I was listening to a high-end rig last night at my audio club meeting, with a bunch of first pressings and "audiophile approved" 
D) re-issues. And all I can say is, "Thank God for digital audio". Some of the tracks played were OK, but most were lacking in dynamics and had that awful add-on of the pop/click/rrrumble.
Most, but definitely not all, of the problems associated with 're-mastered' versions of LPs (on CD) is that they are not remastered for better (or even equivalent) sound, they are remastered to sell more units. And, to the ****heads in charge of studios, that means compressing and LOUD!
I was making up a CD to be played at my sister-in-law's wedding, and the Elvis track that they wanted to use was horrendous, with flattened waves every few seconds due to the amount of boost given. I eventually was able to alter the levels and smooth the butchered sections to the point where my B-I-L said "it was the best he's ever heard it".
But generally you don't have time to do that.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fiddling around that you have to do with vinyl, and the joy when you can play a track all the way through without a single glitch. But I also love the channel seperation available from digital audio, and the relative silence of everything except for the "music".
And, I remember Ry Cooders' "Bop Till You Drop" LP having "First All-Digital Recording" stickers on them when they first came out in 1979. Don't know if it was actually the first, but the record company obviously thought it was...
D) re-issues. And all I can say is, "Thank God for digital audio". Some of the tracks played were OK, but most were lacking in dynamics and had that awful add-on of the pop/click/rrrumble.Most, but definitely not all, of the problems associated with 're-mastered' versions of LPs (on CD) is that they are not remastered for better (or even equivalent) sound, they are remastered to sell more units. And, to the ****heads in charge of studios, that means compressing and LOUD!
I was making up a CD to be played at my sister-in-law's wedding, and the Elvis track that they wanted to use was horrendous, with flattened waves every few seconds due to the amount of boost given. I eventually was able to alter the levels and smooth the butchered sections to the point where my B-I-L said "it was the best he's ever heard it".
But generally you don't have time to do that.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fiddling around that you have to do with vinyl, and the joy when you can play a track all the way through without a single glitch. But I also love the channel seperation available from digital audio, and the relative silence of everything except for the "music".
And, I remember Ry Cooders' "Bop Till You Drop" LP having "First All-Digital Recording" stickers on them when they first came out in 1979. Don't know if it was actually the first, but the record company obviously thought it was...
the new age magic? One is a damn medium as is the other - and both are based not on some essence capturing magic but fairly straight forward technologies that capture soundwaves and in one system they are en/de coded electromechanically, with a corresponding correction curve, the other is digital encoding where everything stays in the electronic domain..
I have records that sound as good as the cd, and I have cd's that sound as bad as the vinyl copy.
I have some remasters (kind of blue) that leave the original behind, I have some vinyl that puts the cd copy to shame (the non remasterde kind of blue). It depends - no rules here.
I listen to both cd and lp, but because of the ritual involved and the tweaking factor of a record player system, I love the latter.
Oh yes - and both are able to capture the music - you have to find the essence not in the machine, you find it in your brain.
Sheesh as an EE I guess I should just stick to the concrete in the future.. LOL I wasn't "invoking magic" either, just a simple auditory observation, and yes it's obviously all in my brain..
I find little amusing in the "ritual" of playing records, although these days I am lucky that my vinyl playback system works pretty close to flawlessly. My nearly 40yr old TD-125 is extremely quiet, rumble when audible is from the cutter lathe and not this table, and I rarely hear that. Pre-amp is quiet enough that the cartridge is the dominant noise source - noise at input <2nVrtHz.. etc..
I find little amusing in the "ritual" of playing records, although these days I am lucky that my vinyl playback system works pretty close to flawlessly. My nearly 40yr old TD-125 is extremely quiet, rumble when audible is from the cutter lathe and not this table, and I rarely hear that. Pre-amp is quiet enough that the cartridge is the dominant noise source - noise at input <2nVrtHz.. etc..
kevinkr said:
So does mine, luckily, and I have to pull it out of the cupboard and set it up every time I want to listen. That I don't mind - it's effectively plug 'n' play. The vinyl seems to attract dust no matter how careful I am, and I guess I'm a little sick of it most times. But some of the stuff on vinyl I've never found on CD...
Ah yes, luckily I own two of them, and they beat my transcriptor hydraulik at least twoways..
I prefer the one with the sme 3009 III ight now..and run them through a logitek 200 balanced pro preamp, mc ready using transformer input.
Installed some new op amps - opa 627, two new voltage regs. - and they work fine.
By tweaking I mainly refer to different cartridges - I prefer the denon dl 103, but also am impressed with a cheapo shure M95 on my sme right now - and doodling with upgrading old studio phono preamps. I like the stanton 310 very much, very quiet.
The ritual - I play my records wet for the last 40 years....
It just reminds me of stereophile....somewhat of an allergy through overindulgence...
I had my friend Fran over a few days ago so that he could listen to my speakers. We tried a few amps and switched between vinyl and CD.
My CD player is nothing special, a Cambridge Audio CD1 with S700 Isomagick clock locked to it. Not to bad and quite sweet and full sounding. My Record player is an old Lenco 75 with a 3st plinth, it has a Decca international unipivot tonearm with a goldring 1020 cartridge going through Thorstens simple tube phono stage.
Anyway - the vinyl won the shoot out hands down.
Saying that we listened to a range of vinyl and some was totally unlistenable (a Yello record in particular), and there was a hell of a lot of very poor mastering to vinyl back in the 70's and 80's.
The best recording we listened to on vinyl was "An American Dream" by Jim Morrison and the Doors. Very full big natural sound stage and presentation.
We compared this to a Kate Bush's "Ariel", which is a very good CD recording. There was just no comparison at all. Everything was contracted and less alive.
One of the main observations we both made was that CD just doesn't have a natural pacy precussion drive, and the sound stage is just contracted.
Now Fran is a serious vinyl head who has an amazing diy vinyl setup, but he noticed the differences even in my humble setup.
I think the problem that a lot of people have with vinyl is that you need to spend a few grand on a decent deck cartridge and phono stage. If you haven't done this then CD will sound better. The second issue is that a lot of people have old dirty record collections, I certainly have this problem and it prevents me from listening to my records more.
Shoog
My CD player is nothing special, a Cambridge Audio CD1 with S700 Isomagick clock locked to it. Not to bad and quite sweet and full sounding. My Record player is an old Lenco 75 with a 3st plinth, it has a Decca international unipivot tonearm with a goldring 1020 cartridge going through Thorstens simple tube phono stage.
Anyway - the vinyl won the shoot out hands down.
Saying that we listened to a range of vinyl and some was totally unlistenable (a Yello record in particular), and there was a hell of a lot of very poor mastering to vinyl back in the 70's and 80's.
The best recording we listened to on vinyl was "An American Dream" by Jim Morrison and the Doors. Very full big natural sound stage and presentation.
We compared this to a Kate Bush's "Ariel", which is a very good CD recording. There was just no comparison at all. Everything was contracted and less alive.
One of the main observations we both made was that CD just doesn't have a natural pacy precussion drive, and the sound stage is just contracted.
Now Fran is a serious vinyl head who has an amazing diy vinyl setup, but he noticed the differences even in my humble setup.
I think the problem that a lot of people have with vinyl is that you need to spend a few grand on a decent deck cartridge and phono stage. If you haven't done this then CD will sound better. The second issue is that a lot of people have old dirty record collections, I certainly have this problem and it prevents me from listening to my records more.
Shoog
Not quite:
Used thorens, anywhere from 160 - 250%
Used SME 3009 from 250 - 350$
Denon DL 103 - 148$
Phono preamp - you get good ex studio ones from 25$ upwards, or go for some current production for 250$
Total: around 1000$ max, but not necessary.
You can get some players at decent prices from KAB, new goldring rigs for way less then that - phono preamp included.
I had almost abandoned vinyl frankly, but suddenly had this strange idea that the D3A would make an awesome front end for a high performance phono stage so of course I just had to try it.
The phono stage design ended up being a triode connected D3A with a tube based active load driving passive EQ (ala Lipshitz) in turn driving a 5842 also with active load. The power supply is in another chassis and features tube regulation for the B+ and two monolithic regulators for the filament supplies. The noise floor with the inputs shorted is at the residual level of my Amber 3501A. (recently overhauled)\
Anyway having built this phono stage and listened to the initial results I decided to completely overhaul the table next. Ordered all the odd value electrolytics for the drive electronics from Mouser and Digikey and then once installed recalibrated all of the speeds. It is rock stable now and very quiet. I had already overhauled the arm a couple of years ago and am going to add some analog.de tweeks to it soon. Current plinth is a home made affair of red oak - quite dense, and in itself a worthwhile upgrade. Having learned a few things I will build an improved one shortly - also of red oak. Cartridge is a NOS/NIB Grado 8MR, which I will probably replace with the Grado Sonata or Reference. (depending on budget)
I have a Sony XB-770 SACD player which I have heavily modified, (UK 240V model) a homebrew media server which as a source consistently outperforms the Sony, and is much more convenient and versatile. I have two outboard dacs - A modified Zhaolu 2.5A, and PS Audio Ultralink II with HDCD. I prefer the Zhaolu over the PSA.. The media server uses an M-Audio Audiophile PCI 2496 with spdif out to feed whichever DAC I am using at the moment. Digital out is transformer isolated with additional common mode filtering.
Anyway that is the context, I just find LP's despite the PITA playing them can be - wow 25 minutes of music max before you have to turn them over, just to generally sound better.
Oh and there are some dreadful pressings from the 1980's particularly. I grew up in Europe and with a few exceptions those pressings are generally better than the US versions, so I have few complaints - except over the supposed friend who stole 25 of them from my collection at a Halloween party a couple of years ago.
I built a DIY record cleaner which is very effective at cleaning records at which cost me about $80 to build. The fluid is 12% isopropyl alcohol and ~88% distilled water with a couple of drops of Kodak Photo-Flo as a wetting agent. Works well. Look for my posts on the record cleaner, it was easy to build and makes a huge difference when needed.
Matts are important too, I have a nice one I bought on eBay cheap and plan to try the Herbie's soon.
Vinyl rocks and I would not have thought so at such a late stage in the digital revolution..
Soundstream (telarc) digital mastering arrived in the late 1970's, as did a sigma delta digital coder from DBX which was used in the recording industry from the late 70's onwards. (Not to be confused with the DBX encoded records - which incidentally are totally unplayable without the complementary decoding.) Very early tube Ampex was also widely used particularly by small audiophile recording outfits. (Some still swear by this approach.) Nagra's (analog) are pretty popular around here amongst amateur recordists.
The phono stage design ended up being a triode connected D3A with a tube based active load driving passive EQ (ala Lipshitz) in turn driving a 5842 also with active load. The power supply is in another chassis and features tube regulation for the B+ and two monolithic regulators for the filament supplies. The noise floor with the inputs shorted is at the residual level of my Amber 3501A. (recently overhauled)\
Anyway having built this phono stage and listened to the initial results I decided to completely overhaul the table next. Ordered all the odd value electrolytics for the drive electronics from Mouser and Digikey and then once installed recalibrated all of the speeds. It is rock stable now and very quiet. I had already overhauled the arm a couple of years ago and am going to add some analog.de tweeks to it soon. Current plinth is a home made affair of red oak - quite dense, and in itself a worthwhile upgrade. Having learned a few things I will build an improved one shortly - also of red oak. Cartridge is a NOS/NIB Grado 8MR, which I will probably replace with the Grado Sonata or Reference. (depending on budget)
I have a Sony XB-770 SACD player which I have heavily modified, (UK 240V model) a homebrew media server which as a source consistently outperforms the Sony, and is much more convenient and versatile. I have two outboard dacs - A modified Zhaolu 2.5A, and PS Audio Ultralink II with HDCD. I prefer the Zhaolu over the PSA.. The media server uses an M-Audio Audiophile PCI 2496 with spdif out to feed whichever DAC I am using at the moment. Digital out is transformer isolated with additional common mode filtering.
Anyway that is the context, I just find LP's despite the PITA playing them can be - wow 25 minutes of music max before you have to turn them over, just to generally sound better.
Oh and there are some dreadful pressings from the 1980's particularly. I grew up in Europe and with a few exceptions those pressings are generally better than the US versions, so I have few complaints - except over the supposed friend who stole 25 of them from my collection at a Halloween party a couple of years ago.
I built a DIY record cleaner which is very effective at cleaning records at which cost me about $80 to build. The fluid is 12% isopropyl alcohol and ~88% distilled water with a couple of drops of Kodak Photo-Flo as a wetting agent. Works well. Look for my posts on the record cleaner, it was easy to build and makes a huge difference when needed.
Matts are important too, I have a nice one I bought on eBay cheap and plan to try the Herbie's soon.
Vinyl rocks and I would not have thought so at such a late stage in the digital revolution..
Soundstream (telarc) digital mastering arrived in the late 1970's, as did a sigma delta digital coder from DBX which was used in the recording industry from the late 70's onwards. (Not to be confused with the DBX encoded records - which incidentally are totally unplayable without the complementary decoding.) Very early tube Ampex was also widely used particularly by small audiophile recording outfits. (Some still swear by this approach.) Nagra's (analog) are pretty popular around here amongst amateur recordists.
My vinyl set-up seem relatively cheap and I can hear big differences between vinyl and CD, at least in those recordings that I have both versions of - I Robot, Dark Side of the Moon, Animals.
Rega P2 with stock cartridge $600'ish, but bought a close-out for $350.
Hagermann Cornet2 DIY - maybe $500 tops in total.
We prefer I Robot on vinyl. My wife prefers DSOTM on CD, she feels that the vinyl has too much bass and too centered a soundstage. We havent' tried a comparison of Animals yet. When I finally get the rest of my LP shipped from my folks in England, I'll be able to try some other comparisons.
Of course, it could also be my phono preamp, which is simply a good design.
We're going to buy the new release of I-Robot, we can get it for $12 at BestBuy. Some reviewers reckon that it is the best version yet, even beating the MoFi release.
Regards,
Charlie
Rega P2 with stock cartridge $600'ish, but bought a close-out for $350.
Hagermann Cornet2 DIY - maybe $500 tops in total.
We prefer I Robot on vinyl. My wife prefers DSOTM on CD, she feels that the vinyl has too much bass and too centered a soundstage. We havent' tried a comparison of Animals yet. When I finally get the rest of my LP shipped from my folks in England, I'll be able to try some other comparisons.
Of course, it could also be my phono preamp, which is simply a good design.
We're going to buy the new release of I-Robot, we can get it for $12 at BestBuy. Some reviewers reckon that it is the best version yet, even beating the MoFi release.
Regards,
Charlie
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