[rsjean]

I’m sorry, not to be rude but I think there is a whole lot of misguided misinformation being misunderstood here.

Originally Posted by plasar

Of course, the bottom line is whatever sounds best to you is the way to go. I'm sure we can all agree to that.

While I guess we can agree that you should buy what ever floats your boat – indicating that it is ‘the way to go’ may be a bit much. There are absolutes that cannot be dismissed. And having advised folks for many years, I have seen all too many cases where, as the ear gets educated, the compromised ‘way to go’ decision made becomes very dissatisfying down the road. Additionally a strong dissatisfier in audio systems is a factor called ‘long term listener fatigue’. It is caused by known flaws in the ‘way to go’ systems. Odd Order Harmonic Distortion being a very key factor among many, many others.

Originally Posted by plasar

However, I'll go even further - there is no way that one can maintain that a vinyl record is a better copy of the live or studio performance than a CD.


Firstly, the dynamic range, frequency response, and stereo separation of vinyl is so limited compared to a CD that it is laughable... and audible.

Uh, hello… it is a pretty standard assumption in the audiophile world that vinyl is WORLDS better than CD. The ONLY thing a CD does better that you have listed is separation. Unfortunately it is capable of better separation than a real acoustic environment is – rendering that ability useless in the world of real music.

Originally Posted by plasar

Next, the number of audio tricks applied just to get the sound in and out of the grooves of a record - RIAA equalization/de-equalization, de-essing, and many more - are indefensible if one contends that vinyl maintains the integrity of the original recording. These are supposedly accurately undone at playback? Is there any error correction? No way.

The TRICKS to which you refer are done at the recording end of the process. They are present whether the playback end is digital (CD) or analogue (vinyl). Really doesn’t apply in a comparison between the two mediums. And the side-chain compression or broadband de-essing you refer to is just high frequency suppresion for the human voice sibilence that is done in most recording studios.

Originally Posted by plasar

Finally, what's the amount of color added by a sharp, weighted stylus surfing a spinning groove, wearing it down with each turn? Can we say "snap, crackle, pop, warble"? Accuracy? Adjustments?

The ‘color’ you attribute to vinyl pales in comparison to the ‘color’ from a medium that cannot even reproduce a sine wave – a fundamental coefficient of sound reproduction. The codecs used in CD can only recreate a stepladder facsimile of an acoustic sine wave. The missing parts must be interpolated and synthesized out of redundant information. If you do the math computing the sampling rate of a standard CD against the 44.1kHz standard for the medium you will see that when it reaches it’s high frequency cut-off point or maximum, it does not roll off – it drops off at a 90 degree angle a + value to a 0 value in an instant. No natural acoustic instrument does than. It destroys the timbre and the Even Order Harmonics (the natural and good ones) that define the subtleties of music and instruments. And of course this sampling rate itself was selected as a compromise by the then Chairman of Sony Akio Morita who was reacting to his personal friend and Berlin Philharmonic conductor Herbert von Karajan’s insistence that a typical symphony must be able to fit on one side of a CD disc. More musical depth and fidelity would have required more data and hence exceeded the capacity of the CD storage medium. A commercial compromise over acoustic accuracy from the outset.

Originally Posted by plasar

The humble CD gets you to 16-bit, error-corrected, no noise added perfection of the original master recording.

The bit depth to which you refer really only controls noise floor and headroom. That’s what makes CD’s sound so ‘clean’. Not musical or accurate mind you, just ‘clean’.

Originally Posted by plasar

It was clear since I heard it for the first time in college in 1983 (CD released 1982), to when I bought a first generation Sony DiscMan D50, to my current Macintosh iTunes lossless files/digital out/McIntosh AV/McIntosh amp/B&W speakers/Sunfire subwoofer system, that CD sounds much better than anything that came before it.

So, just maybe, if you are listening to a single violin, at a low volume, for that first spin of the virgin vinyl from the pressing plant, on a $5,000 granite turntable, it may sound really great. (And I might contend it's the "color" added by the analog process that you really like...)

But add to that some low frequencies (organ pedal, Moog, kettle drum, Tama kit), some high frequencies, some voice, some dynamic range, a wide stereo sound stage, etc., and I bet anyone could tell which sounded closer to the original performance.

I really don’t disparage you for really enjoying what you’ve listened to. And if your tastes have remained stable and consistent for many years – all the better. However it is the ‘color’ you have decided to cast as a bad thing, that makes a Stradivarius sound different from a Kay rental you’d get your kits in 6th grade to be in the school orchestra. And the Sunfire Subs from dear old Bob carver are more suited to brutal earth shaking home theater LFE channels than too real music. That’s why they have never really been embraced in the audiophile world. Don’t get me wrong, I have 6 of them in my home theater. Bit that system is not my serous music listening vehicle. None-the-less, if there were more folks who cared as much as you, we might have more readily available and affordable music reproduction devices around today than the ipod, mpeg3, aac crap everyone’s got plugged into their ears today.