Article: "Spin Me Round: Why Vinyl is Better Than Digital"

You cannot argue if someone think that a timbre can be characterized in essence by being "accurate" or "euphonic"....Or a "taste"... Timbre is a scientific acoustical concept, not a "colorful" or colorless more accurate taste....

The violonist playing a pitch note can play it more or less accurately, more or less euphonically, but the timbre of the violin is NOT the note played by the instrument...It is a precise sound complex physionomy coming from a complex structured vibrational materials like a voice....The timbre of a voice is not the note....
And the acoustic of the theater or the studio where the violin or the voice sing is critical for the timbre experience....


The same note played by a saxophone can also be more or less accurate or euphonically played, but the timbre of the sax is not defined by accuracy or colored euphony...

How to discuss the always imperfect recording of timbre, by microphones, which are always a trade-off tree of possible choices, and the imperfect but anyway partially successful recreation of the timbre in the listener room, if someone confuse it with the way the violonist plays it or with what the designed format gives ? Discussion impossible...

It is not at all the same thing when the audio system gives it before OR after the rightful installation of embeddings controls, especially an acoustical one ?



Because the audio system need especially an acoustical setting to give a truthful timbre, nevermind the format chosen....( but like i already said even if the 2 formats are equal and they are , in a bad embeddings i think analog is sometimes more robust for the recreation of the timbre experience)But the choice at the end is subjective and convenient, relative to too much factors in play to condem a format for another....

If someone dont know that all discussion is condemned to nil....

True. An instrument may have certain timbre characteristics that are inherent and manifest themselves, to one degree or another, no matter the musician playing it. However, the sound (timbre) we hear is primarily the personal sound that the player coaxes out of the instrument. IOW, two different players playing the same instrument will produce very different timbres. We are not talking about the timbre of the instrument, but of the timbre of the musician....his unique timbre signature.

More importantly, and this is probably the main problem with these debates, timbre is only one of the ways in how the two technologies differ fundamentally. Issues of dynamic rendering of the music...what some refer to as level of “emotional involvement” are even more important.  We tend to focus primarily on issues of and differences in timbre and overlook issues that manifest themselves in how the two technologies and the playback equipment reproduce micro dynamic nuance. There is where most of the music can be found. Not in the sound (timbre) of the performance, but the feeling in the performance.

Don't leave us in suspense, which has more "micronuance"?

We tend to focus primarily on issues of and differences in timbre and overlook issues that manifest themselves in how the two technologies and the playback equipment reproduce micro dynamic nuance. There is where most of the music can be found. Not in the sound (timbre) of the performance, but the feeling in the performance.

It is already difficult to discuss about only ONE concept ....😁

Your remark about the way each player use the timbre potential of an instrument differently is very right.... You are a musician no doubt... 😊You are unmasked....

You are right that the feeling of the music is ALL in the way of the specific micro gestures of the musician controlling the note and the timbre...But this signature is easy to hear even in bad recording conditions in some measure... I listen to very bad recording of the great russian pianist Sofronitsky and his playing. badly recorded is unmistakeable in Scriabin...

 For sure when i was speaking about timbre, i was speaking of the instrument playing in some specific hands, no instument produce a timbre without a musician playing it in his OWN specific way.... In this sense the instrument timbre vary and change, not only because of the acoustical setting of a room, but also because of the musician body dynamics.... 

There exist a definition of the many  factors in play in the mathematical  modeling of the timbre, and the way timbre is perceived differently in different acoustical settings also....But no one can explain why Moravec produce his own colors hues on the same piano than another pianist which will give another interpretation of the basic timbre of the instrument...Body and instrument are one wedding here....

The analog format for me is equal not superior to vinyl, but here it is not a truth only my opinion but based on simple mathematical equivalence and my own experience....An opinion only anyway...

On the other hand with an ordinary system not rightfully acoustically embedded, i think analog is more robust and able to give a more truthful experience of timbre than digital in the same quality level system and conditions... But for superior system and very good embeddings i dont think so.... But here it is also my limited opinion...

My best to you....

audio2design, I think I made it pretty obvious. First, it is not a question of which has more or less, but of which renders micro dynamic nuance (not “micro nuance”) in a more natural way. This is what many refer to as simply micro dynamics. Micro dynamics is what gives music the sense of aliveness and what, more so than timbre, conveys the musical expression of the performer.

Obviously, both technologies can sound very good and the differences between the best of both are very subtle. However, the differences are still there. If compare we must, for me, good analog still gets closer to the sound of real. That is what my ears tell me. Yours may not. I’m cool with that. Why does this bother some?