Bandwith limited when ripping vinyl

[steve]

So, if I understand well, a CD quality is like the best we can find (16/44.1)?

My understanding is the 16/44.1 is sufficient for high quality playback. There have been several extensive studies using double blind testing and they all agree that people cannot tell the difference between a good quality recording played back as 16/44.1 or higher format, when played at moderate to loud volume level. If very quiet music is played back at an extremely high playback level, then some listeners are able to distinguish improved quality at 24 bits, but watch out for the loud bits - you could damage your hearing.

Extra bit depth does no harm (except for the additional file size). 32 bit float is an excellent format when processing audio because of its extreme accuracy and it is virtually impossible to clip (except in the playback system).

Back in the days when CD audio was invented, 44.1 kHz was barely enough. The old anti-aliasing filters were not that great, so the high frequency response would typically start rolling off at around 16 kHz. Modern digital filters are much better, and even cheap CD players are capable of accurately producing frequencies very close to 20 kHz (which sadly I am no longer able to hear, though I can still measure them )

I have come across some 24/96 systems that sound better at 96 kHz, and have come across other 24/96 systems that sound better at 44.1 or 48 kHz, so to some extent there seems to be some dependence on the implementation. Some sound cards seem to have a "sweet spot" - settings at which they work best. There are some 24/96 sound cards available that sound much worse than equivalently priced 16/44.1 sound cards.

and the majority of people find the sound better in 24 bits. So, what the point about this, its it just psychological?

The psychological effect should never be underestimated - it is a very real effect. It has been clinically proven that the placebo effect has medical benefits

2nd question: Why the vinyl sound better?

Because vinyl IS better.
Have you ever met anyone that loves their CDs?
People may love "the music" on their CDs, but no-one loves CDs in the way that people love their records. There's something about the ritual of playing a record that makes it all the more worthwhile - you don't just grab it off the coffee table and stick it in the player. You handle it with care, place it on the turntable and lower the arm, then sit back and appreciate it. It's like the difference between a painting and a photocopy.

3rd question: What is your analyze from these two graph for a comparison, which sounds the better or there is no difference?

You can only tell so much from a frequency plot - the real test is in the listening, but I'd guess they both sound pretty similar.

[Soak]

Thank you for all these answers and take the time to explain. I feel somewhat scammed with the 24 bits music we can find on the net, and now with my audio interface. Hopefully it have some nice D/A decoder so it's still ok, and it's useful to listen to 24/192 ridiculously encoded rips from internet

I said I feel scammed because the majority of actual HDTracks/Studio Masters sold on Internet have the same clipping than the quality CD ones, so it's exactly the same Dynamic Range between both, but not the price..

3rd question: What is your analyze from these two graph for a comparison, which sounds the better or there is no difference?

You can only tell so much from a frequency plot - the real test is in the listening, but I'd guess they both sound pretty similar.

Not really, the vinyl is less clear than the original master converted to 16/44.1 (so which is theorically perfect) but it is much warm and light between the different sounds (instruments or things like percussions and bass, etc). I just bought a decent phono ampli (Rega Mini Fono A2D) which can directly convert to 16/44.1 by USB so it's nice because more is not useful if I understood all of the stuff.

In fact the #1 reason I wanted to play vinyles it's because of the Loudness War you must know I presume. I can show an example of two tracks I have both on vinyl and FLAC CD quality bought on Internet.

FLAC 16/44.1, Dynamic Range score of 6



WAV 24/48, Dynamic Range score of 10



You can see the clipping now on CD and 16/44.1 FLAC sold on Internet, it's awful. I can hear some *CRRcRR* when I listen to them, on clipped moments.. Only for a volume war. They forgot that people don't listen to CD on smartphones and others stuff. So why not make a decent mastering for CD's like in '90, and a worst one for mp3?

The good fact with vinyls is the source is low and I can normalise the volume to whatever I want without clipping. More, the Dynamic Range score is always better on vinyls than CD, at least, if the master for the vinyl have no clipping, there is no reason the sound will be bad on the vinyl (same for the CD anyway), but the vinyl is still save from this for the moment, although they begin to reduce the mastering quality on them too.

Examples with Katy Perry, you can see the difference from vinyls rips. (ok Katy is not the best reference but I needed an actual pop celebrity which we can guess her music will be awfully clipped). Same for Lady GaGa for example.

So yeah, the vinyl is not yet dead

[Trebor]

... the majority of people find the sound better in 24 bits. So, what the point about this, its it just psychological?

If true in a blind test, (so not placebo), possibly an unintentional exciter effect which could occur when converting from a 32 bit master to 24 bit, (32/24 = 1.3333333333333333333333333333333 ) , with no such exciter effect converting from a 32 bit to 16 bit because 32 is a multiple of 16 (32/16=2).

[Robert J. H.]

... the majority of people find the sound better in 24 bits. So, what the point about this, its it just psychological?

If true in a blind test, (so not placebo), possibly an unintentional exciter effect which could occur when converting from a 32 bit master to 24 bit, (32/24 = 1.3333333333333333333333333333333 ) , with no such exciter effect converting from a 32 bit to 16 bit because 32 is a multiple of 16 (32/16=2).

That's not logical. 32 bit divided by 16 bit gives 16 bit and 32 bit divided by 24 bit equals 8 bit because the bit represents the exponent for numbers with base 2.
This means that 16 bit to 32 bit introduces 65536 new possible values inbetween the already existing 65536 levels. From 24 to 32 bits, 256 levels are introduced for each bit. In other words, the grid for 24 bit is 256 times finer than the one for 16 bit. the rounding can go in each direction.
It highly depends on the audio content, how the conversion will influence the dynamic domain.
One could possibly test the effect with lower bit formats, such as 4/12/20 or 8/16/24.

[waxcylinder]

2nd question: Why the vinyl sound better? Or is it just psychological too?

This recent thread contained a discussion related to this query: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... ilit=vinyl

As I stated there, for my money the fabled "warmth" of Vinyl versus CDs comes from distortion inherent in the cartridge/arm/phono pre-amp in use. Some folks also thing the valve (tube) amplifiers provide more "warmth" than a solid state amp - I don't hold with that either.

WC

[Trebor]

... One could possibly test the effect with lower bit formats, such as 4/12/20 or 8/16/24.

Reducing the bit-depth can add harmonics, (which could be perceived as an improvement on a dull original) ...

original sine, then progressively reducing bit-depth which adds harmonics.flac

(1007.72 KiB) Downloaded 68 times

[Robert J. H.]

... One could possibly test the effect with lower bit formats, such as 4/12/20 or 8/16/24.

Reducing the bit-depth can add harmonics, (which could be perceived as an improvement on a dull original) ...

original sine, then progressively reducing bit-depth which adds harmonics.flac

That's a fact. In the extreme case (bit depth 3), You'll have a square wave, even if the original was a sine. But I doubt that a conversion to 24 bit produces more exciter effect than a conversion to 16 bit. That's my point.

[waxcylinder]

In fact the #1 reason I wanted to play vinyles it's because of the Loudness War you must know I presume...
So yeah, the vinyl is not yet dead

Now there's something I can (partly) agree with you on.

It's not all bad - I have a re-mastered Donovan CD which is breathtakingly excellent.

On the other hand when I bought Emmylou Harris' Luxury Liner remaster on CD it was dreadful - they had pulled all the instruments forward and pushed Emmylou back into the mush. It made me rush off and convert the vinyl copy I had - after a bit of post-capture processing I got a much better result.

And don't get me started on the re-mastered Beatles CDs grrrrrr

WC