Vinyl Reissues

In the simplest possible terms, a CD master will be as good as or better than any LP-intended analog master tape. Brazil is asking for an inferior master.

That's stupid.

You are making a huge general assumption that is unprovable and probably false in many cases.

What may be better to you may not be considered better by everyone else in the world. I know that's shocking.

"Better" and "preferable" are not synonyms.

New post on this subject in the other board, had me falling on the floor I was laughing so hard.

Quote :

You're basing your whole argument on faulty logic--the logic that LPs sound like crap to begin with.

Yes, some modern vinyl pressings are made from 16 bit CD masters and can defeat the purpose. But it all has to do with mastering. Digital pressed to vinyl can still sound better than its digital counterpart if the master made for vinyl (lacquers) sounds better.

Go educate yourself on the issue--read posts on the Steve Hoffman forums. You're spewing a lot of incomplete/incorrect logic. This "maximum fidelty" remastering that you speak of often just entails cranking the levels on the master to result in a louder sounding album. This was done mostly because the large complex hi-fi systems of the 60s-70s-80s were being replaced by smaller boomboxes, headphones, computer speakers, etc where louder albums sound better. Those of us still with old-school systems appreciate the nuances and improvements we can hear with classic mastering, and on the flipside, when playing newer louder "remasters" our ears ache from the shear barrage of volume with no subtlety and little difference in the perceived dynamic range.

I'll admit, I'm mostly a vinyl guy, but that's basically since my vinyl front-end sounds better than my digital front-end. Digital can sound as good as vinyl and vice versa.

The amount a 180 degrees WRONG info in this little nugget is staggering.

And, unfortunately, he's not alone.

NoCoPilot wrote:

"Better" and "preferable" are not synonyms.

That's true. So maybe you should start using the word preferable.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The amount a[sic] 180 degrees WRONG info in this little nugget is staggering.

Perhaps you'd be good enough to point them out for us.

No, the CD format is demonstrably more capable than LPs. Wider dynamic range, bigger frequency response, lower noise, lower distortion. Those are "better" specs, any way you want to slice it.

If someone prefers the sound of LPs that's preference.

But you CANNOT state that CDs are inferior technically. That's just flat wrong.

_Howard wrote:

Perhaps you'd be good enough to point them out for us.

Sure.

1.  CDs have superior specs to LPs. Therefore the CD will more faithfully reproduce the original master than an LP. The difference may be subtle (if both are well done) but measurable.

2. The Steve Hoffman forum is a bastion of audio woo. Using them as a reference is like quoting the bible to settle scientific arguments.

3. One cannot, logically, create a copy that sounds better than the original. Not without processing anyway. Analog copies are always inferior to the original, and digital copies can only be as good as the original -- no better.

That's enough for now. My soup is getting cold.

NoCoPilot wrote:

No, the CD format is demonstrably more capable than LPs. Wider dynamic range, bigger frequency response, lower noise, lower distortion. Those are "better" specs, any way you want to slice it.

CDs are capable of a wider dynamic range. In reality, it is very seldom used, and a great deal of today's CDs have the dynamic range of AM radio. LPs have a dynamic range wide enough to capture essentially all musical production. The CD numbers are technically better, but out here in the real world, they  don't always mean anything.
The frequency response capability of the LP is higher on the top end. CDs are limited to a sharp high frequency cutoff by the sampling rate. LPs can produce much higher frequency (but no one can hear it anyway). Many turntables produce some small amount of rumble which can affect the very low frequencies, but other than that and a small difference in linearity, there is no significant  difference in the frequency response.

NoCoPilot wrote:

If someone prefers the sound of LPs that's preference.

And if someone prefers the sound of CDs, that's what? Is that not also preference?

NoCoPilot wrote:

But you CANNOT state that CDs are inferior technically. That's just flat wrong.

No one here has said that. The gentleman from Brazil did not say that. I did not say that. Your last quote from the other board did not say that; in fact, he said, "Digital can sound as good as vinyl and vice versa."


Regardless of the specs, what the original point of the thread was that the guy preferred the LPs he had. He didn't say they were better. I didn't say they were better. It's just what he wanted. That doesn't make him stupid.

That reminds me: I need to buy a new cartridge for my turntable.

The very BEST LPs can approach the fidelity of a CD.

A mediocre LP -- which almost all are, except super-fidelity ultra-$$$ pressings -- is much, much worse. Higher noise floor, surface noise, rumble, limited FR, limited DR, higher IM. A mediocre CD on the other hand, is just as good as a state-of-the-art one.

Yes, there are problems with mixing and compression. But these are not the FAULT of the CDs or the CD format, and poorly mixed apples don't spoil the whole cart, baby.

In summary:

• A CD will reproduce EXACTLY what you put on it.
  
  
• An LP will reproduce APPROXIMATELY what you put on it -- until it gets dirty and/or played.

As to your contention that LPs have a better high end, I don't know about you, but 22,000 HZ (the CD's limit) is beyond my hearing. Very, very few phono cartridges would pick up a signal that high -- while nearly EVERY CD player will. It's extremely rare that a speaker will reproduce it. There's no musical content up that high anyway.

So, as you say, it does not matter. We're arguing over angels on a pin.

Please, please note that I did not say that LPs have a better high end. I said the response capability  is higher. Higher - not better. And I did note that we can't hear it anyway. But your statement that CDs have a "bigger" frequency response is still incorrect.

Fuck it. You think LPs are all shit, and I like them (although I haven't bought any in a few decades.)  Then again, I haven't bought any CDs in many years. May have something to do with the fact that I get a lot of old-music CDs as gifts, and I have no interest in any of the music that has been shoveled down our gullets for the past many years.

Well, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Found an old Shure M91ED lying about. It's not a bad cartridge. However, with that cartridge I cannot adjust the overhang exactly; still a couple of millimeters off. Shit! I know that the thing is good, because I remember using it a few years ago when my daughter had some first pressings sent to my house so she could approve the masters while she was here on vacation.

So I have to buy a new cartridge for an old turntable. I can't even remember what the old cartridge looked like. It has been out of stock for a couple of decades so I am really stuck. In the old days, there were only about six cartridges made, so finding a new one was no sweat. Today, there are thousands of the damn things, and none of the web sites I've looked at provide all the required information on them

If you don't mind my asking, what cartridge and stylus are you using, NoCo. I know you secretly have some LPs, but I won't tell anyone.

I still have about 2,500 LPs, but I don't listen to them much anymore.  That's about half what I used to have.

I have two turntables, a Technics SL-10 which requires a EPC310MC cartridge (which plugs in and is moving coil).  I also have a Sony PS-FL7 with a VL45G plug-in cartridge, moving magnet.

Back in the day I had a succession of Dual 1218s, Technics SL-1200s and the like.  I used Ortofon, Grado, Shure (yep, the trusty old M91ED, had several!) and Audio Technica cartridges -- with no clear preference.  They all seemed fine.

I contemplated a fancier table (maybe a Linn Sondek) but by the time I could afford one the bottom dropped out of the LP market.

_Howard wrote:

No one here has said that. The gentleman from Brazil did not say that. I did not say that. Your last quote from the other board did not say that; in fact, he said, "Digital can sound as good as vinyl and vice versa."

Correction: vinyl can sound ALMOST as good as digital (with a huge investment of at least $5000). Digital of course has the capability to far outstrip the theoretical capabilities of vinyl -- even in a $100 player.

It's like saying a Yugo can go as fast as a Ferrari.  Well, yes -- in a school zone.

Okay. Next topic.

I just visited my favorite CD and DVD store in their new location, which it turns out is even more convenient to me.

Dunno if the rent is cheaper in the new location, but the store is considerably larger.

Which they have used to substantially expand their vinyl selection. Heavy sigh.

It's not the expansion of the vinyl section that is bothersome. It's that they now just have more of the crap music made in the past thirty years.

Lots of used LPs in the $6-20 range. Guess I should finish cataloging my 2500+ LPs so I can see if they're interested in any of them. If they gave me $3-10 for them I'd shit a brick.

New release from a band I've never heard of before, Aegri Somnia, has vinyl surface noise and groove rumble overlaid on the music.

I guess, for kids these days, it is exotic and novel and clever, but I am NOT nostalgic for that sound.

Ironically, for the past three weeks I've been cleaning up two solo piano LPs by Warren Bernhardt for a friend (never issued on CD) and doing my darndest to REMOVE that shit.

What would be the automotive equivalent?

• Installing a carburetor on a fuel-injection engine?
  
  
• Deactivating the airbags and taking out the seatbelts?
  
  
• Removing the computer from a car's electrical system?
  
  
• Putting in an AM radio and 8-track tape player?
  

It's not simply restoring a 1957 Bel Air to mint condition. No, it's taking a 2020 sedan and retrofitting it with all the worst limitations of 1957.

Over the years I've worked on the Wikipedia article on laser turntables, of which exactly one manufacturer (two models) made it to market in the CD era. They cost $16,000-$22,000.

Because the record is read by a laser, rather than a stylus, you don't get "groove rumble," the sound of the stylus being dragged through the grooves. Laser turntables are also immune from acoustic feedback, inner groove parallax error, intermodulation errors, turntable rumble, and several other common vinyl non-musical artifacts.

Their big disadvantage -- besides cost -- is that they play every speck of dust and dirt instead of pushing them aside. The result is "like someone eating a bag of potato chips."

They're also limited by what can be put on an LP. Dynamic range tops out at about 60dB and the bass cuts off below 50Hz.

I used to think I wanted one of these beasts, when they were first announced and when I still had an LP collection. But I don't anymore.

I haven't heard much about "the great vinyl comeback" in a couple years, so out of curiosity I googled it.  Found a recent (December 2021) article.
https://thehustle.co/the-insane-resurgence-of-vinyl-records/

Some interesting stats:

• At their peak in the 1970s, LPs sold 530 million units per year
  
  
• After CDs knocked them off their perch, sales fell to well under a million units (total!)
  
  
• CDs peaked about 1999 at just under a billion units
  
  
• Downloads knocked all physical media off the charts, peaking at about 1.5b units in 2012
  
  
• Since then, all sales have fallen off a cliff as free downloads (also known as 'streaming') took over the listening habits of Gen-Xers, and free downloads aren't tabulated by the industry
  
  
• Charts like these always talk about "revenue" instead of units moved, but that's meaningless because the prices differ so much between formats, and single-song streams can't be compared with full-album sales.  Only the record labels care about revenues
  
  
• Latest figures (2021) for LP sales have them at around 30m units.  That's down 95% from their peak, or 98% from downloads.  Big "comeback."  If this patient was dead, we'd say "his bowels released."
  

NoCoPilot wrote:

I just visited my favorite CD and DVD store in their new location, [and] they have substantially expanded their vinyl selection.  Heavy sigh.

Happened to be in there again today -- just about the first time since the pandemic -- and the store is about half vinyl now.  Prices range from about $12 for used LPs to $40-50 for new.  There were several millennials cruising the racks.

At the end of the racks was a display of turntables -- cheap. plasticy, Chinese things that looked like shit.  No serious listener (back in the day) would've gone near.

And I realized something.  It has NOTHING to do with "listening."  It's the experience, the opening up of a cardboard sleeve, the removal of a big black slab of PVC, elaborate cleaning, careful placing on the turntable, and lowering of the (manual) tonearm.  It's a ritual these young people -- all born after vinyl was obsoleted -- have somehow inherited.  People like me, who lived the experience in real time, have ZERO DESIRE to return to the bad old days.  But for millennials, the ritual is everything.

So they buy a couple dozen LPs for a thousand bucks, a $200 turntable, and sit in their duplexes writing comments like this:

Quote :

There's jumping at A1. It's just the same place as the red vinyl released at RSD. So gutted.

Quote :

The pressing is rubbish. I bought the two same title, but both has jumping at A1. they are 1100 to 1150. Hope for the reissue to be issued.

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My regular black vinyl sounds amazing. Hands down one of the best sounding records in my collection, very well pressed, the album sleeve is *very* high quality and it came in a anti-static sleeve, no background noise or warp at all in mine.

Quote :

Is it just me or is this a super noisy pressing. Also mine is warped.

All part of the ritual.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/02/rediscovering-love-for-music-through-vinyl-records

Quote :

My friend and I sought out a record store in Greenwich Village where hand-lettered signs guided searchers through the rows of bins. Flipping through, I found Frank Sinatra’s A Swingin’ Affair! I overpaid, but it was worth it to hear the master crooner kick off with Night and Day and make his way to Nice Work If You Can Get It. Who cared about the skips and pops? The sound quality wasn’t perfect, but the vibe couldn’t be beat. Now I find, after all this time, something of that analog magic remains.

Yep, the "analog magic" is magic in that it relies on nostalgia and failed hearing.

Still baffles me.

"The sound isn't the major issue."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p8OmdDSlj8
Yep.  That hits the nail on the head.
"The actual truth here is that there is no functional difference in the audio quality between digital and analog formats."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzRvSWPZQYk
Actually, the "actual truth" is 180º from that.
"The vinyl revival is so wrong on so many levels."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grahWS5L5rE
Yep.
"I like vinyl because I like vinyl."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lYPEh-ROk
Dillan, you're an ignorant tool. But more power to ya.

I think the Vinyl Revival started about the same time "alternative facts" became current.