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A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

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Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#111

Post by conradfr »

323 wrote: post #95
com2kid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the "warmth" generated by from literally any possible analog circuit can be reproduced digitally. Physics doesn't care about people's beliefs, but sadly many people also don't care about physics.

In theory. In practice, if I give you a random analog box, transforming it into an accurate DSP algorithm it's an extremely difficult problem. Which is why people instead of doing that, they recreate the "idea" (reverb, delay, ...) digitally, but it's not a copy.

Although for some reasons 2021 was a great year for distortion/saturation plugins.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#112

Post by bayindirh »

vosper wrote: post #21
bayindirh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it’s brick-wall normalized during mastering.

Which is not an issue with the digital format, but with the mastering.

However, you can’t change the mastering of the album you have bought. When the CD version of the album you have bought has subpar audio quality, the abilities of the medium has no value and importance.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#113

Post by btown »

cammikebrown wrote: post #30
kstrauser wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole line of thinking just blows me away. It's possible to accurately sample and reproduce any vinyl recording in the digital realm. It's absolutely not possible to accurately record every digital recording onto vinyl. For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track, or treble so high that the needle can't accurately track the high frequency vibrations.…

What’s really funny about this is that although CDs objectively can present a greater dynamic range, the loudness wars have created a lot of highly compressed CDs that do sound worse than a lot of vinyl, where it often seems that more cars is taken with mastering because of the limitations of the medium. Additionally, a lot of early 80s albums sound better on vinyl because digital mastering wasn’t as good then. It is…

> it often seems that more cars is taken with mastering

I know this was a typo, but tools like https://shop.audified.com/products/mixchecker (with a literal "sedan" button) and articles like https://ask.audio/articles/the-final-mix-using-your-car are sadly indicative of the emphasis in modern mastering on sounding good on car speakers - which is the entire problem in a nutshell.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#114

Post by conradfr »

Maursault wrote: post #53
nerfbatplz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only can you not tell the difference between analogue and digital, you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3. Most audiophile mania is poorly informed at best and astrology at worst. http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

> you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3 I'm not sure what you mean by "properly transcoded," as though there's a scourge of bad encoders out there and everyone has nutty encoding practices, but I really, really bet you can. Listen to an mp3 of a rock/pop track. Try to focus on the cymbals. See if you can isolate them aurally from the rest of the music. Can you hear how mp3 e…

The encoders of today create really good mp3 even at 192kbps (at 128kbps not so much which is a shame as a lot of internet radios use that).

Do you have a favorite rock track we can do an ABX test with?

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#115

Post by mrandish »

Edman274 wrote: post #76
kazinator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100% fine for someone to say that they subjectively prefer the sound quality of a record player to a CD It's not intellectually fine, only fine in the sense that it's well within the bounds of free speech.

A digital recording has to be mastered with the understanding that it could end up getting played on a car stereo, on a bluetooth boombox, on cell phone speakers, in bluetooth earbuds, at a dance party with a DJ or on a hi-fi stereo setup that looks like the one from the old Maxell "blown away" ad. A recording on a vinyl record doesn't. The person mastering a record doesn't need to care about bluetooth earbuds, car s…

> They can tune their mixing and mastering decisions to just the case of a hi-fi stereo setup with an enthusiast listening.

This is what audio purists should be asking for. Let's pay the creative production team to create and release a high-fidelity digital mix optimized for us. No concerns about radio play, boomboxes or loudness wars. Just their original creative intent.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#116

Post by havblue »

nerfbatplz wrote: post #28
gwern wrote: post #2

"The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. The quality of digitized music has long been criticized because of how much data was stripped out of files so MP3s could fit on mobile devices. But these days, with the right equipment, digital recordings can be so good they can fool even the best ears. Many of MoFi’s now-exposed records were on Fremer and…

Not only can you not tell the difference between analogue and digital, you also cannot tell the difference between lossless and properly transcoded MP3. Most audiophile mania is poorly informed at best and astrology at worst. http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

As an anecdote I've noticed that while driving, the bass line in YouTube music jazz can be incredibly hard to hear despite my shelling out for the premium Bose sound system that can shake the vehicle. So I wonder whether this is the encoding or whether it's really supposed to be that quiet.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#117

Post by ben7799 »

Audiophile is full of nonsense but one of the more hilarious ones in something like this where the goal is "no digital" is it's been a long time since you could guarantee there was no digital going on between the instrument and the master.

They talk about Thriller a lot. Is it possible to have a completely analog copy of Thriller if it turned out a guitar went through a digital rack unit or a digital synthesizer was used? I don't know the answer to the question but in 1982 there were plenty of digital effects available.

The more recent you get the more unlikely it is the signal got from the instrument onto the master without going digital at some point, even if the recording is done on tape and then transferred to vinyl in a completely analog old fashioned sense.

If I plug my guitar directly into my amp and you're in the room you hear 100% analog. If I use the pedal board it got transferred A D at least once before it went into the amp. Possibly with a dry signal staying analog but the effects might be digital and mixed back in.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#118

Post by aeyes »

conradfr wrote: post #110
iforgotpassword wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the main reason I really like vinyl. Physics prevents the mastering engineers from going overly crazy. Vinyl often sounds more carefully mastered, even though nothing would technically prevent you from releasing the same thing in digital form. The other thing I like is that it really takes more effort to put on a record than start a track on Spotify. I really only do it when I can take the time to do so. Pick…

That's why I like to download vinyl rips. But some vinyls actually come from a digital master anyway.

Even if the master wasn't digital, how many vinyl mastering engineers used a digital reverse RIAA?

I have a ton of vinyl records myself, never understood why anyone would say they sound better. Vinyl is a compressed format, even if the compression is analog. There is significant loss of signal in the whole signal chain. You need to do reverse RIAA (compression), then you fabricate a master, then you press vinyl from this master which is only good for a few thousand presses, then you have the pickup and at last the RIAA preamp (decompression)...

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#119

Post by brightball »

I spent a year working on a site that catered to the audiophile world and it blew my mind at the time. The lengths that people will go to are incredible.

There was one guy who had a $200,000 house with over $2 million worth of audio to setup his sound system. He had these special electrical units installed outside his house that were supposed to guarantee a perfectly steady current.

Re: A Phoenix record store owner set the audiophile world on fire

#120

Post by post_break »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #102
post_break wrote: post #74

This is so funny. Company touts no digital, then goes on record saying yeah we used digital, completely ruining their reputation. Meanwhile I'm over here still mourning OiNK.

Don't worry, its legacy lives on. Other sites have taken up the mantle (hmu). OiNK is gone, but not forgotten.

How do I get in touch?
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