Vinyl vs CD

[STHLS5]

If the sound of the turntable recorded to CD is "nicer" than a well-mastered commercial CD of the same material, that supports (but doesn't prove) the proposition that LP reproduction loses information in a way that pleases the ear.

and also to bluegrass.

What really please our ears? Some say stereo but now I am doubting whether we really need stereo for musical enjoyment. At one time I was keen in headphones but somehow I felt something was wrong with its stereo effect. Later I came to know about headphones amplifiers with crossfeed which makes using headphones less tiring because it leaks the opposite channel a little to the other channel. That is a subject on its own.

Lately, I am inclined to believe you do not need stereo which is an illusion to enjoy music. Maybe, CD's advantage of a better channel separation is also the cause of the sound to be perceived as thinner. I am trying to get a proper CD and LP files comparisons for us to identify what are the criteria that we consider "nice". Meanwhile I would appreciate if I can get some feedback with the LPAs (A) and LPBs(B) files. Which one sounds nice?

Thanks in advance.
ST

[bluegrass]

Ok, LPA had less stereo effect, less panning of instruments if any. It was louder than the other track. I preferred LPB , warmer? Now tell me , what was the actual difference?

[STHLS5]

Ok, LPA had less stereo effect, less panning of instruments if any. It was louder than the other track. I preferred LPB , warmer? Now tell me , what was the actual difference?

You are like a sound analyzer. Didn't you say you do recordings? My poor ears weren't able to pick the panning aspects of the recording through my basic sound card and my PC speakers. Loudness was obvious. Less stereo effect? ...only at one or two spots.

Can you describe why you say LPB sounded warmer? Are you telling the upper mid attenuated in LPB? To me LPB was thinner.

Thanks.

ST

[bluegrass]

Hi,
I am a violinist with a little recording studio and have a metric halo uln2 converter and a nice pair of headphones to listen through, which certainly helps. Ok i had another listen, and to be honest the stereo panning is the most obvious difference. Maybe i'm so used to listening in stereo and mixing my own music in stereo, that it just feels "right" to my ears. Tonally, i don't hear so much obvious difference today. The stereo panning gives the track a more spacious feeling which in turn i find more relaxing to listen to. Maybe, through the speakers you were listening with, and because the mix is thicker, ie. the music is coming from 'centre' rather than spread across the stereo field, it sounds richer to your ears?

[STHLS5]

Hi,
I am a violinist with a little recording studio and have a metric halo uln2 converter and a nice pair of headphones to listen through, which certainly helps. Ok i had another listen, and to be honest the stereo panning is the most obvious difference. Maybe i'm so used to listening in stereo and mixing my own music in stereo, that it just feels "right" to my ears. Tonally, i don't hear so much obvious difference today. The stereo panning gives the track a more spacious feeling which in turn i find more relaxing to listen to. Maybe, through the speakers you were listening with, and because the mix is thicker, ie. the music is coming from 'centre' rather than spread across the stereo field, it sounds richer to your ears?

Maybe, you are right my PC speakers are just about 1 foot apart. What I did was cross leaked 50% of each channel in LPAs. As I mentioned before, channel separation or the lack of it may contribute to a "nicer" sound. The other aspect of vinyl is the cutting tool which has a natural resonance of about 3kHz which need to be reduced or increased to compensate. I can't remember which is which. That's the reason I asked why you perceive LPB to be warmer.

If someone could re-record a CD by slightly attenuating around 3.5kHz (to create a warmer vocal) and reduce the channel separation that would be interesting to see if people would perceive that recording to be better.

ST

[Paul G Smith]

LPAs is around 3dB louder than LPBs, that's a quite significant difference in loudness, which to now, no-one has commented on. The mp3 code/decode process also hides many of the subtleties in the original audio which we are trying very hard to hear. If the two files were uploaded as uncompressed .WAV files for us to download and compare then there may be a basis for a more legitimate comparison.
LPAs peaks to the digital maximum, which may overload some playback systems, making the vocal sound "hard" akin to tracking distortion.

[bluegrass]

Hi Paul, actually i commented on volume differences in my first post above regarding the two tracks. Of course mp3 hides much, but at least , since both are mp3 and i hope, the same compression level, you can still compare the two to some degree.

[STHLS5]

Digitally, it possible to do everything that a vinyl does. Do you want distortion? You can have it. Dust, higher noise floor, skewed phase are all within the capabilities of digital domain and can be replicated. So why vinyl appears to have the edge to some?

ST

[BAS-H]

Masks some recording flaws perhaps?