The hidden value of analog

[captaincranky]

In my google tab heading this article's title shows "the hidden value of anal"!! had a bit of a panic cause my kids are around and didn't want them to think I'm watching something I shouldn't be watching!!!!!

lol sorry just had to share that!

So then I take it you're just going to let them find out on their own?

(Sorry, I found myself manifestly obligated to share that)...

 

[YSignal]

I started my collection just after the format died and have been collecting ever since. I even have new hard to find titles that I haven't even opened yet. I have a Pioneer Elite CLD-99 player hooked up to an iScanDuo scalar to upconvert the image over HDMI. Looks amazing, and I don't think I'll ever quite collecting Laserdiscs.

I snagged a Mitsubishi M-V7057 (cld-d704 clone) on ebay for a good price as the seller only tested cds on it. I was expecting it to need work, but it works just fine. Bought some new belts for it just in case.
Got it hooked up to a 2004 27" trinitron. Hard to believe how good some discs look (Robocop Criterion for example)

 

[captaincranky]

....[ ]....Got it hooked up to a 2004 27" trinitron. Hard to believe how good some discs look (Robocop Criterion for example)

A 2004 640 x 480 Sony TV looks great? Just keep telling yourself that....

 

[DelJo63]

sorry, but I must disagree. There is no wear in digital, there is in vinyl.

Can't argue that point -- it's true. I was noting the fidelity to the full auto range can not be duplicated on CDs and thus the true audiophile opts for fidelity.

 

[NightAntilli]

I wonder how many people that claim that vinyl sounds so good, actually listened to a vinyl and the same tracks in digital format side by side.
Even though vinyl can sound pleasant, it really comes from the "flat" dynamic range it has, making it sound 'warm', which is what a lot of people like. But digital retains a lot more detail, and those details are never lost. Add in the dust & erosion issues, and it's quite clear that digital storage is the way to go. All you need is a good enough DAC to experience sound that is extremely more detailed than analog will ever be.

 

[Chilkoot XXIV]

I have vinyl records. But for the collection mainly, I don't listen to them anymore. I prefer digital still. I know vinyl has the range but wav. files are good for me. I don't do vinyl anymore because of the hiss, cracks and pops. They don't record music with hiss, so why listen to hiss

Just wait until Laserdiscs make a comeback!
I've got 12 inches of disc for you!!

At my age, the advantage of analog is that I have to get up and turn the record over. To throw in an unsolicited comment, a lot of the music from ancient times (1950's and 60's) – I always thought that hiss, crack, and pop was part of the music. Also, have you ever tried listening to music on AM radio? Really bad, especially when the volume was turned waaaay up because the windows were down, the muffler was holey, and the other seven people in the car were all talking. By the way, the CDs will last only about 100 years, or is that 1000? Another also: What's the video quality on the laser disk?

 

[captaincranky]

@Chilkoot XXIV First and foremost, please fix your post to get what you've said, OUTSIDE of the quote box

At my age, the advantage of analog is that I have to get up and turn the record over.

Good point, but assuming you're using CDs in a single disc player, the same thing is true also.

To throw in an unsolicited comment, a lot of the music from ancient times (1950's and 60's) – I always thought that hiss, crack, and pop was part of the music.

As did most people. In fact, when the Dolby process was first introduced, many people missed what they assumed to be high frequency MUSICAL information, after the tape hiss of the studio recorders was removed. That effect falls under a branch of audio technology dubbed,"psycho- acoustics".

Also, have you ever tried listening to music on AM radio? Really bad, especially when the volume was turned waaaay up because the windows were down, the muffler was holey, and the other seven people in the car were all talking.

You're, (mostly), describing "acoustic masking", which is at its most basic, using a loud sound, to drown out a softer one.

As for AM radio itself, the carrier wave (channel) is simply widened and narrowed, (but the base frequency isn't changed), and the receiver interpolates the width differential into audio frequencies

What's the video quality on the laser disk?

Is that a trick question? Assuming the disc in in the original named format's resolution of 640 x 480 lines (480i), it can only be as good as your standard definition TV. The only actual "improvement" which could be made, is through the use of digital "upscaling", the same as is used on DVDs.

Which brings us to this; technically we still use "laser discs", but now we call them "DVD" and "Blu-Ray". These little 5" diameter parcels of information multiply like "Tribbles" as it is, why on earth would you want to stuff your home full of a collection of their massively oversized big brothers?

 

[YSignal]

A 2004 640 x 480 Sony TV looks great? Just keep telling yourself that....

Yeah it does. Problem?

 

[Squid Surprise]

Yeah it does. Problem?

I agree... they were really shiny.... but the actual screen looks like crap for today's standards... Once you go HD (or QHD), there is no going back... go buy an 8-track player so you can listen to some music while you watch TV...

 

[mgwerner]

Analogue remains the favorite of true music lovers. It's renewed popularity is confirmed by one disk pressing house in Nashville that has doubled in size in just two years and further significant growth projected. Just keep an eye on the development and sale of record turn tables .... that will REALLY tell the tale!

That would seem to be more of a reflection of availability of disposable income than musical preference. Economy of scale (and lack of physical delivery medium in many cases) will keep digital cheaper than analogue. Throw in an economy that tightens disposable income, and you'll see that Nashville pressing house close down.

This is why you do not see vinyl in the developing world.

 

[Dustyn]

Laserdisc is CLOSE to DVD quality. At least when DVDs initially came out as they were overly compressed and many were double sided. Audio quality was superior in every way over DVD. PCM, AC3-RF and DTS audio up to 6.1 Digital Surround Sound! Amazing for it's time and the audio was uncompressed, whereas DVDs had it's audio compressed. Sound could be 100% digital on a Laserdisc, along with standard analog audio.

 

[Phr3d]

@Crank - respectfully offer that every attack you have made upon photography 'enthusiasts' here could come back in force given your knowledge of audio. Your audio 'enthusiast' responses are pretty funny.

Sound is analog. The brain converts that analog to binary. CD (WAV) compression did its best to mimic what the brain does, but the disc size and consumer needs dictated that we would Need to make trade-offs to Mostly deliver the analog experience through digitization. Phillips / Sony et al did a pretty damned good job with their compromise but No One would argue that more bits via a larger disc would be closer to the original (and therefore closer to what the brain does). Cost and the average human's ability to tell the difference was key, NOT that digital Could ever be the Equal of analog.

As has been well described here, the physical advantages of digital simply out-weigh the audible advantages of analog, therefore digital wins. But the differences in a person's experience and memory of a particular song are Definite, and if it bothers a person enough (like lenses, film, Talent) that person goes and fires up the tube amp, the Fine-quality turntable (a Mechanical device that still functions 3 decades later, what a concept), Disc Washer's that disc and enjoys it in a way that digital cannot provide. Not nostalgia as some youthful might convince themselves, in a painfully recognizable and now familiar pattern.

Like so Many things, the media coverage of the reasons that cause people to pursue a thing (analog music, in this case) is always, and necessarily, limited, and that can lead to reactions vs the reality -- if you can tell the difference between a talented Film-photograph and its digital equivalent, No Amount of Expert Reviews is going to convince you that they are Exactly The Same. ez-pz, depends on your 'experience'. Mine is in audio. (FWIW, vinyl and tape had necessary compromises too, live is the Only way, lol)

 

[captaincranky]

Like so Many things, the media coverage of the reasons that cause people to pursue a thing (analog music, in this case) is always, and necessarily, limited, and that can lead to reactions vs the reality -- if you can tell the difference between a talented Film-photograph and its digital equivalent, No Amount of Expert Reviews is going to convince you that they are Exactly The Same. ez-pz, depends on your 'experience'. Mine is in audio. (FWIW, vinyl and tape had necessary compromises too, live is the Only way, lol)

Well, it just so happens my daddy was a TV repairman, I worked as a stereo salesman for a good number of years, and have had almost every type of piece of audio equipment in my home at one time or another. I'm 68. So respectfully, spare me the lecture on how things were, I've been there and done that.

When dealing with tube amps in a "high fidelity" environment, they've simply don't have enough damping factor to control cone overshoot in a large diameter woofer.

When dealing with tracking force of a stereo cartridge, even a fine, (tracks effectively @ 1 gram), specimen like the (now, still? discontinued), Shure "V15 Type 3", puts thousands of pounds of pressure on the record surface. I think it's jokingly referred to "high heel effect", whereas a 90 pound woman can put deep dents in a linoleum floor while wearing those darned uncomfortable contraptions. (And yes, I am old enough to remember the beauty of 90 pound women, unlike the 290 pound behemoths which exist today).

The plastics of today are much improved beyond those of the 50's and 60's. With that said, the stylus still distorts the grooves as it passes, and hopefully the newer materials have a better ability to return to their original shape after the playing experience.

And now we come to, "harmonic distortion". What the average uninformed, consumer or audiophile doesn't understand, is that it's pleasant to the human ear. In fact, tube amps are much preferred in making music because of that very fact. I've always thought it a major irony, that "true high fidelity reproduction" needs a perfectly clean amp, to reproduce all the junk harmonics the average guitar amp is outputting.

OTOH, "inter modulation distortion" is quite unpleasant. That occurs when you play certain musical intervals together, and odd order ("off key") harmonics are produced. So, metal players, ( and other) don't play chords with a third, but rather "power chords", containing only the 1st (root) & 5th of the scale. The average listener can't even determine when an amp is "clipping".

Now, as I mentioned before I had a pair of JBL D-130's in 5 CF cabinets in my shabby little 14 ' living room. Since somebody suggested "those all in ones" weren't any good", and you needed a. "woofer. midrange, and a tweeter for good sound reproduction", I feel obligated to mention those are sold in a 2 way system, with an 075 "ring radiator" for the top end. If you're interested in audio trivia, those tweeters used to be used as ultrasonic stop light triggers, until "audiophiles" figured it out, and started stealing them for the home stereo.

With a system sensitivity 105 db @ 1 watt @ 1 meter, I can tell you all about noise, and which piece of equipment puts it out. Those speakers are like "putting a microscope on an audio line".

Drifting back to music for a moment, many "purist musicians" can tell you how good a guitar sounds by the name on the head stock, and also its country of origin.

I think they're delusional. But what do I know? I so very obviously know nothing about music or audio equipment, and should stick to cameras. Good chat! (y)

CODA: BTW vinyl records are pressed from metal masters, which can, and do, wear out.

 

[Phr3d]

I think they're delusional. But what do I know? I so very obviously know nothing about music or audio equipment, and should stick to cameras. Good chat! (y)

CODA: BTW vinyl records are pressed from metal masters, which can, and do, wear out.

"With a potential 90+Db of S/N ratio and dynamic range available with the CD format, pissing your money away for analog vinyl records makes no sense whatsoever."
"So go, piss your money away for new vinyl discs. It does my heart good to know they're be ruined the first time you play them, and get worse from there on out. Good talk. (y)"

-was primarily what I was responding to, and brought up the photography analogy attempting to make the point.
happy to learn that your knowledge FAR exceeds the above and your love of JBL, lol -- the 'high heel effect' Defies mathematical logic, but (much) better minds than mine, etc.(efficiency ain't the only thing, try a magneplanar sometime -- and yes, I Depended upon JBL studio monitors). b well OM

(to coin a phrase, CODA: metal masters are crap, vinyl is crap, but they have the potential to deliver ALL frequencies originally played, attempted to record - yep, Crap tape, hehe. Digital, not so much - 1982 algorithms determine what is, ahem, important. The list of recordings that are missing the harmonics to which you referred are legion but, obviously not in the context you referenced. "The average listener can't even determine when an amp is "clipping" ". ayep, they might have helped determine what was 'important' regarding the obligatory compression, lol -- I hope not, but.. at the risk of sounding.. hmmm... I was involved in a Very Minor way in Dire Straits first DDD effort.. my ears were as good as possible in the stone age, and I was familiar with Knopfler's [astounding] style. I felt that the 'perfect' notes' -harmonics-? suffered in digital.. jaded, me)

 

[captaincranky]

OK, the fist DAT recordings were crap. To bear witness to that, try listening to an original pressing of Springsteen's "The River". It's tinny in the extreme, bordering on the unlistenable. Still, I don't know as the band pass of those early recorders was limited in any way. In fact, I've seen frequency response specs something on the order of "2 to 200Khz". Who knows if they were lying. The magnification of force at the tip of the stylus is very real, as well as several other deficiencies wrought by tone arm geometry, resonance, and compliance.

In any event, when I was a boy in 5th grade, I went to the Franklin Institute. The primary attraction at the time was "Univac'. (I think it was "Univac" and "Eniac" was the earlier model, obviously IIRC). So the vacuum tube computer had to be in an air conditioned, completely dust free environment, and "all" it's operators were dressed in pristine white lab coats. As I sit in a semi-modern digital setting, (3 feet in front of a dusty clay litter filled can pan), I'm musing how vinyl records would fare in this context. I fear not well. Yet my CD player, and computer, seen perfectly content. (Although I would swear the clay dust has roughed up the platter bearings in my 750GB WD "Black").

So vinyl, without regard to quality of reproduction, simply doesn't have the stamina to cope with anything other than "clean room conditions". I can't possibly picture accidentally leaving record on a platter here, even if it was just for a nap.

As far as Dire Straits, "Dire Straits" goes, I've always considered it, (very slightly), under recorded, no offense intended. Perhaps, I'm a crass member of "The Marching Morons", for saying so, I'm not sure. But, that is a deficiency of vinyl. If you don't want to use compression, you sacrifice dynamic range. Which is incidentally the factor which screams "this is a recording", while the music is playing on the PA before the actual band gets there.

As far as remastering goes, the personality and taste of the individual doing the job, heavily inflicts itself on the result. I have one "remastered" CD, which is mostly bass. I don't know if the story is true, but someone I know claimed the bass player was the culprit who did the transfer to CD. (Take that FWIW) (It might have been Bowie's "All the Madmen:", not sure at this stage).

An interesting factor of the "lousy sound of DVDs", is the fact some players supply a "night setting" for the sound. This is compression, so the dialog is as loud as the explosions, and those who aren't watching the movie at 3:00AM, get to sleep through it. Throughout the years, people have tried every trick in the book to overcome the limited dynamic range of records, up to and including, expanders on the output.

So, my argument at its most basic is simply this, proponents of analog audio, willfully overlook, (and deny), its multiplicity of shortcomings, to extend the narrative that digital sound is somehow evil. (For want of a better descriptor).

Something to do for laughs: A/B "Sultans of Swing", with "Tunnel of Love" (from Making Movies).

Both songs are in the same key, (Dm). I would be very interested in hearing you take on the recording. I will say "Sultans of Swing" is extremely clean, but"Tunnel of Love" always seemed punchier. ATM, I'm getting the reverse effect, using lossless WAV files, taken from CD remasters...

 

[Raoul Duke]

Can't argue that point -- it's true. I was noting the fidelity to the full auto range can not be duplicated on CDs and thus the true audiophile opts for fidelity.

still disagree, with the advent of 'high-res' audio the CD's limitations are overcome, however even CD's do well.
from Wikipedia:
"CD quality audio is sampled at 44.1 kHz and at 16 bits. Sampling the waveform at higher frequencies and allowing for a greater number of bits per sample allows noise and distortion to be reduced further.....<high-res> can be 96 or 192 kHz and up to 24 bits resolution. With any of these sampling rates, signal information is captured above what is generally considered to be the human hearing range.........The frequency response for a conventional LP player might be 20 Hz - 20 kHz +/- 3 dB.......The low frequency response of vinyl records is restricted by rumble noise. The high frequency response of vinyl depends on the cartridge..... some high-end turntable cartridges have frequency responses of 120 kHz while having flat frequency response over the audible band (e.g. 20 Hz to 15 kHz +/-0.3 dB).
In comparison, the CD system offers a frequency response of 20 Hz–20 kHz ±0.5 dB, with a superior dynamic range over the entire audible frequency spectrum.
With vinyl records, there will be some loss in fidelity on each playing of the disc. This is due to the wear of the stylus in contact with the record surface. A good quality stylus, matched with a correctly set up pick-up arm, should cause minimal surface wear.
the CD will sound exactly the same every time it is played; however, this is a benefit of the optical system, not of digital recording.
24-bit digital audio calculates to 144 dB dynamic range. Most Digital audio workstations process audio with 32-bit floating point representation which affords even higher dynamic range and so loss of dynamic range is no longer a concern in terms of digital audio processing. Low dynamic range audio mixes typically result from improper gain staging, imperfections in the analog to digital and digital to analog conversions, recording technique including ambient noise and intentional application of dynamic range compression.
Dynamic range in analog audio is the difference between low-level thermal noise in the electronic circuitry and high-level signal saturation resulting in increased distortion and, if pushed higher, clipping. Multiple noise processes determine the noise floor of a system. Noise can be picked up from microphone self-noise, preamp noise, wiring and interconnection noise, media noise, etc.
Early 78 rpm phonograph discs had a dynamic range of up to 40 dB, soon reduced to 30 dB and worse due to wear from repeated play. Vinyl microgroove phonograph records typically yield 55-65 dB, though the first play of the higher-fidelity outer rings can achieve a dynamic range of 70 dB.

 

[Raoul Duke]

One thing that can be lost in these conversations is are you enjoying what you have? If you are, don't lose any sleep over what the tech folks say. If YOU enjoy it, that's good enough for me, even if not the 'latest and greatest'

 

[PierreO]

Methinks a blind testing of music snobs regarding vinyl and MP3 would be as embarrasing as a blind tasting of wine snobs regarding expensive and cheap wines.

 

[captaincranky]

@Phr3d Here is a somewhat lengthy forum discussion on what I called "high heel effect", regarding the absolute force applied between the stylus and record surface: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...the-end-of-the-tone-arm-measure.308248/page-4

And another here in PDF: http://www.harryshifi.com/images/vinyl_tutorial.pdf

Pay particular attention to the paragraph,"In the Groove".

 

[Chilkoot XXIV]

I don't know how that happened. Well, yeah, I guess I do. Paying attention has never been one of my strengths (of which there are few anyway). I don't even know how to fix it now.

Stacking the records allowed sufficient time to establish the groundwork for testing inter-personal compatibility. If the test indicated compatibility, you could just forget about the music. Of course, acoustic masking might be a good idea, especially if your assigned quarters were like mine.

Just throwing this out for target practice: Acoustic masking seems to be the technique of choice for recording the majority of current pop music.

Maybe the problem with AM music was the speakers. In the cars we drove (never anything newer than a decade), the speakers were probably made out of steel, just like the dashboard.

I only asked about the quality of laser discs movies to be polite. Even if they had the quality of a 35 mm theater film, the screen still had crappy resolution. TV in the 1990s still had a crappy picture. One plus for those 12" discs is that they were/are close to weapons grade as opposed to today's discs.

 

[captaincranky]

I don't know how that happened. Well, yeah, I guess I do. Paying attention has never been one of my strengths (of which there are few anyway). I don't even know how to fix it now.

Well I wrote "[/quote]" (without the quotation marks) behind the segment to which I'm responding.

Next, I'm going to copy the entire attribution header,"[QOUTE="Chilkoot XXIV, post: 1605819, member: 398663"]", and place it in front of your next remark.

Stacking the records allowed sufficient time to establish the groundwork for testing inter-personal compatibility. If the test indicated compatibility, you could just forget about the music. Of course, acoustic masking might be a good idea, especially if your assigned quarters were like mine.

And of course "[/quote]" follows that as well.

Just throwing this out for target practice: Acoustic masking seems to be the technique of choice for recording the majority of current pop music.

Ah c'mon it's got 3 notes in the bass, how much more do you want?

Maybe the problem with AM music was the speakers. In the cars we drove (never anything newer than a decade), the speakers were probably made out of steel, just like the dashboard.

No, they had weak magnets, a stiff cone compliance, and very limited cone excursion, which made them sound like steel.

I only asked about the quality of laser discs movies to be polite. Even if they had the quality of a 35 mm theater film, the screen still had crappy resolution. TV in the 1990s still had a crappy picture. One plus for those 12" discs is that they were/are close to weapons grade as opposed to today's discs.

Actually the only reason that 35mm film movies aren't grainy as hell, is a trick of our eyes, "persistence of vision". The odds are the next grain lump won't be in the same place as the last fleck, and due to our eyes, (actually brains) maintaining the prior image, the grain literally "all runs together" and we see what we perceive to be an endless clear blue sky. 35mm film stock is only "4 perforations high", which is only half the area of what is exposed by a 35mm film camera.. That explains lack of image edge sharpness at such high levels of magnification as you encounter at the local movie theater..

One of the consumer's greatest "accomplishments" during the analog TV era, was purchasing those pure trash, 6 foot diagonal projection TVs. With the standard 640 x 480 resolution pushed up to that size, all you got was a truly crappy, grainy, dull, and practically unwatchable picture. But god forbid you should say something like that to one of the proud owners....

OK, did you manage to get my explanation of how to segment and reply to a post?

This is the form: [QOUTE="Chilkoot XXIV, post: 1605819, member: 398663"]", You say blah, blah [/qoute] And I of course go, "blah, blah" back at ya.

This software can be frustrating if you're having a bad day, since it will add "[/qoute]" behind any part to which you failed to correctly copy the header, enclosing in the quote what you have written as well. It will also enclose the entire post should you forget to remove the trailing "quote" after you separate segments of a post.

And yes, I misspelled "quote' on purpose, since it's the only way you can demonstrate the form, without the software taking over.