Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

@audio2design doesn't believe in timbre nor the difference between analog/infinity vs discrete/digital! Analog instruments don't sample...analog/infinite - very simple concept; granted within the bounds of manufacturing and human hearing but nothing is "discarded" or "sampled' like in digital.

I wish my more expensive digital system could sound like the less expensive vinyl setup, even using regular pressings, but it just doesn't - while mind you my DAC is one of the 10 best on the planet... I guess you can't contribute anything to explain this from your digital biased perspective so don't really care what you have to say anymore. In the face of numerous A vs D comparisons, I can't get the digital to compete...at twice the cost; maybe with DSD512... These are my explanations to understand why. 

Without noise reduction best you will ever get out of tape is about 90db, with 80db more realistic. I will give you 90 for interests sake. Bandwidth at full SNR is likely about 20KHz, but I will give you 30KHz.  Can't use noise reduction or any other emphasis-de-emphasis for this calc.

Bits in stereo max about 1.25 megabits/second equivalent data.


I do agree, there appear to be two races going on. One of us though is moving forward, and one just appears to be going in circles.  This little diddy pretty much illustrates that:

Seven: Nyquist theorem is about coding and decoding signals and also the implicit limitations and not only the power to do so.... This theorem has nothing to do directly with TIMBRE, which is the cornerstone of musical perception but more than that the cornerstone for evaluation of audio system in their acoustical controlled or uncontrolled embeddings...

At some point perhaps the links will be made that all audio is stored as simple 2 dimensional signals, time and value, whether done in the analog domain or digital domain, and that that eventually gets out to the speakers, and then your ear perceives a complex set of frequencies and intermixed timings as something described as timbre (but is still just a set of frequencies and timing), and hence how accurately it is possible to recreate the original "timbre" of the instrument comes down to how accurately one can recreate those frequencies and timings. One can reproduce them very accurately. One cannot. One can do everything the other one can do. The other cannot. This has nothing to do with what you like better, it is just a simple factual discussion.  Want to hear exactly what the microphone picked up, use digital. Want to hear a euphonic presentation that you (and others) may or may not prefer? Use analog.  Want the option? Use digital and explore the plug-ins available to add colorations and distortions and noise.

Some people want the world to be full of magic. Others simple roll up their sleeves and get things done.

It appears simple if you have a simplistic understanding of how things work. There is nothing "infinite" about analog recordings. Not even remotely. That you assign an infinite to them shows lack of understanding. That you think digital discards things, while analog recordings do not just shows more lack of understanding. Attacking me for holes in your knowledge is not a good look.  I seem to know exactly what timbre is, I just don't feel a need to attach special qualities to it beyond what it is.

Analog instruments don't sample...analog/infinite - very simple concept; granted within the bounds of manufacturing and human hearing but nothing is "discarded" or "sampled' like in digital.

Timbre perception implied "timing" of bundle of micro events, that are simultaneous and successive at the same time or synchronized in a 4 dimension of a concrete acoustical-neurological space and it is a phenomena perceived and interpreted only for human ears... Something is lost then in the reductive 2 dimensions of signals theory...Timbre is not first an information set, it is first a dynamical event....

This is why many human ears vouch for analog... Their timbre learning recognition process is their witness...

Myself i own digital and in the beginning was very distress by his limitations... But for the last 2 years my embeddings controls devices and my choice of dac( Nos +minimalistic design ) make me smile again...

I dont pretend that my system now is better than any turntables but on par with many of them.... The parameters in plays are way too complex to speaking in the absolute sprouting some dogma...

 

That you think digital discards things, while analog recordings do not just shows more lack of understanding. Attacking me for holes in your knowledge is not a good look. I seem to know exactly what timbre is, I just don’t feel a need to attach special qualities to it beyond what it is.

You caricature your opponent before attacking their so called argument after putting it in their mouth...(oups

I never said that only digital discard things, analog too discard things, or better said each has his limitations for the perception of timbre.... The ears/brain is not an analog only or digital only device...

And what a ridiculous thing to say that you know what timbre is but dont attach to it special qualities among other sound characteristics... This only disqualify your point.... Timbre is the basic phenomena in acoustic....Not only that the timbre experience is the means by which musician chose their instrument, or their audio system listening to them ....Not by the act of faith in Nyquist theorem....

My point is only that timbre recognition is perhaps not perfect for many analog and many digital system...There is no Sirius ideal perspective to judge timbre perception...Except  real listening
in specific and varied conditions...Imposing digital absolutely make no sense...Because timbre recognition  before being a digital or analog translation in a new, different room from the recorded event is always a brain/ears phenomenon and not an equation in theory of signals transformation ....


Sorry....