Well said dvv.
The general input on this thread continues to spread ever wider and descends ever lower. This is a great pity as the supposed topic is still very interesting. There has been - in the thread's earlier days - much to learn from experienced members. But now the general standard includes far too much infighting and [a few] inexcusable personal spats between people of all levels of audio and even professional competence. And there are naturally a few who, smelling blood, have no wish other than to flame such incidents. Too much bandwidth is occupied with way off-topic issues. Odd seeds of wisdom are now hard to find.
Reverting to recent subject matters:
When faced with the choice between a very high cost and fragile analogue front end and a high quality digital front end, it is pretty clear that for most people the choice will be made on budget criteria. Couple that with the availability of quality recordings* and the choice is more restricted. Elderly guys like JC and even myself already own big stocks of decent vinyl.
Unless the TT, arm and cartridge are of the highest quality and are set up very accurately, are playing true analogue recordings and a top level RIAA stage is in circuit, there is no chance that the listener has heard vinyl at its highest potential. But of course not all analogue recordings are well made - I know of one case where a light rock band was leaving its record label - so before the contract expired the old company released a final album containing a vastly compressed crammed full of as many songs as could be contained on two sides; sonically it was a disaster and below any known standard. Digital is easier to use, does not need constant attention and media much easier to source. But I have not heard the latest top quality set-ups; my old Philips used as a transport coupled to a Chinese DAC with transformers is pretty good………certainly better than the Philips used by itself or an older Arcam which sits on a shelf in a store room.
*Back in the 80s when there were many so called specialised analogue recordings - often on heavier vinyl - a few of us found these to be terrible. Usually the performances were by unknown artists, playing secondary music at less than decent level of skill. These were pure snake-oil products. I exclude records from ECM in this comment].
You can go up to 100K easily. But be careful, as you'll probably see a deviation of inductance at the higher frequencies. I've included an example, where I compared the flat config with them spaced apart as per your construct, and with them put together like a good stripline.
Note the low z stripline config ran flat as a pancake out to 200Khz, whereas the spaced created abberations at 200K and 500K. The capacitance stayed good, but the inductance went nuts, I suspect the spaced pair started radiating, and the meter did not understand how to interpret it.
Note also the impedance of the spaced slowly increases with frequency. Not much, but a slight slope. I suspect that was the result of proximity based effects, but did not do further work to determine that.
jn
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By the way mine was 83% right brained .
That’s abnormal for most of the people.
It seems that as the night comes, I turn left brained ( I hope a few beers will rectify it)
George
If beer fails, well, you can always revert back to analog, meaning ouzi.
Brain, I agree with the text above.
It seems to me that the basic problem with this, and apperently all other audio related forums I have visited lately, that the participants don't understand that audio today is not half as important as it used to be in its heyday.
In the mid 70ies, it was almost the only game in town, but was dethroned first by video and its internal wars (VHS vs. Beta vs. System 2000). There you could easily see the end of the audio era, sound only was quite simply not enough any more. With the advent of the PC, video was demoted, and audio even more so.
I read about kinds testing audio/video cards for the PC, and I see more or less exactly the same thing I used to see in audio druting the 70ies. Like then, when somebody did some serious shopping and we all went to his place to hear it in action, so today kids boast of not sound (although sometimes surprises do happen), but of the frame rate at the highest resolution. Audio? Pooh, that's just a downloadable side bar.
We gentlemen are in fact dinosaurs who refuse to go away and die quitely. You think I'm exaggerating? OK, let's do a population poll right here, see the average age of this forum and thread user, I'll bet it's over 50 years of age.
It's fun for us, but let's face it, 99% of modern kids have no idea what RIAA curve accuracy is, what overload margins are and what does dynamic power mean - nor do they give a hoot.
And when we start being rigid with each other, we are not doing ourselves any favors, much less to our beloved audio.
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I don't have a large store of vinyl records, because all my software, both vinyl and tapes were destroyed in a firestorm. However, because I had successful sources before the firestorm in 1991, I was able to find many representative samples in used record stores, at a reasonable price, and mostly in pretty good condition too! While I make phono stages, as well as preamps and power amps, I too am surprised as to their recent popularity. I hope that a significant amount of available vinyl gives what we got from it in the 70's or so. That is the ESSENCE of phono reproduction, not its relative 'inaccuracies' that don't seem to count for that much.
Anyone who says that music is not important to the younger generations doesn't have kids I must say. Mine are always listening to music, it is just the delivery systems that have changed. It was for awhile the ubiquitous Ipod and now it is just the cell phone, added SD cards and all for more storage space and either ear buds or headphones. There is still a massive market for music it has just changed in how it is stored and delivered to today's youth. They are the computer generation and download their music, so don't think they don't listen, they damned well have it on more than ever, it is just portable. Let's see Beats sells for 2 Billion dollars and you think music is dead? Now if you can tap into that market there is plenty to be made, you just want them to do it the same way you did, sort of like telling them that if you don't listen to records or have CD's you don't know what music is. A very shortsighted understanding of the changes that are happening in music delivery. Get in your car and your car just syncs with your Bluetooth devices and you can play your music. Better change your paradigm or you will be left in the dust. Now if you can develop speakers and electronics that will connect with how they store music and play it back at home you go yourself a product. Dinosaurs yes, some of your are surely looking at extinction. If you seriously want to create a new TT app do a system that will hook up to a USB input so kids will buy it and put that music on their computers. They ask me about my old vinyl all the time, they see the cover art and liner notes and want some of that, new albums on vinyl may be inferior to what we had in the day but they again are looking at the format, just not going to go the full audiophile route to listen to it on large systems, they want something they can relate to.
John hear that, make a phone stage to USB converter and you got something new to use your 40 year knowledge base again. Come to LA and the record store is a block long in Hollywood, more albums in one place than I ever saw back in the days of vinyl records. Vinyl ain't dead for sure.
John hear that, make a phone stage to USB converter and you got something new to use your 40 year knowledge base again. Come to LA and the record store is a block long in Hollywood, more albums in one place than I ever saw back in the days of vinyl records. Vinyl ain't dead for sure.
Rigidness comes with age
Besides, dinousaurs were not exactly flexible
George
Wisdom is also supposed to come with age, yet it often misses the train.
As I see it, wisdom is supposed to counteract rigidness. I suppose it's up to each and every one of us to make sure we gather more wisdom than we assume rigidness, which just might make us a little more understanding of other people's views.
For example, John says analog portrays the esence of music. In part, I agree, insofar that many analog sources (LPs) do give me more musical satisfaction than most CDs, but I have to modify that by two factors:
1. I do not have John's electronics. If I did, I might see things more his way, and
2. LPs deliver the music of my youth, the music I still love dearly today, and this is purely subjective, certainly not objective. A newly remastered CD with musical content of those good, old days somehow sounds better to me than most other CDs of the current crop. Perhaps the master tape (source) was indeed better done than the ones done today, but then perhaps it's just my nostalgia rearing its head.
But John's comment did get me thinking about the issue. I am now seriously considering making a fully complementary, fully discrete phono RIAA stage, with hand matched transistors and a good shunt PSU delivering +/-30V which I already have.
I am intrigued enough to give analog another serious go, much more serious than ever before. Too bad I sold off my SAE 5000 click remover, though my LPs are genrally in prime condition.
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