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simple question about CDs
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| TranceArmstrong |
| I've been wanting to get Reality - Yolanda in the collection for some time now, and now may have a gig in the coming weeks to actually play it out. There are a bunch of Maxi CD Singles available on amazon, and I just want to know if the audio quality on CD Singles are acceptable to play on a proper system. Are they comparable to say, 320k MP3s? Otherwise I'm sure I can pick up the vinyl on discogs, but just curious. |
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| skip |
| CD quality is better than a 320 kbps MP3 and from my point of view also definitely better than vinyl. For example the WAVs that Beatport sells are the same quality as CDs are. Of course everything depends on the source material. If the source material sucks, then it doesn't matter what format is being used. |
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| skip |
| quote: | Originally posted by Euforix
Vinyl is the best, it's the real music. Always. |
BS. The music is mostly produced digitally anyway and there are no cracks, pops, surface noise, wow or flutter, harmonic distortion etc. with CDs and CDs can reproduce the signal 100% up to 20 000 KHz. Sure CD audio signal amplitude can only be represented by ± 32 768 different values and on vinyl the precision is in theory only limited by the size of the molecules on the record compared to the distance the needle moves. In practice though there is a lot variation on many things when playing vinyl so reproducing the original signal as true to the original as possible (according to human perception that is, some other animals are able to perceive much lower and higher sounds than humans) is way easier on CD than vinyl. If you like how vinyl sounds more than how a CD sounds, that's fine, but don't say it's better quality because in practice it is not even though in theory it could be.
| quote: | Originally posted by Euforix
Beatport sells only re-encoded sh*t. |
I highly doubt that all the WAVs from Beatport are re-encodes from MP3s for example. Sure, some might be as all labels aren't really trustworthy, but they also sell hissing, crackling and popping vinyl rips too even if they're few and far between. Anyway, the format of the WAVs sold at Beatport enables the exact high quality than an audio CD does. |
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| orTofønChiLd |
| quote: | Originally posted by skip
BS. The music is mostly produced digitally anyway and there are no cracks, pops, surface noise, wow or flutter, harmonic distortion etc. with CDs and CDs can reproduce the signal 100% up to 20 000 KHz. Sure CD audio signal amplitude can only be represented by ± 32 768 different values and on vinyl the precision is in theory only limited by the size of the molecules on the record compared to the distance the needle moves. In practice though there is a lot variation on many things when playing vinyl so reproducing the original signal as true to the original as possible (according to human perception that is, some other animals are able to perceive much lower and higher sounds than humans) is way easier on CD than vinyl. If you like how vinyl sounds more than how a CD sounds, that's fine, but don't say it's better quality because in practice it is not even though in theory it could be.
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i don't care what you just said, vinyl is better |
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| TranceArmstrong |
| excellent, will grab the CD. And will probably start buying WAVs from BP as well, I never really have enough gigs to justify having them but might as well go with the superior sounding-one. |
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| Stormbringer |
| TranceArmstrong?? :p Are you related to Lance Armstrong?? :p Jk...had to say it... :p ......please don't kill me.... |
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| TranceArmstrong |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stormbringer
TranceArmstrong?? :p Are you related to Lance Armstrong?? :p Jk...had to say it... :p ......please don't kill me.... |
no but at the time it seemed like a funny ing dj name for someone who played trance music... trance is such a dirty word now that I think the cleverness of the joke is basically voided lol |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by skip
BS. The music is mostly produced digitally anyway and there are no cracks, pops, surface noise, wow or flutter, harmonic distortion etc. with CDs and CDs can reproduce the signal 100% up to 20 000 KHz. Sure CD audio signal amplitude can only be represented by ± 32 768 different values and on vinyl the precision is in theory only limited by the size of the molecules on the record compared to the distance the needle moves. In practice though there is a lot variation on many things when playing vinyl so reproducing the original signal as true to the original as possible (according to human perception that is, some other animals are able to perceive much lower and higher sounds than humans) is way easier on CD than vinyl. If you like how vinyl sounds more than how a CD sounds, that's fine, but don't say it's better quality because in practice it is not even though in theory it could be.
I highly doubt that all the WAVs from Beatport are re-encodes from MP3s for example. Sure, some might be as all labels aren't really trustworthy, but they also sell hissing, crackling and popping vinyl rips too even if they're few and far between. Anyway, the format of the WAVs sold at Beatport enables the exact high quality than an audio CD does. |
True in theory but you don't list hardly any of the downsides of CD's in terms of audio quality - in most cases, especially in CDJ's, the DAC's are not great by any means, so it does not matter hoot if the medium can in theory represent a playback of the full human hearing spectrum. There is also a lot of digital encoding errors (when burnt) and playback errors (when read). To simplify, the CD player is guessing what comes next when it encounters these errors, meaning there is a lot of inaccuracies or to put it in more real terms, distortion.
Aside from that, if you have a track that is going to be pressed to vinyl, then chances are you're going to have it mastered for vinyl, at least at the pressing house, which in most cases involves expensive and beautiful sounding analogue equipment resulting in a more pleasing end product.
You can say all you want about a personal preference for analogue sounding and it not being true to the source in the strictest technical sense but that why we like valve amps and vintage mics - because of their coloration, which I'll take any day over digital distortion.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that vinyl is any truer than CD's in the real world, but just go and A/B the same track, one on a CDJ and one on vinyl and you tell me which one sounds better to your ears, regardless of theoretical superiority ;) |
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