"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.

[kraut]

The frequency range of LPs that I rip is far superior

Who gives a fuck about noise? Do you really think there is actual musical information contained? How would you know that? Are you of the order chiroptera?

Has anyone else tried this experiment?

No, I own a few thorens and a transcriptor and a technics sl10, with denon cartridges and the technics M310. I have tried cartridges from Shure Ultra 500 to Shure V15VXMR to Goldring 1042 to several ortofons. I aslo have used tonearms from Acos Lustre to Rega RB 350 to the present setup with an airbearing tangential arm to a SME 2 and an SME 3 arm.

Each change was the result of intensive listening and selecting the best arm/cartridge combo as to behaviour on test reords and actual music. Criteria was sibliance, sensitivity to surface noise, tracking etc.

I stuck with the Denon because of their neutral sound when compared to other cartridges. My preamp is a DIY customized studio Logitek with transformer impedance matching inputs. I also have used the Stanton and a freestanding Naim phono section with a very quiet powersupply only to find I was unable to hear a difference. I still have over two thousand LPs but in contrast to you I have done blind test (really blinded) with level matching and switching done by a friend, and in no way can support your contention that vinyl is in any way superior.
I ran the analogue and the digital signal from a Micromega Stage 2 through a sample rate converter at 24/96 into a deq 24/96 used for room response correction. The signal this way could be easily level matched and after some tries timed precisely and switched trough the SRC easily between the two sources.

I ran Bryston BP20 preamp for the analogue section (tuner and phono) with a passive volume control with Alps sixgang pots after the deq into total of three Bryston amps (2B, 4B, 4BST)

To our combined chagrin the sound quality was only distinguishable by the typical noise - if ever so faint on the best records - of the lead in and the between tracks silent groove who unfortunately even on new old stock records fresh out of the plastic cover is never silent.

its just clear to me that vinyl has more fidelity than 16 / 44.1 can reproduce. Especially old vinyl just sounds incredible -- clear, wide and deep sound stage, realistic, open.

That is a contention you would have to prove in a blinded test - which unfortunately because of the inherently higher noise in records can only be done by digitizing LP and cleaning it up sonically.

I have listened to both side by side and can only say you claims are at the same level as those who claim they can hear differences between cables, shakti stones and other such unfounded statements.

And btw - after I had compared an fucking ancient Quad 405 amp with bulging caps in the PS section into the same Kef 104/2 and absolutely could not hear any sonic difference between the two (a Bryston 4BST, running CD bypassing all the sound processing stuff) I sold all the Bryston gear and got myself two AS 2.100 amps from hypex and mounted those in the base of the kefs, fed directly from my server and never regretted the move for on instance.

Oh, I think you are definitely in the minority, as your contentions seems to be more inspired by untested belief than by evidence.

This post has been edited by kraut: Feb 14 2012, 08:11

[Porcus]

its just clear to me that vinyl has more fidelity than 16 / 44.1 can reproduce. Especially old vinyl just sounds incredible -- clear, wide and deep sound stage, realistic, open.

That is a contention you would have to prove in a blinded test - which unfortunately because of the inherently higher noise in records can only be done by digitizing LP and cleaning it up sonically.

If there is a case where the to the best of their ability part of TOS#8 is to be invoked, it would be cases where blinding the study will kill the patient. You won't see docturs arguing over using double-blind studies of heart transplants, and you shouldn't see Hydrogenaudio participants arguing that room acoustics is insignificant just because a user doesn't bother to spend a million on an anechoic chamber.

What you could do, is of course digitize the LP and play back the signal with no difference (bar volume matching). That way you could isolate the audible effect of digitization.

Are you of the order chiroptera?

Remember that 22.05 kHz is only two halftones off 20 kHz.

This post has been edited by Porcus: Feb 14 2012, 09:09

[knutinh]

Remember that 22.05 kHz is only two halftones off 20 kHz.

I was not able to hear 20kHz when I was 17, much less now.

-k

[Porcus]

I was not

... individual variations, yeah.

This post has been edited by Porcus: Feb 14 2012, 09:38