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What is behind a "warm" or "vinyl"sound?

I found an interesting article in The Saturday Toronto Star's entertainment section on the resurgence of vinyl.

What I found most interesting in this article was a description of why people describe vinyl as "warm". Peter J Moore, the famous producer/mastering engineer of the legendary one microphone recording of the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions recording says it all comes down to the fact that humans do not like square waves - ie. when you go from super quiet to super loud at no time at all. He gives the example that if someone was to slap two pieces of wood together right beside your ear would be about the only time one would feel a square wave - and that would make you jump right out of your skin! He says digital, particularly MP3s reproduce square waves like crazy, which triggers fear which also produces fatigue. He says if those same two pieces of wood were slapped together across the room, the square wave would be rounded off by the time the sound reached our ears. Turntables cannot reproduce square waves due to through time it takes for sound to get though the length of wire and the magnet that the wire is wrapped around in the cartridge. By the time the signal gets through that the sharpness, he ugliness, has been rounded and that, he says, is what people are talking about when they describe vinyl as "warm" sounding. Interesting!

I find there are a bunch of digital manufacturers, like Lumin, that are striving for a vinyl sound. I wonder if they are somehow rounding off the square waves in the digital signal to do so? If this is the case, "perfect" reproduction may NOT actually be beneficial to the sound...at least for someone who really wants a vinyl sound experience. Better may not actually be better when it comes to digital sound reproduction!
camb
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
the higher the frequency, the higher the error will be in digital playback.
in 44kHz sampling frequency 10kHz signal also have not too many samples for sufficient signal resolution when decoded from the DAC. It's only roughly 2 samples per half-wave and this is perfectly audible frequency alais from 22kHz that is not audible at all.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,318 posts
 
The massed strings off DCS source I heard on a standard issue Duetsche Gramophone CD was the closest to vinyl I have heard, I do not think I could have known it was CD in a blind test, whereas often not the case for me.

Massed violins=digital acid test, no doubt.

I've heard it done top notch though from CD, so I know it is possible.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,318 posts
 
Audioengr,

Can your reclocking device deliver massed strings as cleanly and grain-free as the best CD players out there? Or good vinyl?

If so, I might have to try one.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,318 posts
 
"10kHz signal also have not too many samples for sufficient signal resolution when decoded from the DAC. It's only roughly 2 samples per half-wave and this is perfectly audible frequency"

I'm having trouble getting my arms around this one?

Doesn't sound right, perhaps way off, based on Nyquist principle as I recall it but not sure. Better go break out my old digital audio book and study up....
phusis's avatar
phusis
1,216 posts
 
Mapman --

Audioengr,

Can your reclocking device deliver massed strings as cleanly and grain-free as the best CD players out there? Or good vinyl?

If so, I might have to try one.

(I'm obviously not Audioengr, but here goes..)
A lot a digital aficionados may not know the true potential of LP-playback (myself included), but I'd wager the opposit - that analog freaks doesn't know the potential of digital playback either - is prevalent as well.
Why even begin to suddenly base sonic findings - or a principle belief, even - to the advantage of vinyl on a theoretical standing of a more ideally produced square wave due to better HF-extension? And CD-players being better a reproducing "massed strings" than PC-based playback? I mean, could it be the (nostalgic) love of a physical storage object spinning..? I left CD-players years ago (my last one being the Linn Mimik) to welcome PC-based playback for one reason only, even with an infectious PC-environment to deal with: better sound quality, which entailed - guess what? Analog virtues, to be exact; a more organic, resolved, fluid, and coherent presentation. Bye bye CD-players, and PC-based playback achieved the better sound at a much reduced price, which we were many individuals to conclude unequivocally and independently (I don't know why PC-based playback sounds better to our ears, but it does).
Since the introduction in my setup of the Audiophilleo2 + PurePower USB to S/PDIF converter, better DAC w/better power supply et al., many PC tweaks (many more to come) and better software playback (now JRiver MC19 + JPLAY 5.2), what was good has become indeed much better. It's truly amazing how much potential even 16-bit 44kHz source material holds, and that there is still more to have had in regards to sonic bliss with future tweaking.

When reading the above I get the slight sensation of people jumping , or even clinging to a theoretical standpoint that might partially (or not) explain why analog sounds better in some respects compared to digital, as if to tip the doubt into firm belief when supported theoretically. I guess the same could be said for the digital camp in other discussions, but I try to advocate listening without getting carried away too much by theory.
Where digital is as is I believe "warmer" could tilt towards too euphonic a character, but the lowering of jitter seems to bring with it an obvious lack of glare, better texture and clarity, a more organic feel, and sharper yet more pleasing delineations (contrary to edge enhancement), which does lead me to think of the sound, in a sense, as "warmer" and certainly more authentic.
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