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
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.


gillatgh's avatar
gillatgh
381 posts
 
FWIW, I will not get into a debate which format is superior as I have and enjoy both. My experience is that both are superb. What I have noticed is that digitally recorded, mastered and produced CD's outperform the digitally produced vynil and that the analog recorded, mastered and produced vynil outperforms the CD. It took me a long time, about 12 months, and a lot of work setting up my VPI to come to that conclusion. I was also not that impressed when I returned to the record experience after a 30+ year hiatus. For whatever reason I no longer have the snap crackel pop or dirty noise floor that I first experienced. Now everything is dead quiet and black. I noticed a drastic improvement after about 200 hours of the cartridge being used and checking setup so flipping often I can do it blindfolded. Every detail is important listening to vynil but once you got it it is amazing. I have about 100 original rock albums from the late 60 thru the 70 in both formats and have compared them side by side and in all cases the original vynil beat the digital copy in quality. However I also have some later produced digital recordings which were transferred to vynil but the Cd beats the vynil consistently in my ssystem and to my ears.
So to my ears and listening pleasure I go to the digital side for digitally recorded and to analog side for the old analog recorded and I love them both. Anybody want to purchase those CD's that I have on album? 
For those who just have to know, my digital front end including speakers set me back about 22 grand and the analog front end about 20 grand so it's close to equal quality as far as expenditure. Don't compare one format to the other just enjoy the music best you can.
prof
3,500 posts
 

Holy cow, we are still getting the old myth "digital doesn’t capture the complete soundwave, but analog does!"???

It’s no wonder people who know something about digital lose patience with the bogus arguments raised by vinyl lovers.

There are various reasons why vinyl tends to sound different from digital sources. The myth that digital can’t reproduce the full musical waveforms, as if it’s "missing" audible information that an analog medium isn’t, is not one of them.


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