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-- Interesting articles on the vinyl vs. digital debate
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It amuses me how people talk about cds being this new and exiting technology as if redbook was not a dated 26 year old format.
I am sorry but technology wise 26 years is a life time ago and through out these 26 years cds only got worse.
These days they are so loud and over compressed that they truly sound like ass.
Hello people? How much are you trying to squeeze into redbook?

It's important that people understand that vinyl IS digital.
Its a analog reproduction of a superior digital recording.
Therefore it's more accurate.
Even with the noise floor, surface saturation of vinyl the longer waveforms of the low end will always sound much fuller and present on 24 bit 96k than on the chopped off cd format.
All the dithering 'coda' of the world will never make 1411.2 kbits/s sound like 4608 kbits/s because simply put there is much more there.

I am not even going to talk about mp3. That is just an illusion.

All these years have gone buy and sonically speaking vinyl remains the highest quality format commercially available.
The only reason that you are still listening to over-compressed redbook is because too many people have too much money in the cd game.
Unless the industry quits the flashy ipod campaigns and starts pushing higher quality formats like DVD-A and DVD Blue-ray there is no real reason to convert.

quote:

Originally posted by DOOMBOT Actually, it's not simple. If you intend to play out in a club, lounge or whatever and show up with a bag of records and all you have available are cd turntables you are screwed. Sure, it is simple if you only intend to play at home or gigs where you use your own equipment but if not then don't be upset when you can't play out somewhere because they don't have the equipment that you are used to.

As a DJ, I can understand where you're coming from. However if you are asked to spin out, it's always important for you to check with the promoter in advance as to what type of equipment they will have. And, at least at every event I've been to (Seattle, Vancouver, San Fran), I have not once seen a DJ setup that hasn't included both turntables and CDJs. That's including major clubs, average clubs, and all-ages-hole-in-the-wall venues. Although perhaps it's different in other parts of the world, in which case I would direct you to my first point.

quote:

Originally posted by idoru I really don't understand why people care. Use what you want to use, let other people use what they want to use. You're not better than someone for sticking with vinyl, and you're not better than someone for progressing with technology and using CDJs/Ableton/Timecode Software. Simple.

win.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishkur

Exactly.

quote:

Ish: Yeah, but it's quantized and rigid. Not fluent and natural. It's like the difference between a live drummer and a drum machine. A machine is perfect; it makes no mistakes. And that takes the human element completely out of the music process....the little off-time beats and flaws and errors--they're gone. That doesn't make the drum machine better, especially when the argument is that music is supposed to evoke an emotion and appeal to humanity, so why would you willingly want to strip the music of this esthetic?

Do you even know how the warmth in vinyl arises? Wear from extended play causes higher sounds to be attenuated. The more a part of a vinyl is played, the more it wears. Take a low pass filter with the right settings and the effect is similar. Change the attenuation depending on the part of the track that will tend to get played more, and you can even add variability into the equation.

You're assuming the producer in question is not meticulous. Granted, few producers are thus detailed in their work, but it's possible to make the necessary adjustments needed to create humanity in one's work. It's why there are producers who live record their midi sequences. There is more to production than you seem to think.

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Nope. Wholly and factually wrong. It's not the DJ's job to play records in accordance with the producer's concrete instructions. It is the job of the DJ to kick the producer's sensitive tracking to the curb, tear his tracks apart, and recontextualize them in new forms and modes of his own choosing.

If the DJ is alterring the music, fine. But the disc isn't the disc jockey. The disc is a representation of the artist's intent, and that intent is what the casual listener of a vinyl hears. The DJ is the reinterpreter, and he or she creates their own intent of the song for the dance floor.

quote:

Actually, the exact opposite is happening: Because of the ease of use and shallow learning curve of digital decks versus vinyl, the scene as a whole is now being inundated with very very VERY bad DJs who aren't very creative or interesting and have particularly narrow tastes in music (due to them not being engrossed in the scene for very long). Vinyl at least created a bottleneck of sorts, that whoever wanted to get into the profession had to pay their dues--to at least $1000/month record shopping--and ply their trade to work up their skills before they played out. That weeded out most of the fly-by-nighters who would normally lose interest and give up before they ever worked themselves up to their first paying gig. Now, thanx to the internet and auto-beatmatching plugins, a DJ can conceivably settle on a DJ name this morning, obtain a playlist this afternoon and spin at his first gig tonight.

You're bemoaning the loss of talent in the guy who simply strings tracks together and does nothing else. I'm saying to hell with that guy; he's not doing an art anyway. Instead, pay attention to the people that are actually making more out of the music on the decks. You, as someone who in the past has lauded the more creative DJs should understand this point of view.

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harriz: It's important that people understand that vinyl IS digital. Its a analog reproduction of a superior digital recording. Therefore it's more accurate. Even with the noise floor, surface saturation of vinyl the longer waveforms of the low end will always sound much fuller and present on 24 bit 96k than on the chopped off cd format. All the dithering 'coda' of the world will never make 1411.2 kbits/s sound like 4608 kbits/s because simply put there is much more there.

Yes. Vinyl is made from a hi-fi digital master. So are the CDs. Both formats roll off below 20 or so Hz to reduce rumble, and clear out head room for normalisation later in the game. That range can't be heard anyway. Both roll off above 20,000 for the same reason. 44.1 kHz sampling is more than twice the frequency above which has been rolled off, so no loss in fidelity is audible. And to all but the most sensitive human ear, 1411.2 sounds the same as 4608 because any loss is in the supersonic range.

At least Ish brings up valid points about differences in sound. Your hackneyed assertions have been debunked so much that most people just don't mention them these days.

quote:

Originally posted by harriz All these years have gone buy and sonically speaking vinyl remains the highest quality format commercially available. The only reason that you are still listening to over-compressed redbook is because too many people have too much money in the cd game. Unless the industry quits the flashy ipod campaigns and starts pushing higher quality formats like DVD-A and DVD Blue-ray there is no real reason to convert.

what the hell is over-compressed cd audio??
ipod cd redbook campaigns???
dvd blue-ray audio?

were you drunk when you wrote this??

let's go through some little anecdotal evidence.

vinyls degrade everytime you play them out, what they sound like after you play them a 100 times, crackle crackle, absolute no go'er for an audiophile.

besides, you ever heard of the instant track skip function on cds,
great moving that needle and guessing where to put it back down,

let me take 200 of my fav records, guess i'll have designate a quarter of my room for them lot,

djing, super now i need to carry 3 bags full of vinyls, bit shit when you are djing on your own and somebody steals your unattended bag. bless my laptop

next me sitting in an airplane, excuse me pilot, just checking in my portable vinyl player and 10 vinyls for the flight,
you happen to have a spare power plug for me

come on man nobody should seriously think about vinyl any more,

the future lies in lossless digital media such as flac or alac,

perhaps we will get an upgrade from cd quality to SACD with higher sampling rates, but with current consumer grade audio equipment you will not be able to tell the difference

nobody on a sub 2000 dollar audio rig should be able to tell the difference between cds and clean 320kb/s mp3s,

stop dogging mp3 anyway, over 10 years of quality psycho-acuostic research has gone into mp3 research.

i happen to be an audiophile and people like you make me chuckle.

out of interest what headphones do you currently use?
bet it's a sub 200 dollar can,

quote:

Originally posted by pvdclubber

Nah mate, you've missed the point.

quote:

Originally posted by pvdclubber what the hell is over-compressed cd audio??

The figured that the louder cds are the more resolution they use so they made stuff loud almost clipped.
In their attempt to use every last bit of information peak and rms levels are closer than ever .

quote:

let's go through some little anecdotal evidence. vinyls degrade everytime you play them out, what they sound like after you play them a 100 times, crackle crackle, absolute no go'er for an audiophile. besides, you ever heard of the instant track skip function on cds, great moving that needle and guessing where to put it back down, let me take 200 of my fav records, guess i'll have designate a quarter of my room for them lot, djing, super now i need to carry 3 bags full of vinyls, bit shit when you are djing on your own and somebody steals your unattended bag. bless my laptop next me sitting in an airplane, excuse me pilot, just checking in my portable vinyl player and 10 vinyls for the flight, you happen to have a spare power plug for me come on man nobody should seriously think about vinyl any more, the future lies in lossless digital media such as flac or alac, perhaps we will get an upgrade from cd quality to SACD with higher sampling rates, but with current consumer grade audio equipment you will not be able to tell the difference stop dogging mp3 anyway, over 10 years of quality psycho-acuostic research has gone into mp3 research. i happen to be an audiophile and people like you make me chuckle. out of interest what headphones do you currently use? bet it's a sub 200 dollar can, nobody on a sub 2000 dollar audio rig should be able to tell the difference between cds and clean 320kb/s mp3s,

Mp3?
Don't even get me started....
Ask any respectful engineer and he will tell you that mp3 is a leap back quality wise.
Unless it's Dj mag ''asking'' the engineers at fabric if they can tell the difference..
I noticed Dj mag also sells mp3s at their website but I am sure that is just a coincidence...

The truth is mp3s are sharp and do not support frequencies over 15.5 thousand cycles.
Us human can hear up to 20 thousand cycles.
Entire chunks of data are thrown away so you can conveniently download it and if you can't tell the difference and between that red-book than don't get into post production or mastering.
Save your money, audiophile.
Flac and other compressed stuff are inferior to the already inferior and dated redbook format.
I am not talking about portability and convenience for people on trains and airplanes.
I am not talking about media that exists in cyberspace.
I am talking about sound quality.
Sonically vinyl remains the best at the time speaking.
Are you good at basic math Pvdclubber?
Tell me... what has more resolution 320 kbts/s or 4608 kbits/s?
What is going to sound better?

quote:

Originally posted by harriz The figured that the louder cds are the more resolution they use so they made stuff loud almost clipped. In their attempt to use every last bit of information peak and rms levels are closer than ever .

For the sake of argument, this is more the label's fault than CD. With no compression, CDs can acheive dynamic ranges equal to those of vinyl.

OMG you guys are killing me!!!

Before a vinyl or cd gets pressed it must come from a source. That source is called a master. If you're working with hardware in a professional studio then most likely a DAT tape, but for the software afficionados this would be a WAVE mixdown file.

Guess what? A dat has a frequency range of 48,000 Hz and a wav is also capable of achieving those values. This means even the most extreme audiophiles will be pleased. With the one master in hand you are now ready to create some vinyl or cd. Remember regardless of pressing they are coming from the same digital source.

Also that rich bass feeling you get from vinyl is the feedback humming noise from the needle. Sorry to burst your bubble.

quote:

Originally posted by stevieboy32808 OMG you guys are killing me!!! Before a vinyl or cd gets pressed it must come from a source. That source is called a master. If you're working with hardware in a professional studio then most likely a DAT tape, but for the software afficionados this would be a WAVE mixdown file. Guess what? A dat has a frequency range of 48,000 Hz and a wav is also capable of achieving those values. This means even the most extreme audiophiles will be pleased. With the one master in hand you are now ready to create some vinyl or cd. Remember regardless of pressing they are coming from the same digital source. Also that rich bass feeling you get from vinyl is the feedback humming noise from the needle. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Pulse code modulation motherfu*ker!
All DATS are 24 bit and therfore they are substantially superior in quality to the red-book format as the 24 bit format has virtually no audible quantization errors.
Get a clue.

quote:

The figured that the louder cds are the more resolution they use so they made stuff loud almost clipped. In their attempt to use every last bit of information peak and rms levels are closer than ever . the volume that a record is recorded in has nothing to do with the amount of data one needs to record it. Ask any respectful engineer and he will tell you that mp3 is a leap back quality wise. ok, what is this based on?? go to www.hydrogenaudio.org these people have years of competency in this field and 320kb/s is generally accept to be cd transparent their tests are run on very high quality gear, which judging by your grammar you will never be able to afford nobody masters in mp3, we are discussing playback at home and in clubs so your point is redundent I noticed Dj mag also sells mp3s at their website but I am sure that is just a coincidence... mp3 is the industry standard along side AAC, so what's your point here? [/b]The truth is mp3s are sharp and do not support frequencies over 15.5 thousand cycles.[/b] utter crap, 320kb/s mp3s don't roll off at 15.5khz my mini disc player plays back mp3s and its frequency range goes up to 22khz on 320 mp3s lower mp3 bit rates at 128kb/s have high frequecy roll-offs in order to save space, but we are talking about high quality files Us human can hear up to 20 thousand cycles. "us humans" or as you would allude to, (we human) "find it hard to hear above 17.5 khz after the age of 16" Entire chunks of data are thrown away so you can conveniently download it and if you can't tell the difference and between that red-book than don't get into post production or mastering. yes its called psyco-acoustic masking detection some sounds overlap and take up space, the human cannot hear certain sounds because of this, why include them if this is the case sound quality is not diminished Flac and other compressed stuff are inferior to the already inferior and dated redbook format. you don't even know what flac is, it is a bit-perfect compression of a pcm datastream. what comes out of winamp playing either flac files or pcm (wav) files is bitperfectly identical flac is not a lossy fileformat like mp3s Tell me... what has more resolution 320 kbts/s or 4608 kbits/s? read up on psycho-acoustics and you will find the answer. perhaps this will help you. you can write "12 + 13" or 5 +5 +5 +5 +5 the former uses less computational power, does this mean that the answer (output) is any different to the latter caculation, no so why use the high bit stream if current pc equipment still has issues with rediculously high quality streams it is monkeys like you that talk crap all the time, you are prob one of the super-dudes that never wears ear protection in clubs and have fucked up hearing which renders this discussion useless for your personal hearing experience

quote:

Originally posted by movingincircles what can vinyl do that digital can't?

Make generic-trance-made-with-crappy-sounding-vst-plugins sound better.

quote:

Originally posted by pvdclubber these people have years of competency in this field and 320kb/s is generally accept to be cd transparent. their tests are run on very high quality gear, which judging by your grammar you will never be able to afford

You need to master the quote function and start capitalizing before you can talk about my grammar.
It's called first language interference and I am perfectly comfortable with it.

quote:

utter crap, 320kb/s mp3s don't roll off at 15.5khz

Oh really...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3#De...itations_of_MP3

In technical terms, MP3 is limited in the following ways:
-Bit-rate is limited to a maximum of 320 kbit/s
-Time resolution is too low for highly transient signals, causing localization blur and the frequency resolution is limited by the small long block window size, decreasing coding efficiency
-There is no scale factor band for frequencies above 15.5/15.8 kHz

quote:

my mini disc player plays back mp3s and its frequency range goes up to 22khz on 320 mp3s

Talk about a dead format here...
That is the specified frequency range of the equipments analog stage you moron.
There is no scale factor for frequencies over 15/15.8khz on mp3s.

quote:

lower mp3 bit rates at 128kb/s have high frequecy roll-offs in order to save space, but we are talking about high quality files

I am talking about high quality files. Files like DVD-A, DVD BLU-RAY, DSD and super-audio.
You are talking about mini discs and ''ringtones''.

quote:

mp3 is the industry standard along side AAC, so what's your point here?

They are the ''industry standard'' not because of their super-duper audio quality but because you can get them for free. And because it costs them nothing to reproduce or store.

quote:

yes its called psyco-acoustic masking detection some sounds overlap and take up space, the human cannot hear certain sounds because of this, why include them if this is the case sound quality is not diminished

Yes it is. If it was not, cds would not use 1441.2 kbit/s 26 ago...
Why master at 24 bit 192khz if nobody can tell the difference?

quote:

no so why use the high bit rate if current pc equipment still has issues with rediculously high quality streams

Because we are talking about music not pcs, thats why.
Consider the possibility of taking the pc out of the equation and you will see why.

quote:

you are prob one of the super-dudes that never wears ear protection in clubs and have fucked up hearing which renders this discussion useless for your personal hearing experience.

How the fu*k did did you figure that?

quote:

Originally posted by harriz Pulse code modulation motherfu*ker! All DATS are 24 bit and therfore they are substantially superior in quality to the red-book format as the 24 bit format has virtually no audible quantization errors. Get a clue.

Do you even know what 24 bits means? It's obvious you don't, because if you did, you'd know that the shift from 24 bits to 16 creates no audible change in sound quality. Period.

Why? 16 bits allows for 2^16 possible levels for a sample. That means that's 65536 possible volumes. Let our max peak be 120 dBSPL (roughly the threshhold of pain). The maximum change in in pressure between samples here is 1/32768th of the max peak. 120 dBSPL = 20 Pa. 10*log(20 Pa /327868)/200000 Pa) = -85 dBSPL. That's really fucking quiet, and inaudible for all frequencies. I repeat: the change in intensity at 16 bit PCM cannot be heard.

Stop pretending that CD's audibly reduce quality. It's becoming obvious that you're just spouting biased rhetoric that you probably got from someone else.

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex Do you even know what 24 bits means? It's obvious you don't, because if you did, you'd know that the shift from 24 bits to 16 creates no audible change in sound quality. Period. Personally, I hear no audible chang until around 10 bits, and that's when I'm listening closely. Unless you have superhuman hearing, then there is no difference. If you happen to have such, then you're in a very small minority, and no one has the time nor the money to waste on you, because you frankly aren't worth it. Stop pretending that CD's audibly reduce quality. It's becoming obvious that you're just spouting biased rhetoric that you probably got from someone else.

Numbers speak for themselves...
At CD (16/44.1) quality there are 65,536 discrete levels to describe the sample.
At DVD (24/96K) quality there are 16.777,216 discrete levels to describe the sample.
Quite a big difference if you ask me....

DVD 16.777,216
-CD -----65,536

If a job gave you $16.777,216 a year and another job gave you $65.536 a year
would you say...

''Either one... It doesn't really matter.... they are both really good jobs''
''I couldn't even tell the difference in pay''

You wouldn't. So shut it.

Yeah, because that's a working analogy...

quote:

Originally posted by harriz Pulse code modulation motherfu*ker! All DATS are 24 bit and therfore they are substantially superior in quality to the red-book format as the 24 bit format has virtually no audible quantization errors. Get a clue.

That really doesn't prove anything in fact you state below:

quote:

Originally posted by harriz Numbers speak for themselves... At CD (16/44.1) quality there are 65,536 discrete levels to describe the sample. At DVD (24/96K) quality there are 16.777,216 discrete levels to describe the sample. Quite a big difference if you ask me.... DVD 16.777,216 -CD -----65,536 If a job gave you $16.777,216 a year and another job gave you $65.536 a year would you say... ''Either one... It doesn't really matter.... they are both really good jobs'' ''I couldn't even tell the difference in pay'' You wouldn't. So shut it.

You are defending one digital medium over another (CD vs. DVD). My point was that vinyl is just as great as cd. Perhaps you need a clue.

quote:

Originally posted by harriz There is no scale factor for frequencies over 15/15.8khz on mp3s.

what are you trying to tell me with this??

are you implying mp3s don't record frequencies above 15khz??

well you're wrong, they do, the scalability is just an inefficiency issue with recording frequencies above the 15khz threshold

compared to AAC recordngs you will get a slightly higher file size,

the rest of your comments are again waffly

and please be careful with wikipedia entries

they are often good but not professionally monitored so often inaccurate,

this 15khz business is misleading

quote:

Originally posted by pvdclubber what are you trying to tell me with this?? are you implying mp3s don't record frequencies above 15khz?? well you're wrong, they do, the scalability is just an inefficiency issue with recording frequencies above the 15khz threshold compared to AAC recordngs you will get a slightly higher file size, the rest of your comments are again waffly and please be careful with wikipedia entries they are often good but not professionally monitored so often inaccurate, this 15khz business is misleading

There are no frequencies above 15.8 in MP3 files.

quote:

Originally posted by stevieboy32808 That really doesn't prove anything in fact you state below: You are defending one digital medium over another (CD vs. DVD). My point was that vinyl is just as great as cd. Perhaps you need a clue.

Vinyl these days is pressed from digital audio 24bit 96k.
There is more shit there.
Period.

quote:

Originally posted by harriz There are no frequencies above 15.8 in MP3 files.

did you read my post??

of course there are frequencies above 15khz,

i just gave you a detailed analysis of the 15khz threshold,

i'm sorry but you know absolutely nothing about music codecs at all

quote:

Originally posted by harriz Vinyl these days is pressed from digital audio 24bit 96k. There is more shit there. Period.

So are cds. I fail to see your point. All I'm saying is that there is no difference between cds and vinyl since they are pressed from the same source which happens to be a digital one. Also that the rich bass you get on vinyl is the buzzing feedback from the needle.

Besides turntables or more specifically needles are only capable of reproducing frequencies around 20kHz-22kHz, not 96kHz.

In addition, "the frequency response of vinyl records may be degraded by frequent playback if the cartridge is set to track too heavily, or the stylus is not compliant enough to trace the high frequency grooves accurately, or the cartridge/tonearm is not properly aligned. The RIAA has suggested the following acceptable losses: down to 20 kHz after one play, 18 kHz after three plays, 17 kHz after five, 16 kHz after eight, 14 kHz after fifteen, 13 kHz after twenty five, 10 kHz after thirty five, and 8 kHz after eighty plays. While this degradation is possible if the record is played on improperly set up equipment, many collectors of LPs report excellent sound quality on LPs played many more times, when using care and high quality equipment."

Like we both said vinyl and cd are both pressed from the same digital master so this debate is pointless. I think the better argument here is digital vs. analog. Now that's worth talking about. From personal experience analog beats digital big time. If you have ever listened to old dance (disco) records from the 70's you can hear a dramatic difference between analog recordings and todays digitally ones.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record

quote:

Originally posted by harriz Numbers speak for themselves... At CD (16/44.1) quality there are 65,536 discrete levels to describe the sample. At DVD (24/96K) quality there are 16.777,216 discrete levels to describe the sample. Quite a big difference if you ask me.... DVD 16.777,216 -CD -----65,536 If a job gave you $16.777,216 a year and another job gave you $65.536 a year would you say... ''Either one... It doesn't really matter.... they are both really good jobs'' ''I couldn't even tell the difference in pay'' You wouldn't. So shut it.

First of all, we're talking digital vs vinyl. If you're saying represent music on DVDs, fine, I'd support that because it means more play time. But if you can't prove that vinyls have anything on CDs in terms of fidelity, then you "shut it."

Second of all, you're responding to a deleted post. Respond to the one that's there, and actually read it before doing so.

How many times do we have to go through this?
24 bit 96k goes straight on the record without down-sampling.

I am not going attempt to explain digital audio to you people.
I give up.I am bored. F**k this. You win.
The high end is not rolled of to save space, mp3s sound superb and most studios will immediately encode any digital file to achieve the superior sound of mp3s.
Happy? Now Fu*k this!

The only reason why you people spend thousands to get cdjs is because Dj tiesto is getting a big, fat, 4 digit check in the mail every month to sponsor the equipment.
It's not like you crackers know when you are being marketed upon....

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