Waves against Digits

Analogue Waves against Digits

presented by Audiophile Club of Athens / 24 August 1998 (revised on 19 February 2000)

Audiophile Club of Athens dedicated in Hi Fidelity, with this Audio... Paper, want to express their views about analogue versus digital sound credibility.

Technical matters

1. Rumble is the measurement that describes the portion of vibrations, arriving at the stylus when it reads a blank record (a groove without any signal), IOW, the presence of the rumble presupposes mechanical coupling of the surface read (vinyl disc) and the reading equipment (stylus). As the platter mass increases, quite high pressure takes place in the seating point of the platter increasing the rumble.
In modern turntables though, due to the decoupling techniques in the platter / chassis system (sub chassis approach), but also due to the fact that motors and axis have reached perfection, rumble cannot be heard anymore.

2. Resonance disappearance in turntables is also a fact, with new materials used and platter suspension methods. These methods in some top CD transports are being copied and applied as well, looking lately some of them, like analogue castles. This is because:
Digital machines are affected by resonance vibrations in a different way.
When the laser stream reads the track, if the track makes some micro movements when it's vibrated, it forces the drive to activate the correction algorithms and, if necessary, move the laser beam to a new position to follow the track. All this procedure engage the digital section to some additional processing, which could result to some signal degradation.
3. Wow & flutter was a matter of fact in turntables, which it is expected to keep spinning constantly at a very low speed of 33.33 rpm. This problem is solved many years ago, with the aid of synchronous motors in conjunction with a good belt, good enough distance between motor and platter and increased weight of the platter (absorbing speed fluctuations).

4. Cartridge pressure on the vinyl record is not very high, (just try to rest the cartridge on your finger instead of the record), and the application time of this force on the turning record is less than 1/10000secs. We would add that high temperatures are created in the grooves due to friction and high frequencies but the very small time these phenomena last, do not allow any record deterioration. If there are any, they are 99% elastic, and in a few minutes they come back to normal. So, even an old record is still producing better sound than any equivalent CD Player or DVD Player or HDCD Player, if we are talking about machines with a retail price above 1500$.

5. Last but not least Jitter or "standing waves" to be exact.

That is something inexistent in analogue tables and which in fact is pain in the ash to the designers and is responsible for the plasticity "not real - not being there" of the digital sound.

Now, let us forget about technicalities and concentrate on the real facts of business.

We would like to note that, analogue signal is a very delicate matter which required the contribution of some competent people, who devoted their mind and time to find clever solutions, so that the analogue playback music to be regarded as reference in our days.
All digital source designers wish to produce analogue waves out of their machines, if possible, international magazines have rediscovered the vinyl record, the 180gr. reissues are coming and go and the reviews of turntables and cartridges are increasing rapidly. In May 1998 edition of the 'FI' magazine, you could read, 4 turntable and 1 moving coil cartridge tests. In 147 tests of hi end digital sources, reviewers such as, K. Kessler, J. Scull, H. Pearson, M. Fremer, R. Harley, W. Garcia, D. Sweeney, F. Doris, A. Dudley, to mention a few, are finishing their tests with comments praising the analogue signal being the reference for their reviews.


We are not fanatics; we are just sensible consumers and music lovers, who try to worn people.

There is a provocative campaign lately of DVD Audio. It reminds the HDCD entrance in the hi end world, which at the end, left only a few HDCD records in the market but not a real improvement of the digital sound. Who talks about HDCD or SBM anymore?
This campaign, at the end, turned the real audiophile to the analogue source again. This rediscovery of the vinyl, started in the U.S.A. first, where the digital era began from, and now is a real fact in Europe and Hellas - Greece as well. This happened because great expectations were raised of this new medium the DVD, which turned out to be untrue. The audiophile could not wait anymore. 20 years are enough.
John Curl, a well known electronic designer, notes in "L. A. Audio File", July 1998.

"... We finally get into the 90's. Digital is everywhere, analogue seems to be retiring into the backwash of obsolete technology, and computers are getting more interesting. The early 90's are hard for phono stage designers, and I gave up making Vendetta Research phono stages. There was little wrong with the Vendetta and we had an ongoing operation, but nobody was buying them! My techs went to Clearcom (to make professional intercoms) and I quietly closed up shop. It is now 1997, and everybody wants a Vendetta phono stage. It is ironic, but this is the way audio world sometimes works.... This is a sad situation, but many of these manufacturers are more interested in making money than giving the audio community a shot at making better audio products in general..."

Let us examine 3 reasons that motivated the commercial success of CD's, so far:

1. Why CD manufacture cost is 3-4 times lower than that of a vinyl record but sells 30-80% more?
2. Why DENON company, refused to sell cutting machines, lathes etc., worth of million dollars to the American RTI, preferring to destroy them and even paid their cutting engineers for life, as part of an agreement, not to work for any other company? (M. Fremer in 'Stereophile').
3. Why companies such as PHILIPS, SONY and others, are investing millions of dollars for the improvement of a medium which even after 22 years is still behind the analogue reference?

We include below a very interesting section of a an Audio... Paper sent by a good friend of A.C.A. Kostas Kogias who although being a hi-fi digital lover, admits:

"...Let me now discuss a little about DVD. This media is implemented to be in the market on a versatility basis, as its name denotes. It can handle motion picture, sound and data as well. In a simple way of discussion, it provides 10bit analysis in the motion picture section and 24 bits in the sound, at a sampling frequency of 96KHz. Thus, it features more effective digital filters, which can result to some better sound quality at a given media, which, in the case of compact disc is a bit rate of 16bit words at 44.1 KHz sampling frequency. Do not expect great sound quality improvements when you play CD's in a DVD drive. Despite the advanced over sampling techniques of today, the CD has basic limitations (don't forget, that CD started being on deployment in 1978), which cannot be improved. Professor Keith O. Johnson, made some great efforts with the High Definition Compatible Digital, but both 96/24 SACD & 192/24 DVD audio formats, are something special, with conceptual advantages. Off course, the sampling technique Mr. Johnson has developed can also be applied on both SACD and DVD Audio. The problem with these formats relies on the software, which is practically nonexistent at this very moment.

The recording industry is not persuaded yet about the commercial viability of either format and the market cannot hold out both of them. It is simply a matter of money, big money, as it always was.

Both the new digital media consortiums, Philips - Sony (SACD) and Toshiba - Warner (DVD Audio), have made large investments, but I think that they both will meet the 96/24 format. The 192/24 format requires enormous capacity storage media..."
[Later on, he wrote an interesting article, about analogue set-up]

Dear music lovers, A.C.A. has members who are tube romantics or solid state lovers, people who prefer listening to CD's and other who love vinyl, thinking digital ought to be out of the Hi end Business, people with advanced degrees of engineering and people they believe Hi end is an Art. Without fanatism of any kind, we would like to end up our Audio... Paper with the following statement:

Digital sound is a modern technological achievement which has made small steps ahead, trying to get closer to the analogue sound, which science has invented decades before and is still improving it faster
.
And for those who still believe that turntables will be a thing of the past, we invite them to visit our turntables page. Do you think these manufacturers make no profit?