24bit Vinyls

[Quarterquack]

I was wondering if any tracker has a decent amount of these? Preferably recent stuff, of course. I usually buy old Vinyls, but when it comes to new music, they become extremely hard to scout. Do the lossless trackers come close to having a good amount of them? If not are there any other trackers with a comprehensive amount of Vinyls?

[ca_aok]

What probably has the most from that Team 96 hype about a year and a half ago. People got really obsessed with 24/96 rips and a lot of them have shown up since, albeit often ripped with poor equipment.

The folks on the lossless trackers generally know what they're doing and sometimes have decent equipment to boot (plus the rips generally come with full artwork). It's really the case of quality v.s. quantity.

[pretend]

What.cd has biggest selection I guess, but seriously some people don't hesitate to rip vinyl even with digital dictaphone. Besides that Pedro's and Eo have decent amount of well-ripped releases, rutracker.org has its vinyl enthusiasts (vinyl rippers there usually care about quality), avaxhome.ws, which mostly serves rips taken elsewhere but still might be great source.

[IdolEyes787]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?:unsure:

[pretend]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?:unsure:

I doubt that even well-done 24/96 rip will sound better than CDDA, but still vinyl sounding is kinda cute. And what else to do if the thing wasn't released in lossless digital format? I'd say some electronic/indie-rock labels still prefer vinyl over anything else and sometimes don't make new releases available on CD.

Anyway I don't think this defeats the purpose. If people like listening vinyl, they will like listening to exact replica of once played tape.

[IdolEyes787]

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[windterry]

what...................................

[Quarterquack]

Correct. The Vinyl will always be better than its digital form. However, my problem is locating said Vinyls. I don't know a single place in Ottawa that sells "modern" LPs and I sure as hell am not going to drive up to a place that does 200-400Kms away just for one or two of them.

I've been updating my audio systems lately, and the 24/96k rips that I have sure do sound better than a FLAC playing at 900kbps. Maybe it's a placebo, maybe it's not, but I can still even hear the degradation crackle. I'm not hunting for Elvis 1980's LP's, I'm looking for more modern stuff by current artists that still release them, but are hard to find. So, I settle for the next best thing; their digital form.

EDIT: How silly of me; thank you to both pretend and ca_aok. I'll look into all of the options you mentioned, guys. :)

[elbuitre]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?:unsure:

Well each time you play a vinyl record the needle damages it, so by recording the first play at 24bit you keep all the information, albeit digitized. Only an unplayed record can be turned into a 24bit rip.

[ca_aok]

I've been updating my audio systems lately, and the 24/96k rips that I have sure do sound better than a FLAC playing at 900kbps. Maybe it's a placebo, maybe it's not, but I can still even hear the degradation crackle. I'm not hunting for Elvis 1980's LP's, I'm looking for more modern stuff by current artists that still release them, but are hard to find. So, I settle for the next best thing; their digital form.
It's placebo (unless you mean 24/96 vs 16/44.1 of the same vinyl rip in which case it's still probably placebo). DVDA or SACD sources are always preferable.


Well each time you play a vinyl record the needle damages it, so by recording the first play at 24bit you keep all the information, albeit digitized. Only an unplayed record can be turned into a 24bit rip.
Not exactly. You're right that an LP degrades on every play (less so with better equipment and storage practices) but you're wrong in that you're keeping all the information. The analog->digital conversion is quantizing the analog soundwave into digital form, which completely benefits the so called advantage of vinyl: the completely analog signal chain.

Throw in the fact that many modern LPs are recorded digitally (and certainly mixed/mastered digitally) and many modern LPs are directly sourced from the 16/44.1 CD mastering, and you have a boatload of fail in most cases. By the time the sound is actually coming out of your speakers it's been transcoded multiple times from analog to digital.

Regarding the 24bit part, that's not exactly true. 24bit sound increases the dynamic range of the recordings, but most LPs probably don't have the dynamic range to make use of those extra bits, and if they do it's not necessarily completely degraded on the first play. Hell, many LPs, especially older ones probably don't even have the dynamic range to fill a 16bit file. And even if the LP is superbly pressed and mastered, people doing vinyl rips online are often teenagers using shitty equipment that cost a few hundred dollars all told, or even worse, a USB turntable.

The only time a vinyl rip is better is if the mastering is significantly better than its CD counterpart (this isn't always the case, you can brickwall a vinyl master as well), or of course if there is no CD counterpart. Otherwise you're better off buying the LP yourself and downloading the CD sourced FLACs.

tl;dr Vinyl rips are mostly useless, especially 24bit rips.

Edit: Also "Vinyls" is not a word. Every time I see that I die a little inside :P

[elbuitre]

The vinyl does degrade with each play so digitizing at 24bit keeps all information possible, again albeit digitized. A lot of music is only released on vinyl so they're not useless.

[gotfree]

I'm confused , you take a vinyl record and change into not a vinyl record.Excuse the ignorance but kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?:unsure:

I doubt that even well-done 24/96 rip will sound better than CDDA, but still vinyl sounding is kinda cute. And what else to do if the thing wasn't released in lossless digital format? I'd say some electronic/indie-rock labels still prefer vinyl over anything else and sometimes don't make new releases available on CD.

Anyway I don't think this defeats the purpose. If people like listening vinyl, they will like listening to exact replica of once played tape.

Do you mean CODA.fm? I am not buying into .mp3. What audio should one have to make the mp3 sound better than CD, LP or 24/96 rips?:noes:

[ca_aok]

CDDA is a standard red book CD. If you're downloading MP3s, just save yourself the hassle and grab the CD rip. 24/96 is completely irrelevant for MP3, it's about trying to preserve more sound quality than a standard lossless track on a CD, with MP3s you lose any of that quality instantly. And unless you like crackles and pops I'd suggest you stick to CDs where they're available. There are exceptions, mostly mastering based. For example, White Stripes - Icky Thump sounds better on vinyl. Metallica - Death Magnetic does not. It's completely dependent on the mastering for the LP.

24bit does not keep all information possible. Technically 32bit would keep more. And to be honest the sampling rate (96kHz or 192kHz) is by far more important for the storage of information.

Also, the LP->Stylus->Cartridge->Tonearm->Phonostage->Receiver->Soundcard is not a lossless process in any sense of the term, so you're in no way "keeping the full data" of the LP. It's degrading while it's playing. While it's true you'll have the best quality sound on the first playthrough, it's not going to be an exact replication of the sound that was pressed to the LP in the first place.

And I stated that the caveat of vinyl being useless was mastering differences or availability of the album on CD in the long bit ;)

[elbuitre]

Well i can't tell the difference between v2, v0 and FLAC from the same source anyway. But more important that the sampling rate in the sound of a vinyl rip is the equipment that is used, and what process (if any) did the ripper used for declicking.

[Quarterquack]

Edit: Also "Vinyls" is not a word. Every time I see that I die a little inside :P

I couldn't but agree more! As a biochemist I always ask people to refer to them as ethenyls! Just kidding, I'll watch out for it from now on, haha. :P

And thanks for all the knowledge you posted. I never read that much into the process, mostly because I have never attempted to rip Vinyl releases myself knowing the difficulty in getting the equipment together would far outweigh the benefits.

[gotfree]

I totally agree with ca_aok that only the quality of equipment matters while transferring LP to digital format. This is very true also concerning the listening part as well. I would like to make some diversion to the listening part.

Nowadays, quite a lot of companies started making component audio ampliphiers. Many of them are claiming that they are the best (Marantz, Naim, NAD, Yamaha, Cambridge, Densen, etc.). Some of them are surely superior. But there is one no sense as I am concerned, almost no one of them have incorporated Tremble and Bass regulators anymore. You will not find even one word about the tremble and bass regulators in the reviews of so called “expert reviewer of the audio equipment”. The absolutely groundless claim now exists that it is not important to have tremble and bass regulators because the CD (LP) mastering is already perfect nowadays. Not at all my friends, I have many examples from my personal experience, this is not the case. All of us has different ears (I myself am not claiming that my ears are the best.) ;) There are many CDs in the market that claim to be “perfectly re-mastered”, but sound like from the 1940’s. That is when the tremble and bass regulators may become very handy. By the way, these considerations were my starting point, while I have been trying to acquire some very good and very decently priced amplifier. This leaded me to get Yamaha A-S1000 amplifier.

Another point that I totally agree with ca_aok, you do not even want to go into the woods of ripping LPs into 24/96 if you do not have decent at least close to professional equipment. Otherwise, you will end up with quite poor results.

For those, who would like to find more into about digital sound is here: http://www.tweakheadz.com/16_vs_24_bit_audio.htm

[1000possibleclaws]

Do you guys actually prefer a vinyl rip to a digital download? I find they sound noticeably worse when you transcode from vinyl instead of from master or a cd. I've never heard a proper rip which ca_aok is talking about, and the majority of rips out there seem to have bad artifacts, because of the pops and stuff you can get with the process.

[gotfree]

Do you guys actually prefer a vinyl rip to a digital download? I find they sound noticeably worse when you transcode from vinyl instead of from master or a cd. I've never heard a proper rip which ca_aok is talking about, and the majority of rips out there seem to have bad artifacts, because of the pops and stuff you can get with the process.

You are absolutely right. That's what ca_aok and I were talking about. I have heard and have just a couple of quality rips.

[cinephilia]

my Densen Beat-100 amplifier

http://www.audiocostruzioni.com/r_s/ampli/densen-beat-100/densen%20beat%20100.jpg


envy me

[gotfree]

my Densen Beat-100 amplifier

envy me

I had my eye on it while looking for the amp some time ago. Never heard the sounding though. The reviews were nice at that time. :yup:

[cinephilia]

Never heard the sounding though.
no words can describe how outstanding it is :yup:

btw, i'm selling my Rega Brio (which also is an amazing amplifier for the price) if interested :naughty:

http://www.uptownaudio.com/rega/Brio.jpg