2. analog
  3. 160855-86984

vinyl versus digital redux

Has anyone compared the sound of vinyl with the sound of digital converted from a vinyl intermediary ?

I am referring to 'rips' of vinyl made with high end, high quality vinyl playback systems, with
conversion to high resolution digital.
I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the two results.
The digital rip of a vinyl record sounds identical...or very nearly so...to direct playback of the vinyl.

If one has 'experienced' the foregoing, one might question why digital made without the intermediary of vinyl sounds so different from vinyl.   A detective story ?

We are talking about vinyl made by ADC (analog to digital conversion) of an amplified microphone signal and re-conversion to analog for output to the record cutting lathe, or from analog tape recording of an amplified microphone signal, and then....as above...via ADCl and back to analog for output to the cutting lathe.

Of course vinyl can be and is 'cut' (pressings made from 'stamper' copies the 'master' cut in lacquer) without digital intermediary.  Such practice is apparently uncommon, and ?? identified as such by the 'label' (production)

Has anyone compared vinyl and high resolution digital (downloads) albums offered by the same 'label' of the same performance ?  Granted, digital versus vinyl difference should diminish with higher digital resolution.   Sound waves are sine waves....air waves do not 'travel' in digital bits.    A digital signal cannot be more than an approximation of a sine wave, but a closer approximation as potential digital resolution (equating to bit depth times sampling frequency) increases.

If vinyl and digital well made from vinyl intermediary sound almost identical, and If vinyl and digital not made via vinyl intermediary sound quite different, what is the source of this difference ? 

Could it reside....I'll skip the sound processing stages (including RIAA equalization)...in the electro-mechanical process imparting the signal to the vinyl groove ?

Is there analogy with speaker cone material and the need for a degree of self-damping ?
Were self-damping not to some extent desirable, would not all speaker cones, from tweeter to sub-woofer, be made of materials where stiffness to weight ratio was of sole importance ?

Thanks for any comments.
seventies
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
@atmasphere,load up Pure Vinyl on a Mac laptop and record all your demo songs as a playlist in 24/192 AIFF. Until you can verify that very few if any can tell the difference between the two, continue to carry both systems. Once you can honestly face anyone and tell them they can't hear the difference you can ditch the analog demo gear and keep those special LPs where they belong, at home under lock and key.
Now you have another problem. Anybody buying a tube amp is going to prefer analog. So, now you have to design an output transformerless solid state amp. If Mcintosh can do one with transformers it should be a walk in the park. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
I think that was one gummy to many. 
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Love the redux.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,841 posts
 
Analog tape is not a panacea. Just like vinyl, it significantly colors the sound.
To be clear, analog tape colors the sound more than the LP, owing to the fact that a properly functioning tape machine will exhibit a 3rd harmonic, which contributes to 'bloom' and apparent detail.
audio2design
1,351 posts
 
.... 3rd harmonic.


No, the 3rd harmonic was just the convenient harmonic to measure when setting levels as you can readily hear it on test tones. There were other harmonics in there as well when the tape starts to compress.

Then there is the common mid band frequency anomalies that varied machine to machine, sibilance from pre-emphasis, wow, flutter, scrape, and of course the loss of high frequencies and dynamics from simply playing the tape.
More to discover