Stefano the OP's budget is 2k, so yes for 2k a rebodied 103 and table will better a 2 k server system ..
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Ok, maybe you don't understand the quality of my system. That's ok! Denon sounds good, but it is NOT hi end kind of gear. I had also a Denon 103 R modified body stylus and tip...the works!!!
It just didn't change the basic weak points of the Denon. It significantly improve tracking ability, surface noise and detail retrieval though.
Anyhow when compared to my low output MC, the difference is startling (obviously my cart is $4.2K)!!! Even without comparing, on a high resolution system, you realize that it is just out of place. It all depends what your expectations are. If you look for a true performing hi end system, the Denon ain't going to do it. What it is going to give you, is a good bang for the buck...but you are not clearly getting a living miracle!
A true high resolution system starts from source throughout speakers and includes ALL interconnects.
Yes, interconnects are really important and will reveal a lot of your system, allowing your gears to freely express.
Just to give you a little tip...I am using all MIT combination of latest Magnum and Oracle throughout. 😱🙄😉
😎
There is one thing that can explain why we may understand TT sources better than digital sources. In a hifi system the electrical energy is transformed into acoustic energy at the speaker, thru coils currents and magnet systems. What if that is it so that the distortions introduced by the opposite process in the TT-end, simply are cancelled by the speaker action. and as the "better" digital signal does not have this opsite coding making it sound worse. So in analog you correct one error with an other opposite error made by two opposite electro mechanical processes..
Stefano,
You do realize we are in discussion about a TT while maintaining a 2 K budget, i did not say 103r is the best cartridge in the world or its better then my Koetsu, the 103 is a 300.00 cartridge , it is one of many that fits the OP budget.
It will better a 2k server system as well as others in that price range ...
You do realize we are in discussion about a TT while maintaining a 2 K budget, i did not say 103r is the best cartridge in the world or its better then my Koetsu, the 103 is a 300.00 cartridge , it is one of many that fits the OP budget.
It will better a 2k server system as well as others in that price range ...
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No, it's not. You keep forgetting that in the $2K you have to fit TT, arm, Phono, cart and interconnects.
Considering that a fully modified Denon DL103-R will set you back with re-tipping and new body around $600 all you have left is $1400 to fit the rest. So basically if you spend at least $1100 for a VPI traveller, you are left with $300 for a phono and you haven't included interconnect from deck to phono.
So...do you still think you can challenge a music server at thus level? I can even tell you you can have other $400 to buy a phono...you still ain't going to match a music server at this price level.
Music server in Hi-Rez mode will kill the analogue set up.
Ultimately we won't get to an agreement, we gave to listen in group and collect impressions.
thats 100% true. When I started with vinyl, I had a cheap TT with a cheap MM cart and a vintage receiver as a phono. Ipod sounded better.
however, a good 300$ phono a 220$ cartridge like denon dl-103 with a 200$ TT like the SL-1200 technics will probably sound better then any dac under 1k, or at least for 700$ you can have a damn good analogue experience.
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Thanks for your intervention!! Hope this helps explaining what I was trying to say.
In other words from your original set up, you can go a little up with the analogue but son can you on the digital side and, digital will be ahead until analogue gets up high in the sky!
My house is full of hi-rez digital hard heads on weekends , they come to hear the analog , it is also there impression digital is not there yet , not just mine, i enjoy all formats , CD's still have a way to go ...
I have had the impression from a couple of "experts" designer that DAC's are now arrived at the same quality as vinyl, or almost. I am talking high end dacs so maybe you didnt hear any.
My sd player competes with my vinyl rig
I'm quite sure that a.wayne has heard plenty of high-end Dacs and I'll tell you right now that I certainly have as well! I wouldn't agree with your opinion of digital being at the same level as vinyl.
"Almost" yes, but they aren't there yet.
I want to know where I can get a SL-1200 for $200. Was that the original 1970s price?
the dacs that sounds really really good 🙂
Im not saying you are not listening to good dacs.
I should do a test comparing my sd player with my vinyl rig.
Maybe my sd player is as good as my vinyl rig because my vinyl rig could be better maybe.
I use a modified sl-1200, denon dl 103, modified phono stage with the help of Thorsten Loesch,
what do you use for a dac and TT. I'm sure a top analog system could beat the top dacs.
Wow you got Thorsten to help, havent heard from him in awhile..🙂
A DL103 on an sl1200 standard arm sounds pretty wrong to me , there is just not enuff mass and adjustability to get it right. Imo a non suspended table needs plenty mass to get it right and for this reason in the 70's i went with an Kd500 instead of of the sl1200, i could not keep feedback out of the technics, as a matter of fact its why i have always stayed with suspended tables unless going to a high mass table and platter , of course a DD table has good drive and shows it's worth on piano music for eg.
I no longer have the Sl1200, but still have the KD500, LP12, Ar-ES1 and last and not least a Vpi classic . Back in the 90's All my analog stuff was mothballed , by then I was fully into my digital kick , Digital had arrived 🙂 and i was going for it , my first cd player i had aquired in 84 and when i picked up my modified denon cd player from a friend of mine in 89 , it was , analog who ...!
This continued for another 5 yrs , by then i was into 17k of Wadia stuff , after , passing thru a Stax quattro ( loved that unit) and thought digital had arrived, then It happened , i had just delivered a set of monitors to a client friend and he had his analog rig up , i have never forgotten this awakening , he was using a Sota TT with a lineartracking airbearing arm and a Alpha Genesis cartridge. digital was all Meridian. We were listening to his Meridian and i asked him to switch over to lp's for a listen , I was floored , i could not believe the difference , i ran home and yanked one of my tables from out of storage , spent and hr setting it up and was floored again . I spent the next few years reviving my analog stuff and later put the Wadia stuff up for sale and never looked back while waiting for digital to catch, so i sold off the expensive digital and have moderate stuff since.
my last digital purchase was rega digital ( 2K) but have had much more expensive stuff pass thru , CD players and dacs From Rega, dCS , krell , Denon, Sony, playback designs, benchmark and ayre. There were standouts but none , i mean none wiped or match the analog, consensus from even the owners of these units, as most of my audio friends are into digital and cant be bothered with getting back into analog .
Software is the issue for me with analog , there were many bad pressings , if your analog collection is mostly such then digital is a god send, out of 1200 lp's maybe i could find 200 that would better or match digital , but when you hear it there is no joke..
The only place digital betters it is with the remote ...🙂
I will add some of my audio buddies , have over 100k of digital and pretty close to that in analog and its the same. Again if you are not making the effort to get the analog right including Lp's then stick with digital , i love music and all formats allow me to access all music , so it is , so it will be ...
Analog rig:
AR-es1 with jelco arm Denon Dl301
TD160 with Gardo gold 8mz stylus/
Kenwood KD500 with custom uni-pivot and Dl110
VPI classic with Koetsu black
Analog pre , threshold Fet9 , fet10
Custom analog pre-amp ( betters threshold, well barely )
FM Acoustics phono pre ( loaner to hear the top)
The End 🙂
A DL103 on an sl1200 standard arm sounds pretty wrong to me , there is just not enuff mass and adjustability to get it right. Imo a non suspended table needs plenty mass to get it right and for this reason in the 70's i went with an Kd500 instead of of the sl1200, i could not keep feedback out of the technics, as a matter of fact its why i have always stayed with suspended tables unless going to a high mass table and platter , of course a DD table has good drive and shows it's worth on piano music for eg.
I no longer have the Sl1200, but still have the KD500, LP12, Ar-ES1 and last and not least a Vpi classic . Back in the 90's All my analog stuff was mothballed , by then I was fully into my digital kick , Digital had arrived 🙂 and i was going for it , my first cd player i had aquired in 84 and when i picked up my modified denon cd player from a friend of mine in 89 , it was , analog who ...!
This continued for another 5 yrs , by then i was into 17k of Wadia stuff , after , passing thru a Stax quattro ( loved that unit) and thought digital had arrived, then It happened , i had just delivered a set of monitors to a client friend and he had his analog rig up , i have never forgotten this awakening , he was using a Sota TT with a lineartracking airbearing arm and a Alpha Genesis cartridge. digital was all Meridian. We were listening to his Meridian and i asked him to switch over to lp's for a listen , I was floored , i could not believe the difference , i ran home and yanked one of my tables from out of storage , spent and hr setting it up and was floored again . I spent the next few years reviving my analog stuff and later put the Wadia stuff up for sale and never looked back while waiting for digital to catch, so i sold off the expensive digital and have moderate stuff since.
my last digital purchase was rega digital ( 2K) but have had much more expensive stuff pass thru , CD players and dacs From Rega, dCS , krell , Denon, Sony, playback designs, benchmark and ayre. There were standouts but none , i mean none wiped or match the analog, consensus from even the owners of these units, as most of my audio friends are into digital and cant be bothered with getting back into analog .
Software is the issue for me with analog , there were many bad pressings , if your analog collection is mostly such then digital is a god send, out of 1200 lp's maybe i could find 200 that would better or match digital , but when you hear it there is no joke..
The only place digital betters it is with the remote ...🙂
I will add some of my audio buddies , have over 100k of digital and pretty close to that in analog and its the same. Again if you are not making the effort to get the analog right including Lp's then stick with digital , i love music and all formats allow me to access all music , so it is , so it will be ...
Analog rig:
AR-es1 with jelco arm Denon Dl301
TD160 with Gardo gold 8mz stylus/
Kenwood KD500 with custom uni-pivot and Dl110
VPI classic with Koetsu black
Analog pre , threshold Fet9 , fet10
Custom analog pre-amp ( betters threshold, well barely )
FM Acoustics phono pre ( loaner to hear the top)
The End 🙂
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Almost the end .. 🙂
Speakers play big here too , if you dont have full bandwidth dynamic speakers digital will sound better. Digital tends to sound bigger , louder and is not as dynamic as analog, analog in turn gets smaller , larger and wider than digital, if you listen to musicals, opera and symphony music the difference is staggering between the two...
The Beatles, not so much ........ 😀
Speakers play big here too , if you dont have full bandwidth dynamic speakers digital will sound better. Digital tends to sound bigger , louder and is not as dynamic as analog, analog in turn gets smaller , larger and wider than digital, if you listen to musicals, opera and symphony music the difference is staggering between the two...
The Beatles, not so much ........ 😀
What I find most "staggering" is the difference in quality between an optimised and non-optimised system, whether it be analogue, or digital ...
I use a suspended platter for my denon dl 103. I BTW only use TT for Jazz, the rest I listen is modern stuff, and modern stuff, the vinyl is most fo the time worst then the digital version for obvious reasons.
I'm interested wayne to know which of the 200 vinyls are definitely better then digital? Is it old recording from 50's and 60's? I have found that getting 50's and 60's jazz has to be bought in vinyl.
Anyways, I wont argue with you as I am not sure how my experience really is due to my "bad" vinyl rig.
But maybe take Thorsten words: he told me that some people compared favorably top TT setup to his AMR cd 777.
I'm interested wayne to know which of the 200 vinyls are definitely better then digital? Is it old recording from 50's and 60's? I have found that getting 50's and 60's jazz has to be bought in vinyl.
Anyways, I wont argue with you as I am not sure how my experience really is due to my "bad" vinyl rig.
But maybe take Thorsten words: he told me that some people compared favorably top TT setup to his AMR cd 777.
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😱
I got to quote you fully on this. May I ask you what is the analogue and digital rig you have?
I suspect that at very high level, vinyl might still have an advance over digital, if set up correctly and with the right pressing (i.e. all analogue master cut).
At low/mid end, hands down for digital! It got so good with this last music server/high-rez that is not even funny!
I do think that vinyl lovers (such as I am.....did I say that I ONLY use vinyl? so believe me...I believe in vinyl 😀 ) are not going to like digital no matter what because all the hear out of that is the digital sound, that, although it got much better with time, it is obviously still present.
However they forget the 200 other parameters that an hi-end system MUST have! So if you do an objective all-around evaluation, you will understand why I vote for digital at certain levels! this is just my humble opinion!
EDIT: you answered to my question few posts after..sorry..😱
I got to quote you fully on this. May I ask you what is the analogue and digital rig you have?
I suspect that at very high level, vinyl might still have an advance over digital, if set up correctly and with the right pressing (i.e. all analogue master cut).
At low/mid end, hands down for digital! It got so good with this last music server/high-rez that is not even funny!
I do think that vinyl lovers (such as I am.....did I say that I ONLY use vinyl? so believe me...I believe in vinyl 😀 ) are not going to like digital no matter what because all the hear out of that is the digital sound, that, although it got much better with time, it is obviously still present.
However they forget the 200 other parameters that an hi-end system MUST have! So if you do an objective all-around evaluation, you will understand why I vote for digital at certain levels! this is just my humble opinion!
EDIT: you answered to my question few posts after..sorry..😱
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ok, now you are talking about!!! That is what I said from the beginning. The more you get hi-end/full range and the better vinyl will sound.
Digital, sounds fuller and with its quietness helps lower level system to appear more dynamic than what they really are.
I think sharing this example will shed a little more light:
one day I decided to connect my analogue front-end including phono stage and interconnects to my second entry level system made of B&W 805 and Integrated amplifier electrocompaniet ECI-5 with MIT bi-wire shotgun cables on the speakers.
Well I got to say that my analogue front end just made the system poor, flat, just like lack of volume and proper dynamic.
It lost a lot of details and as a result sound was just poor! Bass wasn't full at all.
Now, if you just listen to that and switch to the digital server music the difference was just enough to bring full body sound back, more colors...it just sounded more right.
Now if I would have shown that to somebody and said to them how much the front end costs, they would have thought I was crazy...as the final result was just little thing.
Now switching the SAME front end to the big system with monoblocks, hi-end preamplifier and big speakers and top end cabling, it just takes an unbelievable lip.
What before sounded lack of bass, now it just sounds like a ultrasonic speed bass articulation. Dynamic came back to life, not to mention frequency extension on all spectrum. Details popped back up.
Now if anybody listens to this set up, just remains stunned and can't believe it is a vinyl playing.
Moreover, if I connect the same digital on the big system, there is no match.
So what that tells you: in order to really get vinyl playing the way it should, you have to have a system set up that allows it to breath!
Mid/Low end systems with vinyl will just sound poor compared to digital.
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