Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
43
Well, if transparency and fidelity to the original is what you’re after, yes. But many people prefer the interesting changes rung on the original by vinyl, or tube amps.
Interesting thread at PS Audio about this. One phrase in the comments really struck me:
“Audiophiles” are trained to the sound of their system
People do hate change.
@jussi_laako made an interesting comment about this. His point, if I understood it correctly, was that even though all the necessary information may be present in 16/44.1 recordings, it takes a lot of computation (mainly digital filters) to accurately reproduce the analog waveform captured therein. Some delta-sigma DACs have relatively limited resources, compared to general purpose computers, and therefore use relatively simplified filter algorithms, so their reproduction when fed PCM inputs can be somewhat inaccurate for some signals. Thus he recommends doing conversion to high-sample-rate DSD in the computer (presumably ideally with HQPlayer ) before sending the data to the DAC for reconstruction of the analog wave form.
It’s an example of the distinction between a theoretical minimum sampling rate and the engineering required to implement the theory to a particular standard at that rate. As one electronics friend of mine said “All you need is a brick wall filter. Pick me up one at the shop would you ?”
I think this is the approach that PS Audio use in their DAC’s, and they ‘resample’ everything into DSD?
Chord take a different approach, which is equally beguiling. 44.1 PCM is ‘upsampled’ to 705khz, and 96+ is upsampled to 768khz.
And the results are startling…
All I know is I enjoy 24/192 more than 24/96 and 24/96 more than 16/48 or 16/44.1. That’s all I need to know. To me, it doesn’t matter why. I guess it would if I was trying to decide what equipment to buy. For this reason, I NEVER use my Apple TV 4K anymore.
Basically, he says that if you hear the surface noise of LP’s as euphonic, you prefer LP - possibly even to the master tape it was produced from.
I engineer many CD reissues of old recordings, and often the CD sounds to me far superior to the original LP. There are times, however, that the LP sounds not only better than the CD but also better than the original master tape! Sometimes the echo seems to last longer on the disc than the master; sometimes there is more spaciousness on the LP; sometimes the record sounds brighter or more “open” in the top end. Since I cut a lot of these LPs in the first place, I know there was nothing “artificial” done to them.
What is going on here? My CD master tape sounds identical to the original output of the analog recorder, but the LP sounds better than either of them!
To help answer that question for myself, I have done the following trick: I make a DAT recording of the surface noise of the particular pressing I’m comparing, perhaps from the 3 to 10 seconds of silence between movements. With a digital editor I make a long loop of that noise. Then I play back the loop of the surface noise and mix it through my console with the sound from the original tape. Presto! The CD master sounds nearly identical to the pressing. It is brighter and more spacious, and the echo seems longer! Take away the record noise from the CD and it again seems drier and more closed-in than the pressing. There are certainly some interesting psychoacoustic phenomena here! So potentially, in some areas, the LP can offer greater musicality than the CD. It is not more accurate, but in my opinion it is sometimes more musical.
I think it is difficult to talk about “better” or “worse” sound. It’s more like “different” and “to my taste”.
There are some “truths” out there, like noise is unwanted, high dynamics is good etc. which are used for objective measurements for better quality. But the preference is all subjective and individual, after all. A CD is objective better than vinyl, but does it really matter?
The same goes to the high res debate – is it really better, if you can hear a difference, or is it just different?
So many prefer the sound of analog and vinyl. Not because it’s “objective better”, but because it sparks joy and amusement.
When I attended a work shop regarding mic ing drums they showed us setups from 2 to 8 microphones and with the 8 we were told about the trick in recording of adding another mic for the overall sound that is the very worst quality you can find, to ad some grit to the mix. Then on playback you can mix this into the final mix as much or as little as you like.
This adds an authenticity to the sound and improves perceived quality for the listener.
) before sending the data to the DAC for reconstruction of the analog wave form.