OOoof, I cannot, CANNOT let that article slide:
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This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps.
One of the facinating things about digital audio is that listening to it requires it being listened to via analog. We're not plugging the electrical signals into our brain. While we might be listening to "snapshots," it's worth noting that in the space of time betwix 1/41000 of a second and 2/41000, the speaker cone is still moving. The only thing we lose when sampling is actually high frequency response.
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Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.
That is a lie, and you are a liar for saying that.
Distort? Wrong word. The sample-rate determines 2 things; the highest frequency, and the intensity of anti-aliasing filter and the phase discrepancy it introduces to any given signal on output or recorded input. While we might miss something in that 1/41000 of a second, there are any number of other factors that keep the samplerate from having an appreciable effect on the fidelity. For instance, the microphone.
With a wind instrument, engineers like to use a kind of microphone called a ribbon mic. It generates a signal by the sound vibrating a metal ribbon betwix two attracting magnets and then transforms it to a higher level of output. By the same token that makes the actual signal we hear out a speaker NOT look like them on an oscilloscope, the ribbon is missing bits of the high frequency response because it just can't vibrate as fast as air particles.
I'm just using ribbon mics as an example because they're easy to explain, this is true of all microphones.
Distortion? Well, before the signal from the microphone ever even gets quantized and sampled, it hits an analog preamp. With a short and loud blast, the what will be quatized is what comes out of the preamp, and the preamp has reacted to the fact that it was short and quick already... by distorting it if it's too loud... Not that we'd ever even know because what the level meter says can tell us fast enough if it distorted or got too loud. The point is, samplerates are the smallest issue with catching a fast and loud anything. Blaming digital is a copout.
Also, digital won't distort unless you're feeding it too hot a signal, which would mean someone has done something massively stupid. The speed at which a sound is made and ceased CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT cause distortion, the worst it can cause is aliasing which is a can of worms I don't wanna open right now.
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A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.
No information is lost? THAT IS ANOTHER LIE.
We're putting a signal through several different amplifiers and then turning it into a vibrating needle that chops the groove in the record here, and you have the gall to say that no information is lost??
Also, that notion of "with no conversion" confuses the shit out of me. we're taking a physical groove, while likely has foreign objects like dust in it, turning it into electricity, amplifying it, and then turning it into vibrations in the air. That's one ass-ton of transduction being performed in the most unreliable environment and medium possible, any phase of which is more likely to introduce random noise and whatnot to muddy the actual original and intended output.
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This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound.
It can't be more accurate, they have to fudge the original recording to even get it on a vinyl disk.
BUZZWORD: "Richness"? The fuck does that even mean?! This is truthiness, and I will not stand for it!
Also, here's something fun! We've been recording using digital media long before recording with computers was ever a thing. Many things that got put on a vinyl we in fact, recorded on a DAT(digital audio tape) machine and then put on vinyl. Looking at the record collections above, these were recorded on DAT machines:
Rush - 2112
Collins, Phil - Face Value
The Police - Every Breath You Take b/w Murder By Numbers
Great White - Once Bitten Twice Shy (Radio Single)
And THESE were recorded on bloody computers then put on records:
Daft Punk - Discovery
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Skrillex - More Monsters & Sprites
(that was just a glance really, I'd have to look into all of them to know about some of the others)
In the end, the fact is that vinyl records have charm. Their sound isn't "as they intended it to be," and if you want that you'll have to just listen to the original tapes on the original speakers in the original room. Digital is in fact, just better at reproducing the actual sounds moving through the air. It's so good that we tend to notice artifacts from the recording process that we don't like and don't want to hear, but were in fact, always there. Analog covers that up with the massive amount of error it introduces into any transduction. We tend to call that "warmth." This is a perfectly desirable quality of a recording.
What we need to realize and accept is that accuracy in reproduction isn't always a good thing. Analog isn't good because it's accurate, records aren't good because they're analog, and digital isn't bad because of the way in which it records and reproduces sound. Every single method and means of listening to anything is an abstraction of the real thing, and not a single one is better than the next.
For anything we think sounds good, we should probably just put to "It sounds good, who cares why," because I defy anyone to give you a straight answer without using a buzzword that doesn't mean anything. (such as "warmth" or "presence" or "boom".)
For the record, vinyl records DO sound great, I like listening to them more than digital. While many may agree with me on this, I think that it is important to know this is NOT because it's more accurate or a better reproduction of the recording than digital. That is entirely, utterly, and completely untrue. They sound better because.... Who knows?! And I'm much happier with sound still being a mystery, regardless of how much we may know about it now.
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Or just suggestions for albums for me to get, a lot of you have some idea what music I'm into by now.
