Digital Vinyl: What's the point? 

Indeed, true ownership, I agree! Part of the physicality aspects.

It's not 'rare', and anything you really want, you need to find and buy. I've never used streaming.

Oh yes! That is why I very *STRONGLY* believe in collecting. Not to be a 'Completist', Not to resell, Not to amass a bunch of crap that I'll never listen to, No... But, to have my own library of whatever when I want to see it (movies/shows) or listen to it (lovely vinyl!) MANY of these streaming services switch out what they have available, and I never, *EVER* want to be beholden to that!

Unless your vinyls get stolen because they sell well on the 2nd hand market these days.

@@seancurtin5131 Thanks a lot for that... 🙄

Cool! Good job!

Good point! Consistency is an issue with analog media

They have no incentive to improve the vinyl pressing. Vinyl is in high demand, so why would they? Most of the buyers are in it for the coolness factor, not sound quality. Very few people like you actually care about sound quality. Many young people (like my kids) buy vinyl, but never listen to them.

True!

@@melancholiehypochonder7905 I mean the driving experience;-)

Apart from the fact that I had and sold my Holo Audio Mat KTE (hec, I am one of those who actually help building the success of that DAC thanks to my videos on it) I think you may enjoy THIS video I made on CDs: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fYOR23B6O3k.htmlsi=2MLAQ05heO9gq_Pp

I agree my friend

Still love my vinyl and to my ears sound better than cds

Word up! 👍💿❤️🎶

That's what he's saying.. the vinyls generally have a better master.. that could be put on cd but mostly arent @@warrenhummel6506

That is just the current trend of the last 25 years or more, vinyl in most cases is better but it is always fairly compressed unfortunately unless it’s an audiophile release or jazz/classical music.

I'm on the track of CD again and if you have a decent gear (I use acomplete modified Sony CDPX505ES from Swoboda Audio & a Cyrus CDi with external D/A to a Grimm Audio MU2)...if I play on this players, people are shocked and never believe it is CD and always think it is my roon/MU2 😉 .....but, as with Vinyl, I ONLY buy high quality from Labels like ECM, Stockfisch and The Lost Recordings. Not starting with Vinyl anymore, complete over-heated market and prices are redicilous (necessary phono pre + player completlyinsane) !! My best high quality CD are around €35 (highest)...

True. That is always something to take into account. I can only say that both my systems, analog and digital are high-end and careful matched because in the end I love both, in a different way.

True!

Indeed, but they are rare (and streaming music is even more rare), which is why I prefer AAD Cds as explained here (again for the better mastering): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-x5MlbvTJZog.htmlsi=I3JLVdH0HuZbv3w2

@@anadialog Just as well I am of an age that 70% of my collection is AAD. And I still trawl charity shops for the original CDs👍😎

So good to have feedback like this, thanks David!

Indeed! As I said, there is plenty of crappy mastered records, but not the majority as for the digital counterpart

Taking notes…thanks!

Good question, the only way to be certain is try to follow and purchase reissues and releases done by manufacturers that aim at high-quality and usually they are AAA (100% analog) products. But I am thinking of doing a dedicated video since others have asked similar questions.

SACD, Super Audio CD!!!.

Good point!

For the same mastering, redbook CD is superior to vinyl in every aspect. Lossless streaming has both convenience and superior quality. Whatever "perfect" sound delivered by vinyl can be reproduced by redbook standard exactly. These are facts not opinion.

@@fernandomoraledasamso750 Yep, SACD and Blu-ray Audio are both a step in the right direction, but still not quite the resolution we're moaning for, and sadly with a limited selection. Having said that, it's still an improvement that in an A-B comparison convinces most cd mongers (at least those who hear) that cd's are far from perfect, and that we need a better format. They tried to make records from SACD resolution, but gave that up pretty quick since the vinyl format merciless revealed it. Yet another example of why vinyl still is the best format to get the most from the resolution used in studios. The cd format abruptly cut's all frequencies above 22 khz, and those frequencies are more important than most realize. Guido made a video about it a while back, and there's loads of research on the topic which can be looked up in an instant. The 20 - 20k frase is BS, and a stupid standard they just settled for, but the cd resolution is too limited to go beyond. Vinyl on the other hand reaches 35 khz (if present on the recording of course). The correction of the latter stage results in pre-echoes which they haven't been able to filter out though ongoing attempts to improve the filtering, and the list goes on. Cd's are convenient, practical, easy and cheap to mass produce, and in a lot of ways sound quite okay, but when it comes to serious sound quality they are no match for vinyl. What we want is the convenience AND the sound quality in one format. We shouldn't settle for less than the studios in fact can deliver, should we?

@@yuzhang2755 As much fact as cd's are superior and perfect. 🤣

Abbey road mention it

It’s a gimmick.

Good point!

But youtube is digital, so you cannot claim you enjoyed an analog vinyl through youtube. and youtube's lossy compression is "bad"

@@xprcloud Some cds are DDD AAD ADD. You see the A;s means there is some part of the cd that is analog, like an old Beatles analog recording put on a digital cd. I hate almost all cds & vinyl recorded in 1972 & after. I love 1971 & before cds & vinyl.

@@myronhelton4441 What you said proves the superiority of CDs, as digital CDs preserve analog faithfully, while the opposite cannot be said, all LPs are DDA or ADA, analog generations are always degraded, have you ever edited tapes and film?

@@xprcloud I like both cds & vinyl, sometimes cds are better than vinyl, but I have never heard a cd come anywhere close to the sound of the original Santana Abraxas on an expensive turntable. A tremendous amout of money must be spent on a dac, over a turntable cost, to get the cd to sound as good a record, but some cheap cd players can sound good like theR@R ladder dacs do. Something digital was added to harm album sound in 1972. Cassette tape noise reduction button cut out the noise, but you couldnt hardly hear the highs, the same thing happens in cds, where the lazer dont touch the cd, li9ke the needle touches the record, SACD is 32 bit, but vinyl has a higher bit. Digital is improving DXD 256 helps records in the highs & maybe someday soon, it will be better. I like the original record of David Crosby Remember My Name, I also like the DXD 256 remaster record of it. They are different, but I like both, one is good as the other, I want both. You hit the nail on the head that cd keeps the sound of records from degrading. A saxophone has better distortion, that transistor amps makes a saxophone not distort like a horn. I have noticed that almost all MFSL cds sound the same as regular cds, I can say the same for most sacds sound like cds, while most mfsl records sound better than most of the latest regular records do. I have never edited tapes or film. All the sixties & later Rolling Stones cds have been remastered again with Bob Ludwig doing a digital remaster that is great, that I dont want the original cds. Some remaster cds are inferior than the original cds. The all analog recorded cd Ry Cooder Meeting is slightly less harsh than the later digital remaster of it, the record only came out later. Many of the records mastered by Rudy Van Elder, he later remastered them digitally & most of the later ones are better. Rudy was the best, some say he added unnatural reverb, hey if it sounds better, go for it. I go see & hear natural bands, I sure dont want albums to sound like what I go hear. A digital cd called Keith Lofgren Acoustic live sounds great, but the analog productions remaster of it sounds better on vinyl, is wasnt put out on cd. A lot of the good remastered records are not put on cd, but some are. Sometimes the records put on cd sounding bad is the masterer's fault. I have heard 400 records & can only stand listening to half of them on cds. I have heard 400 records, but I have only 50 records, it cost too much money to find the other records that was cheap years ago. I listen to cds more. But I have real good copies of the original records copied from better WAV files from $10,000 turntables copied to a computer harddrive & backed up to other drives, played from better dacs & oter equipment. So the music copied from lps doesnt wear out & sounds better than store bought cds. And some cds sound better than vinyl. Since many people dropped cds, there wont be anyone trying to remaster better cds. The good cds are rare & getting more expensive. I had the devil of finding just the right remastered 4 Gabor Szabo cds I was looking for. Gabor used the world;s best of everything on his recordings. Its a shame they limit the remasters of many albums now. Michael Hedges was a great guitarist with a great cd 20 years ago called Oracle, & they quit making the cd, & you can buy it cheap is weird, maybe people didnt know of Hedges. The few years that they made cds, but didnt make vinyl, it is rare to see remastered new vinyl of these few years, or see remastered versions of these few years. These new files that dont sound as good, has ruined cds & vinyl. I didnt like the White Stripes analog sound on cd or record, but the record was analog remastered & sounds great, But I dont understand why it is rare they dont put these good remasters on cd. Tom Petty cd Wild Flowers was analog recorded, but was put on cd as digital, but was later put on cd as much better analog. Maybe you can read about this, because its confusing how this album was recorded.

Good point!

I don’t see my answer anymore…I will write it again. Thank you very much. I am actually cooking something for the future but for now, if you haven’t seen it here is my (old) video dedicated to mono: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m6q2JBOiD80.htmlsi=vOXArCraPtee-iY_

Certainly, and in fact the last point says this and it is also valid for pure digital releases (which I also love when done correctly) but the focus of what we are talking here is mainstream, normal releases, the vast majority of what is boing sold!

@@anadialog Totalmente de acuerdo, gracias por responder, amo tu canal!!!!!

Indeed, also the Telarc digital LPs were great

Exactly! I proposed the same thing in an older video!

It’s part of the fact that it is truly a handmade object, an artisanal artifact.

It is not guaranteed, as I said in the video it’s filled with crappy records but the general trend is more positive than the other media for the reasons explained in the video. The expense for a good system isn’t at all high, especially now that there are so many solutions. Invest a little more in the cart and phono preamp then the tonearm and then the table. That should bring to at the same level or slightly above a quality cd player.

Bass is summed to mono when the engineer doesn’t know how to do things properly or simply the production doesn’t care a dam. That is also why we should support quality productions and quality mastering on vinyl.

Yes, but remember that laser disc is analog!

It's also much easier to find a great sounding phono stage than it is to find a satisfying DAC (at any price point).

@@arize84 DAC is a solved problem. There is no way you can hear any difference from different DACs made by competent manufactures, e.g. Topping, SMSL, and etc. Even an $80 SMSL SU-1 is transparent.

That is why I have enhanced both sides of my system also because I truly love both

I think you're strawmanning.

​@@yuzhang2755 So Holo May same as Topping?

On a good system, a CD will never sound as good as a well produced vinyl record or a hi-res digital audio (anything above 96kHz/24bit or DSD). 44.1kHz/16bit does not represent the analog waves correctly, thus sounds harsh and yes, digital! on anything less than a good system, the CD sounds ok. I own every possible audio system you can imagine, including CDs, Mini-Disc, SACDs, Blu-ray-Audio, DVDA, hi-res files, vinyl (including shellac, first pressing OGs and audiophile reissues), cassettes and reel-to-reel master tapes! So I am talking out of experience. Actually, I own the exact same hi-res digital files of some vinyl audiophile reissues, and the vinyl still sounds nicer and more natural!

@@radiotvhistory That's your opinion, I'm 55 years old and have had every audio format too, including audiophile systems, listening to vinyl sounds okay but limited(some people like that), that's why they started pressing digital onto vinyl, to give it more range, a CD made from the same digital source used to press your new vinyls would sound even more like the original source master than the vinyl, I'm not comparing CD to Reel to Reel or Hi-Res files, even though there are other Disc formats that could handle that too

Thank you so much for your support Tony!! I am actually cooking something in that direction. In the meantime, if you haven’t seen it, here is my video on mono I did almost at the beginning of the channel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m6q2JBOiD80.htmlsi=Tp1RGGNIiOZQPtI9

Fortunately in most cases you just can’t you need to do a dedicated master exactly because most records aren’t cut by high quality mastering engineers who know how to squeeze all the juice out of a recording. But, yeah, clearly even if they do a dedicated master it’s always going to be compressed to a certain degree. As I said in another comment, only audiophile releases or jazz/classical music are more respectful.

You will in the future! Try!

Hell yeah! If instead of Mustangs and BMW we have to drive the Citroen Ami or similar electric boxes, I prefer go back to horses!

@@anadialog no one buys vinyl records in 2024. by the way it's 2024. not 1974....

Once again, get informed my biased viewer. Take a look hear, as I said sales are higher than 1989, and this is just the US. Enough said! www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/

@@anadialog vinyl it's over

Didn’t receive the mail but I think I found your message on instagram. I am currently not duplicating tapes because I am champ some things with my machines

I completely disagree. Quality mastering affects all genres and periods. Perhaps you are not aware but great engineers are behind your beloved classical albums. One example for all, the amazing work done by Wilma Cozart and Robert Fine on the Mercury Living presence recordings. I made a dedicated video on their story: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZDzLQmUeky8.htmlsi=CdIPscOOPF72pyTA

​@@anadialog I am fully aware of the engineering that goes on behind great recordings of all genres. Reference Recordings, Telarc, etc, make great recordings. I didn't imply all classical recordings are automatically great. Even the not so great classical recordings are not butchered as badly as many of popular music albums. Also classical has a lot more choice. For a given composition, I can find not one or two, but several recordings across different time periods, that not only sound great bur are great performances.

Good point to add to the list

As later as possible I hope, and always recognizable.

Vinyl enthusiasts don't care, they will buy them anyway. I want them to just admit that they lunatics who like to play with giant discs, but I'm not criticizing, I personally won't pay that price for a substandard product, I view as taking advantage of the hobby.

@@starg47 Thanks for the comment! I am in the generation of compact disc and I find perfect the sound of compact discs, for example first editions and not remastered. I am from Greece and I have a friend who is collector of oldies, especially Michael Jackson. He has 80s editions of Thriller and other cds and they are perfect productions, they are ageless albums and they sound so fresh nowadays. They have not so much loudness, they are perfect produced and bass-treble are balanced. Now new songs are more bassy and overcompressed. Vinyls need much money to keep these in perfect condition, also they need expensive turntables and cartridges. and other equipment to play good sound! It's also ridiculous that many older greek vinyls have been re-released nowadays and their sound is awful, they have cut many highs and sound is so fake digitized, also I think they have the loudness war and something like overcompression, and they also cost around 50 euros each one.

Well, also higher expenses. With streaming, once produce, it works with no expense just some ridiculous royalties

@@anadialog I should have said higher profit 😁

Uhm, not sure what you are saying. Today’s digital vinyl is mastered from the original master mix, with which they create the master for vinyl (when things are done correctly) this is good because in most cases they use high-res files. While for analog, now only audiophile reissues use the original analog master tapes.

@@anadialog Mastering purely for vinyl is done occasionally if the label decides it wants to put the extra money into the project, this will normally be for major artists. The vast majority of vinyl is cut from masters created for digital use and then tweaked for vinyl. Monoing stereo bass, rolling off low and high frequencies which may be problematic to the cutting head, are common examples of this tweaking. Smaller labels and self released titles will not spend the money to produce a separate vinyl master when they may only sell a few hundred records. There are of course audiophile labels that will produce pure vinyl masters from analog tape.

In one of my video on why “today’s music is depressing” I actually proposed to make two distinct masters at different prices, one for the mass (and phones) and one for the audiophiles: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sciD9c1Y8Xk.htmlsi=eFjtvaK4NZnCZX1X

@@anadialog Master 1 => PostMaster => format Vinil. Master 1 => PostMaster => format CD. Master 1 == Master 1... A single master degree, two PostMaster degrees. One for each format. (sorry for the bad translation).

Very true! I did a video on this topic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fYOR23B6O3k.htmlsi=_lSR11dwYGflYIwy

The graveyard is full of that ..........

Welcome!🤗

Don’t really understand your point. I have based mine on grounded experience and what you are reporting is strange and unreal. 1) copyright? That is off the board for ever besides the fact that now almost all music is available for streaming for free. Nonsense, we aren’t in the 90’s anymore. 2)You are analyzing the problem from the wrong perspective. It’s not that the industry isn’t capable of doing a good master, they simply don’t want to do that . Even the ‘musicians’ are convinced that the compressed, loud master is the way to go or at least the vast majority. When I speak to engineers most of them claim that they don’t like what they do but they are asked to do it. For this same reason, the market knows that the vinyl consumer is different from the rest and in most cases there is a little more attention also due to the fact that the medium needs special attention to create is master as I have explained et length in this and other videos. 3) whatever makes you happy. I don’t care, I care only about the sonics. 4) sure, that is why even the most basic producer when has some money knows that real gear will always sound better than any plug-in. 5) by definition streaming is not audiophile since a lot of packages are lost along the road and the music just sound worse when compared to physical media. I have Qobuz and had tidal. Just for jogging IMO. Not serious listening.

@@anadialog Thank you for your detailed reply. we are not arguing, just dialoging....🙂 I Agree to all points you have raised, in your video and in your reply. I have just focus on 2 things: 1) Technically and Sonically a master (Analog or Digital) is superior to it's Analog copy. 2) If Analog feeling (distortion) improve sound then it can be applied to the master (and stay in the digital domain). If to your opinion it has to be done by a physical equipment (If A digital Plugin is not good enough) then the effect to the digital master can be added by a phisical gear i.e. let's pass the pure digital and clean master via a real RTR (or a caseate) or even a recording of a vinyl pressing and keep it in the digital domain. Of Course I have went too far by these example but why not. 3) there is no commercial intensive for á Physical digital recording any more this is why physical media tends to return to analog but it will stay a niche. 4) An LP is a superior analogue media in terms of price/performance this is why caseate on one side and RTR on other side will not catch any more. 5) Regarding Tidal (Which I am using) and other services: It is a myth regarding packet loss. the technology of today can stream a 4K and 8K video, You can upload / down load GIGA Bytes size files with zero mistake so streaming of a FLAC 44.1 or 96KHZ or 192KHz 24 bit? is nothing. I upload a 40 minutes masters of 96KHz/24 bits within 8 times faster with zero mistakes (due to checksum and similar methods) 5) It is there for my conclusion that records companies are doing only what is good commercially. Yes Hi Fi people want better (Maximal) sound quality. But There are many many hi fi enthusiastic people who have changed their focus from the need and grove issues to the DAC jitter linearity and SNR and etc. Even in the digital domain 'the real problems are all analogue. no escape from that. Thanks again for bringing this topic and for this "when analog meat digital" episode.