Post by RockHard on Feb 6, 2016 8:31:26 GMT -5
I'll tell ya, at the start of digital, I was a hard core vinyl is better believer. Digital audio sounded tinny & harsh compared to vinyl but as player & cd production got better, my opinion changed.
I remember ripping a copy of "in the court of the crimson king" from vinyl & the crashing cymbals were heavily distorted but not from a cd rip so that pushed me into to comparing them. After hundreds of vinyl, digital comparisons & some physics of vinyl I discovered, my belief was changed.
The physics I discovered was something most vinyl lovers will likely never ponder about but it's this... Likely, you as I have, may have noticed as it gets closer to the end of the record, definition seems to decrease & distortion increases & audio peaks get a progressively harsher clipping effect. Why? Well I started pondering it & figured it out.
As it comes closer to the end of the record the linear length of the groove gets shorter with every revolution. Here's the reality, if you were to measure 1 of the grooves length for one revolution at the beginning, the length of that groove would be about 35 inches. The groove length at the end of the record is about 15 inches, a whopping 20 inch difference.
So logic tells me that in the recording towards the end, the same amount of music density is getting crammed into less & less space which seems to me would get pretty near, if not physically impossible to for a needle to discern the same detail as compared to the beginning of the record.
I haven't been able to prove this but In my thinking, if you were recording a full blown orchestra, each instrument should have perfect clarity at the beginning then imagine all that musical data at the end of the record is getting squashed into half the space or less, note after note having to compete with & share the same space piled on top of each other so I don't believe the same amount of detail can be physically articulated in the area near the records end, something's got to give.
An example you might relate to better is taking 2 pieces of string the same lengths as the beginning & end of a record which is about 35" & 15" & soak the longer string with water til it can't absorb anymore. Now do you think the shorter string can absorb as much? Of course not, it would be in a puddle. So exchanging water for data tells me the music density is significantly more saturated crammed into a 15" groove at the end of a record compared to 35" at the start? The resolution has to be sacrificed so it would seem.
Common physics shows It's about as simple as that but I'd imagine with the best cartridge made it might be possible to improve the problem but if you don't have the resources like me to find out, why would anyone waste a ton of $$$ on equipment when pretty solid physics shows no matter how good your vinyl player is, digital will give you better detail.
Some of you may have noticed a 45 rpm version of a song sounds more detailed & dynamically bolder than the album version. Well, for good reason, with it spinning at a higher speed, there's more linear groove length the music can breath easier in & gives it better capability to impart detail & hotter dynamics than at 33 rpm.
But most diehards will say vinyl's ambiance is better. Well that can all be overcome with doing your own remastering if you're up for the task & have an ear to meet the challenge. That's what I did with my entire collection. The ambiance quality vinyl buffs praise can be applied to digital plus you gain much better definition than vinyl can possibly produce so if you're up to doing your own remastering, you can have the best of both worlds.
But then you're thinking.... If that's the case, why are there hardly any cd's remastered that sound like vinyl? My answer is, it seems talent to recreate the vinyl effect is far & few between so you have to take it into your own hands as I did if you want the sound you think is ideal but unfortunately, that's easier said than done. It's not as easy as loading music on an editor & tweeking some eq's. It's took me years of practice & tinkering to get the kind of audio I've been able to achieve on my copies that I'll brag as better than both cd & vinyl.
I remember ripping a copy of "in the court of the crimson king" from vinyl & the crashing cymbals were heavily distorted but not from a cd rip so that pushed me into to comparing them. After hundreds of vinyl, digital comparisons & some physics of vinyl I discovered, my belief was changed.
The physics I discovered was something most vinyl lovers will likely never ponder about but it's this... Likely, you as I have, may have noticed as it gets closer to the end of the record, definition seems to decrease & distortion increases & audio peaks get a progressively harsher clipping effect. Why? Well I started pondering it & figured it out.
As it comes closer to the end of the record the linear length of the groove gets shorter with every revolution. Here's the reality, if you were to measure 1 of the grooves length for one revolution at the beginning, the length of that groove would be about 35 inches. The groove length at the end of the record is about 15 inches, a whopping 20 inch difference.
So logic tells me that in the recording towards the end, the same amount of music density is getting crammed into less & less space which seems to me would get pretty near, if not physically impossible to for a needle to discern the same detail as compared to the beginning of the record.
I haven't been able to prove this but In my thinking, if you were recording a full blown orchestra, each instrument should have perfect clarity at the beginning then imagine all that musical data at the end of the record is getting squashed into half the space or less, note after note having to compete with & share the same space piled on top of each other so I don't believe the same amount of detail can be physically articulated in the area near the records end, something's got to give.
An example you might relate to better is taking 2 pieces of string the same lengths as the beginning & end of a record which is about 35" & 15" & soak the longer string with water til it can't absorb anymore. Now do you think the shorter string can absorb as much? Of course not, it would be in a puddle. So exchanging water for data tells me the music density is significantly more saturated crammed into a 15" groove at the end of a record compared to 35" at the start? The resolution has to be sacrificed so it would seem.
Common physics shows It's about as simple as that but I'd imagine with the best cartridge made it might be possible to improve the problem but if you don't have the resources like me to find out, why would anyone waste a ton of $$$ on equipment when pretty solid physics shows no matter how good your vinyl player is, digital will give you better detail.
Some of you may have noticed a 45 rpm version of a song sounds more detailed & dynamically bolder than the album version. Well, for good reason, with it spinning at a higher speed, there's more linear groove length the music can breath easier in & gives it better capability to impart detail & hotter dynamics than at 33 rpm.
But most diehards will say vinyl's ambiance is better. Well that can all be overcome with doing your own remastering if you're up for the task & have an ear to meet the challenge. That's what I did with my entire collection. The ambiance quality vinyl buffs praise can be applied to digital plus you gain much better definition than vinyl can possibly produce so if you're up to doing your own remastering, you can have the best of both worlds.
But then you're thinking.... If that's the case, why are there hardly any cd's remastered that sound like vinyl? My answer is, it seems talent to recreate the vinyl effect is far & few between so you have to take it into your own hands as I did if you want the sound you think is ideal but unfortunately, that's easier said than done. It's not as easy as loading music on an editor & tweeking some eq's. It's took me years of practice & tinkering to get the kind of audio I've been able to achieve on my copies that I'll brag as better than both cd & vinyl.
