Vinyl vs Digital

[Rytalin]

^Last kraftwerk show I heard about, even they had gone digital.

[Special-K]

I play both, more digital then vinyl at the moment though. As long as i can get the track i want i dont care if its on vinyl or if its a digital copy.

[tvmann]

I play mp3s on my laptop. Lots of people diss the mps3 and CDs saying the sound is not as good as vinyl, but I don't agree.

I've done A/B tests comparing the sound of mp3, WAV, and vinyl, and I can't tell the difference. I'm sure that there would be a little difference on some types of music, but really, EDM is not exactly the most subtle type of music around and it sounds the same on all media to me. If you have a crappy sound card or CD player or an incompetently-ripped or low bitrate mp3, then you could hear a difference, but if you have good equipment and know how to use it and rip your CDs or vinyl properly, there's no problem.

The type of speakers and amplifiers will have a far bigger effect on the quality of sound.

As far as vinyl DJs being "artists" because some have accumulated huge quantities of vinyl at great expense, well yes some are great, but everyone's heard people spinning vinyl and doing really boring sets and selecting bad music. It's possible to do a good mix, or a bad mix, on any type of equipment - vinyl, CD, or laptop.

[shift]

^The difference is bigger than you think..

For starters there is a huge difference between analog and digital reproduction of audio, analog medium can produce and record frequencies that cd quality digital audio can't, and it imposes it's own characteristics on the sound, most of which have a positive impact on the overall sonic quality.

Mp3's are compressed PCM audio, and to reduce the file size masked frequencies are removed. These frequencies don't contribute to what you would percieve to be the melodic or rhythmic content of the song, but removing them thins the sound considerably. The other thing that is removed during mp3 compression is error correction data, this means that mp3's burned to cd will skip far easier than the same songs in .wav format.

You're absolutely right about speakers/amps having a huge effect on the percieved quality of the audio however. It may be harder to hear these differences on your consumer grade home stereo, but they are there, and become far more apparent on loud PA systems or high quality studio monitors.

It's also my opinion that through over exposure to inferior audio quality the average listener can't tell the difference unless it's practically beating them over the head. (ie: low bitrate conversions ect) I blame our consumer society for putting convenience over quality, but that could be related to lots of things in today's world....

PS: Did you do your comparason with a track ripped from vinyl? The sonic characteristics I talked about previously would be recorded in the rip, making the difference more difficult to accurately compare. To A/B the mediums in an unbiased manner would require the vinyl, and the cd master, which could be converted to mp3. The comparason should also be made on proper full frequency studio monitors.

[Lenny]

Sounds almost like you go to school for this stuff or something :P

I was wonder if there is a recording studios out round here that would be willing to convert my entire vinyl collection to wav. hmmmm

[tvmann]

Yes I hook up a turntable to a Denon receiver and also my computer which is playing the ripped MP3 I made and I switch back and forth, once I get the levels the same I really can't tell the difference. It always surprises me because I know the signal from the vinyl has gone through a long process to get into MP3 form (phono cartridge, RIAA equalizer circuit, amplification to line-level, A-D converter, Wav to MP3 encoder conversion) and I expect some degradation but they sound the same.

Usually I do WAV to MP3 comparisons on tracks I ripped from CDs and I check by rapidly switching back and forth at the same spot in the music, again they sound the same, I'm always surprised by this, like I know MP3s aren't supposed to sound good. All I can say is - those Germans who invented the MP3 are very smart guys!

I think MP3s got bad press years ago when people were just using 128 kbps and lousy encoders. Also good sound cards have not been widely used until recently. Anyway the bad rep has stuck to MP3s and most people don't do their own tests, they just listen to the old stories which get repeated again and again on message boards. Nowadays with a good encoder like LAME and high bitrates the MP3s are excellent IMO. Someone with better ears might be able to pick out differences better than me, I just have average hearing.

I have noticed though that if I make a normal audio CD from some MP3 files, sometimes the levels are not right and I can get clipping on the CD, making it sound harsh. So just the simple process of making a CD from MP3 files may not be as simple as it seems. I have better confidence in the sound that comes out of my audio card from the MP3 file.

My tests have been done with middle-grade consumer audio equip (Denon receiver, Paradigm speakers, Senneheiser headphones). And also with a 250 watt/channel Bryston pro amplifier driving new Peavey PA speakers at higher volumes. This is not top-grade equipment but I think it's good enough to show any significant problems with the MP3s.

Originally Posted by shift

^The difference is bigger than you think..

PS: Did you do your comparason with a track ripped from vinyl? The sonic characteristics I talked about previously would be recorded in the rip, making the difference more difficult to accurately compare. To A/B the mediums in an unbiased manner would require the vinyl, and the cd master, which could be converted to mp3. The comparason should also be made on proper full frequency studio monitors.

[~god~]

Originally Posted by tvmann

I play mp3s on my laptop. Lots of people diss the mps3 and CDs saying the sound is not as good as vinyl, but I don't agree.

I've done A/B tests comparing the sound of mp3, WAV, and vinyl, and I can't tell the difference.

oh dude. There is an obvious quality difference between mp3 and wav!?

Overall, I'd say that since digital will always have the sample quantization, It'll never sound as warm as analog.
puretones all the way!

[Tayfoon]

Soulseek generation



youll go far

very far

[tvmann]

I have plenty of tracks from my own CDs, vinyl, and legal downloads, thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Tayfoon

Soulseek generation



youll go far

very far

[Van Tek]

personally I use vinyl for 90% of my performances... when I use digital it's either an old track that I haven't been able to find on vinyl yet or it's a track I've produced myself...

my opinion is that when you're playing to a live audience at a club, unless you're using a completely crap mp3 that sounds like total ass, nobody is going to notice, including those people who SHOULD notice that kind of thing, because most clubs have fairly wanky sound system setups anyways... so even the best quality vinyl tracks you have still sound muddy and fucked up

as long as the DJ is able to hear and correct the obvious differences between the track playing and the track they're mixing in, it should sound fine to the clubgoers (aka: oh hey the highs on this track are much quieter than the one I'm playing... better put the high EQ past 0)

I'm torn between vinyl and CD mixing sometimes because some records you get second-hand are such crap quality from being played all the time that you pretty much have to rip them and "remaster" (I use this term loosely) them before you can play them in a set... that's another reason I'll play a tune off a CD rather than wax, but in this case I'd have to own the record before I played the CD version... gotta support my favorite artists somehow hehe :D

[Van Tek]

and if you're playing at a rave then the last thing you need to worry about is the party kids being able to hear the difference between vinyl and mp3, LoL