Vinyl / Digital / and can you have too much information.


I am copying this from a thread of digital vs. analog spending, but thought it may be an interesting --- Discussion ---, not to pick which is better, but to have a conversation about an aspect of why some may prefer vinyl.
FIRST - A bit of an example to set the "mood"

A CD is 1411 bkps to achieve 44100 samples/second at 16 bits and 2 channels. What if we had an uncompressed signal at 128kbps? ... That would allow us to do say 2 channels, 10 bits, 6400 samples/sec or 3.2KHz. We could do 8 bits, at get up to 4KHz. Not too terribly impressive huh?

How do you think 8 bits at 8ksps would sound compared to a 128kbps MP3 or AAC? It would sound awful by comparison even though technically both have the same amount of information. Why does the MP3 sound better for the same raw information? Because the MP3 concentrates the information into areas in which the brain can make use of it.

Let's consider vinyl:   Perhaps due to dynamic compression during the mixing/mastering process, other intentional choices made during mixing and mastering, even what we consider limitations during playback, we are maximizing the audio information that the brain can take in. Perhaps that inherent "filtering" that a turntable does maximizes the useful audio information that the brain can take in my minimizing extraneous information that can cause information overload. I am more of a digital guy, but even I feel this happens at times.

That information limit will be different for different people. That could even explain why some love vinyl, and some, not so much. I think it could also speak to the listening fatigue that some claim to experience when listening to digital. It is simply information overload, especially when coupled with "loudness wars" information levels which could be considered extreme.

I can certainly make arguments against this:
  • Why are high end DACs" then viewed as being closer to vinyl? A counter is who is making those statements and why is their brain telling them that? Why do some of those DACs measure so poorly? Are those DACs even being "voiced"
  •  Why do non-OS R2R DACs sounds better (only to some). A counter is perhaps the high frequency artifacts that modulate into the audio band mask additional information allowing the brain to concentrate on what it most wants to hear?
  • Why do many then claim that analog tapes are the ultimate?  A counter is, again, some claim that.  I can also find many people that claim that digital sounds much closer to what the real instruments they hear, play and record sound like. 1/4" tape formats have "information limits" as well.

There is no right and wrong answer and this is not a topic of which is better, it is about understanding perception.
atdavid
“I think like the human brain craves beauty through the ears just like it does through the eyeballs.“

I like this.  
 A record has the analog waveform pressed into its tracks. It is analog and with good equipment can produce overtones up into the 100s of thousand hertz. Its the missing overtones that make digital a bit barren. You can't hear them, but their lack of influence on the frequencies you can hear, is audible.
 Good digital played right from an SSD, or even better a RAM Disk, can be magical as well. It needs a big word and high sample rate though, as it is samples, not an analog waveform, so we need all the information we can get. DSD in its way, produces a crap ton of samples as well, and its the large number of samples that make digital really good. We won't get the overtones but we can have more detail.

 Really a good DAC can produce most of what we need from a Red Book CD, and some of those are quite wonderful as well. One must keep in mind that production values have a great deal to do with this as well.
Penguin,

That argument does not fly. Most vinyl in the last several decades is cut from digital. Prior to that analog tape whose frequency response dropped like a brick much past 20khz as did the cutting head/amp.
Yeah but my records are much older. Its true the lack of overtones is a real problem. Investigate. ;)
Well if they are much older, then it is an even worse problem as old tape machines had seriously limited top-ends, as did the cutting machines, etc. etc.