The Science of Vinyl/Analog Setups

Where was I? Oh yeah, man-made. There is one thing man has made that breaks this rule. And its not tubes, wire, speaker cones or cabinets, and it certainly isn't records. Its CDs. And yes, digital distortion levels are lower. Absolutely. But we're not talking absolute. We're talking odd relative to even. With digital they are all very low, meaning the irritating odd are just as loud in level - which means much worse in effect. With analog our beloved natural even-order harmonics overwhelms the man-made odd-order noise.

Its not odd orders that make CDs not sound right. Its **inharmonic** information, which the ear/brain system interprets about the same as odd orders in that it is interpreted as harshness and brightness.

Inharmonic distortion is intermodulations where harmonics are created that are not related to the fundamental tone but the difference between the fundamental and something else: in digital- the scan frequency. It sounds like 'birdies'- little squeaks and squeals. Normally you don't hear it as it happens too quickly; its more audible if you take an analog sweep generator and record that and then play it back. So inharmonic distortion is a form of IMD which is to say its really audible, but its rarely measured as there is a simple way to get around it- record the sweep tone using a digital means rather than an analog sweep generator and presto! no inharmonics.
So its not a spec that shows up. But its a thing that analog simply does not have unless its really broken (you can get it if the record oscillator on a tape machine is intermodulating with harmonics of the signal being recorded but this only happens if the incoming signal is overloading and the record oscillator frequency is too low).

Aliasing is also a form of distortion but the digital world doesn't like to express that as distortion. But that's totally what it is and it too is really audible.

If/when digital eliminates these problems then it will sound like analog. Its certainly gotten a lot better over the years but digital began in the early 1980s and we're still dealing with it, so don't hold your breath...

Jim raised an interesting point, timing. Fascinating subject, since when anyone figures out what time is you let me know. Kidding. Sort of. Never good taking any of this stuff too seriously. Especially where you got all kinds of stuff like frequency as a function of time, fourier transform, the craziness of people being able to hear jitter distortion measured in picoseconds, on and on.

Cool stuff. Sounds real sophisiticated. Here's a real good trick anyone wants a nice little reality-check to keep things in perspective.

Anyone ever heard a gramophone? The original record player. Needle you could sew a baseball glove with, drug along with half a pound of tracking force, vibrates a bit of foil the tinny sound of which travels down an expanding pipe until it comes out the other end. 

Purely mechanical. No magnets. No electricity of any kind anywhere. No RIAA, no equalization of any kind anywhere. Talk about analog! The squiggle on the black disk creates a squiggle in the air. 

I ask again: anyone ever heard a gramophone? I have. In an antique store one day. They had one. They had some of the heavy black disks. The lady was nice enough to put one on for me.

You ever get the chance, do not pass Go, give it a try. Amazing experience. Unlike anything else I have ever heard. In terms of all our beloved audiophile standards it is pure crap. Yet at the same time it is hair-raisingly live and real! Exactly why is hard to explain. Maybe because, unlike today where we get excited at the feeling of recreating the performer in our room, the gramophone creates the distinct impression the performer is IN THERE! 

I don't know if its timing. I really have no idea what it is. Only thing I know, whatever it is, analog has it in spades. And digital does not.

Yes, the performer seems to be inside the gramophone.  And he or she also seems to be dying to get out.  But I do get what you mean by the sense of immediacy.  Unfortunately, it covers the audio bandwidth from about 300Hz to 2kHz.  Within its severe limits, the gramophone has the character of a horn loudspeaker (maybe because all the "amplification" depends upon a real horn), which sounds very immediate and fast.

I think you have to differentiate between acoustical and electrical recordings on ’78s. The latter did involve ’electricity’- at least in the creation of them. 
I get what you mean about the immediacy of the sound.
That’s something that some vintage style analog systems can do with LP.
Wonderful tone.