[Melonious Thunk]

So after connecting a maze of wires and jacks to the proper inputs and outputs and adjusting the active crossover for the high pass and low pass, testing three db/octave slopes for both ends, I concluded that my newly restored audio system was working well. I pulled out some vintage vinyl and started listening to the various direct-to-disc records I collected in 1974-5. Holy moley! I could not stop listening. It's been maybe four years since my equipment has been operating at top level, and I've been listening to CDs pretty much exclusively.

After several hours of listening, I'm glad I kept all my vinyl. As good as they sound, CDs lack the excitement in the sound that is in the better analogue recordings. I have an audiophile CD player, and the comparison of the music, going back and forth from CD to analogue record was revealing. While crisp and clean sounding, the CDs don't create the sense of liveness that you can hear in records.

But is is a pain in the ass to get up every 24 minutes to turn over the record.

[galleygirl]

So after connecting a maze of wires and jacks to the proper inputs and outputs and adjusting the active crossover for the high pass and low pass, testing three db/octave slopes for both ends, I concluded that my newly restored audio system was working well. I pulled out some vintage vinyl and started listening to the various direct-to-disc records I collected in 1974-5. Holy moley! I could not stop listening. It's been maybe four years since my equipment has been operating at top level, and I've been listening to CDs pretty much exclusively.

After several hours of listening, I'm glad I kept all my vinyl. As good as they sound, CDs lack the excitement in the sound that is in the better analogue recordings. I have an audiophile CD player, and the comparison of the music, going back and forth from CD to analogue record was revealing. While crisp and clean sounding, the CDs don't create the sense of liveness that you can hear in records.

But is is a pain in the ass to get up every 24 minutes to turn over the record.

I've always agreed. I have all my vinyl, but i need a new turntable; which I've put off for awhile due to fiduciary difficulties...

[Melonious Thunk]

So after connecting a maze of wires and jacks to the proper inputs and outputs and adjusting the active crossover for the high pass and low pass, testing three db/octave slopes for both ends, I concluded that my newly restored audio system was working well. I pulled out some vintage vinyl and started listening to the various direct-to-disc records I collected in 1974-5. Holy moley! I could not stop listening. It's been maybe four years since my equipment has been operating at top level, and I've been listening to CDs pretty much exclusively.

After several hours of listening, I'm glad I kept all my vinyl. As good as they sound, CDs lack the excitement in the sound that is in the better analogue recordings. I have an audiophile CD player, and the comparison of the music, going back and forth from CD to analogue record was revealing. While crisp and clean sounding, the CDs don't create the sense of liveness that you can hear in records.

But is is a pain in the ass to get up every 24 minutes to turn over the record.

I've always agreed. I have all my vinyl, but i need a new turntable; which I've put off for awhile due to fiduciary difficulties...

Just rediscovering what I knew and forgot.

[BackyardChef]

I plan to get one of those USB turntables so I can burn all of old vinyl....I doubt it will be top quality sound, but I haven't had access to a turntable for years and many of my old 45s never came out on disc and probably never will.

I grew up with and LOVE the snaps and crackles of vinyl (I know, I should clean it and the needle!), but have never heard bass response and warmth on a digital recording like I remember with vinyl. Too pristine for my taste. I like some grit in my music.....although I can also appreciate superior recording fidelity....it just doesn't seem special to me....or alive.

[Wilfrid1]

I remember being disappointed when I bought CD copies of some well-worn vinyl favorites. The sound is, somehow, flatter. I don't get to compare it much any more, because I have turntable which I would describe as perfunctory. As for changing the record, remember the good old auto-change, and box sets of LPs which would have the sides ordered so that you could stack them up and let them drop with a resounding clatter onto the turntable?

[Sneakeater]

Vinyl is just better. It's somehow more involving. There's something about CDs that don't compel you to listen.

I have no idea why this should be.

[porkwah]

I've wondered how much of this is due to limitations of digital technology (it being some sort of low-pass filter), how much of it is due to limitations of vinyl being copacetic to intimate listening, and how much of it is due to the reprocessing and remastering of old recordings toward a different aesthetic. I don't know, but I'd expect it's a combination.

[Melonious Thunk]

I am not a technician, so this is an over-simplified layman's opinion. Vinyl, as I use the term, refers to analogue recordings. The sound is created by translating the sound waves that reach the amplifier via microphones from actual waves of moving air into the electronic analog of the moving waves. This analog is then transmitted to a stylus that cuts away the plastic material on the master disc in the shape of the waves. The stylus re-translates the analogue waves into their physical representation on the master disc. The master is then used to press copies, much like an image is transferred from a plate to paper or material. Often a master tape is made from the live recording before a master disc is cut. In some cases (directg to disc records) the recording is made directly on the master from the live sound. The microphones pick up a lot of sound. Not just the main sounds from the instruments, but secondary waves, harmonics and other sounds that emanate from the instruments. The vibrato of a reed, the sound of the wood in a clarinet or violin etc. These are very subtle, almost inaudible sounds, but they collectively add up to what we hear as live" music.

When you play an analogue record, the stylus in the tonearm re-translates the waves in the vinyl into electronic signals by its movements, and these signals are ampllified and sent to speakers which again re-translate them into movement of the speaker's diaphragms. The forward and back movement of the diaphragms create actual sound waves that reproduce the sound of the music.

Are you with me?

Now, CDs use a digital process. The captured sound is translated into a series of bits and bytes. It is sampled by the equipment, and that sample is what is used to create the sound that is transferred to a CD, which is read by a laser beam. That laser beam takes the "yes/no" or on/off signal and translates it into an approximation of the sound. How lifelike it is depends on the sampling rate and many other technical factors I haven't a clue about. But, and here's the thing, I believe that the small, nearly inaudible sounds that we hear in live music, the subtle tiny vibratos and such, that are picked up by the analogue process, are lost by the digital process. Hence you have a clean, pure crystalline sound, but not a "real" sounding sound.

Now, most people listen to music on pretty poor speakers and amplifiers, and the merits of CDs and digital recording is that it sounds great clear and clean on crummy sound systems, like lousy car radios, cheap boom boxes etc. So in fact, digital recording brings better sound to more people by its nature. And another merit of CDs is that the disc does not deteriorate nearly as quickly as does a vinyl disc, especially one that is played with a poor quality stylus or is mishandled. But the higher the quality of your music reproduction system, the more you will notice the difference between digital and analogue sound.

At least that's my theory.

Now I am sure someone will come on and prove me all wet.

[porkwah]

I think there's something to that, but I think there's something to the idea that the people in the music biz who are directing what things sound like have chosen a certain sound.

Here's an article I found interesting. http://www.austin360.com/music/content/mus...09/28cover.html

Now maybe someone who actually knows something could chime in?

[peppyre]

This thread has reminded me just how much I love the sound of vinyl. My ex and I had a pretty fantastic system set up and at a flea market I found some incredible, and really early, Louis Armstrong records. When we got home, we lit some candles, turned out all the lights, had some wine and just sat back and enjoyed. Louis just doesn't sound the same on CD. The depth is gone. The emotion is gone and the sound is almost tinny to my ears, but I'm sure that for most people under 30 that have never listened to vinyl would hate the sound and having to get up and flip the record. It's about the whole experience and the interaction, which now is really not there. My stepsister, who is 13, has no idea what a record is, which I think is just sad.

[Melonious Thunk]

The sound of CDs also was concordant with the disappearance of acoustic music from most popular records, so there was little reference to contrast the electronically amplified sound of "live" music with that of electronically amplified digital music. My reference was and is acoustic sounds of instruments and human voices, with little amplification or technical enhancement. Classical music, cabaret singing and jazz are the genres I listen to almost exclusively. And the jazz tends toward small groups and soloists. I would not have a clue how to tell the difference between "live" pop music genres and the digital versions if the volume were loud enough. I am an anachronism.

[BackyardChef]

The Thunk Theory expressed above jives with what I've heard about the difference between analog and digital media and why they sound different. Some subtleties are lost to the stringency of digital expression-- rounded off, if you will.

Back when my brother and I were running our label we put out a bunch of vinyl-- more than cds and for a brief time I thought I had an understanding of how these things worked and were different, but ultimately, all I found was which I preferred....Watching the lathe work its magic was pretty special to someone that grew up on a vinyl diet.....

[Sneakeater]

Now, most people listen to music on pretty poor speakers and amplifiers, and the merits of CDs and digital recording is that it sounds great clear and clean on crummy sound systems, like lousy car radios, cheap boom boxes etc. So in fact, digital recording brings better sound to more people by its nature. And another merit of CDs is that the disc does not deteriorate nearly as quickly as does a vinyl disc, especially one that is played with a poor quality stylus or is mishandled. But the higher the quality of your music reproduction system, the more you will notice the difference between digital and analogue sound.

I agree with you completely.

I've been saying this for years.

[Wilfrid1]

I recall Neil Young having much to say on this subject, much along the Thunk lines. There was also some important point about what the human ear can and can't do...

This prompted that fine music journalist Charlie Shaar Murray to wonder why, if Young was so obsessed with the right sound, he couldn't keep his guitar in tune.

[Sneakeater]

The sound of CDs also was concordant with the disappearance of acoustic music from most popular records, so there was little reference to contrast the electronically amplified sound of "live" music with that of electronically amplified digital music. My reference was and is acoustic sounds of instruments and human voices, with little amplification or technical enhancement. Classical music, cabaret singing and jazz are the genres I listen to almost exclusively. And the jazz tends toward small groups and soloists. I would not have a clue how to tell the difference between "live" pop music genres and the digital versions if the volume were loud enough. I am an anachronism.

I agree with you completely about this, too.

I've been saying it for years.