What is best for audio
What is the best audio medium?
hey guys it's Craig here welcome back to
vinyl TV I was thinking a few days ago
about what the next video would be about
and I start thinking what would be the
best audio format ever what will be the
best audio storage format ever does it
exist yet is it something we already
have so I started thinking about this
and you know with all the you know the
arguments about digital versus analog
and all that kind of stuff I started
thinking about what formats have we had
that were the best and what formats
could we have that could be better so
let's go back a little bit and take a
look at some of the things that we did
deal with back in the day so first of
all we've got tape
we've got cassettes 8-track and
reel-to-reel are the three most popular
consumer tape formats that that we had
available to us now let's just talk
about these for a minute because you
know cassettes get a lot of bad rap and
I saw somebody posted a comment
underneath one of my videos recently
something about you know if you think
cassettes sound good you're deaf I
disagree I had a very expensive cassette
deck years ago and I was able to make
really good recordings it had three
heads
it had adjustable bias control it had
all the different noise reductions on
them which by the way aren't without
their problems but it was an improvement
and of course the tape formulations as
well you know chromium dioxide metal and
you know those helped a lot as well in
improving the sound quality cassettes
are really were invented for voice
dictation but advances in technology
allowed them to be used for music and
they can sound very good
now cassettes run at a very slow speed
one in 7/8 inches per second which is
the slowest tape speed out
all the tape formats made for music and
the tape is very very narrow it's only
1/8 of an inch wide so they have to cram
four tracks of audio to four side a and
to four side B onto this little thin
tape you know and so you didn't you
wouldn't think it would sound good but
they did with all the advances in noise
reduction and tape formulations and
biasing they could actually be made to
sound really good and I used to make
copies of some of my CDs so I could make
like mix tapes you know and I a bead
them and no that's fine cuz that sounded
pretty good I was able to make very good
sounding cassettes not sure what some of
you have problems with it but I didn't
so 8-track 8-track tapes had potential I
know they generally sound horrible very
few people had an actual decent 8-track
player or recorder and they never really
went that far the format kind of lost
its integrity eight tracks run at twice
the speed as cassettes do and the tape
is twice as wide so it's a quarter-inch
wide instead of an eighth inch wide but
eight tracks generally did not enjoy the
tape formulations like chromium dioxide
and metal so they were stuck with the
old ferric oxide and that's why they
really didn't sound that great not only
that but most of the eight tracks that
people listened to were pre-recorded
which means they were massed duplicated
in high-speed facilities and they
generally you know we weren't duplicated
under ideal conditions just like
cassettes weren't when you bought a
cassette of an album it it was really
usually not very good sounding but
because eight tracks run at twice the
speed
had they been given a chance to enjoy
some of these other tape formulations
they could have sounded pretty good now
in radio stations they used to use what
are called carts and cart machines and a
cart is just like a it's just it's like
an eight-track tape really it's got the
same car
it's not compatible with 8tracks but
it's the same idea it's a continuous
loop of tape that spools out of the
center of the reel of tape and around
past the heads and unwinds around back
on the outside just like an 8-track does
but these tapes sounded good good enough
that radio stations were you know using
them for music and commercials and I
used to have a friend whose job was to
transfer all the 45s that came in from
the record companies onto cart tapes and
so that the DJ's could rack them up
behind them and then he could just pull
them and easily queue them up a little
easier than using vinyl of course he
still did use vinyl but they used cart
machines as well I also used them for
commercials and if you go on YouTube and
you look up you know cart machine tape
cart machine you can listen to some of
these things they sound they sound good
you know
I mean oh certainly a lot better than
8-track did so you know the format
potential was there with 8-track but it
just never got pushed off the ground any
further than then it did now that leaves
us with reel-to-reel and as these are
all you know obviously tape formats
reel-to-reel depending on the speed that
you were running it at they could also
sound very very good this is all analog
stuff so you know it's not digital so
all you analog fans out there this you
know this stuff is for you and
especially reel-to-reel machines they
don't get the same bad rap that
cassettes and 8tracks do generally
reel-to-reel machines are regarded as
high quality tape recorders and you know
they can run it three and a quarter
inches per second three three and
three-quarter inches per second seven
and a half inches per second and even 15
inches per second for some of the very
high-end ones and in recording studios
they could run it 30 inches per second
so you know and depending on the speed
you could you could make a pretty damn
good sounding recording at three and
three-quarter inches per second and
certainly a really good sounding
recording at seven and a half inches
per second I don't remember whether
reel-to-reel machines used chromium tape
or not maybe some of the higher end ones
did and I don't remember whether a lot
of them had Dolby I think some of them
had Dolby maybe dbx but um you know with
that technology these machines could
sound good and don't forget most of the
vintage vinyl records you're listening
to today are made from these
reel-to-reel tapes we're speaking about
so you can't knock them and a lot of the
older ones like the seventies you know
seventies albums you have they were just
you know seven and a half inches per
second reel-to-reel quarter-inch tape
just you know normal stuff that we can
still get today it's if you're lucky the
problem with you know reel to reels of
course is that the record companies
didn't distribute albums on those and
they were a little more cumbersome to
use you know you had to put the reels on
the machine and thread the tape and
everything but is that really any more
difficult than cleaning and putting on a
record right so the format it's too bad
it didn't take off because now we're
talking about you know reel-to-reel
versus vinyl because reel to reels can
sound very good and so can vinyl so what
are the you know what are the
differences okay well vinyl and I you
know this is a vinyl channel so I'm you
know I'm not going to disrespect the
format but let's face it vinyl is not
perfect
it's not without its problems and if
things aren't set up just right it can
sound bad so and it's you know you
you're never gonna get rid of the pops
and the clicks no matter how you clean
it what kind of a machine you've got to
clean your records you're always gonna
have no surface noise on your records
and so you know and it they're so
fragile and you know get one scratch or
one piece of dirt on it there you go
you've got a
click or a pop and it's just really as
much as we love our records I'm thinking
you know some alien somewhere is looking
down and going look how they're playing
their music you know what I mean so you
know it's it's just it's it's not
perfect but it is what it is and it
became the popular format back then and
of course now it's coming back but would
it wouldn't it have sounded better
wouldn't if music sounded better unreal
- real imagine real - real becoming the
popular format back then so you would
buy you know a reel-to-reel machine
obviously and then you would buy your
records on tape and you know this would
be a hell of a lot easier for the record
companies to produce because to make
records they've got to jump through
hoops I mean you've got a you've got a
carve you know you've got a you've got
to cut the the lacquer of the the
original lacquer and then you've got to
make stampers out of that and then
you've got to stamp the records out then
you've got to make new stampers after
well because the old ones wear out I
mean it's just a it's quite a procedure
you know whereas you know running off
copies of reel-to-reel that would be
easy just duplicate duplicate the
originals and you know you could do that
pretty easily and they did it with
cassettes and 8tracks would they sound
as good as vinyl yeah in fact they would
lack this the crackles and pops at vinyl
has they're still going to be noise
tapes tape has noise but at seven and a
half inches per second with a little
help from some technology and some tape
formulations like chromium dioxide I
think that reel-to-reel would have been
and still could be the best analog
format out there it's just that's not
the path that we took records were just
the way things went and they were easier
to
you collect and store and put on then
reel to reels were but if we're really
worried about sound quality first and
foremost out of the two I would choose
reel to reel you know you've got your
people out there spending as far as I'm
concerned way too much money on
turntables and just to try and get the
most out of these records but in in you
know when you really come down to it
we're playing records they can only
sound so good you know there are records
I mean they've got problems you know
whereas tapes which studios recording
studios used for years and years and
years to make records with they
obviously had to sound good because
that's what we were using to make the
records and if it all it would have
taken is just a little extra effort on
the consumers part to take the tape out
of the box stick it on the machine
thread the tape around the heads wind it
on the other reel and away you go okay
now it doesn't have the same random
access capabilities that a record does
you know you've got to play the tape
sequentially through you can't jump from
song to song you'd have to fast forward
or rewind or whatever which is true but
most of us when we listen to an album we
don't skip the songs we listened to the
entire album so that wasn't really
wouldn't have really been been a problem
I hope I haven't offended anybody
because this is a vinyl channel but if
tapes if reel to reels became the
popular format and it was coming back
today
this channel will be called reel to reel
TV okay now let's talk about digital
because there's a whole different area
here you either love it or you hate it
when CDs came out I was very happy I was
tired of vinyl I was tired of replacing
needles I was tired of figuring out how
to line up my cartridge with no internet
and never any proper instructions how to
do so my records never sounded that
great
and I used to record them on cassettes
anyway so there you go and they sounded
to me they sounded just as good on
cassette as they did it originally on
the records because again I could I
could make good cassette recordings I
just knew how to do it and I had good
good cassette decks CDs they're capable
of producing all the frequencies that we
can hear us as humans okay a sine wave
from 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz is a
pretty good frequency response and you
know as soon as you're born you start
losing your hearing so you know when I
was a teenager I could hear up to 20,000
Hertz but now I can't I just no way by
the time you're 30 you've lost quite a
bit of your hearing and by the time
you're my age you know you're down to
about 14,000 Hertz so CDs have plenty of
frequency response for most people and
all this stuff about digital adding
scratchiness or harshness to the music
that's just because people are used to
the sound of records vinyl has its own
sound it doesn't necessarily mean it's
better or worse than CDs it's just
different and you know you have to
remember you know they're taking the
master tapes from the recording studio
and they're bringing them into a
mastering facility for a vinyl cutting
facility and they're transferring these
recordings onto a plastic disc they're
itching the sound onto a disc and then
they're taking that disc and they're
spraying it with you know metals to make
stampers so that they can then take
polyvinyl carbonate and press out
records there's gotta be some sound
degradation in that process absolutely
and that's part of where records get
their sound from they do sound very good
I love my record collection I love
listening to vinyl I think it's
fantastic
as a matter of fact I'm surprised it
works at all and I watched my records
play and I marvel at the
it's like how can you know this work
like this but it does and it's Fanta
it's fantastic and it's interesting it's
it's romantic and it's just like this
should not work but it does it's really
cool and you know there's the whole
handling of the records and taking them
out and putting them on and there's the
artwork and all this stuff everyone's
already talked about you know that's
that's all part of the whole experience
of listening to vinyl but in so CD's you
know they they kind of have that you
know you still own the CD and you take
it out and you put it in and you press
the door shut and it disappears into the
CD player and then you don't see it
again until it comes out at the end but
you still have some of the artwork and
still have the the lyrics and all that
stuff so it's still pretty good
and I thought CDs sounded good and I
still do
they are very accurate and a lot of the
records that you guys listening to from
say the 80s were recorded in the exact
same format but CDs are recorded in for
example my favorite band rush rush
moving pitchers awesome record I have
the reissue here and it sounds fantastic
that record was recorded at 44.1
kilohertz 16-bit so if you thought rush
moving pictures sounds good
you're basically listening to a CD so
you know we need to stop knocking these
things a lot of Records were recorded in
that format they didn't have the hard
drive space or the computer power to use
24-bit and or you know 48 kilohertz or
96 or whatever all those ridiculously
unnecessary high numbers are they just
had that that's 44.1 16-bit so a lot of
people are saying well CDs sound harsh
well guess what you know a quarter of
your record collection from the 80s was
basically CD quality pressed onto vinyl
okay so fine
maybe recording an CD quality music on
the vinyl fixed CD problems the problems
of 16-bit 44.1 remember 16-bit 24-bit
all that is doing is giving you less
noise it's not improving or lowering or
hiring the audio quality or the
frequency response
it's just lowering the noise floor so
you know 16-bit has a noise floor about
90 DB meant night - 90 DB 24-bit has a
noise floor of like minus 100 and I
don't know 130 or some 140 I can't
remember the exact number because sets
have a noise floor about minus 60 dB
records have a noise floor of about -
probably wrote the same as cassettes a
cassette tape has a equivalent bit depth
of about 8 bits maybe 12 and a record
has an equivalent bit depth of about the
same because the noise floor on these
things is not very low it's you can hear
the noise but if digital is really your
enemy ok well why don't we since we've
got so much harddrive space these days
why don't we increase these numbers to
ridiculously high amounts so that
there's absolutely no way to tell the
difference between digital and analog
mind.you analog has its own inherent
sounds because well basically analog has
problems and that means that those
problems become the sound of analog you
know whether it be tape
whether it be vinyl whatever other
analog formats there might be out there
so you know that's why analog sounds the
way it does is because it's doing
something to the sound digitizing music
at appropriate levels appropriate bit
rates and bit depths doesn't do anything
to the music if let's say you you took
okay let's say fine 16-bit forget it
24-bit
get it 32-bit forget it let's sample our
music let's digitize our music at 64
bits
okay so 64 bits gives you billions and
billions and billions of different
levels of loudness so it's almost
infinite and then for a for a sampling
rate let's use well we won't use 44.1 we
won't use 96 we won't use 192 let's use
a million samples per second or whatever
multiple of 16 we could get close to a
million samples per second how about
that how about we sample these things at
such ridiculously high levels that
there's absolutely no possible way that
anybody on the face of this planet or
anywhere else for that matter would be
able to hear the difference and would
not be able to tell that something has
been recorded digitally you also have to
keep in mind that we could really go so
high with this that you would reach the
point where it would be physically and
scientifically impossible to sample any
higher because time itself has a
quantized has a it is quantized time
when you really magnify and break it
down so far you can only go so far down
before you get to what's called Planck
and that's where time ticks along at a
specific samples just like digital does
so in essence time is digital and if you
don't believe me you can look this up so
if you could sample music digitally at
that Planck level so that there's you
could just couldn't do it any faster
you wouldn't be able to tell the
difference
that digital format would be the best
format ever better than vinyl better
than CDs better than magnetic tape so
now there's one problem solved
we've got a format that is absolutely
transparent it's never going to affect
the sound quality whatsoever but we're
missing the tactile experience of taking
it out of the package and putting it on
yes why a lot of us got back in the
records in the first place you know we
got rid of them because we were sick of
all the clicks and pops and and
scratches but we got back into it
because we missed the you know the
experience of it and let's not even talk
about mp3s
mp3s are fine you know at a good bitrate
of 320 kilobits per second they sound
fine I listen to them all the time they
sound fine you know to me and to a lot
of people so you know I mean it's it's a
it is what it is it's a portable a
portable format and and that's that well
I didn't want to talk about that because
that's just you know whatever it is
that's going to improve over time the
compression technologies but you know if
you could get a record you know with the
I don't have one with me with the with
the cover and you know they are album
art and sleeve and pull out the record
and you know have it in your hands and
then put it on a turntable or on a
device and then put that thing down on
at the read head or a needle or whatever
it is
and listen to music that's been sampled
it's such a high bitrate and such a high
bit depth that there's no way to tell
the difference between that and the
original recording I think you'd have
the perfect format there you have it and
with that I will leave you to think
about this let that burn in your brains
for a little while love to hear what you
think down below in the comments please
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notified when I post new videos thanks
for watching guys this has just been fun
you know I'm just I'm just talking I'm
just thinking out loud it's all just fun
just to
ponder all this stuff and I really would
like to think to thank you for watching
and to comment below what you think
thanks for watching be safe spin those
records and vinyl is final Cheers
