To this very day I still thank Jax2 for his decision. |
I agree with Viridian, the problem for me is availabilty. If you have a niche interest, where some of the great recordings may never have reached digital. Jazz I suppose , is the example that springs to mind.
For Me, it is Opera. Some of the great 50's to 70's recordings, never reached CD. The other thing to consider is cost. The great Jazz recordings can be expensive. You can pick up Opera vinyl very cheap. I bought Puccini's, the gear from the Golden West with Domingo, for £3 recently, unplayed and that is a Penguin stereo guide top, Rosette, performance. What more could you ask for? |
The most important thing you said was the YOU do not see (hear) the value of analog. In that case, dump it. That said, I really think that too many audiophiles obsess too much over their analog and it begins to be a source of stress rather than a pleasure. Why? Once the turntable is properly set up, which is no big deal with a Rega, just clean the record when you get it, clean the stylus with a bit of LP#9 and play. That's all that need be done for a few years, when you have to replace the cartridge, which admittedly can be pricey. The problem is that too many people (and I've met a few) constantly live in apprehension that the tt is not ajusted perfectly and feel they have to screw around with it on a regular basis. You see posts like that here all the time - Oooh, I hear some inner-groove distortion; oooh, I hear a noise when I do this... I have yet to find a record that is absolutely perfect from beginning to end. Most will have a noise somewhere on it. It doesn't bother me as long as it is brief in duration. But, as I first stated, if you are not getting pleasure out of it, let it go. |
I am happy with both mediums.I have vinyl days and digital days listening.I recently got a mint original Zodiac Cosmic sounds Lp which is not out on CD,one reason I will never part with my TT.I am also not happy with 40-50 year old digital releases compared to my vinyl original first presses or promo's for the most part.I will keep both.I also find better extended high end and bass with a good piece of vinyl. |
I have met fishermen who only flyfish and tie their own flies.
Anyone spend time out on the water? Would you rather spend an afternoon
on a sailboat or on a motor boat? And if the answer is a sailboat, the
question becomes wood or plastic? |
My experience is similar to David12, some of the best classical records I picked up cost me $1 at the record store and they were mint or unplayed. Why not pick them up? Yes, a lot of older classical recordings that were transfered to CD sound harsh but the new releases sound great so I do both analog and digital. Just recently, I compared a few albums I have on SACD and vinyl and in each case, the SACD sounded as good as or just slightly better than the record. So, hi rez digital will be my first preference going forward. |
I suspect one's preference may be influenced by the system they have. On a well setup high end system vinyl seems to be quite a bit better to my ears.
Some sort of record cleaning machine should probably be part of the system.
As for the pops etc. do you freak out at a concert if someone makes a sound? You do listen to live music don't you? If not, perhaps that is part of the problem.
The lossless codecs are better but IMO not equal to vinyl even at 96k. I think the latest vinyl is also a cut above the older stuff. |
"As for the pops etc. do you freak out at a concert if someone makes a sound? You do listen to live music don't you? If not, perhaps that is part of the problem.
Do you, or would you freak out if you heard pops from your amp, preamp, speakers or cd player? Or maybe there are good pops and bad pops. |
I can only listen to so much "old music" so I have a digital collection.
I can only listen to so much "new music" so I have a vinyl collection.
Both have benefits, both can sound good in their own way, so why not have both? |
Chayro hits the nail on the head with a very insightful comment. This stuff is about music, in whatever form it takes. In the microscopic world of vinyl playback, everything is important, and nothing is.
There is always noise with music. Digital has its own sonic artifacts that can be as detrimental to the listening experience as tics and pops on an LP. Some hear them, some don't.
I always wonder if, as one of those weirdos who could hear a TV picture tube's high-pitched hum when it was on (back in days when there were picture tubes), a particular sensitivity makes digital more or less noisy for some. Who knows? Interesting question, though.
At any rate, have fun with this hobby, don't worry too much, and keep your toes tapping. |
Vinyl noise tends to be music genre-specific and/or equipment-related.
In this regard, recordings of solo performances such as solo piano tend to be problematic, as opposed to boisterous rock / pop recordings, which almost always out-shout noise.
As for the role of equipment, some cartridges and styli emphasize surface noise. Elliptical styli, which are used on the vast majority of modern cartridges, have a small contact area and wear a trough at the contact patch in the groove, and the trough gets worse as a record is played repeatedly. High-tech line-contact styli, on the other hand, are basically shaped like the groove and touch much more of the groove, playing parts of the groove that have never been played before and that have experienced no wear - depending upon the geometry, they can ride over the trough cut in the groove by elliptical styli and make even very used records sound new. Also because of the much greater contact area, line-contacts cause much less wear (the pressure is distributed over a much larger part of the groove wall, greatly decreasing wear). The following link shows a picture of the forerunner to the line contact, a Shibata, compared to an elliptical (scroll down to the black and white photo):
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=9OEDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA66&dq=phono%20cartridges&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q=phono%20cartridges&f=false
Modern high-end tables tend to have very little rumble and thus minimize noise compared to modest tables or mass-market vintage tables.
Poor cartridge set-up, which is extremely common and the biggest problem with vinyl in my opinion, can greatly increase noise. In fact, it is precisely the line-contacts that are hard to set up, as they can only lay in the groove one way to fit - imagine a big "V" sitting down into a little "v" (it won't "work" unless it sits just right in the vertical and horizontal planes).
As for PCM digital, it's fine for low frequency and midrange signals, as such frequencies oscillate relatively slowly compared to PCM's 41,100 times per second sample rate - taking 41,100 "snapshots" per second of, for example, a signal that cycles up and down only 400 times per second (a 400 Hz. signal) will capture such a signal's path with great accuracy, but a 41,100 per second sample rate is inadequate for high frequency signals oscillating at close to the same speed as a the sampling rate - it fails to capture most of the arc of the signal, which is why a PCM recording of orchestral music, with all of the high frequency overtones coming off the string section, sounds unnatural and fatiguing on a high-resolution system. Imagine a camera with a slow shutter speed trying to photograph a jet aircraft or bullet in flight.
Vinyl noise tends to be separate from the music, while PCM digital's problems are woven into the fabric of the music - it's like somebody pissed in the soup and then osterized it. In any event, a reasonably clean LP of most types of music played on a good quality table and cartridge that have been properly set-up, especially where the cartridge uses a line-contact stylus, will not present noise problems (... but I'm the first to admit that all of those conditions need to be present). |
As we all know, the key to vinyl is clean, clean, clean. Largely then, with good quality vinyl, the ticks are de minimus. if, non-existent.
A bit of work-but then the sound is much better than digital. |
Sunnyjim , your at the same point I was a few years back. Finding a suitable CD player and DAC was the key, and after much toiling I did find just the right combination, do they sound like analog? of coarse not, but digital has many virtues . |
Why would anyone care if Sunnyjim decides to listen to only to one medium? Seriously. Was he really asking or just wanting to start another stick poking episode? |
Mlsstl, I've found vinyl recorded to digital really close to the original vinyl, also. I don't want to make blanket statements on format based on that, though. There is a huge amount of digital out there that does not equal vinyl. By having analogue around, we have something to compare digital to(Just like live.). I believe it helps both formats. |
I think what Hoopster was hinting at with suspended subchasis turntables(or at least one advantage that I've heard)is that the noise(clicks, pops, etc.)is put into a different plane from the music. So, when you listen to the music, you don't hear the noise. |
I enjoy vinyl so much more than cds (cds are nice for the car but are being replaced by mp3 players which are even better for the car) I buy all new releases on vinyl, seek out re-releases and buy used lps as often as I can. I only buy a cd when the vinyl is not available-for example Lisa Hannigan's new release. Occationally when my wife plays aa cd and Im in the other room, I can instantly tell its a cd not vinyl because the cd is less life like. |
I wasn't going to post in this thread as it's all been said sooo many times before. But, as Tmsorosk said it for me without going into specifics, here ya go: Sunnyjim , your at the same point I was a few years back. Finding a suitable CD player and DAC was the key, and after much toiling I did find just the right combination, do they sound like analog? of coarse not, but digital has many virtues .
Tmsorosk |
Well, perhaps not if just one individual decides to listen to only one medium, it being something other than vinyl. However, I care if many of us start abandoning vinyl. We have all benefitted from the recent vinyl resurgence of the past few years. That is due in large part because people have not abandoned analog. And many new and even young enthusiasts are joining in the fun. There have been many good reissues released as well as advances in equipment. Surely if more people like Sunnyjim switch to only digital, it will have an impact on analog. |
Why not keep both - digital and analog? Having an analog and a digital source can work pretty well together. Like so many others I jumped on the CD-train 25 years ago but kept my records. Over the years I upgraded my system to "lesser and lesser power" - currently using 300B amps and discovered that, even though much more hassle, vinyl simply sounds better. If you have that "fiddle around gene" like I, you might enjoy tweaking your analog source to get to better and better sound quality. That's not so easy with digital. I started to record CDs from my own TT using a high quality pro CD recorder and am amazed how close the sound of these CDs comes to the original vinyl playback. Today I'm enjoying both - vinyl, if I have time and want best performance - and digital, if I'm not listening seriously and are too lazy to deal withy vinyl. |
I don't know Peter. A few decades ago the whole world shifted to the digital side and from what I've seen it has only made analog reproduction stronger. I don't think a few hundred one way or the other will make any difference.
Besides, if the OP really does enjoy music more with another source isn't the issue already settled for him? I don't have a problem with that, but also don't see the need for yet another d vs a thread. Kind of slow around new year's I guess. |
Just my 02c
When CDs first came out, I really hated them. To my (younger) ears, digital just sounded terribly brash and gave me headaches. I stuck with vinyl.
Forward a few years, and the wave of re-issues prompted me to start buying CDs. I started getting better DACs - anyone remember Theta? and I started to think that digital was the way to go. Less background noise, less fuss, less muss.
I ended up selling my Rega RP2, and build a K&K RAKK DAC using line transformers. It was the best sound I had ever gotten out of my rig. During this time I also upgraded my speakers and electronics.
And then... that same Rega I sold to a friend, came back for a visit. This time it had a better cart and a much better phono stage. My friend and I sat down and started spinning some vinyl. Even that cheap analog setup wiped the floor of my digital rig. The turntable sounded more natural, had a bigger soundstage, and was much more engrossing.
I realized with digital, I was stuck on the 'objective' view of music, analyzing the system more than the music. With records, I was swept up in the performances and art.
Since that experience, I've gone back to vinyl. It's been VPI since then, along with some much better electronics. I don't see myself ever going back to digital, especially with some of the quality original first pressings I own. |
