Skeptoid: Digital vs Vinyl, Podcast casts its skeptical eye on digital audio Options

[rick.hughes]

Skeptoid: Digital vs Vinyl

[krabapple]

For us non-Francophones, here's Google Translate's attempt of the Conclusion. Some bits are less comprehensible than others ;>

We found that the difference between vinyl and CD can be heard on digital copy, which is not surprising, vinyl does not have perfect sound.
More surprisingly, the greatest differences are not always found between CD and vinyl (RMB, bad press), but also a vinyl to another (Depeche Mode - A Question of Lust), and even throughout another of the same vinyl (Legendary Pink Dots - Pennies for Heaven / Evolution).
 
Among other differences, the differences in balance bass / treble are important. They vary from one disk to another, from one label to another (the German distributor of Depeche Mode, Intercord, produces vinyl still missing treble), but always returns a trend: these excerpts vinyl have more serious (about 50-100 Hz), and less acute (around 3000 - 12000 Hz) than their counterparts in CD. Cete trend can not be attributed to the recording chain. This is a characteristic of the cell used to read the disc: Stanton Trackmaster EL one. Phonolectrices cells have very different response curves, which determine a large part of their "tonal color."
The CD has the merit to linearize the response curve, very unstable vinyl.
 
It begs the question of whether these differences disappear when we turn to the high end. From my own experience, I found the same saturation and distortion, and the same response curve differences between different vinyl with a platinum Rega Planar 3 (excellent audiophile turntable input range) with a cell Denon DL-110 (voice coil high output). For cons, the trend "serious before, acute withdrawal," which gives a "warm and round" is definitely not a feature of the "vinyl sound" is unique to my system read-only.
 
We can also ask whether the defects highlighted here are not offset by the qualities of vinyl, the digital copy could not reproduce. A blind test conducted with the material used to prepare the samples, same source, same ACD, showed that the loss of quality due to scanning are negligible, even if they are audible: http://www.hydrogenaudio. org / forum [...] = 21 & t = 7953"
 
We have also seen that blind, without prejudice to the race and high volume nasty labels, a remastering of 1998, once compensated volume, seems extremely bad for all listeners, compared to the record original.
 
I hope you enjoyed this test, and allowed you to have a more concrete idea of ​​the faults in the sound of vinyl.

I'm most curious about the statement " blind test conducted with the material used to prepare the samples, same source, same ACD, showed that the loss of quality due to scanning are negligible, even if they are audible" Not sure what this is supposed to mean. If it means, there is a an audible loss of quality due to digitization of an LP -- or even a an audible difference -- that doesn't seem to be demonstrated in the link provided.

Btw, has anyone rigorously examined the per-play variability of a turntable system? I've been told that this alone could make any ABX of vinyl vs a 'needledrop' problematic. If there's an audible difference between the same LP played back twice, then the results of a vinyl vs needledrop would be impossible to ascribe to one cause.

This post has been edited by krabapple: Sep 16 2012, 18:22

[mzil]

If there's an audible difference between the same LP played back twice, then the results of a vinyl vs needledrop would be impossible to ascribe to one cause.

Not if that needledrop is literally the same playing of the vinyl, via the Meyer/Moran trick of digitizing and then converting back to analog, via a professional CD recorder with a very low latency A to D, and then right back to A, "loop," virtually instantaneously. [Level matched, obviously, and using a wired A/B/X switch box .] Which is why I advocated it in another thread.

The advantages are many:

-same wow and flutter and overall speed error for both the vinyl and the needledrop version
-same needle wear/condition
-synchronized [Just make sure the CD recorder's latency is very low. It worked fine for their SACD vs CD test so I don't see why it would be an issue here.]
-same number and location of ticks and pops
-same "thump" noise when listeners ask to have a musical section replayed
-same master [This is critically important, yet people blissfully compare CDs to vinyl all the time and ignorantly assume they are from the same master, yet they pretty much never are.]

This post has been edited by mzil: Sep 16 2012, 21:35

[krabapple]

A disadvantage to any method involving LP is the latency of replay -- the time it takes to move the arm back to the start of a section. But otherwise, I agree , mzil's method is probably the best we can do. (And as regards his last point, anyone who tests transparency of digital recording by comparing a commercial CD to an LP has no idea what they're doing.)

This post has been edited by krabapple: Sep 17 2012, 16:43