Cassette's Not Dead, Apparently!

[Marco]

Completely untrue Marco. I'm not saying that ALL digital recording systems are good, but let's put it this way, the best digital recording systems give you what's there, warts and all. Analogue recording systems are very good at slightly smoothing things out and the playback is never *quite* the same as what's going onto the tape.

We'll just have to agree to differ then, Dave (strongly!) There's simply no point in going round and round in circles. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have the energy, and besides, I'm off now to set-up Dave & Sue's new Nagaoka MP110 for him in his Sumiko headshell, prior to him getting his Techy.

So, amigo, laters!

Marco.

[Spectral Morn]

Completely untrue Marco. I'm not saying that ALL digital recording systems are good, but let's put it this way, the best digital recording systems give you what's there, warts and all. Analogue recording systems are very good at slightly smoothing things out and the playback is never *quite* the same as what's going onto the tape. There was a web-link to a comparison by recording engineers, but I can't remember what it was...

Dave I must disagree strongly...if you look at the way digital truncates the signal wave form ...it simply can't do what you say. Even very high resolution digital recording can't capture all the information....YET(maybe some day) After all DSD and DVD-A both sought to do better than red-book digital, and still while closing the gap a bit, still failed (I refer to this as a technical failure rather than the lack of public interest).

Its not just about relative silences( digital has less obvious noise than analogue) but still has its own compromises. Sadly IMHO digitals compromises do not beat analogue despite its own set of compromises. Digital is about interpretation of data whereas analogue is a mechanical/electrical/vibrational process and perhaps better/matches the way our ears work. I know thats simplistic, but seems right to me. We don't hear digitally. Even the frequency cut offs due to hearing loss don't damage the sound signal in the way digital seems to truncate it. Analogue is natural and digital is artificial.


Regards D S D L

[Spectral Morn]

I have thought about doing write ups. But, I don't really have much to compare to, nor have I enough of the lingo to fully explain what I'm hearing. But, you never know!

Peter

I would strongly encourage to rise above your imagined lack of writing skill. Please have ago I think you will be surprised. If I can offer any advice PM me, but please have ago. If you do place it in Strokes of Genius.


Regards D S D L

[DSJR]

Dave,



Well it's flat, 'grey', dynamically-challenged solid-state, innit? Just like your Crowns are (which I've heard, too - awful things, IMO, sorry!) So how could the ATC amp packs be anything but fatally flawed?

More seriously, I've heard passive ATCs tri-amped by ECS amplification and the difference compared to the active versions was jaw-dropping, which of course it should be considering the difference in cost, but that doesn't disguise the fact that the built-in amps exist for cost/efficiency purposes rather than out-and-out sonic performance.

Yes you're quite right, the problems I heard could also have been driver related. The fact is, regardless of whatever it was, they certainly don't provide a genuine 'open window' into the music like the Lockwoods do - no way José. Judge for yourself when you come up!



"Proven" how and by whom, Dave? Is it likely to be anyone I know whose ears I trust? If not, then I'm sorry, it has no bearing on my opinion whatsoever. I'm not saying you're 'wrong' - just that unless I've heard the results with my own ears, or someone else whose ears I trust has, then such things for me are completely irrelevant.

What I can say quite categorically is that the Lockwoods blow the SP100s away, and any Spendor loudspeaker I've heard, in every conceivable area including lack of coloration. I've also heard quite a few Harbeths (Compact 7s, and the like), and although I rate them highly, the Lockwoods are just in a totally different league.

The difference between you and I, I've noticed, is that you allow yourself to be influenced by lots of things other than solely what your own ears tell you at this present moment in time (i.e. what you've heard in the past and what others have told you, what 'experts' think, etc). I don't!

Honestly, Dave, we could both waffle on here until the cows come home, but the fact is until you actually hear my system, including the Lockwoods, you don't have a clue what kind of results I'm getting or how 'coloured' or not the Lockwoods are. Until then, continue to generalise if you wish, but you're not proving anything to anyone other than you.



You see, there it is again so "I've been told". No offence, but do you believe everything that you're told? Who knows what agendas were held by whoever told you that. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I wasn't there, but I suspect there's just a little more to the story than what you've highlighted. Practicality issues, changes of equipment and procedures at the time, all of this I suspect would have had a bearing on events.

Ugly? I couldn't give a shit. It's how they sound that matters - and they're bloody stunning!!



LOL. Sorry, that is complete blinkered nonsense! The Monitor Reds I've got do not in any way "shriek and spit at you" - far from it. Do you really think I'd put up with that? Honestly, reading this sort of stuff is just laughable given what I'm hearing from them at the moment - and nor are the tulip wave-guide tweeters "superior"; that is simply a matter of personal taste, as both have their good points.



Eh? I think Anthony would have some issues with your comments there regarding the Copper amp!! Again this is nonsense. Everything in hi-fi is a compromise, Dave, but experience tells me that the best vintage stuff, updated with modern components, has got far less compromises than most of the tat made today. It is indeed rather sobering when you realise first-hand how little in some areas hi-fi equipment has advanced since the 1950s!! In fact, out with of convenience and miniaturisation, it's gone more backwards than forwards...



I've worked very hard (and smart), Dave, to get to the comfortable position I'm in now. When I retire, I'll have plenty to occupy me, such as travelling the world and indulging in my many passions in life. We have a villa in Italy, so I'll be spending more time there soaking up the sun and slurping vino, so doncha worry about me, shweety!



Glad you're having fun, dude. Forums are about sharing our experiences and helping each other - we're all on a learning curve, so I'm glad that some of the info here on AOS has enriched your enjoyment of music. I plan to enrich it even more and dispel some of your deeply-ingrained 'beliefs' when you visit!



Marco.

I don't even know where to start here, so I won't make a big issue out of the above post, but I do find the tone rather patronising Marco - aren't you learning new things either, or do you know it all by now?

I have spent the last forty plus years "learning" about this industry and some of the products sold within it. I have also had the great priviledge to talk at length on occasion with some of the "people who know and design" the stuff - not just Ivor or Julian either. The one gent I wish I had met was Peter Walker, as he had so much common sense and in his day, wasn't afraid to try different routes to get where he needed to go with a design (I think he'd taken a back seat by the time the 405 came along, but could be wrong there and he had FAR more knowledge than Ivor and Julian added together IMO...)

One thing though, which classic era Crowns have you heard? D-60's, D-150's, 150A's, 150A mk2's or DC300A's. I'd like to know as they all sound different, the sound getting "greyer" as you went up the range (although the D150A driving big IMF's has to be heard on master tape to be believed where bass is concerned..) The D-60 is nothing like the bigger ones (we compared them all at the time) and bridged D-60's are slightly different again, as they have headroom lacking in a single amp (they don't like 4 Ohm loads either, but that isn't a problem with what I have).

Back to ATC. Their bigger products have faded from the domestic scene since Ash's day and unless they've changed, there's no way that you can tri-amp the 50's or 100's in passive form unless you butcher the crossover first. The mid driver is such a fussy beggar that there is NO WAY that a passive crossover can properly match it to the bass unit on the one hand, or the tweeter on the other, as the phasing is all wrong, giving a "smothered" effect. I'd also expand on what I was trying to say about the 50A's and 100A's compared to the 200A's - the 200A's had masses more power available and the sound output in the bass and lower mid was shared between two 12" bass units. F's up the imagery in a small room no end, but half the cone excursion for the same sound volume plus at least 50% more power each driver was a VERY good thing for these drivers IMO. I'm not saying that this is the correct way to go (over-damped bass unit, heavy doped mid dome and a standard tweeter in smaller models), but at the time it was excellent.

Regarding Tannoy Pepperpots - I don't have responses on the old units you have, but there are many available on the HPD series drivers as well as the Lancasters, Chatsworth's and York era. All of these show the pepperpot taking off at 3KHz (long ago sorted) and also being very ragged above 9KHz (giving a tinsel effect on the 12" models especially). The whole reason for the tulip waveguide I read was in an attempt to improve the treble response, not make it cheaper. Alnico magnets can "go off" over the decades too, due to the working of the driver coil somehow de-magnetising the Alnico I understand. Whether this really is an issue I don't know, but it's all on the web, if you care to look as I did last year.

You know Marco, your comments above and Mr C's too ruined a rather good listening session this afternoon and I had to switch off (without shutting down either...) and leave it for a while. All the cr@p I seem to be posting on here is via 35 - 40 years of personal experience and, more recently, online research. Your opinion and system seems to transcend all of this and make it worthless..

Ah well... I'm willing to listen, are you?

[Mr. C]

How so? I'm genuinely interested..

Hello Dave,

Fair question, lets look at CD's basic spec's

16 bits resolution, 44100 samples per second bandwidth 20hz to 20Khz (the limit of inspec human hearing )

simplistically thats a 'window size of 16 bits wide' and 44100 samples per window (per second)
Now virtually all recordings these days are of a minimum of 24bits/96khz, most commercial studio's use 24/192 khz, some go even further.
So if you like 24 bits now gives you a much broader window (144db S to N ratio), the sample rate is at least 2.5times to 4.5 times greater (so more samples per second giving a more accurate interpolation of the analogue wave form (more dots on the curve)
Now this this the RAW recorded format (24 bits 192khz), after mixing and band disagreements about who's amp is at number 11 ) and the mastering is complete.
You now have a finished digital master copy.
To get the the master file is to cd format,it has to be 'down-sampled' and resolution adjusted to fit the red book format (16 bits and 44.1Khz) this is completed in the digital domain and a new' CD master file is created
So basically you start with a large box (24/192khz) and make 100 times smaller or from 24/96Khz you make 50 times less information.
The difference between a cd master file and a studio 24/96khz master file is like listening to a boom box in your kids bedroom compared to £5K cd player/TT. set up in fairly expensive system.
Now a lot of CD players/dac's up-sample/oversample using SRC's so that they 'up' the resolution from say 16 bits to 24 or 32 bits, they do this by 'adding' random bits of noise 'dither' to the signal, which also re-sampling incoming frequency from 44.1khz up to 192khz (they can also re-clock the incoming data stream by using a dual or enhanced PLL (phase lock loop circuit)
This is NOT the same as utilizing a genuine high resolution format file.
I have a demonstration for this, we have a world class digital replay system on demonstration transport/dac/ultra accurate word clock.
The Transport is one of the very best available, now if I use our server based system, feeding the same dac/cables with a direct CD master copy (Flac) and compare it to the genuine CD copy and level match the PC system is another league above it (this is just basic Flac copies)
even when I up-sample the raw data to output 176.4khz into the dac from the transport, the server is still much more real.
Now interestingly CD has a data rate of 1.411Mps, yet the comparison Flac file is only at 898Kps
When inputing basic studio masters at 24/96khz CD is made to sound like a wasp in jar.
The sense of sheer realism and being there is totally transposed to you.
Not a hint of digitalaris, deep rich flowing textures, incredible dynamics, sheer believability, with a rich smooth yet immediate sound.
Personally the only time I listen to CD's or Vinyl is when I perform demonstrations for clients, I have over 1200 albums on Flac or high res formats.
At the moment I will agree there are not that many 'know' artists however the list is growing weekly.
High resolution audio does not have to cost a fortune either.
Hope that helps Dave

[REM]

No no no, thrice no.

You're all way off the mark, as any one with ears to hear will tell you the only real recordings are those made in the true golden age of audio before the advent of such artifice as electricity:-
http://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/foru...ecordings.html


ps I bet they all had a ripping good time, don't ya know, daddy-o

http://www.clpgs.org.uk/

[Spectral Morn]

I have a lot of time for Art Dudley as he is now in Stereophile (I don't know much about the Listener..I only have one copy and thats the last issue). In this months Stereophile (June 2009)he writes this and I quote.

Hes talking in context of getting older "I confess to hearing more, not less, in the way of musical differences between analog and digital playback as time goes by: differences in their abilities to convey momentum, pacing, flow, melody, harmony, and overall intellectual and emotional involvement. And, again, the older I get, the less I find I can tolerate average-quality digital sound, even for background music-even as the opposite seems to be the case among so many of my friends, and even as my hearing continues its natural and inexorable decline"


I think that says it all and covers analogue recording/playback too...if done and reproduced on top flight gear.


Regards D S D L

[Marco]

Dave,

Regarding you're last post, I don't have the time to go into it in detail. Of course I'm still learning, as is anyone else - I've already said this on numerous occasions.

*But* when you write (in a seemingly authoritative) style things about the Lockwoods and Pepperpot tweeters, etc, which are COMPLETELY CONTRARY (as in NIGHT AND DAY) to what I'm hearing, I have no choice but to comment and explain it as I'm hearing it in REALITY, not conjecture or what's written wherever you've researched the subject.

If they sounded as you described do you honestly think I could live with them? If the answers is yes, then you really don't know me at all. I'm afraid the fact is you won't realise the mistake you've made on this until you hear the results for yourself

Anyway, please accept my apologies for spoiling your listening session. I wish you many happy ones for the rest of day

Ok, gotta shoot - laters!

Marco.

[anthonyTD]

Depending on the sound the artist is looking for I would agree sometimes the analogue master is better suited, however a good digitally recorded master UNFESTERED with by record companies is pretty special, again this is down to the person. behind the desk and their complete understanding of the technology he/she is using.
This has become very evident in the last 8 months or so, (we have owned a recoding studio for that time).

very well put mr C...
PS, your last post [ http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...t=2737&page=14 ]was priceless...
A...

[Mr. C]

A..

Just feeling a touch flamboyant today.