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The Rise of "Hybrid" Vinyl-MP3s

Posted by kdawson on from the rejoicing-DJ dept.

Khyber writes to let us know that First Word Records, a U.K.-based record label, is now selling vinyl records that come with codes that allow you to download a 320-kbit MP3 of that record's content. The article mentions another independent label, Saddle Creek, that also offers DRM-free downloads with some vinyl records. The co-founder of First Word is quoted on why they didn't DRM the download: "Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."

15 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Possibly better than CDs? by powerpants · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the MP3s are coming straight from the record label, maybe they could be encoded straight from the master mix, rather than a down-sampled 24-bit, 44.1kHz CD. My understanding is that CDs go up to 20 kHz (which is pretty close to the highest pitch humans can hear), but that the bit-depth is somewhat course at that range.

    Is there an audio engineer around who can explain if there's much to be gained this way?

    1. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by iangoldby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My understanding is that CDs go up to 20 kHz ... but that the bit-depth is somewhat course at that range.

      You are probably thinking of 'one-bit' (or bitstream) digital to analogue converters. (Wikipedia article.) It gets around the problem of producing 16 bits of resolution with a single bit by switching at a frequency many times that of the sampling frequency and averaging over time.

      In its purest form, it would switch at 2^16, or 65536 times the CD sample frequency. If one CD sample value is 0, the DAC would be off for 65536 DAC output samples. If the CD sample value is 65535 it is on for 65536 DAC output samples. For intermediate values it is on for the given proportion of the time. In other words, the CD sample value determines the duty-cycle of the output from the DAC. The one-bit on/off output is then averaged over time. This results in a conversion with almost no non-linear distortion of the signal.

      Unfortunately a frequency of 65536 * 44.1 kHz would be in the THz range, so the actual frequency that a 1 bit DAC operates at is somewhat lower. For lower frequency audio signals the averaging process is still very accurate, but it loses some accuracy for the highest frequency audio tones mostly when there are rapid transients in the high frequencies. You might refer to this as a 'coarsening of the bit-depth'.

      A full 16-bit DAC doesn't suffer from this problem because each sample from the CD is converted straight into a voltage proportional to that sample value in a single step. But it is very difficult to make a completely linear 16-bit DAC, so the non-lineararity of the DAC introduces its own distortions. But these distortions do not depend on frequency as they do with a 1-bit DAC.
    2. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Your explanation is spot-on and deserves to be modded up. However, I do have a question for you regarding your "laughing at vinyl fanatics" comment that I've never seen addressed. The question is the relationship of harmonic overtones. It's well known that certain confluences of sound react with each other and produce further sounds. Even though these typically fall outside the range of human hearing, we are still able to sense and feel them. How does the quantization and digitization of analog waveforms affect the reproducibility of these harmonics?

    3. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Look, if you're going to make up justifications for using vinyl, make them more convincing. Much of the theory about human hearing is based on the assumption that the ear acts as a linear system. If the ear were a linear system there is no way it'd be possible for "certain confluences of sound react with each other and produce further sounds". In linear systems harmonics at different frequencies simply add, there is no possible 'interaction' that can happen between them.

      But nonlinear systems are quite different. The classic example is soliton waves. When two of these meet, they don't simply combine additively. In particular, different harmonics don't necessarily pass straight through each other and its quite possible for two very high frequency signals to interact and produce a low frequency signal in the result. And of course there really is no reason to expect the ear to remain close to a linear system, even ordinary sound waves in air become nonlinear if the sound is loud enough.

      So if you want to sound convincing, talking about nonlinearity is your best bet. I can guarantee that 90% of the engineers you talk to won't have a sensible response because they've never studied nonlinear signal processing, and they'll be less likely to laugh at you.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    4. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by SimonBelmont · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nothing below 22kHz is misrepresented in CD-quality audio.

      Wrong. The Nyquist Theorem states only that a sample rate of double the highest expected frequency is the minimum required to avoid aliasing. Meaning that, if you sample 22kHz at 44kHz, it won't come out sounding like something other than 22kHz. But you could theoretically be sampling at the 0 every time. The Nyquist Theorem isn't really about faithful reproduction.

      And in reality, there's no such thing as a perfect low-pass filter. This is why CDs are at 44kHz and not 40kHz, given that we can't hear anything above about 20kHz. But that still doesn't mean they reproduce 20kHz well, just that we can use a low-pass filter which doesn't significantly attenuate 20kHz and sample it to a CD without audible aliasing.

    5. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by kevinadi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Even though these typically fall outside the range of human hearing, we are still able to sense and feel them.

      Nope, it's been proven that humans cannot hear ultrasonic sounds. Dogs, yes. Humans, no. Otherwise, you'll be reacting to a dog whistle.

      The only argument against CD is that people are getting concerned that 16 bit is a little on the low side, and getting 24 bit or more is better. For the time being, there's no argument that the sampling rate is too low. What you hear coming out from your speaker is the result of the D/A converter, so if your CD sounds bad, it's probably your player/amps/speakers and not due to a defect in the CD technique itself.

      A lot about music and hearing is subjective. You can convince yourself that your shower radio sounds better than a $10,000 equipment if you try really hard. It's fine by me if people judge vinyl sounds better than a CD, but from a technical standpoint, it is not.
    6. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by leenks · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not strictly true. If you play two frequencies, say 28000hz and 28500hz together, they will beat and you will hear that. Sure, you can't hear the frequencies but you can hear the effect. This could be why mediums that apply a hard filter appear dull at times.

      Modern digital equipment sounds far better than it should because of the tricks employed in the converters. Oversampling and noise dithering has a massive effect on the sound, and you aren't really hearing the true digital signal but a smoothed one. Before such techniques were used, digital equipment got huge criticism for being clinical sounding (quite rightly). Vinyl and other analogue systems don't have this problem obviously, but bring loads of others to the table (wear and tear, damage, static, etc).

      For some material, 16bit is definitely not enough. It's fine for a lot of modern chart material, where the mastering has multiband compressed it to hell and back to make it sound louder than the competition, but those tracks don't need the dynamic range of a Chopin valse, or a Beethoven symphony. The quiet bits on 16 bit recordings definitely lose a lot compared to 24bit (side by side comparison using old and new gear) - but I think it is really the recording and production stages that need 24bit or more, not necessarily replay because of the tricks that can now be applied.

      Anyway, what does it matter? It's the material played that is ultimately important, not the method of reproduction.

    7. Re:Possibly better than CDs? by FST777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is true. However, with a turntable it's quite easy to change the characteristics of the produced sound (presence, warmth) by just replacing the cartridge / stylus. This is why I still love hearing a good DJ use vinyl in a club: he knows what kind of cartridges he should use.

      On a home system, I never heard a reasonably priced stock CD player produce the warmth and precense my turntable gives me. The filters used in stock CD players are too "commonplace" for my taste. My turntable gave just the right edge and warmth to my metal records (until the stylus broke). I have yet to come across a CD player that gives me the same experience.

      That is not caused by bad technology, but by the fact that digital recordings imply the need for digital or DA filters. Since that is less "natural" than a good stylus / magnetic cartridge, it implies design desicions, which are most certainly not tailored for my taste. Most CD players focus on harmonics and fidelity in the higher ranges of sound (above 500 Hz) to improve quality while listening classical music or non-distorted pop / dance. I'm usually looking for warmth in the lower regions and smoothness in the higher. An average turntable cartridge either gives me just that or is as useless as a CD player. When I have a cartridge I like, you can be sure that Beethoven will sound horrible on it.

      --
      Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
  2. Re:Funny coincidence by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The most impressive thing I have ever seen with vinyl disks was a friend saying "you have to listen to this" and searching the disk for a particular pattern and dropping the needle on it.
    Deadly accurate and spot on.
    You could see the entire album and know where quiet sections are and how much to skip to to get past the annoying interlude or whatever.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  3. Somewhat pointless by 11223 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given that I can buy totally unmolested WAVs from Beatport, what's the point? I find it hard to believe that there are vinyl purists who want MP3s, or that those who would work with an MP3 wouldn't rather deal with a master-quality WAV which can be manipulated even more.

    Lossy compression is just as insidious as DRM when the bandwidth for CD-quality uncompressed audio is available.

    And to those who say you can't hear the difference, if you slow the track down by 50%, you can. If you don't know why you would do that, ask a DJ.

  4. 'enhanced' CDs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They used to make these multi session audio CDs with the CD audio also encoded as WMA on the second session.

    They don't make them anymore. The distributors had to pay out twice the royalties to the artists since there were two copies being distributed.

    Somehow I don't think this new scheme will last long.

  5. Re:NOT better than CDs by Endo13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, "better" in this case is not subjective at all. I think you entirely missed his point. His point is that you can create any sound you want with digital. Any sound at all. If you wanted to make a digital version of a track that sounded like it did on vinyl, you could do that and put it on CD. The issue here is that CD audio is a lot closer to the original live audio. Therefore it's a better reproduction. Just as 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10 is a better representation of Pi than 3.14 is. So the question isn't so much "do you like CD or vinyl better". The question is "do you like live music or vinyl better". Because with CD, you've basically got the exact same sound as if you were actually at the concert.

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  6. 'digital' vinyl by hack++slash · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I first saw the heading I thought the mp3s were stored on the actual vinyl and wondered how they'd be retreived from them, nothing so fancy but it reminded me of the plastic flexi-disc I have stored away with my miniscule vinyl collection, the flexi-disc in question having a couple of Sinclair ZX81 programs on them whereby you use a turntable instead of a tape recorder to load the programs in.

    --
    To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
  7. Hmm... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think it's disingenious to talk about air as a non-linear system. It doesn't start acting non-linear until you're talking about distances (and/or/which imply) amplitudes that would shatter your eardrums or kill you.

    I mean, let's talk about the non-linearity of speakers! They're damped oscillators!

    And you can prove to an audiophile (hearing is believing) that sound is sufficiently linear to make such arguments irrelevant.

    Take two frequencies (say... 14000 and 14300). If you play them, you get a 300Hz beat. Put that on one channel. Now take a 300Hz sine on the other channel, and then adjust the phase slowly. You should "hear" the 300Hz tone moving around the sound stage.

    This experiment only works because sound reproduction (and your ears/brain) are a sufficiently linear system that trying to call it anything else when making qualitative arguments is just silly.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  8. What's the point? by Daishiman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What's the point of a vinyl of a digital master?

    As I've mentioned on a previous thread, I'm a huge fan of classical jazz and I have invested very seriously on a pile of records from the time, and I'm of the opinion that mastering was done more carefully back then and made to sound well with the way vinyl colors the sound.

    But sheesh, if you're going to master an album digitally then why add noise of the line by converting it to a physical medium with a low S/N ratio?