In response to yesterday’s post, Steven responded:
“If you take a recording and transfer it (a) bit perfect digitally or (b) by cutting a groove in a bit of plastic, running a small rock through the groove and amplifying the resulting signal hundreds of times, then it is a small miracle that they actually sound fairly similar.”
Brilliant.
You can see an extension of what Steven is suggesting in this graph of a Shure phono cartridge.
Compared to the ruler-flat output of a DAC, this looks more like what a loudspeaker might do.
I maintain that the single biggest sonic difference between vinyl and digital is the inaccuracies found in the mechanical transducers: first the mechanical cutting head of the vinyl lathe and the further modifiication by the playback cartridge.
What’s still fascinating to me is just how great vinyl sounds despite being inaccurate.
Perhaps accuracy is overrated?
