"Music Sounds Better on Vinyl", I am so tired of this argument being brought up by the layperson Options

[ozmosis82]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mona-elyafi/..._b_1008876.html

Ugh.

Of special note is the 5th paragraph where she basically shoots herself in the foot:

"Now I don't pretend to be a tech whiz by any means and I am sure I know absolutely nothing about how it all works and why, but the one thing I know for certain though is that music sounds better on vinyl."

If they approve my comment, it should be the first one.

[krabapple]

And I think one non-highly-technical version of the question of 'resolution' could be two-fold,

1. what is the smallest change in level that the human ear can resolve? (my understanding is that, at best, with an appropriate probe signal, it's 0.2dB, so that the standard target for level-matching it to match to within 0.2dB)

2. does 16bit format permit that small a difference to be resolved? (yes)


Then there is a slightly different approach -- what is the 'quietest' signal that can be distinguished above background noise? That depends on the background noise level. Tape's and vinyl's is higher than Redbook's, so......

This post has been edited by krabapple: Feb 11 2012, 22:57

[Bartholomew MacG...]

And I think one non-highly-technical version of the question of 'resolution' could be two-fold,

1. what is the smallest change in level that the human ear can resolve? (my understanding is that, at best, with an appropriate probe signal, it's 0.2dB, so that the standard target for level-matching it to match to within 0.2dB)

2. does 16bit format permit that small a difference to be resolved? (yes)


Then there is a slightly different approach -- what is the 'quietest' signal that can be distinguished above background noise? That depends on the background noise level. Tape's and vinyl's is higher than Redbook's, so......

That's basically what I was getting at. A common and quite old argument about the superiority of vinyl is basically about missing information and it seems pretty straightforward to refute with regard to the highest frequency that can be reproduced because it's very rare for anyone to hear any higher than 22,050 Hz, but I wasn't clear on whether the 16 bit format surpassed the capabilities of the human ear. If it does, then arguments about vinyl being better for that reason seem to also be wrong in a similar way.