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Vinyl / High qual analog tape / High-res digital -- One of these is not like the other

One common theme I read on forums here and elsewhere is the view by many that there is a pecking order in quality:

Top - High Quality Analog TapeNext - VinylBottom - Digital

I will go out on a limb and say that most, probably approaching almost all those making the claim have never heard a really good analog tape machine and high resolution digital side by side, and have certainly never heard what comes out the other end when it goes to vinyl, i.e. heard the tape/file that went to the cutter, then compared that to the resultant record?

High quality analog tape and high quality digital sound very similar. Add a bit of hiss (noise) to digital, and it would be very difficult to tell which is which. It is not digital, especially high resolution digital that is the outlier, it is vinyl. It is different from the other two.  Perhaps if more people actually experienced this, they would have a different approach to analog/vinyl?

This post has nothing to do with personal taste. If you prefer vinyl, then stick with it and enjoy it. There are reasons why the analog processing that occurs in the vinyl "process" can result in a sound that pleases someone. However, knowledge is good, and if you are set in your ways, you may be preventing the next leap.
roberttdid
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Ferit Odom's Dameronia with Strings sounds really good on Quboz flac 44.1
mikelavigne
2,199 posts
 
djones51,

I bought orange vinyl and when I sent that link to mikelavigne before my purchase he said it was the same record that he has (number, I guess). He did not comment on the color, though. In any case, the orange one sounds just fine to me, but do not tell geoffkait. He will recommend you paint it green. At the same time, I do recommend you play it in clockwise fashion. It is, in fact, directional.

this record only was pressed in the orange vinyl to my knowledge. in any case it sounds superb.

i have 2 copies; one that i got in a box set directly from Turkey, and another from Acoustic Sounds as a back up.

on another forum one member is a local Turkish friend of Ferit Odman;

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/zero-distortion-tango-time.26464/page-173#post-656827

i might actually be able to acquire a copy of the master tape of this recording.

I wonder if people would be interested in a r2r edition of Dameronia with strings. He has the master tape. If enough people is commited, I can convince him for a limited run.

here is where it gets interesting to compare the source tape, the vinyl and a digital transfer. then a few get an ’ah ha’ moment. done it many times. i compare vinyl and the digital every day for years. don’t always pull out the tape.
djones51
4,947 posts
 
I ordered Dameronia with Strings on XRCD24
  Directly recorded to half-inch analog tape
• Mastered Using K2 Technology!
• Mastered by Tohru Kotetsu at JVC Mastering Studio in Japan
I'll see if I can tell a difference to Flac 44.1 on  Quboz. 
glupson
7,842 posts
 

"...here is where it gets interesting to compare the source tape, the vinyl and a digital transfer..."

I was considering ordering a CD together with LP, just for the fun of comparing them on my, admittedly, lowish-level equipment.

• Mastered Using K2 Technology!

I have a few of the K2 CDs and I cannot say I find them strikingly better than regular ones.





roberttdid OP
534 posts
 
The whole concept of "K2" is stuck in the 80's sort of like Mr. Pebbles. This is a completely meaningless concept within any modern studio or playback system ... and not even really "modern".  Note they are "recording engineers", so not really "Engineers" w.r.t. having a proper understanding of the underlying technology. Most recording engineers have shockingly little understanding of the underlying technology they are working with.


Development History of K2

The development of K2 was started in response to calls from recording engineers in Victor Studio. They objected to the common idea that there was absolutely no change in sound quality no matter how many times the original data was copied when the music media is transferred from analog records across to digital CDs. Because digitalizing sound is encoded in combinations of zeros and ones. Although no changes occur in theory, the studio engineers claimed that there was a clear difference between the sound quality of the original master and the copied sub-master. So the engineers at JVCKENWOOD set about to clarify the reason for this. Subsequently, it was discovered that although the digital data was exactly the same, electrical distortion (jitter, rippling), etc. occurred when the data was being recorded and saved, which had an adverse effect when converting music played back in digital into analog, thereby proving that changes did occur in sound quality. An attempt by the two engineers to improve the changes in sound quality that occurred at this time led to the original version of K2, which was named the “K2 Interface.”


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