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What do you hear that tells you you're listening to an LP?

Brett a

Brett a

~◦●○o0o○●◦~
Hi all.

A current thread has prompted me to ask this question that I've been carrying for a while.

What are you hearing that tells you you're listening to an LP?

I ask because i often see people saying they live with inner groove distortion (IGD) and sibilance as well as pops and clicks. Some people even seem to accept these as inherent in the medium, which they are not--they are all optional. And if you live with these forms of distortion, why do you do it? What charms do LPs have that allow you to live with these shortcomings?

So to answer my own question. What I hear that tells me that it's an LP isn't so obvious. Between songs, there's the gentle swoosh of the vinyl under the stylus. But on some records this really isn't apparent from the couch. Some of my LPs have occasional little ticks that can be heard between songs. But while a song is playing, it's hard to tell the source. That is until I go back to my CDp which I notice has a bit drier presentation and smaller images and soundstage.

I just wouldn't listen to LPs if they didn't sound consistently clear and quiet. I know it may seem like a loaded question. Fair enough. For that reason maybe you'll pass. But somewhere in here is an honest desire to know why someone would listen to LPs if they had to accept IGD, pops, clicks and sibilance to do so? Is it the artwork on the covers? The cool-factor of the big plastic disc? Please help, I don't get it.

:scratch2:
 
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CDs don't sound like music. There might not be any pops or clicks or a "woosh" but music is 3 dimentional, CDs are not......there is either silence, or noise that resembles musical tone.
 
I hear a higher resolution signal (subjectively), as well as increased pace, rhythm, and timing. I must confess that my digital front end isn't all that tweaked, more using what I have instead of searching out better things (as I have with my analog front end).
 
For me, I've noticed worse sibilance with my CDs than with my records. Anything with noticeable scratches, ticks or pops goes into the donation pile unless it's rare and waiting for replacement. I don't buy LPs for something magic about them. I buy them for the massive array of cheap music out there. So my short answer to your question: Nothing.
 
When I play some of my better SACDs or DVD-As, the sound is smooth enough that I sometimes start to get up to flip over the record. Then I realize it's not analog :smoke:

There is a resolution that comes with vinyl and higher quality digital recordings.
 
When it (LP Listening) is right there is no better listening...

Here is one silly example: On Marty Robbins' El Paso City album, the song El Paso City S1/C1. Listening to my LP I can hear Marty inhaling so vividly it is as if he is grasping for breath... I dont hear that on the only CD version I own (No. 1 Cowboy)
 
marcmorin said:
CDs don't sound like music. There might not be any pops or clicks or a "woosh" but music is 3 dimentional, CDs are not......there is either silence, or noise that resembles musical tone.
Click to expand...

Sounds like somebody needs a decent CD player, a stack of well-recorded CDs, or both.

I agree with Brett's point about IGD, sibilance, and impulse noise being optional. Good setup and thorough record and stylus cleaning can pretty much banish all of them. In my system, I hear a slightly higher noise floor on LP than on CD and a bit more warmth in the sound. For me, these differences are not enough to give me a strong preference for one medium over the other.

I also hear poorer pitch stability if I happen to be playing a record that's pressed even slightly off center. Thankfully these are not common, either in my collection or in the used LP racks that I visit at my local record store.
 
Much of my most loved live music I have on cassette tape. Would I have liked it more if it have had better sound quality, maybe but I doubt it.
So I guess it´s the music that´s number one for me, but I must admit I don´t like sibilance, haven´t heared that for a long time though.
gusten
 
It's difficult to identify particular differences between LPs and CDs, but it isn't difficult to identify the end result for me.

For me, almost without exception, when I put on a CD I find myself tiring of the music before the CD is done. I feel antsy and distracted. I rarely find myself really listening to the music, it's just there in the background, even if it's on loud.

With LPs, I find myself drawn into the music. The more I listen, the more I want to listen to even more. (Does that make sense?)

Some of my records are dead silent where they should be, with no tics and pops. Unfortunately, most of my records have at least some noise on them, but if the music is good my brain can filter that out. Some records have defects that do make them unpleasant to hear, and those get discarded.

One difference that I think I can identify between the media is with imaging. My LPs image beautifully. The musicians occupy a realistic amount of space and have stable, well defined positions. With CDs, the musicians appear to be far too big. CD imaging is OK left to right, but I get the sense of the musicians occupying far too much vertical space, and a bit too much lateral space. It's as if a singer's mouth is seven feet tall. The voices don't come from a small space in the soundstage as they should, they come from an oversized and artificial region.

It also "feels" to me that the sounds from an LP have depth and body and thickness... like the music is coming from within the singer's body or within the performer's instrument. On a CD, the music "feels" to me like it is coming from the surface of a shell. The music has no body or depth. It's like an outline of the music, or a projection of the music instead of BEING the music.

Lastly, certain sounds seem to have more texture on LPs than on CDs. Snare drums and cymbals have more nuance and character. Bass guitar and bass drums have more heft. Now, these observations are strong feelings that I get when listening normally to music, but they have not been as apparent when I've A-B's a few pieces of music that I have on both media. When I've done that A-B'ing, I've found CDs and LPs to sound remarkably similar... almost indistinguishable. The listening fatigue on the CDs is consistent however.

I should point out that my CD player is not good enough for me to draw blanket conclusions about the performance of the CD medium itself. My observations are based only on my experience in my rig with all it's strengths and weaknesses. Although I'm predisposed to prefer analog, I try to be open minded enough to recognize that a better CD player (or DAC) could change things completely. In fact I hope that is the case. I'd like to enjoy my CDs and I'd like to not keep avoiding CDs when searching for music I like.
 
I love CDs and SACDs. I also love LPs. I will play the source that sounds best. More often than not, I have a vinyl source that is better than the CD or SACD.

In certain instances, a mere VG vinyl pressing blows away any other source. I will gladly put up with the ticks and occasional frying egg on my "RL" Led Zep II. This is an extreme example, but I'm using it to illustrate my point. In this case, the superior, Hammer of the Gods super freakin' sonics of this platter outweight the occasional pop and crackle. When I'm worshipping at the foot of Valhalla with Led Zep II on the spinner, I really don't care about the vinyl artifacts.

You want mono Stones? Better play the UK LPs. If there's a little IGD on "Rolling Stones No.2," I'll have to live with it until I pick up a better copy.

So what do I hear when I play an LP? Music. I'd rather not hear the "artifacts," but sometimes I have no choice.

Good question, BTW.

Ken
 
As for why tolerate things like sibilance and IGD, I don't, really, except for a few esoteric recordings which are worn but unobtanium.
 
Sheep on the right, goats on the left.

I guess my TT is set up pretty well, I don't hear IGD normally. It's very rare. I guess I take good care of my records, I don't hear many clicks and pops. I also grew up with LP's, so I expect that a little noise comes with the territory. I have a lot of 78's and put up with them, they are a lot noisier.

I do hear some swoosh between cuts, especially before the first cut. That used to be a good volume guide. You could tell when you had it cranked too loud by loudness of the run in.

What doesn't tell me I'm listening to an LP is all the magical qualities attributed to them that some claim CD's lack. I can listen to either. When I have a copy of an album on LP and CD, my preference is usually on a case by case basis. There are some where the LP mix is better and vice versa. I have some where it's pretty much a toss up. Which gets played is determined by my circumstance and mood.
 
CDs and LPs sound almost identical here. The occasional pop of static or damage to the vinyl hints that its a record. The imaging is different with a record (slightly more depth), which is possibly due to the cross-talk inherent in the medium. Timbre is a bit better with LP, but its not as cut and dry as to say that its 'always' better. Some CDs sound markedly better than their LP counterpart here, and sometimes its the other way around.

I don't hear "warmth" or a lot of groove noise, if any.

If CDs sound like noise to you, you need a better CD player. If turntables have a lot of groove noise and clicks and pops and wow and flutter and sibilance, you need a better record player and a record cleaner, and some work on aligning the cartridge correctly.
 
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To me, if its commercially produced music, studio music that is playing, its gonna be from a record that's spinning.
I never bought into commercial CD's, as I'd spent so much time and money in vinyl throughout the 70's; not to mention the expense of early cd machines. I wasn't going to buy into a new format for the same music. In the total span of CD's existence, I've only purchased maybe two dozen albums.
At the time of the introduction of CD's, I jumped into live music recording, obsessively, eventually leading to being an early adopter of DAT.
I've transferred my early analog tapes to digital now, and have since also mastered another nearly two decades of live digital recordings.
So, when I have digital music on, its very likely live music that is being played.
If I have commercial music on, its vinyl. I wish I could easily and affordably transfer my own recordings to vinyl - then I could just throw away the digi-shizzer thingie.
 
OP here.

Wow, what a nice discussion so far. I was afraid it might trigger difficult emotional flare-ups.

Seems most of you that have written so far have the same relationship to it that I do; mostly that there is little to no obvious indication that we're listing to LPs other than increased presence and richness and a small amount of friction noise.

I also agree that marcmorin could use a better CD player. :)

I wonder if anyone accepting IGD etc will come along and chime in.


~
 
I should add that its not like I never hear surface noise. There are some bad pressings out there, and some are truly noisy. Other times, I'm lazy and don't clean an album with my vacuum machine- I just brush it off. So there is the occasional pop and click. But when I've taken the time to properly clean a pristine, good pressing- there's nothing to say 'this is an Album'. I've heard many people say, when listening to my system: "But it doesn't sound like a record." As if that fuzzy warmth and the crackly has to be a part of it. I think some people like that part of it- they'd hate my system, as it sounds closer to a CD than that.
 
I wish I could easily and affordably transfer my own recordings to vinyl
Click to expand...

there are several free programs for recording and cleaning up vinyl. Including Audacity.

USB converters range from $30 on up. I'm sure there's controversy about their quality, but the cheapest one would be better than a sound card, unless you have an exceptional sound card.

But I've used the built in sound card with decent results. You can certainly learn the software at no cost.
 
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