Is your analog audio contaminated by digital processing?
Comments on this video
You can comment on this video at YouTube
You can comment on this video at YouTube
Thursday June 1, 2023
David Mellor
David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.
is just another nail in the coffin of rational thinking.
Beware of the analog lies that are misleading many audio enthusiasts.
And if you manage to resist and overcome crackle, rumble, and bad dynamics...
CONGRATS !
You made it.
@Planardude: I look at the so called LP resurrection with a bit of skepticism. The LP has challenged the CD for prominence. This overlooks the elephant in the room which is streaming audio, I would suggest this simply blows away the physical media. I still buy lps (mostly second hand) and cds that are obscure enough for my musical tastes to not be offered via streaming. I have no issues with those that want to listen to lps as I certainly do this and enjoy it, However streaming audio gives me an almost unlimited choice of music for far less then I spent for physical media, The quality is adaptable - my kids listen to mp3 files I feel are objectionable and I can listen to high res files that I would readily admit are far above my hearing capabilities. In the end it boils down to personal preference - it is not necessarily what tech is demonstrably better it is what your brain interprets as more satisfying for you. Personally I love the freedom of choice in streaming audio as well the high quality sound. However it is always a pleasure to listen to an LP on one of my turntables
@wayne-lj4in: [quotes not exact] 08:35 '..intrinsically wrong.. cutting up continuously flowing analog into discrete level measures'.. _ Except the conversion processes -A/D and back.. our analog is never _actually 'sliced up like that.
Sir, please excuse my quite poorly wording in this.
@Albee213: DDD (digital recording equipment, digital mastering, digital media CD). When you have a CD that is mastered well you basically have a copy of the master tape. DDA would be (digital recording equipment, digital mastering, analog media LP/Cassette).
@thecheapaudioengineer: Can my brain process 12bit audio 🤣🤣
can't even hear 15khz🤣🤣🤣
Can't hear 20hz
@fredashay: I remember this! I always checked for DDD on my CDs back in the 80s. If it was a CD I really wanted, I'd buy it regardless of the code, but I was always happy to find a DDD CD!
Nowadays I take it for granted that all music I buy (except for classics) is DDD without even checking.
@BillDemos: Wow, as always excellent presentation and good points. Your conclusion where you express in a small sentence the whole method you need to record down analog, leading to the: "so, it's digital audio that's more pure, the purest of the, inevitably, impure, if you like." is so spot on.
@Risandi_Pradipto: In multi-tracking recording, the best "analog" music instrument turned into digital for later mix in DAW. If an "analog-purist" demands pure analog; then he/she should not listen to those at all. Better yet, only listen to unamplified live performances only.
After all, music appreciation should be leisure activity. By any means and with any format.
PS. Your videos are always straight A's as usual. Enjoyable and informative at the same time.
@michaelgebauer5235: At the moment I'm enjoying Katie Melua (In Winter) fully digital in HiRes (24bit/48kHz) with good headphones. In the end, it's the music and how you feel about it that counts.
@JohnHoranzy: This sure explains a lot. Especially the Ampex ADD1. I think what a lot comes down to is the care taken from the original recording to the final product. Somehow I would bet that the Phillips Classical Recordings never used the ADD1. It also explains why some labels transferred over to CD better than others. With all the modern convenient playback devices, there are too many steps to do things wrong or for someone to think they are making things better.
Now that processing power and storage is so cheap, hopefully a simple foolproof workflow can be developed like old AAA analogue.
To me, Peak Audio was back in the late 80s with my 200 Watt system with 16 inch bass 3 way speakers and a Philips Classical CD on a component CD player.
@Tyco072: I see rather the opposite problem: analog ruins the purity of digital. The analog contamination on AAD CDs is too high. They sound too much like analog tape: high tape hiss, loss of fine details due to the multi generation copies. Many are recorded at only 50-60% of the full scale level, a huge waste of not used resolution bits and volume. Some ADD CDs are very good, but the AAD are too much affected by the analog contamination. Unfortunately almost all the CDs I bought are AAD and almost all the remastered versions have been made worst because of the loudness war.
@Tyco072 replies to @Tyco072: @nicksterj Hi, yes, the passage through the electromagnetic domain in the tape/head system, the EQ adjustment to compensate the non linearity response, and 2 times (1 during rec + 1 during play) it colors the sound pretty much (analog distortion). Then the multi generation copies through the masters make it worst. And for vinyl come many additional passages more. Each passage adds distortion and loss of details. One through the electromagnetic coil in the stylus of the vinyl cutting recorder, then the passage to mechanical domain into the plastic grooves, the molding process of coping from the master the final copy. Then the reverse path through the mechanical and electromagnetic domain from the vinyl record through the stylus and the coil in the cartridge. After all this passages, plus the applying of the RIAA EQ, the sound coming out from a AAD CD and much more worst out of a vinyl, has very few or nothing in common with the original source sound of the first recording in the studio. If the analog fans like the analog sound more, good for them, but it can't be called fidelity.
@ModernClassic: I'm also pro-digital but I do like vinyl for its "experiential" properties. But I have noticed that quite a few of the new releases I've bought on vinyl sound weirdly compressed and distorted, almost like they used the digital master without alteration, so it actually sounds noticeably worse on vinyl. I'm sure that can't be, but I used to expect that vinyl releases would have at least equal to or better dynamic range than the corresponding streaming or digital download, and that is definitely not the case any longer. I doubt it's because they've suddenly started using the ADD-1 again, but something else definitely seems to be going on where "digital" is touching vinyl in even worse ways today than was the case in the 80's or 90's. It's almost like the loudness war has come to vinyl, but vinyl has less headroom available to deal with it.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @ModernClassic: I don't have hard data but anecdotally it seems to be a thing that masters intended for digital distribution are used directly for vinyl. This is clearly suboptimal and in an ideal world would not happen.
@baronofgreymatter14: Ana-loggers
@AudioMasterclass replies to @baronofgreymatter14: One more 'l' in that and there's going to be controversy.
@enricoself2256: So you are saying that some studios, in 2023, are still recording music using multi-track analogue magnetic tape ? Beside being very expensive (tapes, recorders maintenance, qualified personnel) it is riskier than digital (no back-up, any damage on the master tape and music is gone ...) and far more complex to use. I honestly thought that all modern LP's were actually digitally recorded, mixed and mastered (sort of DDDA). After all, several studios started using digital recorders in the mid 70's well before the CD was even conceived; several LP's of the late 70's and early 80's are indeed DAA !
@djtbs1: I agree AADA it should be, although I don't quantify myself as an audiophile. My Technics 1200s with Shure 44 cartridges reproduce acceptably well for me. But all these new digitally recorded artists releasing on vinyl now I don't get that at all- it's purely for the money grab as far as I can see.
@atoptip6193: Apologies in advance if one of the 349 comments prior to mine mentioned it already but, mid 1970s technology used for CD4 quadraphonic records showed, frequencies in excess of 30kHz could be recorded on “vinyl.” That of course was to a different end — modulated signal for the front / back differences — but it is a ready proof of concept. I cannot hear anything much past 14kHz so, not relevant for me in any shape or form!
@davids4610: DDD was the only way for me back when - guilty
@tutacat: Technically your ears convert audio to electricity
@tutacat: Well, digital mastering codes are simple for the same reason food labels are complex. It's there to make money.
@vwestlife: The Ampex ADD-1 digital cutting delay was introduced at the Audio Engineering Society convention in May 1979. It uses 16-bit digital audio with a sampling rate of 50 kHz and an audio lowpass filter that cuts off above 20 kHz. It was patented in 1980 as U.S. patent number 4348754.
@xxxYYZxxx: For analog marketing, why aren't "albums" sold as albums, meaning each song gets the full side of a 45 rpm record, and the entire album is actually an album of multiple 45 rpm records, eh? Multiple 45 rpm's would give the best possible sound quality and jack up the price (and collector value) to boot.
@OrangeMicMusic: I’m trying to shed some light about the frequency response of vinyl. My understanding is that vinyl couldn’t exceed 20KHz because of the following factors…some geeky stuff for anyone interested 😊
I tried to post also links for everything but YouTube is deleting the comment.
Recording
Studer A800 series (the most successful recording machines)has a frequency range of 50Hz-20KHz
Mastering stage
Ampex ATR100/102 has a frequency range of 35Hz-28KHz just in only configuration - at 30ips (within +/- 2db) using Ampex 406/407/456 tapes. In any other configurations it’s up to 20 KHz
Some tapes themselves couldn’t record more than 20KHz
ATR Ampex Master Tapes specs are showing this.
Neumann VMS80 could go up to 20KHz, because that was the maximum frequency of AKS80 - the unit module responsible for the delay preview.
@bagman7709: I rate your show AAA-A!
Thankyou for your interesting insights.
Most Intertaining!!
Ian Shepherd mentioned this (12 bit) digital delay in the Mastering Show podcast.
These details to the populace are like pearls of wisdom (Before Swine), but ultimately we produce our synchronous racket, and the swine don't care if it's been recorded and processed AAA, or DDD, or ADD
(A bit of a plus, that last one.😉)
The porcine cares not how the nourishment arrives, only that it does.
@johnc3425: IAbout 1990 I wanted to buy my first CD player and went with others to a demonstration at a local dealer. However, the dealer sold (and still sells) Linn products and the demonstration was really comparing a Marantz CD player, costing at the time £200, with a Linn Sondek LP12 turntable and SME tonearm costing several times more. The expectation was that we would all hear how superior the LP12 was compared to CD's but actually I thought it was just the opposite. Incidentally, despite eventually making a CD player themselves, I don't think Linn really liked CD's. I remember reading that at a HiFi show, people on the Linn stand had T-shirts with the logo "CD, its the pits". I assume that CD players must have affected sales of their turntables.
In fact at the time a friend had an LP12 and since he had bought a CD player his LP12 was consigned to collecting dust on the top of his wardrobe. I did eventually buy a CD player but not from that dealer. Music was increasingly being recorded and mixed digitally so it didn't make sense to me to transfer it to an analogue medium with all its inherent limitations. I already had a collection of vinyl discs and was irritated by the pops and crackles when I played them despite handling them very carefully and trying to avoid dust. I have a couple of friends who don't seem to know about DAC's and think that analogue must be superior because digital equipment outputs a square wave to the speakers!
@JaKeAFC09: Signals that may not be heard or detected, once injected on a signal path can cause a waste of space on the physical medium and headroom on the signal processing causing overload on the electronics, including saturation up to overheating and burning of those hair-sized wires driving cutter heads, tape heads or speakers voice coils. Below 20Hz it's getting close to DC, supersonic frequency is used in DMM lathes to excite the stylus to actually cut into the copper disk.... I think engineers who designed audio equipment intentionally limited the frequency response, not by means of the device being capable to handle them theoretically but indeed to prevent erratic behavior on other devices, such as self oscillation. The same principle where manufactures of lamps (should) make them to stay within a certain wavelength of the visibile light without stepping into UV or infrared where such radiations could be either a waste of energy and potentially a physical harm, that doesn't mean they are not capable to produce specialty lamps for such spectrum for other purposes, and same as hearing capabilities also eyesight is different.
@Press-Play: Wondering what your take is on RIAA recording and playback filtering and the possibility to obtain something that has non lossless compression artefacts contamination.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @Press-Play: RIAA EQ on vinyl is necessary to achieve duration. The side effect is it boosts rumble and other LF noise. Overall though it’s a good thing. DM
@carljung9230: this is a dishonest video, i know you know better than what you say in it. digital is an inherently "lossy" process; all of the signal between sample points is lost. converting from one analog format to another (your broadcast example) is not inherently lossy. it was very possible to have high quality FM broadcasts, even if in practice it was rare. once you take the source material into the digital domain, you might as well leave it there and release a file (instead of vinyl). what are you really listening to when you press a digital source into vinyl? i won't buy any new pressings because of this issue; see Mofi scandal. even if the label says AAA there is a good chance they are being sneaky. original pressings still sound great, and if not, might as well listen to the album in digital form. if don't have golden ears and i can clearly hear the special qualities of a well produced vinyl recording. what i do have is a decent hifi system to listen on. you have lost a lot of credibility with this video, AFAIAC.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @carljung9230: Well if you're going to accuse me of dishonesty I'm going to accuse you of being an idiot. AFAIAC DM
@X2OCanada: I had totally forgotten about the A&D standard we had back then. I remember clearly looking for CDs that had the holy grail of DDD, thinking to myself: This is as pure sound as we,can produce! Interesting to see the opposite happen today with ‘audiolites’ analog enthusiasts looking for pure analog sound 😂. Truly the quest for ‘pure’ sound has become a new religion.
@Lenny-kt2th: You touched the issue of the loudness war. For me that was the turning point in pop music, and is infinitely worse to my music enjoyment than digitization ever was.
If there's something that audiofiles and non-audiofiles probably agree on is that digitzation means filtering because of the Shannon-Nyquist theorem. That's needed to prevent aliasing during the recording stages, but there's no need for it during the reproduction stages.
I own a non oversampling, non analogue filtered DAC. I appreciate the aliasing problem, but I simply can't hear any difference between a OS and an NOS output. Sure, on a 100 MHz bandwidth oscilloscope, I can see the difference, but I can't hear it. To me this means that what many audiofiles think they hear is not actually what they do hear.
To me the vinyl revival is just like the valve/tube equipment revival/continuation, quite similar.They distort in a way we find pleasing, but it may not actually be truthful in a HiFi sense.
@FrankHeuvelman: 'Analoggies'
Like in: 'You are such an analoggy'
@namegoeshere2903: Another great instruction from Mr. Paul McCartney. 👍
@ianl.9271: What about the optical audio track along the edge of films?
@pihda77: The problem is good DAC is really pricey. R2R DACs are bare minimum to my ears multibits are really flat sounding and bass-lesss. So yeah you can have nice turntable for like $200 but DAC at this pirce point will sound rubbish.
@Johnnytrades101: I was a turntable guy for decades, I enjoyed all the pops, crackles, scratches, and skips that inevitably occur over time. First play... nirvana! Now, IMO digital is the way to go.
@bigdaddycool1000: The amazing Thing is: After 40 Years-the good old Compact Disc ist still good enough for everything.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @bigdaddycool1000: It was an amazing technology for its time and still quite good now. DM
@z1522: Testing my 65 year old hearing range, I barely got anything beyond 12,000Hz. I seem to be fairly acute within my limits, but doubt my young ears were ever able to appreciate the full 20kHz of CDs, and certainly not any higher frequencies on my scratchy, wobbly vinyls with standard cartridges never set up by experts. Basic first gen. CDs and players sounded far cleaner and clearer, pop and hiss free, and the "warmth" of vinyl I attributed to less clarity and more midrange, not some extra imbued magic. I have just one actually bad CD, a Zevon Greatest Hits I believe was either very poorly remastered, or else might even be a counterfeit - but one of the first ever digitally mastered recordings, Ry Cooder's Bop Til You Drop, still sounds amazing. Mastering and engineering makes or breaks quality recordings, not "Digital" versus "Analog."
@AudioMasterclass replies to @z1522: You're doing well, you still have nine and a bit out of your original ten octaves left. DM
@kittenisageek: Before watching your video: From a physics standpoint, digital signals are samplings of discrete points along an analog signal. Therefore, by definition, any time digital processing is done, the analog signal has lost something. However, unless the sampling is done poorly, it will be indistinguishable by human ears from a fully analog signal once the signal is reconstructed.
After watching your video: I always did think that LPs had a bit of flatness in their frequency response, but I never knew where it came from. The way I describe it is that "records sound a little tinny," but that isn't exactly accurate -- I just don't have a better way of describing what I hear. Anyway, that's interesting about the digital delay. Its also been my experience that my CDs from the late 90s early 2000s had frequency clipping. At the time, I attributed it to "they're trying to make the CD as loud as a cassette and over-amplified the signal" but that would be a uniform clipping and not just high-frequency. Of course, I have some other CDs from that time that are definitely mastered too low, to the point where if your volume is set so that "my ears don't bleed" on the loudest parts of the song, you can't hear the quiet parts at all on average headphones.
@therealwolfspidertoo: The only true pure analog LP is a direct to disc record cut direct from live.
@SO_DIGITAL: 8:50 A good analogy you can also use is the actual video you're watching now. Chopped-up reality is presented as frames that you see as smooth motion. Love your channel, sir. Your calm, rational, fair and technically correct discussion is enjoyable.
@SO_DIGITAL: 7:10 One can argue that LPs only have useful bandwidth up to about 16kHz or so whereas CD goes up to 20kHz BUT, one must consider what the brick wall filter needed for digital recording does to the in-band audio signal you want. Such filters have nasty phase characteristics unless they are designed VERY carefully. So in digital recording the brick wall filter will remove everything above half your sampling frequency, but it can also introduce phase distortions in the parts of the signal it passes through. When cutting an LP from a master tape that can record up to 28kHz, sure not all that sonic information will actually make it to the grooves but you don't have nasty filters with super steep cutoffs in the signal chain.
@SO_DIGITAL: Engineer here. Using the digital delay to cut and the analogue to control seems like a clunky solution looking for a problem. Surely the digital setup would be much more expensive than just using an analogue machine with a preview head. I'm a digital fan, but this does seem odd.
@mariozenarju6461: I honestly don't care if a record was processed digitally, I buy them for big pretty covers and to excuse the purchase of my tube headphone amp :'D
@phillipkelly736: Digital is the only way to go
@marsdevastater6089: The little advertisement blurb for the ADD-1 says it has an 80DB signal-to-noise-ratio. If true, that would be at minimum either 14-bit and very close to the theoretical limit of what that bit-depth can provide, or 13 bits at what would have been an absolutely insane sample-rate at the time, something on the order of 192khz or more especially if it didn't have noise-shaping for the output.
Better tech-specs I guess than Vinyl is supposedly capable of, clocking in usually around 30-40 DB SNR from what I've found previously (not that I necessarily believe that it's that bad or that the digital stage wouldn't have had an effect on it), but yes definitely digital from what you're describing as the operational process for the ADD-1.
@OKvalosound: Interesting post, thanks! Would like to add that Studer also published a digital look ahead delay in 1982 (Studer DAD 16) for the same use case. So chances are high that many vinyl releases since the early 80ies are "digital contaminated"😉. BTW, most of the popular condenser and dynamic mics roll off before 20kHz. So still with 44.1 kHz recordings there shouldn't be any loss of musical relevant information.
@WhatEver-dx3eu: Another thought occurred... In the '70ies there were quadraphonic records: 4 discrete channels; 2 front, 2 rear. In order to do this, the rear channels were multiplexed with the normal stereo signal at very high frequencies (up to 50k), in the same way that FM stereo still works. This required special cartridges with special styli in order to achieve 50k playback from vinyl. So, yes, playback beyond 20k is possible... (however, play the record 10 times, and that high frequency info would have worn off anyway...)
@AudioMasterclass replies to @WhatEver-dx3eu: This is correct, although the system required half or even slower cutting. I have this from a JVC document from the era. And the Shibata stylus, well this might be of benefit for normal stereo. I might look into this for a future video. DM
@WhatEver-dx3eu: That was really interesting, AAdA! It reminds me of the great controversy around Mobile Fidility (MoFi for short nowadays) had to come clean and admit that the pristine, original analogue studio master was converted to DSD to create the pressing lacquer to manufacture their records for many, many years. All audiophiles up in arms, suddenly the records didn't sound good anymore. Great, as otherwise that master tape would wear out very quickly to produce new lacquers as these wear out quickly. Releasing that master tape it in a decent digital format type is the way to go, not going vinyl again...
@AudioMasterclass replies to @WhatEver-dx3eu: I like your version with the lowercase 'd'. The industry should adopt it. DM
@jagmarc: 3:30 there were a few disc cutters dotted around London (one had one in his living room) who were craftsmen and used their ears & eyes didn't need delaylines
@jagmarc: Oh I thought "D" was for dumbed-down
@radman8321: Human ears really don't care if analogue or digital cuts off at 20Khz or not. Even the best (and youngest) ears can't hear anything higher, especially at any sensible volume level. Your dog may appreciate the efforts some "audiophiles" have gone to to make sure they are getting the benefit of a full frequency recording.
@thenewyorkcityboy: Call me evil, if you want, but I absolutely LOVE the fact that there are hardcore analogue-vinyl-enthusiast-audiophiles out there who will now be fretting about whether their "pure analogue" 1970s LPs might have been mastered with the 12-bit Ampex ADD1 😂😂😂 Priceless!!!
I truly don't believe that any of these self-proclaimed "audio experts" (especially audio reviewers) would be able to tell the difference between an LP played "live" and the same LP recorded to my 25 yr old DAT machine...let alone a modern "audiophile grade" AD/DA conversion. They're all "full of it" as far as I'm concerned. Still...if these muppets are also prepared to spend $1k on a 1-metre interconnect...maybe I should just get onboard the audiophile train and start selling my own brand of absurdly-priced cables?! After all, there's literally no way they'd be able to tell the difference (aurally) between a $30 alibaba-special and a "genuine audiophile-grade" interconnect. I could definitely put my principles aside for a 3000% profit! 😂
@Asgaia: vinyl can actually more. Up to 40khz afair. There were quadrophic LPs out there. The other two channels, rear left and right, were encoded in upper bands above the hearable spectrum. On a 30 kHz or so carrier frequency. Just like the stereo side signal in FM radio. Or the colour signal in NTSC or PAL tv. (not exactly, the colour signal is IN the visible 5Mhz band, but first tv sets indeed filtered out anything above 3 MHz for Y-Signal.) You get the idea.
@rwsmith7638: Great vid, especially pointing out the faults of early cd production and vinyl recording. The only way to tell if it's 'good' is to listen for yourself.
@bookashkin: Always knew Rasputin (2:45 bottom right) was a vinyl enthusiast. Bought many discs from his shop back in the 1980s.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @bookashkin: Congratulations. You're the first to spot. DM
@TWEAKER01: Hmm (8:50) I presume you're being facetious, knowing that we don't hear or use discrete chunks of sliced up analogue audio – that the analog waveform is fully reconstructed by the filter (to the HF limits dictated by the sample rate).
But yes, there is great analog and great digital. The engineering (and using the best possible sources) plays a larger role than the numbers.
A digitized safety copy tape can sound leagues better than a degraded first generation tape. A Plangent Processed (digitized) source will sound better (ie: closest to how it was meant to be heard) than an original tape with wow and flutter and sideband intermod distortions.
And, objectively speaking, vinyl is lossy.
@robertalker652: Wow! I've completely forgotten about that code. I think I first heard a German Gramaphone CD that was labelled DDD and was taken aback by the quality of that CD to such a point that I avoided buying CD's that weren't DDD.
@Robert.Novack: I’d really like to know why so much of the music I download from iTunes is of such awful sound quality. Honestly a lot the same recordings on my vinyl albums from the 1960s to the 90s sound far better.
@grzegorzmatuska7299: What about direct to disc recording using two mics, or old Mercury living presence releases? What about albums released by, for example, Pablo Records?
@acolonjr63: Did you just solved the digital to analog advantages? According to you , 20k filters limits digital music (at cd quality). With analog music there could be audio information above that limit as described on the ampex tape recorder specifications.
Does that apply to low end to; like at 20hz?
@michelvondenhoff9673: We have been recording digitally since the 80's, digital (sample based) synthesizers, digital fx etc. What are you on about? Even source material wore out and is only digitally (in what ever generation) available.
@everTriumph: Even DDD has analogue microphones and pickups. This lets in the crud that happens when A/D converters are over-ranged, even if the components are high quality. Analog tends to treat overdriving on 'too loud' passages more gently. Limiting rather than having a hissy-fit. And of course speakers are analogue. Some chips have problems, the most widely known is the TL07x common mode overload where it ceases to function under certain conditions. They are quite a commonly used chip, even in digital equipment.
@philkerney9413: I'd venture that there are more digital incursions into currently available vinyl discs than you have mentioned.
@vinylcabasse: the 'carrier frequency' on CD4 quadraphonic discs was above 30khz - no idea if special lathes were used to cut these though. i don't think digital delays were ubiquitous, especially not in the 70s- if a recording studio had a mastering setup with a preview head i would assume there is no benefit of removing this head (or removing the tape player entirely) and replacing it with a digital delay.
i'm not an analog purist. i post rips of freaking vinyl on my youtube channel, lol. i do see the appeal in keeping everything analog just to prove how 'good' it can be if done well, but it isn't a requirement for me to enjoy the music - i'd say almost 100% of the stuff i listen to was recorded and produced digitally.
@user-oe5jl6dr3p: Sir, your information is PURE GOLD!!! Thank You !!!!
@JerryRutten: For those who think that it is useful to go beyond 20 kHz, realise that around that frequency our threshold of hearing crosses the threshold of hearing damage.
So, if you’re hearing around that frequency it is not for long, or you will hear it also when it’s not there…
Or stated otherwise, if you take the advice for preventing hearing damage into account, nobody can hear from 20 to 20 kHz.
@yardleylfc: I recently bought a technics 1200 GR Turntable and fitted a mofi mm cartridge stylus totaling £2000.00
I've played vinyl in time with my Linn Akurate ds streamer dac.
Which you can now fetch for 3/4 thousand .
I can honestly say there is nothing in it.
Really no difference.
So I'm probably going to end up buying a magnificent phono stage and get a the tiniest benefit or not.
Seriously though side by side..I could say that perhaps the sonically the streamer was just a tiny bit better.
As for detail..no difference.
Sound stage etc seperestion was the same.
@ltsrecording: Recently I recorded a traditional flute album on Tascam MS16...DDA desk mixdown.....editing studio then required files in digital format 48K 24bit for compiling stereo mixes and running order to create vinyl master cut?? ADA. Pure analog seems almost impossible these days unless we start posting tape reels all over the country again!
@williammurray9055: DSD
@TheJonHolstein: Some of the high frequency during playback on vinyls, seems to only be needle rattle, and actually not content on the vinyl.
@johnheraty3554: For extended frequency response on vinyl I would have thought the old quad JVC CD4 standard with sub-carriers at 33-35kHz proves the frequency responses possible. But conventional Stereo records would have been cut to conform to the RIAA curve with a -20dB/decade 6dB/octave drop giving -20dB down on 1kHz at 21.220kHz, but mastering "buggering about" could bend that eq curve. It always amuses me when fans of one and ardent dislikers of other tech will comment that for instance they prefer the sound of their valve gear, when theirs is probably the only valve their chosen audio will have passed through. Dislikers of Op-amps will conveniently forget that an SSL/Neve/Calrec analogue mixer will have hundreds of very high quality op-amps in the signal chain. How widely known, by the Hifi audiophile buying public would the use of such a lathe been? Have you now made many vinyl enthusiasts look sideways worryingly at their record collection?
@AudioMasterclass replies to @johnheraty3554: Regarding CD4, this opens up such a different topic that it would require a different video. According to a JVC document I have, cutting was done at half speed or less and I don't know whether it ever reached full speed. Also the player needs a Shibata stylus to achieve this frequency response. These two matters take things so far from normal record playing that for me it would not have been appropriate for this video. I may cover quad and other surround formats in future so CD4 will definitely get a mention when I do. DM
@tplayford2006: Problems with this video:
1. The way you speak makes it sound like all vinyl cuttings from 1973 onwards were subject to a digital stage. That's not close to being true. If I, at random, I go and pick 50 vinyl from my collection, I would be very hard pressed (pun intended) to find one singular pressing that was cut in the manner you described.
2. The stats you pulled about vinyl cutting maxing at 25khz is false. I myself, at home, can measure recorded frequency on vinyl up to 60khz... to what extent that is "flat", of course not reliable (perhaps 10db down) , however the information is there. The theoretical maximum is said to be somewhere around 100khz with a dynamic range of 75db... although some cartridge manufacturers will of course claim higher.
Just as a note on 1 above, anyone can test this claim by recording a vinyl to a computer at a sample rate above 44khz, say 88... if said vinyl exhibits no (zero/zilch) information above 22khz, then its verfiably digital, either as you said, by cutting delay or purely by source.
If I look at vinyl cut in the 1990s, more than half will fit this criteria (no frequency above 22khz) but probably less to do with cutting delay more to do with the fact that these albums were recorded in digital. From the 80s, I would say that 5% or less of my collection would fit this rule and from the 1970s, almost none.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @tplayford2006: 1. I didn't say that.
2. You're probably measuring noise.
@tplayford2006 replies to @tplayford2006: @@AudioMasterclass
1. You bascially infer that - and dont explicitly comment to the contrary, so yes you are.
2. No im not. You can see harmonic structure and clear deviations from background noise. Happy to send you as many examples as you like.
I can even take ultrasonic information and slow it down to within hearing range and it has melody, tonality and rhythm... something "noise" doesnt have
@AudioMasterclass replies to @tplayford2006: @@tplayford2006 1. I still didn't say that. 2. Make a YouTube video. If you can prove your case then it will be both interesting and useful. DM
@tplayford2006 replies to @tplayford2006: @@AudioMasterclass Also, considering you are an expert in Audio, you would also know that with vinyl the noise floor (and subsequently the dynamic range) increases dramatically after 500hz, as a majority of the inherent issues with vinyl noise are in the lower octaves due to the physical limitations of playback (namely rumble).
ALSO, how do you think quadraphonic technologies worked (CD4 for example)? They specifically relied on modulations being cut into the groove of a vinyl up to 50khz..
In essence, what you're saying is false.
@tplayford2006 replies to @tplayford2006: @@AudioMasterclass Firstly, very happy to make a video. Secondly, explain to me how Quadraphonic vinyl worked? It literally relied upon, as the basis for the technology, frequency modulation well above 25khz... How can you then say it doesn't exist? Are you claiming the technology was made up?
@martineyles: Would it be terrible to suggest that MP3s (at sufficient bitrate - say variable with an average around 200kbps) sound better than vinyl? Or do I just need a new stylus?
@AudioMasterclass replies to @martineyles: This is debatable. MP3 doesn't have the same issues as vinyl and at 200 kbit/s artefacts should be hard to hear. But then you've thrown away something like four fifths of the data. On the bright side, you'll never need to buy a new stylus. DM
@martineyles: How likely is it that vinyl mastering will involve a digital delay? Did the advanced preview head and pure analog audio path fall out of use? Did the digital tech allow longer delays, and did this improve groove spacing?
@AudioMasterclass replies to @martineyles: It would be difficult to find accurate figures on what percentage of discs are digitally processed. However a web search will reveal mastering studios that use digital delay, and those that don't (where the information is given of course). Regarding groove spacing, there shouldn't be any difference. DM
@RealHomeRecording: I really dislike that virtually all concerts are mixed with digital consoles.
Ironic considering they are much more expensive to attend compared to the 1990s and earlier.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @RealHomeRecording: Sometimes convenience wins, and a digital console is MUCH more convenient than analogue. DM
@peteratlanecove7436: I replaced my vinyl collection with CDs back in the day. Mostly the CDs sounded much better - especially labels such as ECM. Getting rid of the scratches of my Ralph Towner records ... great! But some sounded worse especially my 50s Jazz records, and one Mingus one in particular. I suggest there was a rush to re-master tracks to CD to get new sales. Some of this was just sloppy. Some were remixed to emphasize the dynamic range and became a bit hard to listen to. In some cases the original musicians had died, so could not be acting as the final gate keeper. Perhaps this was part of what started the backlash against CDs? For some records the purists had a point, but it got lost in the argument.
@fredygump5578: LOL on the high frequency stuff. One octave is double the frequency, so from 10khz to 20khz is 1 octave. And 1 octave is 7 whole notes. So if you can hear up to 15khz, you are only missing the highest 3 possible musical notes....and nobody is playing music at such high frequencies anyway. Well, there was (is?) thing about kids downloading ring tones with super high frequencies so their teacher couldn't hear when they got a text, which is the exception that proves the rule.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @fredygump5578: You have a point. I'm not sure it's entirely valid but I'd have to be able to time travel my ears to make a comparison. DM
@fredygump5578: This is interesting history of music reproduction, but if a person is really offended by this, what do they think when the musician makes slight intonation errors, or heaven forbid, makes a tiny mistake? Certainly those things have a bigger impact on the sound of a recording than the technology used to record it? (Yes, I mean recordings done this century....)
@AudioMasterclass replies to @fredygump5578: I'd say that music is better without too many errors, but there has to be some texture. If you listen to recordings made before editing was possible you will hear errors (looking at you Alfred Cortot), but when tape made editing possible, we could enjoy error-free recordings, packed full of edits and some would say not real performances. Digital audio makes editing to extreme precision very easy. The trick is to be able to tell the difference between an error and mere texture. This applies to popular music too. DM
@Mladen-Basic: Maaan. This information is pure gold!
@spandel100: 🤜🤛
@tristramllewellyn8162: Thinking about the end bit. Such debates were heard during transition from Edison gramophone (purely acoustic) to RCA Victor (assisted by electricity) which pre-figure the analogue/digital debate. It's all to some extent sociology, some humans/societies become more fundamentalist than others and people wind up at different ends. All digital media like CD are fundamentally deterministic in what you will get out of the end. In analogue you can push things by making better kit but with falling off and diminishing returns. If there were a reading list I'd suggest 'Perfecting Sound Forever' by Greg Milner especially for the early historical stuff covering up to the naughties.
@Johnny-te4rv: Try saying something about your Muslim Imam blessing your same sex marriage instead of …..
@anjovandijk9797: speaking of contamination by digital processing, what are your thoughts about the Technics su R1000 which processing every signal to digital, does Technics do the right thing or contaminate what is already contaminate.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @anjovandijk9797: In the olden days of pro audio, like the 1970s, people used to worry about the signal going through multiple transformers. One would be OK, but when every output and every input has a transformer surely there's going to be some degradation? The same can be said for video where there may be multiple data compression stages. In principle I'd say that the fewer analogue to digital and digital to analogue conversions the better. In practice, it might not matter. DM
@0-60STYLE: This is why I keep slaves in my basement who play and sing for me the songs I want to hear on real instruments. I don't trust recorded music.
@xprcloud: vinyl in 2023 is a poke in the eye an insult to science, common sense, and all the talented work done in perfecting HiFi. Funny how the analog crowd cry that digital cut their audio into little bits , while their CLASS-AB amplifier literally tears the waveform apart, positive part and negative part being solely driven by 2 set of asymmetrical devices ( NPN & PNP) and then re-assembled at the speaker terminals, with huge amounts of negative feedback to correct the errors in re-assembly
@AudioMasterclass replies to @xprcloud: Very true. I don't know how things now are but it used to be the case that pnp power transistors didn't perform as well as npn. And for tube enthusiasts, there's no such thing as a 'pnp' tube. DM
@carminedambrosio7 replies to @xprcloud: This is because few of the analog crowd know how common amplifiers work (and the less they know about technology, the more they talk about it, out of turn).
@martineyles replies to @xprcloud: Yes, but audiophiles tend to prefer pure class A (and lots of heat dissipation) over class AB.
@xprcloud replies to @xprcloud: @@martineyles Vast majority audiophiles run class-ab and have have no clue what's inside, personally I think class-D trumps everything that came before it ( at least for Hypex,Purify, and ICEPower)
@AudioMasterclass replies to @xprcloud: @@martineyles I don't think that any save-the-planet activists know about Class A yet. But when they do... DM
@graemejwsmith: I can remember some truly dreadful earl Classical Music AAD CD's where some old hissing master tapes were dug out to produce cheap CD's. You could still hear the tape hiss on the CD.
Wings early album - WILD LIFE is another example. The tape hiss is awful on the Vinyl and the CD - though interestingly the 128kbps MP3 floating around the Internet version sounds like a quite different album than the original as the treble has been ALMOST completely suppressed. Though it sounds a bit like someone hit a Dolby switch on a non-Dolby recording. Pretty muddy.
@kFY514: Fun fact: Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" was one of the first albums to be labeled "DDD", and while it indeed used digital machines to record the initial multitrack signals, the stereo mixdown and the final master - there were analog interconnects. The multitrack recording was mixed on an analog mixing board and output of that re-digitized by recording on a digital tape machine. So it should more precisely be labeled as DADD?
Not that it matters all that much. Both digital and analog equipment can be transparent to the ear as long as it's of sufficient quality. Or not, for deliberate artistic effect if desired. Making a selling point of producing a recording with a specific type of tech is just a gimmick, or worse, snobbery.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @kFY514: This is a good point but analogue recording was a much weaker link than analogue mixing so for the time period I think it was best to ignore that the signals travelling through the console were analogue. I'd seriously doubt whether this would bother digital fans today. But an AAA record being mixed through a digital console, well that's going to be unpopular with some. DM
@k1lg0re50: Quoting Wikipedia (Digital recording, timeline section): "January 1971: Using NHK's experimental PCM recording system, Dr. Takeaki Anazawa, an engineer at Denon, records the world's first commercial digital recordings, The World Of Stomu Yamash'ta 1 & 2 by Stomu Yamash'ta (January 11, 1971)...". I think the soundtrack for Disney's "The Black Hole" (1979) was also recorded digitaly.
I became a digital bloke long ago. Now I have everything on a NAS. Giving up pops and clicks was a revolution. I wonder sometimes how Nicolas Cage would be responsible for the vinyl revival, when he says in Michael Bay's "The Rock", when receiving a Beatles LP he definitely paid through the nose for, "Besides, it sounds better". I imagine a legion of youngsters going home after the screening giving their parents' old records a spin to exclaim "He's right!". Ah, psychology, power of suggestion! ;-)
To me vinyl sounds different. It's just a different colour. But those damn pops and clicks... But in the end of the day, everything is analog. When someone plays a digital record a DAC coverts the signal to analog, so what's heard is analog anyway. But wait! According to quantum theory, there's a mimimun amount of time one can measure (OK, it's incredibly tiny). There you go, digital again... ;-) But after all it's all limited by human perception, which varies from one person to the next, but can be averaged. Anything above that is superfluous.
Thank you for your wonderful channel, very informative. I have an unrelated question for you: once in a while I like to spend time looking at the spectrum of recordings, and very often there's a thin line at around 15.6 to .7 KHz. Was it customary to have a CRT telly in the studio? Because that frequency would be related to the line frequency of analog television (15625 Hz for PAL and 15734 Hz for NTSC).
@AudioMasterclass replies to @k1lg0re50: Thank you for your comment. The line scan frequency did have the potential to be a problem, especially when older engineers couldn't hear it. I would presume the CRT built into SSL consoles would have been better designed or better shielded but I've known studios to have closed circuit TV so that could well be the cause. DM
@k1lg0re50 replies to @k1lg0re50: @@AudioMasterclass Thank you for your reply. Maybe one day I'll gather such data from old records, a sort of audio archeology research. Probably not very useful, but potentially funny, who knows... ;-)
@veloxime: About cutting lathes, in the 90s I think, Linn bought two used lathes, reworked them and used them to re-issue some 1960s analog recording on their label. If anyone at Linn reads this, I hope they would comment.
I have one of these records (Ravel Piano concerto and Bartok’s Concerto for orchestra). Linn Records also launched in analog a group called The Blue Nile. These records sound amazingly good, even by today’s standards… on a proper turntable.
@rabarebra: This video is just fantastic. I am on the floor laughing. 🤣
@EgoShredder: A A A......you starting! * said in best Harry Enfield scouse accent * https://youtu.be/HaccLMuLa7o?t=31
@joelcarson4602: I would tend to think of a true, studio quality ADC/DAC chain as basically equivalent to a short length of copper wire these days.
@carljung9230 replies to @joelcarson4602: you could not be more wrong. a really obviously wrong thing.
@mantaproject: And I always thought you listened with your ears... I was seriously wrong. 🙈
@jeremiahchamberlin4499: Your suggestion sounds like a winner to me.
@nelsonnichols922: I am not a purist myself, and as long as the music sounds good, I am personally happy, however, having said that, I do believe that the end-user having spent their hard earned money, deserves to know what they’re buying
@yardleylfc replies to @nelsonnichols922: I recently bought a technics 1200 GR Turntable and fitted a mofi mm cartridge stylus totaling £2000.00
I've played vinyl in time with my Linn Akurate ds streamer dac.
Which you can now fetch for 3/4 thousand .
I can honestly say there is nothing in it.
Really no difference.
So I'm probably going to end up buying a magnificent phono stage and get the tiniest benefit or not.
Seriously though,side by side..I could say that perhaps the sonically the streamer was just a tiny bit better.
As for detail..no difference.
Sound stage etc separation was the same.
@fredashay replies to @nelsonnichols922: Same here!
@ener5361: The Mofi drama proved nobody hears it when there is digital in analog.
@RagedContinuum: I'm looking at my LORD OF THE DANCE cd and see no As or Ds
@michaelturner4457 replies to @RagedContinuum: As Lord of the Dance was produced in 1996, you can very much assume it's DDD.
This whole As or Ds thing is a relic from the recording industry's transition from analogue to digital during the 1980s.
@MistyMusicStudio: So interesting! I'll have to check for the A's and D's next time I'm thrifting for tapes and CDs!
Hey, what's your take on recording above 20k? I'm one of those people that cymbals don't sound right to me on recordings because they're missing the frequencies above 20k... but most speakers don't even play those frequencies, so I've avoided recording them so far, thinking it'd be a waste of time for 999 out of a thousand listeners.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @MistyMusicStudio: I don't think I'll tire of saying that just good enough isn't good enough. If the accepted range of human hearing is up to 20 kHz, then I'd want an octave above that as a safety margin. As storage costs decrease and bandwidth increases I don't see why we can't have that in future. DM
@younghifi: Thanks for the info about the digital delay being applied during the analog mastering stage. Didn't know that.
As you've mentioned frequency responses of tape recorders, record lathes and phono cartridges - it would be great if you'd cover Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) or CD-4 (or discrete) Quadrophonic recordings in the future. The CD-4 standard required a frequency response up to 50kHz and the cartridge+stylus combo had to be able to read that information off the disc. It's why the Shibata stylus profile was originally developed and has had a comeback of sorts ever since the Ortofon 2M Black cartridge.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @younghifi: The special stylus required is why I didn't mention this, nor the half-speed mastering. These are topics I can cover in a future video. DM
@andrejfalout4238 replies to @younghifi: @@AudioMasterclass the "special stylus" you are talking about is Shibata or equivalent. Not very "special" for audiophile discussions in 2023. Also, these days, even the relatively affordable elliptical styli on carts such as Sumiko Evo Special III can reproduce 50kHz well enough for a CD-4 de-modulator to work and I can testify to that. I distinctly remember reading an article few years back about "setting the world record" for highest frequency ever recorded on vinyl ... but cannot remember what that was and cant find it right now. It was probably the Analog Productions peeps or equivalent. From memory there was a photo of guys fiddling with the late in it. Suffice to say I was not particularly surprised so did not pay much attention to it. I have a spectrum analyzer permanently attached to my Perreaux phono preamp and I regularly see music content up to 90kHZ in particular on live recorded Jazz and classical records from 60s and 70s. I mean, vinyl, for young people. Records. The thin round things you put on the thing that spins and has a "needle" (Could not resist, sorry)
@martineyles replies to @younghifi: @@andrejfalout4238 Is it music content or harmonic distortion?
@insurrectionindustries1706: 😂your image of vinyl fans is hilariously right on and made me laugh out loud. Mostly because I am one but also try not to take myself too seriously. Love the videos!
@paulduggan5323: I was first drawn to your channel fairly recently by your presentation on why I should stop listening to vinyl. I was much intrigued but concluded that everything you said was in the main stuff I knew and accepted to be something that just goes with the territory. It did make me think “Oh Mr negativity“ until your next presentation told me why I should stop buying CDs. Consequently I found myself completely immersed by your much entertaining broadcasting style and brain-size-of-a-planet knowledge. So I find myself realising you are not Mr negative but Mr reality. As a hobbyist, composer, recording artist, tracking engineer, mixing engineer and mastering engineer I find your broadcasts, not just welcoming, but heart rate increasing each time I see you have posted a new chapter.
Here, once again, you deliver a thumping, good broadcast, well interpretable and understood by a hack such as myself. I encourage you most heartily to keep up the good work Mr reality. I look forward to further education which allows me as an analogous consumer of audio (was that the phrase you were looking for?) with a place for digital in my life to rest easy in the knowledge that perfection is not an issue in the world of audio reproduction. I await in ridiculous anticipation of your next offering and all those to follow. I hear you loud and clear. Thank you and love to Bette.
PS AAAA & AADA works for me 😊, I have long since believed there should be an obligation for record sleeves to show a precise lineage. I arrived at this conclusion after recently treating myself to an “upgrade“ of Tubular Bells, the very instant that playback ensued I realised I was effectively listening to a compact disc! Armed with my compact brain I shall happily plough on as a disciple of yours and to the beauty of vinyl which when expertly executed makes a Miles Davis trumpet sound like a trumpet as opposed to the veiled digital approximation perceived via digital within said compact brain. Thanks again, I award you a full AAAA/DDDD (delete as applicable) ranking for entertainment and knowledge. 👍
@AudioMasterclass replies to @paulduggan5323: Brain the size of a planet? I don't think I'd even match a minor asteroid. DM
@poofygoof replies to @paulduggan5323: I like to think of the newer Tubular Bells as a new performance of it. Mike Oldfield was directly involved, so there's no question that the result wasn't what the artist intended.
The only digital interfaces to my brain are attached to my hands, so if you're like me, you're stuck with an analogue of whatever your signal transducers are passing through the air regardless of the playback media.
@AudioMasterclass replies to @paulduggan5323: @@poofygoof It raises the question whether the new Mike Oldfield is the authentic Mike Oldfield. This is a problem in classical music where composers would often revise their works. Sometimes the revised version is clearly better. Or it can just cause massive confusion, looking at you Bruckner. DM
@martineyles replies to @paulduggan5323: @@AudioMasterclass Perhaps it should have 4 different names, like a Dvorak symphony.