TurnTables Sound better than Digital !!! - Really ???

[KiranPS]

I always wondered about this, all concerts use microphones (sometimes digital wireless), mixing equipment , big amps and speakers do these affect the sound in any way ? compared to listening to an instrument directly ? Do the mixers and equalisers work in analog or do they convert them to digital to do some DSP stuff for effects like echo etc ?.

So even in a concert are we listening to the original sound ?

Well apart from lip syncing pop stars concerts.

 

[Staxxx]

I always wondered about this, all concerts use microphones (sometimes digital wireless), mixing equipment , big amps and speakers do these affect the sound in any way ? compared to listening to an instrument directly ? Do the mixers and equalisers work in analog or do they convert them to digital to do some DSP stuff for effects like echo etc ?.

So even in a concert are we listening to the original sound ?

Well apart from lip syncing pop stars concerts.

Sorry, I was referring to Western Classical music concerts where they have no tradition of amplification. It would raise eyebrows of horror (unless it was part of the written music as in some contemporary works).....
There is little doubt in my mind that amplified concerts are possibly the worst way to listen to music...it sounds so unreal most of the time.

 

[ynotbubba]

Digital or analogue, all audio amplification is a compromise.

Correct.

End of conversation.

Sending sympathy cards to all.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Nice find

And good points made in last several posts. Once upon a time disks were cut by having performers sing into a horn which moved a needle. Hey, no electronics at all to mess up the sound

Only yesterday I was forced to put the cotton wool in my ears (I always carry it, and all too often need it) as high volume sound was fed to a small audience of about 40. We could have gathered around the musicians and thrown out the mics. This concert was even organised by friends who are supposed to be against this too.

By the way, I dimly remember a time when true audiophiles regarded records as being inferior to ...their tuners. The real enthusiasts even lovingly recorded BBC classical music broadcasts, using gorgeous reel-to-reel tape machines that would probably make our mouths water even today. I can't speak from experience, because I could never afford to add a tuner to my system.

 

[gobble]

Correct.

End of conversation.

Sending sympathy cards to all.

This is the kind of humor and cartoons I used to enjoy reading in Punch magazine for many years... :clapping: :lol:

Wish I had xeroxed those toons and built a collection ... (scanners were new technology then)

--G0bble

 

[smedhavi]

Just my 2 Cents...
I am posting on HFV after a long time.

I enjoy vinyl as well as digital music, and I have equipment for both (as well as tape). I started with LP records in the 80's, and never stopped. So it was not about getting back to vinyl like many others. I just added audio cassettes, CDs, Blu-ray disks and Hi-res digital download purchases on the way.

Over the years I realized a few things that I would like to share:

• A vinyl record sounds like one, only if there is no digital electronics in the path. For instance, if you connect a turntable to a receiver, most probably you are wasting time and money.
• Albums usually sound the best in the format they were first released in. Every conversion messes up the sound further.
• LPs in the market that are marked as 'digitally remastered' hardly ever sound as good as the originals.
• Albums assembled on a computer console by pasting loops and pieces on the singers voice sound very boring and tiring.

End of the day, if I have a recording in multiple formats I usually prefer the LP record (or 45RPM if available). There are exceptions, and I do have some LPs that disappoint me. For instance, some studio recordings of Jagjit Singh sound pretty ordinary on LP, while their Come Alive concert(ECSD 2819/2820) is great on vinyl. Sudha Malhotra singing Jagjit's compositions on a 45rpm (S/45NLP 119) sounds fabulous! There are cassettes that sound better than the same music on CDs (e.g. Begum Akhtar ghazals) and vice-versa. I gave off hundreds of cassettes to people on this forum and outside, but I retained a about two hundred that I thought sounded better than the same music on other formats (if available).
So there are no rules, Musicians and engineers created great music on all formats, and there were also folks who messed up stuff on each format. All said and done, I personally feel that some of the best capture of human voice, emotion and nuances happened on LP records, and reached its pinnacle on 45rpm vinyl. The worst came in the late 1970s - 90s, though some great recordings were made during that period too. It is shocking how the music from the late 40s and 50s comes out so clear and crisp compared to recordings 50 years later! Check out Anmol Ghadi (ELAP 4056) or Lahore (45NLP 1027).

Water Lilly Acoustics recorded some of the best sounding Indian music on CD. They claim to have used a lot of analog equipment in their process.

Regards,
Sharad

 

[shafic]

A vinyl record sounds like one, only if there is no digital electronics in the path. For instance, if you connect a turntable to a receiver, most probably you are wasting time and money.

Can you explain in detail, pls!!

regds,
shafic

 

[smedhavi]

Can you explain in detail, pls!!

regds,
shafic

Hi Shafic,
There are a few factors to consider:

• Most receivers, and other such electronics components including computers, convert the incoming signal to digital and eventually back to analog. This is the only way they can do bass management, sound modes, surround sound and other processing.
• One big reason why Vinyl records sound natural to the ear is that they capture the sound vibrations (a collection of sound waves from all instruments and people making sounds during the recording session), as it is; without trying to make any sense of it. Playing the record reproduces the same sound, even without any electronics. You can hear the sound from the pickup needle even if you switch off your amp. The electronic components only amplify this sound (the only exception is the Phono pre-amp, which also balances the high and low frequencies using simple analog circuit).
• If you convert the analog sound from a vinyl record to digital, even once in the chain, it is like capturing it to a CD or MP3 and then playing that back. A digital recording just captures metadata (information) about the music, a few times a second. The DAC (Digital to Analog Converter), eventually looks at that information and sings for you (almost literally true )
• Some receivers have a 'pure mode' to switch off the digital circuitry. On paper this should help, but my personal experience has not confirmed that. A home theater receiver is designed to do a lot of fairly complicated set of tasks for audio and video decoding/processing; and that too for so many channels. It is not putting much of your money in the simple two channel amplification with no processing required. It is designed for a purpose. You could use a horse in the desert and a camel on the grass lands; just do not expect the same level of performance. Once you put them in their natural habitat, what they were originally designed for, is when the real fun starts.

These are just a few factors, there could be a lot more. The simple thumb rule is that for vinyl keep the signal path as simple and short, as possible. The value of LP records is the unprocessed, non-fatiguing, raw sound. This is what makes you feel like listening to that Lp record for a one more time, while you have this subconscious temptation to press the next button in the middle of a good song while you are listening to an MP3. All efforts should be made to save the pure analog sound from any processing. So if you want to enjoy an LP record go for an analog amp, which may actually be cheaper than a receiver. Many of us, prefer to even cut-off the bass and treble controls from the signal path while listening to a vinyl record.

I hope my reply makes some sense