Half the information on CDs is analogue

Regarding CD vs vinyl...

As one who who has been actively involved in music and audio electronics since the 1960's, I get the impression that many of the modern vinyl adherents seem unaware of just how many medicore and even spectacularly bad LP records have been produced over the years. I can't count the number of just-out-of-the-shrinkwrap records that were full of noise, pops and crackles. It was always tempting for a record pressing plant to extend the life of the stampers too far and/or use lower quality vinyl to save money.

There were also records pressed using distant copies of the master tape instead of an earlier generation. It would sometimes be quite surprising to find the variance in quality between my copy of a record and someone else's.

Of course, I've heard outstanding music from LP recordings, but the shortcuts taken and inherent problems of this system are in their own way the equal of any problems I've seen in the digital arena.

That is one of the 'frustrations' that I alluded to.
I remember dropping $30 to $50 on a few "audiophile" LPs only to find that they sounded awful.

Shadorne & El: I know that not ALL "redbook" cd's and / or cd playback systems suck. I have heard very enjoyable redbook based systems and would like to think that i own a couple of them. Having said that, i think that the mass majority of redbook based recordings and playback equipment are FAR below the standards set by "lowly" vintage analogue gear.

For all of the technology that we have invested in digital recording and playback equipment, it sure seems that progress ( if you want to call it that ) is quite limited in both amplitude and scope. That is, one truly has to work hard to seek out and find quality digital recordings and gear that make one WANT to listen to music and be able to do so for extended periods of time without getting "listener fatigue". When is the last time that you heard someone say that about vinyl ???

On the other hand, vinyl may be a pain in the ass and FAR less convenient, but even "reasonable" analogue based front ends can sound SOOO much more musical, it's not funny. I say this for several reasons and it is not just based on the aforementioned story regarding dubbing analogue to digital, etc....

My girlfriend has a CD that she likes to listen to. I have the same recording on LP. Just for fun, i compared the two using my HT system as the reference. Listening to the digital version and then swapping over to the analogue version literally made me laugh out loud. Not only were the sonic differences staggering, but they were so much in favour of the LP that it wasn't funny. Bare in mind that this was with me using a Direct Drive TT with a servo controlled linear tracking tonearm & a cartridge that i had picked up used off of Ebay for under $100 total. This was fed into the ( non-adjustable ) phono stage of my Pre / Pro using the permanently attached "low grade" interconnects that come out of the TT. In other words, this was FAR from "state of the art" vinyl gear / phono stage equipment.

In comparison, the two different digital front ends that i tried this with are both reasonably well respected "universal" players. One could be purchased for appr $100 and the other sold for just under $1000 when they were new. Granted, neither of these are "state of the art", but the sure in the hell "should be" FAR more advanced and "better sounding" than the archaic equipment and technology that went into the analogue playback gear. After all, digital supposedly has no "wow & flutter", "rumble", "anti-skating", "VTA", etc.... to deal with or mess up.

Needless to say, i've always admired certain characteristics of analogue playback and wished that "digital" could come closer in those areas. After experiencing this, it really made me re-assess "redbook" and the so-called "digital technology" behind it. Quite honestly, it really is a joke for the most part. That is, until you get into the highly specialized and "esoteric" gear that even most audiophiles never stumble accross.

Too bad SACD and DVD-A were pretty much "still-born". Even then, we would still be stuck with the "half deaf" moron's recording and mastering most of this stuff, so how much have we REALLY gained ??? No matter what format one prefers, we are still stuck with the limitations of the recording industry "professionals" mucking things up. Sean
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Too bad SACD and DVD-A were pretty much "still-born". Even then, we would still be stuck with the "half deaf" moron's recording and mastering most of this stuff, so how much have we REALLY gained ??? No matter what format one prefers, we are still stuck with the limitations of the recording industry "professionals" mucking things up.

you really don't think highly of any recording industry "professionals" very much, do you? one thing to keep in mind is that the word "professional" implies that they are paid. The amount that they are paid corresponds to how many albums they can sell. the majority of records out there are not mixed/mastered and marketed towards audiofiles, but rather, they are made to sound decent on a small boombox or in your car. they are not made to sound fantastic on a high-end system and end up sounding like crap on anything else.

if all the "professional" audio engineers and professionally made recordings bother you so much, why don't you go and record for yourself. you'd be amazed at the quality you can achieve with a nice stereo pair of mics, a quality pre-amp, an A/D converter, and record at 24/96. no processing, n ocompression, just straight to disc recordings. and then burn your own DVD-A's. that's mostly what I listen to and I've never been happier

Jason: That's a great idea, but i don't really see too many high visibility performers that would be open to the idea of "strangers" recording their live events. While some artists / groups do allow such things, trying to do so at most events will either get you arrested and / or your gear confiscated.

Other than that, better recordings sound good most anywhere, even on bandwidth & dynamic limited systems. Unfortunately, the recording industry doesn't seem to understand this though and tries to keep throwing "bigger" recordings at us. On top of that, the "high end" audio industry really doesn't have any type of unified voice to speak up with, as we as "audiophiles" can't even agree on what "good" reproduction really is.

When "audiophiles" are buying and recommending speakers that show a frequency response tolerance of +8 /-7 dB's and using amplifiers that have in excess of several percent THD at normal listening levels, i have to wonder if even they desire "purity of reproduction" at all. Talk about sending a "mixed message". How is the average person supposed to know what "sounds good" or "sounds right" when those supposedly devoted to "high fidelity audio reproduction" don't even know what it is??? Sean
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