Cassette's Not Dead, Apparently!

[DSJR]

I must confess that I'm still deeply suspicious of opinions being spouted as facts when the master recording often sounds multi-mono and "dry" and nothing like the syrupy "niceness" that is your average top end vinyl player (not necessarily a Technics SP10 or NAS Spacedeck), where all the "edge" has been "refined" out.

I still feel, rightly or wrongly, that all this "musical" expression, rhythm and "texture" is over-egged in a compressed analogue format like LP, as I never heard this exaggeration listening to music live (or when Revox recorded live concerts were recorded with a crossed pair of Calrecs played back on a half decent system).

I like NAS turntables because, rightly or wrongly, they seem to give the detail and drive without dissecting the playback. They out-tune a "typical" Linn and out-rhythm it too - the latest mods take the fruitbox out of the pricing equation as a full SL1200 or Spacedeck "system is less than the Keel mod). I've not yet heard a fully sorted SL1200 series, but the SP10 used to "do it" too (and that was in the old plinths as well). I've just remembered, our London shop sold the Rock II as well and although our Linn/Naim sales director all but ignored it, we sold a good few of these at the time and got on well with Max. This latter, as Neil may confirm, had a good way with LP's too.

To close on the analogue/digital thing, I remember a senior engineer at Castle Sound Studios (Linn used them loads) coming into our London shop (Linn had a flat in the block above for London visits) and saying just how much better their digital system was at capturing the music (and they did some stunning 30IPS 1/2" analogue masters in their day). I also have a copy of Linns Analogue/Digital LP, one side cut with the usual analogue recording system and the other side cut from a Sony PCM-F1 Betamax(?) digital system. Guess which side most Linn dealers preferred? the DIGITAL one, according to Linn, causing some consternation up in Glasgow I understand.. Calum Malcolm (I think it was, but it could have been Bill - long time ago) brought Linn's pro Numerik into the shop (a modular large 19" rack mounted thing nothing like the domestic model) and it forever banished any feelings that digital was inferior in any way. What gets me is how, for some reason, we still get differences in CD production when the glass master should be the same.

May I deeply and very respectfully respectfully suggest that ADM 9.1's are bought by music lovers, NOT audio enthusiasts who can move their rooms around to accommodate the stereo. It took me nearly five years living here before herself allowed the stereo in the sitting room and I didn't want to shut myself away in another room, away from my family, listening to music as I did when I first got a computer, stuck in an upstairs "office" tapping away I did enough of that when I lived at home (Isobariks as headphones - beat that )