Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler thoughts on this new HD vinyl

So I have been reading about this new HD vinyl that a group is looking to launch. Now the side that any vinyl record listener likes to point out is that it's analog so it sounds warmer than what you get with a CD.

So how will this new invention sound? In reading the process, they are taking the music and converting it into a digital sound so that they can create a 3d topographic map that is then laser cut into a press plate. The theory is that instead of just getting the vibration on the stylus on a 2d horizontal plane, they can cut also into the vertical plane as well and pack more data into the pressing to give a richer and fuller sound.

But this then begs me to ask, are you effectively turning the vinyl record into a psudo D/A converter and by that virtue shooting down the argument that the analog vinyl format is better (cleaner) as it gives music in its pure original form?

I guess you need to ask if any of the latest bands that are pressing records are doing the original recording in analog to begin with or are they using the more modern digital recording process that would give them unlimited track layer recording, lossless post production etc and then running that through some form of D/A to press the vinyl record? in that case would the argument of vinyl still stand as it was just digital ones and zeros. Gets me to envision those really bad graphics where they show a really blocky 16 square step sine wave beside a smooth "analog" one saying that digital clearly loses data.

Wonder how this new format will be taken by the audiophile public. eaten up or simply spit out.

Its a well know fact that you never get something for nothing. The only upside i can see is that the 100th pressing should sound as good as the 1st. To my mind analog sounds like analog because it is analog and once you make it digital you cant go back so once they make it digital so they can laser it onto the master it just wont be the same. A longer record is of no use if you have nothing to put on it, look at CD's they hold double what we get already. I also wonder how this process will affect the RIAA correction built into a phono preamp, will they still demodulate the signal when the master is made. I suppose the proof will be in the pudding, if this goes ahead i will give it a whirl , i can always just no buy them .

I am still not convinced that vinyl is inherently better than digital (although it may be better than CD after jumping through the filtering hoops you need to avoid aliasing around half the too-low sampling frequency).

For me what vinyl gives is recordings that were mixed for serious listening on a good system in a quiet room or with headphones, not dumbed down for driving on the highway or listening with earbuds on a crowded bus.

Unfortunately history is littered with bands that came along at the wrong time and released recordings that sounded awesome on a good system but crappy on AM radio. I grew up in Toronto so FM and Zon are the most obvious examples, but there are a lot more.

Also, what about the wear on the vinyl by the stylus over time. Will the the recording sound the same after the 100th play, the 500th ect...
I like the tangible effect of vinyl, there's something about it esp if you grew up with it, but I doubt it would ever match the dynamics of a properly produced cd.

From a pure signal to noise ratio, CD blows away standard vinyl hands down. But it does have a different sound and in the signal loss to background noise, it has the ability to hide imperfections that were part of the recording process. As such, a bad mastering will sound better on vinyl than it will on CD (or digital), yet a very good master will take advantage of CD or digital.

It is sort of like speakers. A cheap set of speakers can make just about any quality of recording sound OK, but a good set of revealing speakers will make a bad recording sound worse. is that the fault of the speaker or should you be pointing the finger at the source?