New rule

[gfish]

No one is allowed to have an opinion on vinyl vs. digital unless they have at least a basic understanding of the Shannon sampling theorem. Seriously, if you don't know what the Nyquist rate is, shut the hell up.

Note: There are still valid arguments to be had in this domain. They just don't include the phrase 'warmth of analog' at any point.

Comments

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Most of the people who complain about "digital sounding harsh" or "analog sounding warm" are talking about either the equipment used or the problems/choices in production and mastering, or they are talking about their end-user amplification and playback equipment. The choice of delivery disc format isn't ever the issue.

[solarbird]

The choice of delivery disc format isn't ever the issue.
nnnnnnnnno. Well, okay, not so much anymore. But the quality of low-pass filter needed to handle the 44.1khz sample-rate tone exclusion was an issue in a lot of early digital equipment. If you wanted the effects of the filter really, seriously, omg o-w-t out of the audio spectrum, that took a little time for people to get right. And that was integral to the format since it was a problem that had to be solved across all players, even if it's not technically on the disc itself.

(I am of course dealing only with current formats and not old ones like the original (pre-revision) ATRAC, and things like ATRAC3LP4, which is, um, yeah. But there were releases in original-ATRAC and they were not very tasty.)

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Right. That's a production and/or mastering issue. :-)

[solarbird]

Sure, but it's also on the reproduction side. (Yes, I know, it's inaudible to the ear, but the amp still has to deal with it, or rather, shouldn't have to deal with it, so it needs to get filtered out before it's handed to the power amp.)

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Right, and that's a playback equipment issue.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

But I like my hiss and pop!

In fact, I don't, and I tend to prefer very crisp sound. But this is reassuring - the whole warmth of analog bit argument confused me, except as translated as "I like my sound soft and fuzzy" and... yeah, other ways to get that.

[bakeme.livejournal.com]

i prefer analog so i can say things like 'we puttin' it on wax', etc.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

My favorite was a captioned picture of Paul McCartney, Beatles vintage and just said "It wasn't the warmth of vinyl, the music was just better."

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

Well.

A) "warmth of analog" usually refers to harmonic distortion in analog power amplifiers, not so much the source material. And there is a legitimate argument that distorted sound is "warmer" than less-distorted sound.

B) The Shannon theorem only proves that it is *possible* to reconstruct a signal up to the Nyquist limit. It doesn't give a method for doing so, and in fact, many of the methods used have significant shortcomings. As I Understand It, I Am Not A Signal Processing Expert.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

I wonder how hard it would be to digitally recreate "warmth" distortion, for the benefit of vinylists?

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

It's done all the time. There are a million products which do this.

[solarbird]

On A) - Yeah, secondary harmonics in tube amps in particular, iirc. It's been recreated but I don't know that anybody really bothers.

I don't know many people who talk about "warmth of analogue" without really meaning "warmth of tube amplifiers," but that's just my experience.

[tfabris.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I find it odd that some people want the additional coloration between the artist's original mix and their ears. I'd rather hear something closer to what the artist heard when it was being mixed.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's that odd alongside to the debate between whether electronic music should be quantized to sub-millisecond perfection or more "organic". Without a little noise in the system, ideally at every stage, people respond better. I mean, hell, the "sound" associated with many analogue synthesizers is in part down to the quirks of the individual parts. A little entropy seems to be important.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

"Okay. This time let's reverse the polarity of the plug, and I'll stand facing west."

[solarbird]

NO, you fool! The GREEN marker! GREEN!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

But if you're stuck in the stone age with a collection of vinly recordings, it's possible to build a device to retrieve the music!

On the other hand, if I see plans for a spectroscpe good enough to see Fraunhoffer lines in the solar spectrum built from an old CD as the diffraction grating, one simple lens, and some cardboard, I'll be convinced that digital is better.

[jadine.livejournal.com]

Haha! The apocalypse scenario is the best case I've seen for vinyl over digital :)

Of course, the odds of having functional discs but no player are pretty low, and you'd be better off generating electricity than building a non-electric player.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I've heard you can get recognizeable sound off a mono LP using just a sewing needle and a dixie cup, and hand-turning the record, but I haven't actually tried it. Dunno about a stereo LP.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Yes. I was a destructive child.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

For being so ridiculous fragile, LP playback is surprisingly resilient. I had a very solid little Fischer-Price record player as a kid, with a collection of Sesame Street LPs. I remember at some point a pie-shaped wedge of one broke out, leaving Pac-Man shaped disk. And it could still be played! The needle would still be lined up with the correct grove after dropping down and jumping back up with every rotation.

...at least, that's how I remember it. I would have been maybe 5 at the time?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

LPs are great unless the hand holding the needle and the Dixie cup is about six years old and a bit clumsy.

I'm surprised the needle stayed in the same part of the groove. I wonder if it scooted along a bar?

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

To what extent are frequencies over 22.05kHz perceived? Can they affect stereo separation perception, for instance?

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

It's a very rare person indeed that can hear anything over 20khz. (I can barely hear 19khz and I wear hearing protection at every concert I go to.)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Dude, there is totally a "warmth of analog" due to the heat dissipation 1.21 gigawatts of power you have to jam through tubes to keep them running.
Past *that*, well, and I say this as (apparently) an analog electrical engineer, *all* signals are digital, because electrons are chunky. The difference between 'analog' and 'digital' is merely how small a chunk we're talking about.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Past *that*, well, and I say this as (apparently) an analog electrical engineer, *all* signals are digital, because electrons are chunky. The difference between 'analog' and 'digital' is merely how small a chunk we're talking about.

Past that, it's all analogue because there's no way to get the music digitally from source/artistic-intent to your brain, etc., etc.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

QM teaches us that energy is chunky, but reality is not.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I have a voltmeter at work that can measure femtoamps. Okay, okay, that's not yet chunky, but it's at least getting a bit bubbly.