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From: good@pixar (Craig Good: U.S. Olympic Balkan Dirt Diving Team)
Newsgroups: net.audio,net.rumor
Subject: Re: CD vs vinyl (long, sorry)
Message-ID: <2743@pixar.pixar>
Date: Tue, 29-Apr-86 20:37:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: pixar.2743
Posted: Tue Apr 29 20:37:52 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 22:05:37 EDT
References: <2679@pixar.pixar> <297@uthub.UUCP>
Reply-To: good@pixar.UUCP (Craig Good: U.S. Olympic Balkan Dirt Diving Team)
Organization: Pixar -- Marin County, California
Lines: 130
Xref: watmath net.audio:8332 net.rumor:2092

In article <297@uthub.UUCP> koko@uthub.UUCP (M. Kokodyniak) writes:
>	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.

That's just what I said also.  CDs make a good consumer product.

>In fact, perception of hearing is also poor --
>probably no one can discern musical pitch above 20 kHz.

"Probably."  I was talking mainly about transients, not steady-state stuff.

>	But despite all of this, what makes you think that even the best
>turntable can reproduce signals above 20 kHz accurately?

Which evidence would you like?  The stuff I saw on the oscilliscope or the
CD-4 quadraphonic standard which used 50 KHz pilot tones and which worked on
cheap, consumer-grade gear?

>	But even if a turntable behaved better than a compact disk
>player above 20 kHz...

It does, ipso facto, since the CD has nothing but residual garbage above 20K.

>...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.

"Excessive slew rates"?  Says who?  Anyway, if your amp falls apart in the
20 KHz octave it is worse than cheap, it is a crock.  I'll bet a nickel
that the $1.39 worth of headphone amp in a Sony Walkman does better than you
think most consumer gear does.

>	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.

Specs, schmecs.  I know compression when I hear it.  One of the real weaknesses
of all digital audio schemes of which I know is that they have exactly 0 db
of headroom.  If your music goes, for even a fraction of a second, a mere .5
db above that level you get horrible distortions.  Analog systems can, and often
do, have 12 to 20 db of dynamic headroom.  The distortions increases gradually,
and is generally even-order (as opposed to the odd-order you get when digital
clips).  The distortion is also spectrally related to the music making it even
less noticable and objectionable.  Analog systems also allow useful listening
a good 15 db below the noise "floor".  A properly dithered digital system only
gets you 2 or 3 db down there.

(A note on hiss at the symphony, and skipping needles:  You can't go hear a live performance without
hiss.  It's called room rumble, and there is lots of it everywhere you go.  Hiss
is a normal, natural part of life, and when it is kept to low levels it is easy
to ignore.  Everyone values different performance areas when evaluating the
musical performance of audio gear.  I value dynamic behaviour (range, tracking,
damping, etc) very highly.  Not even the digital master tapes I heard were as
satisfying in those areas as a decent record.  They were best described as
"really good cassettes without hiss".  Also, my system has a stylus, and my
stylus never skips unless the record is defective or severely damaged.  I might
add that the highs are cleaner than CDs I've heard, and that my lowly tweeters
work rather nicely to at least 27 KHz, thank you.  Good ones hit 35 KHz before
even rolling off.)

An absolutely perfectly mastered CD could give you 96 db of dynamic range, but
since you absolutely cannot afford clipping -- and since the dynamic range of
a typical orchestra performance can give you +15db excursions without even
breathing hard -- you are going to lower the average level by 15 db.  You are
now spending most of your time around the 81 db S/N area (still quite good).
If you allow vinyl a modest 65 db, with a modest +12 db headroom and an equally
modest -9 db useable information below the "floor", you come up with a useable
dynamic range of about 86 db.  I think I was kind enough to the CD and
conservative enough with the phono pickup that we don't have to argue the
numbers much.  The point is that CDs aren't quite as good as claimed, and
records have more spunk than they are credited.

>	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.

This is your opinion.  Nobody has come close to measuring how "good" something
sounds, so I fail to see you you can claim it as a technological fact, whatever
a technological fact is supposed to be.

> 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.

What can I say?  I've heard it.  It wasn't even a race.  But this brings up
an important point, and the reason why I plan to make this my last posting
on the subject:  I can't play the stuff I hear on the reference system to
which I have access on the net.  No amount of explaining will convince anybody
that A sounds like Q but B sounds like Y.  Gosh, it's been fun though.  Go
out and buy your CDs, enjoy them, take full advantage of the many truly
wonderful things they can do.  Be happy.  Don't listen to master tapes on a
$100,000 stereo.

It's into the sunset for me and my out-moded relics, hissing and popping our
way into the void.


-- 
		--Craig
		...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good