Vinyl's Noise Floor

Mikelavigne makes a very interesting, and accurate, point regarding noise and LP playback. Contrast that with the CD format that actually throws away the quietest sounds to rid the system of noise. Taken to the extreme, if you kept audio rig off it would never produce any noise either. Of course you'd be throwing away the music too.

Viridian, well said. I have been wanting to say just that, but, I didn't because I thought that I would be too confrontational. I am really glad you said it, though, because it needed to be said.

bottom line is this

digital sounds more dynamic because there is no discernable noise, however vinyl is more dynamic from noise floor up.

our ears filter the noise as they hear it and natuarally process the music or sound... that's what it is all about.

digital is a lie and a pure money grab that continues today.

analogue is a relic only because there are 999/1000 lazier than vinyl lovers or they just don't have ears or better yet don't care.

There are two "noise floors." There is surface noise floor, the clicks and pops on a lp, and there is the noise floor that one can hear through to the "quietest of sounds", as Viridan points out.

Referring to the latter, digital (redbook cds) has a higher noise floor because digital does not deal with information beyond 20khz or below 20hz. Analog has a lower "noise floor" because it is able to reproduce a greater range of information- regardless of whether we can hear (through the surace noise) or sense it. And therefore, analog has the potential to sound more complete.

In the best possible analog setup with top quality lps, the surface noise should be a minor concern. Issues of cost, convenience and availability of music should be addressed before spending a lot of money. In all likelihood, a $2000 cd player will sound better than a similarly priced turntable setup (tt,cart, and phono amp) and, of course, will have less surface noise.

This certainly doesn't need to be the usual, unfortunate, LP vs. CD dragout. Most of us can agree that both sources can deliver a high degree of enjoyment.

Just to address a couple of the technical points raised above -

- it is in fact possible to detect signals under the noise floor of an analog source; this has to do with the signal being decorrelated from the noise. Note that with dither (see below), it is equally possible to do this with digital.

Dither is not a pallative, but rather an integral part of the digital recording process.

There are factors in vinyl reproduction which do limit the noise floor, surface roughness of the LP for one. This is why you'll never find a setup delivering greater than, say, in the mid-70s dB signal-to-noise.

Oh, and Sayas - please stop with the "people who prefer digital are lazy/can't hear/don't give a damn/cheap/etc." refrain. It just isn't universally true, and insulting to imply that it is.