2. analog
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CD v.s LP - When comming from the same MASTER

This has probably been discussed to death but after reading a few posts its a little unclear to me still.

Some artists today are releasing albums on LP format as well as CD format. If a C.D and an LP (LP's made today)came from the same MASTER DIGITAL SOURCE at the same release time. Would the LP format always sound better? or because it came from digital, might as well get the C.D?

Whatcha think
agent193f7c5
stefanl
296 posts
 
There is an example that caused me to form an opinion and that was The Beatles Anthology series.The awful early recordings on Anthology 1 clearly sound better on the Vinyl version than on the CD version,where they sound especially harsh and strangled.Both the LP and CD were produced from the same digital master which they do with Beatles releases these days.In Stereophile Archives online in the "Think" pieces,John Atkinson has analysed and discussed what is on Analogue and Digital recordings.("What's Going On Up There")-extremely informative.L.P's are better.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Metralla....To represent a time-domain waveform by Fourier coefficients, the waveform must be periodic, and remain of fixed spectral content (at least during the time interval of the FFT). Music isn't like that. There are momentary wavefronts with steepness equal to that of a sine wave at well over the 20 KHz upper frequency of human hearing.
cmk
397 posts
 
"It also helps to know that back left is usually where the bass drum is."

Not entirely true all the time. Some examples of the bass timpanis on the right rear of the soundstage are :

Beethoven Symphony No.1 Karajan BPO 1961/2 cycle on DGG
Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 Stephen Bishop, Colin Davis, LSO on Philips
ntscdan
52 posts
 
I am missing something here. If the master was recorded digitally there is zero point in buying a vinyl pressing.
If you think I am kidding go and pick up a couple of 80s CBS Half Speed Masters. Some genius thought it would be a good idea to digitize an analog master and then cut vinyl from it. The results are dismal as is all vinyl cut from a DAT or other digi source. Why would you want to add all the inherent problems of vinyl to ones and zeros? As for the "shorter path to vinyl from a digital master" claptrap in my opinion. Anyone that buys vinyl mastered from a digital source is a sucker, as are all the chumps buying little wee files on itunes that aren't much better than AM radio. But that's another topic.
aroc
760 posts
 
Short answer the LP, period. If the master was something higher than 16/44.1 and a lot are 24 bit word length and up to 96k, then CD cannot capture all of that data, so in theory the LP will have the edge since it was converted to analog directly from up to 24/96, and the cd must first be down-sampled to 16/44.1k, then converted to analog.

I would have agreed with NTSCDan, but I listened with my ears, and lots of digital LPs do sound as good or better than CDs. This is with my focus on classical music. Electronic, amplified, rock, or pop music from digital masters might not far as well on LPs as pure acoustic music does! Sad but likely true!

I agree with Albert that I'd rather have the mastering lab to the D-to-A conversion for me.
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