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For what it's worth ...

Posted by Christine Tham (R) on April 13, 2006 at 21:45:27

In Reply to: Lost Chord: Vinyl versus SACD posted by Tommart on April 13, 2006 at 09:39:27:

this is speculation rather than fact, but i suspect vinyl tends to sound "fuller" or "thicker" than digital formats due to the nature of the playback mechanism. as the needle tracks the groove, it generates fairly large forces that causes the entire record to vibrate. the needle tends to pick up this extra vibration. also the needle is microphonic and picks up sound vibrations from the speaker. the combined effect is like a "reverb" unit thickening the sound. the cheaper the turntable, the more pronouced the "reverb" effect.

digital on the other hand tends to sound more clinical but arguably more accurate. however, i've noticed it tends to lose out on the final ounce of detail that you can extract from the recording. i once compared a glenn gould LP (featuring his ubiquituous vocalisation in the background). on CD, you can barely hear the vocalise. On SACD, it becomes a lot more distinct. However, on LP you can actually make out the tune he's humming (and it's not the main melodic line, it's actually a distinct counterpoint to the piece!)

however, you can tweak your LP system to reduce the effect of microphony, resonance and record vibration. the more you reduce these effects, the more LP sounds like digital (thus proving that the "clinical" digital sound was in fact more accuracte all along). For example, on my highly tweaked turntable, comparing across various albums, LP and digital has essentially the same "sound".

with digital, you can also restore some of the detail that has been lost by paying attention to jitter and other factors.

My suspicion is that an "ideal" or perfect LP or digital playback system will sound identical to each other. In other words, the format is not the constraint to fidelity, it's the playback.

Anyway, that's just my hypothesis, which I'm sure many will disagree with. Let the flames begin!

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Kimber Kable

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