So there you have it. "Really well recorded" "really good music" is available on vinyl; as for the rest, well...……………. |
Had the pleasure of hearing Christian McBride's Quintet last week at the Village Vanguard. We live in a time of wonderful possibilities and no HiFi system will ever replace live music. That said Analog, Digital, it's all great. Whatever you choose please don't forget to Enjoy the Music!!
PS. Thanks to all who have contributed to my knowledge thru this Forum
Season Greetings to All !!
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In the late 80's and early 90's, I had what was then considered a fairly SOTA analog system - Goldmund Studio table (T3 arm, can't remember version) with a Koetsu MC cartridge, AR SP10 preamp. But my music collection was slowing moving toward CDs for convenience, and after moving four times in five years for my job, dealing with the analog source become too much hassle.
I regret selling off my LP collection for pennies on the dollar (pre-ebay days), but I don't really miss dealing with setting up the cartridge/table correctly, cleaning records, having my blood pressure skyrocket any time someone else in my family wanted to use my system, etc.
I don't disagree that a good analog front-end can sound glorious. I've heard some modern systems that are pretty amazing.
What I'm curious about is what makes LPs sound better to so many people, given that the vast majority of LPs are digitally mastered these days. Is it that most digital playback systems just aren't up to the level of the gear used to produce the recordings, or is it that a good analog system adds a quality to the signal that can't (or hasn't yet been) replicated in the digital domain? Or is the preference for analog only for recordings that were mastered completely in the analog domain? |
Big subject. If there's music you just can't live without and its only on CD then I guess you will just have to listen to CD. But if your enjoyment is in listening to really good music really well recorded and played back there's just no reason to subject yourself to substandard audio. ie, CD.
I'm old enough to have gone from records and tape (open reel) to CD, and to CD/records, and now all records. Just reached a point in life where doing just for the sake of doing no longer cuts it. Variety for its own sake is such a waste. What few hours I have to enjoy listening to music, by God, I'm gonna spend it listening to music.
The OP is absolutely right about the sound quality. That one is so done beat to death its silly. The last guy who even questioned it was 20 years ago. Played both, never asked again.
Pretty much all the complaints are made up out of whole cloth and easy enough to dismiss. Surface noise? With CD the signal is the noise. My wife pointed this one out to me, saying she was shocked by how much less noise there was with records. I thought for sure she was mistaken. Surface noise is a lot worse with records. Eventually realized she meant the music itself, the whole signal, was turned into noise by the CD. She's right of course.
Fiddly finicky setup? Get real. Of course you can do that. It sure is not necessary. Half the stuff they pretend matters, really doesn't, not so much. My vintage 1973 Technics SL1700 with Stanton 681EEE was set up by eye ball and Shure teeter-totter VTF gauge forty years ago. When I dug it out of a box and played a record my wife from the next room who did not know what was going on asked me what sounded so good. Well we had been CD only, this was her first time in years hearing vinyl. So get real.
The rituals of playing a record? I couldn't play a CD without cleaning it either, and demagnetizing, and coloring, and then after all of that sitting down and.... sorry, what were you expecting? No matter what you do its still just a CD.
So now I play records. Records only. Well, movies. And technically I do play CD. The XLO demagnetizing tracks are on CD. So I play that. CD is great for that. Mindless, repetitive, programmable, nothing you would ever want to listen to. The appropriate technology used appropriately.
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@larryi - the Naim 555 series are in a class by themselves. I could definitely give up analog for a 555 CD player. And I don't know if I'll give up digital. It was just the first time it even occurred to me.
@twoleftears - you may be right about obscure composers, but I would say my lp collection is at least 50% classical, albeit pretty mainstream stuff. But all I was saying is the argument that a lot of music is not available on vinyl is less true today than it was years ago. If your music is not, that's certainly a good enough reason to stick with digital.
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The Oppo 205 is nowhere near a really good digital player. |
The OPPO is known to be a "dry" sounding player.
There are many warm, analog sounding, newer D to A converters being made today, that match LP playback.
Many consumers are just not aware of them!
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Apparently in @chayro's world classical music doesn't exist. Try finding obscure releases of obscure repertoire by obscure composers on vinyl. And yes, my listening is more repertoire-driven than sound-driven. |
I recently did some comparison listening between my turntables, my CD player, and my streamer. Vinyl won, but my CD player was not far behind, and while streaming came in last in terms of sound quality, it wasn't such a night and day difference that I can't stand to listen to it. To the contrary, it sounds pretty good until I compare it to my vinyl system..
The "debate" for me has more to do with selection and convenience than sound quality. Do I want to hear some new music that I might not listen to otherwise? Put on some music and just let it play without fussing with anything? Check out something I've never heard before? Streaming is the answer. Do I want to listen to something I don't have on vinyl, but want it to sound better than streaming and not have to start, stop, and flip records? CD is the answer. What is my first go-to? Vinyl is the answer.
I'm probably not going to go spend $20 or more for a vinyl record that I could listen to along with dozens of others for my $15 a month music subscription service. If I really like it, I might go buy the vinyl, but chances are I won't because so many newer vinyl pressings sound like crap and I'm running out of room.
Why limit your choices? |
so many of the younger crowd have not heard a decent LP playback system, and when they do, they are floored, just as the original poster mentioned.
Has happened to me several times....
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If someone already had amp/pre and speakers, and had $10k to sink into combination of digital streaming/dac and analog table/cart/phone stage,
and their criteria was 50/50 listening to each and they wanted the best compromise of best sound from both, what would be the best budget breakdown to achieve said digi/analog nirvana?? (I’m asking)
$2-3k for digital streamer and dac (e.g., Teac NT-505 or Cambridge 851n or Lumin or Mytek Brooklyn Bridge or Benchmark dac and node 2i),
and $7-8k in analog (for all of table/cart/phono stage)??
Or some different breakdown?
Sorry to sidetrack thread a bit, hope question is okay. |
With so many content avenues and varied equipment available to music fans these days, I'm surprised the "vs" conversation still exists.
I'm guessing chayro's vinyl components were methodically selected and run several thousands of dollars in cost. (not knowing the specifics around the gear mentioned).
Should anyone be surprised the Oppo purchaser preferred the analog system's sound over a player whose main selling point was that of all-in-one convenience product? Would the experience have been different with a digital system where an equal amount of selective decisions were made?
Is vinyl better sounding than digital? Sometimes.
Is digital better sounding than vinyl? Sometimes.
The gear from both camps continues to improve, and its a great time to be alive for music fans. Don't waste your time picking a hill to die on.
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FWIW, lets face it, while analog systems can sound superb, to get that sound you not only need quality recordings but the experience to properly set up and maintain your turntable. If you don’t do this properly your sound will just be ’different’ from, or worse than, digital. On average I think that most folks will find digital systems better, if for no other reason than they are, relatively, plug and play.
For myself it’s about the music, the sound not so much. |
Chayro,
I have a similar vinyl setup--Basis Debut (with vacuum clamp), Basis power supply, Vector arm and Orpheus Transfiguration L cartridge. For a digital setup, I have a Naim ND 555 streamer with Uniti Core ripper/hard drive. I think both have their strengths and weaknesses when it come to the sound, and quality is mostly dependent on the particular recordings. With most material originally issued on LP, the original LP sounds better than the digital reissue. But, this is not always the case. Particularly with some classical reissues from labels with poor sound in the original issue (e.g., 1970's DG classical recordings), the digital reissue sounds better.
I tend to like classical on digital because of noise issues with records. Given the extreme dynamic range of classical music, ticks and pops are much more annoying which gives digital the edge. On top of that, there is a LOT of classical music that was never issued on vinyl. Of my 3,000 or so classical CDs, about 50% was never issued on vinyl. Current recordings of jazz are also hard to find on vinyl.
I need both a vinyl setup and a digital one and I think both can deliver great sound; as to which is "better," this is more an academic interest rather than something that should affect practical decisions. |
I find there is a price threshold around $5K that is required to get analog to sound notably better than digital. I've never heard a $500 analog rig that sounds better than a $500 Node2. From my perspective it takes about a $2K table, $2K phono stage, and $1K cart to start making meaningful improvements over digital. And above $5K the separation even becomes more profound even against $5K digital front ends. |
Just to attempt to be perfectly clear, which is not easy - this was just meant to be a question I asked myself before I knee-jerked into spending a few thousand to replace my digital setup. I never contemplated the idea of giving up on CDs until this incident, in which this young man’s reaction to hearing a decent vinyl setup, probably for the first time, reminded me of how much better my LPs sounded.
Obviously, the choice is individual. |
Although there is much discussion on this subject I enjoy both sources although I agree vinyl is special and may be closer to the music. The best thing I can say is that while listening, regardless of source, is how much I love the music.
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