Any reason at all to buy 80s vinyl?

[Roman Empire]

Hi KVRers,

I've been thinking about how alot of the records in the 80s had lowbit/kHz digital units as part of the processing chain - nothing that'd get above 16 bit/44.1 kHz. So the question is: With such records, is there any benefits given soundqualitywise in buying them on a vinylrecord rather than on CD (if they exist on CD, that is)?

Let's not turn this into a discussion about the quality of songs from the 80s, please!

Best Regards

Roman Empire

[cyphersuit]

Define sound quality please

[Redmerkurii]

No. spend yer money on summat more gooderer

[Roman Empire]

Define sound quality please

Sound quality as in bit resolution and kHz. What I want to say is that if you would already have used for instance reverbs in 12-bit/22 kHz on your tracks, there's really no point, unless someone proves me wrong here, in buying this on vinyl, since the resolution of the sound (defined in above mentioned parameters) is not greater than that of a CD. Unless of course that there's some sort of smoothening out of Things going on when you carve something onto a vinylrecord - that I do not know.
That's why I started this thread, to explore if there's more to it than just bit/kHz.

Best Regards

Roman Empire

[chk071]

No.

[thecontrolcentre]

No point unless you want to own the vinyl.

[Gamma-UT]

The only stuff I've ripped and edited from 80s vinyl is material that doesn't exist digitally. If it's on CD or even on Amazon/iTunes as MP3, I've found it to be pretty much as good, only without the surface noise. I've got some 12in singles that I've both ripped and then wound up with digital versions later on compilations. I might A/B them later to see if there is a perceptual difference. But it's never something I've noticed enough to make me want to do the comparison before.

Quite a few 80s albums were pressed on some pretty dodgy vinyl - some of which have never been reissued digitally. If they were, I'd snap them up rightaway.

[SODDI]

Maybe if you liked the record...

[ericj23]

you seem to be suggesting that vinyl has higher fidelity than cd

I hate to say it but it just doesn't. It has a sound that many like, but that is modulation, crosstalk and good old distortion - it definitely not a more effective medium in a kHz and bit depth sense.

The good news is if you like the vinyl sound it will be there even if the masters were 192/24 digital throughout

So go for it, but the vinyl

PS ALL modern vinyl is digitally processed even from an analogue source - the tracks is sampled and the RIAA filter is applied and then it is cut to vinyl. Because digital filters are so much more precise it offers benefits to the pressing plant doing it this way. So any analogue puritanism is seriously misguided in vinyl's case.

[ATS]

you seem to be suggesting that vinyl has higher fidelity than cd

I hate to say it but it just doesn't. It has a sound that many like, but that is modulation, crosstalk and good old distortion - it definitely not a more effective medium in a kHz and bit depth sense.

The good news is if you like the vinyl sound it will be there even if the masters were 192/24 digital throughout

So go for it, but the vinyl

PS ALL modern vinyl is digitally processed even from an analogue source - the tracks is sampled and the RIAA filter is applied and then it is cut to vinyl. Because digital filters are so much more precise it offers benefits to the pressing plant doing it this way. So any analogue puritanism is seriously misguided in vinyl's case.

you are so clueless. Please go here an say that http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ please link me to the thread so I can get a good laugh.

[Acid Mitch]

If he's so clueless why does every "mastering your mix for vinyl" FAQ claim digital formats can hold more information (bass, treble and dynamic range)than gets pressed to vinyl ?

It's the people doing the pressing saying this, not just random people on the internet or whatever.

Digital formats have the same sound quality for the entire duration of the storage space. With vinyl, sound quality gets worse the closer to the centre of the record you go or the more information you try to put on it.

Here is but one example of CD doing a better job of reproducing your recording than vinyl :

Sibilance, the high-frequency noise burst that you get when the letters s, f, and t are emphasized, is a major issue that mastering engineers encounter. "Problematic sibilants typically fall in the 6 to 12 kHz range," Golden observes. "Because a CD can reproduce it without trouble, it isn't recognized as a problem area until you decide to make a vinyl record." - See more at: http://www.emusician.com/techniques/076 ... L7aMh.dpuf

[ericj23]

you seem to be suggesting that vinyl has higher fidelity than cd

I hate to say it but it just doesn't. It has a sound that many like, but that is modulation, crosstalk and good old distortion - it definitely not a more effective medium in a kHz and bit depth sense.

The good news is if you like the vinyl sound it will be there even if the masters were 192/24 digital throughout

So go for it, but the vinyl

PS ALL modern vinyl is digitally processed even from an analogue source - the tracks is sampled and the RIAA filter is applied and then it is cut to vinyl. Because digital filters are so much more precise it offers benefits to the pressing plant doing it this way. So any analogue puritanism is seriously misguided in vinyl's case.

you are so clueless. Please go here an say that http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/ please link me to the thread so I can get a good laugh.

You are so clueless mate - actually explain to me in your words not in quotes from some guru at a website in what way vinyl has better reproduction than digital.

As acid mitch has pointed it vinyl has different reproduction artefacts depending where on the disk it is and sibilance problems but the really telling ones for me are that crosstalk in vinyl is as high as -30db and varies with frequency (how useless is that) and it has a signal to noise ratio of no more than 60 db. Any digital medium is far more hifi than that on all 4 counts

[GeckoYamori]

On the other hand, analog equipment was getting pretty damn good at storing audio with less artifacts during the shift towards the digital era. So 80's vinyl should in fact be better than most older vinyl.

Though I think the overall point of collecting vinyl is seldom actually related to fidelity (unless it's about avoiding compressed remasters). You may simply like the kitsch appeal or the kind of distortions typically added by the equipment of the time, but that's really quite the opposite of capturing the audio signal as accurately as possible.

[electro]

PS ALL modern vinyl is digitally processed even from an analogue source - the tracks is sampled and the RIAA filter is applied and then it is cut to vinyl. Because digital filters are so much more precise it offers benefits to the pressing plant doing it this way. So any analogue puritanism is seriously misguided in vinyl's case.

'

Very important point and I suspected as much. Also interesting to see how SACD and DSD fizzled.

[sin night]

I think there are some things to consider:
- often early cds were not that good, so the vynil version was likely to sound better
- a digital remaster could sound as good as (or ethen better than) the original vynil release if properly done, but it could sound worse if they went into the loudness war
- you should consider the current state of each record: are they almost new or have they been played a lot (and which kind of equipement have been used? cheap record player and stylus are more likely to consume the record faster)? how did they have been stored through all these years?
- what was the quality of the original press? the vynil was mint or recycled?
- do you have a "proper" equipement to play records?

There are so many things to consider, probably more than those I wrote... I think it's best to decide on a per-record basis.