5/1/2023 0 Comments In sound mind vinyl records![]() The sheer amount of digital recordings and the ease of accessing them has turned music into a “cheap commodity,” he writes in a recent posting on the society’s website. Ken Laster hosts the podcast Jazz and Beyond and is a member of the Hartford Jazz Society. Selecting the LP and sliding it out of its jacket, brushing away any dust, placing the vinyl disc on the turntable, gently positioning the tonearm - the entire ritual might well add something ineffable to the listening experience. Something similar may be going on with audiophiles who are devoted to vinyl. For many, it’s about the ritual of uncorking the bottle. Many wine lovers spurn screw-top caps even when those caps are said to preserve the wine better. Pops, crackles and hisses are what the Rolling Stones sound like, right?īut there may be more to it than sound. ![]() “A slight distortion, the needle scraping across the vinyl, may just be something people find pleasing,” says Corey.įor older listeners, nostalgia could be playing a role, too. But it’s obviously something many people notice, and some prefer. That’s a subjective call, nothing we can measure like frequency response or dynamic range. Audiophiles often say that vinyl has a “warmer” sound. However, that doesn’t mean you’re going to like that sound better. The bottom line is that digital is definitely a closer copy of the original sound. Original, continuous analog waveform up to the limits of human hearing (frequencies up to 20,000 Hz). Even though digital recordings require that snapshots of the audio are taken at given intervals, as long as enough snapshots are taken, we are still getting a true representation of the original sound, Corey explains.įor example, if a digital recording contains at least 40,000 samples or snapshots per second - and CDs use 44,100 samples per second - we can accurately reconstruct the While digital merely samples the waveform, vinyl-loving audiophiles sometimes argue that the sampling required to make a digital recording doesn’t get the full sound. Digital allows for a much wider dynamic range than vinyl.īecause an analog recording carves a continuous representation waveform into the vinyl Small scratches in the vinyl, for example.įrequency response: How well and how evenly the recording reproduces the very lowest and very highest frequencies of the original source.ĭynamic range: The difference between loud sounds and quiet sounds. Noise: Any sound you don’t want to hear in a recording, caused by dust on the album or What are those objective measures? Corey lists four:ĭistortion: A measure of how well the recording represents the original source. Jason Corey, recording engineer and professor of performing arts technology at the University of Michigan says that by almost every objective measure, given an acceptable bitrate (the amount of data per second the audio file contains), digital is going to be superior to vinyl. So yeah, they’re definitely different.īut is one better than the other? Well, that comes down to what you mean by “better.” There might be many excellent reasons for buying vinyl records - cover art, adding to a collection, supporting your local record shop - but fidelity is probably not one of them. When you slide a CD into a CD drive, this pattern is being “read” by a laser before being sent to the speakers. A digital recording, on the other hand, takes the waveform of the original sound and transforms it into a stream of When you settle a vinyl disc onto your turntable and ease the needle (aka stylus) into the groove, the pattern is “read” by the needle, which creates an electrical signal that is passed on to the speakers, which generate the sound. For the first time since 1986, vinyl recordings sold more than CDs, with vinyl sales increasing by almost 29 percent in 2020 alone.Ī vinyl recording is an analog copy of sound pressed into vinyl in the shape of the original sound wave. One thing is certain - vinyl is making a comeback. Have you ever been cornered at a party by an audiophile who insists (usually at some length) that vinyl sounds superior to digital? Or have you ever noticed that you prefer vinyl yourself? Is that just nostalgia talking? Or is there something to the claim?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |