That is a value judgement. When I was a marine biologist many years ago, and used huge quantities of K25 and K64 (and some K200) I chose them because they had good resolution and good colour fidelity, compared with other films, and particularly compared with print film. So my pictures were more like the first of your two images, and were what I was after. Agfa tended to be more brown. Fuji more yellow. And so on with other films. So for me - and my purposes - DXO would have ruined the photos.
Yes, it is 0s and 1s, but what arrives at the preamp is not - that was really all I was trying to say. Photos are digital all the way down - music is eventually analogue.
i would say that what you hear is music, what you see is an image, both have been reconstructed from digital files - which are only ever a stream of 0s and 1s the printed photo you see is as analogue/digital as the sound you hear from the speakers.
Then I would disagree. When you view a digital image on a screen, you are seeing discrete blocks of colour and intensity - not a smooth transition of colours. And you are seeing a limited gamut of colours - albeit potentially quite large - but fewer than the eye is often capable of, and with less dynamic range than the eye is capable of. And jaggies (jagged lines running at angles other than vertical or horizontal) are also a direct consequence of it being a digital image shown on a digital medium - but you will still get them if you print on paper - again, a consequence of a digital image, this time on an analogue (of sorts) medium. Mind you, the lack of dynamic range was also a problem with film - where the film itself (negative or positive) had greater dynamic range than photographic paper did, and they eye/brain could cope with a far greater dynamic range than either film or paper. With audio, the digital stream is converted to analogue - and you would be hard pressed , once it has passed through the whole D to A process, to determine that the original signal was digital (apart from its greater dynamic range etc.) I.E. look at an oscilloscope trace of the audio signal as it enters the preamp, and it will look like an analogue signal - there will be no trace of 0s and 1s. Look at a digital image closely enough, and you will see individual pixels - not continuous data, but discrete squares of specific colours and light intensities. Quite different from music reproduction.
Look at early digital files - particularly the sky. You will probably see banding - especially with heavily compressed JPEG files. This is because it is still in the digital domain when you view it.
It seems to me that the title of the thread should say ‘Analogue’ in place of ‘Turntables’ then the interesting photographic discussion would be directly on topic not a discussion of an analogy! (Is analogy a pun in this context?)
Quite right too. About 30 years ago, I saw a Revox B77 for the very first time and absolutely, desperately wanted one, even though I had no use for it. It’s such an amazing piece of precision engineering.
A few years later came the Nakamichi Dragon and I felt the same way about that too. Fortunately, I had but one use for it… to record the top 20 chart show from the radio. What a waste of such talent that would be so I resisted the temptation.
I ended up buying neither yet still admire both, even after all these years.
Great engineering, great analogue, even if not a turntable.
Anyone else a big fan of Revox reel to reel or Nakamichi tape decks?
Best regards, BF
Yes,
Different software produces different images, whether it is Canon, Fuji, Nikon or DXO. And all those software can produce different images depending on settings.
The point I was making is the raw image is accurate, but 99.999% of people modify before printing or uploading to a website.
When you say (in a later post) the signal from a DAC is an analogue signal. Yes it is. But the analogue signal produced by a CDS2, Ndac, CD3, Chord Hugo, Chord Dave are not the same, they can’t be, they sound different. They can’t all be accurate.
Some people prefer the inaccuracies of Naim others the inaccuracies of Chord
I was a fan of reel-to-reel, but never found anything to like about cassette other than being small and portable - sound quality wise not a patch on vinyl or 1/4" R2R at 7.5 or better still 15 ips. I never heard a Nakamichi - but as my only use for cassette was to record vinyl to play in the car, and very occasional portable recording, it would have been wasted.
I had opportunity to use a Revox back in the early 70s, and it certainly was good, but when I wanted to buy a pair of R2R there was no way I could afford, instead buying Sony TC377s. I was tempted by Studer 1/4" deck at one time,available surprisingly low cost, but never followed through.
1 Like
I suspect it is nowhere near that, my expectation being that the vast majority of consumers very likely simply use an in-camera produced JPG as is, only enthusiasts, the smaller proportion, tweaking. If you limited your statement to, say, DSLR owners, then I would indeed anticipate that a high proportion tweak the images - but I still doubt as high a percentage as you suggest!
1 Like
And that is one of the ways in which photography is different from audio. With the latter, the intention and hope is that what comes out of your speakers is a close rendition of what came from the mixer desk. Listening to music is a passive activity in that you consume what its presented to you.
Photography is an active art activity - you are creating a picture. Of course, most people simply accept whatever their camera and software (usually in-camera software) produces, but many people spend time and energy, personal preference, skill, knowledge (all to varying degrees) changing what was produced to something that pleases them.
But none of this was, really, what I was originally saying - that digital photography gets (or can get, if you like) closer to the the original scene than film photography. And in that I suggest that audio is similar - you can get closer to the original sound with digital than with analogue. Whether that is what people prefer is a different matter.
Best pun in this thread. Well done!
As most modern music is digitally recorded or processed shouldn’t the topic be Turntables/FM vs Streaming/CD?
For years Radio 3 broadcasts had been digitally processed but praised for quality.
Many posters suggest they prefer music from a turntable but much vinyl has been digital at some stage and for these recordings its reproduction hardware that’s making the difference. ie digital streaming services and the D/A boxes aren’t yet good enough. This suggests digital is the better medium but even a £30k ND555 with 2 x PSU isn’t good enough yet.
My LP12 has been boxed up for 15 years but there seem to be a good group of members that own expensive turntables and streamers.
So what do they prefer for “equal” cost??
I’m confused!
I never liked the cassette format, so was never really tempted to spend a lot of money on a Nakamichi. However, I have always loved the Reel-to-Reel format and back in the 70s and 80s lusted after a Revox A77 or B77, although I was never able to afford one at the time.
I do now have a couple of Reel-to-Reel decks - a Revox B77/II (used as a lovely ornament - I bought the wrong one) and a refurbished Pioneer RT-909 that I do use from time to time. It really is a nostalgia thing. Even although it sounds very good and is hugely satisfying to use, it really has no practical value any more.
But it is lovely and a joy to operate, so I won’t be giving it up anytime soon.
It’s really the same with turntables. I have a Michell Orbe turntable that I love, partly out of nostalgia for my early exciting years with music and hi-fi. I had a Transcriptors (Michell) Hydraulic Reference turntable for many years in the 70s and 80s. The Orbe sounds absolutely excellent with the best vinyl with which it can just about or almost match the best digital recordings played on my second generation Linn Klimax DS (DS/1), but vinyl LP sound quality is much more inconsistent than that of modern digital recordings in my opinion.
So, for the most part digital wins out for me, although I still enjoy the tactile nature of playing LPs on my turntable or putting a 10" reel on my RT-909 from time to time.
1 Like
perceptions differ, so i think it best to agree we have different perceptions. going back to my original post, if anyone is interested in what might be lost in digital then try roland barthes - camera lucida or walter benjamin - the work of art in the age of mechanical (technological) reproduction. they have very different perspectives and in benjamins case perhaps too influenced by adorno in his plan to escape nazi germany. both seem to be feeling towards peirce’s concept of indexicality within his semiotics, which defines for me the sometimes sub-liminal perceptual difference between analogue and digital - why for some people digital doesn’t deliver the musicality/immersive experience that a turntable can.
I’m not surprised! Of course, I meant analogue (film) was better resolution than digital.
1 Like
Yet whatever converts the digital to analogue to make the vinyl is good enough?
Could it be that rather than direct digital replay not being good enough, the replay of digitally recorded music via vinyl modifies the sound in a way that somehow makes it more pleasant on the ears, at least to quite a lot of people? (After all the analogue signal coming out of phono stage inevitably will be different from the analogue signal from the original signal before the ptocessing needed to produce vinyl master cutter, however small the difference)
yes -just as for some of us the best way to reproduce the music on a 78 is to play it on the 78 player it was designed for and record the sound from the horn as the source for whatever processing is then done
I suppose all music goes through the same digital production techniques up to the point it is prepared for LP/CD/Streaming.
If this is correct the variation we hear is the difference from the “encoding” and decoding processes Turntable/Cartridge or CD player and D/A chips (plus laser/digital circuit, analogue power supply etc etc ).
Basic MC cartridges are the full source of the amplified signal and cost £’000’s, far in excess of the cost of the D/A converters in CD players. As you are listening to this pure signal it is probably going to be far higher quality than the multiple components in a CD player or streamer.
LP also benefits from 100 years development compared to 25 years for CD.
I am also working on a theory that digital 1/0 played on LP works because the stylus joins the dots.
Why?
That could be because there are more technical problems to overcome - apart from the obvious matter of when they were invented.
The software joins the dots. There are no dots on an LP (apart from the dust dots).