>The Hanover Conservatoire did the obvious experiments on CD vs vinyl a
>few years ago (I read this in New Scientist, but can't find it on
>their web-site). Conclusions:
>
> 1. People can't tell CD from vinyl
> 2. People hear the pseudo-qualities of CD (close, tinny) and vinyl
> (open, warm) if they're _told_ they're listening to CD or vinyl,
> irrespective of whether they're actually listening to vinyl or
> CD.
>
>John
What issue? I would like to see how this study was conducted. How did they remove all traces of hiss from an LP so that would not be a give-away? They came to both conclusions above or just the later and someone else assumed the first? That doesn't sound likely with NS in my experience. The second conclusion would be fairly easy to replicate I'd imagine but for the first I'd need more convincing.
In a similar experiment in my home I took two recordings that were identical in that they were both recordings of the same orchestra playing the same pieces at the same time. The Philip Glass Ensemble with Koyaanisqatsi and Beethoven's 9th in D minor, op. 125 with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Berliner Staatsoper. Both were in CD format and in DVD-A format from the same recording session. Speakers were identical and placement was the same. With both pieces being played back simultaneously I switched back and forth from the two sources. The only variables were the formats of the recordings and the players themselves. I have yet to find anyone who could not hear the difference and pick which format was being listened to. To correct for the possible variable of any differences between the CD and DVD-A players I then played one recording after another in a random manner using only the DVD-A player. The switching was not instantaneous as in the first example since the DVD-A player plays one disk at a time. I had the same results as before, anyone could tell them apart and all expressed a minor preference for the DVD-A format. I was extremely careful not to give any subtle visual or verbal clues to enable the listener to discern any preferences on my part. My feeling was that this was attempted by all listeners before they began to actually compare the musical differences. It was actually a damn good party game and one where no one spilled their drink! I cannot perform the same experiment with LP's as it would be immediately obvious which was which. My only LP's are old 78's with a fair amount of noise and I do not have the exact same performances on CD to make the comparison valid.
John Thornton
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