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  #16  
Old 09-16-2021, 01:31 PM
Tom60 Tom60 is offline
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I absolutely can tell the difference between analog/analog vinyl, and MP3 digital. MP3's are nasty and flat in comparison. But there haven't been widespread creation of pure analog recordings (analog tape to analog master to vinyl) since digital mastering became common, maybe in the 1980's.

Vinyl recordings from current digital masters are not all that special, I wouldn't buy one, I'd buy the CD.

This is exactly what I had in mind when I started my thread about old vinyl appreciation.

And you are also right about the timeline - first digital recording/mastering came about by the end of 70s..

To me, the pinnacle of analog recording, and mixing/production is Sade´s first albums... there´s nothing like that IMO
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  #17  
Old 09-16-2021, 06:25 PM
PeterM PeterM is offline
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Sheffield labs pressings.

Try Thelma Houston, I've Got the Music in Me.

The CD sucked the life out of it big time.
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  #18  
Old 09-16-2021, 06:46 PM
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Sheffield labs pressings.

Try Thelma Houston, I've Got the Music in Me.

The CD sucked the life out of it big time.
Sheffield Labs which produced that album in the mid 1970's also has been for some time producing and selling CDs and swears by their audio quality. Digital (like most things) depends on when, where, and who.
I have for example the Sheffield Lab Test CD from 2011 - has extremely nice audio on it.
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  #19  
Old 09-16-2021, 07:42 PM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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... there haven't been widespread creation of pure analog recordings (analog tape to analog master to vinyl) since digital mastering became common, maybe in the 1980's...
In the early 80s it became common to cut lacquers for LPs by running the master analog tape through a digital delay to the cutter head, while the actual analog audio only went to the preview circuitry. So your supposedly all-analog vinyl actually wasn't. And after the first run of lacquers for a release, the masters were dubbed to Sony 1610 or 1630 digital cassettes, and any lacquers for subsequent pressings were made from those.
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  #20  
Old 09-25-2021, 03:36 AM
Howard Emerson Howard Emerson is offline
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Sheffield labs pressings.

Try Thelma Houston, I've Got the Music in Me.

The CD sucked the life out of it big time.
Jim Gordon & Jim Keltner on drums.

What's not to love?

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  #21  
Old 09-25-2021, 07:06 AM
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Brent Hutto Brent Hutto is offline
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At one point in time I thought I could hear all sorts of subtle differences in high-end audio gear. And some of the earliest CD releases were pretty dreadfully mastered and sound harsh and awful. But after a few years the industry figured out how to make a digital recording and release it on CD that sounded fine.

Then the MP3 era came along and I was totally convinced I could hear a different in audiophile lossless formats versus "compressed" lossy stuff. That lasted until I put together a great trouble and not inconsiderable expense a very high-end setup for doing A/B/X tests with very neutral DAC's, a good headphone amp and a few hundred dollar headphone.

It was absolutely shocking how far down I could squeeze the bit rate on an MP3 or AAC or other lossy format before the lossy track became distinguishable (in a blind test) from the original lossless encoding. Even with extremely well recorded and mastered digital source material.

Depending on the type of music sometimes as low as 96kbps bit rate would still fool me into not being able to guess which was which. I can't remember the particular format that worked best (maybe Vorbis?) but there was no source material I could find where a 256kbps lossy file sounded different than uncompressed whether MP3 or whatever. And the best encoder seemed "perfect" at 192kbps.

It was disappointing partly because I could not hear what I thought I was hearing and partly because at the end of the day you hate to have spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours finding a "no difference" result. But there it was.
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  #22  
Old 09-25-2021, 09:11 AM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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I have a long standing sentimental connection with analog/vinyl recordings being a child of the 60's. I doubt at this point, anything would ever eclipse that even though I've made a career out of working with digital audio. When I listen to Sgt Pepper's on vinyl it's just a completely different vibe. It's emotional. Whether it's "better" audio or not is not really part of the equation for me.
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  #23  
Old 09-25-2021, 02:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent Hahn View Post
In the early 80s it became common to cut lacquers for LPs by running the master analog tape through a digital delay to the cutter head, while the actual analog audio only went to the preview circuitry. So your supposedly all-analog vinyl actually wasn't. And after the first run of lacquers for a release, the masters were dubbed to Sony 1610 or 1630 digital cassettes, and any lacquers for subsequent pressings were made from those.

Preach it.. glad to hear from someone who really knows

Even with my limited knowledge - All analog was finished by 1983/4

And you can hear it... or you can´t
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  #24  
Old 10-03-2021, 12:24 AM
Jumbo123 Jumbo123 is offline
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For me it's always been the quality of the singing, the quality of the composition, the quality of the playing ---- and everything else comes a long, long, long distant second.
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  #25  
Old 10-03-2021, 04:02 AM
steveh steveh is offline
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My Linn LP12, Lingo, Naim ARO, Klyde was bettered by a Raspberry Pi3 and Alloo DigiOne hat streaming AIFF files. End of.

Many many thousands vs. a few hundred dollars.

As others have said, nostalgia and/or distortion.

Cheers,
Steve
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  #26  
Old 10-03-2021, 03:50 PM
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Y'all know what they have to do to the signal to get it on vinyl and still be playable? The compression. RIAA EQ curve. Even the fact that the inner grooves have to hold more info in a given length due to fixed rotational speed so you actually lose quality on the later tracks on a side? The signal on a vinyl album doesn't have any more "fidelity" to the original than digital.

Yeah, bad digital sounds like crap, and there were plenty of early CDs that sounded bad before they figured things out. Likewise, low-bitrate, lossy mp3s can suck. But I'm with Brent Hutto. Get a player with good DACs (and most are good enough these days) and do a real blind ABX test, and I think you'll find that with high bitrate digital, even lossy, you won't be able to tell the difference.

I take that back--with some music, you might... because the digital can have a *greater* dynamic range than you can put on vinyl.
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  #27  
Old 10-05-2021, 01:55 PM
PeterM PeterM is offline
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Don't forgot that any quality "affordable" CD players did not come along until the mid to late 90's.
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  #28  
Old 10-05-2021, 02:16 PM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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Sadly, I don't recall what a record sounds like because I've been listening to digital music for so long.

Coincidentally, I unpacked a bunch of my records from the 80s and hung the album covers in my guitar room. I don't have a record player to play them to compare them to the CDs that replaced them though.
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  #29  
Old 10-05-2021, 02:26 PM
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I wonder if the Greatest Generation used to crow about how wax-cylinders were superior to vinyl?

I think it comes down to “beauty is in the ear of the beholder”. Or beer holder?
I do enjoy spinning vinyl, pops, hiss, and skips.
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  #30  
Old 10-05-2021, 06:18 PM
PeterM PeterM is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dnf777 View Post
I wonder if the Greatest Generation used to crow about how wax-cylinders were superior to vinyl?

I think it comes down to “beauty is in the ear of the beholder”. Or beer holder?
I do enjoy spinning vinyl, pops, hiss, and skips.


I think Bart Simpson said something like that...
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