinyl when Mastering a record they cut it off at 40 Hz 24db, to get it to fit on the record that's why you think the bass is lacking subharmonic synthesizer will boost the lower octaves below 100 Hz 50 Hz 34 Hz 24 Hz you can get plugins but that's digital I would go with something like a dbx 120a pick them up for about £150 second-hand, Makes a big difference it's not the same as just turning up the bass up on the amplifier. and the IRAA eq curve doesn't correct it either. This can depend on the mastering engineers how much will they have room to fit it on the record and they can cut it off even at 45 Hz, using the subharmonic synthesizer is fully adjustable and leave it at that, doesn't affect the higher frequencies above 100 Hz. Dbx made a special decoder box for records what was coded with dbx what is better you can get dbx records if you've got any. should have been the future for vinyl shame it didn't take off, much greater dynamic range up to 110 db I believe form the standard 77db range. You need a CD transport really much better good quality DAC if you take the DAC connection out and run it through a mains contestant light bulbs 150 Watts + takes that digital shimmer away
I do agree, but I listen to both types. If I'm pottering around the house with music playing, I normally stream digital as its convenient and on in the background. If I sit and listen to music to relax it will always be vinyl because it's more enjoyable and can appreciate the sound more.
@@Historia.Magistra.Vitae. personal preference. some might prefer the sound of the copy on Vinyl, otherd will prefer digital. None is better or worse as so to speak.
Thanks for an entertaining video again, Kelvin. It's not easy to compare a vinyl original with the later CD versions in many cases as the latter was often digitally remastered, or "f****d up" as it's known in the audio community. My experience of CDs which have been made to exploit the medium properly is that they are truly amazing quality and just as emotionally involving as anything I played on my Linn turntable in days of yore. This doesn't mean I'm anti-vinyl by any means, it's still a fantastic high res source. The enemy of digital, in my view, is the belief that it's just ones and zeros, so any old DAC will do. The quality of the design and components matters hugely and it's the reason why my highly modified £1,000 CD player sounds hugely better than any of the £300 players I've had in my second system. They both use Sony transports, so it's entirely down to the DAC.
In my own experience, I think moving coil cartridges - even entry level ones - tend to add 2 to 3 dB of dynamic range / dynamic slam of a studio recording already subjected to compression. As in dynamic range compression and hence why vinyl sounds subjectively better than redbook spec CDs on long listening sessions.
Nice analogy of 'Playing the man not the ball'. It's often called an 'ad hominem' argument (literally 'against the man'). Essentially the same thing, trying to discredit a position by attacking / discrediting the individual putting it forward rather than the position itself.
Well spoken, I agree. The artwork on the album jackets, the care and attention required to handling, the symposium which follows inevitably when comparing turntables and setups and the joy of making it all work together to produce the sound that is just right for ones own ears is all what makes vinyl great. Sure, digital can be great too in many respects, but without the fine tuning and artwork, it is less laborious....and thus less of a chore in my opinion, which is a bad thing. Enjoyed my coffee watching that, thanks!
I wonder what myths you were trying to debunk. "The whole thing is an artifice. And the question is what delivers that artifice best." You are quite right about this - but instead of really trying to answer this essential question you then describe your subjective impressions of vinyl and digital sound. Nothing wrong with these impressions and preferences, of course. We all have them. So, what delivers the "artifice" best? It can be demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that an ordinary cd is closer to the original sound (the master) than vinyl ever will be - no matter how much you subjectively prefer the sound of vinyl. It is digital - in all cases - which delivers the artifice as unchanged and original as possible. Subjective impressions - yours or mine - do not count here at all.
In theory ... with infinite time and not taking timing issues into account ... measured by a statistical measurement instrument which our ears and brain are not ... over a property of your choosing. People do not in general understand mathematical theory and how it relates to reality. I should know because I specialize in numerical mathematics. The gist of this video is correct. There are loads of choices and minute details ignored which allowes us to live in a simple world where better can be measured by a single number or a graph. When theory and reality do not meet, the scientist type goes back to work on the theory. Not saying all experiences are equally valid. It takes time and effory to reach a valid conclusion. But a Fanboy will never take the time. They will spend all their time defending a theory which is a futile effort. Theories can only be disproven. Mathematics might be an exception but the full statement should begin with "digital sounds better because".
@@bobnot24 No, you do not seem to get it: the basic premise of the video is wrong. The whole video is about the author's subjective preferences and impressions. And it's all downhill from there.
I may have misunderstood but I hear no theories given. It is simply stated that vinyl has so far been better for him in the right circumstances. And debunking some false argument approaches. And offering the possibility of our knowledge of hearing music not yet being complete. I have a vinyl system for looks only (not hooked up) but I do not disagree with these sentiments.
For instance there is nothing magical in how distortion is calculated statistically. It does not mean that our ear+brain behave in that way because it is not a microphone. If our ear+brain discern and enjoy musical notes and the artistic intention better with some kind of distortion, then we must search for that model. It seems to that the ASR crowd is the one which tries to not listen with their ears and instead tries to enjoy music based on the specs sheet. Perhaps because they are sentimental and it gives them emotional support.
@@bobnot24 I am afraid you still do not get it. Sound reproduction is not about preference. And now you retort to ad hominem attacks towards Asr crowd. Is that really necessary?
As a passionate about vintage speakers and amplifiers, I never though too much about how to argue why I prefer turntables over other sources of music. I concluded this long time ago and I still feel it every day when I change from vinyl to CD or digital and vice-versa. However, the way you put it in words is really well, it just speaks to me. So, if I’ll ever have an argument about this, I’ll just show your video. So, yeah, thank you!
A few years ago, I was in the digital camp. I went with my then 18 son to a place that I knew had a system that should have knocked my socks off. I would say that the room, which was made for the system, plus the Very high-end system would be at least half a million dollars. It did not... but it was very good. We listened for quite a while. When the demonstrator cleaned a record for 15 minutes and then put it on, it was the best thing on that system. Every piece of equipment was top-notch. Wilson speakers and such. It was the best thing I heard, though I was not sure what played. That said, digital is still, to my ears, the best playback medium.
Great video as always. Love your passion for music. After about 2 years of searching I think I 'almost' have my best system. I've included digital, streaming, vinyl and tape. I would never want to be beholden to one medium, or the other, plus there's stuff that just isn't available on different mediums. Vinyl is addictive. Moreso than the rest. Even though i'm not a jazz head, I scored a Thelonious Monk original for £1 and it sounds amazing on vinyl, I can even hear him humming the song as he plays.
Brilliant Kelvin, love your videos. The Ad Hominem Attack section had me chortling. I stream qobuz downstairs and have my vintage system upstairs for my Lps. Both have their place.
I think a lot of CD or Vinyl come down to one thing most people have never heard a high end HIFI turntable .But CD will deliver a good to very good sound for a lot less money . where if you look at high end turntables the price of mid to high end cartridge's plus the turntable plus Pre-amp and so on .. But i do fall on the side of Vinyl i love both formats but the good old record wins it for me
20 years ago I went into my local hifi dealer. I had recently found a lenco turntable and was amazed how much I prefered the sound than my arcam cd player. I "mentioned" this to the guy at the dealership who generally, diplomatically agreed - however, he said he was finally quite happy with his cd player- but it had cost him £10,000 and had a valve in it ha ha.
Seems so true. Some sounds better on vinyl and some on cd. For me the vinyl record souns real, like i am there in the atmosphere and instruments sound real. Cd i find better with electronic sounds like Tubular Bells and Tangerine Dream albums. Biggest issue on cd is the way they are mastered. The shere noise hurts very quickly.
There are always pros and cons in these cases and as a listener who enjoys both formats I have to agree that vinyl is the ultimate when it comes to the most realistic and emotionaly involving sound. Having said that, I concede that CD has some clear advantages over records, especially regarding how it measures on paper, with digital being superior where dynamic range and speed stability are concerned. Also because CD was marketed as "perfect sound forever" that had a huge impact on the public at large, particularly with non audiophiles. However, in reality it's a different story, I have done CD vs vinyl demo's for a number of friends over the years switching between the two and vinyl has turned out to be the preferred sound literaly every time in my experience, leaving many listener's quite surprised. These comparisons have been done using a vintage Arcam se7 CD player (a very nice sounding machine) vs a Project perspective turntable with a moving coill cartridge, so probably a pretty fair comparison. Lastly I should add that I don't have much experience with streaming which l'm told can be better than CD, so I will reserve judgement on that one. Cheers Kelvin, great video as always 👍
Something missing in this argument: let's play a music via CD player but bypassing its internal DAC by connecting the device to a high quality DAC ... It sounds much greater than any turntable without even bothering about static sounds of the vinyl or cleaning it etc. ... I repeated this test many times, mostly using a full range classic symphony. For this test, I had connected both the external DAC and phono preamp to the same pair of passive speakers via a powerful amplifier. In comparison, not vinyl, but only DSD files can produce a higher quality music (DSD on a CD is in fact called SACD, but SACD is nearly a forgotten format now).
Greetings from a Yorkshireman in Western Australia. Thanks, great video. A clever mixture of science, art and philosophy for the common man, rather than going full blown Pseuds Corner as some reviews go. We're probably of a similar vintage, and like you, have grown up with vinyl. I prefer to listen to vinyl at home, but digital is fine, if a little sterile and clinical, for music on the go. Subbed
Clean quiet vinyl thru my Rega P3. My PM 8004 with the Source Direct button depressed.Through Snell E ll speakers. End of story. A CD can sound good but there's no debate about "sound". Listen to The Cars debut MOFI with a decent set up. It sounds like you're at the recording session.
@@stereoreviewx 😉 I quite like some of ABBA to be honest with you. Especially from the standpoint of production/arrangements. No guilty pleasure at all.
great interpretation calven havnt listened to lps since 84 my friend all digital .but was at a friends house a while back high end with lp12 turntable and i have to agree .😊😊😊
vinyl is not always better but when it's better is way better. Great recording combined with great analog pressing and good system. Dire Straits' s first album convinced me of that
@@BeemanSoulTravelling i'm not a millionaire and a lotta of that has to do with your bank account, but i tend to like the look of the 1970's high end equipment and their build quality. British speakers, high end Tannoy westminster, Macintosh tube amps, that sort of thing.
@@chais1111 I too am a great fan of vintage amplifiers, CD players and pre amps, tape decks like hi end Teac or Nakamichi but I would suggest that new speakers out perform vintage due to advances in computer modelling in the aid of cabinet design. What do you guys think?
@@BeemanSoulTravelling yes i think you re probably right, but i personally don't like the look of space age speakers and i think you'd find that the best of the 70's like JBL, KEF, Celestions, klipsch and so many others would give you the pleasure you're searching for not to mention the built quality. Personal choice
@@BeemanSoulTravelling Don't be fooled in to thinking modern speakers are going to be better than older ones. Reason being, speakers back then may ave lacked modern computer modeling, however far more time was spent on people testing and listening with their ears to develop their sound. Also marketing these days is a lot better due to online online presence of Hi-Fi manufacturers . Don't always believe the hype, listen with you own ears and come to your own conlusions!
The opinion on vinyl vs digital tells me a lot about a reviewer. Not that there is any absolute truth on either side, it is all taste, it just helps me to put all other arguments, reviews, recommendations in place. You are my kind of guy, subscribed, thumbs up.
When I worked in the Hi Fi trade in North London, I usually had a very good set up and I would buy an album and record it straight onto Reel to Reel tape at 15 IPS. and put the album away. When CDs came out I just found them so much more convenient. Most of my recordings are on CDs now although I still have a lot of records that have been in boxes for years. I even have a couple of sealed copies because the music reps used to give them away so would uses them as demo discs.
I listen to both and they are definitely both valid and each has its strength (and depends on the recording and mixing and so on). Remember that the dac is very important when listening to digital (both cd or from a computer).
I kept my vinyl collection , now my children want it! I switched tot CD a long time ago due to convenience when they came up and were heavily promoted. I was very disappointed when I bought cd’s from my favorite rock stars as a better alternative, to hear a better sound and have a better experience. I used a good turn table with moving coil element. What a disappointment! The sound was flat and dull, not so much soul and dynamics. Compression? Bad mastering? I solved the problem by not listening to cd’s if I had a vinyl version. What you don’t know, you don’t miss…
I have two systems. 1. A vinyl system Linn Sondec, Audiolab pre amp and Leak 20 power amp. Driving Quad ESL57 speakers. 2. A CD system. Arcam CD, Audiolab 8000A amp and Roger’s Studio 1 speakers. The vinyl system is a better reproduction of the original sound. Great work on TH-cam Kelvin.
So, what makes one turntable sound better than another? I have a vintage Pioneer PL-71 with a ortofon blue cartridge. How is a $2k TT going to sound better? Is it something I should be concerned with as a newbie audiophile?
Well a two grand Turntable should be better engineered and a little less rumble and ultimately be more accurate let’s say but God you better off spend two grand on speakers and amps for sure. I mean your speakers and amp have to be really good before you start noticing those differences in the Turntable. Cheers K
@@stereoreviewx thanks for the reply. Unless my turntable dies, I'm going to keep it for a long time. You're right. I just upgraded my amp and speakers and I'm.much happier. (Marantz 7015 and kef q950)
I think the bottom line is that listening expriences and tastes in sounds can be very subjective. neither Vinyl or digital is bad as so to speak, and no one can really prove which one is truly better or worse. it's really a matter of personal prefernce and subjective taste. I can point out some exmaples where i can say i prefer digital over vinyl and vice versa. For example, i find Vinyl a lot more detailed in the upper midrange and hghts.(.More revealing if you like) . However , i can say that i find digital a lot smoother and les fatiguing soundinng comapred with Vinyl.
@@stereoreviewx You need to come back and do some more reviews. I really trust your opinions which is quite rare these days because most online reviewers are being paid to hype stuff up
Soooooo, I call BS. Any kind of mechanical system (analog) cannot move/resolve faster than a digital system. That's just fact. In order to make an unbiased argument. He would have to make an A, B, comparison on equipment he is not familiar with. With a third party randomly selecting the music. Psychoacoustics show that much of what we hear is biased towards what we expect to hear. (There are many videos on TH-cam demonstrating this.) His self test on his own equipment is patently bogus. IMHO, with ultra expensive equipment either medium can probably exceed the human ears ability to resolve. The real question is. What are these mediums for and which one does it best. The real answer is. They are information storage devices. As such, digital storage is clearly superior. As well as being much more cost effective.
Have to agree, we said. Digital, when encoded correctly can sound exactly the same as analogue doing a blind ab test would nearly always confirm this. However, there is the , as I think he mentioned in the video and also someone above has commented, the act of listening to something that's important..making time to sit down use a turntable and play an album is a process that's been lost recently in an age where we can jump from track to track artist to artist instantly. So what's 'better' is more to do with the consequences of the process rather than what sounds better.
@@FURKING_AMAZING I've tested plenty of the same tracks and listened to both the digital and Vinyl copies and both sound different. I cant say one or the other sounds better, or worse for that matter, but just differnt!. which comes down to personal preference and the gear that your playing the music through. Speakers amp,., dac , phono pre amp etc etc... you get my drift!
Digital can be a lot better than it is but the music industry doesn't care. Most people don't hear it. They listen to stupid bluetooth boxes or tiny bluetooth headphones. Music to them is wallpaper, not a work of art to be admired.
I like your channel very much but there is one thing I have to object to. Blues, and let's not argue whether it is simpler of not, sounds better on CD. Maybe I got your argument wrong but I think that especially blues and Jazz sound fantastic on vinyl.
Maybe its time for me to buy a turntable again. I kept all my vinyl as I could not bear to part with all that history. I only ever had a Garrard before. Question is what do I buy now? Super passionate video many thanks Kelvin
My biggest issue with new "re-mastered" vinyl is that they don't tell you (on the label) if it's sourced from a digital or an analog master. Remember in the early days of CD's they used to label them "AAD", "ADD" or "DDD". At the time the industry was trying to persuade consumers of the sonic benefits of "all digital" masters ("DDD"). Today MANY (if not most) of new 180g vinyl re-issues are "ADA"..but they don't tell you that. They (the record co's) have dropped that informative labeling. Why can't they use the original analog tapes and cut the re-issue as "AAA"? That is..NO digital conversion at all ! That's the way it used to be, and the sound of a well mastered analog recording was pretty good, if played back on decent equipment. Ok I admit there may have been some residual tape hiss etc..but I prefer 100% analog for just about any rock/pop record that was originally made in the 60's or 70s'. It's hard to improve the "pure" analog sound of those original LP's of, The Stones, The Beatles, Procul Harem, Leon Russell (to name a few...) I personally own at least two vinyl re-issues that almost sound identical to the CD. The reason I purchased the vinyl in the first place was to hear an audible improvement over the CD. These 50th Anniv. re-issues (sourced from "digitized" copies of analog masters) of popular 70's albums is just a big $$ marketing scam. (IMHO). If the re-issue was "sourced" and re-mastered from the original analog tapes it just might just be worth the $$.
I'm at a bit of a crossroads with vinyl. I use a Sony LX-300USB turntable with an elliptical stylus upgrade and a NAD PP2e phono stage. I like the sound I get from it but I know that it's in spite of the TT rather than because of it and that I might get better sound from a TT with an adjustable counter weight and tracking force (the NAD C558 is the one that calls out to me). But, my experience so far is that the vinyl experience depends a lot on the quality of the pressing and the condition of the record. I've bought brand new records that sound great because they were made from the original master tapes or specifically recorded for vinyl and records from back in the day that sound bad from the beginning and start distorting from the third track onwards. Pressings from digital sources are just meh - most of the time they're not too bad but they're not great either and I generally get a better experience from playing the CD. I wonder how much of this actually changes from using a better TT.
There was an interesting study done about 15 years ago by a professor at Berkeley university. He set out to prove that even audiophiles could not tell the difference between CD quality music and hi resolution music. He did a blind test where a group of audiophiles were hooked up to brain scan equipment (I think it was fMRI) while he played selections of classical music (CD and hi res digital of each selection). To his surprise he discovered that the hi res digital music activated parts of the brain that were not activated by the CD quality music.
Back in the analog days I had a rec-o-cut variable speed turntable with a Pickering tone arm and cartridge and a Garrard zero 100 table. All I remember from those days were hours spent with the discwasher cleaning kit and all the static and pops and getting up to turn the record over. Then came cd and I thought it sound 100% better. Now it has been so long since my vinyl days maybe its time to take another look. I am sorry I got rid of all my records and equipment. I listen to classical music mostly.
This was proven some decades ago but don’t ask where and who by, but I was working on a documentary back in the 1990s and this was part of the programme. It was about audio and the human experience. In basic terms (very basic) it’s about frequencies you hear and frequencies you don’t. On vinyl the low to high frequencies are huge, but on CD to save data these are cut. You can’t hear them so they don’t use them. In basic terms the human ear and brain interpret these frequent thus gives a warmer more full audio experience.
You've inspired an insight, if you will, that I've never heard mentioned... vinyl has, whether we realize it or not, a 'noise floor' or 'sonic glue' of the needle on the surface of the record, aside from the pops and clicks. A constant that was not placed through recording, but cannot be removed because there is a physical connection that elicits a physical reaction. I'd think there is a strong argument to prove that this would be absent digitally, especially since a main goal and achievement of digital media is clarity and 'cleanliness'.Maybe the physical contact creates a vibe or ambience that sits very well on some ears while not so much on others as some folks enjoy crisp, stark autumn while while others prefer gross, sticky summer ... maybe I've just cracked the code hahaaa
I have a decent turntable, a DUAL CS704 with a Nagaoka JT322 Quadro cart and a shibata shape stylus. Some of my vinyl records sound better then their CD counterpart, played on a - again decent - player, an Arcam DV88. Sometimes it's the other way around, but I enjoy both. I almost get the idea that the mastering is the most important factor in the sound quality. . Mind you, I buy my vinyl very carefully and clean them thoroughly and put them in antistatic sleeves before playing them. In my experience you take more time to sit down and really listen to vinyl, whereas digital is so easy to play, you tend to listen to it more casually. . But maybe it's just my age; I grew up in the vinyl & cassette era as well :-)
hi, i think vynil is more of an experience and there's a lot of nostalgia. of course lyricks are better readable on a lp sleeve but when i bought the joshua tree and put it on my sony turntable there was crackle like a campfire! went back to the shop and all of the albums had this. this and the fact my damn the torpedoes album of tom petty had scratches and skipped mid song so then i decided to slowly buy all the cd's i had on vinyl and i am very happy with tha on my philips cd player and yamaha ca810 to my B&W dm2 or kef carlton II 's .A good argument is that bands like let say dire straits went to DDD sound and they really know what they were doing and never sounded better...
To me the advantage of good vinyl over digital lies in the difference between left and right. Of course analogue sound has infinite resolution whereas digital is limited to the sample rate used. Having said that, my record deck is hopeless but I am still aware of that difference in the imaging or placement of the sound. Thanks for your video.
Well I can tell the difference between Sam straight away it’s all a little bit more subtle I suppose Not like the differences in Speakers But it really plays out overtime
I have played Vinyl Albums.. I have played CD Albums.. I have downloaded Albums.. but I can't tell you much about Downloaded Albums.. because it's so easy to download Albums.. CD Albums you take out of the case & you put in the tray & play & listen.. but with Vinyl Albums you look at the front & back of the cover !! you take out the inner sleeve & read & look at that !! then you get you Vinyl Album out of the sleeve !! you put it on the turn table & you then brush the Vinyl before sitting down to play .. Up to the person who plays what .. but I feel I get more feeling from the vinyl..
100% get the speed timing aspect of vinyl over CD I have a heavily modified LP12 running through a EAR yoshino 868 tube pre and grant Lumley ST70 tube power with Proac response 3.8 floor standers I also stream a little for convenience but it's all about tube speed too but many of my visitors ask if they can listen to my system and without exception people say things like "I never knew music could sound this way" or "they could sit there and listen for days" etc.. So it must be something that is audible for many many people, audiophiles or not. I'm so glad I kept my Linn and even more so that I've made the change to vacuum tube amplification, my digital source is fine but not for really listening it's party background or when I haven't got the time to unjacket and play vinyl. It's ultimately analogue for me, always happy when people want to sit with me and enjoy that truly wonderful sound and watch those gorgeous tubes glowing away. It's not romantic although the sound can be if I want it, just flick the switches and go triode mode and it's silky smooth but in ultra linear where I listen, it's detailed, it's powerful textured bass, it's a vivid unforced mid range that help voices feel so much like real people you can almost see their lips moving and feel their breath and it's sparkling clear treble, without solid state glare or grain. Kelvin you are a soldier mate. I love the way you express what many of us feel and know so well.
I have a more then fairly high end system, both digital and analog which puts me in my opinion in a position to somewhat judge the differences between the two. What I have noticed during my quest to have the ultimate digital system (for me) is that it is far harder to have a digital system that beats an analog system. This was unexpected to me.. But when you get there this digital system will without any problems replicate the sound of the analog system. I can record my vinyl and I’m absolutely sure you want be able to tell the difference between the analog system and the digital system in a blind test. A very good digital system can do everything a good analog can do, but not the other way around. Sure more then one record I own sounds better on vinyl, but this has everything to do with the differences in mastering. You can never really compare a vinyl record with a digital file because of this. Vinyl has a certain sound that is in most cases very pleasing to the ear. The attack of a digital system exceeds that of an analog system contrary to what you think. Especially when you have extremely fast digital amplifiers as I do. In the digital domain there’s very little inertia involved (besides the inherited reaction time of electronic components that are also present in analog amplifiers). A stylus has to deal with inertia. i love both equally, none is better than the other, just different. It’s a question of taste. What really goes against digital is the sheer number of bad AAD conversions due to bad ADC’s used in the beginning. It is only fairly recent that femto clocks are common. And don’t let me get started on the dynamic range compression used in the digital domain that simply can’t be done on vinyl.
3 albums on vinyl that,I believe prove that if they are recorded well will beat digital hands down are the following.....Richard Thompson, Across a crowded room. Joe Jackson, Night and day... and Paula Abdul, Forever your girl . Each album supplying a different listening experience, the vocals on the first 2 exceptionally well done and the bass and drums on the latter really powerful. These are just a few examples I could recommend. I am still amazed how good such a format can sound.
Couldn't agree more with you... to me vinyl sounds more live than CD. I listen to string instruments, and vinyl gives me an enjoyable full bodied tone which sounds more live. CDs are mastered to take advantage of their greater dynamic range but that rarely has anything to do with making a more mellow sound. Anyway you talk from experience. I am with you 100%
Nice job on this. To me, vinyl has a richness of character that's unmatched, could even call it a flavor of sorts, like a full bodied cabernet. Organic is another word that comes to mind to describe it.
It's so stupid to argue about whether vinyl is better than a CD or the opposite. both can be equally good! It is 100% impossible to compare apple against apple when it comes to vinyl vs cd. What makes CD sounds good or not? It is a combination of what you save on the format and how well it is mixed and adjusted and what you play it on and not necessarily the audio format or storage media's fault. I have heard many vinyl records that have better sound than the CD has ! Does that mean vinyl is better? NO. I have also heard many CDs that have better sound than vinyl has. Also almost always, the cd version is remastra and adjusted. When it comes to vinyl then everything has to be in a certain way since vinyl is not an easy format like cd. Vinyl is often adjusted and made more carefully than the CD due to its limitations of vinyl. Does that mean vinyl is better than a cd? NO. it depends on what you save on the different formats and how good a player you have and not necessarily the format you used! you can not always blame the audio format! The sound on vinyl is stored thin and with little bass to make room for more on the record. The riaa amplifier is in a way an equalizer that adjusts the sound back so the sound becomes normal again.
🤗 BRILLIANT …In a perfect world we could experience each ones kit and KNOW what your talking about…like trying different recipes for food and drinks 🤔😍😍😍
The age old discussion lol 😀 remember that each system is simply a carrier of your music, they can both have issues. A digital system is simply a modern way of. Storing samples, delivering them to you and then replaying those stored samples. Don't think that because they sample, that you're going to have parts of the original recording missing...they sample, measure the signal level so often that they are microseconds apart. The problem lies with potential processing, or data reduction encoding that can introduce artefacts, but hopefully more often that not you're going to be happy. Analogue, well there are many different types of distortion that can affect the playback. Take your pick, I'm happy with any format, and carrier, analogue or digital, enjoy them all :)
I am happy enough listening to my digital music collection in flac files and streaming music from Spotify and Amazon We live in a digital age where music and movies are both in digital and are enjoyable, through good Speakers, Dac and amp
I got a smile listening to your story. I agree in many ways, especially happy that there’s some nuance. May I add my $0.02. You hit the nail that media are artificial, it’s not the real thing. Much is in the hands of the recording and mastering engineer. A give away is that some music sounds better on cd than on vinyl... What I think is mostly overlooked, is that vinyl is like you said is treated with love, tons of effort and money go in to playback records as good as possible. On the other hand, we expect a CD to perform better from a mediocre piece of, well let’s call it garbage. But compare that same piece of garbage to a cheap record player... That’s why at least for the masses CDs simply sound much better than vinyl, period. Also in digital gear the analog stages are typically overlooked, even in expensive ones. I do have a UA 2192 AD-DA converter with magnificent analog stages (32 fets parallel balanced analog IO instead of one or another hyped opamp). The result: analog quality, silky smooth detailed sound. A test I once accidentally ran into is very interesting. I had a digital live recording, edited it on an analog RTR (Teac 35-2B), and put it in on CD. A DAD CD, so to say. It had the typical AAA sound. That’s proof that digital records and plays back more accurately. Which is something else than claiming that that’s more beautiful to listen to. From a more technical perspective, there’s one thing in digital that might be inferior, and that’s the timing of transients. You can accurately represent a sine wave up to the nyquist frequency, but you can’t shift the first transient to an in between position of the samples. That might influence the coherence of the signal, or explain your feeling of speed (I’d call it ‘attack’). On the other hand, phase distortions are part of the analog filtering, think RIAA...
Vinyl has a presence and dimension to the sound. I can’t really describe it but a well recorded and pressed piece of vinyl through a good phono preamp and system has a depth to it. I have vinyl , cds, and I stream as well. High quality vinyl is my favorite. Just like any format there is bad vinyl as well. Just like there are lifeless digital recordings. CDs can sound very good and I stream a lot as well just to hear music I would never buy. I can’t afford to buy and store all the music I would like to own.
people are not able to look technically at how the different formats are made and what makes the sound good or bad. Many have made up their minds earlier in life that cannot be changed
I just want good music. I wish I couldn’t hear the difference but I can. Apple Music, cds, mp3, and any other source is the reason I try my best to try new things. I don’t understand why it all can’t be clean sounding.
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Recently I dusted off my old vinyl and am in total agreement. It's more labor intensive but the payoff is wonderful. It takes TIME. We all need to slow down and take a moment to enjoy life.
You probably dont give a shit but does any of you know of a way to log back into an instagram account..?
I was stupid forgot my password. I would love any help you can give me
@Jamie Tristan instablaster =)
It's so stupid to argue about whether vinyl is better than a CD or the opposite. Both can be equally good!
It is 100% impossible to compare apple against apple when it comes to vinyl vs cd.
What makes CD sounds good or not? It is a combination of what you save on the format and how well it is mixed and adjusted and what you play it on and not necessarily the audio format or storage media's fault.
I have heard many vinyl records that have better sound than the CD has ! Does that mean vinyl is better? NO. I have also heard many CDs that have better sound than vinyl has. Also almost always, the cd version is remastra and adjusted.
When it comes to vinyl then everything has to be in a certain way since vinyl is not an easy format like cd. Vinyl is often adjusted and made more carefully than the CD due to its limitations of vinyl. Does that mean vinyl is better than a cd? NO. it depends on what you save on the different formats and how good a player you have and not necessarily the format you used!
you can not always blame the audio format!
The sound on vinyl is stored thin and with little bass to make room for more on the record. The riaa amplifier is in a way an equalizer that adjusts the sound back so the sound becomes normal again.
The most important thing for me is the recording
True !
Most music today is overproduced. That's killing the record.
Our ears are analogue do maybe thats one of the reasons we prefer the vinyl sound (mid range) over digital?
Great recording examples are Dire Straits first LP, Tracy Chapman Fast Car, Beatles Revolver Stereo original version... The problem with modern music is insane levels of compression to maximize loudness for radio play
@@flammaferus2998 Yeap and over compressed. too much compression and loudness. Music has lost it's dynamics as a result
I cannot understand this anxiety around proving which format is "best". Listen to what you enjoy. Full stop. I listen to vinyl (relaxation, appreciation and enjoyment) and streaming (convenience on the go).
Which is what he said, everyone will do their own thing.
Btw, vinyl rules! 😆
I don't really understand why someone would want to listen to sounds that don't give you any feeling.
spot on mate
Fair point
The whole business of sound recording production and reproduction, on whatever format, is replete with many different variables. Artistic intent, fashions and trends of a given era, available technological capability, sound engineering expertise or lack of it, the level of quality control over all, and the amount of money invested to create and complete a particular sound recording project, are just some of the variable factors that impact on what the final product will look and sound like to consumers. Specific formats, like vinyl records, tapes, and/or various digital formats (cd's, streaming etc.) for reproducing recordings, will not only be imbued with the sound characteristics derived from the specific recording process, that is unique to each particular recording, but also the unique characteristics of the format and the combination of specific sound reproduction equipment (player, amplifier, speakers, headphones, listening room etc.) being used by the listener. Of course, a very important factor in regard to listeners, is the quality and characteristics of their hearing and the way sound, as with music for eg., affects a persons sensory perceptions and emotional response, which generally determines what they like to hear in regard to music recordings and how they like to hear them. As with most things in life, that is a very personal choice by the most important variable of all, the individual and their preferences and finances. Having said that, there are some perceptibly different qualities between analogue and digital formats but they have been made to seem more different than they needed to be. Much of the difference people perceive are due to the recording and mastering techniques used by sound engineers, deliberately trying to exploit the technical differences between the old analogue format and the new digital format, originally initiated in order to promote a new market for CD's in the 1980's. For commercial marketing reasons, it was important to show a clear difference between the sound of analogue and digital formats to the public, so they created new tonal palettes that made CD's sound sharper and clearer than traditional analogue recordings, by cutting back the mid-range and boosting the bass and/or treble frequencies. This took advantage of the wider frequency and dynamic range of digital recording, that suited much of the electronically infused music of the 1980's. After all they didn't see any point in trying to simply copy in digital what analogue was already well capable of doing. It was also unfortunate, but to be expected, that many sound engineers were not familiar and experienced with the new and technically complex and advanced possibilities of digital recording equipment and many low quality recordings were produced along with many excellent ones. In any case, the big corporations were not always after perfect sound but a new and younger generation of hipsters, looking to the emerging electronic computer age, to market the new sounds and gadgets of the future. Today we have better digital technology, that can very precisely reproduce superb analogue sounding recordings in very high resolution, that are more available then ever, for those who want great sound with digital convenience, at a low cost. This might not suit people who prefer to listen to purely analogue recordings on analogue gear but bear in mind that most recent vinyl records are either recorded, mixed and/or mastered digitally and older analogue recordings are usually remastered digitally before being printed on vinyl, which for many people, is a clever use of both technologies. Overall I believe every recording and format is a marvelous miracle of creative invention and scientific endeavor, that should be appreciated for the pleasure if affords anyone lucky enough to experience them.
Yes, as you said, all the variables. Case in point, I'm a huge Rush fan, but their early produced albums really suck for sound quality. Then there is Fleetwood Mac who knew to spend gobs of money in the studio for quality records. That's a very hard fact to overcome, arguable, Rush focused on live shows, Fleetwood focused on production for legacy. Yeah?
Don, you expose the variables that make "listening to recorded music" such a can-o-worms. For over fifty years I've argued with folks about the very real problem of standing waves and room nodes. A point you make when mentioning listening rooms. Reading your comment should be enough to make anyone's head spin. It ain't just buying a stereo, plopping it down and magically getting great sound, fuhgeddaboudit.
It's very interesting to realize just how different, mechanically and electronically, analog and digital approaches to audio playback is.
Very well explained. As you say, few people have heard a high-end turntable, so they don't know what they're missing. Great video.
Very true I always here oh vinyl sounds worse and dull but they listen from a suitcase record player.
@@joshlacrosse8790 I listened on Yamaha and Micro Seiki turntables, and vinyl sounded worse.
@@thisisnev what kind of cartridge was used on them.
@@coyote5.02 probably put on cheap generic $5 stylus and is now here complaining.
What struck me immediately about CDs when they came out was that they allowed people to get much better sound at the low end of the cost scale than they were getting with vinyl or tape. I had just completed a relatively inexpensive but sound quality focused system around 1983 when CDs became readily available to the public. I remember thinking CDs would be superior and that I'd probably want a CD player as soon as the prices came down, to play my favorite music in the highest possible quality. I never imagined giving up records or tape, especially not tape as it could record and nothing else could. I fully imagined only owning the very best records on CD and never buying a new CD of something I was only partially committed to. Then I actually got the chance to listen to some CDs in HiFi stores and I was shocked to hear that they weren't perfect. Yes they were essentially noise free, but they did have a harsh treble that vinyl usually didn't have. I was less eager to get a CD player after that and didn't get one until 1992 as a result. My turntable and cartridge were good enough that CD offered more convenience than improved audio quality. I do think that CD audio quality improved over the first decade after their introduction, but I try to impress on people that a good vinyl setup is truly comparable in sound quality to a digital one. My personal preference soundwise, if I must choose, would be for CD, but I think the mix and mastering are much more important to which format I'll like better than the storage medium, at least with my level of gear which I would describe as "high MidFi" by today's standards.
“If you wanna argue with me, I will argue back”
Love it !
My family has British roots and that statement is so true in my experience.
Kel - I love your videos! The way you describe the nuances of individual sounds! I love it. So, let me share my memory of getting Donald Fagen’s first solo album The Nightfly in 1985. I remember there was a lot of talk about how it was digitally mastered (which was a brand mew thing at the time). So here I am listening to my digitally mastered recording on a vinyl. It sounded clear as ever. Also at the time, I listened often to Van Morrison’s Moondance LP. Of course that came out in the early 70s and the recording quality didn’t make any impression on me back in the day. But recently I downloaded the new “Apple Digital Master” of it and I was blown away. The album never sounded so clear, so “up front”. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Anyone have any thoughts to share in response?
Love this topic, however I feel something is still overlooked in the digital side and not really mentioned here, and that is the digital/analog conversion or DAC that is used to translate that digital information from a CD. I have used several different CD players with different conversion technologies and chips, for instance burr brown versus TDA chips, a standalone DAC with TDA 1540 or 1541 double crown chips in it or an 8 X TDA 1543 without filtering does give amazing results, that a normal factory CD player is not able to produce, and in that respect it would be a much more honest comparison against vinyl on a good record player. In that respect I want to say that the digital information on a CD becomes much more musical and alive in comparison with streaming….😉
It's magic to me how a tt works so beautifully. But you are right that it takes much more consideration to get the most from your vinyl. I have seen tts on top of speakers, in front of speakers, pennies on the headshell, not level. Also, seems like today it would cost a fortune to gather a nice record collection.
Pricing is currently at gouging level, but, some people, no mention of who, have been convinced that round vinyl discs are the best recorded sound ever -
as if the band recorded live to each individual record. 😎
My first music purchase was a 45 rpm, my second was the Meet The Beatles LP. So, I've been around to hear everything since (and some before).
To each their own.
Well done! One of the best summaries I've heard on the subject, thank you.
I came to your knowledge through the Sony TA1010 review (that I end bying after all :D )
You're the best man!
Great content, info, advices...
But above all... Love the attitude!
Greetings from Portugal!
Hi Kelvin, Hope things are well, great video and your (very well articulated) take on the different sources and platforms music is presented to us. I too love vinyl and agree it sounds great, I too listen to music via streaming services just for the sheer convenience but every now and again I put on the vinyl and I'm always blown away by the interest grabbing effect it has on me.
Is digital more technically correct - Yes and without doubt.
Does vinyl sound better than digital - well, thats down to the individual to decide.
Which Is more enjoyable - to me, at least and without doubt - vinyl.
Like you, I have grown up with vinyl, the physical involvement and connection you have with unwrapping the LP, placing it on the turntable, wiping the dust off, lowering the tonearm and then sit back and enjoy is immensely satisfying in its self. to me at lest, it gives you a connection to the artist and the HIFI system, Digital cannot imitate this, and to me I begin to lose interest in streaming music. Its like going into a restaurant like Chinese, Indian, south American etc and ordering your favourite dish, generally you know what you want when you go into a restaurant, you have made your mind up before you've left the house. Streaming on the other hand is like stepping in to the oblivion like going into a restaurant with no name or character associated with the type of food offered and would be like stepping into a white blank room and someone in a white suite asking you "we have no menu, you can chose what you like, what would you like to eat?"
Also vinyl LPs, cassettes (and to a degree CD's) gives me the sense of owing the music I'm physically holding, I don't get that with streaming music platforms or mp3 downloads.
Now that said, one thing I hate about vinyl is this, most LPs we think is analogue through and through which is (AAA) recorded in analogue, mixed in analogue and mastered in analogue is a bit of a myth too, well, let me tell you... Apart from some and very few cutting lathes, most (say 99%) LP's go through a digital conversion during the vinyl cutting process, this process goes back from the early 40's, the process was/is used to monitor the audio and make adjustments and correct for error effects such as peaking and other distortion issues that may cause the cutting head to miss behave. The most famous and widely used cutting lathe is the Neumann VMS-70, and 80(s) variants, they had analogue to digital - digital to analogue converters to delay the analogue signal a bit to give it enough time to be corrected for cutting issues before cutting to vinyl - so in effect we are listening to a A-D then D-A processed audio signal. This goes back since the 40's with 4bit, 8bit resolution A-D & D-A converters! However, there are some direct to disk cutting LP's out there which is must to listen to if you can find them.
This is an articulate and considered piece - well done and thanks. I've personally gone almost exclusively vinyl, with a Rega RP10 / Apheta II. For me, both can sound amazing, but vinyl when it is good, is really special and sounds more holographic, more real and more exciting. I've heard £150k streaming systems that honestly didn't sound like music - they sounded like a computer playing a simulation of music and were not involving.
Thanks Marcus and well said yourself
There are pros and cons to both vinyl and Digital. But if it's a crap recording, it's not going to sound good on either. It's also a point that extends to the very core of hi-fi. Doesn't matter how much you chew the fat over this amp or that amp, the one thing you have no control over in the end, is recording consistency and quality.
Yes agreed K
I think he just explain why i like CD more, Vinyl gets old and you really have to take care of it. And if you buy expensive 180 gram vinyl it sounds better, but where to find records? CD you can play 1000 times it will still work as new.
180g vinyl doesn't sound better. The weight of the record has nothing to do with it. The mastering and pressing quality is really important though
Man, you nailed it.I think most of audiophiles are aware of pros and cons of both formats. After putting them on the scale the choice is made.I personally went the digital way because as a lazy butt music lover all my music library of 6000 albums is contained in a hard disc. Imagine the shelves and space needed to store all that staff in a normal flat had it been vinyl , noway No clicks and pops to annoy my ears. Economical gain, less gear to buy and take care of.Smaller foot print. Making full use of digital music streaming and exploring new music and musician with a click of the mouse.What are the trade offs. Missing that organical sound and that magic of mid register. So be it.
I'd rather a semi load of vinyl than the digital crap, I've heard a terrible iTunes download of The Angels in a friend's car, no bass whatsoever, even full smiley curve boost couldn't fix it
very well put Calvin. I tend to think also analogue carries the 'emotion' in a piece or a performance better than digital.
I agree with this 100%. I cannot explain it, but I feel it.
You just know a hifi related video is gonna be good when it starts with a reference to ancient Greece ! Love your work, keep it up !
Thanks mate and coming from someone called Jesus this is good
Great reviews. Im back into setting up a budget system. Got a refurbed Pioneer PL112D. Finding your channel really helpful. I had some nice Audioquest cables which didnt work in my old Rotel system. Gave them to my friend for his Thorens, Marantz, Wharfedale system and they were fab! Its a fun try try thing 😎
Absolutely spot on. To reinforce your argument, I've got some LPs which are just transfers from CDs, and they still sound better than the CD they came from! When are you going to do a turntable video?
We're lucky to have both.Thanks for the great review.
Overall Hi Fi is a sonic illusion. Which illusion do you prefer?
The one that sounds better
I remember getting back into vinyl. Just wanting clean, nice records to collect. Then I discovered an old Denon turntable with a denon dl-110, and an old Harmon Karman 330b, with a pair of Epi 100s. My world then changed forever! My journey began then as an Audiophile ❤ !!
Here's an interesting thing: when a needle tracks along an LP's groove, the innumerable ridges and troughs on the sidewalls of the groove that contain the musical information cause the needle to bounce its way along the groove rather than track along the groove with complete contact from start to finish. In other words, a needle 'bounces' along the groove in an alternating contact/no contact manner. Although the innumerable contact/no contact moments are incredibly brief, the very on/off nature of vinyl playback means vinyl a digital medium - it doesn't have to be computerised to be digital. The upshot of all this is that when people listened to The Beatles on vinyl in the '60s, they listened through a digital playback device, and so it is with every single person on the planet who's ever played a record.
"In other words, a needle 'bounces' along the groove in an alternating contact/no contact manner."
No, it doesn't; not when it's working properly anyway. When that does happen it's called "skipping," and you can very clearly hear when a record skips. Also, there's no room for that to happen anyway, since the needle is contacting both walls of the groove at the same time, which is how you get 2 channels of sound (stereo). Watch the TH-cam video titled "Electron microscope slow-motion video of vinyl LP" to see a closeup of this. You'll see that the needle is never floating / touching nothing but air. In order for that to happen the needle would have to bounce upward (toward the sky), which generally only happens when someone starts jumping up and down while the record is playing, and you'd obviously hear a skip if that happened.
Furthermore, even if your idea of how a record player works were correct (it isn't), that wouldn't make it digital. Digital is more than just on and off, i.e., turning your lights or faucet on and off a few times doesn't make it digital in and of itself. In order to be digital, the on/off pattern has to encode information. A skipping record wouldn't be encoding information (other than informing you that something is wrong with the record and/or the player), its playback would be _missing_ information.
Well said, I agree. I’m 58 and I always knew I didn’t enjoy listening to cds “digititis” as much as LPs when I made that switch (I didn’t jump right away). I had a Marantz CD63SE and never was that impressed with it. I now have a Denon DCD a100 I bought lightly used and it sounds pretty good in direct mode w/o lights and the digital out disconnected, otherwise it would be disappointing. I recently bought a Technics 1500C and it’s just like you say...if a person has old well cared for records that they saved or inherited. The Ortofon red it came with is almost impossible to take it accentuates the ticks and pops so much. Changed it out for a Denon 301mk2 and everything is just beautiful. Keep up the good work your passion and cynicism is very entertaining.
I too have noticed the mids are little more intimate when listening to vinyl… great video!
Tell you what : I like both formats. Ithink the sound of CD,s are quite good. (most of the time) as well as the sound of the LP
(also Most of the time) When music is digitally recorded,what is the advantage of vinyl (soundwise) So I always try to buy
analog recorded music when I buy a record (mostly second hand) Sentimentally it is a whole other kind thing of course
I am of an age that the LP was the only Format available and I like the romance of placing a record on the turntable,
bringing the cartridge lower and lower and expecting the glorious sound (you ,,know,, the music)
Plus of course the big sleeve.
Good argument. They used to add the recording methods on the back of the CD case. DDD meaning digitally recorded, and mastered . ADD meaning analog recording and digital Mastering. AAD meaning analog recording and analog mastering. Depending on the studio and equipment used and the expertise of the engineer any this can sound great.
Spot on Kelvin, I find it a bit of a chore to put a record on now that I am old, but I make the effort because it's so much better.
Have to agree with you Calvin- I still listen to my original Ziggy Stardust vinyl album bought back in the day and have enjoyed re-listening to it after every turntable/system tweak I've made. I know it so well I can hear the improvement (or otherwise!) in the sound quality. I do cheat and record it on my reel to reel deck - the playback is very close to the vinyl experience and it saves stylus wear!
What Turntable cartridge and phono stage do you prefer to use?
You need to get yourself subharmonic synthesizer for vinyl when Mastering a record they cut it off at 40 Hz 24db, to get it to fit on the record that's why you think the bass is lacking subharmonic synthesizer will boost the lower octaves below 100 Hz 50 Hz 34 Hz 24 Hz you can get plugins but that's digital I would go with something like a dbx 120a pick them up for about £150 second-hand, Makes a big difference it's not the same as just turning up the bass up on the amplifier. and the IRAA eq curve doesn't correct it either. This can depend on the mastering engineers how much will they have room to fit it on the record and they can cut it off even at 45 Hz, using the subharmonic synthesizer is fully adjustable and leave it at that, doesn't affect the higher frequencies above 100 Hz.
Dbx made a special decoder box for records what was coded with dbx what is better you can get dbx records if you've got any. should have been the future for vinyl shame it didn't take off, much greater dynamic range up to 110 db I believe form the standard 77db range.
You need a CD transport really much better good quality DAC if you take the DAC connection out and run it through a mains contestant light bulbs 150 Watts + takes that digital shimmer away
That’s interesting thanks John you know more than me
K
I do agree, but I listen to both types. If I'm pottering around the house with music playing, I normally stream digital as its convenient and on in the background. If I sit and listen to music to relax it will always be vinyl because it's more enjoyable and can appreciate the sound more.
When music is mixed and mastered properly onto vinyl it can't be beat.
@Bruffy B: Yes it can ... by putting said properly mixed and mastered thing to a digital format.
@@Historia.Magistra.Vitae. personal preference. some might prefer the sound of the copy on Vinyl, otherd will prefer digital. None is better or worse as so to speak.
Thanks for an entertaining video again, Kelvin. It's not easy to compare a vinyl original with the later CD versions in many cases as the latter was often digitally remastered, or "f****d up" as it's known in the audio community. My experience of CDs which have been made to exploit the medium properly is that they are truly amazing quality and just as emotionally involving as anything I played on my Linn turntable in days of yore.
This doesn't mean I'm anti-vinyl by any means, it's still a fantastic high res source. The enemy of digital, in my view, is the belief that it's just ones and zeros, so any old DAC will do. The quality of the design and components matters hugely and it's the reason why my highly modified £1,000 CD player sounds hugely better than any of the £300 players I've had in my second system. They both use Sony transports, so it's entirely down to the DAC.
Thanks Mark interesting stuff
They ruined cd format with the bass war ! Adding to much bass.which they can't to records below 40hz the needle starts to bounce out of the groove.
In my own experience, I think moving coil cartridges - even entry level ones - tend to add 2 to 3 dB of dynamic range / dynamic slam of a studio recording already subjected to compression. As in dynamic range compression and hence why vinyl sounds subjectively better than redbook spec CDs on long listening sessions.
Nice analogy of 'Playing the man not the ball'. It's often called an 'ad hominem' argument (literally 'against the man'). Essentially the same thing, trying to discredit a position by attacking / discrediting the individual putting it forward rather than the position itself.
Well spoken, I agree. The artwork on the album jackets, the care and attention required to handling, the symposium which follows inevitably when comparing turntables and setups and the joy of making it all work together to produce the sound that is just right for ones own ears is all what makes vinyl great. Sure, digital can be great too in many respects, but without the fine tuning and artwork, it is less laborious....and thus less of a chore in my opinion, which is a bad thing. Enjoyed my coffee watching that, thanks!
I wonder what myths you were trying to debunk.
"The whole thing is an artifice. And the question is what delivers that artifice best."
You are quite right about this - but instead of really trying to answer this essential question you then describe your subjective impressions of vinyl and digital sound. Nothing wrong with these impressions and preferences, of course. We all have them.
So, what delivers the "artifice" best? It can be demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that an ordinary cd is closer to the original sound (the master) than vinyl ever will be - no matter how much you subjectively prefer the sound of vinyl.
It is digital - in all cases - which delivers the artifice as unchanged and original as possible. Subjective impressions - yours or mine - do not count here at all.
In theory ... with infinite time and not taking timing issues into account ... measured by a statistical measurement instrument which our ears and brain are not ... over a property of your choosing. People do not in general understand mathematical theory and how it relates to reality. I should know because I specialize in numerical mathematics. The gist of this video is correct. There are loads of choices and minute details ignored which allowes us to live in a simple world where better can be measured by a single number or a graph. When theory and reality do not meet, the scientist type goes back to work on the theory. Not saying all experiences are equally valid. It takes time and effory to reach a valid conclusion. But a Fanboy will never take the time. They will spend all their time defending a theory which is a futile effort. Theories can only be disproven. Mathematics might be an exception but the full statement should begin with "digital sounds better because".
@@bobnot24 No, you do not seem to get it: the basic premise of the video is wrong. The whole video is about the author's subjective preferences and impressions. And it's all downhill from there.
I may have misunderstood but I hear no theories given. It is simply stated that vinyl has so far been better for him in the right circumstances. And debunking some false argument approaches. And offering the possibility of our knowledge of hearing music not yet being complete. I have a vinyl system for looks only (not hooked up) but I do not disagree with these sentiments.
For instance there is nothing magical in how distortion is calculated statistically. It does not mean that our ear+brain behave in that way because it is not a microphone. If our ear+brain discern and enjoy musical notes and the artistic intention better with some kind of distortion, then we must search for that model. It seems to that the ASR crowd is the one which tries to not listen with their ears and instead tries to enjoy music based on the specs sheet. Perhaps because they are sentimental and it gives them emotional support.
@@bobnot24 I am afraid you still do not get it. Sound reproduction is not about preference. And now you retort to ad hominem attacks towards Asr crowd. Is that really necessary?
As a passionate about vintage speakers and amplifiers, I never though too much about how to argue why I prefer turntables over other sources of music. I concluded this long time ago and I still feel it every day when I change from vinyl to CD or digital and vice-versa. However, the way you put it in words is really well, it just speaks to me. So, if I’ll ever have an argument about this, I’ll just show your video.
So, yeah, thank you!
A few years ago, I was in the digital camp. I went with my then 18 son to a place that I knew had a system that should have knocked my socks off. I would say that the room, which was made for the system, plus the Very high-end system would be at least half a million dollars. It did not... but it was very good. We listened for quite a while. When the demonstrator cleaned a record for 15 minutes and then put it on, it was the best thing on that system. Every piece of equipment was top-notch. Wilson speakers and such. It was the best thing I heard, though I was not sure what played. That said, digital is still, to my ears, the best playback medium.
Yes interesting vinyl has got super fine detail thanks for your info
Great video as always. Love your passion for music. After about 2 years of searching I think I 'almost' have my best system. I've included digital, streaming, vinyl and tape. I would never want to be beholden to one medium, or the other, plus there's stuff that just isn't available on different mediums. Vinyl is addictive. Moreso than the rest. Even though i'm not a jazz head, I scored a Thelonious Monk original for £1 and it sounds amazing on vinyl, I can even hear him humming the song as he plays.
Vinyl is more involving and you can listen to it longer at loud volumes.
My experience too. I want to turn CD and streaming down, I want to turn vinyl records up
Brilliant Kelvin, love your videos. The Ad Hominem Attack section had me chortling. I stream qobuz downstairs and have my vintage system upstairs for my Lps. Both have their place.
I think a lot of CD or Vinyl come down to one thing most people have never heard a high end HIFI turntable .But CD will deliver a good to very good sound for a lot less money . where if you look at high end turntables the price of mid to high end cartridge's plus the turntable plus Pre-amp and so on ..
But i do fall on the side of Vinyl i love both formats but the good old record wins it for me
20 years ago I went into my local hifi dealer. I had recently found a lenco turntable and was amazed how much I prefered the sound than my arcam cd player. I "mentioned" this to the guy at the dealership who generally, diplomatically agreed - however, he said he was finally quite happy with his cd player- but it had cost him £10,000 and had a valve in it ha ha.
Yes, the world of Hi Fi is only for oil barons don’t you know?
Seems so true. Some sounds better on vinyl and some on cd. For me the vinyl record souns real, like i am there in the atmosphere and instruments sound real. Cd i find better with electronic sounds like Tubular Bells and Tangerine Dream albums. Biggest issue on cd is the way they are mastered. The shere noise hurts very quickly.
There are always pros and cons in these cases and as a listener who enjoys both formats I have to agree that vinyl is the ultimate when it comes to the most realistic and emotionaly involving sound. Having said that, I concede that CD has some clear advantages over records, especially regarding how it measures on paper, with digital being superior where dynamic range and speed stability are concerned. Also because CD was marketed as "perfect sound forever" that had a huge impact on the public at large, particularly with non audiophiles. However, in reality it's a different story, I have done CD vs vinyl demo's for a number of friends over the years switching between the two and vinyl has turned out to be the preferred sound literaly every time in my experience, leaving many listener's quite surprised. These comparisons have been done using a vintage Arcam se7 CD player (a very nice sounding machine) vs a Project perspective turntable with a moving coill cartridge, so probably a pretty fair comparison. Lastly I should add that I don't have much experience with streaming which l'm told can be better than CD, so I will reserve judgement on that one. Cheers Kelvin, great video as always 👍
Something missing in this argument: let's play a music via CD player but bypassing its internal DAC by connecting the device to a high quality DAC ... It sounds much greater than any turntable without even bothering about static sounds of the vinyl or cleaning it etc. ...
I repeated this test many times, mostly using a full range classic symphony. For this test, I had connected both the external DAC and phono preamp to the same pair of passive speakers via a powerful amplifier.
In comparison, not vinyl, but only DSD files can produce a higher quality music (DSD on a CD is in fact called SACD, but SACD is nearly a forgotten format now).
Greetings from a Yorkshireman in Western Australia.
Thanks, great video.
A clever mixture of science, art and philosophy for the common man, rather than going full blown Pseuds Corner as some reviews go.
We're probably of a similar vintage, and like you, have grown up with vinyl. I prefer to listen to vinyl at home, but digital is fine, if a little sterile and clinical, for music on the go.
Subbed
Clean quiet vinyl thru my Rega P3. My PM 8004 with the Source Direct button depressed.Through Snell E ll speakers.
End of story. A CD can sound good but there's no debate about "sound".
Listen to The Cars debut MOFI with a decent set up. It sounds like you're at the recording session.
Can you make a video about your vinyl/cd collection and your favorite music in general? Would love to see that. 👍
Too embarrassing it’s mostly ABBA 😀
@@stereoreviewx 😉 I quite like some of ABBA to be honest with you. Especially from the standpoint of production/arrangements. No guilty pleasure at all.
great interpretation calven havnt listened to lps since 84 my friend all digital .but was at a friends house a while back high end with lp12 turntable and i have to agree .😊😊😊
vinyl is not always better but when it's better is way better. Great recording combined with great analog pressing and good system. Dire Straits' s first album convinced me of that
I'd be very interested as to what you consider a good system
@@BeemanSoulTravelling i'm not a millionaire and a lotta of that has to do with your bank account, but i tend to like the look of the 1970's high end equipment and their build quality. British speakers, high end Tannoy westminster, Macintosh tube amps, that sort of thing.
@@chais1111 I too am a great fan of vintage amplifiers, CD players and pre amps, tape decks like hi end Teac or Nakamichi but I would suggest that new speakers out perform vintage due to advances in computer modelling in the aid of cabinet design. What do you guys think?
@@BeemanSoulTravelling yes i think you re probably right, but i personally don't like the look of space age speakers and i think you'd find that the best of the 70's like JBL, KEF, Celestions, klipsch and so many others would give you the pleasure you're searching for not to mention the built quality. Personal choice
@@BeemanSoulTravelling Don't be fooled in to thinking modern speakers are going to be better than older ones. Reason being, speakers back then may ave lacked modern computer modeling, however far more time was spent on people testing and listening with their ears to develop their sound. Also marketing these days is a lot better due to online online presence of Hi-Fi manufacturers . Don't always believe the hype, listen with you own ears and come to your own conlusions!
The opinion on vinyl vs digital tells me a lot about a reviewer. Not that there is any absolute truth on either side, it is all taste, it just helps me to put all other arguments, reviews, recommendations in place. You are my kind of guy, subscribed, thumbs up.
When I worked in the Hi Fi trade in North London, I usually had a very good set up and I would buy an album and record it straight onto Reel to Reel tape at 15 IPS. and put the album away.
When CDs came out I just found them so much more convenient.
Most of my recordings are on CDs now although I still have a lot of records that have been in boxes for years.
I even have a couple of sealed copies because the music reps used to give them away so would uses them as demo discs.
Hi Jeremy just to mention have you seen the prices of Old vinyl particularly the first pressings
If you haven’t prepare to buy a Ferrari
😄K
@@stereoreviewx I'm in the process of trying to clear my house. I have to much vintage stuff hanging around.
I listen to both and they are definitely both valid and each has its strength (and depends on the recording and mixing and so on).
Remember that the dac is very important when listening to digital (both cd or from a computer).
I kept my vinyl collection , now my children want it! I switched tot CD a long time ago due to convenience when they came up and were heavily promoted. I was very disappointed when I bought cd’s from my favorite rock stars as a better alternative, to hear a better sound and have a better experience. I used a good turn table with moving coil element. What a disappointment! The sound was flat and dull, not so much soul and dynamics. Compression? Bad mastering? I solved the problem by not listening to cd’s if I had a vinyl version. What you don’t know, you don’t miss…
Totally agree
I have two systems.
1. A vinyl system Linn Sondec, Audiolab pre amp and Leak 20 power amp. Driving Quad ESL57 speakers.
2. A CD system. Arcam CD, Audiolab 8000A amp and Roger’s Studio 1 speakers.
The vinyl system is a better reproduction of the original sound.
Great work on TH-cam Kelvin.
Interesting, thanks
So, what makes one turntable sound better than another? I have a vintage Pioneer PL-71 with a ortofon blue cartridge. How is a $2k TT going to sound better? Is it something I should be concerned with as a newbie audiophile?
Well a two grand Turntable should be better engineered and a little less rumble and ultimately be more accurate let’s say but God you better off spend two grand on speakers and amps for sure.
I mean your speakers and amp have to be really good before you start noticing those differences in the Turntable.
Cheers K
@@stereoreviewx thanks for the reply. Unless my turntable dies, I'm going to keep it for a long time.
You're right. I just upgraded my amp and speakers and I'm.much happier. (Marantz 7015 and kef q950)
You'd be pretty hard pressed to find a better Turntable cartridge combo, diminishing returns. Wonderful amp and speakers, look no further and enjoy!
I think the bottom line is that listening expriences and tastes in sounds can be very subjective. neither Vinyl or digital is bad as so to speak, and no one can really prove which one is truly better or worse. it's really a matter of personal prefernce and subjective taste. I can point out some exmaples where i can say i prefer digital over vinyl and vice versa.
For example, i find Vinyl a lot more detailed in the upper midrange and hghts.(.More revealing if you like) . However , i can say that i find digital a lot smoother and les fatiguing soundinng comapred with Vinyl.
Fair enough I wouldn’t argue and yes there seems to be more magic in the upper mid range
@@stereoreviewx You need to come back and do some more reviews. I really trust your opinions which is quite rare these days because most online reviewers are being paid to hype stuff up
I find the CD's I recorded from vinyl some years ago, sound fabulous in a different way somehow? there's no explaining it? is there?
Soooooo, I call BS. Any kind of mechanical system (analog) cannot move/resolve faster than a digital system. That's just fact. In order to make an unbiased argument. He would have to make an A, B, comparison on equipment he is not familiar with. With a third party randomly selecting the music. Psychoacoustics show that much of what we hear is biased towards what we expect to hear. (There are many videos on TH-cam demonstrating this.) His self test on his own equipment is patently bogus. IMHO, with ultra expensive equipment either medium can probably exceed the human ears ability to resolve. The real question is. What are these mediums for and which one does it best. The real answer is. They are information storage devices. As such, digital storage is clearly superior. As well as being much more cost effective.
Have to agree, we said. Digital, when encoded correctly can sound exactly the same as analogue doing a blind ab test would nearly always confirm this. However, there is the , as I think he mentioned in the video and also someone above has commented, the act of listening to something that's important..making time to sit down use a turntable and play an album is a process that's been lost recently in an age where we can jump from track to track artist to artist instantly. So what's 'better' is more to do with the consequences of the process rather than what sounds better.
@@FURKING_AMAZING I've tested plenty of the same tracks and listened to both the digital and Vinyl copies and both sound different. I cant say one or the other sounds better, or worse for that matter, but just differnt!. which comes down to personal preference and the gear that your playing the music through. Speakers amp,., dac , phono pre amp etc etc... you get my drift!
Digital can be a lot better than it is but the music industry doesn't care. Most people don't hear it. They listen to stupid bluetooth boxes or tiny bluetooth headphones. Music to them is wallpaper, not a work of art to be admired.
I like your channel very much but there is one thing I have to object to. Blues, and let's not argue whether it is simpler of not, sounds better on CD. Maybe I got your argument wrong but I think that especially blues and Jazz sound fantastic on vinyl.
Well maybe the soul comes through on vinyl
Maybe its time for me to buy a turntable again. I kept all my vinyl as I could not bear to part with all that history. I only ever had a Garrard before. Question is what do I buy now? Super passionate video many thanks Kelvin
I go to many classical concerts with large orchestras, and vinyl records sound much more like the concert hall experience than CDs.
A really good vinyl recording can sound better than a cd, a really good cd can sound better than vinyl that is why I love both and listen to both
My biggest issue with new "re-mastered" vinyl is that they don't tell you (on the label) if it's sourced from a digital or an analog master. Remember in the early days of CD's they used to label them "AAD", "ADD" or "DDD". At the time the industry was trying to persuade consumers of the sonic benefits of "all digital" masters ("DDD"). Today MANY (if not most) of new 180g vinyl re-issues are "ADA"..but they don't tell you that. They (the record co's) have dropped that informative labeling. Why can't they use the original analog tapes and cut the re-issue as "AAA"? That is..NO digital conversion at all ! That's the way it used to be, and the sound of a well mastered analog recording was pretty good, if played back on decent equipment. Ok I admit there may have been some residual tape hiss etc..but I prefer 100% analog for just about any rock/pop record that was originally made in the 60's or 70s'. It's hard to improve the "pure" analog sound of those original LP's of, The Stones, The Beatles, Procul Harem, Leon Russell (to name a few...) I personally own at least two vinyl re-issues that almost sound identical to the CD. The reason I purchased the vinyl in the first place was to hear an audible improvement over the CD. These 50th Anniv. re-issues (sourced from "digitized" copies of analog masters) of popular 70's albums is just a big $$ marketing scam. (IMHO). If the re-issue was "sourced" and re-mastered from the original analog tapes it just might just be worth the $$.
I'm at a bit of a crossroads with vinyl. I use a Sony LX-300USB turntable with an elliptical stylus upgrade and a NAD PP2e phono stage. I like the sound I get from it but I know that it's in spite of the TT rather than because of it and that I might get better sound from a TT with an adjustable counter weight and tracking force (the NAD C558 is the one that calls out to me).
But, my experience so far is that the vinyl experience depends a lot on the quality of the pressing and the condition of the record. I've bought brand new records that sound great because they were made from the original master tapes or specifically recorded for vinyl and records from back in the day that sound bad from the beginning and start distorting from the third track onwards. Pressings from digital sources are just meh - most of the time they're not too bad but they're not great either and I generally get a better experience from playing the CD. I wonder how much of this actually changes from using a better TT.
There was an interesting study done about 15 years ago by a professor at Berkeley university. He set out to prove that even audiophiles could not tell the difference between CD quality music and hi resolution music. He did a blind test where a group of audiophiles were hooked up to brain scan equipment (I think it was fMRI) while he played selections of classical music (CD and hi res digital of each selection). To his surprise he discovered that the hi res digital music activated parts of the brain that were not activated by the CD quality music.
Agree with the "simple music " point I definitely gravitate towards pared back simple recordings
when I listen to digital .
Well said. Appreciate your thoughts and all the work you put into your channel. Very enjoyable and informative.
I agree with pretty much every word. Nice one.
Back in the analog days I had a rec-o-cut variable speed turntable with a Pickering tone arm and cartridge and a Garrard zero 100 table. All I remember from those days were hours spent with the discwasher cleaning kit and all the static and pops and getting up to turn the record over. Then came cd and I thought it sound 100% better. Now it has been so long since my vinyl days maybe its time to take another look. I am sorry I got rid of all my records and equipment. I listen to classical music mostly.
This was proven some decades ago but don’t ask where and who by, but I was working on a documentary back in the 1990s and this was part of the programme. It was about audio and the human experience.
In basic terms (very basic) it’s about frequencies you hear and frequencies you don’t. On vinyl the low to high frequencies are huge, but on CD to save data these are cut. You can’t hear them so they don’t use them. In basic terms the human ear and brain interpret these frequent thus gives a warmer more full audio experience.
Thanks that’s interesting stuff for sure it’s different
K
Cheers Calv !!! Made my weekend lol 😂 love the way you explain.
You've inspired an insight, if you will, that I've never heard mentioned... vinyl has, whether we realize it or not, a 'noise floor' or 'sonic glue' of the needle on the surface of the record, aside from the pops and clicks. A constant that was not placed through recording, but cannot be removed because there is a physical connection that elicits a physical reaction. I'd think there is a strong argument to prove that this would be absent digitally, especially since a main goal and achievement of digital media is clarity and 'cleanliness'.Maybe the physical contact creates a vibe or ambience that sits very well on some ears while not so much on others as some folks enjoy crisp, stark autumn while while others prefer gross, sticky summer ... maybe I've just cracked the code hahaaa
I have a decent turntable, a DUAL CS704 with a Nagaoka JT322 Quadro cart and a shibata shape stylus.
Some of my vinyl records sound better then their CD counterpart, played on a - again decent - player, an Arcam DV88. Sometimes it's the other way around, but I enjoy both.
I almost get the idea that the mastering is the most important factor in the sound quality.
.
Mind you, I buy my vinyl very carefully and clean them thoroughly and put them in antistatic sleeves before playing them.
In my experience you take more time to sit down and really listen to vinyl, whereas digital is so easy to play, you tend to listen to it more casually.
.
But maybe it's just my age; I grew up in the vinyl & cassette era as well :-)
The way you describe things is magical 😊
I embrace all mediums, horses for courses ❤
hi, i think vynil is more of an experience and there's a lot of nostalgia. of course lyricks are better readable on a lp sleeve but when i bought the joshua tree and put it on my sony turntable there was crackle like a campfire! went back to the shop and all of the albums had this. this and the fact my damn the torpedoes album of tom petty had scratches and skipped mid song so then i decided to slowly buy all the cd's i had on vinyl and i am very happy with tha on my philips cd player and yamaha ca810 to my B&W dm2 or kef carlton II 's .A good argument is that bands like let say dire straits went to DDD sound and they really know what they were doing and never sounded better...
To me the advantage of good vinyl over digital lies in the difference between left and right. Of course analogue sound has infinite resolution whereas digital is limited to the sample rate used.
Having said that, my record deck is hopeless but I am still aware of that difference in the imaging or placement of the sound. Thanks for your video.
😊 thank you
I'm new to you're channel....really interesting information...thank you.
I'm curious. Can you tell which turntable you're using as source?
Well I can tell the difference between Sam straight away it’s all a little bit more subtle I suppose
Not like the differences in Speakers
But it really plays out overtime
What turntable and cartridge do you use
thrones 150 she 3009 arm ortophon blue cartridge K
@@stereoreviewx thank you for the reply
I have played Vinyl Albums.. I have played CD Albums.. I have downloaded Albums.. but I can't tell you much about Downloaded Albums.. because it's so easy to download Albums.. CD Albums you take out of the case & you put in the tray & play & listen.. but with Vinyl Albums you look at the front & back of the cover !! you take out the inner sleeve & read & look at that !! then you get you Vinyl Album out of the sleeve !! you put it on the turn table & you then brush the Vinyl before sitting down to play .. Up to the person who plays what .. but I feel I get more feeling from the vinyl..
100% get the speed timing aspect of vinyl over CD I have a heavily modified LP12 running through a EAR yoshino 868 tube pre and grant Lumley ST70 tube power with Proac response 3.8 floor standers I also stream a little for convenience but it's all about tube speed too but many of my visitors ask if they can listen to my system and without exception people say things like "I never knew music could sound this way" or "they could sit there and listen for days" etc.. So it must be something that is audible for many many people, audiophiles or not. I'm so glad I kept my Linn and even more so that I've made the change to vacuum tube amplification, my digital source is fine but not for really listening it's party background or when I haven't got the time to unjacket and play vinyl. It's ultimately analogue for me, always happy when people want to sit with me and enjoy that truly wonderful sound and watch those gorgeous tubes glowing away. It's not romantic although the sound can be if I want it, just flick the switches and go triode mode and it's silky smooth but in ultra linear where I listen, it's detailed, it's powerful textured bass, it's a vivid unforced mid range that help voices feel so much like real people you can almost see their lips moving and feel their breath and it's sparkling clear treble, without solid state glare or grain. Kelvin you are a soldier mate. I love the way you express what many of us feel and know so well.
I like your description of the sound is making me seriously jealous cheers K
I have a more then fairly high end system, both digital and analog which puts me in my opinion in a position to somewhat judge the differences between the two. What I have noticed during my quest to have the ultimate digital system (for me) is that it is far harder to have a digital system that beats an analog system. This was unexpected to me.. But when you get there this digital system will without any problems replicate the sound of the analog system. I can record my vinyl and I’m absolutely sure you want be able to tell the difference between the analog system and the digital system in a blind test. A very good digital system can do everything a good analog can do, but not the other way around. Sure more then one record I own sounds better on vinyl, but this has everything to do with the differences in mastering. You can never really compare a vinyl record with a digital file because of this. Vinyl has a certain sound that is in most cases very pleasing to the ear. The attack of a digital system exceeds that of an analog system contrary to what you think. Especially when you have extremely fast digital amplifiers as I do. In the digital domain there’s very little inertia involved (besides the inherited reaction time of electronic components that are also present in analog amplifiers). A stylus has to deal with inertia. i love both equally, none is better than the other, just different. It’s a question of taste. What really goes against digital is the sheer number of bad AAD conversions due to bad ADC’s used in the beginning. It is only fairly recent that femto clocks are common. And don’t let me get started on the dynamic range compression used in the digital domain that simply can’t be done on vinyl.
Really interesting to hear your thoughts and you have the experience to go with it thanks Kelvin
3 albums on vinyl that,I believe prove that if they are recorded well will beat digital hands down are the following.....Richard Thompson, Across a crowded room. Joe Jackson, Night and day... and Paula Abdul, Forever your girl . Each album supplying a different listening experience, the vocals on the first 2 exceptionally well done and the bass and drums on the latter really powerful. These are just a few examples I could recommend. I am still amazed how good such a format can sound.
Couldn't agree more with you... to me vinyl sounds more live than CD. I listen to string instruments, and vinyl gives me an enjoyable full bodied tone which sounds more live. CDs are mastered to take advantage of their greater dynamic range but that rarely has anything to do with making a more mellow sound. Anyway you talk from experience. I am with you 100%
Nice job on this. To me, vinyl has a richness of character that's unmatched, could even call it a flavor of sorts, like a full bodied cabernet. Organic is another word that comes to mind to describe it.
It's so stupid to argue about whether vinyl is better than a CD or the opposite. both can be equally good!
It is 100% impossible to compare apple against apple when it comes to vinyl vs cd.
What makes CD sounds good or not? It is a combination of what you save on the format and how well it is mixed and adjusted and what you play it on and not necessarily the audio format or storage media's fault.
I have heard many vinyl records that have better sound than the CD has ! Does that mean vinyl is better? NO. I have also heard many CDs that have better sound than vinyl has. Also almost always, the cd version is remastra and adjusted.
When it comes to vinyl then everything has to be in a certain way since vinyl is not an easy format like cd. Vinyl is often adjusted and made more carefully than the CD due to its limitations of vinyl. Does that mean vinyl is better than a cd? NO. it depends on what you save on the different formats and how good a player you have and not necessarily the format you used!
you can not always blame the audio format!
The sound on vinyl is stored thin and with little bass to make room for more on the record. The riaa amplifier is in a way an equalizer that adjusts the sound back so the sound becomes normal again.
The format the album was mastered for tends to prevail.
Yeah mostly true
🤗 BRILLIANT …In a perfect world we could experience each ones kit and KNOW what your talking about…like trying different recipes for food and drinks 🤔😍😍😍
The age old discussion lol 😀 remember that each system is simply a carrier of your music, they can both have issues. A digital system is simply a modern way of. Storing samples, delivering them to you and then replaying those stored samples. Don't think that because they sample, that you're going to have parts of the original recording missing...they sample, measure the signal level so often that they are microseconds apart. The problem lies with potential processing, or data reduction encoding that can introduce artefacts, but hopefully more often that not you're going to be happy. Analogue, well there are many different types of distortion that can affect the playback. Take your pick, I'm happy with any format, and carrier, analogue or digital, enjoy them all :)
I am happy enough listening to my digital music collection in flac files and streaming music from Spotify and Amazon
We live in a digital age where music and movies are both in digital and are enjoyable, through good Speakers, Dac and amp
I got a smile listening to your story. I agree in many ways, especially happy that there’s some nuance. May I add my $0.02. You hit the nail that media are artificial, it’s not the real thing. Much is in the hands of the recording and mastering engineer. A give away is that some music sounds better on cd than on vinyl...
What I think is mostly overlooked, is that vinyl is like you said is treated with love, tons of effort and money go in to playback records as good as possible. On the other hand, we expect a CD to perform better from a mediocre piece of, well let’s call it garbage. But compare that same piece of garbage to a cheap record player... That’s why at least for the masses CDs simply sound much better than vinyl, period.
Also in digital gear the analog stages are typically overlooked, even in expensive ones. I do have a UA 2192 AD-DA converter with magnificent analog stages (32 fets parallel balanced analog IO instead of one or another hyped opamp). The result: analog quality, silky smooth detailed sound.
A test I once accidentally ran into is very interesting. I had a digital live recording, edited it on an analog RTR (Teac 35-2B), and put it in on CD. A DAD CD, so to say. It had the typical AAA sound.
That’s proof that digital records and plays back more accurately. Which is something else than claiming that that’s more beautiful to listen to.
From a more technical perspective, there’s one thing in digital that might be inferior, and that’s the timing of transients. You can accurately represent a sine wave up to the nyquist frequency, but you can’t shift the first transient to an in between position of the samples. That might influence the coherence of the signal, or explain your feeling of speed (I’d call it ‘attack’). On the other hand, phase distortions are part of the analog filtering, think RIAA...
Vinyl has a presence and dimension to the sound. I can’t really describe it but a well recorded and pressed piece of vinyl through a good phono preamp and system has a depth to it. I have vinyl , cds, and I stream as well. High quality vinyl is my favorite. Just like any format there is bad vinyl as well. Just like there are lifeless digital recordings. CDs can sound very good and I stream a lot as well just to hear music I would never buy. I can’t afford to buy and store all the music I would like to own.
Very interesting. I have gravitated to simpler music on digital. I'm not sure if it's the format or if it's just where I'm at
Yeah it’s hard to tell
people are not able to look technically at how the different formats are made and what makes the sound good or bad. Many have made up their minds earlier in life that cannot be changed
I just want good music. I wish I couldn’t hear the difference but I can. Apple Music, cds, mp3, and any other source is the reason I try my best to try new things. I don’t understand why it all can’t be clean sounding.