Progression?

I was wondering how far we have really advanced in terms of equipment design, for example how much difference is there between a cost no object Turntable for the 70s or 80s to now, Have we truly progressed or is mostly just better packaging.
I can see over the last 5 years computer audio has taken off, so this is one area, but is a top rate Transport and DAC of yesterday better than a top rate computer based audio system. I do know in terms of performance and value a good DAC with some form of hard drive and server is capable of sounding pretty good to my ears.
I think one of the biggest changes is our understanding of how to get the best of Vintage equipment. By upgrading crossovers its possible to get Monitor Golds competing with some of the very best speakers in the world. In the past Open Baffles had issues with the bass but now people understand how to overcome these issues and also have a very high performance to cost ratio.. Turntables like the 1210 and GL75 can be modified to perform at very high levels of performance.
So have we truly developed over the last 30 years?

'They' always say that history is destined to repeat itself. I guess we just call it 'retro' and accept that ultimately, it's better than all of the new fangled latest wizardry. For me personally, analogue will always be better than digital and complexity will always be better than convenience. I do not do things just because they are convenient, I do it because it is better. Better to my ears and better to my pocket. I do not follow things just because they are digital and therefore 'clearly' superior. I honestly believe we have gone nowhere in terms of advancement and may even have taken a huge step backwards all in the quest for convenience. What ever happened to a challenge in the quest for quality...?

I think digital "perfect sound" did analogue a favour. It at least provided a benchmark for a sound that is relatively uncoloured (or at least flat 20Hz - 20Khz). In the 70's there were many examples of lovely (or otherwise) turntable sourced sounds but they were hopelessly distant from "the truth".

I don't believe modern technology delivers any better sound than was possible in the past but it's taken us many years to weed out wheat from the chaff.

Yes indeed.I've read that it was the development of cd that forced the turntable manufacturers to greater heights of fidelity to stay competitive.

As for loudspeakers,I think we've gone backwards if anything.

I think for me , i have a kind of stubborn determination to keep playing and using vinyl ! whether its better or not is not really the point .

You see there are many now who have gone over to Streaming only systems , no cd or vinyl and i just refuse to go that route ! better or not , i will keep buying cd and lp as long as i can.

So maybe its head in the sand ! but with my passion for vinyl , its not just the sound but the mechanics and how they work , not forgetting the music of course .

I recently bought a new A series Walkman , seduced by the marketing blurb of "pure sound" from the internal all digital amp. Lets try out a modern binary sound i thought plus you can record iplayer.
The truth is it very noticeably distorts. Im going back to my wow and flutter thanks very much.

I've heard some very good digital,but I've to hear the best vinyl I've heard bettered.

My streaming set up is really quite good, even though it's "only" 7520 based. Certainly it's good enough to really enjoy. My vinyl rigs sound better but the clincher is that I grew up with turntables, I'm attached to them emotionally and I enjoy using them.

This is a lifestyle / preference thing mainly but as per the original question floated by John, there really isn't much new that sounds any better than was possible in the past. Some of the new gear may be as good but using more modern technology, or more likely cheaper technology.

I agree with Clive in that digital has set a benchmark that is neither better nor worse than previous annalogue systems in that it has allowed us to become more discerning when making judgements. However the convenience factors with digital add to the positive aspects of the format for many millions of people.
Nonetheless until I hear a conclusive advantage in using streamed music over vinyl or even good cd sources, I will keep putting vinyl onto a turntable or putting the silver discs into a cdt.

I might be kidding myself but i think my modern sounding rotel 1062 amp with its slit foil caps and custom made toroidal blah blah blah gels really well with my valve Icon pre , which looks East German circa 1962.
I like to think its just good designers working with whats to hand ,modern or vintage ,and making it work for the ears and not the head.
Sorry if im spouting rubbish. Ive had two expressos this morning.

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Originally Posted by colinB

Sorry if im spouting rubbish. Ive had two expressos this morning.

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Steady lad!!!! :)

Put very simply, I've not yet heard a CD player; any CD player, that sounds better than a top notch turntable setup. Now if digital is supposed to be the answer I'd love to know the question.

Agreed,but digital is still in it's infancy.Give it a few years and I reckon it will be giving the black stuff a run for it's money.

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Agreed,but digital is still in it's infancy.Give it a few years and I reckon it will be giving the black stuff a run for it's money.

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Ali they want to stop farting about with CD players & concentrate on the CD quality & how the music is Remastered..

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Agreed,but digital is still in it's infancy.Give it a few years and I reckon it will be giving the black stuff a run for it's money.

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Point taken...!

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Agreed,but digital is still in it's infancy.Give it a few years and I reckon it will be giving the black stuff a run for it's money.

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It could do it now....technically it's easy. The commercial will and reality is to cater for the masses so we have most software at best to Redbook standard and often worse (lossy).

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Originally Posted by Andre

Ali they want to stop farting about with CD players & concentrate on the CD quality & how the music is Remastered..

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Can't argue with that! Most new recordings are dire,too much compression,though I guess this affects new vinyl as much as cd. I have noted things seem a lot better generally with stuff from the U.S. in regards to sound quality and lack of compression,at least with the folk,bluegrass and blues stuff I've over the last few years.

I think doing the digital v analogue thing again is kind of missing John's original question... ;)

Taking vinyl first - yes, I think the equipment has progressed, but not by a huge margin. I suspect it is our understanding that has progressed more - the fact that Garrards, Thorens etc. are now revered much more than in the past is generally down to the implementation - understanding the interaction between all the component parts and how the turntable is plinthed, sited, cables etc. Coudl be wrong, just my guess, but otherwise why would these old turntables still be held in such high esteem?

Digital is an entirely different story, IMHO - and especially regards the dac - either a standalone unit or built-in to today's CD players. I think my Marantz as a transport into Caiman DAC sounds so "un-digital" compared to the early generation CD players and dacs it's untrue, though again, my knowledge is limited, and there will be better placed people able to confirm or deny my hunch. There will always be exceptions to any rule, but I'd say that mostly CD/digital has come on in leaps and bounds in the last 5-10 years, whereas vinyl reached it's zenith years ago and only marginal increases can be had by new technology/materials which is not the case with the complicated circuitry used in modern dacs.

Radio - a big fat zero - one area I would never argue an improvement has come in is with DAB... Digital radio in itself should be able to compete with FM, but not via DAB...

Speakers, then. Yes, I'd say overall there have been big improvements. If you compare a vintage Tannoy Gold with a modern Wharfedale Diamond then of course not, but taking speakers at their respective price points, especially low-mid budget, today's designs trounce most of their counterparts from preceding generations...

Finally, amps. I suspect most amplifiers are still based on decades old circuits, and where any improvements will have come is in the better quality of components due to better understanding and design, as well as tighter manufacturing tolerances.

That's my very amateur take on it, anyhow.

Hmmm... getting on the digital bandwagon for once I have to say that my HDCD compatible Original 2008F sounded incredibly digital until I bought a Caiman and plugged the two together. The Original was hard and edgy and very grainy in the upper mid/treble. The Caiman is glorious all round but still can't image like my Techie can. I use a bog standard SL1210 with an Ortofon OM30 into a Croft pre/power and the imaging is wonderful.

But your putting up with noise from the record which alone would drive me nuts or don't people listern intensly? Most the recording on vinyl that i listern to sound terrible, i can't alter that. CD for me kills all these problems

Alex: Regarding your comment about speakers, i disagree.

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Originally Posted by Andre

But your putting up with noise from the record which alone would drive me nuts or don't people listern intensly? Most the recording on vinyl that i listern to sound terrible, i can't alter that. CD for me kills all these problems

Alex: Regarding your comment about speakers, i disagree.

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Andre, I fully understand where you are coming from but as I have got older I have learnt to make allowances for the fact that this is older technology. I listen to every single thread and nuance in the music but the surface noise is minimal and I allow for it. I still work in a darkroom producing photographs that would obliterate a digital print and it is very hard work and really tiring to do with the old technology but I make allowances because the end result is just so clearly superior.

I really am a purist. There is no getting away from that. I do things because I have a driving passion for them. I adore music with the same passion that drives me to appreciate a fine photographic print. I am not interested in a digital facsimile of the real thing.

Some interesting thoughts
I tend to think in terms of DACs what we get in terms of cost to performance levels is really good I still wonder if a top DAC from the 80s would still be equal or even better (sorry never heard a top DAC from this period so no idea)
I tend to imagine that a Denon 100M would still be hard to beat at any costs
For me what has changed is our knowledge of how to get the best out of the equpment we use.

As far as Tuners go on the whole we gone backwards and sometimes I worry about the way many Loudspekers are voiced

I'm perhaps not the right sort of person to post in this thread (and even here these days???), but I ought to say this from my experiences and current perspective...

In terms of recording technology, DIGITAL has been a godsend to the purist recording engineer. Good digital over the decades has provided us with no mod-noise from analogue recording tape, no dropouts if the mediums are looked after and a purity of reproduced sound compared to the original as monitored in the studio which no analogue recording came close to until Dolby SR and the late generations of recorders. In the olden days, the engineers had to work round the compromises and because they cared, the results could be stupendous. The problem is that digital opens the door to all sorts of sonic "manipulation" and this is best heard via the singles chart full of manufactured pap (!). The same can't be said of the best classical recordings however.

Haselesh is welcome to differ with me on this, but comparing vinyl and CD (yawn) is purely a matter of personal taste, as when it comes to comparing both with the master recording, vinyl trails way behind. The best cuts often had all sorts of eq and careful limiting done to make the sound "impressive" but on a modern wide-range system, it shows most often IMO.... In fact, I remember max Townshend comparing a carefully set up Rock with a budget CD player and the two sounded much the same on a decent recording. The 1980's Rock 2 was regarded as a good turntable at the time.

As for vintage vs modern domestic playback gear, I think the biggest changes have been in the setup of the equipment. New plinths and supports have improved old classic turntables no end. Cables and wires are better these days too and thank heavens a little bit of decent provable science is coming back outside of the loopy "Audiophool" arena, which is a standing joke amongst "everyone else" in the recording industry.

By the way, for small to mid sized speakers, ACTIVE really is the way forward, removing at a stroke the mix-n-match domestic amateur disasters so beloved of many audio enthusiasts at all levels of expenditure IMO and experiences.

Apologies all, I tend to be a hybrid where reproduced sound is concerned. I have a museum antique system not of the top tier, but have heard enough decent pro grade sources and owned good monitors, as well as heard plenty of live acoustic music to realise that most "nice sounding" valve-n-vinyl systems are way, way short of reality. Vinyl certainly has a sense of "body" to the sound and many records were balanced to exploit this, and CD hasn't always been well served either, but I have enough good CD's to realise just how much better this format can be.

Anyway, the next generation won't know what to do with either an LP spinner or a CD, as everything will be downloaded or licensed a la Spotify I think. We're just a bunch of ageing men living in the past and looking back with a false sense of nostalgia I reckon...

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Originally Posted by Haselsh1

The Caiman is glorious all round but still can't image like my Techie can.

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Neither did mine compared to my Garrard 401 until yesterday. Four words for you Shaun - Caiman passive output mod (unless you've already done it?) If you only need the line out and not the headphone socket then do it per AndrewR's post #117 - best couple of quid you will EVER spend on your hifi - the improvements are not to be underestimated! (Rubycon caps from Tirna here)

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Originally Posted by Andre

Alex: Regarding your comment about speakers, i disagree.

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Indeed, (that's allowed! ;)) - your experience is probably much greater than mine, it is entirely possible I made some bad choices early on and got lucky later on, or that all my systems were crap in the past and it is only now that by luck it is coming together, but I would never want to go back to my Wharfedale Lintons or Goodmans (whatever they were) cheapies.

A certain active speaker with built in DAC has apparently had a retro-fittable update not too far removed (in concept, if not similar to) from the direct-mod on the Caiman and similar improvements have been noted. The crossover frequency may have been altered too, but not being an owner I'm not sure..

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Originally Posted by Alex_UK

Indeed, (that's allowed! ;)) - your experience is probably much greater than mine, it is entirely possible I made some bad choices early on and got lucky later on, or that all my systems were crap in the past and it is only now that by luck it is coming together, but I would never want to go back to my Wharfedale Lintons or Goodmans (whatever they were) cheapies.

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Alex, you need to look at Quad 57's, Spendor BC1's, KEF 104ab's and the shelf mounted Corelli version, Tangent TM1, TM3 or RS2 or RS4, let alone the bigger MA's, Celefs, Celestion Ditton 66's and IMF's from the 70's. These are still good speakers if set up right and the bass quality of these comes into it's own on a decent digital source.

Can't comment on the Rubycon caps yet (thanks again Alex - looking forward to getting them), but I've been getting excellent results with Nichicon caps - I've got some rather nice Silmics in mine at the mo'

This diagram makes things clearer http://theartofsound.net/forum/showp...&postcount=381

You really need to try the passive mod Shaun - it's also completely and easily reversible, so if youd don't like it ........

Unfortunately my knowledge of messing with the internals of Hi-Fi is non existant. I buy, I listen, I do not mess with things I know nothing about. Many thanks for the advice though.

Hi Dave,

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I have a museum antique system not of the top tier, but have heard enough decent pro grade sources and owned good monitors, as well as heard plenty of live acoustic music to realise that most "nice sounding" valve-n-vinyl systems are way, way short of reality.

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I completely agree... That's why one should own a valve-n-vinyl system which only sounds "nice" when the recording does, and 'nasty' when it doesn't!

I think I've heard a system just like that a few times....oh yes, it's mine! :eyebrows:

;)

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Stratmangler

Can't comment on the Rubycon caps yet (thanks again Alex - looking forward to getting them)

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Posted 1st class this morning so hopefully be with you tomorrow :)

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Originally Posted by Haselsh1

Unfortunately my knowledge of messing with the internals of Hi-Fi is non existant. I buy, I listen, I do not mess with things I know nothing about. Many thanks for the advice though.

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Neither did I, until yesterday! Remove the case cover (4 screws) no soldering needed - simply remove a board, (needed to scrape off a little glue, but that was it) trim and bend the legs on two caps and install - don't even need to worry about polarity with the Rubycons. 5 minute job, and I'm a ham-fisted buffoon (my nick-name is Mr Clunky...) My hifi modding virginity gone, and a MUCH better sounding Caiman. Go on... you know you want to really... ;)

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Originally Posted by Alex_UK

Neither did mine compared to my Garrard 401 until yesterday. Four words for you Shaun - Caiman passive output mod (unless you've already done it?) If you only need the line out and not the headphone socket then do it per AndrewR's post #117 - best couple of quid you will EVER spend on your hifi - the improvements are not to be underestimated! (Rubycon caps from Tirna here)

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Whats great about the DAC upgrades are the cost to performance ratio, but if you ever decide to max out the 401 their is a lot more to come, but not cheap

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Originally Posted by Haselsh1

Unfortunately my knowledge of messing with the internals of Hi-Fi is non existant. I buy, I listen, I do not mess with things I know nothing about. Many thanks for the advice though.

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Shaun it be wrth asking one of the moders if they do it for you as it seems this upgrade is really worth it I found people to be really helpful

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Originally Posted by John

Whats great about the DAC upgrades are the cost to performance ratio, but if you ever decide to max out the 401 their is a lot more to come, but not cheap

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It will happen, one day! (I know, been saying that for over a year, but at least I've made some progress.) I think in a nutshell, that's one of the biggest differences - you get much more "bang for your buck" with digital - because vinyl is still largely a mechanical format, engineering is always going to be more costly than chips (generalising, I know, but true, IMO.)

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Originally Posted by DSJR

I'm perhaps not the right sort of person to post in this thread (and even here these days???), but I ought to say this from my experiences and current perspective...

Of course you are

As for vintage vs modern domestic playback gear, I think the biggest changes have been in the setup of the equipment. New plinths and supports have improved old classic turntables no end.

Totally agree I would also add power supplies too! Cables and wires are better these days too and thank heavens a little bit of decent provable science is coming back outside of the loopy "Audiophool" arena, which is a standing joke amongst "everyone else" in the recording industry.

Anyway, the next generation won't know what to do with either an LP spinner or a CD, as everything will be downloaded or licensed a la Spotify I think. We're just a bunch of ageing men living in the past and looking back with a false sense of nostalgia I reckon...

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I say just enjoy the music and who cares how we seen

I also think one of the other big changes is the use of clean power such as Filters, Reginarted mains, Balanced mains and good Earthing. James Heriot was telling me most studios now use balanced mains whilst I acknowledge that in some systems it seems to make little difference I reckon for most of us it has made a big impact to the quality of the sound

I don't own anything that could use a balanced mains properly - I think... We are blessed with good mains here though and I use high current filters on my sources anyway (except the tuner and that is totally dependant on the quality of the radio stations)

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Originally Posted by John

Shaun it be wrth asking one of the moders if they do it for you as it seems this upgrade is really worth it I found people to be really helpful

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Sure,no problem,if you want to send me the dac and caps I'll do the mod for you Shaun.

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Originally Posted by DSJR

<snip> Celestion Ditton 66's and IMF's from the 70's. These are still good speakers if set up right and the bass quality of these comes into it's own on a decent digital source.

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I'll agree there as i have a pair of Ditton 66s' myself ;) The bass they can put out as well as the depth they can reproduce has to be heard to be believed :)

However they could be vastly better as frankly the enclosures are to put it mildly crap compared to a more modern design with thicker wood & decent bracing.

Honestly they sound so damn hollow when rapping on the enclosure it's almost sinful :eyebrows:

That hollow rapping sound doesn't stop current Tannoy Prestige models sounding great :scratch:

Thinner chipboard boxes won't store energy as heavy MDF will, for example. The ABR's should also keep internal pressure in check too. if you're worried about the boxes, some car sound deadening pads may assist a bit perhaps...

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Originally Posted by DSJR

Thinner chipboard boxes won't store energy as heavy MDF will, for example. The ABR's should also keep internal pressure in check too. if you're worried about the boxes, some car sound deadening pads may assist a bit perhaps...

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Agreed, they'll just shift the frequencies that get muddied by the enclosure.

If you look at the way bass reflex & ABR enclosures work they actually create much more pressure inside the enclosure at or within an octave or so of the tuning frequency, this is how they manage to actually damp the driver & make the driver move less because the port/ABR is resonating with the enclosure volume & driver. There will be more internal pressure, not less.

Bass can therefore be improved a good deal by stiffening the thing, with bracing it could be taken to well over 500Hz, which i believe might be the xover frequency to the midrange & thus avoid as much cabinet colouration as possible given that the mid is a 2" dome.

To the original point, I think the pace of improvement in performance has slowed every decade since the '70s, certainly at the price bands in my range. Hi-fi was always a case of diminishing returns on investment, now it's diminishing returns over time as well. For what you could buy at around £5,000 in 1995-2000 I haven't heard anything recently manufactured at today's equivalent amount that's better. Different, yes. However my late nineties kit is much better than my late eighties second system.

I confess my tinnitus does seem to have evolved more over that period ! :(

Pete

I actually think you could build a very decent system for £5000 but not from the Usual Suspects

My answer to the original question is, yes we have. The advent of CAD-CAM took the design and manufacture to great heights. A lot of things that would be thought impossible to do thirty years ago is not an issue now.

In terms of audio the circuit design techniques greatly advanced producing much better and higher performance. Thanks to the topologies that were/are used in IC design. What used to be a standard single transistor input stage now does mundane jobs like driving (psuedo) vu meters. Class D being noisy and switch mode power supplies being not suitable for audio are the notions of the past.

I was once savagely attacked by an analogue worshipping sound engineer for my suggestion that the digital audio was about to be as good as analogue. He ranted on saying that how wonderful that particular brand of analogue audio equipment was and its quality could nevere be replaced etc, etc. I let him wank. He does not know the fact that I know very well that the designer of that particular sound equipment (a legendary designer and I am not dropping name) has been fighting against the notion that his old designs sounded better.

Almost all of the recordings today are recorded digitally. Print them on vinyl. Will they sound better?

Hi Cemal,

How's it going? I hope all is well up there in sunny Glasgow! :)

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My answer to the original question is, yes we have. The advent of CAD-CAM took the design and manufacture to great heights. A lot of things that would be thought impossible to do thirty years ago is not an issue now.

In terms of audio the circuit design techniques greatly advanced producing much better and higher performance.

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For me, in terms of audio circuit design techniques, nothing can touch the good old-fashioned point-to-point wiring used in any high quality valve equipment for achieving the best possible audio performance, and that particular circuit design technique has been around for about a century! ;)

In contrast I find that PCBs, for example, impose a distinct sonic signature on proceedings you don't get with hard-wiring, point-to-point (when possible). It's one of the advantages of using valves.

Yes, modern techniques have refined some aspects of circuit design, but there's a lot still to be said for some tried and tested ones, too.

Keeping signal paths as short as possible is fundamental in achieving true high fidelity with any design, and that IMO is best served by simple point-to-point wiring. This is one of the reasons, amongst many, why I would never return to using solid-state amplifiers, where the use of PCBs is mandatory.

As an aside, I've yet to hear a valve amp that uses PCBs in its design sound anywhere near as good as one which doesn't.

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Sahib

Almost all of the recordings today are recorded digitally. Print them on vinyl. Will they sound better?

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The answer to that is very probably yes, if we're talking about mainstream contemporary recordings, given all the compression that is so prevalent in todays digital market. Vinyl, being such an out dated medium, just can't handle that sort of treatment and as a result the music is so much better for it.

Hi Marco,

Going not too bad. I am sorry that I could not get in touch. While I was on holiday in Istanbul the guys took it a bit easy and we got behind with the jobs. So the last two weeks were totally panicky. Yes, amazingly the sun is shining today but you know how the weather goes in Glasgow.

I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard. It also goes against your view of keeping the audio path as short as possible. Longer component leads mean not only longer signal path but also a lot of inductance which is exactly what you don't want in your circut.

Let me touch on the shorter signal path issue a bit more. More components in an amplifier does not neccessarily mean the signal path is longer. The signal path is always as short as it needs to be. The rest of the components are there to make the components that carry the signal do their job as linear and stable as possible. Also take the example of a single transistor input stage that I mentioned above. Old designs utilised it because it was the only option. Then differential input (two transistor) topology came about. The performance of the circuit increased. Now the input stage handled the signal better. Then the constant current and current mirroring techniques that the chip designers invented were applied in discrete form. This made the circuit even more linear and stable.

Now another point. The music you listen in your system actually travels miles of path during its production. I'll show you the schematics of an inner world of a typical mixing console when we hopefully get together. So that alone takes that argument away.

In terms of true fidelity. What is the criteria? If the criteria is your ear then it varies from one to another and all comes down to individual preference. But if it is the amount of distortion then I can tell you that an amplifier which was touted as "reference" and cost arm and a leg had a terrible thd level. It is a brand that probably some of you have in your rack. The fact is that our ears like distortion. That is just the way of our nature is. We dislike steril sound and probably an amplifier that produces it is the cleanest one in terms of thd. So let's be very careful about this term of true fidelity.

Now that brings us to another point which will also reply to REM.

I make music. I record mix and master it digitally. I print it on vinyl. How can it sound better in vinyl? I already finished the final sound on digital domain and it sounded the way I wanted it sound on my monitors.

Applying compression is totally irrelevant. It is used during the production of the music and at that stage whatever works is allowed to get to the sound you want, even if it is clipped to hell. During production anything that works is allowed. Otherwise how do you think all these big guitar sounds of the 70s were achieved?

Printing it on vinyl will make it sound different but not neccessarily better as I have already decided on the best sound after I produced it. That decision mechanism belongs to me as the artist. But you, as the listener have the right to comment on it and that varies from one to another.

Hi Cemal,

Good to hear that you're keeping well. We'll definitely hook up sometime... I'm due in Glasgow probably mid October :)

I'll tackle your reply in more detail later (loaded with the flu just now and just about to pop off for a kip), but just to address this bit:

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I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard.

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I agree, but I'm not talking about old designs. My point was in reference to currently produced valve amps, which I know and use, such as those from Glenn Croft and Anthony Matthews of Tube Distinctions - there are others, too. These are all point-to-point wired, without a PCB in sight, by vastly experienced and very capable audio designers.

They deliberately choose to build their valve-based equipment that way because they consider it to be sonically superior, even though these days there are other options available.

From experience I can tell you that not only does their equipment sound utterly stunning and outperform many rival solid-state designs using the modern circuit techniques you mention, but they are also in no way noisy - far from it.

It's all about skill and implementation. I'd rather my equipment was made by a highly skilled and experienced artisan, doing point-to-point (audiophile grade) wiring and making astonishingly high quality (bespoke) designs in small quantities to dedicated enthusiasts, than some mass-produced equipment largely designed by computer and full of, in my experience, sonically degrading PCBs, no matter how supposedly 'wonderful' the new technology used is!

Progress (in terms of the thread topic)? Not for me in this area, in terms of my system. Introducing PCBs into the design of my valve equipment, no matter how well implemented by modern technology, would be a backwards step, sonically.

I guess with these things it's a case of different stokes for different folks.......

YMMV :)

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Sahib

Hi Marco,

Going not too bad. I am sorry that I could not get in touch. While I was on holiday in Istanbul the guys took it a bit easy and we got behind with the jobs. So the last two weeks were totally panicky. Yes, amazingly the sun is shining today but you know how the weather goes in Glasgow.

I can understand your sentiment about the point to point wiring. In early days of electronics there was no alternative. But those circuits can be and generally are very noisy with today's standard. It also goes against your view of keeping the audio path as short as possible. Longer component leads mean not only longer signal path but also a lot of inductance which is exactly what you don't want in your circut.

Let me touch on the shorter signal path issue a bit more. More components in an amplifier does not neccessarily mean the signal path is longer. The signal path is always as short as it needs to be. The rest of the components are there to make the components that carry the signal do their job as linear and stable as possible. Also take the example of a single transistor input stage that I mentioned above. Old designs utilised it because it was the only option. Then differential input (two transistor) topology came about. The performance of the circuit increased. Now the input stage handled the signal better. Then the constant current and current mirroring techniques that the chip designers invented were applied in discrete form. This made the circuit even more linear and stable.

Now another point. The music you listen in your system actually travels miles of path during its production. I'll show you the schematics of an inner world of a typical mixing console when we hopefully get together. So that alone takes that argument away.

In terms of true fidelity. What is the criteria? If the criteria is your ear then it varies from one to another and all comes down to individual preference. But if it is the amount of distortion then I can tell you that an amplifier which was touted as "reference" and cost arm and a leg had a terrible thd level. It is a brand that probably some of you have in your rack. The fact is that our ears like distortion. That is just the way of our nature is. We dislike steril sound and probably an amplifier that produces it is the cleanest one in terms of thd. So let's be very careful about this term of true fidelity.

Now that brings us to another point which will also reply to REM.

I make music. I record mix and master it digitally. I print it on vinyl. How can it sound better in vinyl? I already finished the final sound on digital domain and it sounded the way I wanted it sound on my monitors.

Applying compression is totally irrelevant. It is used during the production of the music and at that stage whatever works is allowed to get to the sound you want, even if it is clipped to hell. During production anything that works is allowed. Otherwise how do you think all these big guitar sounds of the 70s were achieved?

Printing it on vinyl will make it sound different but not neccessarily better as I have already decided on the best sound after I produced it. That decision mechanism belongs to me as the artist. But you, as the listener have the right to comment on it and that varies from one to another.

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Hi Celmal,
Good points and I don't disagree,but I think a good point was raised about the overuse of compression in modern recordings in order to make them as loud as possible.It destroys the dynamic range and renders a lot of stuff unlistenable IMO.

I don't use vinyl,I use a SB Touch and it sounds great,particularly with good 24/96 files.I have noted though that all the best sounding music I have is 20 or more years old,the very best being a Duke Ellington 24/96 I just downloaded on Friday.It sounds stunningly good,and nothing modern I've heard,hi rez or otherwise,comes close.