Is analog & vinyl anoying? Is it worht it.

No its not annoying, yes its worth it. I am guessing that most of the discontent are from the younger generation. When you are used to easy its hard to actually doing something, like what it takes to enjoy vinyl LP playback, cleaning LPs, setting up and keeping your rig in top playing condition, getting up and flipping LPs, thats hard stuff. yea right.
I just did a comparing between Led Zeppelin two CD and LP, the CD is not even close, the LP has slam, involvement, intimacy, and is so much more enjoyable. Heck its a blast when traveling seeking out record stores or other means of searching out LPs. Its fun. And sometimes you find a real gem. For my music preference more music is available on LP.
That being said music is the most important thing. thats why we are into this hobby. some of the other posts mentioning musical enjoyment from ipods, music servers, ect. is fine and i am all for it.
But when it comes time for serious sit down music listening its got to be vinyl playback. JMO

Chadnilz, my darTZeel NHB-18NS preamp, which includes a phono stage (you can have up to 4 separate phono stages installed) is battery powered.

darTZeel preamp

although it is the best phono stage i have heard; there are many great phono stage's i have not heard. it's not cheap but it's wonderful. IMHO battery power; properly executed, is the way to go for preamps.....i don't believe in battery power for amps.

You really sounds as though you should not be in this forum. You should be spending your time with your tv.

Actually some of these "analog vs. digital" threads are far more annoying than vinyl will ever be.

All of course IMO

Your are so right Audiofeil, time to go spin so lps.

Thanks for your input Mike, and I must say your room and gear are #1 of all systems I have seen, I admire you from the cheap seats!

So I have to ask, after several days and so many posts. How is this thread different that every other vinyl vs. cd thread over the last decade and what new insights have we learned?

Dan_ed posed the question: How is this thread different that every other vinyl vs. cd thread over the last decade and what new insights have we learned?

Perhaps that the range of choices available to those interested in vinyl as a source have never been wider, or more interesting, and that the price of entry can be reasonable, despite the high cost of true SOTA vinyl playback; that there is a new generation of listener for whom vinyl is intriguing, and that even some old dogs can learn new tricks. (Maybe the last is over-optimistic, but I couldn't resist).
For me, playing the system is an event. I hope everyone has that pleasure.

Thanks for the kind words Chadzliz, Hey Dan_ed i guess the question will be asked and answered till who knows when,
what i do know for me analog is king.

Whart said, "For me, playing the system is an event. I hope everyone has that pleasure".

I bet you, driving is also!
Bob

Comments from wwwrecords and winegasman were rendered true for me last week while I was travelling to Santa Cruz (for spring break). Having neve travelled to this small sea side city we spend few hours just cruising the area. Then we hit the 'hub' of the city, a few blocks of modern looking shops/starbucks etc. Turning back to go to hotel while my SUV's navigation directing us, i swung by a place I knew thru internet (and had ordered for bunch of LPS by mail) called 'Metamusic Records'. I took double take and could not believe my 'fortune' that I am at the place without even knowing I was looking for.

Anyway , put few quarter at the parking meter and got permission from wife and kids to browse for half and hour. I dashed inside the store started from letter 'A'.... Found some hurried selections and talked with clerk really excited, introduced myself, etc. At letter "P" I heard this lifelike acoustic guitar and vocal playing over the stereo. I was floored. I asked the owner what kind of TT set is that. I could not believe what he showed me his system consisted of. A Technics DD TT ($800 tops)- similar to few brand new for sale on selves, an Orofon cartridge ($60-70. Heck my loading resistors cost $100 per pair), a hifi looking amp (did no ask for brand) and vintage (had those tan tartan looking cloth screens) looking book self ( rather big ones) speakers placed not symetrically. I started to 'brag' ( remember I am still tickeled thatt I am in record store I had just unexpectedly discovered) about what TT set up and it costs blah blah and that mine probably does not sound as good as his humble set up. He admitted matter of factly that he has gotten lot of that comments from his patrons, He has heard system costing $20000 plus and his system sounds much better. On the same day earlier I had auditioned the mega bucks Zanden digital combo at a dealer which sounded really really good. But this $2k-$3k combo sounded better!!! BTW I had exceeded my allowed browsing time by 20 minutes at this point ;-)

In fact I am going to call him and get more details on his set up.

So yeah, It is worth it!!

Wow, many fine sentiments here.

Worth it? That is up to the individual-yes? For my own self it is. I am able to enjoy many fine recordings from the vinyl era that are not on cd. Having access to thrift store finds and occasional other sources of clean LP's makes it easy. Sometimes just a good cleaning and the LP is good as new (nearly)

CD are fine. The vinyl system will stay. Room for both.

Too bad the new big format is Download. No liner notes. No cool record jackets. No money in the pocket of the artist.

Vinyl vs CD is so last century.

How about comparing the new deal ;-)

RW

Nilthepill thats how to live it, when out of town a must for me and the best wife in the world is to search out vinyl. right now i am playing a find from my last trip to Houston. CSNandY four way street. just cleaned and now playing a classic. its the music that counts

RW, comparing the new deal.....downloads....i assume you mean to the little shiney discs.

you need to define the goals. easiest? cheapest? most convienient? collectability? pride of ownership? best performance?

my system is 'download' free for now. i don't have any philosphical problem with downloads......but i have not yet heard one that competes with SOTA digial discs.....let alone vinyl.

i do have XM in the car.....and for long trips it's great.

Wow, Mike! Now you've done it by mentioning XM! This thread is going to turn into the Stern vs. O&A debate!

I'm with you, though. XM is great in the car!

I dont know about you but I just love vinyl vs digital threads, they are even filosophical...
If you dont like vinyl you dont like music, or you are not a true music lover??...Let me tell you guys most of my hardcore music-lover friends have crappy systems: one friend is a music expert and music specialized journalist, he has interviewed personally any rockstar you can think off and even introduced me to Diana Krall, he also works at a big recording company and is in charge of the jazz section, last time I checked he has a Sony combo.
Another friend collects music on his I-pod, he does have a pair of DJ turntables hooked to a digital converter and mini-monitors, In the 80s he used to sell recorded tapes to our common friends, these tapes came with a special warranty: If the girl you have a date with doesnt melt with the tape and kisses you, you get your money back! He was never asked to return a cent!
So lets back off music lovers with crappy systems, sometimes they enjoy music more than us audiophiles who are sometimes more into toys and detail hunting than music itself!
Now is vinyl worth it?
I find myself listening to only a small amount of LPs that really sound good, I go check my smallish (in the 400s) collection and really have a hard time finding an LP to play, I go to used record stores and I see the LPs I wanted to buy 20 years ago and a bunch of beaten up copies of the ones I got already...that dont sound good. No havent come across any Ella Fitzgerald or any good used jazz LP yet...I guess I will have to start ordering new LPs from the internet!
Is it annoying, no it sounds really good and for me it is automatic, setting the LP on my tt and inmediately strech my arm for my D4 brush, clean LP with the left and the right is already holding the arm while the left hand cleans the brush against my shirt the right hand is setting the stylus directly on the LP, I find my hand more precise than the armlift, I can hit a song right on the groove 9 out of 10 times...

I agree that most music lovers probably dont have these kinds of systems, this is a hobby and the equipment research and sound production go hand in hand, it appears most all men are nerds just we all have different passions.
There are the Model Train nerds, Civil War buffs, Coin and Stamp nerds, Photography, aquarium, fishing, hunting,
even Harley riders are nerds about their bikes.....the list goes on and on because we are all better off if we have a passion and some vehicle for a reasonable dose of
Obsessive Compulsive behavior.

Viridian...Some recent tests that I ran on my humble phono system (Shure v15mr) suggests that, to my surprise, some signal up to 35 KHz does actually exist on some records, (at a very low level) so I won't contest your suggestion that 45KHz is possible. The low end is, IMHO, the important difference relative to CD. For a CD there is no roll off the bass to limit groove modulation amplitude, or mix to mono to prevent stylus hopping, or feedback. And, my ears still work quite well down to 20 Hz, but are deaf (to sine waves anyway) over about 14KHz.

Regarding dynamic range, on my system the noise floor of a "silent" groove is about 80 dB down from the peak of a loudly recorded LP, and a similar test of a CD yields about 100dB. I admit that I didn't read your reference (web names that go on for two lines are a challange) but the ones that I have seen usually talk about listening to signal that is many dB BELOW the noise floor. Frankly I don't enjoy listening unless the quiet passages of music are well above the noise floor. A signal that lies well below a noise floor can be detected by computer processing and perhaps by ear, but I would not include that in a practical measurement of dynamic range.

I think that the carrier signal was at 44K Hz, but certainly above 40K. That of course forced cartridges to track at much higher than previously.
The response, however, wasn't necessarily flat to 44K and many carttridges achieved the higher frquency response by designing them to 'ring' at the carrier signal frequency.

salut, Bob p.

Viridian...I agree that it is astonishing that a mechanical media like a vinyl LP can sound so good. With some dynamic equalization (instead of the fixed RIAA curve) it can be as quiet as a CD, and with reduced distortion. (This was the DBX LP system, which I once had).

I believe that the CD4 system used a carrier with frequency modulation above 20 KHz. Because it was FM an undistorted waveform was not necessary. It was intended that the rear channels have full bandwidth capability (20 to 20K) so the cartridge had to work up to 40 KHz. In fact, although CD4 was a flop, phono cartridge design was greatly improved as a result of CD4.

Gonna take delivery on new cd player. Don't need preamp. What's a good cleaning method for cd's?

I really question the need to clean CDs. Except for a few with obvious major defects I have never had one skip. People who clean their CDs as if they were LPs seem to have a lot of problems. Draw your own conclusion. The error correcting encoding of CD data "cleans" the data stream.

I started to to get some Shine-Ola. I could not distinguish it from some other subtance.

TVAD eihter you are lot younger than I thought or you hsve no sense of humor.

Eldartford,

04-18-07: Eldartford
I really question the need to clean CDs.

I agree with you. However my personal experience with CD rot did leave my faith in the robustness of CD's slightly shaken. (CD rot is pitting damage occuring on the silver CD layer of a badly manufactured disc which corrodes from the inside over ten years (below the lacquer surface)

What struck me as very odd was that the affected CD still played without skipping but with audible distorting scratchy noise (no skips)...so much for error correction! I must emphasize that this was one CD out of thousands - so this is by no means indicative of CD's in general. However, I was expecting a bad CD to NOT play at all!!!

Shineola was a brand of shoe polish. I don't know if they make it any more. It was brown, and had the consistency of you know what.

Do people who have skipping CDs clean them a lot, or does cleaning CDs a lot cause them to skip?

Eldartford,

Actually I just answered my own question on the last post. So I thought I would share it.

Cross-Interleaved Reed Solomon Coding

It states

INTERPOLATION: If a major error occurs and a sample cannot be perfectly reconstructed by the error control circuitry, it is possible to "guess" the content of the sample; that is, obtain an approximation by interpolating it off the neighbouring audio samples. While this concealment will not "fix" the error, it will make it inaudible, offering a graceful degradation of audio quality as clicks and pops are avoided.

A corroded CD with errors from additional random pits over the surface would be a candidate for "interpolation" - as the data will be consistently affected rather than in "error bursts". (Corrosion being a very different situation from a scratch, dirt or thumb print on the surface)

I suspect my rotten CD was being interpolated in regions where data was bad for more than 2.4 mm.

--------------------------------

Now back to the Shine-Ola comments. Armed with the above informaton from Wikipedia it seems that Shine-Ola could cause an audible improvement if the CD surface was dirty enough to cause interpolation but not cause skipping. This situation would mean that the CD would sound OK to the listener (no skipping) but would still benefit from being cleaned because there was excessive interpolation going on (excessive interpolation would definitely be audible, at least I can hear on a CD with CD Rot)

However, cleaning is cleaning and there is no reason to suspect that Shine-Ola offers the only effective way to clean a CD.

BTW: I don't handle my CD's much, as I only ever feed them into the machine once and they stay there. So I may not need to clean my CD's - but others might benefit from keeping them clean.

Shadorne...Yes, interpolation is a fall-back method which is just an alternative to aborting. The R/S algorithm used for CDs will only fail for very severe damage. It is not intended that interpolation should occur for any significant length of time.

The "robustness" of the RS algorithm (how much bad/lost data it can recover) is chosen according to how noisy the data is expected to be. For a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter, and sending back pictures, corruption or total loss of data for more than a minute is fully correctable. The downsode is that a great deal of redundancy is in the data stream so it takes many minutes to transmit a picture that you might download to your computer in a few seconds.

Tvad,

I don't question your observation but it begs the question why shouldn't a brand new CD play properly from the get go?

Did you try other CDR's - like the clear silver ones that look more like regular CD's ( at least superficially)

I found out what system (see my post above) the store I visited was . Here it is:

Technics SL1200 Turntable
Ortofon Pro S Cartridge w/ OM 30 Stylus
NAD 1155 Power Envelope
ADS L70 Speakers

No wonder. In the other thread, majority votes has said the Technics SL1200 is said to be good value TT.

my new cd player. Accuphase DP57.

Let's see now if I go with the Stax headphones and tube amp I can have a killer system. No vinyl. No room treatment. No cables. Think of the money I can save. No complaints form the neighbors.

I feel that vinyl simply produces more realistic sound...a feeling of immediacy. It's a "je ne sais quoi" tht makes vinyl sound more musical...something that one cannot evaluate in an A-B test.

I started setting up my system about 3yrs ago with CD player. While hunting for CD player upgrade I stumble upon vinyl played thru a cheap NAD integrated amp with Linn Sondek. I was so taken by the vinyl sound, that I went on a massive buying spree purchasing 2000-3000 LPs, most of it original thru ebay and online purchases. All u got to do to understand the difference between vinyl and CD is to check out Civil War Vol 1, Mercury LPSD 2-901. The booklet that comes with this LP is a history book of American civil war !!! This something you can never get from CD. There is a saying , where there is love , nothing is too much trouble and there is always time. Off course occasionally I m lazy , then I will play my tuners. Easy, non stop free music- no trouble but merely played for the love of music. Happy listening

I played the Mobile Fidelity release of Bernard Herrmann's Fantasy Film World on 200 grams vinyl yesterday. Wow, that was the first time I heard a 200 grams vinyl release. Of course this was an audiophile release, so not only the quality of the vinyl was outstanding, but also the preparation of the stamper, the pressing procedure and the remastering job. 200 grams vinyl is quite heavy you know... It is also a sort of physical experience to hold this record in your hands and to put in on the turntable.

Chris

Yeah Chris, I've been buying up MoFi's recent reissues. Every one has been outstanding in both mastering and pressing. I think they're new releases are as good as it gets.

Dave

Is analog it worth it, YES YES YES YES & YES.
Yes I think it is!
You can read the liner notes without a magnifing glass while listening & enjoyihg the music. You can also see the art without squinting. Try that with a cd, I don't think so.

I think it is simple. The end goal in audio is to reproduce analog sound, an lp playback system is completely analog front to back, whereas digital systems take an analog source, converted to digital, and then reconvert it to analog. There's a whole lotta converting going on. I think one of vinyl's merits is the simplicity and purity of the interface itself... a needle on a record.

They say that some things, like making sausage, you don't want to watch. Digiphobics, like Hxt1, probably should not watch LPs being recorded or mixed :-)

I just spent the last three weeks tweaking my turntable-re-leveling, re-calibrating speed; bought new, upgraded tone arm cables (broke them in), got a stylus gauge to lock in the VTF, spent a few days with walley tools adjusting & optomizing VTA; bought new walker audio record brushes, got new (AI) fluid, stylus cleaner, put new isolation devices under the motor, basically an entire over haul.

All I can say is GEEEEEZ..... The time cleaning and destatisizing is like rubbing the genies bottle...
It is soo worth it.