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.

[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.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

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

[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.