Record Store Day

A couple a Saturdays ago I popped down to my local record shop to hear some music and browse through the racks of LPs which were loaded with mainly pop and rock music. There were some blues and jazz records available. I was not tempted to buy anything as I got the impression that the record labels were cashing in.

Yes, it is nice to hold a record cover in your hand and feel the weight of the vinyl and quite often the covert art is spectacular. However, it is the quality of the music that matters both artistically and technically. The music enthusiast has little control over the artistic content except by not buying a disliked artist.

However, from a technical viewpoint the music lover has a really broad choice. Most of the LPs will be available on CD or "on-line" sources. A well mastered CD will always sound better than its LP equivalent. The arguments about dynamic range hardly hold water. Most rock and pop music is recorded and mastered with very little dynamic range compared to orchestral works. Of course there are exceptions such as the Pink Floyd. The Beatles used compressed dynamic range to artistic effect.

You really are better off playing a CD if you you want to hear High Fidelity sound reproduction of any genre of music. The sound reproduction equipment needs to be good however.  A good set up should not cost you an arm and a leg. A thousand pounds should be able to buy a good CD player, Amplifier and Speakers - modern technology works wonders.

CD s are not plagued by pops, clicks, hisses and rumble or wow and flutter. They reproduce the music as it was recorded on the master tape. I never listen to classical music or acoustic folk on an LP.

You may well ask why bother buying and listening to an LP. I do it for a bit of fun playing a Beatles record on a turntable brings me back to my teens. If I want to hear the Beatles in their full glory then I play the modern digitally remastered versions.

Many of the new converts to vinyl agree with me, as 48% of people who buy LPs don't play them. They just look at the cover whilst playing the digital version by you tube or digital downloads. Some people pin the LP to a wall and gaze at it whilst playing the music from digital sources. 7% of LP buyers do not have a a record player at all!

I appeal to all those who love music to actually play their LPs; a turntable is not that difficult to set up and you can buy a decent one for around two hundred and fifty quid. Some turntables have the necessary pre-amp built in. Many modern amplifiers also make provision for pre-amplification. There is nothing to be frightened of when you play an LP. You just have to be careful when dropping the needle and don't play your LPs at a party. There is a slight difference in sound to the CD or MP3 equivalent because the LP itself adds a little harmonic distortion which changes the quality of the sound. If I were to be pedantic then I would consider LPs not to be High Fidelity or " High Definition"- but it is probably best not to continue with this line of reasoning.

Audio cassettes are making a comeback; I have got three players but I only use the one in my older car. I cannot bring myself to use an MP3 player with an adapter. Other than in the car I see audio-cassettes as being a pain in the neck. I have digitised any recordings  that I cannot source on CD. I have often bought audio cassettes that have survived only three or four replays. However I have got one cassette that is nearly thirty years old and it is indestructible - it is all very random. Some artists are releasing new material on this medium.

Amongst all the LPs on Record Store day I saw a young man fingering the one lonely cassette on display. He was probably debating with himself whether to buy it or not. The music was also available on LP. I was tempted to say to him not to bother but that would have been unfair on the record shop. There are no such limitations on this blog.

Will the new desire to buy LPs and audio cassettes be a long term phenomenon? The statistics point to an "analogue" revival that will be just a short term fashion. Only time will tell; but one thing is certain digital music sound is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

MQA new kid on the block

I shall not be rushing to audition Meridian's MQA sytem even though there is now a lot of interest in this new method of encoding digital music files.

https://www.meridian-audio.com/news-events/meridian-audio-launches-mqa-master-quality-authenticated/


We now have "temporal blurring of transients" to deal with in our calculations. MQA is based on some scientific research which suggests that human beings can detect time differences of around 5 micro seconds and use this time difference to locate exactly where sounds are coming from. A time difference of 5 micro seconds is a very short time for an electro-chemical nerve transmission system to deal with, so I am very sceptical of the neuroscience and I would need to see absolute proof of such a claim.

I am not sure that my ears are capable of handling the extra resolution that MQA claims to provide.

I cannot for the life of me recognise any difference between between a CD music file and a "HIRES" one. Neither can any of my friends or family. I have always wanted to believe that "HIRES" improves on CD  but the placebo effect and confirmation bias have failed me. My £24 spent on the HIRES download of "Band On The Run" was a waste of money because when I converted the "HIRES" version to 16/44.1  to make a CD for the car I could hear no difference. The music itself sounds great.

I am not going to try and do a double blind comparison of the 256 kbps MP3 that I made of the same album for fear of failing. The "HIRES" version of the album does not sound better to my ears than the "LORES" versions.

I have got a 24/96 "HIRES" blu-ray version of Supertramp's "Breakfast in America"  this came along  with free a 320 kbps MP3. Once again I am reluctant to do a double blind ABX comparison for fear of failing. I have also got the vinyl LP version which has remained in very good condition with few clicks and pops and not much record hiss etc. The digital versions sound better to my ears, in a technical sense". The LP sounds slightly different but not so much different that I prefer the LP version to the digital one. This music sounds great too.

Before I buy an album digitised to MQA standards I shall need proof from a measurement point of view that this form of digital conversion is superior to CD. I will then need to satisfy myself that it sounds superior to my ears.

Many of us have heard "Time" on Pink Floyd's  "Dark Side of the Moon"  and it sounds very realistic to me either in digital or analogue form. The sound of the mechanical alarm clock always gives me a shock and it sounds exactly like the clock I used to have on my bedside table.  And what is more to the point, why should I pay thousands more for equipment and newly re-mastered recordings that can only sound very marginally better to my compromised ears? If , they sound better at all!