Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
I don't think anyone who prefers vinyl would argue that, for example,
dynamic range and S/N of CD is potential better (although I prefer
different).

You may prefer different, but what's wrong with just plain old 'better'?
Unless, of course, you actually enjoy surface noise.


You probably know the answer - I am not technically able to correlate
S/N (or whatever) with better sound. I just give it all a darned good
listen.

There is no proof, BTW, that CD is better than vinyl in
absolute terms.

Anyone who produced an amplifier with distortion anywhere near that
inherent with vinyl would be laughed out of court. Although some here seem
to be getting close with their SET fetish). So why put up with it as a
source?


I simply don't know. It's just that i find some things inherently
'right' about vinyl, and 'wrong' about CD. That's not to say I don't
listen to digital sources - in fact i listen to far more digital than
analogue. But on an evening, listening to music after work say, I will
more often than not end with a record.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
I haven't noticed many remarks that state in absolute terms that 'vinyl
is better than CD'. I read most of the remarks as 'I prefer the sound
produced from vinyl'. So perhaps it isn't quite as simple as you pair
believe ... :-)
Just look at this from our resident ayatollah - Mr G...

From: Keith G
Subject: Vinyl to CD on a PC
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:10
Newsgroups: uk.rec.audio

Try all it likes, CD will never beat a good LP for a sense of
*realism*.....


Mmm. I think you misunderstand. That statement doesn't say anything
close to 'vinyl is better than CD' in absolute terms. Perhaps you do
understand, but you can find a better example?

Contrary to what some may believe, measurements to me are just a useful
tool to analyse why and where. At the end of the day, though, with
acoustic music - or speech - I want realism. Which vinyl simply can't come
close to in comparison to good digital.


And that really is good enough for me on this subject.

But for one thing :-) Are you sure your empirical certainties don't
cloud your judgement here?

I'm not trying to be a superior git here btw - I'm pretty sure I have
certain baggage that affects my opinions. And I'm not forgetting your
professional experience.

On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:07:10 +0000, Rob
wrote:

I took the TT round to his house, and we plugged it in to check it
worked, nothing more. I thought it sounded fine. He's not a hifi nut,
but has a half decent amp/speakers (Technics/KEF). He, on the other
hand, shifted about quite uneasily. He didn't say anything to me on the
day, but over the next few weeks started to ask me about 'his' LPs - how
were they doing, that type of thing.

Did his wife/boyfriend/dog make any unsolicited comment when entering
the room, by any chance? :-)

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:07:10 +0000, Rob
wrote:

I took the TT round to his house, and we plugged it in to check it
worked, nothing more. I thought it sounded fine. He's not a hifi nut,
but has a half decent amp/speakers (Technics/KEF). He, on the other
hand, shifted about quite uneasily. He didn't say anything to me on the
day, but over the next few weeks started to ask me about 'his' LPs - how
were they doing, that type of thing.

Did his wife/boyfriend/dog make any unsolicited comment when entering
the room, by any chance? :-)

A critical variable by any account :-)

But on this occasion, no.

On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 09:28:30 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Mr.T" MrT@home wrote in message

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Serge Auckland" wrote ...

I have deliberately avoided the argument as to whether even 16bit is
excessive for vinyl.........

Didn't think there was any argument? Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in
excess of 16 bits?

Of course not! Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in excess of 14 bits?

Make that 12 bits, and you still have a tough question for the vinyl
bigots to answer.

One of the things I have been wondering about for some time is as follows:

It is straightforwards to work out the channel capacity of an analog
channel where the noise level and peak level vary with frequency in a
definable manner. So that could be used to work out a capacity value for LP
systems. However this essentially ignores any effect of nonlinear
distortion on capacity below the defined peak limit value.

I haven't seen a treatment which analyses the capacity of a channel where
nonlinear distortion rises with signal level and may represent the
practical limit. i.e. not seen a treatment of how distortion affects
channel information capacity.

Anyone know if this has been done, and can suggest a reference?

Slainte,

Jim

For interest, here is the power histogram of one of my recordings of
an organ. The spread of dynamics is quite clear. The entire first half
of the piece is played pianississimo, and frankly the audience
shuffling about is louder than much of it. I can only really listen to
it during the day when the neighbours are out, because if I turn it up
enough for the first half to be properly audible, the walls start
bulging in the second half and I would not be popular. I would venture
to suggest that it would be quite impossible to reproduce this on
vinyl without a serious amount of level compression. On CD, of course,
it is a breeze.

http://81.174.169.10/odds/organ.gif

d


--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

In article ,
Don Pearce wrote:

For interest, here is the power histogram of one of my recordings of
an organ. The spread of dynamics is quite clear. The entire first half
of the piece is played pianississimo, and frankly the audience
shuffling about is louder than much of it. I can only really listen to
it during the day when the neighbours are out, because if I turn it up
enough for the first half to be properly audible, the walls start
bulging in the second half and I would not be popular.

#chuckle#

I remember reading someone's suggestion, a few years ago, that the
next digital-audio standard really should use 32-bit fixed-point
format, at a sampling rate of 192 kHz, just to make *sure* that it had
enough dynamic range.

It was pointed out that a physical playback system making use of this
much range was a trifle impractical. IIRC, if the system were
adjusted so that the least significant bit were *just* at the human
ear's threshold of audibility in a perfectly quiet room (and this
isn't very far at all above the noise level set by random thermal
motion of the air molecules), then a full-scale signal for a second or
so would release enough energy to vaporize every building for several
blocks :-)

I would venture
to suggest that it would be quite impossible to reproduce this on
vinyl without a serious amount of level compression. On CD, of course,
it is a breeze.

Looks as if you didn't have too much room between the pianississimo
and the dither!

Quite impressive... and I agree that an LP would have needed a
significant amount of gain-riding during mastering in order to make a
reasonable reproduction of this performance.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Rob wrote:
I haven't noticed many remarks that state in absolute terms that 'vinyl
is better than CD'. I read most of the remarks as 'I prefer the sound
produced from vinyl'. So perhaps it isn't quite as simple as you pair
believe ... :-)

Just look at this from our resident ayatollah - Mr G...

From: Keith G
Subject: Vinyl to CD on a PC
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:10
Newsgroups: uk.rec.audio

Try all it likes, CD will never beat a good LP for a sense of
*realism*.....


Mmm. I think you misunderstand. That statement doesn't say anything
close to 'vinyl is better than CD' in absolute terms. Perhaps you do
understand, but you can find a better example?

Contrary to what some may believe, measurements to me are just a useful
tool to analyse why and where. At the end of the day, though, with
acoustic music - or speech - I want realism. Which vinyl simply can't come
close to in comparison to good digital.


And yet you have never done a bias controled listening test using SOTA
lp playback gear and SOTA vinyl to verify this claim.


Scott

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006 09:28:30 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Mr.T" MrT@home wrote in message

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Serge Auckland" wrote ...

I have deliberately avoided the argument as to whether even 16bit is
excessive for vinyl.........

Didn't think there was any argument? Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in
excess of 16 bits?

Of course not! Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in excess of 14 bits?

Make that 12 bits, and you still have a tough question for the vinyl
bigots to answer.

One of the things I have been wondering about for some time is as follows:

It is straightforwards to work out the channel capacity of an analog
channel where the noise level and peak level vary with frequency in a
definable manner. So that could be used to work out a capacity value for LP
systems. However this essentially ignores any effect of nonlinear
distortion on capacity below the defined peak limit value.

I haven't seen a treatment which analyses the capacity of a channel where
nonlinear distortion rises with signal level and may represent the
practical limit. i.e. not seen a treatment of how distortion affects
channel information capacity.

Anyone know if this has been done, and can suggest a reference?

Slainte,

Jim

For interest, here is the power histogram of one of my recordings of
an organ. The spread of dynamics is quite clear. The entire first half
of the piece is played pianississimo, and frankly the audience
shuffling about is louder than much of it. I can only really listen to
it during the day when the neighbours are out, because if I turn it up
enough for the first half to be properly audible, the walls start
bulging in the second half and I would not be popular. I would venture
to suggest that it would be quite impossible to reproduce this on
vinyl without a serious amount of level compression. On CD, of course,
it is a breeze.

You have ventured to say a lot of stupid things about vinyl so this
comes as no surprise. OTOH you could have checked out some of the
Virgil Fox Organ recordings on D2D using a real high end rig and see
for yourself.

Scott

On 29 Oct 2006 12:05:50 -0800, wrote:

For interest, here is the power histogram of one of my recordings of
an organ. The spread of dynamics is quite clear. The entire first half
of the piece is played pianississimo, and frankly the audience
shuffling about is louder than much of it. I can only really listen to
it during the day when the neighbours are out, because if I turn it up
enough for the first half to be properly audible, the walls start
bulging in the second half and I would not be popular. I would venture
to suggest that it would be quite impossible to reproduce this on
vinyl without a serious amount of level compression. On CD, of course,
it is a breeze.

You have ventured to say a lot of stupid things about vinyl so this
comes as no surprise. OTOH you could have checked out some of the
Virgil Fox Organ recordings on D2D using a real high end rig and see
for yourself.

Scott

Sorry, this wasn't intended for you. I posted it for the interest of
people who understand its significance.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

wrote:
Mr.T wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
Didn't think there was any argument?
Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in excess of 16 bits?

Of course not!
Is ANY vinyl capable of SNR in excess of 14 bits?

Make that 12 bits, and you still have a tough question for the
vinyl bigots to answer.

Sure, but then your starting to get into the area of debate rather
than a slam dunk.
Now if we start talking about the *average* pressing of the vinyl
era, 10 bits would be overkill :-(


If we are talking about actual commercial CDs few of todays releases
have more then 20db dynamic range.

But that is a 'production choice' , not a limitation inherent of the media.

geoff