John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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I disagree with you guys. I find that PURE analog sounds better than almost ANY digital, and that is the source of vinyl quality. It is normally the OLD records, made before digital got involved, sound best, sometimes shockingly so. I have reservations about many vinyl records that are essentially CD based. I personally would not waste my money on them.


Yes, absolutely. I have thousands of Mercury Living Presence, RCA Living Stereo, Columbia six eye, London, Argo, and Nonesuch LPs, and the difference in fidelity compared to typical recent recordings will be obvious to anyone who
has the chance to hear them.
 
Who said anything about bad sound? Based on what I read around here, a lot of people prefer inaccurate sound. I've got a lot of old records pressed back in the 70's that either were not reissued on CD, or I never got the CD, or I haven't bothered to pay for the download, and I like them. I'm just not fooling myself about "analog superiority", which is more of a psychological condition than a technical fact.

I quoted you, yet you dispute then say the same again , you state digital is superior to analog , yet you listen to mostly analog , the conclusion is academic. Listening to bad pressings to eval analog is akin to listening to MP3 and condemning digital.

I stand by my experience ....
 
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Your understanding of logic is incomplete. You did not quote me, because I never said "bad sound". My current vinyl playback system, while a work in progress, sounds very good (for analog). My old records sound much better than I have ever heard them. But good digital has lower distortion, lower noise, better dynamics, and much flatter frequency response. That still does not mean the vinyl sounds bad, it means there is more than one kind of good. Why is it so important to you to split these hairs? Do I detect an emotional attachment to one format of recorded music? I suffer from the same condition, but I don't let it cloud my judgment. I am quite capable of enjoying vinyl while knowing that a properly done digital copy of the same master would probably be more "accurate" and sound just as good, but different.
 
I'm with ya John and Rayma, i have compared many CDs to their LP counterparts and the LP always won.


Yes, given a decent turntable/arm/cartridge/RIAA stage.

In the late 60s and 70s, recording and mastering studios changed over to transistor based equipment, and LP sound quality took a nosedive. That early solid state equipment was much inferior.

That's why CDs were so well accepted at the time of their introduction.
The music business had to clean up its act and upgrade their hardware.
 
I disagree with you guys. I find that PURE analog sounds better than almost ANY digital, and that is the source of vinyl quality. It is normally the OLD records, made before digital got involved, sound best, sometimes shockingly so. I have reservations about many vinyl records that are essentially CD based. I personally would not waste my money on them.

The question is, for newcomers: Should I invest in the good old analog past (quality jazz vinyl) or in today's hi-res digital download music?

For old farts like some, this is not truly an issue. ;)
 
It has been our experience that quality vinyl playback still sounds better than CD. Advanced download quality is another question.
John, digital is digital. Irrespective of how the music data is stored, the playback quality will be dependent on the playback chain, and CD rates are as much as one needs, high resolution is a waste of download bandwidth. If one wants high resolution playback, because your DAC works better that way, then just upsample to the best format, the one that's a best fit for the system.

On the other hand, the silly mindset that digital always sounds the same, is not dependent on system characteristics and deficiencies, is a major roadblock to generally improving audio - as is evident in the typical throwaway or irritating quality in the sound one encounters ...
 
A few years ago, I compared an SACD and a vinyl of the same recording, and the vinyl won, but I am open to new inputs.

Others did tests where music recording/engineers and golden ears found the SACD to be closer to the original recording. ...The original master tape.
{Would you like me to share that link? ...@ Sony recording studios in California I believe.}

Also, with vinyl you are restricted to two-channel stereo; not with multichannel SACDs.

"I got a soft spot in my warm heart, I got a spike of light in my bright mind." - Bob (me)
 
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Emotional euphony?

That's very true. There's much emotion attached to the "ceremony," and no record sounds the same twice.

Also crosstalk, limited separation, lots of low order distortion, HF ringing in many popular cartridges, piles of mechanical resonances, a bit of pitch instability... People in niche markets often like coloration, and since it's their money and their living room, they're entitled to have what they want.

That said, my last two construction articles and my next one are phono preamps. :D
 
What seems to make analog generally superior to digital appears to be beyond flat frequency response, noise, or even lower order distortion. But what is it?
Primarily, that the poorer, digital playback is introducing subtle but quite disturbing distortion artifacts, which detract very significantly from one's ability to relax and "enjoy the music", :p. Analogue has different distortion characteristics, which subjectively are easier to handle.

Until the digital playback is reasonably well cleaned up this quality imbalance remains - a local member's fairly heavily tweaked setup CD playback was so superior to the Linn TT, it was no contest ...
 
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