Recorded Music: Facts and Feelings—Part 2

So what are some facts about the quality of sound from vinyl versus digital? LP adherents claim that something is “lost” in digital recordings that degrades their sound quality. While technically a wee bit true, the fact is that the human ear cannot tell the difference. First, the sampling rates of most all digital recordings are sufficiently fast to provide sound to the ear that cannot be distinguished from a fully analog LP. There is, in fact, nothing lost that the human ear can detect. In other words, the actual frequency range that the ears deliver to the brain from each source of sound is indistinguishable. Now, how the brain perceives different forms of recorded music is another matter—especially if one allows one's biases to creep in. But that's a feeling issue—not a fact.

Second fact: the qualities and capabilities of different types of recording and playback equipment matters... and are crucial. There is often a significant difference in how well one recording is made, compared to another—regardless of what medium is used to listen. Modern recording equipment and procedures are very different from a few decades ago, in several ways. Older recordings will thus sound different from new ones. There is a factual quality issue here (new techniques are more sophisticated and realistic), but there's also a feeling issue. Some people simply like the retro sound of an analog LP—regardless of its relative quality.

Then there's the playback equipment. A good recording will never sound great on an inferior sound system, just as a high-priced system will never be able to make a poor recording sound good.

Third fact: the acoustics of the listening environment plays a central role. Is one listening through headphones or maybe earbuds? If so, the room acoustics are irrelevant. But the acoustic qualities of the listening space will strongly influence the quality of the sound from speakers, and thus the listening experience. Some people listen primarily through earbuds or headphones or from speakers in their car. Their experience will be very different from someone who has a superb sound system set up in a room with excellent acoustics. Finally, any interfering background noise will alter the experience. Listening to earbuds in traffic is not the same as sitting before good speakers in a quiet room.

Fourth fact: the quality of a recorded music session depends heavily on the skill and quality of the engineer who did the recording. The number, capability, and placement of microphones is also crucial. The number of recorded tracks and how they are later electronically altered and mixed is critical. The skills of these engineers can be even more important than the talent of the musicians or the quality of the playback equipment. An engineer/mixer today has dozens of options to play with and enhance the signal, that did not exist a decade or so ago.

The bottom line—what causes a listener to prefer one form of recorded music over another—is very much a personal matter. One's idiosyncrasies, biases, and past experiences play as much a role as the factual quality of the music. And our personal listening experience is what it all comes down to. I think it would help make controversies and disagreements less contentious if there wasn't so much misinformation floating around. 

It's tough enough to make a decision of what you feel is best (and the end feeling is what matters), even when you know the facts. We have access to many kinds of listening experiences. Most of us will make a choice and pick what we think is best for us. That choice can be negatively impacted when the advice we get is in error.

Recorded Music: Facts and Feelings—Part 1

There are various debates raging in recent years over which provides a better listening experience: (1) vinyl records or CDs, (2) different sampling rates for digital sound, and (3) streaming or recorded music. I have weighed in on this debate in a previous blog (“Authentic Audio,” January 2014), in which I reviewed the technical facts of vinyl vs digital recording. There is a lot of misinformation floating in the air and on the internet—most of it not intentionally wrong (unlike the deliberate spread of false news and information that is a current problem).

The debate that becomes most strident is about which is superior, LP records or CDs; but also between various forms of digitally-recorded music. Vinyl is currently enjoying a retro popularity. Record companies are scrambling to provide the public the number of LPs they want. Old machines that press vinyl LPs—that were mothballed when CDs came along—are being rescued and refurbished. Old engineers and technicians who once operated these machines suddenly find themselves being coaxed out of retirement with bundles of money. Old jukeboxes are also in demand. The price of old LPs mushrooms. Is this an example of retro fetishism?

How much of this demand is driven by facts and how much by feelings? That's a difficult question to answer. Nostalgia and retro beliefs play a strong—if not dominant—role in people's opinions. Sentimentality and beliefs both lead to feelings about the best sound, and those who are influenced by the LP trend tend to think, “Damn the facts, I go with my feelings.” Like global warming, there is a strong tendency to be suspicious of engineers or technicians who purport to present the facts—particularly when they conflict with one's beliefs and sentiments.

So what is the truth about the best sound? Which of the options—LPs or various digital alternatives—offers the best listening experience? Well, since one's experience is relative, there is no straightforward answer. Let me address the issue by making a distinction between facts and feelings. Unlike when judging some forms of art—the resolution of this issue is not just a case of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Preferring one painting to another, for example, is very much a subjective process. Who's to say which painter is better? 
 
But there are some facts about the quality of a music recording; facts that refute what some proponents of LP music are saying. Next time I'll cover a few of them.

More on recorded music next time...

Authentic Audio—Part 1

I have been a music-listening freak ever since, as an 8-year-old kid, I discovered what it was like to listen to 78 RPM records on my aunt's post-World War II Victrola. (I realize that many younger people today may not fathom a few terms in that sentence, so here's an abbreviated glossary. 78 RPM: the turntable rotational speed of primeval record players. Victrola: a generic term for some of those ancient machines. Post-World War II: the late 1940s and early 50s. Okay; we're on same page now?)

I discovered at this tender age the magic of listening to recorded music: I could play it over and over again—until I either knew the song by heart, or the record became too worn-out for me to tolerate the noise of its scratches and pops and clicks. Today's younger generation knows little about how analog records deteriorate with age or careless handling, as they can play a CD or other digital audio file endlessly and never wear it out.

So the experience of listening to modern digital music recordings is far superior to the old records, right? Well, that's not the case in some people's minds. There are many people in the last few years who have come to believe that the venerable 12-inch LP vinyl record represents the peak of music listening. In their minds it beats the digital CD, hands down. And speaking of digital sound reproduction, those MP3 formats pale in comparison to a good quality CD, don't they? There seems to be a backlash brewing, wherein some people prefer an LP to a CD, and many feel the MP3 is the pits.

What's going on here? What, after all, is the best format for music listening among these candidates? I have been skeptical of people who express these recent (retro) preferences, so I did some research to check into the validity of them. As a former acoustic engineer and ongoing music enthusiast, I wanted to delve into the matter and see what the truth is—if possible. I feel that some of the popularity of LPs, as well as the belittling of MP3s is a misunderstanding of the physics of music reproduction, and I sought to learn more.

Let me begin with what I found out about MP3s. This recording format was developed a few decades ago, as a means of reducing the size of the digital file required to store a song (either on a CD or any another digital format). It is based upon a rigorous analysis of the science of psychoacoustics—which tells us that the human ear cannot detect all of the content of a pure, live acoustic event, such as music. We are destined to remain ignorant of some of the information, due to the limitations of our ear and the brain's processing of the electrical signals received from the ear. So those working on developing the MP3 asked: if a CD can essentially reproduce all of the original signal, why record those parts of it that the ear cannot detect? Why waste storage space that is not needed? So recording engineers set out to reduce the size of the music file.

Their task was to measure what part of the original signal we can hear and delete the rest. Why not save just the important parts and throw away the part we can't hear? After many laboratory experiments, the MP3 format was settled upon. It discards nearly 90% of the digitized signal, thereby reducing the required kilobits of storage by a factor of 10! That huge savings is particularly important when you're streaming music over the internet. But what about the information that is lost? Does discarding so much of the original signal cheapen the experience?

More on MP3s and other audio topics next time...