LP - why is it so good ?
johnny p. -- Sat, 03/12/2011 - 23:12
I am a "digital" audiophile - and have been for a long time. But recently, I spent time with the new Origin Live reference deck and was stunned. With recordings of jazz and classic rock from the 60s and 70s, the ease and natural decay of the music was something digital can't do, in my experience. Top-deck CD systems reportedly have closed the gap - but they are way beyond my price range.
My question - to those who understand the process - is why ? Why should LP be this good - if there's a big reduction in (audio) quality with LP production, then problems galore on playback ? How much do we lose in LP production ? And isn't true that LPs are cut at one vector (angle) but played-back at another ? Has it overcome this ?
Thanks !
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K, are you back again? Do you spend all your time on these forums. For the benefit of the audience, from the audiophile point-of-view, this man is deaf. He thinks everything sounds alike, and proves that by reading studies. He also doers not believe in any scientific discoveries in audio in -what did you say, K? - the last few decades.
His argument about improvements "outside of science" is of course, ludicrous. In fact, the very supposition reeks. Strawman, anyone? Kindergarten, anyone?
It's not science lagging behind commercial tech, K. It's you lagging behind science (with knuckles dragging).
If moderrn technology sounds like magic to your Neanderthal mind, so be it.
BTW folks, the advances in power cords (for example) are well documented, and most of them are patented. They involve metallurgy, shielding, cable geometry, vibration control, reduced capicitance, and EMI & RFI rejection. All of these factors help feed better power to the power supplies of your components, with VERY audible results. It's not 'magic'. It's the results of long and vigorous research by actual scientists.
K, I do not need to prove my audio skills to anyone, especially not you. Your ignorance is exceeded only by your arrogance. I am very familiar with DBTs, and use them frequently. I've even detected & described sonic differences in other people's systems when I didn't know anything had been changed. Blind enough for you?
But I never been abloe to do what you obviously must to hear all this sameness - Double Deaf Testing.
We have just seen the true nature of Art's logic - basal insults. Sorry I will not reply to this kind of dialogue that lacks any logic or reason. Nothing personal - just the crude nature of your post.
I'm not here to denigrate anyone's opinion, nor to debate. I will say that I strongly disagree with 'gmgraves' on the sameness of all modern gear, especially CDPs. And yes, I've done DBTs.... and yes, I (and others) can fairly easily identify my EAR Acute from my Sony/Modwright XA-5400....and yes, I've owned and heard many other players that all sound different from each other. BTW, I've also heard amps, preamps, cables... and YES, POWER CORDS that make enormous differences - so large that I doubt even a cynic like 'gmgraves' would need a DBT to hear & acknowledge them.
Regarding 'transparency'.... It is not something a component has, or does not have...like you have red hair or you don't. Transparency is an ill defined value, but essentially means that a component (or more accurately, an entire system) does not color the sound of the source. No component, cable, etc. is 100% tranparent to the source. That is the unreachable goal... much like 'The Absolute Sound". To say that all modern components are tranparent, is to indicate one doesn't really understand the term.
But my real point here is to advise 'gmgraves' not to be so sure of himself, and warn others to trust their own ears. It's possible that he doesn't hear the same things some of us do, or simply doesn't care about the same things. That's OK! What's not OK is pontificating as if what he does not hear or care about is equally imperceptable or ignorable to others. 'GM', what if you're wrong? Maybe you shouldn't mislead others, eh?
Hi Art,
Myself and I am sure Mr Graves are not infact disputing that you can hear large differences bewtween cd playes and indeed power cables. What we dispute is that you can actually hear these differences in db tests.
Your comment - 'POWER CORDS that make enormous differences - so large that I doubt even a cynic like 'gmgraves' would need a DBT to hear & acknowledge them' implies that you are hearing these large differences between power cords without using blind trials and indeed are cynical of blind trials yourself by the very comment.
We are saying that if you do infact do the trial truly blind (and can certify that with some independant outsider) that your perceived differences in power cords will magically disappear.
Actually if you can prove you are hearing differences then the electronics industry will be very interested as there is no possible known mechanism in science that a power cord can make an iota improvement to sound quality using even the most basic amplifier. The idea is actually really insulting to anyone who knows advanced electronics (even my 9 year old son will tell you this).
I can assure you there is nothing wrong with Mr Graves or my ears. I have fine tuned my listening ability over a period of 40 years and compose music by ear on a number of instruments. It so happens I have a thorough understanding of the real science behind hi-fi and the very idea that a power cord can make an iota of difference to an unbiased engineer is a complete joke that is a scam well known in the engineering community. If you have been reading and taken in by the spin science on the power cord sites then this might explain a bit! I suggest you read more audio engineering society papers and less fo the audio mag reviews and manufacturer spin.
Thanks so much for the laugh of the day I needed it. Also congrats to your 9 year old on his "advanced" electronics" knowledge. Since I bothered to login please allow me my 2 cents worth. In my nearly 50 year persuit of audio perfection I have never switched a power cord and felt I had achieved any perceptile change good or bad. The fact that many other seemingly sane listeners claim they have inspires me to question why or how this may be rather than jumping all over them with ALL the conventional fallacies I mentioned a long time earlier in this thread. Conversely, over the years, I have heard changes both great and subtle from improved power supplies, different turntables, different speaker cables, different amplifers and even room tuning techniques. I mention this because each of these things was repudiated at some point by someone much like yourself who knew (god help us) everything. In conclusion I suggest you ask Ivor Tiefenbrun what response he received around 40 years ago when he dared suggest the turntable was one of, if not the most significant determinant of playback quality. After that, tell him he is wrong and explain why.
There is more evidence supporting the "measure the same but sound different" debate every year. Most recent was HiFi Critic's phono preamp group test. (At least I *think* they were the ones).
It seems easy to find folks who can hear differences between (cheap and expensive) power cords and CD players. But very hard to find those who don't.
Blind tests are biased towards null results and never have been proven to be statistically neutral. They discard false positives but not false negatives.
Thag and Thog were laying on a hillside looking at clouds. Thag says, "look at that cloud, it looks like a woolly mammoth". Thog tells him he's nuts and shouldn't have eaten those strange looking mushrooms. "No man", Thag says, "It looks just like a mammoth." Thog then tells him that he has no ability to judge what looks like a mammoth because he, the mighty Thog, is a great hunter and killed a mammoth with his bare hands just last week. If the mighty Thog says it doesn't look a mammoth it DOES NOT look like a mammoth. Since that time certain people who diagree with or dispute the subjective perceptions of others have been calling themselves mighty hunters and threatening others with expulsion from the tribe. It is really funny that first it was clouds that look like mammoths, then amplifiers, then turntables, then speaker wire, then audiphile recordings, then CD players and now power cords and related power conditioning equipment being "logic-ed" away. No matter what the subject the arguments have never changed. Each subsequent generation bought the same templates and just filled in the blanks without noticing how worn the paper was. What is truly hilarious is that even in the face of new developments which prove and explain that differences existed previously the descendents of Thog use exactly the same arguments they used to attack the last thing they didn't believe possible and can't even see the connection. For further reading check my post from last year, As I said long ago, I usually don't like to comment on this foolishness but sometimes I can't resist recording my observations even though they are subjective.
Thanks for the entertaining woolly mammoth cloud stories – very funny and useful - as we will see...
Getting back to the main subject here are my views on vinyl decks and no I am not forcing them at anyone. Take them or leave them:
With vinyl playback hardware you can achieve a perfectly good result that is comparable to CD but the result is very dependent on the quality of the playback gear, particularly the stylus and transport. This is not the same at all for CD, where reliability for the most part is both guaranteed and long lived. To maintain the ultimate gramophone performance is both difficult and expensive and even then you really don’t know if you are achieving the optimum.
CD technology is a completely different beast (mammoth if you like) entirely in that what you get is exactly what it says in the spec, or as far as the human ear can discern. Given the choice of the reliability, cost, dynamic range, channel separation afforded by the modern CD player my conclusion is that CD is a clear winner, and this has been backed up by DB tests. In fact Philps and others did these test long ago in the 80's to prove the technology - it had to be at least as good as the best vinyl.
Now for the DB test itself – many people don’t get it and it is nothing to be ashamed of. I will try and help here (without resorting to wild animals - sorry failed already) – imagine your favourite reviewer is going about his review of several CD players. He will plug one in, play something that he is familiar with and perhaps over a period of a few days or hours judge how good he thinks it sounds compared with all the sounds of various CD decks he has in memory. He will then do the same with the others. Nothing wrong with this – or there doesn’t appear to be on the surface!
Now imagine the blind version of this test. It’s exactly the same, except the volume of the CD played is adjusted to within 0,5 db for the same signal. Also instead of actually knowing what CD player is in at any one time they are all available at the end of a switch and the actual players are hidden from view. The test proceeds exactly as before and he can spend as long or as little as he wants on any player. Which result do you think is the most reliable and why? Which result would you use if you were buying a cd player? What differences between the two test do you expect from such trials from previous studies? Sorry this sounds like back to school but that is where we have to start to reboot some fundamental audiophile misconceptions.
If you are having problems here I will tell you – there will be a massive difference between the ‘blind’ and ad-hoc results as has been shown many times. Now the only aspects that have changes are
:
1. Volume levels are carefully matched
2. There is no idea which is being listened to at any one time, only A, B etc
.
Oh yes - and the reviewer can switch at will so it also removed the necessity to hold an audio memory of several hours. Why is this important? Sorry no room here - I haven't got all day!
Now the reviewer is known to be very skilled at listening, as are yourself, but you have just fallen into the same trap as the reviewer – you listen to something you identify with very well, then something else and hear a massive difference and nobody disputes this, not even me – see where it’s going....
If you haven’t got it yet - psychology has an often unappreciated overwhelming influence on perceived sound quality and this is due to circumstantial and personalised nature of the review. Take away these difference factors (the psychological ones - in this case mainly visual, audio memory and volume) and you are left with pure listening, nothing more or less. It's nothing to do with hearing acuity - it's the human factor and we are all human. Take the woolly mammoth example. Our observer sees a sign by the roadside that says 'Mammoth jam ahead'. Do you think this will influence his interpretation of seeing a mammoth in the cloud rather than an elephant or horse for that matter? If you are interested the answer is 'yes - and very much so'. This is what I am saying, not that anyone is ‘wrong’ or not to be hearing differences between CD players. Even if the CD players actually gave an identical sound this would never be reflected in standard unblind audio test as the human ear is not able to judge ‘identical’ with all the other circumtantial and psychological factors getting in the way - the result is always biased if these factors are not totally removed (by making it blind and matched). This is my case – take it or leave it. All known evidence suggest it is true by the way as many have been demonstrating to you for many years
.
Actually the best control to use to judge accuracy of music reproduction against is live music. Take the woolly mammoth example from our friend again – nobody can tell you if it looks like a mammoth or not. What they can do is put a picture of a mammoth next to it and ask ‘which looks more like a mammoth’? Yes in audio it is a little different from your random cloud scenario in that there is something we are clearly judging against - the accurate audio signal from a live performance. Now imagine 25 people doing the same thing. Ok so you can’t really use live music in audio comparisons easily so the next best thing is to use a reference system that you know has a good reputation and to compare against this (and by the way none of the systems are labelled ‘woolly mammoth’ to give the game away!) .
Now for the best bit - in the simple audio comparisons we are talking about here (cd player vs cd player - are they different), you don't even need a reference. You just put one up against the other and say 'does this mammoth look different from that one'. Doing the test non-blind is akin to making one appear larger than the other and comparing one in the air with one on the ground, with one clearly labelled 'Mastodon' and the other having 'White elephant' stamped all over it!! . You will always say they are different when they are actually the same as I explained above.
Now you do the test properly - they are the same size, unlabelled, compared side by side and statistically there is no dectectable difference. What have you just proved - that the new test is flawed or that the animals are essentially the same. You now know the answer, even though it may come as a shock and you will want to question the new test. Perhaps you want to go back to the old test?
Do you get it yet? Sorry if you haven’t the failure must be my explanation not your understanding.
Oh yes as for room acoustics it is very important indeed, cables and power conditioners – sorry no way, but quite believable why you think there are differences as explained above
.
Have fun!
Sorry I am confused on several points. First are you saying CD players all sound the same or all CD players do not sound the same? Secondly, while I am very familiar with testing methods and most of the schools of thought regarding them you seem to imply that I was in some way passing judgement or criticism on these various comparison techniques. In truth I am studiously avoiding any reference to any and all comparison techniques. What I am attempting (in vain apparently) is to point out that throughout time groups have been at odds over claimed perceptions and experiences. In summary, one group says "we hear a difference". A second group says we do not so therefore neither do you. The first group insists they really do hear a difference. At this point the second group fall back on all the methods I have mentioned previously because they really NEED to win the argumet. These methods include a) I am a Physicist/Engineer/Electrician/Recording Technician/Genius and it is therefore impossible for you to perceive anything I don't, b) Science/technology/theory state what you report is impossible, c) other experts agree with me so you must be wrong. There are several other approaches in common use but you get the point. Now don't feel I am taking sides hear because I have witnessed each side proven wrong on many different occasions. One thing I have noticed is the "perceivers" tend to change with the issue while the "Thog-o-crats" are usually the same bunch and ALWAYS use the same arguments. I think what you missed in this is that all my ramblings are just me standing up, pointing and laughing at the pomposity of those who insist what must and must not be using arguments that have been repeated, and often discredited, many times over in the past. The best part is, those I laugh at the hardest are oh so sincere in their belief I am laughing at someone else. To close I would like to leave you with three very poignant quotes:
Santayana - Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it
Mark Knopfler - Two men say they're Jesus one of them must be wrong
Yogi Berraa - Whan discussing theory and practice, in theory there is no difference, in practice there is!
Thanks for your forebearance.
Hi Joe,
No I am not saying all CD players sound the same or different in that post if you read it properly - please read it again if your are at all confused. If you understand it at all you will realise that this question is a bit ridiculous and is an over-simplification.
I am saying whether two things appear to sound different is very much influenced by psychological factors other than the sound. If you are still asking that question then you obviously just don't get this - maybe you never will? It's really not my problem - I can only state the case.
What I am saying is that a test that properly cancels out any psychological influences other than just 'listening' is really the only reliable kind of test. The reason why I and others need to repeat this is that you are intent on displaying your ignorance in the matter.
You can test the two mammoths with one appearing larger than the other , one in the sky and one labelled differently or you can test them side by side in a fair manner. I was saying assuming two CD players are giving exactly the same sound quality you will never pick up this fact with the first test whereas you are much more likely to pick it up with the second. It's an analogy, nothing more or less. Take it or leave it. There is really no technical genius, engineering excellence or rocket science involved with this, any sensible person will tell you its true.
The evidence from history suggests that this analogy is very applicable to subjective comparisons like audio. It's the quality of the information that's important, not the quantity. Who is learning from history here - the person that blindly goes on testing ad-hoc and being sold on all the audio reviews or the one who learns from what the proper blind tests are telling us over and over again? Make up your own mind. Here again it does not take a rocket scientist to come up with the right answer - it's common sense to anyone with even a basic understanding of human psychology.
As for my personal views on CD players I think the differences heard are very much to do with the use of non blind tests, as explained above. Understanding the nature of testing is inherent in my response. The jury is out as to whether they actually sound identical. The question is a bit academic as no two items will actually give a completely identical sound, but for all practical purposes there is not any demonstratable essential difference between the sound quality if you remove the psychological factors other than listening. I personally doubt if they will always sound completely identical even in db tests, due to different equalisation applied to the analogue output, but there are examples of db tests where they do and you can't ignore these. Why do I say this? It's nothing to do with the fact that they prove any preconceived point so I prefer them for this reason, like what you are implying from your post, it's to do with the fact that they are more reliable than the usual review. Where does the technical knowledge come in? Audio engineering society writers will be less surprised by the revelations than yourself as lo-and-behold it happens to support what science predicts, rather than what the commercial audio magazines want you to believe. So no surprise there.
I certainly would not buy a CD player based on the result of some un-blind review. I certainly would not buy a top-of-the range one or a budget basement one - I would check that it does indeed sound great to my ears, is a reasonable price and material spec and is reliable.
If you want to pigeon hole me as one of your 'Thog-o-crats' then its up to you - you seem to like using terms of abuse and to categorise people into your two idealistically preconceived groups. I ask you is this evidence of closed or open minded behavior? So feel free to label me what you want.
since you like other's quotes here are two that are actually relevant here:
Truth only reveals itself when one gives up all preconceived ideas.
Shoseki
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
Leo Tolstoy
Thank you for the well written and reasoned response. However since you have chosen to use the term ignorance it is probably time for the gloves to come off. First of all I have no issue with DBT and view it as a valuable evaluation tool. Nor do I take issue with long term evaluations. I don't even have a problem with someone who wishes to consult others, after all it's their money. You on the other hand appear compelled to assume every observation is a condemnation of you personally and of your beliefs. What you have failed to recognize in your blind adherance to DBT as the only valid method of evaluation is that I have not and do not wish to engage in any debate over the validity of any testing methodology. What I have done repeatedly in spite of your oblivious perceptions has been to observe human behaviour and comment on the the absurdity and repetitive nature of the same. Some of these comments have been through analogy others through direct statement but all have been about how people act and nothing to do with testing or even audio in general. You a very attached to using terms like "rocket science" but even 80% of rocket science is not rocket science. As to psychology, I am quite conversant with the discipline. So conversant in fact I can anticipate your response to this with a high degree of accuracy. You make many assumptions about me personally but have done nothing in your responses but illustrate the type of behaviour I decry. As for using quotes, it only works when both sides know what they mean and sadly both your choices work very well against you and your chosen path of logic. Case in point, you have labored under the mis-perception that I have been talking about testing audio gear from the outset when nothing could be further from the truth. Your refusal to to let go of preconceived ideas has prevented you from seeing what I am actually talking about. I wil do you the honor of reading your mostly predictable response but do not wish this to go any further than that. Since I suspect you will still be going on regaring the subject of DBT I might be better off if I don't. If on the other hand you are able to grow and wash away enough dross to comprehend what I am actually talking about I will say you are welcome now as my participation in this segment of the thread is now complete.
Well if you actually presented a coherent logical argument and said what you do stand for (apart from ineffective derision)there wouldn't be any confusion. Thanks for the waffle and goodbye.
‘He who lacks any clear position revels in the denigration of the resolute’
Winston Churchill