Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

For me the answer is no. My TT rig is clearly better than CD even with some ticks and pops and other issues. Vinyl playback has issues for sure. But as has ben said, learn how to clean. It goes a long way.

CD is limited by 44.1K HZ 16 bit. It is and allways will be a compromised format. There is no argument. If you are talking about Blue Ray DVD audio quality then there is a real discussion. But not with CD.

Now my TT rig cost me in the low $20k range but my previous TT rig at around 5K was also clerly better than CD as well. I dont know what one has to spend (new/used) but I am confident that a TT set up much less than $5K will beat CD.

I buy a 50 or so new releases a year and I like most of them. The compression issue is a real worry on new pop/rock records and I have a few of those where I listen once or twice and would be ready to give them away. But most are at least very good and some are very nice. Some new recordings are claimed to be "analog"

But I will admit, most of my favorite recordings are from the golden age so to speak.

TD

One reason new releases dont sound as good is the compression that is put in during the mastering process.

Here is a Rolling Stone article on it.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080724194200/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity

Here is Wikipedia page on loudness wars. There is a bunch of interesting links at the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

It should be noted that not all new releases employ drastic compression. On a good TT rig you can tell. I bought the Foo Fighters "Wasting Light" and it sounds like crap. Sorry to say that but compared many other recent releases it is bad. It sounds like it has the compression issue.

TD

Its amazing that some out here holding them selfs to be experts can be exposed to have so little understanding of analog. I am not talking about Atmasphere!

Lets review red book CD for a second. At 44.1 K HZ you get 44 data points to define a 1K HZ wave that is about a foot long. Not exactly high res. At 10K HZ there are 4 data points, yes 4 to define a 360 degree wave. 4 points works for a square?

With the 16 bit sampling size there are just over 65,xxx steps to cover the whole dynamic range. If you want to cover 100 db you need 100,000 steps. So CD is just under 1 db that way?

So you are hoping to hear the hall sound? Not really, maybe a hint, but not really

Think about the complex wave forms that music produces with steep wave fronts, what are the chances that CD captures it right. Its all in the so so odds.

Just like Las Vages has the odds to take your money. Red book has the odds to steal your music resolution.

Then there are the steep filters reqired with CD - "brick wall filters" because the sampling rate is so low. That hurts too.

CD is a "lossy format". Its a fact. It just is. Give it up.

Higher res digital? Well 96K sampling does not improve that much on 44.1. 192K is more interesting but the math is only a little over 4x better than CD. Still not so good.

Going from 16bit to 24 bit is a big jump. 16 bit having just over 65K steps while 24bit jumps to 16.7 million steps. Now that is a move.

Digital needs to improve the sampling rate which I am certain can be done except for the recording companies which are woried about copy rights. So digital is stagnet.

I got back into vinyl nine or ten years ago because I could see that digital progress would be slow for the above reason.

What I discovered is that LP was even better than I thought.

Look 10 years ago I had my old Dennon Dp52F and a Shure V
MR, I think I got that right. I hooked it up to my old conrad johnson PF1 pre amp and it was a little better than my big rig CD player. I decided to upgrade and never looked back. Yes I went big with a VPI Aries 2 and a ZYX Fuji 100 but it blew me away even though I had a lot to learn about set up.

What I have now is big bucks and it is even better. And I will admit that I could likely find a TT, arm, cart set up at half the price that might be just about as good.

I will take the best $4K TT arm cart against any red book CD at any price. So stuff the give me a loan thing. With digital its all about the money with small gains. Do the math.

I hope the mods let this post.

TD

Yes I am recomending current music. I am over 50 so naturally my golden age stuff falls into the so called golden age of music. Perhaps even a little more so if I was 5 or so years older.

To be straight up I am an old rocker. I like some jazz, country or what I like to call it American music.

One example, I found a nice expample of the Doors LA Womman a few years ago. The title song LA Woman is magical. Say what you want to about the subjuct matter. It sounds like you are in a small club with all the atmosphere. Its almost a jazz like feel.

Newer releases tend to be more dense but can still have a really nice sound stage feel. The one thing that kills it it a digitally compressed recording.

Here is an example of an old digital ricording that is damm good. Steve Earle "Guitar Town" I have it on LP and its too bad it was not analog all the way. I read where Steve said that him self.

TD

Mapman, I got back into vinyl 9 years ago because I feared that high res digital would evolve slowly. Which it has and not for technology reasons. Big record companies drag their feet because as you know they are afraid of unauthorized copies and high res digital makes that easier. I believe that is one reason why redbook CD is a compromised format.

There is a lot of stuff I can buy now on vinyl that is not available via high res digital. Plus all the vinyl you can find used. 192k/24bit recordings are expensive and rare. I don't know what the sales figures for high res digital (IMO that would have to be at least 96k/24bit) are but I think it is even more of a nich market than vinyl. Honestly, if anyone knows please tell.

Its kind of useless to just talk about vinyl vs digital with out breaking it down. Getting into vinyl from scratch will cost some money which sucks since I think that keeps people out of it. But you don't have to be rich to put together a TT rig that will consistantly beat red book CD. But it will take money and time to get the most out of vinyl. And if you are determined a high level TT set up will distance itself from CD.

Going forward, there is no doubt that digital will surpass vinyl LP. But it will take a major shift on the powers selling music for that to happen. If that happened and there was a standard for 192k/24bit or higher then that would be a sea change IMO. IF you could buy that kind of quality at current CD prices it would all but kill the vinyl market. Its possible now but why does it not happen?

TD

Raul, if you recognize the "digital superiority" why not focus on a digital prouduct?

I must say that want to be manufactures make some of the most interesting posts on audiogon. Its always a position of the expert but yet there is usually little to show as a sucessful product.

I am not rooting against you, I welcome new options.

Just waiting for some one who talks the talk to do the walk.

Enjoy the music.

Rual, I want to be clear, when you say digital is better what digital are you talking about, CD? SACD? 96K/24? 192K/24bit? This is in the interest of learning.

And your "electronics that have the capacity to shows the best of LP/analog the best of digital where I "discovery" that superiority" again could you be more specific about what digital format and even give some examples of the music.

By electronics I assume you mean your entire system. Its interesting to learn about your do it your self phono preamp. Congratulations on building one. I assume you tried to sell this product but no market developed? I think that making a buck selling audio products would be a very hard thing to do.

But as a audio hobbiest I am suppose to believe that your mystery phono pre amp that never found a real market is the standard for sweeping statements?

And since you brought up the "capacity of your electronics" do you rely on old ADS speakers for your judgments? Those were not the best option back in the day. Have you updated the crossovers? How old are those capacitors? If you built a phono pre you know that capacitors built now are better than the ones built in the 80s generally speaking. And I thought there were reasons why mfgs moved away from dome midranges. FWIW I have ADS 880s and L400. They are much further down the line than yours and they do have an interesting sound but nothing that would be call accurate.

I don't mean to bust your chops but when people take on the position of expert and make sweeping statements it does not hurt to examine things a little.

TD

Atmasphere thank you, I kinda forgot about the direct to disk stuff. I will keep my eye open for that while searching through used vinyl.
TD

Rual, I admire your efforts. Having ben involved in venture capital (on a small scale) I think highly of anyone that has the balls to start a company or produce a product.

I have known about Sheffield since the 80s but I will put B&K D2D on my list as well.

Good luck with your tonearm.

TD