Pro vs hifi drivers - pros and cons?

[45]

Originally Posted by markus76

Where do you buy these "digital free" LPs? And how do you know that no digital equipment was used in the production process?

Best, Markus

Because it didn't exist! It is clear you have no or very little experience with vinyl otherwise you should know.....

[Andre Visser]

Originally Posted by cbdb

Wrong. It was started by movie producers to give accurate localization. Big screens(50 feet) and stereo dont work (unless your right in the middle), because phantom center usually isnt in the center. Sony felt that even 3 front speakers werent enough so SDDS has 5 speakers up front.

In other words, HT were started to watch movies, very little to do with music.

[thoriated]

Says who? Vinyl is just pure nostalgia. Do you know of any newer LP that did not go through a single AD/DA conversion in the production process?

Several companies issuing LPs today emphasize that they do not use even a single AD/DA conversion in their production processes.

[markus76]

Originally Posted by 45

Yes and no. In your equation is not included the second-hand market for vinyls.

Aha, there are 5 million LPs sold every day 2nd hand? Again you're running out of arguments.

Originally Posted by 45

Is iTunes of comparable quality? I don't think so.

I don't care. Where is this quality? I can't see it. The vast majority of digital productions are poor...... 30db's or less of real ultra-compressed dynamics is the norm. They have to "sound" on cheap consumer stuff! Quality production does not exist anymore except for very few titles while the good vinyls around are a huge number in comparison and sound better! You should rip something and look by yourself instead of reading.....

That's not the point. It's not the fault of the production techniques that there are a lot of bad productions. A digital recording at 192kHz would give you much better quality without all the errors vinyl introduces (wow, flutter, rumble, cracking and clicking noises).

Best, Markus

[thoriated]

HT is all about high SQ also,

Dolby AC-3 allows only a MAXIMUM of 640Kb/s, often as low as 320 Kb/s for FIVE full frequency response channels plus the Subwoofer channel, lower than most MP3. That's pretty far short of 'high SQ' , in my book. OTOH, a set of Bose Cubes aren't the best way to evaluate HT SQ in the first place.

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by cbdb

This statement is nonsense, vinyl is already dead. What percentage of music released in the last ten years was released on vinyl compared to CD? What percentage of cosumers are buying new vinyl over CDs?

OT:

Not many, but unlike CD sales the slope of growth in vinyl sales in the USA has been consistently positive over the past few years. In 2008 sales of vinyl was up about 38% over 2007 which was up over 2006 by about 18% or so - at the same time sales of CDs were headed down. Sales of new LPs will probably number well under 2 million in the USA this year, but this completely ignores the rather large activity in used vinyl and the new production of some indie manufacturers that do not fall under the aegis of the RIAA.

I suspect examining the numbers more closely you will find a significant number of those LPs going to people who fall into our niche category of hobbyists/audiophiles who care about sound quality whether it be two channel stereo or multi-channel or HT. (Yes there is multi-channel audio supported by DVD-A [dead?] SACD, and BD on the music side.)

I think the issue of music delivery formats is somewhat superfluous to the discussion? And to most of the industrial world out there our hobby is dead. How much money do you think anyone makes on the collective bunch of us??

[45]

Originally Posted by kevinkr

Somewhat OT:
The frequent reports here of the death of SACD is grossly overstated, it's a small and growing niche market - at least here in the USA.

My only problem with SACD is that new releases are limited to mostly recent or ancient Classical or Jazz recordings, and re-issues of 1980's pop and alternative. The catalog unfortunately is quite small compared to CD. I'm quite surprised that the Beatles reissues were not also released on SACD, as most of the crowd I run with who like the Beatles also own fairly good SACD players.

On a good machine SACD can sound a good deal better than what you get on an equally carefully produced CD, and at least the equal of 24/96 high rez digital downloads.

I listen to "obsolete" vinyl, SACD, CD, tape, and high rez digital. Vinyl still wins most of the time, with SACD generally doing almost as well in my system.

As a disclosure I have absolutely nothing that would qualify as anywhere close to SOTA. Vinyl playback is handled by a restored 41yr old Thorens TD-125/SME3009 with a Grado Reference Platimum cartridge driving a D3A/5842 based passively equalized phono stage with outboard psu. SACD is handled by a heavily modified SCD-777ES. CD playback by a variant on Peter Daniel's Shigaclone idea, and my diy dac. High rez (and 44k) digital is handled by my diy media server driving the same dac as the Shigaclone.

Kevin the fact is that the present AD/DA process is not good enough to match vinyl as a rule.
I hope that together with liquid music they will improve the conversion process too leaving to users different quality options.
But that's just hope....

45

[markus76]

Originally Posted by 45

Because it didn't exist! It is clear you have no or very little experience with vinyl otherwise you should know.....

What kind of logic is that? You didn't tell anybody that you're only listening to recordings made in the pre-digital era hence I don't know anything about vinyl? That's just another insult. Please stop that. It's just destructive.

Best, Markus

[45]

Originally Posted by markus76

What kind of logic is that? You didn't tell anybody that you're only listening to recordings made in the pre-digital era hence I don't know anything about vinyl? That's just another insult. Please stop that. It's just destructive.

Best, Markus

I wrote that I don't buy digitally mastered vinyls. I know what I buy if you don't it's not my business.
You just look for flames every time.... Are you frustrated or envious? If not just don't quote my messages and I will not waste my time in replying. Because it is a waste of time, IMO.

[markus76]

Originally Posted by 45

Kevin the fact is that the present AD/DA process is not good enough to match vinyl as a rule.

Double-blind tests show that the contrary is true. See "Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" (Meyer, 2007)

Originally Posted by 45

I hope that together with liquid music they will improve the conversion process too leaving to users different quality options.

What is "liquid music"?

Best, Markus