2. analog
  3. 140184-113812

Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

Long story short, i've just brought home a VPI classic 1 mounted with a Zu-Denon DL103 on JMW Memorial 10.5 with the appropriate heavier counterweight. Had everything dialed in..perfect azimuth, VTF, overhang, with only a slightly higher than perfect VTA. Levelling checked. All good. 

I did a comparison between the VPI and my Esoteric X03SE and it's not even close. The Esoteric completely crushes the VPI in all regards. The level of treble refinement, air, decay, soundstage depth and width, seperation, tonality, overall coherence is just a simply a league above from what I'm hearing from the VPI. The only area the VPI seems to be better at is bass weight, but not by much. 

I'm honestly quite dumbfounded here. I've always believed that analogue should be superior to digital. I know the Esoteric is a much pricier item but the VPI classic is supposed to be a very good turntable and shouldn't be a slouch either. At this point I feel like I should give up on analogue playback and invest further in digital. 

Has anyone had a similar experience comparing the best of digital to a very good analogue setup?

Equipment:
Esoteric X03SE 
VPI Classic, JMW Memorial 10.5, Zu-DL103
Accuphase C200L
Accuphase P600
AR 90 speakers

Test Record/CD:
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing (Redbook vs MOV 180g reissue)



chadsort
Post removed 
prof
3,534 posts
 

I often see vinyl fans bemoaning the fact that so much new vinyl is produced from digital masters.  Some say "why bother buying a vinyl made from a digital master, doesn't it just defeat the point?"

Not for me.

I buy both old vinyl albums and tons of new vinyl releases. I'm especially a fan of soundtracks, which are getting killer releases on vinyl.  But I still buy a band's album if it's out on vinyl, be it surf-rock, folk, jazz, electronica, or whatever.

Even if the master was digital, I get the "vinyl experience" of the beautiful artwork, the tactile nature of the object, owning the music, playing it on the turntable etc.   And most of it sounds utterly fantastic on vinyl.
First, it's not like they are just making rips from red-book CD.  A good new vinyl album starts with high res audio files, and it's mastered for vinyl.   That in itself can make a bit of sonic difference.  (And the vinyl can even eek out more dynamic range than the digital release, if the digital release is squashed for 'loudness wars' type delivery).

So the vinyl starts with high res audio, picks up some "flavor" from the vinyl remastering, and then we still have the nature of playback via phono pre-amps and getting the sound from vinyl through the cartridige/turntable.  I think that process in of itself results in some of the "vinyl" sound.   It certainly seems to in my system, as I still often get a sort of "different" texture and presentation via the vinyl playback of an album vs it's digital counterpart, and I often prefer the vinyl presentation.

So, I have no problem buying LPs just because they may have started with a digital master.  I get all the same fun out of the physical aspects of buying the LP version, and they can sound fantastic.  It's not like an analog master guarantees good sound quality.  A number of my LPs from digital masters sound better than those from analog masters.






glupson
7,842 posts
 

prof,


Good points. Never thought of them in that way.

Post removed 
iamhe
56 posts
 

I found the link to be interesting.  I wonder what impact HD Vinyle will have.


https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/is-the-sound-on-vinyl-records-better-than-on-cds-or-dvds.htm

Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the CD audio and DVD audio output

 

The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. A vinyl record is an analog recording, and CDs and DVDs are digital recordings. Take a look at the graph below. Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy (for CDs it is 16-bit, which means the value must be one of 65,536 possible values).

This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.

In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.

A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.

This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound. But there is a downside, any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static. During quiet spots in songs this noise may be heard over the music. Digital recordings don't degrade over time, and if the digital recording contains silence, then there will be no noise.

From the graph you can see that CD quality audio does not do a very good job of replicating the original signal. The main ways to improve the quality of a digital recording are to increase the sampling rate and to increase the accuracy of the sampling.

The recording industry has a new standard for DVD audio discs that will greatly improve the sound quality. The table below lists the sampling rate and the accuracy for CD recordings, and the maximum sampling rate and accuracy for DVD recordings. DVDs can hold 74 minutes of music at their highest quality level. CDs can also hold 74 minutes of music. By lowering either the sampling rate or the accuracy, DVDs can hold more music. For instance a DVD can hold almost 7 hours of CD quality audio.


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