If turntables and vinyl suffer from problems that make them difficult to accept as a medium for playing music properly, then so does CD and digital replay systems.
There is no perfect solution, poor/low sampling means that a lot of people cannot accept CD replay as they (claim they) can hear digital distortions, dither and artifacts, amongst other problems. Whereas other people claim that ticks/pops, wow/flutter, over modulation and other errors make listing to vinyl a chore.
It is completely a matter of personal preference. Myself, I actually have no problem with either the analogue or digital domain and happily listen THROUGH all the problems to find the performance and music that I find enjoyable.
I went to a concert on Saturday, and found problems with the sound even there, simply as a result of the mixing and amplification - but I refused to let myself be distracted by it, and thoroughly enjoyed Fairport Convention's performance.
There is no perfect solution, poor/low sampling means that a lot of people cannot accept CD replay as they (claim they) can hear digital distortions, dither and artifacts, amongst other problems. Whereas other people claim that ticks/pops, wow/flutter, over modulation and other errors make listing to vinyl a chore.
Some of those things are present on MP3 because it's compressed but not on CD. The most common complaint I hear about CD is that it is cold - i.e. accurate.
Some of those things are present on MP3 because it's compressed but not on CD. The most common complaint I hear about CD is that it is cold - i.e. accurate.
Rubbish. They are present on every type of digitally recorded media, audio & visual. Just because YOU (and many others) can't hear it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I have records and cds of the same material, whereby some of the performance (ie individual instruments within an orchestra) are simply missing on the CD, but are clearly audible on LP. It rarely goes the other way. Ripping said LPs in a so called "uncompressed" digital format promply ensures those instruments are missing again.
If you build a CD player with poor or unsuitable components, you'll get rubbish sound. Just as you would if you built a turntable with poor or unsuitable components. What I'm saying is, just because a CD player has technically better specifications does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean it's going to sound better. Poor design and manufacturing standards are likely to blight either replay system.
On the whole, record players sound better these days because those that really care about listening demand and expect quality design and components. Notwithstanding those awful things designed for the one off-rip of a record to the digital domain. Vinyl records are also made with a great deal of care these days.
Either way, both systems require a decent analogue sound system to reproduce the actual sound, otherwise all you'll get is nothing but a noise approximating music. While digital speakers do exist, they simply aren't good enough - yet.
In the bullitted list given by someone on page 1 of this thread, all the issues raised were issues that need to be taken into account when designing an analogue replay system. A similar, and just as extensive list could be drawn up for digital replay systems. Making such lists simply obfuscate and are purely designed to denigrate a particular system, while contributing nothing to the real argument.
Whatever, the final choice rests with the listener him/herself.
Rubbish. They are present on every type of digitally recorded media, audio & visual. Just because YOU (and many others) can't hear it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
No you're just fooling yourself - a very common trait with audiophiles. Yes you can have a bad CD if the original recording was bad but the format itself is very high quality much more so than vinyl.
You can get cheap and bad CD players but good CD players are very common and are a much more accurate source than record players.
No, I'm not fooling myself at all. Maybe you are in believing that CD reproduction is perfect (a very common trait amongst those who think that perfection exits). It isn't, but then neither is vinyl.
Currently there is no perfect way to record audio. The sample rate is far too low, and was set in the red book too low from the start.
One day, a new consumer system will emerge with a much higher sample rate and larger bit depth that will be much better able to cope, but until that day we are stuck with a compromised sample rate that is way too low and an undersized bit depth.
The processing ability for higher resolution recordings is there now, but it requires a change in standards and an increase in storage space. CD has pretty much reached its total capacity and moving to an audio replay system based on, say, DVD devoted to the same amount of replay time maybe the way to go.
But, of course, that will only be relevant for new recordings, or recordings that were made on multichannel analogue tapes.
As I keep say, for the time being, listen to whatever you like best. I find Vinyl and CD acceptable for my listening pleasure. I don't have "golden ears". But I understand there are those who can hear the differences, and they've sometimes been able to highlight a shortcoming I normally wouldn't notice, but which to them ruins their listening experience.
Remember, there's no such thing as a "lossless" digital recording system. By it's very nature part of the performance is completely missed - simply because it isn't sampled at a high enough ratio (and of course, by definition, there will never be a lossless digital recording system - just one that exceeds everyone's ability to sense the problems).
No, I'm not fooling myself at all. Maybe you are in believing that CD reproduction is perfect (a very common trait amongst those who think that perfection exits). It isn't, but then neither is vinyl.
I never said it was perfect just that most of the problems you listed did not apply to it to the extent that you infer.
Currently there is no perfect way to record audio. The sample rate is far too low, and was set in the red book too low from the start.
The current sample rate is set that it is much higher than the vast majority of the population (especially adult men) would have a problem with.
It's ironic that the people who are most likely to state the sample rate as a problem are adult men (who are not usually affected) whereas children who could have a problem never complain about it. Most musicians for example are not audiophiles because they listen to the music rather than the sound system.
Remember, there's no such thing as a "lossless" digital recording system. By it's very nature part of the performance is completely missed - simply because it isn't sampled at a high enough ratio (and of course, by definition, there will never be a lossless digital recording system - just one that exceeds everyone's ability to sense the problems).
That same proviso applies to analogue as there is no truly continuous analogue recording method, it is always a case of the recording being beyond someone's capability to sense any problems - this applies to both audio and video. The sample rate of CD is enough, the number of bits could definitely be improved but is still pretty decent.
I can copy an LP onto a CD-R, and the sound of that CD-R is completely indistinguishable from the original LP.
Proving that CDs are more than capable of reproducing the sound of vinyl - but of course vinyl isn't quite capable of reproducing the sound of a CD!
Whether any given commercial CD sounds better than any given commercial LP depends on how they were mastered. It has little to do with the format. They're both more than good enough for pop music, if replayed well.
Remember, there's no such thing as a "lossless" digital recording system. By it's very nature part of the performance is completely missed - simply because it isn't sampled at a high enough ratio (and of course, by definition, there will never be a lossless digital recording system - just one that exceeds everyone's ability to sense the problems).
It may miss parts of the sound wave but it doesn't just spit out 44100 samples a second. The processing looks at what has gone before it's current sample and what is coming up then guesses or interpolates what it thinks the wave should be based on an algorythm. So whereas the emerging sound wave may not be an exact reprodution of the original it'll be close enough and probably closer than the distorted and coloured vinyl version. But it'll have the advantages of a better SNR and therefore better dynamics etc.
Most recording studios these days use 24 bit 96kHz recording techniques. So even to us mere mortals listening on 44.1kHz 16 bity set ups it sounds better than it used to. It's analgeous to HD tv, I don't have one but appreciate it as down scaled HD>SD pics look better than even the best SD pics.
lets face it - gramophones and needles are only for Luddites
we wasted all our money on this stuff - and worse still we have to get up and change the LP every 20 minutes or so.
merely so we can wallow in a superlative listening experience -
just one thing
can the CD lovers just confirm at which position on the bits per second sampling level the sound changes from being rank and absolutely terrible, to the divine "like being there" experience.
and just confirm that expensive CD stuff like Naim, Meridian and the like are exactly the same to listen to as any budget CD player, or even a budget play anything DVD player, or indeed my computer DVD writer - cause its only bits of data isnt it.
All CD players have error correction chips which fill in unreadable data with frequencies sampled from the surrounding sound. It's probably rarely the case that anyone hears exactly what is recorded on their CD, so there's nothing lossless about it. As the CD player pickup starts to misalign through use, even if slightly, more and more read errors occur until it clips the error correction capability and it starts to skip, and ultimately displays 'disc out' and refuses to read discs at all unless they are visually perfect with no scratches.
I rarely listen to vinyl these days, mainly because my music listening tends to be a CD or MP3 while online, but whenever I do listen to vinyl after a bit of a lay off the reaction is always the same as it was the first time I got myself a hi-fi deck - bloody hell! It sounds so involving, dare I say it, so musical. I think it varies considerably with the type of music though; a classical piece would always sound better on CD, and electronic music is better suited to digital playback. Likewise you can tailor the hi-fi equipment to the type of music you most often listen to, and from that there's no such thing as a hi-fi system which will reproduce all music better than any other, it's always horses for courses. But give me a dance single or some potent female vocalist and vinyl always sounds better. Most DJs prefer vinyl, and it isn't just so they can cue better or scratch, they prefer the sound.
When you experience a thunderstorm you not only hear within an acoustic range you also feel subsonic vibrations travelling through the floor, and they affect the ambience of the listening environment as they interact with audible soundwaves. Standard CD only reproduces sounds within the human hearing range, leaving your other senses dulled. That I think is why they can sound so sterile, unless they are mastered, as many have been for over 20 years since bitstream was introduced, to sound more like analogue and to be warmer for it. They toned down the high frequency tizz, the brightness of CD, and made them sound deeper and 'darker' as a stopgap until SACD was introduced (and failed to establish itself.) In listening tests I did many years ago when I was a bit of a hi-fi freak I thought vinyl reproduced the sound of a thunderstorm better, but the sound of a Chieftain tank firing was phenomenal on CD because of the instantanous acceleration of digital sound from near silence.
We speak and sing in analogue sounds, we are not digital robots, so with our ears and emotionality already tuned to analogue it shouldn't be surprising that many prefer that in recorded sound.
lets face it - gramophones and needles are only for Luddites
we wasted all our money on this stuff - and worse still we have to get up and change the LP every 20 minutes or so.
merely so we can wallow in a superlative listening experience -
just one thing
can the CD lovers just confirm at which position on the bits per second sampling level the sound changes from being rank and absolutely terrible, to the divine "like being there" experience.
The 44.1KHz sampling seems fine, perhaps they should lower it to make it sound more like a record?.
and just confirm that expensive CD stuff like Naim, Meridian and the like are exactly the same to listen to as any budget CD player, or even a budget play anything DVD player, or indeed my computer DVD writer - cause its only bits of data isnt it.
As far as I'm aware the main difference in overly expensive CD players is the analogue processing - where it's designed to 'colour' the sound and make it sound less pure.
and just confirm that expensive CD stuff like Naim, Meridian and the like are exactly the same to listen to as any budget CD player, or even a budget play anything DVD player, or indeed my computer DVD writer - cause its only bits of data isnt it.
If it's a halfway decent transport then the digital output should be the same on any player. It's only the analogue stages where there'd be a noticable difference in quality.
I too used to subscribe to the "vinyl is better" philosophy, believing that it had a warmer and more natural sound. But as CDs became better produced and mastered I realised that what I had perceived as better sound was in fact due to anomolies with the frequency response of my decks. Yes it was perhaps more of a natural sound, but it was not a faithful reproduction of the original music.
I had to admit a harsh truth: a modest CD system playing a well-produced disc will in every single case outperform even the best turntables.
It may miss parts of the sound wave but it doesn't just spit out 44100 samples a second. The processing looks at what has gone before it's current sample and what is coming up then guesses or interpolates what it thinks the wave should be based on an algorythm. So whereas the emerging sound wave may not be an exact reprodution of the original it'll be close enough and probably closer than the distorted and coloured vinyl version. But it'll have the advantages of a better SNR and therefore better dynamics etc.
Most recording studios these days use 24 bit 96kHz recording techniques. So even to us mere mortals listening on 44.1kHz 16 bity set ups it sounds better than it used to. It's analgeous to HD tv, I don't have one but appreciate it as down scaled HD>SD pics look better than even the best SD pics.
It doesn't even need to guess what is in between as at 44.kHz it is possible (assuming infinite bit length) to exactly recreate a signal including frequencies up to 22kHz though 20kHz is achieved because anti aliasing filters are not perfect. Obviously we only have 16 bits for CD which is still pretty good but using 24 bits has a far bigger impact than the use of 96kHz though using 96kHz has other benefits such as easier to design analogue circuitry.
It doesn't even need to guess what is in between as at 44.kHz it is possible (assuming infinite bit length) to exactly recreate a signal including frequencies up to 22kHz though 20kHz is achieved because anti aliasing filters are not perfect. Obviously we only have 16 bits for CD which is still pretty good but using 24 bits has a far bigger impact than the use of 96kHz though using 96kHz has other benefits such as easier to design analogue circuitry.
Well I know it doesn't 'guess' bob but as it has no sample for point x on the waveform the machine looks forwards and backwards to decide what the binary value should be...but I couldn't be bothered typing it so guess was quicker!
Am I correct in thinking that the reason we brick wall filter a CD at 20hz is because the dither noise is dumped above 20k?
Well I know it doesn't 'guess' bob but as it has no sample for point x on the waveform the machine looks forwards and backwards to decide what the binary value should be...but I couldn't be bothered typing it so guess was quicker!
Am I correct in thinking that the reason we brick wall filter a CD at 20hz is because the dither noise is dumped above 20k?
No, you 'brickwall' filter due to anti-aliasing, check out Nyquist theorem - you don't want any signal (either record or playback) above that limit.
No, you 'brickwall' filter due to anti-aliasing, check out Nyquist theorem - you don't want any signal (either record or playback) above that limit.
I understand Nyquist Nige, and according to his theory CDs should go up to 22 or so kHz if we're sampling at 44kHz.
But if memory serves we brickwall at 20 kHz because we can't hear it so it's an ideal place to put the noise created by dithering. So stick it at 21-22kHz and then chop it off.
I understand Nyquist Nige, and according to his theory CDs should go up to 22 or so kHz if we're sampling at 44kHz.
But if memory serves we brickwall at 20 kHz because we can't hear it so it's an ideal place to put the noise created by dithering. So stick it at 21-22kHz and then chop it off.
It makes sense to filter somewhat below the Nyquist limit, filters aren't perfect, and the further below you can filter, the more attenuation you will have by the Nyquist point.
It would be nice to sample a LOT higher, and still filter at 20KHz, which would make the filtering a lot easier - but who wants albums to come on two or more CD's, and probably sound no different anyway.
It makes sense to filter somewhat below the Nyquist limit, filters aren't perfect, and the further below you can filter, the more attenuation you will have by the Nyquist point.
It would be nice to sample a LOT higher, and still filter at 20KHz, which would make the filtering a lot easier - but who wants albums to come on two or more CD's, and probably sound no different anyway.
Unless you're in to seriously high-end hi-fi, you would never notice the difference any, as you say.
The great John Peel was once asked by a listener as to why he kept playing vinyl, with all the surface noise, when he could play CDs and have no background noise. His reply was, "Life is full of surface noise", and there is a great deal of that on this thread!:rolleyes:
Both formats have their merits and their drawbacks, but for me it's the music that is more important whether it is played on vinyl or CD - and I still play both.
but who wants albums to come on two or more CD's, and probably sound no different anyway.
Those who don't mind having it on a different format, like DVD or blu-ray disks, where the capacity is much higher. Or better a solid state memory format.
a while ago a decent rega 3 t/t setup used to blow away a half decent cd sysyem,never mind a well set linn naim system,anyway its not about the hardware its about enjoying the music,
like they say garbage in equals garbage out,get your system set up right and make sure u are not listening to distorsion,stop listening to the hifi and listen to the music :yawn: :yawn::sleep:
Eric Clapton and Creams Strange Brew sounds much better on vinyl
I'd just like to make it clear that I am not stuck in the 70s. I have 300 quids worth of CD player and 400 quids worth of amp and some Mordant Short speakers. I do listen to stuff on CD, but its obvious from the comments that some music does sound better on Vinyl. Why this is seems to vary...but it sounds better thats for sure.
Eric Clapton and Creams Strange Brew sounds much better on vinyl
I'd just like to make it clear that I am not stuck in the 70s. I have 300 quids worth of CD player and 400 quids worth of amp and some Mordant Short speakers. I do listen to stuff on CD, but its obvious from the comments that some music does sound better on Vinyl. Why this is seems to vary...but it sounds better thats for sure.
No what the comments mean is that these people feel it sounds better on vinyl. Audio enjoyment is subjective so this is perfectly reasonable but don't make an absolute out of something that is a personal preference.
What is clear and has been said in this thread many times is that record cartridges add harmonic distortion that many people find pleasurable. What is less clear is whether this is because those people grew up with records (and so notice the missing distortions and so get an achy feeling when the fidelity is better) or just expect records to be better (placebo) or this is a genuine improvement which could easily be added to CD players to make them sound like records.
Comments
If turntables and vinyl suffer from problems that make them difficult to accept as a medium for playing music properly, then so does CD and digital replay systems.
There is no perfect solution, poor/low sampling means that a lot of people cannot accept CD replay as they (claim they) can hear digital distortions, dither and artifacts, amongst other problems. Whereas other people claim that ticks/pops, wow/flutter, over modulation and other errors make listing to vinyl a chore.
It is completely a matter of personal preference. Myself, I actually have no problem with either the analogue or digital domain and happily listen THROUGH all the problems to find the performance and music that I find enjoyable.
I went to a concert on Saturday, and found problems with the sound even there, simply as a result of the mixing and amplification - but I refused to let myself be distracted by it, and thoroughly enjoyed Fairport Convention's performance.
Some of those things are present on MP3 because it's compressed but not on CD. The most common complaint I hear about CD is that it is cold - i.e. accurate.
I have records and cds of the same material, whereby some of the performance (ie individual instruments within an orchestra) are simply missing on the CD, but are clearly audible on LP. It rarely goes the other way. Ripping said LPs in a so called "uncompressed" digital format promply ensures those instruments are missing again.
If you build a CD player with poor or unsuitable components, you'll get rubbish sound. Just as you would if you built a turntable with poor or unsuitable components. What I'm saying is, just because a CD player has technically better specifications does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean it's going to sound better. Poor design and manufacturing standards are likely to blight either replay system.
On the whole, record players sound better these days because those that really care about listening demand and expect quality design and components. Notwithstanding those awful things designed for the one off-rip of a record to the digital domain. Vinyl records are also made with a great deal of care these days.
Either way, both systems require a decent analogue sound system to reproduce the actual sound, otherwise all you'll get is nothing but a noise approximating music. While digital speakers do exist, they simply aren't good enough - yet.
In the bullitted list given by someone on page 1 of this thread, all the issues raised were issues that need to be taken into account when designing an analogue replay system. A similar, and just as extensive list could be drawn up for digital replay systems. Making such lists simply obfuscate and are purely designed to denigrate a particular system, while contributing nothing to the real argument.
Whatever, the final choice rests with the listener him/herself.
You can get cheap and bad CD players but good CD players are very common and are a much more accurate source than record players.
Currently there is no perfect way to record audio. The sample rate is far too low, and was set in the red book too low from the start.
One day, a new consumer system will emerge with a much higher sample rate and larger bit depth that will be much better able to cope, but until that day we are stuck with a compromised sample rate that is way too low and an undersized bit depth.
The processing ability for higher resolution recordings is there now, but it requires a change in standards and an increase in storage space. CD has pretty much reached its total capacity and moving to an audio replay system based on, say, DVD devoted to the same amount of replay time maybe the way to go.
But, of course, that will only be relevant for new recordings, or recordings that were made on multichannel analogue tapes.
As I keep say, for the time being, listen to whatever you like best. I find Vinyl and CD acceptable for my listening pleasure. I don't have "golden ears". But I understand there are those who can hear the differences, and they've sometimes been able to highlight a shortcoming I normally wouldn't notice, but which to them ruins their listening experience.
Remember, there's no such thing as a "lossless" digital recording system. By it's very nature part of the performance is completely missed - simply because it isn't sampled at a high enough ratio (and of course, by definition, there will never be a lossless digital recording system - just one that exceeds everyone's ability to sense the problems).
The current sample rate is set that it is much higher than the vast majority of the population (especially adult men) would have a problem with.
It's ironic that the people who are most likely to state the sample rate as a problem are adult men (who are not usually affected) whereas children who could have a problem never complain about it. Most musicians for example are not audiophiles because they listen to the music rather than the sound system.
That same proviso applies to analogue as there is no truly continuous analogue recording method, it is always a case of the recording being beyond someone's capability to sense any problems - this applies to both audio and video. The sample rate of CD is enough, the number of bits could definitely be improved but is still pretty decent.
I can copy an LP onto a CD-R, and the sound of that CD-R is completely indistinguishable from the original LP.
Proving that CDs are more than capable of reproducing the sound of vinyl - but of course vinyl isn't quite capable of reproducing the sound of a CD!
Whether any given commercial CD sounds better than any given commercial LP depends on how they were mastered. It has little to do with the format. They're both more than good enough for pop music, if replayed well.
Cheers,
David.
It may miss parts of the sound wave but it doesn't just spit out 44100 samples a second. The processing looks at what has gone before it's current sample and what is coming up then guesses or interpolates what it thinks the wave should be based on an algorythm. So whereas the emerging sound wave may not be an exact reprodution of the original it'll be close enough and probably closer than the distorted and coloured vinyl version. But it'll have the advantages of a better SNR and therefore better dynamics etc.
Most recording studios these days use 24 bit 96kHz recording techniques. So even to us mere mortals listening on 44.1kHz 16 bity set ups it sounds better than it used to. It's analgeous to HD tv, I don't have one but appreciate it as down scaled HD>SD pics look better than even the best SD pics.
we wasted all our money on this stuff - and worse still we have to get up and change the LP every 20 minutes or so.
merely so we can wallow in a superlative listening experience -
just one thing
can the CD lovers just confirm at which position on the bits per second sampling level the sound changes from being rank and absolutely terrible, to the divine "like being there" experience.
and just confirm that expensive CD stuff like Naim, Meridian and the like are exactly the same to listen to as any budget CD player, or even a budget play anything DVD player, or indeed my computer DVD writer - cause its only bits of data isnt it.
I rarely listen to vinyl these days, mainly because my music listening tends to be a CD or MP3 while online, but whenever I do listen to vinyl after a bit of a lay off the reaction is always the same as it was the first time I got myself a hi-fi deck - bloody hell! It sounds so involving, dare I say it, so musical. I think it varies considerably with the type of music though; a classical piece would always sound better on CD, and electronic music is better suited to digital playback. Likewise you can tailor the hi-fi equipment to the type of music you most often listen to, and from that there's no such thing as a hi-fi system which will reproduce all music better than any other, it's always horses for courses. But give me a dance single or some potent female vocalist and vinyl always sounds better. Most DJs prefer vinyl, and it isn't just so they can cue better or scratch, they prefer the sound.
When you experience a thunderstorm you not only hear within an acoustic range you also feel subsonic vibrations travelling through the floor, and they affect the ambience of the listening environment as they interact with audible soundwaves. Standard CD only reproduces sounds within the human hearing range, leaving your other senses dulled. That I think is why they can sound so sterile, unless they are mastered, as many have been for over 20 years since bitstream was introduced, to sound more like analogue and to be warmer for it. They toned down the high frequency tizz, the brightness of CD, and made them sound deeper and 'darker' as a stopgap until SACD was introduced (and failed to establish itself.) In listening tests I did many years ago when I was a bit of a hi-fi freak I thought vinyl reproduced the sound of a thunderstorm better, but the sound of a Chieftain tank firing was phenomenal on CD because of the instantanous acceleration of digital sound from near silence.
We speak and sing in analogue sounds, we are not digital robots, so with our ears and emotionality already tuned to analogue it shouldn't be surprising that many prefer that in recorded sound.
The 44.1KHz sampling seems fine, perhaps they should lower it to make it sound more like a record?.
As far as I'm aware the main difference in overly expensive CD players is the analogue processing - where it's designed to 'colour' the sound and make it sound less pure.
I too used to subscribe to the "vinyl is better" philosophy, believing that it had a warmer and more natural sound. But as CDs became better produced and mastered I realised that what I had perceived as better sound was in fact due to anomolies with the frequency response of my decks. Yes it was perhaps more of a natural sound, but it was not a faithful reproduction of the original music.
I had to admit a harsh truth: a modest CD system playing a well-produced disc will in every single case outperform even the best turntables.
Well I know it doesn't 'guess' bob but as it has no sample for point x on the waveform the machine looks forwards and backwards to decide what the binary value should be...but I couldn't be bothered typing it so guess was quicker!
Am I correct in thinking that the reason we brick wall filter a CD at 20hz is because the dither noise is dumped above 20k?
No, you 'brickwall' filter due to anti-aliasing, check out Nyquist theorem - you don't want any signal (either record or playback) above that limit.
You can come up with whatever figures and specs you want, am currently listening to S Express and it sounds much better than the CD version!
But what does annoy me is the misinformation, and snake oil, surrounding both technologies.
I listen to both technologies and have no axe to grind in either camp.
The ascertion that the 44khz sample rate is sufficient is wrong.
Why do you think that?, and perhaps you should take it up with Nyquist?
I understand Nyquist Nige, and according to his theory CDs should go up to 22 or so kHz if we're sampling at 44kHz.
But if memory serves we brickwall at 20 kHz because we can't hear it so it's an ideal place to put the noise created by dithering. So stick it at 21-22kHz and then chop it off.
It makes sense to filter somewhat below the Nyquist limit, filters aren't perfect, and the further below you can filter, the more attenuation you will have by the Nyquist point.
It would be nice to sample a LOT higher, and still filter at 20KHz, which would make the filtering a lot easier - but who wants albums to come on two or more CD's, and probably sound no different anyway.
Unless you're in to seriously high-end hi-fi, you would never notice the difference any, as you say.
The great John Peel was once asked by a listener as to why he kept playing vinyl, with all the surface noise, when he could play CDs and have no background noise. His reply was, "Life is full of surface noise", and there is a great deal of that on this thread!:rolleyes:
Both formats have their merits and their drawbacks, but for me it's the music that is more important whether it is played on vinyl or CD - and I still play both.
like they say garbage in equals garbage out,get your system set up right and make sure u are not listening to distorsion,stop listening to the hifi and listen to the music :yawn: :yawn::sleep:
I'd just like to make it clear that I am not stuck in the 70s. I have 300 quids worth of CD player and 400 quids worth of amp and some Mordant Short speakers. I do listen to stuff on CD, but its obvious from the comments that some music does sound better on Vinyl. Why this is seems to vary...but it sounds better thats for sure.
What is clear and has been said in this thread many times is that record cartridges add harmonic distortion that many people find pleasurable. What is less clear is whether this is because those people grew up with records (and so notice the missing distortions and so get an achy feeling when the fidelity is better) or just expect records to be better (placebo) or this is a genuine improvement which could easily be added to CD players to make them sound like records.