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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

#181

Post by floren »

apohn wrote: post #79
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…

>The fallout of the MoFi revelation has thrown the audiophile community into something of an existential crisis. Don't worry, the crisis will not last long. Audiophiles will find a way to get over it and buy some better cables that would have revealed they were using a Digital source all along.

Cables are all well and good, but the quest for perfect audio will continue until somebody invents a gadget which makes you 15 years old again, hanging out in your friend's basement, having just tried pot for the first time and hearing Led Zeppelin III on a cheap Sears record player. I don't know exactly what this gadget will look like, but it's the only thing that will get audiophiles the sound they've been chasing.

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

#182

Post by gerdesj »

jgust wrote: post #157
ryukoposting wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely despise most of the vinyl community. Don't get me wrong, I love my records. I have hundreds of them and I play them regularly. For some reason, almost everyone I come by has this delusion that vinyl is objectively better than a good digital recording. Anyone who dissents from that narrative gets gaslit: "oh what kind of turntable do you have? oh that's not good enough, there's your problem right there."…

There is a certain ceremony involved with choosing and playing vinyl that cannot be recreated with digital media. That, to me, is the magic. In modern times a full digital setup is going to provide a more "faithful recreation" than anything analog.

Been there. Browsing vinyl involves flipping fore and aft and is very tactile. Browsing tape and CDROM involves running your eyes over them but you can run a finger along them to get another sense involved.

Loading a record is quite the event: slip out of the card sleeve, then slip the dic out of the waxed paper sleeve and pop it on the spindle without scratching it. There is of course the correct way to handle them that if you are around or older than my age (52), you already know - the delicate fingers on the rim and your thumb on the centre.

I can remember my Dad going to the "biggest NAAFI in the world" (Rheindahlen) and coming back with a brand new record player in around 1978 or 79. This thing could handle something like five LPs at once and play them sequentially.

Pissing around with Spotify isn't quite the same and I do understand why people enjoy the theatrics but to be honest: I turned my CDs into FLACs and ditched the tapes a long time ago. I still prefer to buy my music by the CDROM and rip it to FLAC or mp3 or whatever - now that is me showing my age!

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

#184

Post by Sporktacular »

kazinator wrote: post #107
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ EDIT: contents of this post were factually incorrect. What Kazinator wrote in response is correct, and I don't want to leave incorrect ideas floating around. ]

If the goal is audio capture and reproduction, the filter used when sampling at 96 kHz still starts rolling off at around 20 kHz. The wrap-around aliasing artifacts do not begin until around half of 96 kHz, or around 48 kHz. So the filter only has to be steep enough to hit a large attenuation at 48 kHz: full signal to virtually nothing over the space of 28 kHz. If you're sampling at 48 kHz, the signal has to be sever…

Sure, but going to disagree about the numbers there. I have a DAW interface which is exceedingly linear (+/- <0.15 dB) up to 35 kHz. Don't need to start filtering so low to hit those results.

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

#185

Post by FullyFunctional »

kstrauser wrote: post #5
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…

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.…

Flat earth, Scientology, dowsing rods, ... willful ignorance is hard to fight.

Anyone with basic understanding of A/D conversion and sampling theory will understand that you can always exceed analog with digital, given enough bits (and 2*16 @ 44.1 kHz is already pretty darn good).

In the early days of MPEG Audio, Level 2 (not mp3) I spent a lot of time listening to samples and I was taken aback when I finally traced flaws back to the CD itself (Cranberries, Zombie, 1994). Many of the early CDs really weren't that great, but that wasn't due to being "digital", just a sloppy production.

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

#186

Post by Sporktacular »

bayindirh wrote: post #112
vosper wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"When the CD version of the album you have bought has subpar audio quality"

Yes, but these mastering choices could apply to the vinyl version too. In other words, your response had nothing to do with a comparison of the two media.

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

#187

Post by FullyFunctional »

defterGoose wrote: post #48
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…

It's still true that it takes a skillful ear/hand to do that mastering. I've heard terribly mastered older (not abused) records and modern releases that are excellent. A good original copy of Rumours is about as good as it gets IME. Vinyl _does_ also provide a nice soft upper limit to the loudness wars.

Couldn't we characterize vinyl limitations and capture that as a digital filter? And if so would you be able to tell the difference between the vinyl and filtered digital?

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

#188

Post by Sporktacular »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #87
allears wrote: post #45

People who claim CDs have more dynamic range than analog are missing the point. Think of it in terms of graphics. 8 bit graphics can represent totally black, or totally white. That's a complete dynamic range. But it's the in-between shades that require more bits to specify. It's the same with audio. It's not how soft or how loud a recording can get. It's the subtle shades of variation. 16 bits is pretty good, but not…

No. A CD audio recording can contain literally all the information in the audio spectrum with enough dynamic range to capture human breathing and a jet flyover simultaneously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theor...

You are not understanding his point. Linear PCM systems encode quiet parts of music with a lower signal to noise level than louder parts. So by over-engineering the bit depth, you keep the quantisation noise further from perceptibility than without it.

I think everyone gets sampling theory by now, your response was to an audio engineer.

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

#189

Post by netr0ute »

GuB-42 wrote: post #170
taylodl wrote: post #106

Nyquist Theorem - learn it, love it, live it. I'm a musician and my mates and I have been going round and round on this issue for years. They swear analog is "warm" and "captures the whole wave." It's all BS. It's always been BS. What the vinyl lovers never stop to realize is the audio signal has to be modified to record on vinyl - you're not listening to the music as recorded on the master tape, you're listening to…

> Fast forward 30 years and the only people still debating this topic are the rock & metal guys. An it makes sense. Rock and metal are played with electric guitars, and electric guitars are not much unless they are plugged into an amplifier. What it means is that the amp is not just part of sound reproduction, it is actually part of the instrument. It is especially true in metal, where amps are frequently overdriven…

That all goes out the window if you use a DSP effects box, where you can "have your cake and eat it too" by having pedals (regular and expression types), amps, cabinets, and a mic for that cabinet all in one package. I use one because it's a lot cheaper than getting the individual parts and it fits in the palm of my hand!

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

#190

Post by cratermoon »

kstrauser wrote: post #140
cratermoon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track Reminds me of the LP my band teacher in high school had. It was the 1812 overture, and the groves for the cannon shots at the end were easily distinguishable with just a casual examination. Based on what you're saying, I suspect that recording was pushing the limits of vinyl.

Yes! That exact song is perhaps the canonical demonstration of the limitations of vinyl! Here are some pics of the grooves on that LP: https://imgur.com/a/veVB0

Oh, very nice. That's exactly I as I remember it.
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