I and Soleil wrote:
Damn right it sucks. And damn right it's inferior to vinyl, at least sound-wise, BUT,
I think you misread me. I think CDs sound way better than vinyl. They also have the advantage of being more durable.
You've the right to your own opinion, of course :) I strongly disagree though, and I'll tell you why soon.
And yes, I can assure you that you would hear the difference in a blind test.
Interestingly, there never seems to be any equipment handy to put this to the test. Vinyl advocates always seem to be going on about equipment that only exists in some dream world.
No problem, I'll give a real example. I've got a nice setup at home which isn't too fancy on the vinyl side, but is very fancy on the digital side. For playing vinyls I currently use a REGA P25 turntable (approx $1000) with standard RB600 arm and a Rega Super Elys pickup (which I highly recommend btw - it's a bargain!!). Total cost is about $1200 second-hand. The digital front-end is a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 3D CD-player ($5000) which is regarded as one of the finest CD-players today (at least < $10K, and I agree with that). Both are connected to a Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista M3 integrated amplifier using the same cables (Nordost Red Dawn), which is driving a pair of Dynaudio Contour 3.3 speakers. Although this system costs some money, it's by no means exotic and from a dream world. So, how does it sound? CDs sound very clear, controlled and overall as good as it gets. Playing them through this CD-player adds a marked improvement over normal players; the sound is much more relaxed and focused, and it manages to reproduce the entire bandwidth without any major noticeable artefacts. This is damn good for a CD-player, and I've had and listened to MANY in my days. The only critizism I have about it really, is that most CDs sound..boring. There's no "life" in them, even though I can't find anything particular to complain about, it doesn't provoke my feet to move, y'know? Moving on to the Rega turntable, which is less than 1/3 of the cost, the first thing you notice is more AIR, and more rock'n'roll!. Recordings sound much more "real", and the sounds float around in the room very "matter-of-factly". Gone is the "controlled" sound and hello to the "live" feeling. Bass sounds are noticeable sharper and heavier, and less rolled off. The treble and midbands have so much more information to provide that it's sometimes silly - especially on well-mastered heavy vinyls. Listening to the vinyl version of Portishead's "Dummy" I'm beginning to wonder why I even have a CD-player. The CD-version is SO much worse, in every single aspect of the sound. Another example is my all-time fave "Trans Europa Express" .. On vinyl it's a big pounding disco-bitch of a record, whereas on CD it's a cold and dull synth thingie that mostly sounds "cute". The difference is so overwhelming that it's silly, especially on side 2, the TEE song itself. Did you never ask yourself why DJs play vinyl and not CDs? Because they want the audience to dance, of course. You don't dance to a CD, 'cos there's no rock'n'roll in them.. *grin* (go ahead and ask any DJ - I've talked to several and they all have the same opinion)
And as we all know, music WAS better before, right? *grin*
Before what? I don't think it could have been better before Kraftwerk. :)
I meant before now :) amir wrote:
I heard the difference on a high end system. Seems like the vinyl gave up more high end "timbre" than a boxy sounding CD. 0's and 1's reproduced (stuffed) in CD's seem not to replace the .1, .2, .3, .8, .9's heard in the analog world.
You got it all right buddy :) Music is analog, no matter how it was produced. The end result is sound, and sound is an analog phenomenon. No matter how sophisticated your equipment and recording techniques are, it is impossible to perfectly reproduce an analog signal by using digital approximations. A sound wave is a coherent signal, whereas a digital sample is an approximation of this wave. Even if you were to use 128 bits of resolution and a sample rate of 4GHz you wouldn't be able to reproduce it perfectly (although you'd be pretty goddamn close! ;) Another thing that makes digital media a problem is that of timing, or what people tend to call "jitter". It's almost, if not totally, impossible to make a clock that is 100% accurate, and/or make the signals clock-accurate given distance and the timing deficiencies that occur when you transmit the digital signal through cables and such. This all leads to tiny timing problems that are very difficult to control, resulting in an output signal that is not properly synced. From my experience, this is the major reason why so many people think of vinyl as "more alive" and "less artificial", because from analog sources timing is never an issue (there is no clock, just a signal). I'm sure somebody with better knowledge in digital electronics can explain this much better than I can.. Luca wrote:
Now almost every piece of music is recorded in digital right from the start so CD (or some of its new incarnations) is the media of choice.
This isn't true. Lots of musicians use analog mastering, and in fact I've heard that some people have abandoned digital equipment completely, *recently*. Besides, any music that is not played on purely digital instruments (e.g. "constructed" sounds) started their life as analog, since sound itself is analog ;)
From my own experience and friends', the best way to obtain good digital sound is to do all the recording and mixing in analog, and just convert it to digital in the final stage. It seems the sooner you go digital, the worse the end result is! Could be jitter problems or something, I don't know...
but surely if you want to listen to "The Mix" just as KW intended it and listened to during recording you have to go digital.
Well, I don't want to listen to The Mix ;) But, let me say that hearing any of the older albums (KW1, Autobahn, Radio-Activity, TEE) on a good tube amp and a nice vinyl player.. Now, that's Kraftwerk!!! Radioactivity (the song) on the original LP is one of my all-time highlights in Hi-Fi.. It's scaringly moody and utterly fantastic.. :) "Kristallo" is another example, "Ruckzuck" too.. Kraftwerk really deserves analog sound. On a Hi-Fi show last year I played "Kristallo" on a Nottingham Analogue Hyperspace turntable (~ $5,000 with arm + cartridge) and I almost fainted. That's my next player, rest assured.. Wheeeee!! Go find one and hear it! Soleil and Oh Jay wrote:
I think you misread me. I think CDs sound way better than vinyl. well ... that's what u may think or hear , but cds actually ONLY sound "clearer" than vinyl , which is indeed A_BIG_DIFF'RENCE_!!! ;-)
Damn right Oh Jay! But, this is not true for good equipment. A good vinyl player usually sounds clearer than a CD does, but it does so in a more "natural" way, e.g. not so aggressively.
well ... it's jus' A_PLAIN_FACT that vinyl has a much greater frequency spectrum than a cd or - until today !!! - ANY digital medium could ever have !!! ;-) so the "dream world" is the one , where the cd advocates live in , as their ears doesn't seem to hear those frequency spectrum anymore !!! *hehehe* ;-)))
Amen, brother! Peace, love and understanding (and Hi mum!), Peo