Can you post a representative mountain photo from each camera? I'm very curious what generates this feeling for you.
Yes, vinyl is technically an inferior sound quality to FLACs. I'm happy to rant all day about the flaws of vinyl. I personally prefer high quality digital.
However on a good pressing there is an undeniable difference to a good vinyl pressing. It's not dissimilar from why I said that my kids frame the shots on digital cameras in ways that are different using an iphone. The processes that surround vinyl are different (better?) than those we use for digital mastering. Engineers pay more attention to vinyl mastering than they do digital. While there's a lot of shitty USB turntables, even those are often far better than how most people listen to music digitally which is often on iphones and shitty laptop speakers. The physicality of vinyl manufacturing incurs requisite different attention and processes that sometimes (emphasis on sometimes) results in a "better" listening experience.
Could you get the same "better" listening experience with lossless digital? Yes. but most don't. So vinyl is "better."
I call BS. I know people who work in music mastering, and I've asked about this. They use the same digital masters for the digital release and for vinyl.
They know people will buy vinyls if they want to no matter what if they want to, so it doesn't matter if the digital master isn't perfectly attuned to the vinyl medium
Nah, they don't. There is always a vinyl master. I have several here from records I have released. It may well be made from the digital master, but vinyl needs low and high end roll off and mono low end bass to stop the needle jumping out of the grooves.
This isn't really true from my perspective. There are a lot of factors as to why vinyl mastering gets more attention. It's harder to do right, so there's that. Artists will often pay far more attention to the vinyl master, so it's a crucial A&R issue. But there's an issue on digital master, we can easily (more or less) change the material on DSPs. It's not fun but it's possible. On vinyl, mistakes made on the mastering side may not even reveal themselves until past the test pressing stage and can be very costly.
> its almost always based off the digital master that is than modified to not fuck up on vinyl medium
This might be true at some levels of skillsets, I guess. But in my circles for at least the last ten years, the vinyl master is sourced from the original mix, not a digital master. In fact, on larger projects more independent labels and artists are hiring vinyl-specific engineers who can oversee what is a very physical process from mastering to lacquer cutting in one sitting. Having sat in an a number of sessions, there's a lot of attention to the ways in which the master is effecting the physical nature of the cut. This is actually how it used to be when vinyl was the imminent format, for reasons I've already stated (cost). In fact some vinyl plants had apartments for record label people to stay on site and oversee the vinyl mastering process.
I would also agree that the vinyl master wouldn't have more attention outside of dealing with the limitations of the format. Most mastering engineers are working on pretty tight schedules, for not much money, so it wouldn't make sense for them to take longer on the vinyl master (outside of the known limitations). There isn't any aspect of vinyl which is (technically) better. So, it's not like they can improve on the digital master.
With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. If the engineers you know do that, you don't know good engineers.
edit: I can't reply to tekla's comment, so I'm editing here. It's frustrating on Hacker News for an expert - like myself, who has sat in on dozens of mastering sessions - to be disputed by someone who "knows some people." I'll clarify further. Do some engineers use the same mixes for vinyl as they do for digital? Sure. They're not good engineers. Or the customer hasn't paid enough (it's usually about $60-$100 per song to master per format). Vinyl is a drastically different medium than digital - of course - and any decent engineer will 100% mix differently and accordingly. If there are artists reading this and your engineer is using the same mix, fire them. You're paying a lot to press to vinyl so do the followthrough and get vinyl-specific mastering.
Here's a good article from an engineer I have worked with many times on why mastering for vinyl is different:
https://www.oregonlive.com/music/2014/11/does_vinyl_really_s...
For my own part, we had to recut the lacquers on a vinyl release five times to get it right, because the nature of the mix created a middling sound that bounced the needle around and caused intense surface sound. Once we solved that problem, the pressings sounded great.
Obviously with cassettes the profit margin isn't there to justify the additional expense of mastering, and to my ears cassette mastering rarely sounds different than the digital master (maybe some slightly different leveling). I believe NAC actually has a mastering guide to master to cassettes kicking around. But...not sure anyone follows it.
Just to be honest, I don't doubt you're a great engineer. But if you weren't mastering specific to format...I wouldn't hire you. Increasingly we've gone to vinyl-exclusive engineers on bigger projects, because it's so crucial to get the sound right at the start and poor vinyl mastering can cause problems months down the manufacturing line that are costly.
But yes I think we are on the same page and agree! A single mix. And from that mix are multiple master cuts specific to format.
People who are the type to buy vinyls will buy them no matter what, as long as its not obviously a bad press. Why would any sound engineer bother to do extra work for such a low volume, high chance of losing money, PITA to work with medium, unless they were some sort of super artist.
The reasons that people might prefer it (subjectively) are:
* The notion that it's 'warmer' - all this means is the high-end frequencies have been rolled off
* The subtle distortion effect you get from feedback through the needle. The needle, as well as picking up the groove, acts like a microphone for any sound nearby (i.e. the speakers playing the record). This then feeds back through the same loop, creating a subtle chorus effect (very subtle).
I've played in enough large nightclubs with massive sound-systems to know that my records sound completely different in them. The feedback is more extreme, so the chorus effect is more pronounced. This often turns into bigger low end at higher volumes. It can also be problematic if you have a record that's been cut too quietly. You need to turn the gain up on the mixer, picking up more of the club speakers, eventually creating audible feedback hum.
But, by having the same 'effect' on every record played, there then seems to be a consistency of sound from one record to the next. Creating something that's more 'glued' together.
It absolutely comes across. If you know what you're listening for then you understand, but most people just feel it. It's technically distortion, but humans like distortion. Anything too clean is boring to the human ear.
So, vinyl, is not technically better. But, it has some artefacts that are pleasing to the human ear. And, I suspect, that's what people pick up on subliminally (if they're not just trying to be boring hipsters).
I'm not disagreeing - just interested. I actually roll off the highs via EQ for almost all my headphones and speakers.
The distortion and chorusing are definitely aspects of 'warmth' too. So, it's not just about the highs and lows. Producers absolutely try to 'warm up' their digital sound sources, stems, and masters with harmonic distortion. I guess you'll always get a bit more with vinyl.
I think some of this is the culture of the industry itself. The major recording studios, engineers, etc. were on a 'war against distortion and noise' from the early 50s. Then digital came along and suddenly it was possible to have low-noise floors and pretty much zero distortion through digital sound sources (plugins).
Because digital was deemed to be 'cold', there has been a bit of a backlash against that in the past decade or so:
* Major mixing console manufacturers, like SSL, after decades of trying to make their mixers as clean as possible are now releasing desks like the Origin [1] which are throwbacks to their late 70s desks. Every classic compressor, EQ, delay, flanger, phaser... from the 50s onwards, still exists either in original form or cloned-form. People are still buying the equipment of the past to make music. And digital plugin manufacturers are stil releasing plugins that try to emulate the old gear.
* New genres appeared like 'lo-fi' [2] that actively does what you say. It tries to degrade the sound for digital too.
* The fact that vinyl isn't just still here, but resurgent, is I guess more evidence of that.
But I still think, to a certain extent, that professionals in the industry want to use the full range and accept that some of it will be lost with a vinyl press. Brighter music is perceived to be louder, so on a radio or something like that, it will cut through better and be more likely to be noticed. I think the recent end of the 'loudness wars' [3] may well see some changes toward releases with different EQ curves.
I own over 10,000 records. I don't buy them because they're 'warmer', I buy them for the UX! I have a terrible memory, but I remember the sleeve of every record I own. I don't know what they're called, just "it's the green one"! I think the warmth argument is slightly overplayed, but I also understand why subliminally people might feel that records are subjectively better because of it.
[1] https://solidstatelogic.com/products/origin
[2] https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-lofi-explained
On the physical aspect - I do miss that from CDs, especially looking through liner notes. Streaming in particular made remembering albums difficult for me. I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though, so now I have everything ripped or bought digitally and available from my media server. It's not quite the same as browsing through CDs, but it's a lot closer.
10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room? My ~300 CDs were annoying enough to store, lol.
Exactly this. If you're destroying the dynamic-range of your song so that it sounds louder, only for it to be turned down based on perceived loudness (LUFS [1]), then all you're doing is making your song worse.
"Ended" might be an extreme statement, you still need to maximise loudness, but destroying dynamic range, to the extent that was happening before, isn't needed any more.
> I still find the convenience (especially when it comes to storage!) of digital worth the trade-off though
Me too. I play most music off Spotify, don't have an issue with that, just need to find out what everything I like was called :D
I was a DJ at a pro-level for a long time (from 1999), so vinyl was how I got fresh underground music each week. Going to record stores listening to what had just come in. Used to get vinyl promos too, but those have long since finished, all promos are digital now.
I haven't really taken DJing seriously for more than a decade now, but if I'm buying music to play then I still buy vinyl (again for the UX, not some pretentious 'vinyl is better' reasons). For home listening though, digital is better quality and easier to access. Personally, I prefer having the extra fidelity also.
> 10k records is quite the commitment - that must need a dedicated room?
Two rooms, under the stairs, and some are used as to partially acoustically treat my studio [2], although that doesn't make them particularly easy to access! Not all vinyl was made equal ;)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUFS
[2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9swzlgk3wszeq6jfjxmw1/IMG_141...
I'm not an audiophile, but that's actually probably objectively true, but for non-obvious reasons that are not clear if you're just looking at technical specs. Digital music can sound better, but opens up the technical possibility of prioritizing other things, which are in fact prioritized.
IIRC, it was the "loudness war." Digital audio capable of a much wider dynamic range than vinyl, but the record companies choose to throw most of that away in order to make the music sound "louder." Technical limitations of vinyl prevent those shenanigans (I believe the grooves would be too wide or something), which forces the music to be mastered in a better way than sounds better.
For this reason buying modern albums on vinyl doesn't make much sense to me besides for collectibility and sentimentality. I have a few hundred LPs sitting in my closet behind me but it's for those reasons, not because I have any delusions about a non-existent inherent sonic advantage of the medium.
Are you saying you prefer the bottom ones?
Ultimately, photography is less about the quality of the equipment, and more about what you do with it (cliché, I know), and phone cameras are pretty high quality but clip your wings by taking all control away from you.
Your kids might benefit from an entry-level Sony a6000 or a6100 (the a6000 is ancient but shockingly capable) or equivalent, and some practice with raw processing software (Lightroom Classic is the default choice here, but Darktable is great if you don't want to give Adobe your money. Apple Photos is a pretty damn decent beginner option too).
That's what I hate about cameras, the 'ancient' model is still $450 used and ~$850 new.
I'm never going to be bale to unsee this.
I dunno... I've never seen anything like the photo of the mountain (IMG_6491) in real life. The reality is that our eyes have an extremely wide range of contrast. But in that photo, the clouds are blown out and all the immediate scenery is essentially black. In real life, clouds don't get blown out, and you can see everything around you just fine in every situation where there's a big blue sky above you. The iPhone photo is a much more accurate approximation of what our eyes perceive.
And the poster claims the mountains feel like more massive objects on the older camera. I'll respectfully disagree -- on the older camera, I can't judge their size because I can't see any of the landscape leading up to them for comparison. Whereas on the iPhone, I intuitively feel how massive they as my eye is drawn up the road, up the valley, up into the sky. I have full context for comparison.
Of course, there's no arguing with taste. :)
But maybe I can never unsee this either -- I appreciate the iPhone even more now...