What not to do

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PS Audio

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<!-- #thumb --> <p>It’s probably going to take me a long time to get used to the idea of playing my LP’s through a DAC – I mean it’s just really weird to put the needle down on the LP and hear the ticks and surface noise of that LP coming out of the PWD – but that’s where we’re going and to the extent we can get exactly the same sound quality through our DAC as we can with a straight analog phono preamplifier, this is a trend that will grow and someday be standard practice.</p>
<p>How is this possible? *As I explained in an earlier post, it is quite possible to make a perfect digital copy of an analog recording – but the opposite isn’t true. *This is because analog recordings have relatively limited dynamic and frequency ranges while digital audio exceeds even the wildest analog copies of recordings.</p>
<p>I think many of us, including me, have misjudged this startling information because of how bad many remastered CD’s of analog recordings are. *What we’ve discovered is that the problem isn’t in the copying it’s in the mastering. *In the hands of an expert who cares about sound quality, a digital copy of an analog master handily outperforms the LP version of the same. *Again, this is because the LP loses a bit of what’s on the master tape – while a proper digital copy captures everything there.</p>
<p>Years ago before digital audio appeared on the scene, those of us who could afford a studio quality tape deck found that getting a first generation copy of a master tape was remarkably superior to even the best vinyl pressings of that master tape. *But now, with the advent of digital audio and the trend towards high end companies releasing well designed Analog to Digital Converters (ADC’s) a first generation copy of a master tape can sound identical to the master – when copied with care.</p>
<p>And care means you have to have the proper ADC. *So here’s what NOT to do. *Many people just assume that if they use a good computer program like Audacity to RIP their vinyl into a computer that they’ll get good results. *Not so and please don’t waste your time. *The ADC’s built into computers, even the best sound card versions, just don’t live up to high-end audio standards. *And the software your computer uses to RIP is entirely dependent on the computer’s ADC. *Remember, all computers are digital in and out – you must have an ADC to get music into a computer before the software can ever do anything with the music.</p>
<p>To do this properly, you need an excellent ADC. *Let’s not forget that ripping vinyl is a major time consuming process. *Unlike copying a CD, LP’s are copied on a 1:1 basis and if you’re going to spend the time, don’t trust it to the ADC built into your computer.</p>
<p>It is incorrect to assume that once into the computer you can make things right with software. *This is wrong and if you cannot convert the analog to digital properly, anything you do afterwards is wasted.</p>
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Who wrote this ? The premise starts totally false
This is because analog recordings have relatively limited dynamic and frequency ranges while digital audio exceeds even the wildest analog copies of recordingsHuh ?

Actually, it is just the opposite and it is only now that digital is catching up in being able to capture the full range of analog.

Also the remastering spoken of may remove clicks and pops (which good vinyl DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE) but also removes some portion of music. Even the fastest analysis software that does the removel can't distinguish between a click and a subtle nuance...

As far as ripping vinyl..I have great success with minimal effort (check the clip) ..Unfortunately at about 1:18 in I have 4 or 5 clicks (very low, 5 revolutions) but that was my fault.

Is it as good as the original ? No...but digital will never be...IMHO

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=D25B243EF6E53584!854&authkey=!ABxDMm3-YV8zk_U
 
Mr. Paul McGowan wrote this. I thought digital had better dynamic range too. No?
 
Mike said:
Mr. Paul McGowan wrote this. I thought digital had better dynamic range too. No?
Click to expand...

No...while not humanly possible to hear, analog is considered infinite and analog signals are continuous without breaks. And as I said, there are nuances so subtle, so infinitesimal, until now, digital was unable to capture due to those breaks and the very small nature of the signal nuance. It is why many purists considered digital "flat" (I am sure you have heard this term associated). We latest technologies and bit rates, digital is only now catching analog but a purist can hear a difference.

Sorry if I sounded snippy in my first post - text doesn't portray tone so it was not meant that way...I was just shocked at the flip flop on something pretty well known - it would be as if someone suddenly said mp3's were just as good as lossless formats...your head would spin and go "say what ?"...LOL

This may seem simple but clearly defines the difference in digital and analog
HowStuffWorks "Does digital sound better than analog?"

By the way, reading on in the article, he does call it a tie in the end...but that is only due to recent advances..not a given. and it really depends on the individual cut and how it was mastered (conversions = loss)
 
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You won't get any arguments from me that analog is better!

But the challenge is to find out WHY analog sounds better?

Is it because digital is basically an image of a sound, while the (record) is the sound itself, as it left the artist's studio?
 
The issue here isn't analog in life, but analog on an LP. In this case, digital does have a wider dynamic range, or frequency response, than an LP. In addition, the signal to noise ratio is greater with digital. The "problem" with digital isn't that it cannot reproduce an analog sound, but that the D/A conversion is still evolving.
 
I almost think we agree...almost

Analog to digital, analog wins. why ? Because as the article points out, breaks in the signal as opposed to a contiguous signal (analog)

But today, sound recorded to digital can be pretty awesome..however; you still have a conversion. We HEAR in analog. We play (instruments, voice, etc) in analog...so recording to digital will always be a conversion.

Signal to noise ? Hmm...well true, but no noise doesn't mean all signal.

Hey ...whatever music makes one happy is all that counts. Vinyl still rules though...LOL
 
But WHY? That's the question. Just because digital can do more in terms of frequency and SN does it make it better or is less more here? Just because your car can go 155mph - doesn't mean that's the best speed to go. Maybe the best DAC would incorporate the supposed limited frequency and SN of analog!

More distortion from tubes - apparently, is a good thing "pleasing to the ears" some say.

Is less truly more?
 
I'll go back to the breaks.

Listen to a continuous tone. An analog signal. Your ears and brain interpret a contiguous sound. So sustain, resonance and reverb make sense to your brain because that is how you hear.

Now take that same signal but put micro-breaks in it. The ear and brain will perceive a difference which you may call flat because you are missing the transitional nuances of sustained notes changing pitch. So it may be perceived as flat.

I can't 'splain' it any better but let me ask you this...does your best representation of a digital classical piece ever sound like hearing that in person ? No..because in person, you are getting the maximum of the analog experience...

Lets put it another way...if analog were not preffered, why have DAC's ? Makes ya wonder...LOL
 
Perhaps another way to look at this - my understanding is that digital DOES have a better POTENTIAL dynamic range and S/N ratio - however because most modern recordings are mastered with such a high amount of compression, none of that really matters in most cases. If anything, the mastering if LPs is closer to the original a lot of the time compared to CDs and DOES have better dynamics and less compression, and thus it sounds much better, not taking into account that it is analog. Obviously there are exceptions - digital masters transferred to vinyl, etc. - but I believe this is a big part of the equation.
 
JJinID said:
Perhaps another way to look at this - my understanding is that digital DOES have a better POTENTIAL dynamic range and S/N ratio - however because most modern recordings are mastered with such a high amount of compression, none of that really matters in most cases. If anything, the mastering if LPs is closer to the original a lot of the time compared to CDs and DOES have better dynamics and less compression, and thus it sounds much better, not taking into account that it is analog. Obviously there are exceptions - digital masters transferred to vinyl, etc. - but I believe this is a big part of the equation.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Makes sense.
 
ohbythebay said:
I'll go back to the breaks.

Listen to a continuous tone. An analog signal. Your ears and brain interpret a contiguous sound. So sustain, resonance and reverb make sense to your brain because that is how you hear.

Now take that same signal but put micro-breaks in it. The ear and brain will perceive a difference which you may call flat because you are missing the transitional nuances of sustained notes changing pitch. So it may be perceived as flat.

I can't 'splain' it any better but let me ask you this...does your best representation of a digital classical piece ever sound like hearing that in person ? No..because in person, you are getting the maximum of the analog experience...

Lets put it another way...if analog were not preffered, why have DAC's ? Makes ya wonder...LOL
Click to expand...

Makes sense to me. My understanding is that some drivers (for digital) also see less info or drop off certain info and "flags". The micro-breaks makes sense.

You have to admit, it's not the easiest to explain why!
 
Hi, this is the scoundrel of an author himself, Paul. I think it might be helpful to get some terminology straight first so we can have a discussion that's on equal footing. When I say "analog recordings have relatively limited dynamic and frequency ranges while digital audio exceeds even the wildest analog copies of recordings" that is entirely accurate. There isn't, to my knowledge, an analog recording medium that exceed 85dB (on a good day) of dynamic range for starters - and not one that exceeds past 30kHz and most don't do much better than 16kHz. I am referring to, of course, tapre recorders. Vinyl cutters probably do a little worse.

Even the oldest digital chains handily exceed analog, with the old Red Book CD's about 96dB of range. The older Red Book limitations on frequency response were horrendous - they were required to use brickwall filters that made extraordinary damage to the audio signal at higher frequencies and sounded like dog sh*t, but todays modern digital recorders run at about 6mHz and use gentle single pole filters starting at 50kHz or so. They have dynamic ranges that approach 120dB - essentially the difference between a single molecule of air hitting your eardrum and standing next to a jet engine. Now that's a lot of dynamic range!

If you believe differently please let us all know just which analog recording medium you are referring to - and then we may all learn. I simply do not know of ANY analog recording medium that exceeds what I just wrote.

Now, you may have simply not seen the word "recording" and assumed I meant audio chain - of which I agree with you in a practical sense. Most analog signal chains exceed most digital signal chains, and perhaps that's what you meant?

I am not defending digital and I love analog and vinyl - perhaps more than most - but I will defend the truth and help people get their facts straight.
 
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psaudio said:
Hi, this is the scoundrel of an author himself, Paul. I think it might be helpful to get some terminology straight first so we can have a discussion that's on equal footing. When I say "analog recordings have relatively limited dynamic and frequency ranges while digital audio exceeds even the wildest analog copies of recordings" that is entirely accurate. There isn't, to my knowledge, an analog recording medium that exceed 85dB (on a good day) of dynamic range for starters - and not one that exceeds past 30kHz and most don't do much better than 16kHz. I am referring to, of course, tapre recorders. Vinyl cutters probably do a little worse.

Even the oldest digital chains handily exceed analog, with the old Red Book CD's about 96dB of range. The older Red Book limitations on frequency response were horrendous - they were required to use brickwall filters that made extraordinary damage to the audio signal at higher frequencies and sounded like dog sh*t, but todays modern digital recorders run at about 6mHz and use gentle single pole filters starting at 50kHz or so. They have dynamic ranges that approach 120dB - essentially the difference between a single molecule of air hitting your eardrum and standing next to a jet engine. Now that's a lot of dynamic range!

If you believe differently please let us all know just which analog recording medium you are referring to - and then we may all learn. I simply do not know of ANY analog recording medium that exceeds what I just wrote.

Now, you may have simply not seen the word "recording" and assumed I meant audio chain - of which I agree with you in a practical sense. Most analog signal chains exceed most digital signal chains, and perhaps that's what you meant?

I am not defending digital and I love analog and vinyl - perhaps more than most - but I will defend the truth and help people get their facts straight.
Click to expand...

Hi Paul,

Glad you chimed in. And thank you for the detailed explanation. I won't debate that bandwidth, frequency ranges, etc. cannot be higher in digital. It really becomes irrelevant since the human ear can only hear "on average" 20hz to 20000hz so a 50000hz frequency would be lost on us.

What is not lost on the human ear and human brain is the breaks. Up until now (and I will concede specific lossless digital can now achieve this) those breaks in the signal chain were the primary difference giving the digital medium the tag of "flat" or "cold" versus analog recordings on vinyl. heck, purists even hate vinyl remasters that were from digital sources because they could hear that loss against the original.

Again I will say, we hear in analog, not digital. Our brains are just wired that way.

So what is different today ? Digital has finally reached a point where those breaks become almost non-existent and certainly not detectable as they used to be due to bad compression, lower capture rates, etc. But that does not apply to every digital cut. Also, furthering my point, if ALL digital was at that level, we would not need DAC's.

So what facts are you trying to get straight ? That all digital exceeds analog or that some has now reached parity but until recently had not and that parity is limited? What I am saying is you spoke in absolutes and it is not yet, absolute.

Just my opinion so take for what is worth and know this is a friendly debate...we(I) welcome your input - The WE was a royal we...LOL
 
ohbythebay said:
So what is different today ? Digital has finally reached a point where those breaks become almost non-existent and certainly not detectable as they used to be due to bad compression, lower capture rates, etc. But that does not apply to every digital cut. Also, furthering my point, if ALL digital was at that level, we would not need DAC's.
Click to expand...

I do not understand this part. By breaks, are you talking about sampling rates, where a higher sampling rate provides more data to accurately reproduce the analog waveform?

What do you mean we would not need DACs if digital was at some level? With digital there will always be the need to do a Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC). It can be done in a standalone device, built into a pre-amp, or in the output stage of a digital amp, but there will always be a DAC with digital.
 
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BlueFox said:
I do not understand this part. By breaks, are you talking about sampling rates, where a higher sampling rate provides more data to accurately reproduce the analog waveform?

What do you mean we would not need DACs if digital was at some level? With digital there will always be the need to do a Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC). It can be done in a standalone device, built into a pre-amp, or in the output stage of a digital amp, but there will always be a DAC with digital.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I wasn't clear...Yes, we would always need DAC's, I incorrectly typed my point being, we need to HEAR in analog.

By breaks ...go back to the link I provided earlier in this thread on how analog differs from digital :-)

Basically, analog is one contiguous signal - think of a sine wave. Digital has to take that signal and break it into chunks. It has no choice. Those breaks were what was detectable to many giving digital the tag of cold or flat
 
Just my worthless 2-cents on it and I could be dead wrong: Actually, I agree with the part about recording direct into the PC and expecting great results. It is true that even the best internally installed soundcards and even the outboard PC soundcards will not give good results. That said though, I believe one can obtain good results in one of two ways. 1) Use a stand alone professional CD recorder, then run it through editing if needed or 2) use a good phono preamp with an outboard soundcard to the PC. Both can achieve good to great results if done properly. <o:p></o:p>
I do note that what the author of that article doesn’t seem to mention is the difference in dynamic range between digital and analog. (Perhaps it is assumed that the reader already realizes that). One can get all the detail from an analog recording, but one must watch their line levels when doing so. The clipping threshold for recording from analog to digital is lower than recording analog to analog. One must lower the line signal input when recording to digital. However, we also have to take into account that there is compression involved which of course changes the dynamics.
That said though, good results starts before that. A clean record and properly set up turntable is the starting point. It is true that the life of the masters is somewhat short-lived and that as more pressings are done the more degraded the sound, but back in the day when vinyl was king the good pressing plants knew that and would have multiple master copies and limit the number of pressings per master and swap out and press more. Personally, I use a stand alone CD recorder with the Turntable going through a Phono Preamp with line level control. What that does is make things easier to adjust the levels on the recorder itself which aresplit L/R. (Nice feature). Then I put the recording into the PC for track split and any editing, including cleaning any stray clicks or pops if present.<o:p></o:p>
One note I must point out on the removal of clicks and pops in Audacity. The Click and Pop removal tool in Audacity actually has pretty good leniency without loss of dynamic range or details or anything effecting the music. Where you get into trouble with that is when using extreme settings within that tool (which you should never have to do if you are using clean records) and/or using the “Noise Removal” tool. I’ve been working in Audacity for years and have never noticed any loss when using the Click and Pop removal tool properly. I always check as well after use by running a comparison between before and after through flat, no EQ, not even native EQ near-field studio monitors. The human ear is a finite limited device by nature, I don’t care what some people claim about their ears. We can only hear a certain range of frequencies, period, end of story. I figure if I can’t hear a difference in even the slightest, then I’m good to go for final burn.<o:p></o:p>
He is also right in saying that you can’t make things right once it’s in the computer by just carelessly dropping needle and making a quick recording, but it is incorrect in assuming that it cannot be done properly in my opinion. As usual, I could be totally wrong on all of this, but I'll continue to digitize the vinyl I need to the way I've been doing it, wrong or right.
 
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