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vinyl versus digital redux

Has anyone compared the sound of vinyl with the sound of digital converted from a vinyl intermediary ?

I am referring to 'rips' of vinyl made with high end, high quality vinyl playback systems, with
conversion to high resolution digital.
I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the two results.
The digital rip of a vinyl record sounds identical...or very nearly so...to direct playback of the vinyl.

If one has 'experienced' the foregoing, one might question why digital made without the intermediary of vinyl sounds so different from vinyl.   A detective story ?

We are talking about vinyl made by ADC (analog to digital conversion) of an amplified microphone signal and re-conversion to analog for output to the record cutting lathe, or from analog tape recording of an amplified microphone signal, and then....as above...via ADCl and back to analog for output to the cutting lathe.

Of course vinyl can be and is 'cut' (pressings made from 'stamper' copies the 'master' cut in lacquer) without digital intermediary.  Such practice is apparently uncommon, and ?? identified as such by the 'label' (production)

Has anyone compared vinyl and high resolution digital (downloads) albums offered by the same 'label' of the same performance ?  Granted, digital versus vinyl difference should diminish with higher digital resolution.   Sound waves are sine waves....air waves do not 'travel' in digital bits.    A digital signal cannot be more than an approximation of a sine wave, but a closer approximation as potential digital resolution (equating to bit depth times sampling frequency) increases.

If vinyl and digital well made from vinyl intermediary sound almost identical, and If vinyl and digital not made via vinyl intermediary sound quite different, what is the source of this difference ? 

Could it reside....I'll skip the sound processing stages (including RIAA equalization)...in the electro-mechanical process imparting the signal to the vinyl groove ?

Is there analogy with speaker cone material and the need for a degree of self-damping ?
Were self-damping not to some extent desirable, would not all speaker cones, from tweeter to sub-woofer, be made of materials where stiffness to weight ratio was of sole importance ?

Thanks for any comments.
seventies
bluemoodriver
193 posts
 
Well this seems to make sense, but am I oversimplifying?

When the artist’s work is prepared for distribution, a vinyl pressing is made and digital streaming files are prepared. The digital streaming files will be identical to the digital mix prepared for distribution. 
The vinyl pressing will be as close as a skilled cutter of a spiral groove can get to it. Close, but never a duplicate. 
Some listeners really like the changes to the original sound that cutting the spiral groove introduces. So much so, that if they want to listen away from their turntable they would rather have a digital copy of the sound the spiral groove makes than the digital duplicate of the original mix.  
And the quality of that copy of the spiral groove can be so good as to be indistinguishable - showing that the ear can not distinguish a digital copy of an analogue sound. 
Is that right?

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cleeds
5,987 posts
 
bluemoodriver
Well this seems to make sense, but am I oversimplifying?When the artist’s work is prepared for distribution, a vinyl pressing is made and digital streaming files are prepared.
Yes, you have already substantially oversimplified. There are many steps involved in "making a vinyl pressing."
The digital streaming files will be identical to the digital mix prepared for distribution.
Not necessarily. CD is limited to 16/44.1, but streaming from a source such as Qobuz can be in hi-res.
Some listeners really like the changes to the original sound that cutting the spiral groove introduces.
Again, you have substantially oversimplified. It is possible to make an LP that is very, very close to the master tape. That’s why test pressings are part of making an LP.

Digiphiles often chime in here with claims that digital has better s/n and dynamic range than LP can ever have, which is true. But that advantage is often way in excess of the what the music actually requires. That’s a big part of why an LP can sound so close to the master tape.
seventies OP
67 posts
 
Cleeds, bluemoondriver, 
Apologize if I did not clarify.
I concur that lp's newly made from tape or high resolution digitalization of an audio source can be 'very close to the master tape' except that 'cutting the spiral groove' (what I termed an electro-mechanical process) changes the 'original sound' in a manner pleasing to some listeners.
I am asking about LP's made decades ago from analog tape...whether these lp's preserve sound...particularly high frequency sound...better than does the tape itself.
Regarding possibly 'misleading commercialization', I refer to 'high resolution digital transfer'...ie transfer from tape... and 'digital re-mastering of tapes recorded decades ago....before high resolution digital recording became available.
One company, 'High Definition Tape Transfers' (HDTT is their logo) offers downloads in a choice of digital resolution.  To my ear 'high resolution' is a specious claim insofar as one is making a high resolution digital copy of a time-degraded source....ie. low resolution in particular respect of lost high frequency information.
Digitally "re-mastered" tapes from that era, also sold as downloads or streamed, and sometimes not identified as 'remastered', are subject to the same loss of initially recorded information.  Resolution is not and cannot be improved by boosting the treble.
Am I misleading ?


orpheus10
8,668 posts
 

It's hard for me to understand other people's problems because I don't have any.


Just about the time CD's came out, I was buying LP's like crazy. CD's "appeared to be" superior to LP's, so I went exclusively into CD's, leaving all my new LP's going unplayed. (I had the same kind of record player we all had back in the day) A CD and CD player was, and still is clearly superior to that rig.


Not until many years later was "high end" analog revealed to me; it wasn't the record, but the "record player". Back in the day, we spent $200, for TT, and 60 to $150 for cartridge; that was common. You know what's common for our analog rigs now, a lot more than back then, plus they are many times more complex, no wonder records sound better.


"I am asking about LP's made decades ago from analog tape...whether these lp's preserve sound...particularly high frequency sound...better than does the tape itself."

The LP sounds good, but never better than the tape.


As a result of not playing all those old records after purchase, I have many new LP's that were purchased back in the day. Just yesterday, I down-loaded "Azymuth Spectrum", recorded in Rio Brazil 1985, and I must have purchased it about that time; this album is dead silent. That's representative of many of my LP's. I can't answer questions about these new processes.
ericseaberg's avatar
ericseaberg
3 posts
 
I was mastering lacquers for vinyl in the late 70s to early 80s and my current turntable is a ReVox B791 tangent tracking system, playing vinyl EXACTLY as it was cut... straight across the middle. No groove distortion or side-to-side phase errors. 
I use a Ortofon VMS20e cartridge I purchased in 1985 and have a store of new styli as needed. 
Preamp is by Graham Slee feeding an RME interface where I transcribe into ProTools at 96kHz/24bit minimum. Conversion is done to 44.1/16bit for my old clients that have lost master tapes, allowing the to do CDs as needed. 
There is something magical that happens between the groove, stylus and preamp that is hard to compare with digital transfers of the master tape. In many cases, I will purchase 96k or higher files of albums even though I have a great vinyl copy... and they do sound different. 
Just my $.02. 
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