I have all mediums. LPs, CDs, Tape and I stream. I enjoy them all and still collect Vinyl, CDs and tapes. Each has their own characteristics. Love music first!
How many times does this have to be said? There are recordings on vinyl that are not on CD and never will be. There are recordings on CD that are not on vinyl and never will be. The smart ones in the pack know and make room for both.
yeah but deep in your heart you always have a preference... if the price is the same I always prefer vinyl, they just sound better to me. I end up buying lots of CDs because vinyl prices are crazy.
@@scottgates601 i know, thing is, if you leave the price out of the equation it's easier to know which is your favorite format. Price being equal I prefer vinyl. In the real world I buy a lot of CDs bc vinyl is too expensive. Did you get the idea?
off course there is but with 1.8 grams at least with 50 to 60 years none has worn out , needles ,yes, maybe 12 since 71, had only two by this time but know i own 28 turntables of high quality , i colect hi-fi components
@@michaelrovner4165 why not?the sound is better but lower and is still friction like any other stylus, as the record isn´t played by the MC cartridge but for the stylus in it
I don't disagree, but I don't know how relevant it is. How many times would you have to play a record before there was *actual, noticeable* degradation in the sound? I bet it would be many thousands - probably more than is realistically possible, unless you listen to the same record multiple times a day for a long time. And how exactly would you measure the degradation, especially if it's something that happens very gradually over time?
Sound engineer here. A couple things about one aspect of the discussion. You are very much correct in your general argument about audio being an "illusion" in that a performance captured with a microphone is not an accurate representation of what we would hear standing in that room. That said, vinyl (and any other analog format for that matter) IS very much imparting a sound. What we call warmth (which very much is a widely accepted term) is unquestionably a form of DISTORTION. Now, most of us love it, but Dave is very much correct in that if you were present in the control room at the recording studio were the artists/producers were making decisions, or even at the mastering studio, you wouldn't be hearing the distortion that vinyl is imparting. And in that regard, digital audio is a much more ACCURATE representation of any signal that it's captured, what the artists/engineers were hearing in the control room. This is not an opinion, this is a verifiable scientific fact that digital audio recordings are more accurate than analog ones. Now the important thing when it comes to music is that 99 times out of 100 when you compare a digital audio release to a vinyl release, you are comparing different MASTERS. Even if the lathe is being cut with the digital master (as is often the case these days), the cutting engineer is tweaking the signal to optimize it for that format. Naturally, that would exacerbate the differences between one and the other, and it's fine to prefer one over the other. But it's important to understand the science behind what each format is.
Good points. I work in audio too. The real issue is the dynamics destruction of CD / digital post 1993. It's left Loudness Wars remasters of practically all major rock/pop in the streaming systems. Part of the vinyl revival fetish -apart from pink noise - groove rubbing 'warmth' - is the dynamic range still being baked in via the formats limitations. Pre 1993 CDs will be the digital Rosetta Stones of popular music.
@@1998mchp I agree! What the recording industry has done to the CD as a digital sound carrier is pure crime. But that only speaks of the flexibility and possibilities of this medium, which far surpasses vinyl. The industry would do the same to vinyl if that medium could handle it dynamically. What saved vinyl was its limitation and narrow dynamic range.
@@ljuboizsiska5448 majority of music released on CD wasn't compressed to its limits, this is only a minor portion of it, mostly pop rock destined for US radio. I listen to mostly jazz, world, prog and acoustic music and honestly can't say I have a single CD that is a victim of the loudness wars.
Ok. I've listened to 3 minutes and a history lesson is called for. First, he compares the high price tag of today's vinyl to cds, and how cds were "so" expensive when they came out. He wasn't alive in the 1980's, so he's basing his comments on what he has read. Cds were about twice the cost of vinyl when they came out. I remember paying around $15. While cds went up in cost to around $20 in the following 10 years, their prices have come back down to their original release prices. Vinyl is selling for between 5 to 15 times their original release price. What must be factored in is the lack of original recording costs of repressed records. So while it's true there are costs related to remastering, it does not compare to original recording costs. Btw, I used the Feds. Inflation calculator and determined that the $3.50 price I paid for an album in 1975 would cost $21.31 in today's money. Not $40. And not $60 to $125 charged by Acoustic Productions for their premiere re-releases. That being said I am a fan and collector of those releases, and purchase both the vinyl and SACD versions.
I am reprinting the comment I made after I watched the Dave Hurwitz video. Young folk (those under 65 - I am 79) often do not consider mobility issues that can present themselves as they age. As one grows older, it gets much easier to play CDs. I still love vinyl, and the care I took with my collection minimized pops, clicks, and annoying scratches. Sometimes, when I play vinyl, one would think it's digitized because of the lack of surface noise. Anyway, here is the edited comment I left for Dave and am now leaving for you: 'Mobility matters, too. I may not be up-to-date on what is out there, but CDs play longer than vinyl without needing to turn or change an LP. Or, gasp, have one vinyl drop on top of another. There are multi-disc CD changers that give listeners hours of music without needing to reload. Like Dave, I prefer to own physical product. With the amount of music DH discusses, I am often inspired to listen to the music of the day if it's in my library or buy it on CD if it's not. CD convenience enables me to listen longer and ensure that I do not have too many opportunities to fall.
Yes, and, cds do not degrade with every listen, like vinyl. Those pops and clicks from the first play on were annoying and distracted from the enjoyment of the music.
C'mon, CD is a 40 years old technology, from today's perspective it is almost as ancient as vinyl. It is also a physical medium anyway. People who remember the CD introduction are old today.
@@voytecco6104 I worked in a record store at precisely the time when CDs came in and vinyl was sold off cheap. The 'industry' pushed CDs so hard, retailers thought vinyl was dying out like the dinosaurs and it almost did go away completely, before the revival.
Reason and reasoning and analyzing makes peopel always to enjoy things less. Asa Spiritualô peopel who do mediation, sports travels and enjoy life say the more you analyze some content or hobby the less you enjoy it at the moment... because enjoyment doesnt come muchfrom head or brain but from body, "thoughts are in mind, feelings are in body" And scientists of neurosciencea nd spirituality and end epigenetics say Heart has its own brain, and wisdom, and electromagnetic field, but its not based pon yanalyzis and loc or resaon etc.
Maybe Davids reasomn was that while he ois listening and enjoying music....he doesnt want to be in aanalytical state of analyzing it. Because enjoying isnt coming from brain, music is energy, enjoyment is energy, its not logical or analytical thing.
This video repeats the tired old myth that digital audio somehow inferior because of sampling, that the reproduced analog output will be 'smoother' with increased sampling rates. DACs can produce perfectly smooth analog waves up to half the the sampling frequency. So, CDs can easily reproduce up to 20kHz, which is the upper limit of human hearing in young people. And, 16bit allows for 96dB of dynamic range, which is much more any consumer analog format does. czcams.com/video/UqiBJbREUgU/video.html Rip your vinyl to digital using a high qualtity ADC. Play back that digital file and it will be indistinguishable from vinyl.
The fault in digital reproduction does not lie in the principle of Nyquist sampling, which is provably correct. The problem is that DACs need to do a lot of on-the-fly computation to overcome flawed implementation (e.g. problems of filters). So digital to analog conversion is very complicated, and doing it well costs a lot more than most people are willing to spend. DACs are still improving, over 40 years since the CD was introduced. But if you give me $5,000 with which to buy either a turntable and preamp, or a CD transport and DAC, I probably will get better sound by spending it on the turntable and phono preamp.
@@TheOriginalDrastic I've heard very high end digital and analog setups. While high end analog sounds really good, I don't find anything special over digital. So, I prefer digital for great sound quality, convenience and low cost of music.
@@bikeman7982 I agree. If I were tasked with spending $50,000 on either an analog or digital front end, that would be a hard choice. My own setup has both, and often I prefer the sound of a digital source. Both turntables and CD players have evolved, improved, and seem to be converging to the point that it's arguably a matter of taste.
Dave has every right to his life experiences either CD’s and. vinyl! Record resellers in my area, Tacoma/Seattle won’t buy or sell classical music except to put it in a dollar clearance bin! Dave has been a lonely voice on You Tube discussing classical music with joy on his face and in his voice! Thanks to both of you for bringing some light to classical music!
I have a big vinyl collection ( 4000 , jazz, classical, blues, rock ) and a very big CD collection and I prefer CDs for many reasons, quality, price, format... ( with all respect to the LP collector ... )
My first vinyl purchase was the justly famous Reiner Scheherazade on RCA Living Stereo when it was initially released (in 1960) so you know how old I am! I love vinyl especially for the opportunity it gave for great album cover art and inserts that were large enough to be readable. But the ritual necessary to keep them clean and the constant hunt for vinyl that wasn't warped (even when new) was a continual horror show. Digital formats make storage simpler (and nonexistent if you stream) and now the resolution is good enough to equal or exceed the analog versions, and the warmth that was missing in the earliest digital recordings has been largely restored. So I agree with Dave.
@@bachtozappa cool…the good thing about capitalism is that you don’t have to buy a record if you can’t afford it. Also you have the option of not buying it if you want it.
@@Staybrown11that's not about buying, that's about the fact that vynils ARE expensive, and I say that loving Vynils... but they often costs from 3x up to 10x of the same music on CD.
@@BlackMoonGaming agree. Some specialized vinyl are more expensive than CD. But why focus on that small amount of small runs of limited edition vinyl. There are $80 cd’s on eBay. There’s $150 cd on record stores. The focus on limited edition is just misleading. Most vinyl records cost about the same as a new CD. And yes $50 for a vinyl is a lot of money but that’s not most.
@@Staybrown11 but that's not only for limited editions. most of the albums for most of the music generes are more expensive as Vynil.. at least twice as much... maybe I'm just unluky, but this is my experience. And I'm saying this loving Vynils a lot more than CDs..
Dragging a rock through a spiral groove on a rotating piece of plastic is so 1899 technology - that was the year that Emile Berliner debuted his flat disc.
I just received a Japanese CD of some Vinyl I had. Its fidelity and dynamics completely blows away its vinyl counterpart in sound quality. Its all a matter of speakers and amplification with CDs that supposedly sound worse than vinyl. Classical music is a revelation on CD because of it full range and lack of unwanted noise caused by a friction based reproduction method.
Glad you acknowledged how badass Dave is though. Learned so much about classical from you both, and there are solid arguments on both sides of this debate.
I regularly don’t agree with Dave’s reviews but on this topic of vinyl vs CD I have to agree with him. I have several thousand classical LPs and been collecting for 40+ years. I regularly listen to the LPs, mainly because of what’s on them that hasn’t been transferred to any other medium. I love the LPs, don’t get me wrong, but (1) the surface noise / clicks are omnipresent and super annoying in quiet passages. I have professional level equipment (Thorens) and the LPs are cleaned before every playing. It doesn’t take mishandling (as you call it) to get them, it’s omnipresent dust for one. (2) the quality of sound is highly variable from one LP to the next, there is considerable fluctuation due to the quality of the pressing. You don’t know what you get until you place it on the record player. CDs don’t have this problem, or the variability is much much less. (3) the price of modern LPs is insane. Using an inflation argument to say that they cost the same as back ‘in the days’ is silly. The Bruckner set you showed is 300 Euros on LP and 40 on CD (with lossless Blu-ray Disc included). I’m sorry, but the factor of almost 10 difference isn’t worth it. Not to mention convenience of format etc.
1. I had the same issue with surface noise. But I found out it was due to bad set up and entry level turntable, phono stage and specifically the cartridge. Once I understood my set up I was able to get my record playing experience to sound lovely, quiet and dynamic. No surface noise and no pops and clicks. 2. Yea i can agree that not all pressing plants are equal. But for the most part most new records are overall good. 3. You don’t have to buy vinyl. That’s the great thing about this hobby-you can love 💿 CD, vinyl records or streaming. You can have Bluetooth or stream. It’s beautiful.
I agree with you and even in this thread that is under your opinion one says you need better equipment so you won't hear the noise. It's almost a religion in that if you take notice of the religion's deficiencies it's because you aren't believing hard enough.
@@keithwiebe1787 I hear you. My system is entry-mid level. But I did begin with a $200 table, a $120 phono stage and $100 cartridge. The surface noise level was audible to the point where I was like dang. The pops and clicks made me say dang Vinyl sucks when I played dirty records. Even today I have to be careful with my set up. If I don’t use well shielded cartridge and or rca cables I can hear AM radio coming through my speakers. But again, I don’t think we need to spend mega church money to hear these improvements but spending more will allow you to hear the difference.
While I respect Michael Johnson as a reviewer, this post simply shows again a vinyl-phile arrogance like Michael Fremer, failing to appreciate what a quality digital setup can provide. I think this post is more confirmation bias.
@@intothevoid9831it’s the age old myth that digital is somehow fundamentally flawed because it uses a finite number of samples. Some people claim it will take an infinite number of samples to capture the audio precisely. Human hearing doesn’t go beyond 20kHz, so don’t need to capture sound beyond that. 44.1kHz sampling can easily capture over 20kHz audio. Want to capture more? Sample at 96kHz to capture sounds only bats can hear.
I'm 58 years old, which means I've passed the vinyl and CD era. I remember when I heard the first CD in my life; Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms. I was amazed by the ease of handling and the clarity of the sound, devoid of any artifacts and noise. At that time, as a kid, I had quite a vinyl collection, but I continued to buy vinyl only in cases where I couldn't find the album I was looking for on CD. Today, I have a high-end system whose value is in the neighborhood of 250,000 Euros and is completely based on a digital sound source. I don't have a single vinyl today. However, I have several thousand CDs and I still obsessively buy CDs wherever I can get hold of them, usually in bulk. I feel that I need to have a physical copy of the music I like because I think the foundations of music streaming are very shaky, especially in this geopolitical situation. I have no problem imagining a situation in which I wake up in the morning and my Tidal service does not work together with the entire Internet. I'm thinking of giving an analog source of music a chance, but it won't be vinyl, but reel-to-reel tape. If I already want an analog source, then let it be the best analog source. In that case, I would look for analog recorded music on tape and digitally recorded music on CD. I know it's not easy and it's expensive, but that's the hobby. As for the vinyl itself... I'd rather have acute attacks of hemorrhoids every 5 days than deal with vinyl again. CD quality reproduction has advanced tremendously and today's top DACs sound incredible. A lot of people, especially young people, embraced vinyl because it was the first time they heard music that wasn't MP3 and didn't come through cheap headphones.
If you want to shut yourself off to some amazing sounding music on vinyl, it's up to you, I guess, but really, as a "music lover" you seem to be very closed down
I'm also 58 and remember when everyone had to have a copy of albums like Bridge Over Troubled Water then CDs of Love over Gold, Brothers in Arms etc. Sometimes I wondered if people actually played them. I no longer have CDs nor Vinyl - just Spotify premium from a Sony phone to the highest form of Bose 360 blutooth speaker.
@@frankgarcia9834 I don't want the focus of this discussion to turn to the price of the equipment. Today, systems can be put together for fractions of that price that sound quite alright. The higher you climb with the price, the smaller the return, i.e. the smaller the improvement in sound quality. I have reached my limit. Everyone has their priorities in life. I like a lot of things, among other things, let's say cars. I could buy a nice little ultra racer for that money, but priorities. I enjoy listening to music much more than driving a car. I've seen all-digital systems that cost double and triple the price. I've seen a DAC that costs $120,000. But that's for the big guys who don't even know how much they paid for it.
I have several Bruckner Symphonies none of which are on vinyl, CD, 8-track, or streaming. I now buy my music from nativeDSD. These are DSD downloads of DSD64 and DSD256. Direct Stream Digital (DSD) uses a very high sampling rate to capture audio. The standard DSD format has a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz, which is 64 times the CD audio sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. DSD256, has a sampling rate of 11.2 MHz. Bruckner sounds fantastic!
Records are way too expensive. Regardless of the reason, they're ridiculously expensive. And this is coming from someone who happily buys $150 One Steps.
I’m old enough to have grown up with records. When CD came out I couldn’t afford it but assumed it really was perfect sound forever. When I bought my first house and built my listening room it was at first all CD. Vinyl was almost nonexistent back then. Only after it was done I heard a Linn and it sounded so good I had to get a turntable. The next few years I was playing records and CD about equally. One night my wife said, “It’s so quiet!” I thought she meant surface noise. No. She means the CD has more noise! Wtf!?! My wife taught me something very valuable: with records the noise rides above and separate from the music. Like people coughing at a concert. With digital the noise is interwoven into the music. The music is the noise. CD turns music into noise. Records don’t do that.
@@nicksterj Actually if you read it again more carefully and this time thinking it through more you will see the digital conversion itself is in fact the source of the noise.
@@nicksterj My wife would beg to differ. Women don't care about technical jargon. They only care how the music sounds. When they tell you your precious digital sounds like noise you should listen.
Either you're looking great for your age, or you're too young to remember than even before CDs took over, many Classical music fans were already switching from vinyl records to cassette tapes, because it freed them from getting up to flip records in the middle of a long piece, and from the surface noise and inner groove distortion of vinyl. The introduction of metal tape and Dolby C NR in 1980 allowed cassettes to approach the quality of reel-to-reel and to make audibly indistinguishable copies of mint-condition LPs and live radio broadcasts, and by 1981, digitally-mastered pre-recorded cassettes of classical works were already becoming common, just in time for the Walkman to revolutionize music listening -- Beethoven was no longer chained to the living room!
The basic problem people underestimate _vastly_ is the placebo effect. Most people think it's something nebulous that one has to strain to really hear. But the placebo effect doesn't work like this at all! It's MUCH more insidious in a way. First of all, the difference you "hear" is very obvious and leaving no doubt. In the late 1980s everybody and his mother heard the obvious difference between a regular CD and a gold-plated CD. And before that there was a clear difference heard between CDs and the same CDs whose edges were painted with a green marker. If you are old enough to remember the '80s, you'll recall the ads for those "special green markers" in the audiophile press. It was amazing. And yet, it's all 100% fictitious. Contradiction? No, it turns out that's how our brains work. Bottom line is that in double-blind (that's critical) tests over past 40 years nobody was able to hear any difference between signal X versus the same signal X sent through 10 (ten) pairs of A/D-D/A converters in a _row._ Likewise, nobody in such tests was ever able to tell a CD from SACD. I am very glad CDs are available, never liked the bother of the vinyl. And I go to live classical concerts a lot too.
Listening and hearing the difference between SACD and normal CD was a revelation to me, a very unwanted one at the time because I thought there could not actually be any difference and it was all a silly marketing ploy. The clarity and smoothness of the DSD (sacd) format was and is very apparent if you listen through good equipment. It needs to be actually recorded in DSD not just up-sampled from PCM. The difference in these two digital formats is actually what helped bring me closer to Vinyl because vinyl is another step towards clarity and smoothness. I agree placebo is real but true DSD is a the real deal. Try using the Pine player if you are on osx or foobar2000 on windows (both freeware). Take some time A/B with good headphones you will hear the difference.
I agree with the old man. IF you listen to classical.... then SACD. with a SACD player/system that processes actual DSD, will be your best friend. Its literally better in every stat over vinyl. The rest is coloration and system specific. If you have thousands into a basic cleaning system, which is what basic vacuums and ionic cleaners actually cost, and you have thousands into cartridges, isolation, phono stages, tube amps, etc... I bet your analog system sounds wonderful. If your vinyl has a single digital process, then what is the point??? Most vinyl records "now a days" are digital. WHY not just go HiRes SACD/DSD, it's the closest source. Even streaming is getting good. I use Amazon Prime, most of the albums I listen to are 24/192. I UNDESRTAND I have some AAA albums from the popular retailers who care about vinyl, Acoustic Sounds, etc. They sound great...when they are engineered and mastered correctly. ( UHQR, for 150 bucks) It's really not worth the cash difference to a 35-dollar SACD/DSD source.
Check your SACDs, CDs, DSDs out on an audio editor. 'Audacity' is free. Look at the clipping, the compression and the 'louding' that you are listening to on most of them.
At one time, in the mid-80s, I had something like three or four thousand LPs, mostly classical, but lots of jazz and pop, too. (I was a reviewer and got lots of freebies.) But when the CD came along, I was taken with its lucid sound quality and ease of use. I was frankly tired of all the fussing and putzing around with LPs and the equipment and work required to produce the best sound quality. I don't begrudge anyone their love of LPs and the rituals related to them. I don't even doubt that the analog sound they produce at their best may have a magic that CDs can't equal. But I've lived happily with CDs for 35 years now and I'm too damned old to even think about going back.
The new equipment and needles are making the vinyls sound less noisy, even the old one's. You need vinyl to be considered serious as a DJ by the new generation. There is still moviment and marketing around vinyl because of it's exclusivity inside the club scene. So better cheaper pre-amps and mixers, you'd be amazed if you come back solely to listen to very loud music and not finding any surface noise
I think all your points are spot on, and so are Dave's! Let him rant a little! I don't think he's taking himself too seriously here. His channel is amazing, I have learned a lot about classical from him.
The problem with the video is, of course, that David Hurwitz has been unable to comment on your various remarks - and I think we both know that he would have a lot to say in response to your comments. I gave up vinyl decades ago because local New Zealand pressings at the time were dreadful - and I've never considered returning to it. I think the first CDs were poor but they have improved enormously over the decades. I personally love SACD and direct stream digital (DSD) in general.
Spot on and thank you for responding as it saves me the effort. Clicks and pops are a dated issue with vinyl. Current quality products are virtually noise free and will stay that way with rather simple and proper care. A good vacuum record cleaner will take care of most issues with older vinyl. Of course, scratches are forever but they are not the result of exercising proper care. The DG Bruckner set is outstanding.
@@ArtyFactual_IntelligenceI bought mine directly from DG at a much better price. Classical music will never sell like pop singers and somebody has to pay for the mixing and mastering. And there are 17 disks.
As a working musician who listens more frequently to live music than to recordings, I’ve come to notice the bias (or in a more positive light, the ‘point of view’) of modern classical music production/engineering. Some of my listening favorites are older recordings of what Dave might call ‘unlistenable recording quality), partially because I don’t mind filling-in the missing timbres, articulations, etc. through audiation, but also because I sometimes find these live and older recordings to be less ‘fussy’ and more straightforward in their audible bias (for example favoring the downstage instruments dramatically, or in the case of pre-electric recordings, significantly disadvantaging the upper frequency-range). On the other side, I’ve had so many young and new listeners come to me after their first live performance complaining that they ‘couldn’t hear the soloist at all’ or something suggesting that the balance and clarity of a live orchestral performance struck them as totally unfamiliar having only heard recordings. I think in some sense good engineering and production are spoiling us!
If one is a serious collector, as you both are, there's still no way around physical media. I notice this every time I visit fellow audiophiles (I'm both, a classical music lover and an audiophile) who use steaming services that a great part of what Dave Hurwitz talks about in his videos, and maybe the greater part of my favorite recordings, are not available on streaming services, and if they are, not in the best sounding editions and/or remastering. Besides, on very high-end systems it turns out streaming doesn't sound as good as playback from storage media or an SACD transport, in short, if one is, as Hurwitz puts it, "into the game of comparisons", then there's no way around physical media, and since the overlap is nowhere near 100%, there's probably no way around using both, and unless one's inherited an extremely well-assorted LP collection, there's certainly no way around digital playback. Real (especially classical) music aficionados aren't the kind of people who'll limit themselves (and that includes the realization that one won't listen exclusively to audiophile recordings).
I loved vinyl back in the 70s, but I am not nostalgic enough to get up and turn the record over, put records back in the sleeve, take out of the sleeve. Streaming is just so convenient. Yes, i miss the large format, liner notes, lyrics, graphics, but not enough to get back into it.
Glad you're posting on youtube again! I enjoy Dave's reviews. I had to hurry off to the thrift shop with my Norrington CDs after learning how bad they are. I drank deep of the vinyl chalice when I ABd a 1980s DG Leitner Kempff Beethoven PC3 CD with tuttis that didn't sound quite right, with the earlier LP which remained detailed and transparent in climaxes.
I admire you for your patience dealing with THAT person who incites pandaemonium in one clip and then feigns innocence as to why on earth ppl start attacking him. Love you channel btw. Just bought the new vinyl Bruckner/ Giulini. Highly recommended.
People overlook the sound characteristics of the equipment they’re using. If you have a taste for a warmer sound characteristic, look for a DAC, speakers etc with that in mind. CDs/Digital do offer a clearer sound, a wider dynamic range, accurate frequency response, and consistent quality, there are clear advantages over vinyl.
Very interesting video Michael. I think that in the end you both agree on the fundamental point: it is a case by case basis and how can it not be when there are so many variables entering the value stream, from the recording venue up to each listener’s audio equipment. I own a lot of vinyl and a lot of CDs/SACDs, so I don’t have a preference but in the end it is the performance that matters (I am talking classical music here). Not closing the door to CDs, again in the classical music genre, does allow one to access pretty much everything that was done in that genre since the mid-80s or so when classical music record companies abadonned vinyl. A lot of smaller independent labels (BIS, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi to name a few) have issued glorious records of classical music which are not available on vinyl. Should one shut oneself out from that music because « vinyl sounds better than CDs » ? I for one do not want to, but to each his own.
From my experience working in record stores in their heyday, a lot of people did Not change their stylus often enough causing wearing. I had inspected records brought in by customers saying they weren't sounding like they did before. These records were generally spotless but yes, did sound worn. The question I posed to them was, how often do you play records and when was the last time you replaced your stylus. In some cases they hadn't been changed for years because they thought a diamond stylus should last forever. Secondly, people had generic record players back then, where the balance and skating were factory set, because high end players were generally out of most people's financial reach. Also the technology of the time was not what it is today. As a result records did tend to wear. CDs on the other hand are not indestructible as originally advertised. They can scratch and skip, their surface CAN deteriorate over time losing part or all of the data on the cd.
Bad "Loudness War" Mastering has given CD's and digital audio a bad name which this format/medium does not deserve ! I personally startet buying vinyl records back in 2003 because many so called "re-mastered" cd's I owened were totally over compressed, de-noised to dead and just sounded bad compared to old vinyl records from the 70's which had the original mastering on them. So: STOP THE DAMN LOUDNESS WAR !! My 2 cents..
I like the term “convincing “ vs. “warmer”. Really good video. Thanks for posting. Also, I agree with the comment about the Keith Jarrett concert. I recently bought an original pressing of this that visually looked to be near mint. There were so many pops and crackles on this that I could not enjoy the music and will never play it again.
@33:37 Could you do a review of this Bruckner set? I'm not the biggest fan of Karajan's interpretations, but I adore Bruckner. This seems like a no brainer, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Appreciate your time!
Am just watching your vid on our TV & sifting through comments simultaneously on my device, as I regularly do. Someone correct me but for the YT subject matter of (Vinyl, Classical, CD music) I am BLOWN AWAY by the number of comments already after just 1 day (420+ as of Sunday 5pm CST)!!! That's a huge response in a short time frame. Re: your vid (I'm 15mins in so far), I LOVE your format of responding by segment or section relative to his takes. Kudos. I watch both his CH and yours of course. I own 3,000 LPs and 700 CDs and am a big ROON user throughout home & office for 6 yrs or so. Love all tgese formats and each have their time & place for 🎶 enjoyment .
I like David. I subscribe to his channel and I support his online business. David has forgotten more about classical music than I’ll ever remember. But watching his video was painful… and I’m grateful Michael that you took the time to properly dissect it. Six years ago I owned fifty records. Today I own over one thousand. Vinyl to streaming is about 80/20. When I want to listen to my favourite music, fatigue free, there’s no comparison. I wondered why, back in the noughts, I stopped listening to my CD collection. Now with a quality turntable and phono stage, in 2024 I know why.
When I recently added a phono preamp rather using phono input in my receiver (which is high end) - whoa, did vinyl playback sounded marvelous with enhanced soundstage.
@@1998mchp Most engineers put out terrible recordings and listen to crappy all-in-one active speakers all day. They aren't this unassailable authority like you think they are.
I know you’re defending vinyl but Dave does bring up some good points! Vinyl is expensive especially audiophile vinyl 150 dollars for UHQRs and god forbid the price of original copies of some vinyl records today Digital music is not as bad as some people are claiming I’ve heard analog records that sound terrible next to the CD! The argument over records over CDS is overblown in my opinion
The fact is it's wealthy people defending vinyl because they can afford the ridiculous prices for audiophile stuff. Is it any surprise that most of the "audiophiles" online with channels are white with lucrative professions? I mean give me a break. I'm not discriminating, but that's just a fact. Look at the demographic. That says it all. Aside from that, classical is garbage on vinyl with few exceptions in which a counterpart on CD/SACD isn't equal or superior.
I lived through that era, and at the time, DMM was a godsend for many labels. For instance, in the early 80s, it was still more difficult to purchase EMI pressings than Angel in the U.S. But once Angel came out with DMM, it made a huge difference. The records were more quiet and they had more transparency. Even on the used market, I’m willing to pick up an Angel, IF it is DMM.
After viewing both videos and reading all the comments, I think there is a major point that has been ignored in the discussion. That of availability. Since the mid 1980s (forty years ago!), the overwhelming majority of classical music releases, as well as every operatic and chamber music recording that I know of, were only released on CD. There was no option if one wanted to listen to the latest recording by older artists such as Gilels, Bernstein, Arrau or von Karajan or new artists such as Salonen, Mullova, Bartoli and Jarvi. It was either CD or nothing until the somewhat recent arrival of streaming. Some sounded really fine and some not so much. But being a music lover first, I thought it absolutely ridiculous to totally ignore two generations of artists that I admired previously or discovered on CD. Also, think of the amount of unfamiliar music that has been released during the same period on CD only - Complete Sibelius on BIS, the many Naxos issues of unknown and/or unrecorded composers, the HIP movement and Baroque Operas - all available on CD only. I should also mention the audio restoration of historical recordings done by Ward Marston, Mark Obert-Thorn and Andreas Meyer. Their work, found almost solely on CD, has been truly spectacular on labels like Marston Records, Music and Arts and Sony. Sony's and Warner's recent "Mega Boxes" releases afford music lovers to enjoy legendary (and sometimes unjustly neglected) artists at incredible prices. For example, one can purchase the 95 CD set the Complete EMI Columbia, HMV, Electrola and Parlophone Recordings of Otto Klemperer mastered by Art & Son Studio for the price of one original EMI Columbia stereo LP. Before anyone thinks I'm just some CD fanatic, the majority of my collection is vinyl which started with a 45 of "Little" Steve Wonder's "Fingertips, Part One and Two" that I purchased in 1963 at the age of five and I'm waiting for the arrival of DG's Original Source LP von Karajan Bruckner Symphony set more than sixty years later! I've never found the process of cleaning LPs (both vacuum and ultrasonic) to be an inconvenience and take my turntable to my local audio dealer to be checked regularly for stylus wear and various adjustments. Some of the greatest recordings I own are on LP. And some are on CD. It is as simple as that! One other point I believe should be addressed is that of the, at times contentious if not hostile, relationship regarding classical music and audiophile reviewers. I think I can speak on this subject being a reader of High Fidelity, Stereo Review (both deceased), Fanfare, Gramophone, as well as Absolute Sound (since Issue #1), Stereophile, and The Tracking Angle. I also watch classical music and audiophile videos found on CZcams. In the vast majority of cases, the audiophile critic when reviewing a recording will only cite a handful of other audiophile recordings of the work disregarding the rest. For example, an audiophile critic reviewing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring will compare the usual highly regarded sonically recording (all analogue and LP versions only) - Solti/Decca, Bernstein/Columbia 6 eye and maybe, Markevitch/EMI and conclude with their choice of recording. A music critic, especially one who has been doing it for many years, will compare a dozen or more recordings concluding with the one he or she interpretively prefers. The head butting occurs when the music critic has the attitude of how can the audiophile critic recommendation be taken seriously when he/she hasn't heard a majority of the recordings of the work reviewed. Flip the coin over and you'll find the audiophile critic questioning the music critic opinions citing their substandard audio equipment or preference to digital. Both are somewhat ridiculous. When I bought my 1st LP of the Rite (Bernstein/Columbia) in the early 70s, there were around 15 to 20 recordings available. Now, there must be over 100 or more. There are simply to many recordings of the standard repertoire available. And if the music critic derives pleasure from their audio system and prefers digital to analogue, so be it. In the early 70s, I had a Panasonic system with a Garrard turntable and enjoyed every LP I played. And think of the arguments between the two groups themselves - ERC Records a few years ago, for example. Sorry to ramble on so long but I'm hoping that a few of you will appreciate what this old-timer has to say. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be around when there is so much great classical music available in all formats, LPs, CDs, SACDs and streaming. One can spend the entire day listening to broadcasts of classical and operatic performances from all over the world. I'm finishing this while listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. Yesterday, it was Muti conducting the Bruckner Eighth with the Vienna Philharmonic live from Salzburg. So just keep enjoying great music in whatever format you like. Also remember, no format that I know compares to sitting in a great hall listening to a great orchestra. It is the ultimate in sound.
And honestly, I am all in on vinyl and CDs and files, and I enjoy it all. But you gotta give it to him that the process of cleaning vinyl is a frigging pain... I use a Degritter, I am an absolute convert on proper cleaning, but it IS a bit of a required PITA.
I’m in the first clump. I never totally gave it up and still have pretty much every LP I ever bought, starting in 1972, when I was in 6th grade. But I also have a pretty extensive CD collection. More recently (roughly 20 years ago), I started collecting used open reels.
I appreciate your views and opinions and I also appreciate Dave’s. Everyone has likes and dislikes and that’s fine. I worked at a record pressing plant in Nashville back in the late 1970’s. I picked up masters on Music Row and then watched as they were put on the press and the blob of vinyl dropped and the label was pressed and then boom, you had an LP.
i regularly listen to you. and Dave. I think you both will agree more with each other than disagree on this vinyl / CD issue. I feel Dave is actually indirectly ranting about the die hard fans of either medium who have become entrenched and close minded. In reality, what really matters (to me) is the mastering or remastering, rather than the medium.
The 1st article, titled ‘the resurgence of vinyl LPs’, that i encountered was in 2002. Since then similar-titled articles appeared every 3-4 years. CDs were for a long time double to triple the price of LPs. As a teenager in the 80’s vinyl (and original cassette tapes) were an easy choice.
How do you complain about the price of an album but demand every version be the best version of that record ever? Like, does he expect a Chat Pile UHQR?
Thanks for this. The stangest part of Dave's argumenet is the new and improved discussion. What didnlt they make cars at the turn of the centure like they are made today.? Why didnlt they maked televisions as good as today? Why didn't the Brits have good food back in the 50s and 60s as they do today 🙂
All advocates of CD/digital use science to prove that it sounds better. Trust in the science they say - CD on paper is a superior format. Thing is, I have hundreds of CDs and hundreds of LPs. I simply use my ears, I don't care what it says on a piece of paper. And, all things being equal, a well mastered, well cut all analogue LP blows CD away. Its a far more organic and involving listening experience. CD can sound good - thats not in question and it is likely easier to get a decent sounding system on a budget built around CD playback. But for me, when it comes to the most pleasurable listening experience, there is no comparison.
The problem with classical vinyl is with a dynamic range much greater other genres (in today’s equivalent mastered at say -24 LUFS rather than -14), noise is more distracting. I like piano recordings on vinyl - especially when the instruments were miked close to soundboard the medium helps mellow out the hardness - but the records really do have to be pristine. Likewise jazz just plain sounds better on vinyl. For orchestral recordings, violins can sound better but you practically lose the bottom octave of double basses which is produced more transparently on cd. Important to note that these Kingsway Hall, Concertgebouw etc recordings were done to tape, so reel to reel would be ideal way to listen to them, not vinyl. And even in the days of early digital you had great recordings, such as Haitink’s Bruckner 9 from 1981 or Giulini’s LAPO recordings. It all depends!
Digital and vinyl can both sound amazing. Even as a CD collector, I can believe vinyl has the edge because it mostly hasn’t gone through the digitisation process. Many in the Hifi industry believe that to be true. As you say, good tape recordings are hard to beat too. But even vinyl mastered from very high res digital will still have a sound of its own in comparison to CDs.
Dear Mr, thank you so much for your analysis👍🏻Most of the times I don't agree with Mr.Hurwitz but it seems he thinks he's the only person who is right🤔I always listen with my ears and with my heart👍🏻
I was there when CDs first came out. My brother purchased the first Sony CDP-101 CD player shortly after its release in the early 80s. I got my first CD player, a Realistic CD-1000 in 1984. There was an issue with the mastering of some early CDs due to companies using LP masters to create CD masters. Once this issue was resolved, the sonic advantages of CDs, their greater dynamic range, lack of surface noise, zero wow and flutter, etc meant I no longer longed for the "warmth" of vinyl. I then started replacing all my LPs with CDs and the only LPs I still own were never released on CD. I still have all those CDs I purchased in the mid 80s and 40 years later they still play without issue.
Vinyl records have a typical dynamic range of around 70 dB, depending on the equipment used to record the audio and cut the record. CDs have a typical dynamic range of 90 to 93 dB, though 16-bit digital audio has a theoretical dynamic range of 96 dB. Uncompressed high-res audio files with 24-bit resolution have a theoretical dynamic range of 144 dB, though modern ADCs and DACs max out at around 120 dB or so.
Vinyl is a collectable music product. Scale, materiality, vintage. CDs are an evolution from a sound perspective that removes the gap between mastering and cutting a vinyl with grooves and warm distortion, and a cd's mirror replication of the master you hear made in the studio. The argument now is less about sound, (you choose) and more about ownership of the recorded music artefact. The vinyl LP has collectable allure, the cd has utility and function. Fact is you don't need either to enjoy music now, but I still like the material connection of ownership. It says 'I honestly love this Art.'
Vinyl: Technology so advanced that it needs RIAA equalization. Cost $10 in the 80s; $40 today. Used vinyl can cost double that. Decent turntables start at $1k. CDs: Cost $15 in the 80s; $10 today. Used CDs can be purchased for $3. Decent CD players start at $39.
On the one hand, LPs need RIAA EQ, while the CD format does have error correction built into its standard. A decent phono costs around $400 and a good CD player about the same. I do agree about the disc prices.
Two points from an old guy who grew up listening to records. I believe you made his point about the hassle of playing records. What I got from your comments on that is, unless you are extremely fastidious, your records will not sound their best. A listener needs to pay attention to the process at all times or the records will develop unwanted noise, or "wear out." In my youth, I wore out many records through neglect. The second point is some folks who have done A/B comparisons have determined they prefer the sound from CDs. I bought my first CD back in 87, but didn't start comparing until the early 90s. For years the records won these tests. It wasn't until I bought a high end CD player sometime around 2005 that I finally would say I preferred what I heard from CDs. Of course that doesn't mean CDs are superior, It just means I prefer their sound. It's all moot now as I mostly stream an don't really care what sounds better. I rarely listen to music I'm familiar with, so have nothing to compare it to, and feel it's a waste of time to compare anyway. Cheers.
To me I think this whole argument is something that will never get resolved. And, for the most part, modern vinyl pressing are created from digital masters which turns the entire set of arguments on their head. I have both. I tend to listen to my CD collection from my NAS with lossless flac files. They are just the same as the CD without the need of the CD player. I have fun with vinyl from time to time these days. But the handling and care required gets tiring to me. And, in my experience, no matter how good the quality is of a vinyl record is I've never experienced a popless vinyl record. I have some that have very little of that, but the pops always show up somewhere. I find it very irritating.
I'm 59. Have about 25,000 records, 25,000 cds. Been continuously collecting the former since 1976 and cds since 1986. Love them both. To this day I usually buy the cd and the vinyl of each release. Granted most people are not in a position to have collections of that size but I am grateful that it has worked out for me. My cds generally sound terrific. My records generally sound terrific. As between the two, for any given release of a mastering, the record usually beats the cd for presence and dynamics, and is more fun to play. But if I want to play music in the background, the cd is more convenient. No question a high end vinyl setup is more expensive than a high end cd setup. No question used and new cds are so much less expensive than used and new records. That having been said, most of Dave's other objections to vinyl are overstated or just wrong. But I want to stress the cost disparity is a significant issue. If I was starting out today, I'd probably just buy cds. Terrific sound (much much better than streaming) for much less expense than vinyl. Then again my two 20 something sons have both become record collectors, to the detriment of their finances :)
So in (say) 45 years of buying/collecting you will have bought over 500 of each every year, and presumably played them at least once each.... when newly acquired (not likely I would suggest). One must uncritically assume you have a private source of income and never actually worked 40 of the hours available each week, and sleep 7+ hrs I have digitally transferred my LPs, and retain maybe one fifth of your volume and have calculated I cannot live long enough to hear them once each before I die. Since there are some I'd like to hear more than once I have reluctantly decided to abandon the collection mania.
Dave specified the Karajan Bruckner on Warner….originally on EMI. He didn’t mention the DGG set, which even in the original issue, had much different Sonics.
He did specify that. But I have Karajan’s DG Bruckner cycle on CD and the sound isn’t great. I am pretty sure the new LP pressings have better sound. Some newer CD pressings might have too.
For me, I'm format agnostic. The master comes first. I *really* enjoy listening to records, though sometimes must admit the pressing or transfer just isn't up to par. With vinyl, that sucks because of the often high outlay. Though yes, sometimes that happens with CD and streaming too, though the outlay is easier to eat.
After Spotify I minimized my LP and CDs to being packed away. Clean livingroom. After the lack of ownership and boring livingroom I now have vinyl and stream spotify. CDs are in storage for now. I have vinyl just due to fascination how that little diamond picks up the signal. And the vinyl just gets better and I love the owner relationship I get. Record players are so cool. Just love it. Dont care if it may not the best sounding or that the scratches may be there on some.
I'll comment on just one aspect of this. What we call clicks & pops are the result of three things: 1. Scratches/scuffs 2. Dust/dirt/debris 3. Static electricity Only No. 1 could plausibly be put down to "mishandling". The vast majority of clicks & pops are due to Nos. 2 & 3. Unless you live inside a vacuum chamber on a planet without a magnetosphere, this will always be the case. This is the reason for the insane industry of cleaning & destaticing products, & I indulge in it myself. I have fluids & cleaners & ultrasonics & ionizers & antistatic sleeves & spend the time in the ritual of (1) cleaning my records, old or brand new, & (2) keeping them free from static. The truth is that you can mitigate clicks & pops from dirt & static, but you cannot eliminate them. Even if you clean them perfectly, as soon as you expose the surface to the environment, you're going to get dust on them again & will need to, at a minimum, brush the dust off. This has an inevitable sonic consequence. This is an inherent characteristic of vinyl as a medium that will always be an issue. This is one area where the superiority of CDs & digital formats is inescapable. Perhaps it doesn't bother you or other listeners so much. I'm guessing that by owning a Zerostat, it bothers you at least somewhat. Given the huge dynamic range of classical music, the unavoidable clicks & pops that are inherent in vinyl count, for me, as a massive mark against the format. There are many things to love about vinyl, but this is a forever problem with it. It can't just be hand-waved away as "mishandling."
I have a question for you. I recently purchased an HMV record with a flip back jacket. Record is NM. The jacket would be if it weren't for the edges of those flipped back pieces on the back cover. There's what I guess is dirt from years of handling. Do you know of a safe way to clean that up? If you're curious, it's the Elgar concerto performed by Du Pre with Barbirolli and the LSO. ASD 655, ER1
In the words of the master RVG: "The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium." I love me my vinyl but wish we got our digital right. Now with all this protools bs…nobody knows how to mix/master properly. Many many records these days sound like serious crap. Nearly all my OG sound better than the modern heavy vinyl remasters. Except even though mofi has a digital step with their DSD….they make fantastic sounding records. As painful as vinyl is…once you get it setup and cooking it really does sound amazing
@@revelry1969 but, but, but, all the people who make money out of the vinyl resurgence are saying that he was just an old fool loosing his marbles when he said this.
@@emilspec1227 yeah. I think the thing I took away from this statement is that the LP is hard to do right. Playback is a pain too. Digital if done right can sound fantastic. He didn’t lose his marbles. He was just looking at it practically. Vinyl is a pain in the ass. But to me it does mostly give the best sound even with digitally sourced vinyl (sometimes). I think this is more an argument of what digital. DSD vs PCM etc. I have found DSD (4x) to sound just like the vinyl. It’s all compromises. RVG was lamenting all that painstaking time he spent getting it right. It’s all about compromises. All recording and playback. Ease of playback (digital) maybe just give “good enough” quality to someone. Those of us who go deeper have to determine which format works best for them. I think the CD was a huge triumph and plenty good sound for most humans. But it was a compromise. It’s like streaming. My friends say….just stream all that crap. I am like it sounds better on vinyl they are like…my ears can’t hear it…I want the ease of playback. CDs certainly have easy portability and produce good sound. Great sound? That is debatable.
Have you heard RVG's digital transfers? He was completely wrong on that topic and his recordings prove it. Compare a RVG Edition CD to a kevin gray cut Blue Note Classic and it'll be night and day. The RVG Editions are absolutely atrocious messes.
The truth is CD's are better in every way. Vinyl is great but its a compromise on music quality, Hence why you have the RIAA record and reproduce curves. Also outside diameter cuts on a record sound differ from inside ones? Unfortunately it’s a fact. Why? The answer is geometry, curvature again. One turntable revolution at 33 1/3 rpm on an LP takes 1.8 seconds. That 1.8 seconds is spread over a circumference of 36 inches on the outside of the record. At the minimum allowable inside diameter that same 1.8 second revolution would only cover 14.9 inches. You can see from this, that a gentle wiggle spread over 36 inches would get quite ‘scrunched’ over 14.9 inches. A jagged groove at 36 inches would get really scrunched at 14.9 inches (remember the rapids). Excessive treble can even cause the cutting stylus to accelerate so fast that its back edge wipes out what the front edge just cut! It’s unfortunate, but treble rolls off, and distortion goes up as you approach the centre of the record. It is quite gradual, but if you compare the source recording to the disc, this actually starts to become noticeable after the second cut or so. Any attempt to compensate for this by boosting the treble, only makes the problem worse (greater curvature remember).
Yes this is why sibilance is such an issue on vinyl, and actually vocal microphone design from Neumann U47 to less sibilant prone U67 and U87 reflects this. But music “quality” is subjective. Higher resolution and better preserved dynamic range is not necessarily better. Try comparing any hot Blue Note recording and it just plain sounds better on vinyl than cd, plus the mastering tends to be better, which is a whole separate issue.
“ The truth is CD's are better in every way.” TO YOU! Generalizations like that are completely unfair and do not tell the whole story. I listen to vinyl exclusively and it’s difficult to explain to someone with such narrow perspectives the joy that vinyl brings. Your comments about vinyl being a compromise are simply not an issue for most vinyl lovers. If you have a halfway decent turntable that revolves at the correct speed and deals well with resonance, any distortion towards the inside grooves is not only negligible, but not audible to the vast majority of listeners with normal hearing. Yes, vinyl imparts its own artifacts to the sound but it is a pleasant sounding one. I used to collect CDs and ultimately switched back to vinyl. I love the whole process, the art and liner notes of large record covers, the hands-on routine of removing the record from the jacket, placing on the turntable, lowering the arm. To me, it is not a hassle; it’s a pleasure. Why can’t critics understand this? Everyone’s different- each can enjoy music in their own way! I enjoy immensely the sound that comes out of my speakers. Why is that an issue for vinyl haters? Why do you always seem to find it necessary to remind vinyl enthusiasts that there’s a “better” way? Or tell us what we’re missing? I am completely uninterested in the geometry you cite and how vinyl can never bean adequate representation of the original master tape. How do you know what the master tape sounds like. From recording to distribution, it goes through so many iterations, from mastering to the final sound on your system, that it’s extremely unlikely it will be entirely accurate to the original source. So what! Who cares if you find the sound pleasant and satisfying? If there’s any truth at all, it’s that everyone’s different. What is satisfying to one might not be satisfying to another. .
@@ericlubow4354 It's mathematically objective. Ask any electrical engineer. Also you assume I'm a vinyl hater? I collect both CD and records and admire the technological achievements of both. I'm sure you're of the generation that has their albums hanging on walls as an art piece.
Michael, you diminish the usefulness of the Zerostat. used properly, and at the right time, they are indispensable. the time to use it is when you remove the disc from the platter, it is usually ALIVE with 50kV of static charge. putting the record back on the platter causes that charge to collapse into the ground plane of the TT. using the Zstat right before you put the LP into the sleeve will remove the charge so the disc doesn't lie in the jacket attracting dust at a maximum rate. for static in arid climates like Canada in the winter, that unit that Mikey uses on his TT to constantly neutrallizes the static is best if costly. humidifiers are a big help in that situation.
You've earned my subscription with this video. I'll tell you more: I don't even care whether it sounds better or not (even though it does). Just watching it spinning with the tonearm hovering on it and the music coming out is more rewarding than any digital media with as much computing power you can come up with. In that regard even cassettes beat CDs. And if properly recorded and played with good equipment they don't sound nearly as bad as people think they do.
An interesting post, but I'd make a couple of observations:- Dave is communicating to a mass audience, the vast majority of whom will not have the time, patience or money to have such a perfect audio setup that it is the best possible representation of a live performance. Even when handling vinyl very carefully you will still get occasional dust particles on it unless you are in laboratory conditions, and although there is gear you can use to minimise this those particles either affect the sound quality or the practicality of playing music. Although I accept the digitisation process by it's nature means it's not an exact reproduction, this ignores the losses incurred by the limitations of the equipment and the limitations of the human ear and our brain's ability to process them. And of course our hearing degrades over time, with older people unable to detect the higher frequences that they could when young. Low price CDs have meant that more music is available to more people. Of my 800 or so classical CDs, I've bought many second hand at a fraction of the cost when new, and almost all have played back as new meaning I can enjoy more music. That is not a viable option with vynil where damage and wear is a bigger factor. Enjoying the music is what it's all about, which beyond any flippancies was Dave's main point I believe. So the world is big enogh for those for whom vynil is best, cd is best or streaming which is practical but I prefer something I can browse on my shelves, quite apart from any sound quality issues.
Wonderful video, Michael. Of course, when someone says, “warm” sounding, people generally understand what that means, especially musicians. If “warm” were to be measured, I’d think it’d be a bit of an emphasis in the low mids, but there is something more to it than just that. Vinyl records do not inherently have pops and clicks, and I wince a when I hear that said. As you mentioned, it’s from mishandling the record. After I clean a record and put it in a nice inner sleeve, it’s generally fine for quite some time. Vinyl can seem somewhat inconvenient to some, but the sound quality, the thrill of the hunt, the ritualistic aspect, etc., etc. make it worth it, imo. I’ve also absolutely A/B’d different formats of the same recording as well. No need to be scared of the word audiophile. Caring how something sounds is not a negative thing. I think people may try to avoid the word audiophile, because to some, there’s a connotation that you’re listening to how your gear sounds rather than it being a tool to enjoy the music.
Speaking as an old... His entire video can be summed up as "old man yells at cloud". I don't know the man but if someone wanted me to entirely dismiss their opinions as having no basis in reality this would be a great way to do it. I'm a vinyl guy, I'm one of those that never stopped buying records when CD's came out. Largely because I was DJ'ing electronic music and in the 90's that was all on vinyl. I like the sound of vinyl better, but I'm fully willing to admit that part of that might well be that I'm used to the sound of it as it's what I grew up with and therefore it's my definition of "normal". I might well be liking the sound of the distortions added by a playback stylus. That said the mastering matters far more than the medium. Bad digital is generally bad because the mastering is bad not because the medium is bad. Unfortunately, these days the all too often the mastering of popular music on digital is awful. It's designed to sound well on airpods or in a car, not for listening on a high-quality playback system.
@@marksironi3324 his video is entirely about the classical music domain, nothing to do with pop, rock, dance or jazz, Dave only talks about classical music.
I mainly listen to vinyl, and I dig the direct analog remasters DG does with the Original Source series. However, to be honest, I think that if they did a digital remaster of the 8-track tapes (in the case of Bruckner) and put it on CD, it would sound even better than the vinyl, due to digital denoising, no vinyl distortion, and no surface noise. The reason these new vinyl series sound so good is that they used the original 4/8 track tapes directly, instead of the 2-track downmix, like the original LP and the CD remasters. In the end, it all comes down to the mastering and and the source of the master. Also, you mentioned that the digitization of the waves affects the sound, which is not true, since modern ADCs and DACs can work with negligible distortion and noise, plus extremely high bitrates that greatly surpass the Nyquist frequency. It's also true that vinyl has more distortion and noise, is less practical, requires you to change sides every 25 minutes, needs better care, etc. Vinyl prices are higher than ever, but not in every case. New vinyl prices are usually about 20-35 euros (e.g., Pink Floyd albums cost about 25 euros new, and other, less-produced albums cost 30-35 euros). That's reasonable pricing. Anything above that surpasses inflation and should be considered overpriced. I still prefer listening to vinyl, by the way, I'm just trying to be objective.
there are great sounding CDs and bad sounding vinyl, and vice versa. I’m no audiophile (or am I?) but even a great sounding, well-mastered CD will eventually give me ear fatigue compared to the same well-mastered vinyl equivalent. I’ll take a bit of crackle and pop over ear fatigue if the apples-to-apples choice is available. Is DSD is a reasonable sonic compromise, particularly with the classical genre?
I love DH and I’ve got to admit earlier on in the week when I saw the thumbnail of his CD versus Vinyl video I couldn’t help worrying “Oh no was it me droning on about the affordability and merits of the original Decca release of War Requiem that sent Dave over the edge”. Totally in line with my personality I could not face watching his video nor this one yet. Anyway if it was me I’m ever so sorry everyone and pledge to rein in my droning about mono and the like in comments sections!
I commented on his video. I said that I've recently got back into vinyl and enjoy the hobby. I didn't say vinyl sounded better than cd's, just different in a way I like. He replied with a snarky remark. I replied back and asked him why he felt he needed to mock me. He didn't respond.
I wouldn't take it personal. Mr Hurwitz has surprised me many times with his brusque responses to comments. I like to think that there is no bad intent behind it. Enjoy your LP collection to the fullest, I'd say.
Anybody can comment on sound quality of any recordings, but obviously you cannot say anybody is an audiophile. Making a judgement on the SQ of a specific recording does not automatically turn an individual into an audiophile, persistently caring about SQ and demanding high SQ does. To me it’s very simple logic. Can’t believe he was even twisting this. I also don’t think the quality of recording , mixing and mastering that makes a major contribution to the final SQ of a tape/CD/vinyl is relevant to the playback equipment. The Hi-End combination of Air Force Zero turntable+CH Precision P1 phono preamp+Soulution 725 preamp+711 power amp+Magico M2 speaker can not make a poorly mastered, carelessly pressed vinyl sound fantastic. No “Hi-End magic” here. I understand Steve Hoffman Music Forum has its rule (show your equipments before commenting on SQ)for its members, but citing this rule as if it’s universally accepted when it comes to commenting on recording SQ sounds ridiculous to me.
I think one of the biggest issues here is back in the day - everyone was a vinyl collector - because that is all there was - and once more "convenient" options came along - they got adopted - the masses will always go for convenience - Apple perfected the way people can put 1000 songs onto a block in your pocket - and people one upped that with having ALL THE MUSIC - streaming ALL THE TIME - so - older people like Dave - who had to go through the changes and maybe even when he had vinyl - didnt like it - will never grow to like it. Younger generations have CHOICE - and also lots of other better options in pressings/hifi equipment/and just overall knowledge from people poetryonplastic - I find it funny when (usually older folks) say - "I HATE Vinyl - all the crackles and POPS" - and Im like - yeah - I HATE BAD/DIRTY Vinyl too! Most people have never heard REALLY good vinyl records or actual CLEAN vinyl - because they had dad's crappy stereo and his junk vinyl.
@@scottwheeler2679 correct digital doesn’t have a sound. The only sound is what was recorded/mixed/mastered. Vinyl is so limited in its ability it has go through RIAA to fit the music on the record and then have reverse RIAA applied on playback. Then add pressing discrepancies and surface contaminants such as dust there is really is nothing lossless about vinyl.
A forgotten fact- when CDs arrived on the market back in the mid 80s it resulted in an increase in sales of Classical music titles. The format suited the genre which often included long quiet passages in the compositions. Those annoying clicks and pops, rumble etc were eliminated and the listener could focus solely on the music. As a 63 year old who started collecting records aged 12 back in 1973 I've been through all the various formats that have come and gone over the past half century. The one thing that riles me is the crazy obsessives who insist on folks making the binary choice of vinyl or CD. You've gotta take a side. This is childish and puerile. I live in a multi format environment- horses for courses. There is no magical "best format". You pay your money you make your choice- live and let live.
Living in Italy and far far away from my boxed-and-sealed vinyl records, I've had to collect hi-rez vinyl and CDs off of the internet, to restore my collection to what it was a long time ago. Dealing thusly in digital, I get to see every piece of music on my audio editor. I've found that since about 1995, most if not all CDs are either 'louded', actively compressed, or heavily compressed and clipping the zero point. When I acquire a digital source, the first thing I do is put it up on my editor and check the waveform. At least half of all my acquisitions are compressed and worthless to me, and they get dumped. I've found that all of the vinyl hi-rez digital acquisitions have the normal vinyl waveforms and dynamics, and that's all I will settle for. The older 80s CDs maintained the original dynamics of the recordings, so they go into the collection. More than half of the corporate hi-rez SACDs in print are compressed as well. Believe it or not. Sources from independent hi-end producers are perfectly fine in any medium (CD,SACD,vinyl), and they go into the collection, to enjoy. My point is that CDs not made by independent companies are inevitably compressed, louded, and some are downright clipped. Go rip a CD and look at it on a free editor if you need to be convinced. I'm staying with my vinyls and older CDs. Digitize your vinyls well, do some restoration if you know how, and enjoy your music!
Very well said, Michael. Retired scientist here ... I remember a professor once said how easy it is to design and experiment that gets a null result (e.g., A sounds as good as B). All you have to do, he said, is design a sloppy experiment. So if anyone makes a blanket claim that CDs always sound just as good as LPs, it could be that they're listening through poor equipment (or through a computer's sound card). So many other factors are more important in determining what you hear than the medium on which it's recorded. I have thousands of LPs and quite a few of the originals have been sold and replaced by a better sounding remaster/reissue. That reissue could be on LP (as for example the DG Original Source LPs) or it could be on CD (for example the box set of Michelangeli's recordings on DG). Many of those original DG pressings were far from warm, and today's DG engineers are atoning for the sins of the bright LPs pressed in the 70s.
ABSOLUTELY. I remembered back in the late 90s/early 00s newly released cds, and especially double cds would be priced at 30+ bucks! Or more... i vividly remember that.
I listen to film music, almost exclusively, so CDs are more practical for me simply because they have superseded the LP versions with more integral versions of the music. LPs limited the tracks and were often re-recordings of the original sessions. CDs now include the original LP programs plus the original music stems all on a single or couple of CDs. I do think that the sound on the CDs is preferable in most cases because remastering the multitrack stems, most of which were 3-track, sound better than their LP counterparts (even on new vinyl pressings). One example I'd give is the audiophile classic LP of Burt Bacharach's CASINO ROYALE, where the master tape for the LP suffered damage before it was digitally mastered on CD. I've listened to the original Colgems vinyl next to newly mastered CDs and the LP album recording (as good as it is) does not live up to the hype, at least in my subjective listening sessions. Bottomline for me: this is like arguing whether stereo is better than mono, and it's just a matter of preference. For me, when a successful mono film mix is re-mixed to stereo, I never usually want to go back to the mono presentation, but that is anathema for many film and film music aficionados, so to each their own.
Actually, there is no known shelf life deterioration for either shellac or vinyl at this time. I've read several technical studies from the US and France on this topic, dealing with the material science side of things. When stored at room temperature, vertically with no leaning that could warp the material, the shelf life is indefinite. I can play a Berliner from 1896 and it sounds just as good today (or as bad, to be honest!) as it did when it was made. I don't know if a CD manufactured in 1983 will sound just as good - or as bad - as it sounded originally, if played on similar equipment (assuming such will exist, probably in museums), in 2111, 128 years later. But I do know that analog has the potential to outlast digital by far, because electricity is not needed to reproduce the sound that has been captured mechanically in the grooves. If you put a stack of 78's and a hand-wound gramophone in a sealed vault that remained dry and relatively stable temperature-wise for 500 years, it should in theory still be possible to wind up the machine, put on a record, and sound would come out as the needle dragged through the grooves. Electronic gear, by contrast... I think it's safe to say that the older analog format will win the longevity contest, easy.
cannot wear out unless you had a poor stylus or heavy weight ..in fact even if you have a moderate setup you can hear a big difference in the sound once correctly aligned
Symphonies 1-3 were produced from a digital file. Symphonies 4-9 are direct cuts from the 8-track master tapes. Easy to look up, plenty of articles on this release.
I have all mediums. LPs, CDs, Tape and I stream. I enjoy them all and still collect Vinyl, CDs and tapes. Each has their own characteristics. Love music first!
Well said!
@kevirose Exactly! I have some vinyl that blows away the CD version and vice versa.
Tape (reel to reel) or cassette?
@@preservedmoose Nope, never reel to reel. Cassette’s were awful!
@@zizendorf I use metal cassettes and they are superb.
How many times does this have to be said? There are recordings on vinyl that are not on CD and never will be. There are recordings on CD that are not on vinyl and never will be. The smart ones in the pack know and make room for both.
yeah but deep in your heart you always have a preference... if the price is the same I always prefer vinyl, they just sound better to me. I end up buying lots of CDs because vinyl prices are crazy.
@@net_news Lol the price is never the same! and If it is a that record is going to be a dusty gouged up piece of plastic.
@@monaural2.988 this is not the subject here.
Yes! Sick of the "either/or" mentality.
@@scottgates601 i know, thing is, if you leave the price out of the equation it's easier to know which is your favorite format. Price being equal I prefer vinyl. In the real world I buy a lot of CDs bc vinyl is too expensive. Did you get the idea?
A needle going trough a groove not wearing it down is physically impossible! Where is friction there is wear.
off course there is but with 1.8 grams at least with 50 to 60 years none has worn out , needles ,yes, maybe 12 since 71, had only two by this time but know i own 28 turntables of high quality , i colect hi-fi components
It's not an issue with a moving coil cartridge.
@@michaelrovner4165 why not?the sound is better but lower and is still friction like any other stylus, as the record isn´t played by the MC cartridge but for the stylus in it
I don't disagree, but I don't know how relevant it is. How many times would you have to play a record before there was *actual, noticeable* degradation in the sound? I bet it would be many thousands - probably more than is realistically possible, unless you listen to the same record multiple times a day for a long time. And how exactly would you measure the degradation, especially if it's something that happens very gradually over time?
@@alekhidell3644 The first playing degrades it.
Sound engineer here. A couple things about one aspect of the discussion. You are very much correct in your general argument about audio being an "illusion" in that a performance captured with a microphone is not an accurate representation of what we would hear standing in that room. That said, vinyl (and any other analog format for that matter) IS very much imparting a sound. What we call warmth (which very much is a widely accepted term) is unquestionably a form of DISTORTION. Now, most of us love it, but Dave is very much correct in that if you were present in the control room at the recording studio were the artists/producers were making decisions, or even at the mastering studio, you wouldn't be hearing the distortion that vinyl is imparting. And in that regard, digital audio is a much more ACCURATE representation of any signal that it's captured, what the artists/engineers were hearing in the control room. This is not an opinion, this is a verifiable scientific fact that digital audio recordings are more accurate than analog ones.
Now the important thing when it comes to music is that 99 times out of 100 when you compare a digital audio release to a vinyl release, you are comparing different MASTERS. Even if the lathe is being cut with the digital master (as is often the case these days), the cutting engineer is tweaking the signal to optimize it for that format. Naturally, that would exacerbate the differences between one and the other, and it's fine to prefer one over the other. But it's important to understand the science behind what each format is.
Good points. I work in audio too.
The real issue is the dynamics destruction of CD / digital post 1993. It's left Loudness Wars remasters of practically all major rock/pop in the streaming systems.
Part of the vinyl revival fetish -apart from pink noise - groove rubbing 'warmth' - is the dynamic range still being baked in via the formats limitations.
Pre 1993 CDs will be the digital Rosetta Stones of popular music.
@@1998mchp
I agree! What the recording industry has done to the CD as a digital sound carrier is pure crime. But that only speaks of the flexibility and possibilities of this medium, which far surpasses vinyl. The industry would do the same to vinyl if that medium could handle it dynamically. What saved vinyl was its limitation and narrow dynamic range.
@@ljuboizsiska5448 majority of music released on CD wasn't compressed to its limits, this is only a minor portion of it, mostly pop rock destined for US radio. I listen to mostly jazz, world, prog and acoustic music and honestly can't say I have a single CD that is a victim of the loudness wars.
@@emilspec1227 I agree with you, but that maybe 10-15% of Cd is responsible for 100% of the criticism towards that medium.
@@ljuboizsiska5448 sure but the criticism is very clearly unjustified and used by the analogue brigade to degrade the format.
Ok. I've listened to 3 minutes and a history lesson is called for. First, he compares the high price tag of today's vinyl to cds, and how cds were "so" expensive when they came out. He wasn't alive in the 1980's, so he's basing his comments on what he has read. Cds were about twice the cost of vinyl when they came out. I remember paying around $15. While cds went up in cost to around $20 in the following 10 years, their prices have come back down to their original release prices. Vinyl is selling for between 5 to 15 times their original release price. What must be factored in is the lack of original recording costs of repressed records. So while it's true there are costs related to remastering, it does not compare to original recording costs. Btw, I used the Feds. Inflation calculator and determined that the $3.50 price I paid for an album in 1975 would cost $21.31 in today's money. Not $40. And not $60 to $125 charged by Acoustic Productions for their premiere re-releases. That being said I am a fan and collector of those releases, and purchase both the vinyl and SACD versions.
I am reprinting the comment I made after I watched the Dave Hurwitz video. Young folk (those under 65 - I am 79) often do not consider mobility issues that can present themselves as they age. As one grows older, it gets much easier to play CDs. I still love vinyl, and the care I took with my collection minimized pops, clicks, and annoying scratches. Sometimes, when I play vinyl, one would think it's digitized because of the lack of surface noise. Anyway, here is the edited comment I left for Dave and am now leaving for you: 'Mobility matters, too. I may not be up-to-date on what is out there, but CDs play longer than vinyl without needing to turn or change an LP. Or, gasp, have one vinyl drop on top of another. There are multi-disc CD changers that give listeners hours of music without needing to reload. Like Dave, I prefer to own physical product. With the amount of music DH discusses, I am often inspired to listen to the music of the day if it's in my library or buy it on CD if it's not. CD convenience enables me to listen longer and ensure that I do not have too many opportunities to fall.
Yes, and, cds do not degrade with every listen, like vinyl. Those pops and clicks from the first play on were annoying and distracted from the enjoyment of the music.
Just get a streamer and Tidal subscription.
There is ALWAYS surface noise, because there is friction.
Great video. The Young guy defending vinyl and the old guy pushing CD’s is a fascinating debate on multiple levels.
C'mon, CD is a 40 years old technology, from today's perspective it is almost as ancient as vinyl. It is also a physical medium anyway. People who remember the CD introduction are old today.
@@voytecco6104 I worked in a record store at precisely the time when CDs came in and vinyl was sold off cheap. The 'industry' pushed CDs so hard, retailers thought vinyl was dying out like the dinosaurs and it almost did go away completely, before the revival.
@@mattwalsh751 young guy with a bias towards vinyl you mean.
Reason and reasoning and analyzing makes peopel always to enjoy things less.
Asa Spiritualô peopel who do mediation, sports travels and enjoy life
say the more you analyze some content or hobby the less you enjoy it at the moment...
because enjoyment doesnt come muchfrom head or brain but from body,
"thoughts are in mind, feelings are in body"
And scientists of neurosciencea nd spirituality and end epigenetics say
Heart has its own brain, and wisdom, and electromagnetic field, but its not based pon yanalyzis and loc or resaon etc.
Maybe Davids reasomn was that while he ois listening and enjoying music....he doesnt want to be in aanalytical state of analyzing it.
Because enjoying isnt coming from brain,
music is energy, enjoyment is energy, its not logical or analytical thing.
This video repeats the tired old myth that digital audio somehow inferior because of sampling, that the reproduced analog output will be 'smoother' with increased sampling rates. DACs can produce perfectly smooth analog waves up to half the the sampling frequency. So, CDs can easily reproduce up to 20kHz, which is the upper limit of human hearing in young people. And, 16bit allows for 96dB of dynamic range, which is much more any consumer analog format does.
czcams.com/video/UqiBJbREUgU/video.html
Rip your vinyl to digital using a high qualtity ADC. Play back that digital file and it will be indistinguishable from vinyl.
The fault in digital reproduction does not lie in the principle of Nyquist sampling, which is provably correct. The problem is that DACs need to do a lot of on-the-fly computation to overcome flawed implementation (e.g. problems of filters). So digital to analog conversion is very complicated, and doing it well costs a lot more than most people are willing to spend. DACs are still improving, over 40 years since the CD was introduced. But if you give me $5,000 with which to buy either a turntable and preamp, or a CD transport and DAC, I probably will get better sound by spending it on the turntable and phono preamp.
@@TheOriginalDrastic I've heard very high end digital and analog setups. While high end analog sounds really good, I don't find anything special over digital. So, I prefer digital for great sound quality, convenience and low cost of music.
@@bikeman7982 I agree. If I were tasked with spending $50,000 on either an analog or digital front end, that would be a hard choice. My own setup has both, and often I prefer the sound of a digital source. Both turntables and CD players have evolved, improved, and seem to be converging to the point that it's arguably a matter of taste.
Dave has every right to his life experiences either CD’s and. vinyl! Record resellers in my area, Tacoma/Seattle won’t buy or sell classical music except to put it in a dollar clearance bin! Dave has been a lonely voice on You Tube discussing classical music with joy on his face and in his voice! Thanks to both of you for bringing some light to classical music!
I have a big vinyl collection ( 4000 , jazz, classical, blues, rock ) and a very big CD collection and I prefer CDs for many reasons, quality, price, format... ( with all respect to the LP collector ... )
My first vinyl purchase was the justly famous Reiner Scheherazade on RCA Living Stereo when it was initially released (in 1960) so you know how old I am! I love vinyl especially for the opportunity it gave for great album cover art and inserts that were large enough to be readable. But the ritual necessary to keep them clean and the constant hunt for vinyl that wasn't warped (even when new) was a continual horror show. Digital formats make storage simpler (and nonexistent if you stream) and now the resolution is good enough to equal or exceed the analog versions, and the warmth that was missing in the earliest digital recordings has been largely restored. So I agree with Dave.
The CD version (Blu Ray) of the Bruckner symphonies costs 45 Euro, the Vinyl version 375 Euro...
vinyl is $500 in USA @Music Direct
@@bachtozappa cool…the good thing about capitalism is that you don’t have to buy a record if you can’t afford it. Also you have the option of not buying it if you want it.
@@Staybrown11that's not about buying, that's about the fact that vynils ARE expensive, and I say that loving Vynils... but they often costs from 3x up to 10x of the same music on CD.
@@BlackMoonGaming agree. Some specialized vinyl are more expensive than CD. But why focus on that small amount of small runs of limited edition vinyl. There are $80 cd’s on eBay. There’s $150 cd on record stores. The focus on limited edition is just misleading. Most vinyl records cost about the same as a new CD. And yes $50 for a vinyl is a lot of money but that’s not most.
@@Staybrown11 but that's not only for limited editions. most of the albums for most of the music generes are more expensive as Vynil.. at least twice as much... maybe I'm just unluky, but this is my experience. And I'm saying this loving Vynils a lot more than CDs..
Dragging a rock through a spiral groove on a rotating piece of plastic is so 1899 technology - that was the year that Emile Berliner debuted his flat disc.
I just received a Japanese CD of some Vinyl I had. Its fidelity and dynamics completely blows away its vinyl counterpart in sound quality. Its all a matter of speakers and amplification with CDs that supposedly sound worse than vinyl. Classical music is a revelation on CD because of it full range and lack of unwanted noise caused by a friction based reproduction method.
Glad you acknowledged how badass Dave is though. Learned so much about classical from you both, and there are solid arguments on both sides of this debate.
I regularly don’t agree with Dave’s reviews but on this topic of vinyl vs CD I have to agree with him. I have several thousand classical LPs and been collecting for 40+ years. I regularly listen to the LPs, mainly because of what’s on them that hasn’t been transferred to any other medium. I love the LPs, don’t get me wrong, but (1) the surface noise / clicks are omnipresent and super annoying in quiet passages. I have professional level equipment (Thorens) and the LPs are cleaned before every playing. It doesn’t take mishandling (as you call it) to get them, it’s omnipresent dust for one. (2) the quality of sound is highly variable from one LP to the next, there is considerable fluctuation due to the quality of the pressing. You don’t know what you get until you place it on the record player. CDs don’t have this problem, or the variability is much much less. (3) the price of modern LPs is insane. Using an inflation argument to say that they cost the same as back ‘in the days’ is silly. The Bruckner set you showed is 300 Euros on LP and 40 on CD (with lossless Blu-ray Disc included). I’m sorry, but the factor of almost 10 difference isn’t worth it. Not to mention convenience of format etc.
You need amateur equipment so you don't hear all the extrinsic noise :)
1. I had the same issue with surface noise. But I found out it was due to bad set up and entry level turntable, phono stage and specifically the cartridge. Once I understood my set up I was able to get my record playing experience to sound lovely, quiet and dynamic. No surface noise and no pops and clicks. 2. Yea i can agree that not all pressing plants are equal. But for the most part most new records are overall good. 3. You don’t have to buy vinyl. That’s the great thing about this hobby-you can love 💿 CD, vinyl records or streaming. You can have Bluetooth or stream. It’s beautiful.
Well, I have heard CDs that sound great and some that sound like crap. There is some variation in quality.
I agree with you and even in this thread that is under your opinion one says you need better equipment so you won't hear the noise. It's almost a religion in that if you take notice of the religion's deficiencies it's because you aren't believing hard enough.
@@keithwiebe1787 I hear you. My system is entry-mid level. But I did begin with a $200 table, a $120 phono stage and $100 cartridge. The surface noise level was audible to the point where I was like dang. The pops and clicks made me say dang Vinyl sucks when I played dirty records. Even today I have to be careful with my set up. If I don’t use well shielded cartridge and or rca cables I can hear AM radio coming through my speakers. But again, I don’t think we need to spend mega church money to hear these improvements but spending more will allow you to hear the difference.
Your misunderstanding of how digital audio works explains your position against it. This is a common theme among the "analoguephile" community.
czcams.com/video/UqiBJbREUgU/video.html
While I respect Michael Johnson as a reviewer, this post simply shows again a vinyl-phile arrogance like Michael Fremer, failing to appreciate what a quality digital setup can provide. I think this post is more confirmation bias.
This misunderstanding is what?
@@intothevoid9831it’s the age old myth that digital is somehow fundamentally flawed because it uses a finite number of samples. Some people claim it will take an infinite number of samples to capture the audio precisely. Human hearing doesn’t go beyond 20kHz, so don’t need to capture sound beyond that. 44.1kHz sampling can easily capture over 20kHz audio. Want to capture more? Sample at 96kHz to capture sounds only bats can hear.
I'm 58 years old, which means I've passed the vinyl and CD era. I remember when I heard the first CD in my life; Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms. I was amazed by the ease of handling and the clarity of the sound, devoid of any artifacts and noise. At that time, as a kid, I had quite a vinyl collection, but I continued to buy vinyl only in cases where I couldn't find the album I was looking for on CD. Today, I have a high-end system whose value is in the neighborhood of 250,000 Euros and is completely based on a digital sound source. I don't have a single vinyl today. However, I have several thousand CDs and I still obsessively buy CDs wherever I can get hold of them, usually in bulk. I feel that I need to have a physical copy of the music I like because I think the foundations of music streaming are very shaky, especially in this geopolitical situation. I have no problem imagining a situation in which I wake up in the morning and my Tidal service does not work together with the entire Internet. I'm thinking of giving an analog source of music a chance, but it won't be vinyl, but reel-to-reel tape. If I already want an analog source, then let it be the best analog source. In that case, I would look for analog recorded music on tape and digitally recorded music on CD. I know it's not easy and it's expensive, but that's the hobby. As for the vinyl itself... I'd rather have acute attacks of hemorrhoids every 5 days than deal with vinyl again. CD quality reproduction has advanced tremendously and today's top DACs sound incredible. A lot of people, especially young people, embraced vinyl because it was the first time they heard music that wasn't MP3 and didn't come through cheap headphones.
If you want to shut yourself off to some amazing sounding music on vinyl, it's up to you, I guess, but really, as a "music lover" you seem to be very closed down
A disturbing thing about streaming - I noticed on a few occasions using headphones some microsecond playback distortion.
250,000 for digital is hilarious.
I'm also 58 and remember when everyone had to have a copy of albums like Bridge Over Troubled Water then CDs of Love over Gold, Brothers in Arms etc. Sometimes I wondered if people actually played them. I no longer have CDs nor Vinyl - just Spotify premium from a Sony phone to the highest form of Bose 360 blutooth speaker.
@@frankgarcia9834 I don't want the focus of this discussion to turn to the price of the equipment. Today, systems can be put together for fractions of that price that sound quite alright. The higher you climb with the price, the smaller the return, i.e. the smaller the improvement in sound quality. I have reached my limit. Everyone has their priorities in life. I like a lot of things, among other things, let's say cars. I could buy a nice little ultra racer for that money, but priorities. I enjoy listening to music much more than driving a car. I've seen all-digital systems that cost double and triple the price. I've seen a DAC that costs $120,000. But that's for the big guys who don't even know how much they paid for it.
You're going to have a whole bunch of people wanting to come over and listen to Bruckner with you.
I have several Bruckner Symphonies none of which are on vinyl, CD, 8-track, or streaming. I now buy my music from nativeDSD. These are DSD downloads of DSD64 and DSD256. Direct Stream Digital (DSD) uses a very high sampling rate to capture audio. The standard DSD format has a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz, which is 64 times the CD audio sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. DSD256, has a sampling rate of 11.2 MHz. Bruckner sounds fantastic!
Records are way too expensive. Regardless of the reason, they're ridiculously expensive. And this is coming from someone who happily buys $150 One Steps.
I’m old enough to have grown up with records. When CD came out I couldn’t afford it but assumed it really was perfect sound forever. When I bought my first house and built my listening room it was at first all CD. Vinyl was almost nonexistent back then. Only after it was done I heard a Linn and it sounded so good I had to get a turntable. The next few years I was playing records and CD about equally. One night my wife said, “It’s so quiet!”
I thought she meant surface noise. No. She means the CD has more noise! Wtf!?!
My wife taught me something very valuable: with records the noise rides above and separate from the music. Like people coughing at a concert. With digital the noise is interwoven into the music. The music is the noise. CD turns music into noise. Records don’t do that.
@@nicksterj Actually if you read it again more carefully and this time thinking it through more you will see the digital conversion itself is in fact the source of the noise.
@@nicksterj What part of "interwoven into the music" do you not understand?
@@nicksterj My wife would beg to differ. Women don't care about technical jargon. They only care how the music sounds. When they tell you your precious digital sounds like noise you should listen.
@@nicksterj In case you haven't noticed it is easy to win any argument, simply make up your own definitions and facts and, wala! Bravo!
Either you're looking great for your age, or you're too young to remember than even before CDs took over, many Classical music fans were already switching from vinyl records to cassette tapes, because it freed them from getting up to flip records in the middle of a long piece, and from the surface noise and inner groove distortion of vinyl. The introduction of metal tape and Dolby C NR in 1980 allowed cassettes to approach the quality of reel-to-reel and to make audibly indistinguishable copies of mint-condition LPs and live radio broadcasts, and by 1981, digitally-mastered pre-recorded cassettes of classical works were already becoming common, just in time for the Walkman to revolutionize music listening -- Beethoven was no longer chained to the living room!
The basic problem people underestimate _vastly_ is the placebo effect. Most people think it's something nebulous that one has to strain to really hear. But the placebo effect doesn't work like this at all! It's MUCH more insidious in a way. First of all, the difference you "hear" is very obvious and leaving no doubt. In the late 1980s everybody and his mother heard the obvious difference between a regular CD and a gold-plated CD. And before that there was a clear difference heard between CDs and the same CDs whose edges were painted with a green marker. If you are old enough to remember the '80s, you'll recall the ads for those "special green markers" in the audiophile press. It was amazing. And yet, it's all 100% fictitious. Contradiction? No, it turns out that's how our brains work. Bottom line is that in double-blind (that's critical) tests over past 40 years nobody was able to hear any difference between signal X versus the same signal X sent through 10 (ten) pairs of A/D-D/A converters in a _row._ Likewise, nobody in such tests was ever able to tell a CD from SACD. I am very glad CDs are available, never liked the bother of the vinyl. And I go to live classical concerts a lot too.
Yes, placebo is very real and people do not want to admit that any such thing affects them.
@@Liisa3139 not only do they not want to admit to it, but they get very upset when the topic is mentioned.
Listening and hearing the difference between SACD and normal CD was a revelation to me, a very unwanted one at the time because I thought there could not actually be any difference and it was all a silly marketing ploy. The clarity and smoothness of the DSD (sacd) format was and is very apparent if you listen through good equipment. It needs to be actually recorded in DSD not just up-sampled from PCM. The difference in these two digital formats is actually what helped bring me closer to Vinyl because vinyl is another step towards clarity and smoothness. I agree placebo is real but true DSD is a the real deal. Try using the Pine player if you are on osx or foobar2000 on windows (both freeware). Take some time A/B with good headphones you will hear the difference.
I agree with the old man. IF you listen to classical.... then SACD. with a SACD player/system that processes actual DSD, will be your best friend. Its literally better in every stat over vinyl. The rest is coloration and system specific. If you have thousands into a basic cleaning system, which is what basic vacuums and ionic cleaners actually cost, and you have thousands into cartridges, isolation, phono stages, tube amps, etc... I bet your analog system sounds wonderful. If your vinyl has a single digital process, then what is the point??? Most vinyl records "now a days" are digital. WHY not just go HiRes SACD/DSD, it's the closest source. Even streaming is getting good. I use Amazon Prime, most of the albums I listen to are 24/192. I UNDESRTAND I have some AAA albums from the popular retailers who care about vinyl, Acoustic Sounds, etc. They sound great...when they are engineered and mastered correctly. ( UHQR, for 150 bucks) It's really not worth the cash difference to a 35-dollar SACD/DSD source.
Check your SACDs, CDs, DSDs out on an audio editor. 'Audacity' is free. Look at the clipping, the compression and the 'louding' that you are listening to on most of them.
@@cjay2this thread is about classical music, that’s a no issue.
At one time, in the mid-80s, I had something like three or four thousand LPs, mostly classical, but lots of jazz and pop, too. (I was a reviewer and got lots of freebies.) But when the CD came along, I was taken with its lucid sound quality and ease of use. I was frankly tired of all the fussing and putzing around with LPs and the equipment and work required to produce the best sound quality. I don't begrudge anyone their love of LPs and the rituals related to them. I don't even doubt that the analog sound they produce at their best may have a magic that CDs can't equal. But I've lived happily with CDs for 35 years now and I'm too damned old to even think about going back.
The new equipment and needles are making the vinyls sound less noisy, even the old one's. You need vinyl to be considered serious as a DJ by the new generation. There is still moviment and marketing around vinyl because of it's exclusivity inside the club scene. So better cheaper pre-amps and mixers, you'd be amazed if you come back solely to listen to very loud music and not finding any surface noise
@@danielaragao I'm glad there've been such improvements. But back in my LP days it got very tiresome at times.
I think all your points are spot on, and so are Dave's! Let him rant a little! I don't think he's taking himself too seriously here. His channel is amazing, I have learned a lot about classical from him.
The problem with the video is, of course, that David Hurwitz has been unable to comment on your various remarks - and I think we both know that he would have a lot to say in response to your comments. I gave up vinyl decades ago because local New Zealand pressings at the time were dreadful - and I've never considered returning to it. I think the first CDs were poor but they have improved enormously over the decades. I personally love SACD and direct stream digital (DSD) in general.
Spot on and thank you for responding as it saves me the effort. Clicks and pops are a dated issue with vinyl. Current quality products are virtually noise free and will stay that way with rather simple and proper care. A good vacuum record cleaner will take care of most issues with older vinyl. Of course, scratches are forever but they are not the result of exercising proper care. The DG Bruckner set is outstanding.
At an absurd price.
@@ArtyFactual_IntelligenceI bought mine directly from DG at a much better price. Classical music will never sell like pop singers and somebody has to pay for the mixing and mastering. And there are 17 disks.
As a working musician who listens more frequently to live music than to recordings, I’ve come to notice the bias (or in a more positive light, the ‘point of view’) of modern classical music production/engineering. Some of my listening favorites are older recordings of what Dave might call ‘unlistenable recording quality), partially because I don’t mind filling-in the missing timbres, articulations, etc. through audiation, but also because I sometimes find these live and older recordings to be less ‘fussy’ and more straightforward in their audible bias (for example favoring the downstage instruments dramatically, or in the case of pre-electric recordings, significantly disadvantaging the upper frequency-range).
On the other side, I’ve had so many young and new listeners come to me after their first live performance complaining that they ‘couldn’t hear the soloist at all’ or something suggesting that the balance and clarity of a live orchestral performance struck them as totally unfamiliar having only heard recordings. I think in some sense good engineering and production are spoiling us!
Hurwitz may have a point in that the labels try to sell us the same music we’ve already bought multiple times.
If one is a serious collector, as you both are, there's still no way around physical media. I notice this every time I visit fellow audiophiles (I'm both, a classical music lover and an audiophile) who use steaming services that a great part of what Dave Hurwitz talks about in his videos, and maybe the greater part of my favorite recordings, are not available on streaming services, and if they are, not in the best sounding editions and/or remastering. Besides, on very high-end systems it turns out streaming doesn't sound as good as playback from storage media or an SACD transport, in short, if one is, as Hurwitz puts it, "into the game of comparisons", then there's no way around physical media, and since the overlap is nowhere near 100%, there's probably no way around using both, and unless one's inherited an extremely well-assorted LP collection, there's certainly no way around digital playback. Real (especially classical) music aficionados aren't the kind of people who'll limit themselves (and that includes the realization that one won't listen exclusively to audiophile recordings).
I loved vinyl back in the 70s, but I am not nostalgic enough to get up and turn the record over, put records back in the sleeve, take out of the sleeve. Streaming is just so convenient. Yes, i miss the large format, liner notes, lyrics, graphics, but not enough to get back into it.
Glad you're posting on youtube again! I enjoy Dave's reviews. I had to hurry off to the thrift shop with my Norrington CDs after learning how bad they are. I drank deep of the vinyl chalice when I ABd a 1980s DG Leitner Kempff Beethoven PC3 CD with tuttis that didn't sound quite right, with the earlier LP which remained detailed and transparent in climaxes.
Sadly, I just received brand new DG Original Source Series LPs - one was horribly warped, the other has scratches ! WTF !
... and that says it all. Vinyl is old technology, why the revival, nostalgia, that's all. Cds all day long.
For classical music I think a lot if people prefer the wider dynamic range of cds. Near 100 vs 60 dB
I admire you for your patience dealing with THAT person who incites pandaemonium in one clip and then feigns innocence as to why on earth ppl start attacking him. Love you channel btw. Just bought the new vinyl Bruckner/ Giulini. Highly recommended.
People overlook the sound characteristics of the equipment they’re using. If you have a taste for a warmer sound characteristic, look for a DAC, speakers etc with that in mind.
CDs/Digital do offer a clearer sound, a wider dynamic range, accurate frequency response, and consistent quality, there are clear advantages over vinyl.
Do you think that stylus wear is also a myth? Due to wear some people recommend changing their cartridges every 1 - 2 years. Thanks.
Very interesting video Michael. I think that in the end you both agree on the fundamental point: it is a case by case basis and how can it not be when there are so many variables entering the value stream, from the recording venue up to each listener’s audio equipment. I own a lot of vinyl and a lot of CDs/SACDs, so I don’t have a preference but in the end it is the performance that matters (I am talking classical music here). Not closing the door to CDs, again in the classical music genre, does allow one to access pretty much everything that was done in that genre since the mid-80s or so when classical music record companies abadonned vinyl. A lot of smaller independent labels (BIS, Chandos, Harmonia Mundi to name a few) have issued glorious records of classical music which are not available on vinyl. Should one shut oneself out from that music because « vinyl sounds better than CDs » ? I for one do not want to, but to each his own.
From my experience working in record stores in their heyday, a lot of people did Not change their stylus often enough causing wearing. I had inspected records brought in by customers saying they weren't sounding like they did before. These records were generally spotless but yes, did sound worn. The question I posed to them was, how often do you play records and when was the last time you replaced your stylus. In some cases they hadn't been changed for years because they thought a diamond stylus should last forever. Secondly, people had generic record players back then, where the balance and skating were factory set, because high end players were generally out of most people's financial reach. Also the technology of the time was not what it is today. As a result records did tend to wear.
CDs on the other hand are not indestructible as originally advertised. They can scratch and skip, their surface CAN deteriorate over time losing part or all of the data on the cd.
All of us have our love music in common! Let's celebrate that! Life is too short to argue, listen to whatever music format makes you happy.
Bad "Loudness War" Mastering has given CD's and digital audio a bad name which this format/medium does not deserve !
I personally startet buying vinyl records back in 2003 because many so called "re-mastered" cd's I owened were totally over compressed, de-noised to dead and just sounded bad compared to old vinyl records from the 70's which had the original mastering on them.
So: STOP THE DAMN LOUDNESS WAR !!
My 2 cents..
LPs used compression and bass reduction.
I like the term “convincing “ vs. “warmer”. Really good video. Thanks for posting.
Also, I agree with the comment about the Keith Jarrett concert. I recently bought an original pressing of this that visually looked to be near mint. There were so many pops and crackles on this that I could not enjoy the music and will never play it again.
@33:37 Could you do a review of this Bruckner set? I'm not the biggest fan of Karajan's interpretations, but I adore Bruckner. This seems like a no brainer, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Appreciate your time!
Am just watching your vid on our TV & sifting through comments simultaneously on my device, as I regularly do.
Someone correct me but for the YT subject matter of (Vinyl, Classical, CD music) I am BLOWN AWAY by the number of comments already after just 1 day (420+ as of Sunday 5pm CST)!!! That's a huge response in a short time frame.
Re: your vid (I'm 15mins in so far), I LOVE your format of responding by segment or section relative to his takes. Kudos.
I watch both his CH and yours of course.
I own 3,000 LPs and 700 CDs and am a big ROON user throughout home & office for 6 yrs or so. Love all tgese formats and each have their time & place for 🎶 enjoyment .
I like David. I subscribe to his channel and I support his online business. David has forgotten more about classical music than I’ll ever remember. But watching his video was painful… and I’m grateful Michael that you took the time to properly dissect it.
Six years ago I owned fifty records. Today I own over one thousand. Vinyl to streaming is about 80/20. When I want to listen to my favourite music, fatigue free, there’s no comparison. I wondered why, back in the noughts, I stopped listening to my CD collection. Now with a quality turntable and phono stage, in 2024 I know why.
When I recently added a phono preamp rather using phono input in my receiver (which is high end) - whoa, did vinyl playback sounded marvelous with enhanced soundstage.
Read the engineer comments. End of debate. Not retrospective justification for fools gold outlay.
You must have missed all the noise at soft passages.
@@1998mchp Most engineers put out terrible recordings and listen to crappy all-in-one active speakers all day. They aren't this unassailable authority like you think they are.
I know you’re defending vinyl but Dave does bring up some good points! Vinyl is expensive especially audiophile vinyl 150 dollars for UHQRs and god forbid the price of original copies of some vinyl records today Digital music is not as bad as some people are claiming I’ve heard analog records that sound terrible next to the CD! The argument over records over CDS is overblown in my opinion
The fact is it's wealthy people defending vinyl because they can afford the ridiculous prices for audiophile stuff. Is it any surprise that most of the "audiophiles" online with channels are white with lucrative professions? I mean give me a break. I'm not discriminating, but that's just a fact. Look at the demographic. That says it all. Aside from that, classical is garbage on vinyl with few exceptions in which a counterpart on CD/SACD isn't equal or superior.
I lived through that era, and at the time, DMM was a godsend for many labels. For instance, in the early 80s, it was still more difficult to purchase EMI pressings than Angel in the U.S. But once Angel came out with DMM, it made a huge difference. The records were more quiet and they had more transparency. Even on the used market, I’m willing to pick up an Angel, IF it is DMM.
After viewing both videos and reading all the comments, I think there is a major point that has been ignored in the discussion. That of availability.
Since the mid 1980s (forty years ago!), the overwhelming majority of classical music releases, as well as every operatic and chamber music recording that I know of, were only released on CD. There was no option if one wanted to listen to the latest recording by older artists such as Gilels, Bernstein, Arrau or von Karajan or new artists such as Salonen, Mullova, Bartoli and Jarvi. It was either CD or nothing until the somewhat recent arrival of streaming. Some sounded really fine and some not so much. But being a music lover first, I thought it absolutely ridiculous to totally ignore two generations of artists that I admired previously or discovered on CD. Also, think of the amount of unfamiliar music that has been released during the same period on CD only - Complete Sibelius on BIS, the many Naxos issues of unknown and/or unrecorded composers, the HIP movement and Baroque Operas - all available on CD only. I should also mention the audio restoration of historical recordings done by Ward Marston, Mark Obert-Thorn and Andreas Meyer. Their work, found almost solely on CD, has been truly spectacular on labels like Marston Records, Music and Arts and Sony. Sony's and Warner's recent "Mega Boxes" releases afford music lovers to enjoy legendary (and sometimes unjustly neglected) artists at incredible prices. For example, one can purchase the 95 CD set the Complete EMI Columbia, HMV, Electrola and Parlophone Recordings of Otto Klemperer mastered by Art & Son Studio for the price of one original EMI Columbia stereo LP.
Before anyone thinks I'm just some CD fanatic, the majority of my collection is vinyl which started with a 45 of "Little" Steve Wonder's "Fingertips, Part One and Two" that I purchased in 1963 at the age of five and I'm waiting for the arrival of DG's Original Source LP von Karajan Bruckner Symphony set more than sixty years later! I've never found the process of cleaning LPs (both vacuum and ultrasonic) to be an inconvenience and take my turntable to my local audio dealer to be checked regularly for stylus wear and various adjustments. Some of the greatest recordings I own are on LP. And some are on CD. It is as simple as that!
One other point I believe should be addressed is that of the, at times contentious if not hostile, relationship regarding classical music and audiophile reviewers. I think I can speak on this subject being a reader of High Fidelity, Stereo Review (both deceased), Fanfare, Gramophone, as well as Absolute Sound (since Issue #1), Stereophile, and The Tracking Angle. I also watch classical music and audiophile videos found on CZcams. In the vast majority of cases, the audiophile critic when reviewing a recording will only cite a handful of other audiophile recordings of the work disregarding the rest. For example, an audiophile critic reviewing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring will compare the usual highly regarded sonically recording (all analogue and LP versions only) - Solti/Decca, Bernstein/Columbia 6 eye and maybe, Markevitch/EMI and conclude with their choice of recording. A music critic, especially one who has been doing it for many years, will compare a dozen or more recordings concluding with the one he or she interpretively prefers. The head butting occurs when the music critic has the attitude of how can the audiophile critic recommendation be taken seriously when he/she hasn't heard a majority of the recordings of the work reviewed. Flip the coin over and you'll find the audiophile critic questioning the music critic opinions citing their substandard audio equipment or preference to digital. Both are somewhat ridiculous. When I bought my 1st LP of the Rite (Bernstein/Columbia) in the early 70s, there were around 15 to 20 recordings available. Now, there must be over 100 or more. There are simply to many recordings of the standard repertoire available. And if the music critic derives pleasure from their audio system and prefers digital to analogue, so be it. In the early 70s, I had a Panasonic system with a Garrard turntable and enjoyed every LP I played. And think of the arguments between the two groups themselves - ERC Records a few years ago, for example.
Sorry to ramble on so long but I'm hoping that a few of you will appreciate what this old-timer has to say. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be around when there is so much great classical music available in all formats, LPs, CDs, SACDs and streaming. One can spend the entire day listening to broadcasts of classical and operatic performances from all over the world. I'm finishing this while listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. Yesterday, it was Muti conducting the Bruckner Eighth with the Vienna Philharmonic live from Salzburg. So just keep enjoying great music in whatever format you like. Also remember, no format that I know compares to sitting in a great hall listening to a great orchestra. It is the ultimate in sound.
Thank you for this, most illuminating.
And honestly, I am all in on vinyl and CDs and files, and I enjoy it all. But you gotta give it to him that the process of cleaning vinyl is a frigging pain... I use a Degritter, I am an absolute convert on proper cleaning, but it IS a bit of a required PITA.
I’m in the first clump. I never totally gave it up and still have pretty much every LP I ever bought, starting in 1972, when I was in 6th grade. But I also have a pretty extensive CD collection. More recently (roughly 20 years ago), I started collecting used open reels.
I appreciate your views and opinions and I also appreciate Dave’s. Everyone has likes and dislikes and that’s fine. I worked at a record pressing plant in Nashville back in the late 1970’s. I picked up masters on Music Row and then watched as they were put on the press and the blob of vinyl dropped and the label was pressed and then boom, you had an LP.
i regularly listen to you. and Dave. I think you both will agree more with each other than disagree on this vinyl / CD issue. I feel Dave is actually indirectly ranting about the die hard fans of either medium who have become entrenched and close minded. In reality, what really matters (to me) is the mastering or remastering, rather than the medium.
The 1st article, titled ‘the resurgence of vinyl LPs’, that i encountered was in 2002. Since then similar-titled articles appeared every 3-4 years.
CDs were for a long time double to triple the price of LPs. As a teenager in the 80’s vinyl (and original cassette tapes) were an easy choice.
How do you complain about the price of an album but demand every version be the best version of that record ever? Like, does he expect a Chat Pile UHQR?
Thanks for this. The stangest part of Dave's argumenet is the new and improved discussion. What didnlt they make cars at the turn of the centure like they are made today.? Why didnlt they maked televisions as good as today? Why didn't the Brits have good food back in the 50s and 60s as they do today 🙂
Mazzy, Im sure 40:30 might of hit close to home? 😉
@@pinkrudy ha. Had to go ew listen to that part. Sure, the music first but I love great sound too, so I have some audiophilia in my blood 🤠😎✌🏻
@@mazzysmusic I think you misunderstood that part of Dave's video.
All advocates of CD/digital use science to prove that it sounds better. Trust in the science they say - CD on paper is a superior format. Thing is, I have hundreds of CDs and hundreds of LPs. I simply use my ears, I don't care what it says on a piece of paper. And, all things being equal, a well mastered, well cut all analogue LP blows CD away. Its a far more organic and involving listening experience. CD can sound good - thats not in question and it is likely easier to get a decent sounding system on a budget built around CD playback. But for me, when it comes to the most pleasurable listening experience, there is no comparison.
The problem with classical vinyl is with a dynamic range much greater other genres (in today’s equivalent mastered at say -24 LUFS rather than -14), noise is more distracting. I like piano recordings on vinyl - especially when the instruments were miked close to soundboard the medium helps mellow out the hardness - but the records really do have to be pristine. Likewise jazz just plain sounds better on vinyl. For orchestral recordings, violins can sound better but you practically lose the bottom octave of double basses which is produced more transparently on cd. Important to note that these Kingsway Hall, Concertgebouw etc recordings were done to tape, so reel to reel would be ideal way to listen to them, not vinyl. And even in the days of early digital you had great recordings, such as Haitink’s Bruckner 9 from 1981 or Giulini’s LAPO recordings. It all depends!
Digital and vinyl can both sound amazing. Even as a CD collector, I can believe vinyl has the edge because it mostly hasn’t gone through the digitisation process. Many in the Hifi industry believe that to be true. As you say, good tape recordings are hard to beat too. But even vinyl mastered from very high res digital will still have a sound of its own in comparison to CDs.
Nothing new here. Any point can be picked apart including yours. I think you should go after the guy that cut your hair instead! Props to Hurwitz!
Dear Mr, thank you so much for your analysis👍🏻Most of the times I don't agree with Mr.Hurwitz but it seems he thinks he's the only person who is right🤔I always listen with my ears and with my heart👍🏻
I was there when CDs first came out. My brother purchased the first Sony CDP-101 CD player shortly after its release in the early 80s. I got my first CD player, a Realistic CD-1000 in 1984. There was an issue with the mastering of some early CDs due to companies using LP masters to create CD masters. Once this issue was resolved, the sonic advantages of CDs, their greater dynamic range, lack of surface noise, zero wow and flutter, etc meant I no longer longed for the "warmth" of vinyl. I then started replacing all my LPs with CDs and the only LPs I still own were never released on CD. I still have all those CDs I purchased in the mid 80s and 40 years later they still play without issue.
Vinyl records have a typical dynamic range of around 70 dB, depending on the equipment used to record the audio and cut the record. CDs have a typical dynamic range of 90 to 93 dB, though 16-bit digital audio has a theoretical dynamic range of 96 dB. Uncompressed high-res audio files with 24-bit resolution have a theoretical dynamic range of 144 dB, though modern ADCs and DACs max out at around 120 dB or so.
Vinyl is a collectable music product. Scale, materiality, vintage. CDs are an evolution from a sound perspective that removes the gap between mastering and cutting a vinyl with grooves and warm distortion, and a cd's mirror replication of the master you hear made in the studio. The argument now is less about sound, (you choose) and more about ownership of the recorded music artefact. The vinyl LP has collectable allure, the cd has utility and function. Fact is you don't need either to enjoy music now, but I still like the material connection of ownership. It says 'I honestly love this Art.'
Vinyl: Technology so advanced that it needs RIAA equalization. Cost $10 in the 80s; $40 today. Used vinyl can cost double that. Decent turntables start at $1k.
CDs: Cost $15 in the 80s; $10 today. Used CDs can be purchased for $3. Decent CD players start at $39.
On the one hand, LPs need RIAA EQ, while the CD format does have error correction built into its standard. A decent phono costs around $400 and a good CD player about the same. I do agree about the disc prices.
Two points from an old guy who grew up listening to records. I believe you made his point about the hassle of playing records. What I got from your comments on that is, unless you are extremely fastidious, your records will not sound their best. A listener needs to pay attention to the process at all times or the records will develop unwanted noise, or "wear out." In my youth, I wore out many records through neglect.
The second point is some folks who have done A/B comparisons have determined they prefer the sound from CDs. I bought my first CD back in 87, but didn't start comparing until the early 90s. For years the records won these tests. It wasn't until I bought a high end CD player sometime around 2005 that I finally would say I preferred what I heard from CDs. Of course that doesn't mean CDs are superior, It just means I prefer their sound.
It's all moot now as I mostly stream an don't really care what sounds better. I rarely listen to music I'm familiar with, so have nothing to compare it to, and feel it's a waste of time to compare anyway.
Cheers.
To me I think this whole argument is something that will never get resolved. And, for the most part, modern vinyl pressing are created from digital masters which turns the entire set of arguments on their head. I have both. I tend to listen to my CD collection from my NAS with lossless flac files. They are just the same as the CD without the need of the CD player. I have fun with vinyl from time to time these days. But the handling and care required gets tiring to me. And, in my experience, no matter how good the quality is of a vinyl record is I've never experienced a popless vinyl record. I have some that have very little of that, but the pops always show up somewhere. I find it very irritating.
I'm 59. Have about 25,000 records, 25,000 cds. Been continuously collecting the former since 1976 and cds since 1986. Love them both. To this day I usually buy the cd and the vinyl of each release. Granted most people are not in a position to have collections of that size but I am grateful that it has worked out for me. My cds generally sound terrific. My records generally sound terrific. As between the two, for any given release of a mastering, the record usually beats the cd for presence and dynamics, and is more fun to play. But if I want to play music in the background, the cd is more convenient. No question a high end vinyl setup is more expensive than a high end cd setup. No question used and new cds are so much less expensive than used and new records. That having been said, most of Dave's other objections to vinyl are overstated or just wrong. But I want to stress the cost disparity is a significant issue. If I was starting out today, I'd probably just buy cds. Terrific sound (much much better than streaming) for much less expense than vinyl. Then again my two 20 something sons have both become record collectors, to the detriment of their finances :)
So in (say) 45 years of buying/collecting you will have bought over 500 of each every year, and presumably played them at least once each....
when newly acquired (not likely I would suggest).
One must uncritically assume you have a private source of income and never actually worked 40 of the hours available each week, and sleep 7+ hrs
I have digitally transferred my LPs, and retain maybe one fifth of your volume and have calculated I cannot live long enough to hear them once each before I die. Since there are some I'd like to hear more than once I have reluctantly decided to abandon the collection mania.
Dave specified the Karajan Bruckner on Warner….originally on EMI. He didn’t mention the DGG set, which even in the original issue, had much different Sonics.
He did specify that. But I have Karajan’s DG Bruckner cycle on CD and the sound isn’t great. I am pretty sure the new LP pressings have better sound. Some newer CD pressings might have too.
For me, I'm format agnostic. The master comes first. I *really* enjoy listening to records, though sometimes must admit the pressing or transfer just isn't up to par. With vinyl, that sucks because of the often high outlay. Though yes, sometimes that happens with CD and streaming too, though the outlay is easier to eat.
After Spotify I minimized my LP and CDs to being packed away. Clean livingroom. After the lack of ownership and boring livingroom I now have vinyl and stream spotify. CDs are in storage for now. I have vinyl just due to fascination how that little diamond picks up the signal. And the vinyl just gets better and I love the owner relationship I get. Record players are so cool. Just love it. Dont care if it may not the best sounding or that the scratches may be there on some.
I'll comment on just one aspect of this. What we call clicks & pops are the result of three things:
1. Scratches/scuffs
2. Dust/dirt/debris
3. Static electricity
Only No. 1 could plausibly be put down to "mishandling". The vast majority of clicks & pops are due to Nos. 2 & 3. Unless you live inside a vacuum chamber on a planet without a magnetosphere, this will always be the case. This is the reason for the insane industry of cleaning & destaticing products, & I indulge in it myself. I have fluids & cleaners & ultrasonics & ionizers & antistatic sleeves & spend the time in the ritual of (1) cleaning my records, old or brand new, & (2) keeping them free from static. The truth is that you can mitigate clicks & pops from dirt & static, but you cannot eliminate them. Even if you clean them perfectly, as soon as you expose the surface to the environment, you're going to get dust on them again & will need to, at a minimum, brush the dust off. This has an inevitable sonic consequence. This is an inherent characteristic of vinyl as a medium that will always be an issue.
This is one area where the superiority of CDs & digital formats is inescapable. Perhaps it doesn't bother you or other listeners so much. I'm guessing that by owning a Zerostat, it bothers you at least somewhat. Given the huge dynamic range of classical music, the unavoidable clicks & pops that are inherent in vinyl count, for me, as a massive mark against the format. There are many things to love about vinyl, but this is a forever problem with it. It can't just be hand-waved away as "mishandling."
Very well articulated, Mr Haynes. Hard to disagree with what you say.
Hmm . . . . . . as soon as I heard the word _'CLUMP'_ used, I knew where he was going 😞
I have a question for you. I recently purchased an HMV record with a flip back jacket. Record is NM. The jacket would be if it weren't for the edges of those flipped back pieces on the back cover. There's what I guess is dirt from years of handling. Do you know of a safe way to clean that up? If you're curious, it's the Elgar concerto performed by Du Pre with Barbirolli and the LSO. ASD 655, ER1
In the words of the master RVG:
"The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium."
I love me my vinyl but wish we got our digital right. Now with all this protools bs…nobody knows how to mix/master properly. Many many records these days sound like serious crap. Nearly all my OG sound better than the modern heavy vinyl remasters. Except even though mofi has a digital step with their DSD….they make fantastic sounding records.
As painful as vinyl is…once you get it setup and cooking it really does sound amazing
@@revelry1969 but, but, but, all the people who make money out of the vinyl resurgence are saying that he was just an old fool loosing his marbles when he said this.
@@emilspec1227 yeah. I think the thing I took away from this statement is that the LP is hard to do right. Playback is a pain too. Digital if done right can sound fantastic. He didn’t lose his marbles. He was just looking at it practically. Vinyl is a pain in the ass. But to me it does mostly give the best sound even with digitally sourced vinyl (sometimes). I think this is more an argument of what digital. DSD vs PCM etc. I have found DSD (4x) to sound just like the vinyl. It’s all compromises. RVG was lamenting all that painstaking time he spent getting it right. It’s all about compromises. All recording and playback. Ease of playback (digital) maybe just give “good enough” quality to someone. Those of us who go deeper have to determine which format works best for them. I think the CD was a huge triumph and plenty good sound for most humans. But it was a compromise. It’s like streaming. My friends say….just stream all that crap. I am like it sounds better on vinyl they are like…my ears can’t hear it…I want the ease of playback. CDs certainly have easy portability and produce good sound. Great sound? That is debatable.
Have you heard RVG's digital transfers? He was completely wrong on that topic and his recordings prove it. Compare a RVG Edition CD to a kevin gray cut Blue Note Classic and it'll be night and day. The RVG Editions are absolutely atrocious messes.
i love every format auf music ,every has his benefit
The truth is CD's are better in every way. Vinyl is great but its a compromise on music quality, Hence why you have the RIAA record and reproduce curves. Also outside diameter cuts on a record sound differ from inside ones? Unfortunately it’s a fact. Why? The answer is geometry, curvature again. One turntable revolution at 33 1/3 rpm on an LP takes 1.8 seconds. That 1.8 seconds is spread over a circumference of 36 inches on the outside of the record. At the minimum allowable inside diameter that same 1.8 second revolution would only cover 14.9 inches. You can see from this, that a gentle wiggle spread over 36 inches would get quite ‘scrunched’ over 14.9 inches. A jagged groove at 36 inches would get really scrunched at 14.9 inches (remember the rapids). Excessive treble can even cause the cutting stylus to accelerate so fast that its back edge wipes out what the front edge just cut! It’s unfortunate, but treble rolls off, and distortion goes up as you approach the centre of the record. It is quite gradual, but if you compare the source recording to the disc, this actually starts to become noticeable after the second cut or so. Any attempt to compensate for this by boosting the treble, only makes the problem worse (greater curvature remember).
Nobody that’s serious about vinyl “wonders” about IGD, we have discussed it to death.
@@rufus_the_cat Cool, so you know about record's shortcomings. great.
Yes this is why sibilance is such an issue on vinyl, and actually vocal microphone design from Neumann U47 to less sibilant prone U67 and U87 reflects this. But music “quality” is subjective. Higher resolution and better preserved dynamic range is not necessarily better. Try comparing any hot Blue Note recording and it just plain sounds better on vinyl than cd, plus the mastering tends to be better, which is a whole separate issue.
“ The truth is CD's are better in every way.” TO YOU! Generalizations like that are completely unfair and do not tell the whole story. I listen to vinyl exclusively and it’s difficult to explain to someone with such narrow perspectives the joy that vinyl brings.
Your comments about vinyl being a compromise are simply not an issue for most vinyl lovers. If you have a halfway decent turntable that revolves at the correct speed and deals well with resonance, any distortion towards the inside grooves is not only negligible, but not audible to the vast majority of listeners with normal hearing. Yes, vinyl imparts its own artifacts to the sound but it is a pleasant sounding one.
I used to collect CDs and ultimately switched back to vinyl.
I love the whole process, the art and liner notes of large record covers, the hands-on routine of removing the record from the jacket, placing on the turntable, lowering the arm. To me, it is not a hassle; it’s a pleasure. Why can’t critics understand this? Everyone’s different- each can enjoy music in their own way! I enjoy immensely the sound that comes out of my speakers. Why is that an issue for vinyl haters? Why do you always seem to find it necessary to remind vinyl enthusiasts that there’s a “better” way? Or tell us what we’re missing?
I am completely uninterested in the geometry you cite and how vinyl can never bean adequate representation of the original master tape. How do you know what the master tape sounds like. From recording to distribution, it goes through so many iterations, from mastering to the final sound on your system, that it’s extremely unlikely it will be entirely accurate to the original source. So what! Who cares if you find the sound pleasant and satisfying?
If there’s any truth at all, it’s that everyone’s different. What is satisfying to one might not be satisfying to another.
.
@@ericlubow4354 It's mathematically objective. Ask any electrical engineer. Also you assume I'm a vinyl hater? I collect both CD and records and admire the technological achievements of both. I'm sure you're of the generation that has their albums hanging on walls as an art piece.
Michael, you diminish the usefulness of the Zerostat. used properly, and at the right time, they are indispensable. the time to use it is when you remove the disc from the platter, it is usually ALIVE with 50kV of static charge. putting the record back on the platter causes that charge to collapse into the ground plane of the TT. using the Zstat right before you put the LP into the sleeve will remove the charge so the disc doesn't lie in the jacket attracting dust at a maximum rate.
for static in arid climates like Canada in the winter, that unit that Mikey uses on his TT to constantly neutrallizes the static is best if costly. humidifiers are a big help in that situation.
You've earned my subscription with this video. I'll tell you more: I don't even care whether it sounds better or not (even though it does). Just watching it spinning with the tonearm hovering on it and the music coming out is more rewarding than any digital media with as much computing power you can come up with. In that regard even cassettes beat CDs. And if properly recorded and played with good equipment they don't sound nearly as bad as people think they do.
Some Classical cassettes sound astonishingly good - even on my very far from state of the art equipment.
An interesting post, but I'd make a couple of observations:- Dave is communicating to a mass audience, the vast majority of whom will not have the time, patience or money to have such a perfect audio setup that it is the best possible representation of a live performance.
Even when handling vinyl very carefully you will still get occasional dust particles on it unless you are in laboratory conditions, and although there is gear you can use to minimise this those particles either affect the sound quality or the practicality of playing music.
Although I accept the digitisation process by it's nature means it's not an exact reproduction, this ignores the losses incurred by the limitations of the equipment and the limitations of the human ear and our brain's ability to process them. And of course our hearing degrades over time, with older people unable to detect the higher frequences that they could when young.
Low price CDs have meant that more music is available to more people. Of my 800 or so classical CDs, I've bought many second hand at a fraction of the cost when new, and almost all have played back as new meaning I can enjoy more music. That is not a viable option with vynil where damage and wear is a bigger factor.
Enjoying the music is what it's all about, which beyond any flippancies was Dave's main point I believe. So the world is big enogh for those for whom vynil is best, cd is best or streaming which is practical but I prefer something I can browse on my shelves, quite apart from any sound quality issues.
Wonderful video, Michael. Of course, when someone says, “warm” sounding, people generally understand what that means, especially musicians. If “warm” were to be measured, I’d think it’d be a bit of an emphasis in the low mids, but there is something more to it than just that.
Vinyl records do not inherently have pops and clicks, and I wince a when I hear that said. As you mentioned, it’s from mishandling the record. After I clean a record and put it in a nice inner sleeve, it’s generally fine for quite some time.
Vinyl can seem somewhat inconvenient to some, but the sound quality, the thrill of the hunt, the ritualistic aspect, etc., etc. make it worth it, imo. I’ve also absolutely A/B’d different formats of the same recording as well. No need to be scared of the word audiophile. Caring how something sounds is not a negative thing. I think people may try to avoid the word audiophile, because to some, there’s a connotation that you’re listening to how your gear sounds rather than it being a tool to enjoy the music.
Speaking as an old...
His entire video can be summed up as "old man yells at cloud". I don't know the man but if someone wanted me to entirely dismiss their opinions as having no basis in reality this would be a great way to do it.
I'm a vinyl guy, I'm one of those that never stopped buying records when CD's came out. Largely because I was DJ'ing electronic music and in the 90's that was all on vinyl. I like the sound of vinyl better, but I'm fully willing to admit that part of that might well be that I'm used to the sound of it as it's what I grew up with and therefore it's my definition of "normal". I might well be liking the sound of the distortions added by a playback stylus. That said the mastering matters far more than the medium. Bad digital is generally bad because the mastering is bad not because the medium is bad. Unfortunately, these days the all too often the mastering of popular music on digital is awful. It's designed to sound well on airpods or in a car, not for listening on a high-quality playback system.
@@marksironi3324 his video is entirely about the classical music domain, nothing to do with pop, rock, dance or jazz, Dave only talks about classical music.
I mainly listen to vinyl, and I dig the direct analog remasters DG does with the Original Source series. However, to be honest, I think that if they did a digital remaster of the 8-track tapes (in the case of Bruckner) and put it on CD, it would sound even better than the vinyl, due to digital denoising, no vinyl distortion, and no surface noise. The reason these new vinyl series sound so good is that they used the original 4/8 track tapes directly, instead of the 2-track downmix, like the original LP and the CD remasters. In the end, it all comes down to the mastering and and the source of the master.
Also, you mentioned that the digitization of the waves affects the sound, which is not true, since modern ADCs and DACs can work with negligible distortion and noise, plus extremely high bitrates that greatly surpass the Nyquist frequency. It's also true that vinyl has more distortion and noise, is less practical, requires you to change sides every 25 minutes, needs better care, etc.
Vinyl prices are higher than ever, but not in every case. New vinyl prices are usually about 20-35 euros (e.g., Pink Floyd albums cost about 25 euros new, and other, less-produced albums cost 30-35 euros). That's reasonable pricing. Anything above that surpasses inflation and should be considered overpriced.
I still prefer listening to vinyl, by the way, I'm just trying to be objective.
there are great sounding CDs and bad sounding vinyl, and vice versa. I’m no audiophile (or am I?) but even a great sounding, well-mastered CD will eventually give me ear fatigue compared to the same well-mastered vinyl equivalent. I’ll take a bit of crackle and pop over ear fatigue if the apples-to-apples choice is available. Is DSD is a reasonable sonic compromise, particularly with the classical genre?
An old guy with a modern vision, a young guy with a old mentality
I love DH and I’ve got to admit earlier on in the week when I saw the thumbnail of his CD versus Vinyl video I couldn’t help worrying “Oh no was it me droning on about the affordability and merits of the original Decca release of War Requiem that sent Dave over the edge”. Totally in line with my personality I could not face watching his video nor this one yet. Anyway if it was me I’m ever so sorry everyone and pledge to rein in my droning about mono and the like in comments sections!
I commented on his video. I said that I've recently got back into vinyl and enjoy the hobby. I didn't say vinyl sounded better than cd's, just different in a way I like. He replied with a snarky remark. I replied back and asked him why he felt he needed to mock me. He didn't respond.
I wouldn't take it personal. Mr Hurwitz has surprised me many times with his brusque responses to comments. I like to think that there is no bad intent behind it. Enjoy your LP collection to the fullest, I'd say.
How can you drag a diamond across PVC and not degrade the vinyl? However miniscule the damage, vinyl records degrade with every spin.
The information is located in the sides of the grooves, not the floor of the groove, however, I'm no expert.
@@continentalgin And the stylus doesn't touch the sides? Diamond vs. PVC, diamond wins.
@@N3cr0666to quote someone else from the comments section "it's not degradation, just slight noise" 😂
Anybody can comment on sound quality of any recordings, but obviously you cannot say anybody is an audiophile. Making a judgement on the SQ of a specific recording does not automatically turn an individual into an audiophile, persistently caring about SQ and demanding high SQ does. To me it’s very simple logic. Can’t believe he was even twisting this. I also don’t think the quality of recording , mixing and mastering that makes a major contribution to the final SQ of a tape/CD/vinyl is relevant to the playback equipment. The Hi-End combination of Air Force Zero turntable+CH Precision P1 phono preamp+Soulution 725 preamp+711 power amp+Magico M2 speaker can not make a poorly mastered, carelessly pressed vinyl sound fantastic. No “Hi-End magic” here. I understand Steve Hoffman Music Forum has its rule (show your equipments before commenting on SQ)for its members, but citing this rule as if it’s universally accepted when it comes to commenting on recording SQ sounds ridiculous to me.
I think one of the biggest issues here is back in the day - everyone was a vinyl collector - because that is all there was - and once more "convenient" options came along - they got adopted - the masses will always go for convenience - Apple perfected the way people can put 1000 songs onto a block in your pocket - and people one upped that with having ALL THE MUSIC - streaming ALL THE TIME - so - older people like Dave - who had to go through the changes and maybe even when he had vinyl - didnt like it - will never grow to like it. Younger generations have CHOICE - and also lots of other better options in pressings/hifi equipment/and just overall knowledge from people poetryonplastic - I find it funny when (usually older folks) say - "I HATE Vinyl - all the crackles and POPS" - and Im like - yeah - I HATE BAD/DIRTY Vinyl too! Most people have never heard REALLY good vinyl records or actual CLEAN vinyl - because they had dad's crappy stereo and his junk vinyl.
There is no such thing as lossless analog. I don't agree that digital done right imparts any added sound quality of it's own
@@scottwheeler2679 correct digital doesn’t have a sound. The only sound is what was recorded/mixed/mastered.
Vinyl is so limited in its ability it has go through RIAA to fit the music on the record and then have reverse RIAA applied on playback. Then add pressing discrepancies and surface contaminants such as dust there is really is nothing lossless about vinyl.
I have a little bit of both. I listen to vinyl and CD, I also stream music. It’s all about what I’m in the mood for.
A forgotten fact- when CDs arrived on the market back in the mid 80s it resulted in an increase in sales of Classical music titles. The format suited the genre which often included long quiet passages in the compositions. Those annoying clicks and pops, rumble etc were eliminated and the listener could focus solely on the music.
As a 63 year old who started collecting records aged 12 back in 1973 I've been through all the various formats that have come and gone over the past half century.
The one thing that riles me is the crazy obsessives who insist on folks making the binary choice of vinyl or CD. You've gotta take a side. This is childish and puerile.
I live in a multi format environment- horses for courses. There is no magical "best format".
You pay your money you make your choice- live and let live.
Living in Italy and far far away from my boxed-and-sealed vinyl records, I've had to collect hi-rez vinyl and CDs off of the internet, to restore my collection to what it was a long time ago. Dealing thusly in digital, I get to see every piece of music on my audio editor. I've found that since about 1995, most if not all CDs are either 'louded', actively compressed, or heavily compressed and clipping the zero point.
When I acquire a digital source, the first thing I do is put it up on my editor and check the waveform. At least half of all my acquisitions are compressed and worthless to me, and they get dumped. I've found that all of the vinyl hi-rez digital acquisitions have the normal vinyl waveforms and dynamics, and that's all I will settle for. The older 80s CDs maintained the original dynamics of the recordings, so they go into the collection.
More than half of the corporate hi-rez SACDs in print are compressed as well. Believe it or not. Sources from independent hi-end producers are perfectly fine in any medium (CD,SACD,vinyl), and they go into the collection, to enjoy.
My point is that CDs not made by independent companies are inevitably compressed, louded, and some are downright clipped. Go rip a CD and look at it on a free editor if you need to be convinced. I'm staying with my vinyls and older CDs. Digitize your vinyls well, do some restoration if you know how, and enjoy your music!
Very well said, Michael. Retired scientist here ... I remember a professor once said how easy it is to design and experiment that gets a null result (e.g., A sounds as good as B). All you have to do, he said, is design a sloppy experiment. So if anyone makes a blanket claim that CDs always sound just as good as LPs, it could be that they're listening through poor equipment (or through a computer's sound card). So many other factors are more important in determining what you hear than the medium on which it's recorded. I have thousands of LPs and quite a few of the originals have been sold and replaced by a better sounding remaster/reissue. That reissue could be on LP (as for example the DG Original Source LPs) or it could be on CD (for example the box set of Michelangeli's recordings on DG). Many of those original DG pressings were far from warm, and today's DG engineers are atoning for the sins of the bright LPs pressed in the 70s.
ABSOLUTELY. I remembered back in the late 90s/early 00s newly released cds, and especially double cds would be priced at 30+ bucks! Or more... i vividly remember that.
I listen to film music, almost exclusively, so CDs are more practical for me simply because they have superseded the LP versions with more integral versions of the music. LPs limited the tracks and were often re-recordings of the original sessions. CDs now include the original LP programs plus the original music stems all on a single or couple of CDs. I do think that the sound on the CDs is preferable in most cases because remastering the multitrack stems, most of which were 3-track, sound better than their LP counterparts (even on new vinyl pressings). One example I'd give is the audiophile classic LP of Burt Bacharach's CASINO ROYALE, where the master tape for the LP suffered damage before it was digitally mastered on CD. I've listened to the original Colgems vinyl next to newly mastered CDs and the LP album recording (as good as it is) does not live up to the hype, at least in my subjective listening sessions. Bottomline for me: this is like arguing whether stereo is better than mono, and it's just a matter of preference. For me, when a successful mono film mix is re-mixed to stereo, I never usually want to go back to the mono presentation, but that is anathema for many film and film music aficionados, so to each their own.
Hi Michael, it’s been long known that pre-recorded CDs have a life expectancy of 100 years. Vinyl surely too.
Actually, there is no known shelf life deterioration for either shellac or vinyl at this time. I've read several technical studies from the US and France on this topic, dealing with the material science side of things. When stored at room temperature, vertically with no leaning that could warp the material, the shelf life is indefinite. I can play a Berliner from 1896 and it sounds just as good today (or as bad, to be honest!) as it did when it was made.
I don't know if a CD manufactured in 1983 will sound just as good - or as bad - as it sounded originally, if played on similar equipment (assuming such will exist, probably in museums), in 2111, 128 years later. But I do know that analog has the potential to outlast digital by far, because electricity is not needed to reproduce the sound that has been captured mechanically in the grooves.
If you put a stack of 78's and a hand-wound gramophone in a sealed vault that remained dry and relatively stable temperature-wise for 500 years, it should in theory still be possible to wind up the machine, put on a record, and sound would come out as the needle dragged through the grooves.
Electronic gear, by contrast... I think it's safe to say that the older analog format will win the longevity contest, easy.
@@recordsam Interesting. Thanks!
cannot wear out unless you had a poor stylus or heavy weight ..in fact even if you have a moderate setup you can hear a big difference in the sound once correctly aligned
That Bruckner vinyl was produced from a digital file, if you put that file on a CD it sounds the same as the vinyl without the vinyl imperfections.
Symphonies 1-3 were produced from a digital file. Symphonies 4-9 are direct cuts from the 8-track master tapes. Easy to look up, plenty of articles on this release.