What's new

I'm a believer! Lp's really do sound better! (1 Viewer)

Philip Hamm

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jan 23, 1999
Messages
6,874
Remember, LaserDisc was analog audio matched to an optical delivery medium, until the addition of AC3 near the twilight of LaserDisc's commercial lifespan.
That's not true. LaserDisc in the mid-80s included a digital PCM track with the exact same characteristics as CD audio. There are analog tracks that were there from the beginning, but they are more comparable to FM radio than LP record in fidelity.
 

John Knowles

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 17, 1999
Messages
174
Location
Twin Cities, MN
Real Name
John
Re: German Beatles lps: I just got a German pressed copy of Magical Mystery Tour and it's really good; true stereo on both sides ( almost all other pressings up through the current CDs and digitally-mastered lps are fake stereo on side 2, including the Mobile Fidelity and EMI UK pressings) and killer bass...usually the UK versions are the ones to get, but this is the exception.
 

mike_decock

Supporting Actor
Joined
May 21, 2002
Messages
621
I think the people who write off vinyl has "hissy, popping and scratchy" simply have not heard good vinyl on a good turntable. Vinyl has a sense of air and a presence that CD simply doesn't have. You just have to hear it for yourself if you don't believe it.

-Mike...
 

JerryW

Supporting Actor
Joined
Feb 7, 2001
Messages
640
I'd love to get into vinyl in a major way but there's 3 reasons why I haven't.
1.) Cost of buying my favorite albums again... and I have ALOT of "favorite" albums. Not to mention some of them being very pricey, almost $100.
2.) Cost of a nice turntable, cartridge, tonearm, & phono preamp, LP cleaner, & misc accessories. I priced out what I'd really like to have once and it was over $2000 (which is more than all my CD players and transports combined). I know I can go with cheaper gear, but I don't like the sound of cheaper gear.
3.) I'm lazy. :) I hate getting up to change sides and skip tracks. Single CD and SACD players are cool, but that's where I draw the line.
I do own an old Technics turntable with a decent cartridge (Grado Prestige Blue) plugged into the phono input on my prepro and it's ok for the "few" LPs I own (
 

JerryW

Supporting Actor
Joined
Feb 7, 2001
Messages
640
Remember, LaserDisc was analog audio matched to an optical delivery medium, until the addition of AC3 near the twilight of LaserDisc's commercial lifespan.
Blasphemy! ;) PCM on LD is awesome and destroys those crappy analog tracks. Heck, in some cases it's even better than many DD mixes I've heard.
Philip, why is it that many PCM LD tracks sound better than CDs? I have a few music LDs that sound better than their CD counterparts and they're from the same master and mix (using the same DACs on my prepro). Is it because PCM is uncompressed? Just curious.
 

Doug Pyle

Second Unit
Joined
Nov 13, 1998
Messages
386
Location
Middle of the Pacific
Real Name
Doug
I'm no fan of the digital sound of low-sampling rate CDs, especially over cheaper players lacking enhancements to compensate for the errors via sampling.

And yes, I do enjoy excellent half-speed mastered dbx-encoded vinyl on my Project/Sumiko. But then there's the other 97% of my record collection. I'd rather not hear so much vinyl, thank you very much. I am consistent in my disdain for the sound of vinyl. It grates on my nerves almost as much as the phrase "sound of vinyl" as if it's a sound anyone can love.

It has been a love/hate relationship between me and music on records since I started collecting in the 1960s. Vinyl seemed to hate me, so I never felt compelled to grant it any loyalty. When I got a decently pressed album, it held me hostage; I had to pamper it, constantly under threat that the music I loved would be murdered if I didn't treat that vinyl exactly the way it wanted. Even so, it sometimes killed the music anyway. I made many return trips, receipt in hand, to the record store in the 1970s and 80s (disproportionate among them were Atlantic records, which in vinyl times could be counted on to mess up every Yes and Led Zeppelin album).

I spent bundles on ways to get rid of the sound of vinyl in the pre-digital age: Japanese imports, half-speed mastered releases, gear to clean, restore, or preserve vinyl, & even devices to electronically suppress surface noise.

The one vinyl-related product I love most, more than any moving coil magnet, is my still-functioning dbx noise reduction machine - an add-on box married to a recording formula which boosted frequencies and/or decibels prior to pressing then reduced everything equally on playback, thereby taking vinyl noise down to nearly inaudible levels. If more vinyl were released with the dbx encoding, I'd be in there with the back-to-vinyl crowd. Unfortunately, only a few titles were ever released as dbx/half-speed mastered releases. (CSN for one, sure sounds great though.)

What I do love most about vinyl is the good old music I can still enjoy that's not available on CD (early Jeff Lorber Fusion, now-obscure old psychedelic rock bands from Europe singing about autobahns or spartacus, and so on), so I'm happy my Tascam does a great job preserving my LPs' current state of fairly-tolerable noisiness to CD-R before vinyl/diamond friction or mold destroys the music altogether.

I think the first medium I may actually learn to love as much as the music on it, could be SACD or DVD-A. I'm feeling optimistic about the future, not nostalgic for the past.
 

Roberto Carlo

Second Unit
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
445
The one vinyl-related product I love most, more than any moving coil magnet, is my still-functioning dbx noise reduction machine - an add-on box married to a recording formula which boosted frequencies and/or decibels prior to pressing then reduced everything equally on playback, thereby taking vinyl noise down to nearly inaudible levels.
Ah, you are killing me with the memories thing! I still have a 20-plus year old dbx decoder in my closet.
 

Philip Hamm

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jan 23, 1999
Messages
6,874
Philip, why is it that many PCM LD tracks sound better than CDs? I have a few music LDs that sound better than their CD counterparts and they're from the same master and mix (using the same DACs on my prepro). Is it because PCM is uncompressed? Just curious.
You may as well ask why DD on LD seems to sound better than DD on DVD. It's all in the mastering. I believe that LD PCM mastering was usually done in a very simple method, simply digitize the analog signal, no funny business. For the most part CD mastering is rife with compression (doesn't have to be massive), EQ, and other tricks that change the sound of the original master tape. You never read who did the audio mastering on the back of concert LD's. It's probably just that simple.

Roberto & Doug,

Ahh you make me think of my T-Bone Burnett EP "Trap Door". A masterful recording, one of my favorites of all time! Unfortunately, mastered terribly on 33.3 vinyl here in the USA. I went through two copies then got a mint 45rpm English import to satiate my need. Even that release sounds a little funny, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Just for fun I brought my record player to my HT room last night to test out how it sounds with my SHerwood 9080 combo thqat I got in January. This is the first time I've listened to LPs on this combo. Also, I've been converting my LPs to CD lateley and I wanted to A/B one of the recorded LPs and see what I'm missing in the process to CD.

Well, the LPs sounded great. Better than my old Onkyo 919. My copy of AJA has some pressing problems that are very annoying. My A/B of an LP with the CD I made of it was telling. I couldn't tell the difference. They both sounded great.
 

Roberto Carlo

Second Unit
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
445
Ahh you make me think of my T-Bone Burnett EP "Trap Door". A masterful recording, one of my favorites of all time! Unfortunately, mastered terribly on 33.3 vinyl here in the USA. I went through two copies then got a mint 45rpm English import to satiate my need. Even that release sounds a little funny, but it's at least a step in the right direction.
I remember it very well. I got my English import from Blue Angel, along with a German pressing of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." I hate to say this: I sold both seven or eight years ago for a fraction of what I paid for them.:frowning:
 

Ken Garrison

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jun 1, 2002
Messages
543
When I was looking through my LPs the other night when I couldn't sleep, I came acrossed The Judds. Well, I was curious, so I put that on my turntable, put the headphones on. OMG, it sounded BETTER than a CD. It was cut in 1985, so it was probably digitally mastered. But, I barely heard any surface noise. It was crystal clear. The sound was great. If I had a turntable with a better cartridge, the bass would be a little better. But it sounded good. As long as the LPs are cut with a good lathe and pressed right, they do put out a good sound. I've heard crappy records before. As long as you have good equipment to play them on, you'll get good sound.
 

mike_decock

Supporting Actor
Joined
May 21, 2002
Messages
621
OMG, it sounded BETTER than a CD.
Hehehe... You have to hear it to believe it, huh? I've found it to be so true for just about every LP that I have. I often do the A/B thing for unsuspecting friends and they always agree. The last guy I did this for put it quite well: "On the CD they took her soul away. Switch it back to the vinyl and gimme back her soul."

-Mike...
 

Ken Garrison

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jun 1, 2002
Messages
543
Ok. That's probably the wrong question. I've seen Shure cartridges rated at a 20-20,000 HZ response. What is the best frequency response an LP can get. A lot of people dis vinyl because they think the frequency response is limited.
 

Mifr44

Screenwriter
Joined
Dec 30, 2001
Messages
1,410
Real Name
Michael
I realize that this had been discussed before, but I did not see it mentioned in this thread, and that has to do with the mastering process for CDs. Nearly all of the audio CDs created in the first 10 years or so of existence were poorly mastered, most using techniques fine-tuned when mixing for LPs.

It is only in recent years that sound engineers have actually taken advantage of the CD medium itself. But even that can be a problem, since a great majority of CDs are mixed to be played in portables and automobiles and not in high resolution audio systems, sort of the cassette equivalent of LPs.

Hopefully these same sound engineers will understand that most (if not all) SACDs and DVD-As will be played in high quality audio systems and therefore should be mixed accordingly. If not, then what is the point of the higher resolution digital formats?

Michael
 

matt-f

Second Unit
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
267
Hey Scooter,
Here is the link for an optical turn table here.
http://www.elpj.com/
I actaully found this link two weeks ago when someone told me, optical LPs existed. I was always thinking there was a technology which can read a record without wearing it out and someone told me on mirc, that optical turnables were made but they are very hard to find. Well I found the link to them, took me a bit but there it is.
I've heard this kind of player is the best for playing records without a hitch when compared to a record player. Money is still high(price listed in the site) but this should be the best way to play the old records.
My father does have an old Technique's record player and have tons records 33/45 LPs (ie. Michael Jackson - Say Say Say, Werid Al Yanka Vitch - Eat It). I forgot what kind of cartriage it's using but it's high-end - forgot the brand name but it starts with an S!. Haven't used the turn able in a long time but it's just sitting there.
----
I would just keep it simple IMO about the digital/analog. Analog in it's purest form is better than digital in theory. With the factors affecting analog, then the sides tend to go for digital.
 

Mark All

Second Unit
Joined
Dec 10, 2002
Messages
256
I'd say that LPs have the potential to sound better than any other available media but also the potential to sound so far worse than CD to some people as to be unacceptable. Even after cleaning with a Nitty Gritty machine, there is still some minor surface noise on some of my LPs. For those who are bothered by the surface noise, vinyl will never be a preferred format. However, with a clean pressing of a good recording, I have to say that I prefer the sound of vinyl over CD and SACD or DVD-A. It's getting harder to find perfect copies of old LPs, but it is easy to find a few favorite recordings now that have been remastered and cut on 200 or 180 gram vinyl. One example I like to use for comparison purposes is the much hyped Norah Jones album which is available on 200 gram vinyl, hybrid-SACD, and of course CD. To me the vinyl version sounds more natural than the others. Piano and cymbals sound especially better on vinyl than any digital media because the notes have a way of sustaining naturally that somehow seems slightly off with CD which to my ears sounds too choppy. I think of this as an example of the "warmth" people sometimes say they associate with the sound of recordings on vinyl. In my view the difference between CD and vinyl is analagous to the sound differences discernable between CD and high bit rate MP3 compression. Good SACD comes very close to vinyl to my ears though and I am tending to buy a lot of SACDs now. I'm certainly not getting rid of my vinyl. :)
 

Iver

Second Unit
Joined
Sep 23, 2002
Messages
324
According to the CEA, manufacturers shipped about 200,000 hi-rez audio players to dealers in the first half of 2003.

In the same time period, turntables easily surpassed that figure, breaking through the 600,000 mark.

My vote for LP's Best Quality: dynamic range. Specs may say it's inferior, but real-world listening indicates otherwise.

Bob L: interesting, thoughtful post on the wax cylinder.
 

Rachael B

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2000
Messages
4,740
Location
Knocksville, TN
Real Name
Rachael Bellomy
Iver, do you think those turntable sales partly reflect some people rebelling against the price of new music? Or, boycotting the big fives new stuff? Used records can be obtained so very, very cheaply sometimes. I've bought decent records at yardsales for as little as a quarter apiece. At my fav used record store I can get decent condition records for $4 or less for many titles,, of course some are more...
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,815
Messages
5,123,853
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top