Ever Checked to see how many carbs vs ECU replacements and the most valuable Ferrari's have carbs .....
I have not because I do not need to. I know why many, and probably most, people do it.
An ECU is a complex piece of work VERY few people know how to deal with. While it is incomparably more felxivble and potent than ANY car system, it is far more difficult to work with and is more encompassing, meaning that it requires a lot of changes to get the full potential of the engine.
On the plus side, it enables fuel economy carbs can't even dream of, plsu a slew of other things (e.g. stability control launch control, etc) which you either can't have on a carb fed engine, or if you can, it starts to become painfully expensive very quickly. Most important, no car system on this planet can ever offer anything near the required minimum of exhaust cleanliness.
Carbs do offer one thing which in racing is a clear advantage - they are wire actuated, not drive-by-wire as the ECU does, which means that their repsonse is almost instantaneous. In a world where 1/100 of a second is the difference between winning a race or coming in second, that means a lot.
Other than that, carbs are thankfully gone for good, even if some race drivers still want them.
As for Ferrari's carbs, they were standard Weber DCOE 40 or 45 series carbs, and the same carbs or their subvariants were used by the industry-at-large, meainng Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Autobianchi, Lambroghini, Maserati, etc. The key difference was that Ferrari had their own system of adjusting them, all 6 twin carbs in a row, so that they worked more alike than others had.
When assembling my "Yugo", we did tests comparing ECU with two twin Weber DCOE 45 carbs. The rolling road power was almost exactly equal, down to +/- 1 HP, but the fuel consuopmtion was not, the carb version required 54% more fuel under normal city driving conditions. No matter how much your car uses fuel, 54% more is a whopping difference. In addition to which the exhaust fumes could not be pushed even into the long dead Euro 1 standards, let alone the current Euro 6 standards.
In Germany, I'd be taken off the road by any police random check and very heavily fined. Bankruptcy heavily.
I think vinyl preference is driven by two things, two distinct sets of customers. On the one hand there is fashion and nostalgia (with just a hint of marketing BS). That's where the sales growth is, smurf-hat-wearing cool kids.
The other set are the kind of folks you find around here. People who like to play with their gear. You can effect real, audible changes in the sound produced by your vinyl playback system by changing or modifying your turntable, tonearm, cartridge, stylus, cartridge alignment, VTF, anti-skate, cartridge loading, RIAA eq, etc. Even another sample of the same make and model phono preamp could have subtle but detectable differences due to parts tolerance in the RIAA network. Digital, conversely, is pretty much plug-and-play, there really isn't much to tweak that would make a change you could detect unsighted.
The urge to tweak audio systems is so powerful that people convince themselves that different digital cables affect the analog signal! For those that can resist self-delusion digital can be unfulfilling, not for sonic reasons, but because it's no fun. It's not that vinyl produces more involving sound, but that playing records is a more involving hobby.
I play vinyl almost exclusively these days (except in the car or at work), but I also know that my inexpensive CD/DVD player makes more accurate sound, and if I want to really hear what was recorded that's what I ought to use.
The other set are the kind of folks you find around here. People who like to play with their gear. You can effect real, audible changes in the sound produced by your vinyl playback system by changing or modifying your turntable, tonearm, cartridge, stylus, cartridge alignment, VTF, anti-skate, cartridge loading, RIAA eq, etc. Even another sample of the same make and model phono preamp could have subtle but detectable differences due to parts tolerance in the RIAA network. Digital, conversely, is pretty much plug-and-play, there really isn't much to tweak that would make a change you could detect unsighted.
The urge to tweak audio systems is so powerful that people convince themselves that different digital cables affect the analog signal! For those that can resist self-delusion digital can be unfulfilling, not for sonic reasons, but because it's no fun. It's not that vinyl produces more involving sound, but that playing records is a more involving hobby.
I play vinyl almost exclusively these days (except in the car or at work), but I also know that my inexpensive CD/DVD player makes more accurate sound, and if I want to really hear what was recorded that's what I ought to use.
nezbleu,
It appears you have nailed the distinctions very nicely between those who listen to music and those who are really hobbyist who want to play with parts and components. On the digital side I still see this going on but more as an ethereal kind of tweaking, As you say digital cables and re-clocking come to mind. Now I am seeing 48/384Khz or whatever that number is of bit size and clock speeds and you have those on the other side who will still insist that 16bit Redbook is all we ever really needed based on Nyquist. So we have a new way to tweak, not much different from the computer guys who always had to have the fastest clock speed and overclocking on their computer even if they were only looking at mail and doing word processing.
It appears you have nailed the distinctions very nicely between those who listen to music and those who are really hobbyist who want to play with parts and components. On the digital side I still see this going on but more as an ethereal kind of tweaking, As you say digital cables and re-clocking come to mind. Now I am seeing 48/384Khz or whatever that number is of bit size and clock speeds and you have those on the other side who will still insist that 16bit Redbook is all we ever really needed based on Nyquist. So we have a new way to tweak, not much different from the computer guys who always had to have the fastest clock speed and overclocking on their computer even if they were only looking at mail and doing word processing.
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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.
Cognitive dissonace via hi-fi, so nezbleu choose bad sound over more accurate everyday 
IT's been my experience , that systems limited in dynamics , bandwidth and size will sound better with CD. Show me your speaker / room setup and i can easily predict superior sound with digital, its very prevalent amongst those complaining about "analog " sound. Analog is a pain in the **** , done right it betters digital sonically , it does so only on DD and special recordings, your favorite band/music pressed like dodo will not, so i use it for that special treat , spinning CD's because of convenience and really good enuff sound.
I'm not and most who reconize the difference are not spinning analog because it's , retro or cool and i will acknowledge there are those who do, on both sides of the isle , especially those who cant hear how bad MP3 really is ...
IT's been my experience , that systems limited in dynamics , bandwidth and size will sound better with CD. Show me your speaker / room setup and i can easily predict superior sound with digital, its very prevalent amongst those complaining about "analog " sound. Analog is a pain in the **** , done right it betters digital sonically , it does so only on DD and special recordings, your favorite band/music pressed like dodo will not, so i use it for that special treat , spinning CD's because of convenience and really good enuff sound.
I'm not and most who reconize the difference are not spinning analog because it's , retro or cool and i will acknowledge there are those who do, on both sides of the isle , especially those who cant hear how bad MP3 really is ...
Before we drop the subject, Dan, let me just say that we (my guys and myself) conducted extensive tests of carb vs. ECU versions under near identical conditions. All told, we did around 4,000 miles of hard and soft driving.
I do not speak on basis of theory, but on basis of my own, hands-on experience, together with my friends we literally built that car from the ground up, starting with an empty bodywork and went up from there.
And among my friends, some are electrical engineers, others are meachanical engineers and two are professional racers. A motley crew, but that thing goes like a pocket rocket, hardly surprising given the weight/power ratio and the fact that each and every mechanical part was first brought up to factory standards, which were then cut in half. It took two years to make it. The ECU map inside is not generic, but expressly made for that car and that engine, version No. 32.
Which is, I believe, why it doesn't bankrupt me at the fuel station and why nothing ever breaks down, it just burns rubber when I want it to.
If you want any more details, I suggest we switch to private messages. Sy is right, this is not the thread for it.
Cognitive dissonace via hi-fi, so nezbleu choose bad sound over more accurate everyday
This was an uncalled for comment.
IT's been my experience , that systems limited in dynamics , bandwidth and size will sound better with CD. Show me your speaker / room setup and i can easily predict superior sound with digital, its very prevalent amongst those complaining about "analog " sound. Analog is a pain in the **** , done right it betters digital sonically , it does so only on DD and special recordings, your favorite band/music pressed like dodo will not, so i use it for that special treat , spinning CD's because of convenience and really good enuff sound.
I'm not and most who reconize the difference are not spinning analog because it's , retro or cool and i will acknowledge there are those who do, on both sides of the isle , especially those who cant hear how bad MP3 really is ...
Analog can better digital on an average (whatever that is) system because most systems I have encountered over the years typically lack dynamics, meaning that the analog dynamic range is smaller than what the digital potentially offers, so less is lost in translation. I say "potentially" because unfortunately not too many CDs actually make use of it, they trade dynamic range for loudness.
Once most people do run into a well produced CD, many do not get what's on it because of a not too good CD player, because of overcompensated amplifiers with the lightning speed of a turtle (but hey, it was cheap to make!) and because they have mismatched loudspeakers, often not capable of tremendous dynamic range.
This of course does not HAVE to be so, but typically is so because far too few people know enough and/or bother to spend time trying and matching. I have also had the good fortune to hear a couple of really well put togehter systems, using off the shelf components of commercial quality (no high end, to be sure), which did sound very good together, but these were put together by either professional musicians (classical music won't earn you a fortune), or old farts like us who know how it should be done.
One more (odd?) thing - people who have done that do NOT change models every few months or so and are NOT impressed by kilotons of aluminium and famous names.
Cognitive dissonace via hi-fi, so nezbleu choose bad sound over more accurate everyday
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, honestly, do not understand why you said this Nelson. Perhaps you have found audio 'perfection' in digital, but I haven't yet. I have not tried downloads, however. In today's recording environment, it would perhaps be best to get the best download that you can.
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.
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.
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