+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 47 FirstFirst 123412 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 463

Thread: The vinyl illusion ?

  1. #11
    Join Date: Dec 2008

    Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days

    Posts: 4,779
    I'm Shaun.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by narabdela View Post
    I don't think you are tbh.

    I'll now don my crash helmet and get behind the couch.
    LOL - I was wondering if I may be starting WWIII just by posting this thread.

  2. #12
    Join Date: Nov 2013

    Location: HAMPSTEAD

    Posts: 1,156
    I'm brian.

    Default

    Yes, I think the word natural ( organic ) come to mind with the blackstuff.Enjoy.

  3. #13
    Join Date: Dec 2008

    Location: East Riding of Yorkshire these days

    Posts: 4,779
    I'm Shaun.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Dalek Supreme D L View Post
    What are your issues with vinyl Shaun ? Without knowing exactly its hard to comment.
    Jesus Neil I truly wish I knew. It could just be grumpy old bastard mode today and tomorrow I'll be off with the bloody fairies again and love vinyl but I don't think so. I have just listened to DSOTM twice for Christ's sake, first on new reissue vinyl and then on CD, the hybrid SACD layer. To me, the CD was absolute bliss and just so chilled out and relaxing. I am trying to convince myself that vinyl is way better, I just can't.

  4. #14
    Join Date: Nov 2008

    Location: North Down /Northern Ireland/ UK

    Posts: 19,484
    I'm Neil.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Haselsh1 View Post
    Jesus Neil I truly wish I knew. It could just be grumpy old bastard mode today and tomorrow I'll be off with the bloody fairies again and love vinyl but I don't think so. I have just listened to DSOTM twice for Christ's sake, first on new reissue vinyl and then on CD, the hybrid SACD layer. To me, the CD was absolute bliss and just so chilled out and relaxing. I am trying to convince myself that vinyl is way better, I just can't.
    Fair enough.

    I think for many its surface noise or that early pressings are better etc, and for me it was surface noise, but it no longer is as my AMG Giro and Air Tight cart put the music first, dig deep and produce a wonderful experience. Now I have great digital gear as well, but so far vinyl still has the edge for me.
    Regards Neil

  5. #15
    Join Date: Oct 2012

    Location: NE England

    Posts: 4,173
    I'm Jez.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ovlov854 View Post
    Amen to that. Totally agree. I think that one has to spend eye-watering amounts of cash on digital and it still falls way short of even a half decent T/T
    I couldn't disagree more strongly!! It takes thousands (at new prices) for a vinyl playing front end to even equal the cheapest CD player and always has! And that's coming from someone who manufactures phono stages.... Ultimately vinyl can match or better digital, but not for anywhere near the same price. That's what killed off (originally) vinyl and cassette etc... even the cheapest, nastiest, £79 new Matsui CD player will beat any analogue source costing less than around £1500. The nature of Red Book CD assures this. It will give uncoloured flat response from 4Hz - 20KHz, with no background noise and <0.01% distortion, no mistracking etc even from a cheap player. To me, the differences between cheap digital and very expensive digital are very small indeed. The difference between any two vinyl front ends, even at £2K+, is vastly greater than the difference between a £300 red book CD player and £3000 one, which will sound so similar that only extended listening will reveal slightly greater "space" and more "organic" sound from the £3K one. Now try comparing a £300 vinyl front end with a £3K one

    Another point is that unless you are buying old pressings from before the early '80's, digital has probably been used in the production of the vinyl record, whether at the recording, mixing , mastering or re-mastering stages.
    Arkless Electronics-Engineered to be better. Tel. 01670 530674 (after 1pm)

    Modded Thorens TD150, Audio Technica AT-1005 MkII, Technics EPC-300MC, Arkless Hybrid MC phono stage, Arkless passive pre, Arkless 50WPC Class A SS power amp, (or) Arkless modded Leak Stereo 20, Modded Kef Reference 105/3's
    ReVox PR99, Studer B62, Ferrograph Series 7, Tandberg TCD440, Hitachi FT-5500MkI, also FT-5500MkII
    Digital: Yamaha CDR-HD1500 (Digital Swiss army knife-CD recorder, player, hard drive, DAC and ADC in one), PC files via 24/96 sound card and SPDIF, modded Philips CD850, modded Philips CD104, modded DPA Little Bit DAC. Sennheiser HD580 cans with Arkless Headphone amp.
    Cables- free interconnects that come with CD players, mains leads from B&Q, dead kettles etc, extension leads from Tesco

  6. #16
    Join Date: Jan 2017

    Location: Bristol

    Posts: 111
    I'm Clive.

    Default

    One feature of vinyl replay which is both a strength and a weakness is the sound is tweakable and can vary quite a bit between different decks. I have a lot of decks as a hobby and one thing I have noticed is that I have a preferred sound that can take a fair bit of adjustment to find. One aspect of the hobby is to swap arms and cartridges to try to find that sound. Quite often cartridges that work well on one deck can become fatiguing to listen to on another deck. I have been in the situation on more than one occasion where I have installed a cartridge which sounded great to begin with probably due to expectation bias but after several sessions I no longer found the sound satisfying. In my case I currently have 3 decks which I am very happy with and no desire to tweak so if in doubt I can use those for comparing.

  7. #17
    Join Date: Aug 2009

    Location: Staffordshire, England

    Posts: 37,773
    I'm Martin.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Arkless Electronics View Post
    I couldn't disagree more strongly!! It takes thousands (at new prices) for a vinyl playing front end to even equal the cheapest CD player and always has! And that's coming from someone who manufactures phono stages.... Ultimately vinyl can match or better digital, but not for anywhere near the same price. That's what killed off (originally) vinyl and cassette etc... even the cheapest, nastiest, £79 new Matsui CD player will beat any analogue source costing less than around £1500. The nature of Red Book CD assures this. It will give uncoloured flat response from 4Hz - 20KHz, with no background noise and <0.01% distortion, no mistracking etc even from a cheap player. To me, the differences between cheap digital and very expensive digital are very small indeed. The difference between any two vinyl front ends, even at £2K+, is vastly greater than the difference between a £300 red book CD player and £3000 one, which will sound so similar that only extended listening will reveal slightly greater "space" and more "organic" sound from the £3K one. Now try comparing a £300 vinyl front end with a £3K one

    Another point is that unless you are buying old pressings from before the early '80's, digital has probably been used in the production of the vinyl record, whether at the recording, mixing , mastering or re-mastering stages.
    Yes digital wins on paper, there is really no contest. In practice, this does not always happen. The reasons for that are varied and in some cases complex. For example I have noticed that with budget cd players there can be a very flat, 2D soundstage presentation. If this this is important to you (and it isn't for some) then a budget vinyl system (say a grand's worth new, including phono stage) will do it a lot better.

    However given you can pick up high end cd players now for half that cost or less the point is relatively moot.

    Another issue is the voicing of cd players and DACS. Modern budget players tend to be engineered to sound smooth at the expense of everything else. No doubt to complement the less than stellar amplification and speakers they are going to be paired with. Compared to this even budget vinyl replay is going to sound a lot more 'lively'.

    Finally there is no way a replay system with no distortion can compete with one that chucks out a couple of percent of 2nd harmonic. This gives the sound that little bit of extra life and 'crunch' and adds to that 'performers playing live' feel that so many people look for, even from studio recordings that are made up of dozens of individually recorded performances strapped together.

    2nd harmonic is a funny thing, indeed celebrated amplifier designer Douglas Self suggested the idea of an amplifier with a control to allow the user to vary the amount of 2nd harmonic applied to the signal. Although I don't think any such amp was ever built.

    In Shaun's case where he is listening to electronic music with no instruments recorded in an acoustic I can see why he prefers digital for this, as there is no 'illusion of a live performance' to recreate and all the extra distortion does subjectively is to dirty the tone.
    Current Lash Up:

    TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.

  8. #18
    Join Date: Mar 2014

    Location: KY - Scotland

    Posts: 5,465
    I'm Mike.

    Default

    I agree with Jez and Macca, my vinyl setup cost 1000's more than my digital setup and being honest the digital side runs it very close, but.... I still prefer my vinyl side and play more LPs than rips or streams.

    But I couldn't live without either.

  9. #19
    Join Date: Oct 2012

    Location: NE England

    Posts: 4,173
    I'm Jez.

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
    Yes digital wins on paper, there is really no contest. In practice, this does not always happen. The reasons for that are varied and in some cases complex. For example I have noticed that with budget cd players there can be a very flat, 2D soundstage presentation. If this this is important to you (and it isn't for some) then a budget vinyl system (say a grand's worth new, including phono stage) will do it a lot better.

    However given you can pick up high end cd players now for half that cost or less the point is relatively moot.

    Another issue is the voicing of cd players and DACS. Modern budget players tend to be engineered to sound smooth at the expense of everything else. No doubt to complement the less than stellar amplification and speakers they are going to be paired with. Compared to this even budget vinyl replay is going to sound a lot more 'lively'.

    Finally there is no way a replay system with no distortion can compete with one that chucks out a couple of percent of 2nd harmonic. This gives the sound that little bit of extra life and 'crunch' and adds to that 'performers playing live' feel that so many people look for, even from studio recordings that are made up of dozens of individually recorded performances strapped together.

    2nd harmonic is a funny thing, indeed celebrated amplifier designer Douglas Self suggested the idea of an amplifier with a control to allow the user to vary the amount of 2nd harmonic applied to the signal. Although I don't think any such amp was ever built.

    In Shaun's case where he is listening to electronic music with no instruments recorded in an acoustic I can see why he prefers digital for this, as there is no 'illusion of a live performance' to recreate and all the extra distortion does subjectively is to dirty the tone.
    As you would expect, I disagree with all of that....

    If Self said that (and I have all his books and most of his magazine articles but don't recall it) it would have been as a piss take as he is a "low distortion uber alles" designer. To add a control for 2nd harmonic distortion is actually easy but you won't find it on anything I make!

    I guess the area I disagree most strongly on is that a hi fi system should be tailored to an individuals preferences... even by adding distortion etc! Ideally. all hi fi systems should sound identical. If they are distortionless and nether add nor remove anything from the source, ie a perfect hi fi system, then it is obvious that they will all sound the same.... obviously this would need them all to be used in rooms of ideal acoustics but it's something to aim for.

    The whole idea of "tuning" a hi fi to have a particular sound is anathema to the very concept of hi fi, as I've said many times before. "The closest approach to the original; sound" as Quad famously said in their ads, is what we should be after and I don't even take anyone seriously who says they like/prefer a distorted or coloured sound, nor should anyone else. If that is "to be allowed" then just go ahead and add a graphic EQ, a fuzz box to spice up those metal records, maybe a reverb unit to make other stuff sound "more spacious", a flanger maybe? to make "space rock" sound more "spaced out"?

    If 3 amplifiers have a genuine claim to being the 3 most perfect in current production then it should be pretty much impossible to tell them apart. Think about it. If non of them distorts anything or adds or takes away anything from the signal fed to them they will sound identical
    Arkless Electronics-Engineered to be better. Tel. 01670 530674 (after 1pm)

    Modded Thorens TD150, Audio Technica AT-1005 MkII, Technics EPC-300MC, Arkless Hybrid MC phono stage, Arkless passive pre, Arkless 50WPC Class A SS power amp, (or) Arkless modded Leak Stereo 20, Modded Kef Reference 105/3's
    ReVox PR99, Studer B62, Ferrograph Series 7, Tandberg TCD440, Hitachi FT-5500MkI, also FT-5500MkII
    Digital: Yamaha CDR-HD1500 (Digital Swiss army knife-CD recorder, player, hard drive, DAC and ADC in one), PC files via 24/96 sound card and SPDIF, modded Philips CD850, modded Philips CD104, modded DPA Little Bit DAC. Sennheiser HD580 cans with Arkless Headphone amp.
    Cables- free interconnects that come with CD players, mains leads from B&Q, dead kettles etc, extension leads from Tesco

  10. #20
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

    Default

    Yeah. That gets me when I hear something like 'best suited to small ensemble and choral' or 'more tailored towards heavy rock'.

    Good Hi-Fi should be exactly that. Capable of reproducing all types of sound equally well.
    It is impossible for anything digital to sound analogue, because it isn't analogue!

+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 47 FirstFirst 123412 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •