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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!uthub!koko
From: koko@uthub.UUCP (M. Kokodyniak)
Newsgroups: net.audio,net.rumor
Subject: Re: CD vs vinyl (long, sorry)
Message-ID: <297@uthub.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Apr-86 13:28:21 EST
Article-I.D.: uthub.297
Posted: Fri Apr 25 13:28:21 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Apr-86 15:19:19 EST
References: <2679@pixar.pixar>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 137

> 
> 	It is not at all obvious that I haven't heard a CD.  I've heard some
> of the best.  The author's references to needles and automatic turntables,
> on the other hand, seem to indicate a certain lack of experience with the
> state of the turntable art since the mid 1970's or so.
> 
	Wait a minute!  I did not say that ALL modern turntables are
difficult to operate.  Some are, but some aren't.  Nevertheless, the ones
which the average person can afford are likely not to be entirely state of
the art.  Furthermore, most average people have turntables which were
bought years ago and which ARE awkward to use, compared to the most
recent ones.  So most CD players, on this point alone, are very attractive
to the average person, since they are easy to handle.  Furthermore, there
are players under $400 that have only the basic features so that those
who don't want them don't need to spend the extra money on them.

> 	Since when have CDs been inherently inferior in areas essential to
> high-fidelity?  Since their inception, I'm afraid.  The people designing and
> selling digital audio are clinging slavishly to the idea that all the bandwidth
> you need is 20 KHz.  This is based on steady-state tone tests done in the 1940's
> for crying out loud.  Recent tests run on modern equipment in Europe have
> indicated that many people under many conditions can hear sine waves into the
> 40 KHz range.  But even that is irrelevant to a point.  The human auditory
> system is very sensitive to slew rate, or transient response.  The steepness
> of the leading edge of a pulse is very easy to discern.
> 
	Yes, but the human threshold of hearing is several orders of
magnitude higher above 20 kHz then it is below 5 kHz.  This means that
sounds over 20 kHz have to be fairly loud to even be detected by the human
ear.  Furthermore, the threshold of pain and the threshold of hearing
tend to converge over 20 kHz.  Keep in mind that people cannot tell between
different waveforms waves above 20 kHz because the harmonics of a 20-kHz
arbitrary periodic waveform are 40 kHz, 60 kHz, etc.   What I am trying
to say is that although human hearing may indeed extend past 20 kHz, it
is poorly defined at best.  In fact, perception of hearing is also poor --
probably no one can discern musical pitch above 20 kHz.
	But despite all of this, what makes you think that even the best
turntable can reproduce signals above 20 kHz accurately?  At those frequencies,
the instantaneous velocity of the needle becomes great enough to both
plastically and elastically deform vinyl.  This is evidenced by the
scratchy quality a record will attain after even a few plays.  Even
worse, a maladjusted tone arm and cartridge can damage a record after
one play.  No such problems occur with compact disks.

> 	When you translate the transient response needed to reproduce sounds
> found in real, acoustic music such as bells, plucked strings and other
> percussive instruments into a sine wave type bandwidth you get numbers way the
> heck up in the many hundreds of KHz.  CD players are falling apart well below
> 20 KHz, and they rapidly fall into the mush above that figure.  Finer phono
> cartridges behave quite reasonably up to the 500 KHz region in this respect.
> 
	This last statement is nonsense, as I have explained above.  Indeed
the CARTRIDGE may behave well at 100 kHz, but VINYL does not!  Therefore,
a system consisting of a cartridge and vinyl will not behave well at 100 kHz.
(I could only believe that a cartridge could behave well above 100 kHz if
the test signal were directly mechanically coupled from the test transducer
to the cartridge.)
	But even if a turntable behaved better than a compact disk
player above 20 kHz, most amplifiers that most average people have
cannot handle the extra bandwidth anyway.  The filters in most amplifiers
and preamplifiers, which incidently protect the power electronics in the
amplifier from excessive slew rates or switching losses (as in PWM amps),
cause severe attenutation and phase distortion above 20 kHz.  Tweeters
also do nasty things above 20 kHz, since they behave as electromechanical
filters.

> 	Also, for what ever reason, when you compare a CD to a good phono
> reproduction chain the CD sounds very dynamically compressed: dynamics in
> the music are simply lost.  Please don't flame about "96 db dynamic range".
> For one thing, that is the S/N, not the dynamic range (we aren't talking math,
> we're talking music, remember).  For another, useful information is available
> deep into the noise floor of an analog system, so the dynamic range can be
> greater than 100 db without much trouble.

	WHAT?!!!  The dynamic range of a compact disk far exceeds that
of a turntable.	 Just compare the specs between any CD player and a good
turntable.  But maybe you like hissing in the background during
soft passages in a symphony; maybe you like high-frequency distortion
and skipping needles because of overexcursions.  I have heard A-B tests
done between a record and the same material on a compact disk.
I would choose the CD on basis of dynamic range alone.  I would also
choose the CD on the basis of noise alone.
> 
> 	As for un-measurable equating to un-audible, this is pure hokum.  For
> years and years new measurements have been coming along and identifying
> previously audible phenomena.  It is still possible to hear things you can't
> measure.  Unless you take an oscilliscope with you to the symphony you should
> prioritize that which you can hear above that which you can measure.  This
> doesn't mean that measurements aren't an extremely valuable thing.

	This may be true of such things as phase distortion or the like,
but immeasurable wow and flutter mean inaudible wow and flutter.  But
nevertheless, CD's have lower wow and flutter than any turntable.
> 
> 	Many of the points made by the above author are quite valid, and I
> never said they weren't.  But most of them indicate that the CD player is
> a better consumer product than the turntable.  No big argument there.  CDs do
> now represent a good value as a convenience medium, and their longetivity is
> truly one of ther greatest assets.  I only object to people touting them as
> state of the art in audio reproduction, because they just aren't.  They are
> simply an alternative which has both advantages and disadvantages compared to a
> competing technology.  It is sad that the Japanese industrial complex has
> succeeded in evoking such a religiously zealous devotion to their marketing
> efforts.

	CD's may be just an alternative now, while many people still value
their investments in record collections.  But CD's or successive technologies
are the way of the future.  Turntables are archaic, just like steam engines
or vacuum tubes.  Just as you cannot make vacuum tubes as small as active
elements in an integrated circuit, you cannot make a turntable as good as
a compact disk.  This is a technological fact.  I may sound like I love
compact disks with an almost zealous passion while I hate records just as
much.  But in reality, all of my technical experience and, most importantly
of all, my hearing and musical perception tell me that compact disks are,
both inherently and in performance, better than records.
> 
> 	If you are spending under half a kilobuck or so on a signal source they
> are an extremely attractive alternative.  If you can afford more money and more
> hassle you can musically blow them out of the water, surface noise and all,
> with a costlier turntable system.  Ferrari's have always been more of a bother
> than Datsuns.

	Do you mean that the best turntable can "blow out of the water" the
best CD player?  I seriosly doubt this.  A "costlier turntable system" might
be like a Ferrari, but a cheap system is like a Datsun.  A CD-based system
is not powered by gasoline but by a warp-drive system, and is hence more like
a space vehicle out of the future.  (You may well argue that the CD standard
could be improved, but this is not the point.  Besides, you have to draw the
line somewhere, between a practical system and one which has specs twice
as good and costs twice as much but only seems 1.05 times as good.)
> 
> 
> 		--Craig
> 		...ucbvax!pixar!good


			Mike Kokodyniak