Quick question for the mastering pros

Topics regarding professional record cutting.

Moderators: piaptk, tragwag, Steve E., Aussie0zborn

Post Reply
User avatar
grooveguy
Posts: 425
Joined: Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:49 pm
Location: Brea, California (a few miles from Disneyland)
Contact:

Quick question for the mastering pros

Post: # 35672Unread post grooveguy
Tue Jun 23, 2015 12:22 pm

I wonder if any of you who have been cutting discs professionally for years might have some idea as to just what sort of technical quality one can expect from the process. I encounter more and more 'audiophiles' who cling to the notion that commercial music releases on vinyl outshine any all-digital storage/delivery system yet to be invented. When I hear this I am put in mind of a couple of stories, based in truth, from days gone by.

When magnetic recording entered the professional scene after WW-II, there were die-hard 16-inch transcription advocates who swore that tape didn't hold a candle to a disc. It turned out that what they perceived as the 'quality' of the disc medium was the noise, limited response and distortion that they had grown accustomed to. But there is no denying that tape gave better sonic performance... one you got used to it.

A similar story comes from the motion picture industry, where optical recording was considered the highest-quality recording process one could hope for. The tale goes that an optical track was transferred to tape, which was then A/B'd with the original (optical) track. No one could hear any difference until the end of the test, when the film bumped through the sound head and the speakers went silent, that silence captured dutifully by the tape transfer. In other words, the tape copy demonstrated a noise floor that was far below that of the film.

I recall Dr. Diamond's talk before the AES years ago, in which he tried to demonstrate that digitally-recorded music made the listener physically weak. Even today there are fans of the "musicality" of analog recording. What they fail to note is that most performances are captured in the studio by digital means, and that any 'improvement' in quality attributed to subsequent transfer to vinyl has to be an artifact of the process. My own advice in this case is for these people to make their own test. Compare the CD and vinyl releases of the same album: can you hear a difference? Yes, of course. Now, copy the vinyl to a CD and make two comparisons. First the commercial release CD to your CD burned from vinyl. Sure there's a difference. Now compare the vinyl with the CD copy of the vinyl. Not much difference, is there?

My question is, just how good is the very best vinyl transfer? The effects of tracking and tracing distortion can certainly be measured, as can simple things like THD and SNR. What's the best frequency response one can get at the outer and inner diameters? Is a sinewave tone a single vertical line on an FFT or swept-spectrum analyzer, or do you see modulation noise sidebands? What are the high frequency headroom limitations? I mean, you can't record 20kHz at full level, right? It's like FM broadcasting or cassette tape, pre-/de-emphasized systems that work only because of the statistical distribution of spectral energy in (most) music and speech.

I've looked and can't find any actual numbers that qualify practical disc recording. Can someone help?

User avatar
jjgolden
Posts: 342
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:41 pm
Location: Ventura, Ca.
Contact:

Re: Quick question for the mastering pros

Post: # 35675Unread post jjgolden
Tue Jun 23, 2015 6:35 pm

There's a lot of components to this question and a lot of variables.
There are artistic answers and there are scientific ones.
I believe the science is a component of the art, so here's my response from that perspective:


First the words, "Better" and "Quality" are defined by the end listeners personal preference.
Some people just like it better if they think it went to tape .... whether it did you not.
Some like crystal clear with no noise or distortion, others like the opposite... or don't mind or care about the distortion.
This preference varies all of the time. There's a point where it's not better, just different, and some people like different better!

The CD/digi files can outperform the LP in many cases.
It's not the CD/digital format really, it's what's been done to the audio (in most cases for competitive reasons) that
makes the cd sound less pleasing. (I'll skip the difference between sampling rates etc for now)

As you pointed out, it's not the format itself that changes the perspective of quality, so much as it's the ability to compare two versions.
If you buy the cd and vinyl then compare the two, you will always get a different experience. (Who knows if they were made from the same source?)
If necessary and if possible, the vinyl version can be re-adjusted in terms of eq and dynamics to get a different/better experience for the vinyl version.
If the cd was 50 minutes and the LP is 25 minutes per side, the cd will usually win.
If there is a lot of sibilance and is super bright and present throughout, the cd will usually win.... unless darkening it down for vinyl playback creates a more pleasing experience....then the vinyl wins in that case.

As for "How good is the best vinyl transfer?"
The questions leading up to that answer are:
(Leaving alone the recording/mix for now)
How good was the cutting chain,engineer, plating and pressing. As a consumer, the only way to tell is to look at the phono cartridge/needle/phono pre-amp, amplifier, speakers,headphones etc..
The playback cartridge in my opinion is the single most influential component of playing back a record. It will never compare technically to the CD/Digital, but it will always compare artistically. For example, a phono cartridge has around 20-30db of channel separation with a freq response that is not flat, where as a cd player has 90 plus db of channel separation and a ruler flat response from 20-20k. For some, the phono crosstalk maybe adding something pleasing to the sound. For other's it's blurring the sound.

I'm sure there are other that can chime in with other perspectives as well.
Thanks for posting the question!
JJG

User avatar
gold
Posts: 365
Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:03 am
Location: Brooklyn

Re: Quick question for the mastering pros

Post: # 35686Unread post gold
Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:09 am

grooveguy wrote: I've looked and can't find any actual numbers that qualify practical disc recording. Can someone help?
Quick answer. No. JJ provided an excellent long answer.

User avatar
Radardoug
Posts: 58
Joined: Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:22 am
Location: New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Quick question for the mastering pros

Post: # 35698Unread post Radardoug
Wed Jun 24, 2015 5:46 pm

There are a number of problems technically with the LP, and the lovers tend to gloss over them.
Here are some.
The frequency response of LPs will not be as good as CD, especially on inner grooves.
It relies on the frequency responses of the cutting head and the replay cartridge.
The noise level is not as good as CD.
The distortion varies with position on the disc and is not as good as CD.
Noise contamination caused by dirt getting on the disc is a problem.
But in spite of that, sales are rising!
Like compact cassetes, another very challenged medium, its not all about the technical specs.

User avatar
concretecowboy71
Posts: 569
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:13 am
Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Contact:

Re: Quick question for the mastering pros

Post: # 35766Unread post concretecowboy71
Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:37 am

I never argue that question.

I see pro and cons for all sides of music reproduction.

To me vinyl is more fun and is easier to interact with. I like sharing albums with my friends and looking at album art.

To me, it is pointless to ask what is "better" that is subjective. I just know what I like!
Cutting Masters in Bristol,Virginia, USA
Well Made Music / Gotta Groove Records

Post Reply