New Cohen on vinyl

[Humphrey Bear]

For those who are not aware:

"Ten New Songs" is available on vinyl from Acoustic Sounds: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_ ... le_ID=9116

"Songs of Leonard Cohen" is being re-issued as an LP on 180-gram vinyl: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_ ... e_ID=41607

Available for pre-order but no information on a release date yet or whether it is an actual re-mastering job and if so by who and where.

[jarkko]

There is another thread about the new 180 g vinyl release in the Collefctors' section (the album is now available!)

[Myrtone]

"Ten New Songs" is available on vinyl from Acoustic Sounds: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_ ... le_ID=9116

Not much point (is there?) given that this is a digital recording (together with Dear Heather).

[Humphrey Bear]

"Ten New Songs" is available on vinyl from Acoustic Sounds: http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_ ... le_ID=9116

Not much point (is there?) given that this is a digital recording (together with Dear Heather).

I used to ask the same question. I could not understand what the point of putting a digital recording on vinyl was, but later on I realized it does in fact make sense. Even when the source is digital, vinyl still sounds much better than a CD. I have compared LPs and CDs of music that was recorded and mixed digitally, and in each and every single case, the LP sounded warmer and more organic. Another thing to consider: most studios recording digitally are using a 24 bit / 96 kHz format (or sometimes 24 bit / 88.2 kHz) during mixing, so to master that onto CD, it needs to be dithered down and down-sampled to 16 bit / 44.1 kHz resolution. This results in a loss of quality. On the other hand, the vinyl edition of the same album will be a direct analog transfer of the 24 bit high-resolution master. So if someone really wants to hear that album and they own a record player, then by all means, get the LP, it will sound better. Of course, nothing sounds like an all-analog LP carefully mastered from an analog master tape mixed down from analog multi-tracks. When the source is analog, the vinyl format truly shines and shows its worth.

[Myrtone]

Even when the source is digital, vinyl still sounds much better than a CD. I have compared LPs and CDs of music that was recorded and mixed digitally, and in each and every single case, the LP sounded warmer and more organic.

Why? Is that because of the next point.

Another thing to consider: most studios recording digitally are using a 24 bit / 96 kHz format (or sometimes 24 bit / 88.2 kHz) during mixing, so to master that onto CD, it needs to be dithered down and down-sampled to 16 bit / 44.1 kHz resolution. This results in a loss of quality. On the other hand, the vinyl edition of the same album will be a direct analog transfer of the 24 bit high-resolution master. So if someone really wants to hear that album and they own a record player, then by all means, get the LP, it will sound better. Of course, nothing sounds like an all-analog LP carefully mastered from an analog master tape mixed down from analog multi-tracks. When the source is analog, the vinyl format truly shines and shows its worth.

When the source is digital, 24bit96kHz, then a DVD-A edition, if it exists, would be better than anything else. According to a guide I have at home to High-End Audio the distortions in analogue recording are apparent but separate from the music fabric and those of digital recording are interwoven.

Let's look at the differences between analogue and digital recording, I believe that (in theory anyway) these principles also apply the video recording:

In both types of recording, there is a limit to how loud the sound can be, in analogue recording, this is the saturation point, however the recording does not suddenly hit a brick wall, rather, second harmonics are added to signals that reach this limit. Additionally the quietest sounds that can be recorded need to be louder than the noise background. The difference between the loudest and quietest sounds that can be recorded is called the dynamic range and is measure in dB. In digital recording the dynamic range, which is 96 db for 16 bit, is limited by the finite wordlengh, and when the sample signal overshoots this limit, it hit a brick wall, producing a gritty sound. Sampling an analogue signal and conventing it in digital data introduces a type of noise known as quantization noise, because the actual value often has to be rounded off the the nearest available sample value. Dither, as mentioned above, helps mask the quantisation noise, but now that quietest sounds that can be recorded have to be louder than the this noise. Another type of distortion has to do with timebase errors. In analogue recording this results in unwanted vibrato effects, known as wow and flutter, in digital recording, these errors typically occur at much higher frequencies, resulting in a less pleasant distortion known as jitter.

[Humphrey Bear]

Myrtone: I know all about that. Don't get too caught up on technical explanations and details. Trust your ears. I trust mine. And to my ears even when the source is digital, vinyl still sounds better. I have yet to hear a CD of digitally recorded music that sounded better than the LP. The LP wins every single time. Like the mastering engineer Barry Diament once told me in a conversation I had with him: "If you listen to the noise, the CD will sound better. If you listen to the music, the LP will sound better".

[Myrtone]

I refer to technical specifications to set an objective reference point, trusting your own ears is subjective especially if you only listen to recored music and have little opportunity to hear live and unamplified instruments*, I am talking about quality in terms of how much aural information is preserves, how much distortion there is, and how much the ear (or more correctly the aural cortex) can tolerate the distortion. Obviously, if you cut an LP from a digital source tape, this does not magically improve the fidelity compared to the original source. Why would CD of digitally recorded music sound inferior the LP if the recording was originally 16 bit at 44.1kHz if digital to digital copying (at least without any re-sampling or alterations to bit depth) is obviously less lossy than digital to analogue copying. But if the digital recording was originally 24 bit 96 or 24 bit at 88.2khZ, then it's more debatable. You may not get what I am talking about, but I know to look at these biases. Some people are so used to the distortions in analogue recording that they think it is more faithful the original sound than without it, these are the problems with trusting you own ears.

*I actually know someone who is musically trained and also trained in acoustics, who therefore can look at these biases.

[tomsakic]

Back in 2002, few Forum members reported that the sound of Ten New Songs on vinyl is much warmer and better than on CD pressings.

On this link, that's the same 2002 vinyl release. Dear Heather wasn't pressed on vinyl.

[Humphrey Bear]

trusting your own ears is subjective

So? Then DON'T trust your ears. Turn your ears off when listening to music and impress the world with your technical knowledge and continue to discuss technical reference points.

Do you have a record player at home? How many LPs do you have in your collection? How many comparisons have you done of LP and CD editions of the same album? Please report back.

[Humphrey Bear]

Some people are so used to the distortions in analogue recording that they think it is more faithful the original sound than without it, these are the problems with trusting you own ears.

Some people are so used to the distortions in digital recording that they think it is more faithful the original sound than without it, these are the problems with discussing technical reference points instead of listening to music.

[Humphrey Bear]

Why would CD of digitally recorded music sound inferior the LP if the recording was originally 16 bit at 44.1kHz if digital to digital copying (at least without any re-sampling or alterations to bit depth) is obviously less lossy than digital to analogue copying.

The fact that you even have to ask that question proves that you have never done such a listening test before. Stop talking about technical reference points and start listening to music. Do some comparisons of LPs and CDs of albums that were recorded digitally and listen to what sounds best. Report back.

[tomsakic]

2007 release of So Long Marianne is now available @ eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/LEONARD-COHEN-RE-RE ... dZViewItem

[Birdonawire]

2007 release of So Long Marianne is now available @ eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/LEONARD-COHEN-RE-RE ... dZViewItem

Tom, do you think £7.99 is a bit expensive for a vinyl single or, as it is a limited edition, is it a bargain? I'm never sure when it comes to pricing things.

[tomsakic]

I think it's cheap, that's less than for the new CD. Also, this single LP is very limited edition. Sony repeats it's freely available, but I didn't see it on Amazon or anywhere, so it's more rare than they says. Anyhow, it's cheaper than I paid for old LP pressings from 1980s, and I think that I paid about 15 US dollars for an old Suzanne single, and French single The Partisan. I also got this one (I got all Remasters Series promos), and I thin it's for vinyl collectors only, as I don't have LP player, plus it's the same song as on CD [ ], plus it's nothing so old as Croatian/Yugoslav pressing of Suzanne from 1976, which I have on my wall. If you are vinyl aficionado, like Humphrey Bear here on the Forum, go for it; if you only want to frame it, I'd rather buy something older and with much nicer photo. (I will remind you that Jarkko scanned all old singles for remasters project, and they decided to reprint this one, although Jarkko and I think there were better cover arts. But maybe this one was the best preserved/scanned one.)

2007 LP single, Remasters Series:

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/rempromo.html

Some old singles, my favourite cover arts (from http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/rarities.html):





















It would be great to have some of these, and I hope that Do I Have to Dance All Night will be released as bonus tracks with next remasters, maybe even as a single.

I have these two:


(Yugoslavian pressing, Suzy, Zagreb Croatia, pressed by Jugoton Zagreb)


(France, 1969)

In the end, Leonard's CD singles (he also has great stuff, but they're all actually very rare radio promos, not really available singles for wide market) are also around this price or much higher, and very rare. I still didn't find In My Secret Life I want to have, not to mention Boogie Street, which only proof of existence is the picture on The Files and Jarkko's copy (or I just guess that he actually has it).
[Yep, I'm happy to confirm. I have its jewel case version/Jarkko]

[tomsakic]

There's also better site than eBay for this kind of buying, http://www.gemm.com, so you can compare the prices. I just found Boogie Street CD, "only" 35 dollars.