is the sound of vinyl due to the physical process of the turntable?

guyboisvert
@theo @mrubey It all starts with recording the actual instruments in studio. Everything is recorded digitally theses days.

Technically, the best medium is digital and by far: Much Higher Dynanics, much better separation, much lower noise, no wear out, no angle error, no medium saturation, no compression, etc etc etc. The Vinyl is highly processed to fit in the physical medium. There is the RIAA EQ Curve applied so it can sound decent on this very poor medium.
And contrary to what you said, there is no "lost information" with digital, it’s simple math theory at work.

All that being said, you are perfectly right to prefer the sound of one or another, digital or analog. Each component has its transfer function, at the end, whatever it is, you are the one who listen and choose.

>>>That may all be true, I don’t know, but I suspect most audiophiles are focused on 👀 and committed to music from an earlier age, back when the recordings were made on tape. Then, staying in the same medium - tape - starts to look very attractive. No chop, chop, chop. Tape is a natural medium. It breathes. That why cassettes and vinyl just sound right. Forget about all the technical arguments. Almost all technical arguments can be disputed anyway. The playback medium is cut from the same cloth ✂️ as the recording.

3 things ...

We have to look at the whole recording process. And we have to look at the limitations of vinyl that give it an advantage, and then finally the distortions of vinyl vs digital.

1. The recording process of vinyl era records is usually great players, in a room, playing mostly together. Vocal takes are mostly live. Engineers were experts and decisions were made in real time, building MUSICAL MOMENTUM. Today decisions are not made in real time by most engineers who are not as experienced, and vocals like everything else are done in pieces and edited together. LESS MUSICAL MOMENTUM. So vinyl era records are INNATELY MORE MUSICAL aka "sounds better" with more real instruments, not in the box instruments. And often the recording was to tape, then to vinyl, never a digital stage.

2. The vinyl media DEMANDS MORE DYNAMIC RANGE. Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove. Digital can be compressed and limited to a pancake of white noise. This means that NEARLY EVERY vinyl record is more punchy than it’s digital counterpart and that "sounds better".

3. The vinyl distortions are in the same family as tape distortions, although different. This is not the family of digital distortions. They are more pleasing. Or "sounds better"
As a mastering engineer I prefer my own work on digital as I grew up on vinyl and I put those vinyl era musical qualities into my digital work, yet I fully understand the appeal, especially with classic records that were built straight to vinyl.
Brian Lucey www.magicgardenmastering.com

brianlucey

... vinyl media DEMANDS MORE DYNAMIC RANGE. Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove. Digital can be compressed and limited to a pancake of white noise. This means that NEARLY EVERY vinyl record is more punchy than it’s digital counterpart ...

That is completely mistaken. An LP can be cut with the same squashed dynamic range as any other media. What can make a stylus jump a groove are large excursions, such as loud cannon shots on some versions of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. If your stylus jumps a quiet groove, there is really something amiss with your setup.

Sam here and I just had another breakthrough in my quest to make digital audio sound alive with a real natural tone that resonates with my ears.

https://i.postimg.cc/CLGrmXw8/IMG-20200612-070629.jpg

I found an old piece of wood on the ground, it could be up to 100 years old and I was thinking about how a Stradivarius violin is revered for It's unparalleled resonating tone and the solid wood that was used to make the violin plays a big part in that tone.

The question is how do I encode the tone of the wood onto digital audio? And then I had the thought why not take the light bulb out of the lamp across the room from my PC and put the wood in the socket? would the electrical current pull the frequencies from the wood into the wiring and encode them onto the digital audio as I did a re-encode? Well, as crazy as it sounds I believe the answer is yes. here is how this old piece of wood colors the tone of digital audio.

digital download flac 16/44. http://u.pc.cd/WrQ7

digital download flac 16/44 + old wood. http://u.pc.cd/2dSctalK

cleeds
Let me clarify, as you are mistaken. (please check my website, this is what I do daily for a living)
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In actual practice, the level of vinyl is moderated by the medium. The length of a side and the low end needs of a side, etc. Decades of vinyl cutting has always been about not just a better sounding cut BUT ALSO A LOUDER ONE. That’s part of that craft 100% because a bad cut will create vinyl products that do NOT track on all systems. Stylus quality varies, wildly.
At the same time, Limiting of the digital variety, square waves, do not cut well at all and sound small on playback from vinyl, and so vinyl premastering (if done digitally as it is in the last 20 years or more) is ALWAYS LESS LIMITED by the mastering engineer, because it sounds better cut to vinyl that way. Digital has gotten louder and louder, less RMS to Full Scale.

So for example, if we had a digital release with say -12 to -6 dbfs average and 0 or -0.5 dbfs peak (true peak over 0 with ISP intersample peaks is normal) that digital release WOULD NOT be sent to vinyl cutting AS IS.
A unique premaster would be used, with no limiting on it. This premaster would then be up to the skill of the cutter to get it as loud as possible. This is the physical limitation of vinyl that results in MORE DYNAMIC RANGE in nearly every vinyl release as compared to it’s digital counterpart.

More punchy = more musical = better.

... vinyl media DEMANDS MORE DYNAMIC RANGE. Vinyl is more punchy because it has to be, else the stylus jumps the groove. Digital can be compressed and limited to a pancake of white noise. This means that NEARLY EVERY vinyl record is more punchy than it’s digital counterpart ...

That is completely mistaken. An LP can be cut with the same squashed dynamic range as any other media. What can make a stylus jump a groove are large excursions, such as loud cannon shots on some versions of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. If your stylus jumps a quiet groove, there is really something amiss with your setup.