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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

#241

Post by brigandish »

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.…

> For instance, it's not hard at all to make bass so loud that it causes the needle to leap out of the track

I was a drum and bass dj when it was all still vinyl. Even in a club with huge speakers, I've never seen the needle jump due to the bass (although some places used to tape a penny to the top of the headshelf). The weighting on the tone arms can be adjusted so if you've got a needle dancing around it's due to your set up, not the bass, or Jungle music wouldn't have lasted too long.

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

#242

Post by brigandish »

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/

There's definitely some difference in quality with some music. For instance, the reverb will be slightly better with lossless, in my opinion. Some might say it's not much to bother with but it's definitely there.

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

#243

Post by bl0b »

analog31 wrote: post #166
mod wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the warmth just be reproduced in a digital player anyway?

My son told me that some hip-hop recordings incorporate digitally generated tics and scratches to simulate vinyl.

That reminds me of a thread here from a few weeks ago about how somebody was training an ML model to add noise to video, so that the noise-free version of the video can be compressed better but then the noise can be added at playback to maintain the authentic feel of old video.

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

#244

Post by conqueso »

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…

I get your frustration at the popular misconceptions around sound quality, but see no need to evangelize this issue. If people enjoy spending money on records, good for them, and good for the industry.

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

#245

Post by throwaway81523 »

gerdesj wrote: post #182
jgust wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I used to just look at the titles on the spines of my records (back when I had them) to decide what to play. I'd look at one and listen to the music in my head for a few minutes before deciding whether to actually put the record on, or else look at the spine of another record and do the same thing. I could spend hours doing that, and by that time I had to go do something else. I got a whole concert with no equipment at all. That's when I decided I wasn't an audiophile.

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

#246

Post by ip26 »

jef_leppard wrote: post #165

This whole thing reminds me of the time some renowned wine connoisseurs blind taste tested vintage wines and they slipped 2 buck chuck in there. A few of them picked the 2 buck chuck as their favorite. None of them called it out as inferior wine. They all said stuff like "hints of smoke. Berry finish."

I'm no pro but have found 2 buck chuck is pretty obvious. If only because it makes me feel ill. Was the test perhaps using midgrade rather than rotgut?

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

#247

Post by throwaway81523 »

jgust wrote: post #160
JJMcJ wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also some with CDs, but vinyl's the real deal. The record cleaner brush. Inspect the needle for dust. Be sure the record is properly seated. Sit back and enjoy.

Just watching the record spin is so incredibly satisfying.

I'm not going to say the date but my birthday is exactly 4 months before a certain holiday. So some years back (too many, alas), on this holiday and 4 months after I turned 33, my friends put on a party to celebrate both the holiday and my 33 1/3'rd birthday. Naturally, LP records were played.

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

#248

Post by Night_Thastus »

"In the world of audiophiles — where provenance is everything and the quest is to get as close to the sound of an album’s original recording as possible — digital is considered almost unholy."

Out of context of the rest of the article, this is total nonsense. While some in the audiophile scene like going analog, none of them debate against the truth that objectively, vinyl is far lower quality. Vinyl doesn't have nearly the resolution or nearly the dynamic range that a high-quality digital recording will have. Not to mention the higher noise floor. You lose a lot of the original audio with vinyl.

I dislike peddling it as somehow the objectively superior option. Or more "natural" or close to the original. That's nonsense.

Don't get me wrong, DACs aren't perfect. But with good recordings and mastering, a good DAC and overall system, it'll sound great.

If someone still likes vinyl knowing its faults, that's 100% fine. Nothing wrong with that, everyone in audio likes the sound a bit differently. Some people absolutely love the sound of vinyl and having a cool physical collection with gorgeous cover art. Power to them!

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

#249

Post by boring_twenties »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #247
jgust wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just watching the record spin is so incredibly satisfying.

I'm not going to say the date but my birthday is exactly 4 months before a certain holiday. So some years back (too many, alas), on this holiday and 4 months after I turned 33, my friends put on a party to celebrate both the holiday and my 33 1/3'rd birthday. Naturally, LP records were played.

Hopefully the night ended with a screening of the third Naked Gun movie?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110622/

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

#250

Post by Night_Thastus »

mav88 wrote: post #82
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…

16-bit 44kHz is fine for playback and stair stepping does not exist: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

That article gets handed back and forth a lot. It's complicated. Real digital transmission systems like SPDIF, real-world clocks, real-world DACs are all imperfect.

For real-world situations, sometimes a higher sample rate can actually provide benefit, even if by nyquist-shannon it shouldn't.

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