[rollei_list] Re: OT: Vinyl and CD's
- From: "Austin Franklin" <austin.franklin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 09:44:37 -0500
Hi Thor,
This really depends on a lot of factors. Of course, how good the resultant
recording is, has a LOT to do with the ability to play it back
"successfully". With CDs, I find a very very large difference in quality of
recording between them. Sometimes, it amazes me. One of my favorite
producers is Baby Face. He has a way with making the resultant recording
sound very open with pinpoint presence and a vast soundstage. Another
favorite of mine, for musicians, is Ponty. It's hit or miss with his
releases though. A few songs/passages from Live at Cheney Park are
exceptional IMO, though I've heard some complain they don't like that
recording.
Unfortunately, no matter how good the medium is, anyone can make a mess of
it... Keep in mind, people think MP-3s sound good. Sigh.
Another big issue is CD playback equipment, namely the D/A converter. I
find that all but the very top end D/As just don't sound as good as the
material on CD is capable of. IOW, it really takes some money to get the
best out of a really good CD. My choice of CD players is an ML39 - direct
drive into the amp. I've A/Bd many many many...and the ML39 is
significantly better than any other that I've heard, especially with the amp
(tube) and speakers that I have. They are all carefully matched...which was
very critical in getting a sound I wanted. I don't have the golden ears I
used to have some decade ago, unfortunately.
Regards,
Austin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Thor Legvold
> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 8:47 AM
> To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [rollei_list] Re: OT: Vinyl and CD's
>
>
> Hi Austin,
>
> yeah, there was a lot of pretty shoddy playback equipment in the first
> generation of players. Just like early digital cameras ;-)
>
> As for hypercompression, I'm referring to the fact that on a carrier
> medium with 96dB of headroom (compared to 65-70 on vinyl, on a good
> day) pretty much all releases the last 10 years (or more) have between
> 3-9dB headroom, if you're lucky.
>
> I think that's why many people prefer vinyl (and I do too if the
> alternative is 'crushed' digital), due to the physical constraints of
> the medium (keeping the needle in the groove), you automatically get
> about a 12dB crest factor, often more. Meaning that the dynamics
> aren't removed as they are on pretty much all CD's made after the
> advent of the Digital look-ahead limiter (i.e. Waves L1, then L2).
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
>
> So, not lossy compression (MP3), but compression & limiting waaay past
> what is sane, listenable and musical.
>
> Cheers,
> Thor
>
>
> On 4. mars. 2009, at 14.08, Austin Franklin wrote:
>
> > Hi Thor,
> >
> >> Unfortunately, early CD's sounded harsh (poor converters and
> >> brickwall filters)
> >
> > As well as poor playback equipment. Until the introduction of
> > oversampling
> > filters on CD players, they used third order filters, which have
> > aliasing
> > issues. With an oversampling filter, a first order filter can be
> > used,
> > which removes the aliasing issue.
> >
> >> ...and later ones largely fell prey to
> >> hypercompression.
> >
> > Huh? CDs are not compressed.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Austin
> >
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