Got me a record player!

Ian, tis good to Know I'm still held in high regard Tone

 

Theres a couple of great things about TT's that havent been mentioned..

1) They dont get outmoded by newer versions of TT's with higher rates of sampling, SACD etc!.. its buy and thats it!.. no need to swap it for future changes in software.

2) Only thing that will go belly up eventually is your cart, so you buy a new one and screw it on. Job done. All the problems people are having at the mo with lasers and transports and outmoded parts etc just reminded me how fit and forget these things are. I know they CAN break in other ways, just that they dont tend to. Oh, and a new rubber band every decade too.


Im not going to join in the sound arguement thing, I think its run its course besides Ive banged the drum often enough..

 

As a counterpoint to that, what about all those people who have managed to knacker their cartridge while listening to music after returning from the pub a little worse for wear for drink? The closest I have got to damaging my CD transport in this situation is almost snapping off the tray cos I left it open and bumped into it

Re the reliability thing - 8 years and counting for my transport

Robbo

 

A question for the assembled masses. As an elderly, sweet-tempered, utterly lovable, warm and cuddly individual, completely house-trained, just entering into his dotage and with no intention of starting a war with anyone, I'm quite prepared to admit the possibility that my inability to hear the superiority of vinyl over Red Book CD is a figment of my hearing/perception/ tastes.

But are the vinyl lovers prepared to admit the same? Are they prepared to acknowledge that the perceived superiority of the groovy black stuff may not be based on an absolute law of the universe, but on a personal preference, and that the perceived superiority of vinyl may exist only within their particular ear/brain system and not therefore in general reality?

Just wondering.

 

tones,
this is what i was trying to get across. there are differences but for me they are just that, differences, not better or worse. therefore it comes down to your own prejudices as to which you prefer.

chris,
i'd hardly say that dvd-a (snigger) or sacd are endangering cd yet so it's only those bleeding edgers or early adopters who are stressing about that one. that said in the heyday of vinyl you had the wonder of quadrophonic sound which threw the vinyl world into a tizz in much the same wy that the 'hi-rez' formats are.

james,
the 'bit' thing has been explained before but here goes again. the a sampling frequency of 44.1 khz is enough to capture any sound up to 22.1 khz. the 'gaps' that you are referring to are in reality non existant as any sound in the 'gaps' must be at a higher frequency than 22.1 khz. the point of recording at 96khz is to capture these higher frequencies but there is debate as to whether thay are relevant as most people cannot hear them anyway. the point of 96khz or higher PLAYBACK is that the filtering can be done a lot further from the audiable frequencies and therefore has less chance of obscuring the music.
as for vinyls sampling rate tending towards infinity. any sampling rate tends toward infinity and although tt's tend a bit further it's not that much further being about 5khz more.

my own personal theory is that there is so much that you can tweak and replace and faff about with on a turntable that it appeals to the audiophile tweaker rather than those that just want to slap on a cd and listen to music.
cheers

julian

 

Tony, I've never claimed anything but personal preference.

My irritation with digitalians is when they won't accept there are perfectly valid musical reasons for our vinyl preference, like Julian's snide comment above that we just like tweaking rather than listening to music, or Michael's tosh that vinyl playback sounds like a mono radio. FWIW I don't tweak my turntable AT ALL except when I upgraded my arm and cartridge recently. I set it up and forget about it. I am the least tweaky audiphile I know, I don't fart about with cables, isolation, mains treatments, or any of the other time-wasting exercises that seem to exercise so many people on this forum. I've owned a turntable for years, it's not some exciting new toy for me, just a perfectly natural playback device. I am quite prepared to accept that Julian prefers not to have a turntable, so why can't he do the same without appending a bogus theory to it about how people who don't share his preference must be tweakers? I'm bored with the defensive crap that some people are coming out with.

-- Ian

 

My favourite, right back at the beginning of CD, was being told in all earnestness by an audiophile that he could HEAR the gaps between the bits! He was puzzled by my rolling around on the floor laughing.

 

This one is. But since I'm always right it is therefore a universal law ;->

Jason

 

Ian - I quite prepared to admit that vinyl does some things better than CD. I don't think I've said anywhere along here that I think CD is better than vinyl in the general case. I pointed out one recent example where, to my ears, the vinyl option was shite but clearly that's not general.

They both have strengths and weaknesses. What gets my goat is when vynilistas imply that someone who doesn't do vinyl is somehow one step lower on the road to musical nirvana.

Michael

 

>>> my own personal theory is that there is so much that you can tweak and replace and faff about with on a turntable that it appeals to the audiophile tweaker rather than those that just want to slap on a cd and listen to music.
cheers

Sarcastic response: My own personnal theory is that CD listeners are actually too fat and loathsome to get up from there chairs and only want convenience, leaving there one CD on repeat all evening. ;->

Seriously for a millisecond, I can't think of a single turntable that needs tweaking every time you use it. There are plenty of decks that can be tweaked, even while the music plays, but you don't have to adjust them. Its usually just as quick to slap on a record as it is to slap on a CD.

Cheers

Jason

 

Sorry, Ian, you are only the second-least tweaky person you know, after me. I don't tweak at all, ever. As far as I'm concerned, the stuff, not me, is there to play. I have no problems with vinyl replay - to me, vinyl sounds just as good as CD and my preference for CD is based entirely on convenience, not on sound quality (as per Bub's post above). I have a reasonable vinyl collection and I shall continue to enjoy it and I wish all the vinyl enthusiasts the same (or greater!) enjoyment. I just get bothered sometimes with the absolutist positions sometimes adopted by either side, and I can't help wondering, whatever happened to the simple enjoyment of music, by the means of one's choice, whatever that may be?

By the way, this kind of discussion has had one bad side-effect - I notice that most of the local Brockenstuben (second-hand shops) have lots of cheap vinyl. I'm starting to look through it...oh, dear...

 

Come one Ian, that was one case - I didn't mean to imply that I thought vinyl always sounded like that. In any case, it was a gross exaggeration to get across the way it sounded different and why I didn't like it.

Michael.

 

Politically, of course, Jason, like the guy on the other side of the pond, whose thoughts (both of them) also approach universal law.

 

Ian,

I love my LPs but I sort of understand Julian's view. These days, it is quite difficult to hear a decent LP setup unless you have a good friend who is into LPs. Even then, it is entirely possible that the friend has a not-so-great setup with all the background noise and insists that the noise makes the music more human. In such a system the magic of vinyl may still come through but for me the cons would probably outweigh the pros.

I hope that folks like Michael and Julian keep an open mind on the LPs but I can't blame them. I honestly think the high-rez formats irrelevant precisely the same reason as Michael's dismiss of LPs.

I also forget about the TT setup once done and just listen to the music. OK to faithfully follow the maintenance schedule I clean the belt every 6 months, change the oil every year and belt every 2 years. I hope that the cartridge would be good for 3 years. A bit more work than CDPs but hardly a constant tweakery I'd think.

Joongul

 

James - Jules' explanation covered the sampling frequency thing very succinctly and eloquently but didn't cover the bits issue.

As briefly as possible:
Each 16bit sample (as in CD) can record 2 to the power 16 (65,536) distinct amplitude levels of the analogue waveform, effectively limiting the resolution and the dynamic range of the recording allthough the dynamic range of redbook CD (at around 106dB I think) is I think better than vinyl but I'm not too sure on that.

If you increase the bit depth to, say 24bits then your resolution improves massively to 2 to the power 24 (16,777,216) distinct amplitude levels which is far more than that human ear is able to detect.

It's like colour graphics on PCs. In the old days they could only do 8bits per pixel which gave you a maximum of 256 distinct colours. OK, but you could easily see the colour "banding" in a photo on the screen. These days they are all 24bits or even 32bits giving you (in the case of 24bit) a max of 16,777,216 distinct colours that can be represented which is easily enough. It's estimated the human eye can distinguish about 16-17million distinct colours in perfect lighting conditions so 24bit colour is good enough.

So, the increase in bit depth is what makes the new formats so much better, not the increased sample rate, which, as Jules has explained, just makes it easier to implement the D/A conversion.

Hope that explains it.

Michael.

 

oh dear...

what happened to our happy discussion?

its all gone a bit pete tong!


Probably th last things I'll say on this particular thread..

1) Well done to Merlin for actually trying a top turntable at home, and being open and honest enough to praise where praise was due.

2) Tones - Im sure that your two formats sound the same. Have you had the opportunity to try some off-board phono stages? ..IMO they should DEFINAT£LY sound different, your preference is of course another matter!, but different? definately!... I think there must be something in your vinyl chain that is causing this similarity.

3) Robbo - those people are muppets!!! sorry!! lol.

4) Julian, yeah tweakery is needed to set it up for starters. Probably about 2 hours worth, and then thats it really.

Funnily enough, 5 years ago I didnt have any vinyl. I then swapped a jacket for my friends record collection (about 50 records). I bought a cheap systemdeck. It sounded like shit. That was my phono stage. IT was an all-valve phono stage with switchable MM and MC. It still sounded like shit. The belt needed changing on the deck aswell, but I never bothered. I still listened because I got loads of cheap music...and kept on getting more from oxfam.

the gyro and ear 834p only came about approx 18 months ago... so for me at least buying a TT was a music decision, not an audiophile one. Im just lucky to be where I am now, thats all.

5) Michael - I agree you should probably not bother with a TT. unless your mate offers you his record collection as a swap for your jacket! lolol


NB-to all
Have you bought alison krauss 'new favorite' yet? BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT!.... its like norah jones doing a duet with mark knopfler, except the vocals and guitar playing are better!

 

Ian I sympathise Having not experienced the differences until recently, I was quite possibly one of the offenders. It would be useful for some of those that are defending the CD format to borrow an alternative for a couple of weeks, and just use it to listen to music rather than try comparisons in the normal hifi manner. I feel it is only by doing this that some of the digitalians will understand where you are coming from.

It is then down to individual preferences as to which route to take, those of us that are indeed fat and lazy will most likely stick with CD. My CD system is sounding excellent again After a few days of convincing myself that I had damaged something, due to the audible distortion, everything has cleared up. This is quite possibly due to the fact that I have avoided listening to the TT for a few days Maybe I have become used to the shortcomings again and accepted them, although that is pure conjecture on my part.

Simply vinyl does some things magically. Whether these things are important to you is another matter. If you sit in your chair listening to Shpongle and other forms of electronica, you may well find certain qualities of the digital medium to be preferrable. If however you value naturalness of tone, vocal reproduction, instrument timbre and other more traditional qualities, and can put up with some physical duress, I implore you to have a listen to find out why some of the forum members fell the way they do.

PS. If you listen to Jazz, Symphonic Works, and early rock, then by using CD as the medium, you are, Julian, on the second rung I am however, on balance, happy to join you there

 

I use a Creek OBH-somethingorother (the one for low output MCs), and no, it makes no difference. However, I really don't care that it doesn't make a difference, I'm just interested in all these folk who do hear a difference. Moreover, I'm perfectly happy for my CD and TT to sound as good as each other - I feel under no obligation to make them sound different.

 

Thanks for the 'bit' explanation Michael, which I partially understand!

I listen to Shpongle on vinyl, er, because it sounds better than the CD versions (to me).

I don't agree that vinyl is better for certain genres, I think it's better full stop.

But CD isn't awful, just not quite as good. It's handy for post-pub listening when I don't want to tangle with the Aro.

 

melin,
good point regarding what kind of music you listen to may dictate your preference for vinyl or cd. i do indeed listen to maintly electronica however i also like female vocals and find cd replay enjoyable with this kind of music too.

re-joyce et al,
i've never said (to my recollection) that either cd or vinyl is better just different. i have heard good examples of both media and at the last bake off i attended it didn't seem to matter which format was used when the listening to lots of music stage arrived, both were very enjoyable. it seems to me that the guys into vinyl are on a mission to 'prove' that cd is inferior not the other way round.

ian,
my point was that there is far more tweakability in a tt than in a cdp. a cd has on average 3 components, transport, link and dac which can be changed. a turntable has various mechanical components that can be changed - platter (as you and chris did at the bake off), motor, plinth, arm, cart, phono stage, interconnects, etc. then there are things like counterbalance weight, tracking force, speed, etc. that can be changed. i therefore conclude that tt's are a tweakier format than cd's. also the necessity to clean records and stylii, anti static zappers and storage solutions tend to reinforce this. how many times have i read about lp12 owners worrying about their bounce? judging by the obsessive compulsive nature of some followers of this hobby i could quite believe that their resistance to cd is down to the lesser tweakability of that format. however i'm not tarring the whole vinyl fraternity with this brush. i'm perfectly willing to believe that you find vinyl more enjoyable than cd. as long as you respect my position that i find the two to be different but neither inherantly better.
cheers


julian