Digital masters are pressed to vinyl all the time.
Oh and one other thing...
Guess what form the output signal of a CD player or DAC is?
Why, it's ANALOGUE!
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Apple Had 'Worked On' Offering a High-Definition Music Format
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Digital masters are pressed to vinyl all the time.
Oh and one other thing...
Guess what form the output signal of a CD player or DAC is?
Why, it's ANALOGUE!
So which is it? First you say that when a vinyl is converted into a CD without distortions it is indifferent from a digitally pressed CD with results which can be accurately reproduced. Next you say that CDs and vinyls are made differently hence the sound should be different. Don't see how these two points reconcile with one another. In effect you're just plugging these arguments just to make up your own conclusion that vinyls are no better than CDs but truth is you're just banking on the words of others without even experiencing it for yourself which is why I'm asking you to try it out for yourself.
Yes I did say that vinyl affects a listener at a subconsious level but it clearly is in no way promoting any form of malarkey. If you want to make it a spiritual debate out of this, go smoke some pot and listen to Jimi Hendrix while eating some magic mushrooms please go ahead. But to dismiss the effects music have on your subconsious is pure fallacy. If music doesn't have an effect on wellbeing, why would it still be used in hospitals for therapy and a perfectly legit allied health profession?
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It is only as analogue as the digital waveform it is converted from allows it to be. And it will never be 100% accurate to the original source waveform therefore making it still part digital.
Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer. 
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Hi all
Sorry if this has been asked
Q1 what is better sound quality between 320kbps mp3 or 256kbps AAC ? As I own a pair of westone 4r and want the best from my music as alot of you are talking about apples AAC but not much about the 320kbps mp3.
Q2 I have alot of flac files and wanted to know can I convert them to the apple lossless alac codec without damaging the sound quality or is it best to re rip the CDs to the apple lossless ?
Q3 one more question are both flac and apple lossless just the same quality ? As there still compresing the music.
Thanks for any help all
Hi all
Sorry if this has been asked
Q1 what is better sound quality between 320kbps mp3 or 256kbps AAC ? As I own a pair of westone 4r and want the best from my music as alot of you are talking about apples AAC but not much about the 320kbps mp3.
Q2 I have alot of flac files and wanted to know can I convert them to the apple lossless alac codec without damaging the sound quality or is it best to re rip the CDs to the apple lossless ?
Q3 one more question are both flac and apple lossless just the same quality ? As there still compresing the music.
Thanks for any help all
no not kidding at all...if you would not be so closed minded (from your mockage above) you would understand how a tube receiver has a warmth sound to it,that modern digital just can't match...
Eh?
So where does the engineer get the music from to press on to vinyl?
The mix only exists as digital... there is no separate analogue copy. If you want to listen to the music on a piece of black plastic, you have to convert it back to analogue again in order to press it...
They do it because people like you like to hear some snap, crackle and pop with your music. If you're into any sort of modern music, I've got news for you... pretty much all your 'analogue vinyl' will have been recorded and processed digitally.
And a 24/96 or even 24/192 are WAY more detailed than vinyl. It truly is a downscale to convert from these digital masters to the analogue master.
I used to have a large vinyl collection, and I had a high quality Rega planar turntable. Vinyl sounded great!
Digital music sounds great too. And since most albums are recorded digitally anyway, it's truly pointless converting them back to vinyl in order to listen to them.
What are your favourite records negativezero? What sort of music do you listen to on vinyl?
If you looked at the waveforms coming out of the back of a CD player and off a record player they'd be pretty much identical. You wouldn't see any stepping on the digital signal - it would be completely smooth and 'analogue'. The difference would be the extra noise, distortion and limited stereo soundstage on the vinyl signal.
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What equipment are you using to listen to both sources?Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer.
What recordings have you compared?
Your vinyl recording may well be a different mastering to the CD you have (unfortunately some recent 'remastering' efforts have degraded, not enhanced sound quality).
Your vinyl payback will be different to CD for sure. There will be a different frequency response and a lot of additional noise and distortion (which can be pleasurable to listen to). Different is not necessarily better though... and how can a vinyl pressing be 'more analogue' if it comes from a digital master?
Q1: AAC has nothing to do with Apple, it stands for Advanced Audio Codec and is the official MP3 successor. It's full name is MPEG4-AAC which would have been a wiser name choice because it communicates that it is a successor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aac
Comparing 320 MP3 to 256 AAC is very hard but listening tests that have been done in the past suggested that a 128 AAC sounds equal to a 192 MP3. This difference gets stronger with higher bitrate so that a 256 AAC should be better than a 320 MP3 (which is the highest bitrate MP3 allowed by the standard) but in any case not worse.
Q2: You can convert them to ALAC, no problem. As long as you don't change the sampling rate or bit depth in the process they will be exactly the same as before. You can even test this by converting them and then converting them back and using a checksum tool like md5sum to compare the checksums - they will be identical.
Q3: Yes. Both those codecs are lossless which means all the compression is done without discarding any of the data they carry. Like a ZIP file is able to compress your text files by a huge amount these codecs that are tailored to audio specifically are able to reduce their size without throwing any of the data away from the original. They are just storing the data in a more space efficient form.
The only difference these codecs have to each other is how easy it is for the CPU to compress sound and decompress it again during playback (e.g. how much energy it takes to do so for mobile devices) and how space efficient they are when compressed. FLAC is a bit more efficient overall, but ALAC is more compatible in the Apple world and also has better hardware support because all the iPods, iPhones and iPads support it, so you have to decide which one you favor.
About the compression: A simplified but obvious example is silence in an audio file which would be stored as a repeating number of 0s over long stretches througout the file which instead could be saved as the info that in the next 600 space-segments all the info we are going to need is 0. The original way of storing it would have taken 600 space-slots to store the 0 repeatedly in every slot, the new way takes only 2 space slots to save the "600" and the one "0".
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Tell me, which of these definitions describe sound :
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Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer.
You're hearing imperfections in the music inherant to the medium that is vynil. Pops, hisses, crackling are noise, not part of the original recording.
Fuller sound ? Vinyl actually cuts out most lower and upper frequencies. You get emptyer sound actually.
If you want to replicate the vynil experience on a CD, just run your digital music through a "vinylization" plugin.
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Digital can match anything. The reason it doesn't is that normal people don't want to lower the quality of their recordings to match imperfections of the past. We are not all nostalgic for the gramophone.
Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer.
Different mastering, and playback artifacts.
Very well said.
Firestarter, it appears that many of us are completely confusing and frustrating the pro-vinyl audiophiles with the FACTS. I, for one, am content to let it go. The delusion of "analog good/digital bad" is so strong that those who embrace it do so with eyes tightly shut and ears stopped.
As you have clearly stated, 99.99% of "modern" vinyl albums were recorded, mixed, and mastered digitally. Only those who track on a Studer 2" machine, mix on an analog console, and deliver a final mix on an Ampeg reel to reel tape to a vinyl production house can claim to be "digital free".
Nobody works that way anymore. There are plenty of studios that still use Studers for tracking, but only because of the character of the sound analog tape imparts--the pleasant-sounding compression and distortion artifacts that a slightly overdriven analog tape produces, and the gentle roll-off of highs. But when it comes time to mix and master? That is almost always done digitally.
In fact, there are wonderful plug-ins for audio production that mimic these characteristics. I own a few of them (PSP VintageWarmer, NF Magnetic). UAD makes a very good Studer emulation. But no one in their right mind thinks that a 100% analog recording using the best analog systems available is more accurate than digital recording.
So, if nearly ALL vinyl has the "taint" of digital, and science clearly demonstrates that human test subjects cannot tell the difference between actual vinyl playback and a digital recording of vinyl playback, the entire notion that the "steppy" digital signal is "unnatural" and "inorganic" compared to the subconsciously superior playback of vinyl is laughably ignorant and silly.
I cannot afford to waste any more time trying to deprogram a brainwashed audiophile. All I can do is strongly suggest reading the results of the overwhelming evidence debunking hi-fi audio's claims of perceivable superiority.
So, if you and KnightWRX want to keep up the fight, I'm with you all the way, but I will have to cease this exercise of futility for now.
I have no where near your level or firestarter's level of expertise in the field. I just have a bunch of common sense on the subject and some understanding of the different codecs out there for audio encoding/decoding.
But frankly, I think you said it best. For people who claim they can "hear" so much from vinyl, they sure don't want to listen very well (yes, bad quote from a bad movie).
It seems that the quality of the output from DACs have been improving fairly rapidly over time, and that all are not created equal.
Does anyone know if it is any easier/cheaper to make a "good" sounding DAC for 24/192 versus 16/44.1?
By "good", I think I mean transparent.
Does anyone know if it is any easier/cheaper to make a "good" sounding DAC for 24/192 versus 16/44.1?
By "good", I think I mean transparent.
Yes, you're correct - DAC quality has improved over time.
There are engineering compromises to both slower and 'quicker' DACs.
The way D to A conversion works, you must filter out any signal above half the sampling frequency from the output of the DAC (and it's this filtering that 'smooths' the wave form and makes it not look like a staircase).
While 16/44.1 DACs would be easier to engineer... the creation of these 'brick wall' filters is difficult and can affect sound quality. So often plain old 44.1 audio signals are 'up-sampled' to say 192 digitally - since outputting at that rate means you can use a much gentler analogue filter. If you ever hear about an 'oversampling' D to A, this is what is going on.
The use of 192 in professional audio circles is probably a measure to reduce the effect of these anti-aliasing filters (as a signal may move into and out of digital multiple times, and any distortion would be compounded) - more than it is an attempt to capture any frequencies above 22kHz.
Now, producing 24 bit accuracy at 192 is quite hard (and even harder if you want to use 'oversampling' on that). It's a 1 in 16 million accuracy after all. This challenge has spurred the development of Delta Sigma Conversion, where a very much higher oversampling rate is used, but the converter is only 1 bit. This technology has the advantage of requiring only a gentle low pass filter, while also being much easier to build (as the signal only needs to be one of two possible levels). (There's more complexity to this than I've described... follow the link to learn more).
So the simple answer to your question is that direct 44.1 converters are pretty much never used these days - and it's the use of oversampling that's driven sound quality improvements over time. High accuracy, fast D to A is expensive, so Delta Sigma has become extremely popular as an alternative.
Well I agree that the formats already exist, I'm assuming he meant more of the supply side -- selling it on iTunes and getting the record studios to embrace it in a mainstream manner. Right now we have Chesky/HDTracks/Linn but they're minor bit players.
The last time I tried it, it (iPod) did handle 24-bit up to 48kHz.
But failed on anything > 48kHz and > 2 channels.
Also, regarding your concert DVDs, your chances of having anything truly high quality are slim. Most DVDs use AC-3 even for stereo, at birates as low as 192kbps and at highest 512kbps so no different than MP3 there. Some will use PCM for stereo tracks but it's usually 44 or 48 16-bit so CD quality. Very very few will use DTS 96/24 which is still lossy and requires special processing to get anything other than the core DTS compatible stream.
In fact in my collection of music DVDs I can only think of ONE that had a stereo 96/24 PCM track and a small handfull that had DTS 96/24.
My high-res music comes from DVD-A, SACD, vinyl, Blu-Ray...
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Read his bio he was half smug hippie who thought his all-fruit diet eliminated body odor and he only listened to Dylan and the Beatles, from the hippie commune days to his death bed.
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Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer.
And then someone explain to me why it's the exact opposite for me. I hear details on CD's and even mp3's that I did not here on vinyl! I guess it's because all of our ears are different and hearing is a very subjective thing!!
So, the best advice is to probably just listen to music how you like and enjoy it rather then making a religious crusade out of it. That's the great thing about having a variety of formats - there's something for everyone!!
Will someone please explain then why I hear a difference between mp3, FLAC, CD, and vinyl? Why am I hearing details in vinyl that are not even present on cds? Why do I hear better, fuller sound on a crappy turntable with poorly aimed speakers than a digital file through good headphones? This makes no sense to me since I'm not an engineer.
See my post here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/14255625/
Also keep in mind that part of what you're hearing is a much higher noise floor adding, as another poster wrote above, artifacts... you're not hearing better fidelity nor are you hearing what the sound engineer really intended. All things being equal, a properly mastered recording will always sound better in a digital medium than on vinyl. That isn't to say there aren't superior analogue media, but vinyl is not one of them.
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Digital media have a much lower noise floor and higher dynamic range... A properly mastered sound recording that utilizes this dynamic range will have subtleties pop out at you that you could not perceive from a vinyl medium. Listen to the original "Awakenings" by Ahmad Jamal as a perfect example. And stay the hell away from remasters.
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Please read Ken Pohlmann's Principles of Digital Audio for a detailed explanation of (among other things) analogue wave reconstruction from a digital source, Nyquist Theorem (developed by Harry Nyquist at Bell Labs in the 1920s), the internal reclocking of signal in basically every DAC made since 1985... The problem of accurate reconstruction of an analogue waveform from digital data was licked a long time ago.
Let me put this another way: 24 frames a second is enough information for the human eye to perceive continuous motion (dogs have much faster motion sensing accuracy, so they perceive film as a series of still images). ... and then you have 16-bit Linear PCM audio, or MP3 or AAC, in most cases the source was sampled 44,100 times per second (above the Nyquist limit), with 65,536 possible amplitude values per quantization/sampling interval, dithering, and typically a 20kHz lowpass filter that eliminates frequency aliasing (please read Pohlmann for an explanation on this, frequency aliasing isn't quite what you think it is).
Think about that for a little while.
I'll go with that last part
So basically what I'm talking about can be summed up by listening to "I Just Want to See His Face" by The Rolling Stones from Exile on Main Street. My mp3 of the song is 320kbps and it's either ripped from the CD or FLAC I can't remember and the sound quality is very good as far as mp3s go. FYI as far as fitting my 8000+ songs on my iPhone is concerned I'm happiest with 320 mp3. However, when I was listening to it on a pristine vinyl copy a friend of mine has I could hear details, not pops and scratches, but sounds from the studio, claps, vocal variances that are not present in the digital copy.
If mastering is the issue then maybe Mr. Young and company should be imposing mastering standards instead of just bigger files. I know that many of the vinyl recordings, CDs and even some of my alternatively appropriated music sounds better than things I've gotten from iTunes. I hear little digital artifacts every now and then but nothing I have at 320 that's ripped from a decent source sounds terrible. Perhaps they should have stuff at 320 as their upper tier.
In a perfect world I'd have a 1TB iPhone loaded with FLAC audio. No matter how you look at it I think improving the audio quality is a good thing and accepting mediocrity is a bad thing. How some of my friends put up with 64k lime wire downloads is beyond me.
Now I'm not in any way qualified to make any emperical statements as to whether there's an appreciable difference between vinyl and redbook audio formats or which is superior.
However, I've noted that much earlier in the thread, groove depth was discussed as a limiting resolving factor for vinyl pressings and needle damage was cited as one of the more detrimental factors of the vinyl medium. It distinctly reminds me of the ELP laser turntable, which makes two claims:
1: A beam of light can penetrate deeper into the existing grooves to grab sound data that traditional needles couldn't, furthering the resolving capaility of a record
2: A beam of light doesn't create pressure or friction of any sort on the malleable vinyl material to damage it, keeping the record as pristine as the day it was pressed.
It's a bit too rich for my blood unfortunately, in part because the history of the product never allowed it to be mass produced but I do find it an intriguing curiousity nevertheless. How much better could the analog mediums be if the technology was further developed?
A truly novel thought might be that with vectorization technology, you could store an analogous sinewave in a digital file...?
However, I've noted that much earlier in the thread, groove depth was discussed as a limiting resolving factor for vinyl pressings and needle damage was cited as one of the more detrimental factors of the vinyl medium. It distinctly reminds me of the ELP laser turntable, which makes two claims:
1: A beam of light can penetrate deeper into the existing grooves to grab sound data that traditional needles couldn't, furthering the resolving capaility of a record
2: A beam of light doesn't create pressure or friction of any sort on the malleable vinyl material to damage it, keeping the record as pristine as the day it was pressed.
It's a bit too rich for my blood unfortunately, in part because the history of the product never allowed it to be mass produced but I do find it an intriguing curiousity nevertheless. How much better could the analog mediums be if the technology was further developed?
A truly novel thought might be that with vectorization technology, you could store an analogous sinewave in a digital file...?