ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Well bless my soul!, it's (not quite so) young Alex!! How the devil are you?
Ban boring signatures!
@Killyp
"If you want to hear it the way the mastering engineer (and mix engineer) both want their release to be heard, the reality is Vinyl is most probably the best option with the way the industry is releasing material at the moment."
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
Puncher:Well bless my soul!, it's (not quite so) young Alex!! How the devil are you? Ban boring signatures!
BeoNut since '75
interesting side note.
I read that NASA searches eBay for floppy disc drives so they can read important archived data and the BBC are trying to source D3 players as they have no means to read some of their archived information due to these readers becoming obsolete.
If these two technical bastions are having fun keeping up with the speed we change storage formats do we need to start looking at becoming future proof whilst driving technology forwards ?
we tend to forget there is more to design than designing.
Puncher: Well bless my soul!, it's (not quite so) young Alex!! How the devil are you?
elephant: Yes great to hear from you !
Yes great to hear from you !
Very well thank you - incredibly busy making music which is why this particular topic is important to me!
I see things have changed around here - looks like B&O needs some more statements in their sound system portfolio - come on! My Beosystem 7000 is more exciting than what I see on offer at the moment! Great that Geoff is here though - all manufacturers need proxies like him who actually understand what goes into their technology.
Going back to the debate of the sonic qualities of vinyl, I would be interested to know if anybody out there has done a comparison of the same music on CD vs Vinyl?
It should be said that we're slightly comparing Apples with Oranges here by the way - Vinyl can be digitised and put onto CD with very, very little degradation of sound and still reap the benefits of the superior masters often pressed to Vinyl. I've been digitising a lot of my records at 48khz/24bit (the absolute most you would possibly need for domestic playback on even the most high quality sound system IMO!).
Digitising Vinyl can somewhat take the fun out of it though. I still listen to the records over the digitised versions!
Fantastic and educational post from 'Killyp' clearly showing the differences between formats. Many thanks.
Dave.
Killyp: It should be said that we're slightly comparing Apples with Oranges here by the way - Vinyl can be digitised and put onto CD with very, very little degradation of sound and still reap the benefits of the superior masters often pressed to Vinyl. I've been digitising a lot of my records at 48khz/24bit (the absolute most you would possibly need for domestic playback on even the most high quality sound system IMO!). Digitising Vinyl can somewhat take the fun out of it though. I still listen to the records over the digitised versions!
So are you saying: you like the flavour which vinyl creates?
Dave Farr: Fantastic and educational post from 'Killyp' clearly showing the differences between formats. Many thanks. Dave.
Carolpa: So are you saying: you like the flavour which vinyl creates?
I'm saying I prefer the masters which go down onto vinyl. Remember the music production process goes like this (from an engineer's point of view):
Tracking - where the musicians and musical parts are recorded in a studio, microphones, preamps, EQs, compression
Mixing - where the individual elements, microphone feeds etc of the recording are manipulated to sit together as a piece of music
Mastering - where the finished mix (which is just a left and right audio signal by now) is prepared for the delivery medium
Increasingly, mixes are being modified quite heavily in the mastering stage, whether it's increasing the treble a little, or rolling-off some bass. Often the midrange frequencies are increased in 'key areas' where our ears perceive volume or loudness to the most sensitive degree. Lastly, in mastering the overall volume of the mixes are increased (usually) and a limiter is used to chop-off any excessive 'overs' (or spikes/peaks in the level).
This is being completely abused on an unbelievable level in the industry at the moment. It seems like you simply cannot buy a CD nowadays which hasn't been obliterated in the mastering stage.
It is this problem that Vinyl doesn't seem to be suffering from in general at the moment.
That doesn't mean they all sound great by the way, there are so many variables and steps of the process which lead up to a good Vinyl pressing, something often goes wrong somewhere along the way and as quality control certainly seems to have gone down the pan lately (so I've been told), there are a lot of really bad sounding pressings making it out to the listener. Two copies of the same album sat next to each other on the shelf in the record shop often won't sound exactly the same!
The way I see it with vinyl, you run the risk of picking up a bad pressing - I'd say 1 in 3 records I buy have problems, and I often send them back and ask for a different copy.
With CD, you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to be compressed and limited to hell to the point where I don't see why you'd ever bother with these releases on a good sound system.
Nice to see you dropping in Alex. I think we agree in essence - CD is a more stable and essentially superior medium ruined at times by the fashion for loud and over recorded music. If allowed to show the dynamic range it is capable of, CD can sound and indeed does sound wonderful. Unfortunately, all recorded media is at the mercy of the engineer and his instructions! Classical recordings seemed to be less affected than more modern music in my experience.
Hope the music is going well - have you a website?
Peter
Yes CD can sound incredible when done properly, especially through a good quality DAC (which is one area of audio I still don't understand - they all measure quite similarly, yet they sound so different! Why?)
I do have a website although often wonder if it's currently doing more of an injustice to my work than I'd want it to! It's out-of-date and desperate for a re-think!
http://www.alexkillpartrick.co.uk/
Killyp: Yes CD can sound incredible when done properly, especially through a good quality DAC (which is one area of audio I still don't understand - they all measure quite similarly, yet they sound so different! Why?) I do have a website although often wonder if it's currently doing more of an injustice to my work than I'd want it to! It's out-of-date and desperate for a re-think! http://www.alexkillpartrick.co.uk/
I did a lot of controlled testing of DACs some years ago. The differences between them are not really there for competently designed ones (now there are some tweak audiophile ones that follow insane design ideas that are sonically defective!). Once you level matched their outputs, and even single blinded the test the differences that sounded so obvious went away.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
Puncher: I'm with Peter. I suspect the vinyl thing is nought but a fashion. edit: This is either a double post or else the stylus skipped!!
I'm with Peter.
I suspect the vinyl thing is nought but a fashion.
edit: This is either a double post or else the stylus skipped!!
You mean to say hipster?
Too long to list....
Millemissen: If you could only get the same 'young people' to listen to (well recorded/lossless) 'digital' music over the same descent loudspeakers or headphones, I am sure they would ditch the vinyl. MM
If you could only get the same 'young people' to listen to (well recorded/lossless) 'digital' music over the same descent loudspeakers or headphones, I am sure they would ditch the vinyl.
You're probably right!