The cost of LP's and CD's - an observation

Comparing an ordinary record player to "high end analog" is like comparing a hot dog to porterhouse steak.

I find nothing nostalgic about something I never had or heard before, and that's high end analog.

Given a good price, I'll buy the Revox A77; digital can't touch it.

"No, you think it sounds better to you. That is completely meaningless to other people.."


When we are talking about "High end analog" as compared to routine CD, it sounds better to most people.


In "high end analog" we are speaking of depth of "sound stage", we are speaking of "air" around the instruments, we are speaking of a "holographic sound stage"; that's what I'm speaking of that sounds better to most people, and not just me. But maybe that wouldn't sound better to you.

For those who are claiming analog sounds better; yes it does, but at a much higher price.

n80, I've been around awhile, I was at the Dead Sea when it died, and I was at the Red Sea when they dyed it Red. CD's are the best thing to come along since.......you name it.

Having said that I'm currently into "analog", but my cartridge costs as much as my CD player, plus you need a TT, plus phono Pre, plus expensive NOS tubes, and we ain't even got into the high price records to hear some music. And if you don't have all that stuff set up perfectly, you still ain't got squat.


Don't let nobody BS you, unless you come into a lot of loose change, you keep on doing watcha doing because I still do what you're doing.

In regard to price; that "see-saw" thing has little to do with the cost of production, but the simple law of supply and demand; all of a sudden records are in demand. When CD's came out they were overpriced because CD's were in demand; capitalists got to make money.

Simao, all the people I knew were impressed with the "noise less" fidelity; which was far superior to "mid-fi". The convenience was just icing on the cake.

Even today, while vinyl is being pushed, CD's are still better than "Mid-FI" and all these thing people hear with "Lo-Fi" vinyl are things we didn't hear during the 50 years preceding CD, but people are convinced that they hear what we didn't hear during all those years.

The only thing different today is the "expensive Hi-end" analog rig, which was also available back in the day, but few people had them. Not until CD did the masses become interested in "expensive analog rigs". Only after the "high enders" began to preach that vinyl was better than CD did they want to discover.

I feel sorry for people buying cheap record players and looking for something special because they got a vinyl record.

There is one very important fact that has eluded everyone's assessment of this "CD, Record" thing. Everyone assumes that everyone else saw this thing from where they were positioned. People in the "high end" of analog, had an entirely different perspective than people in the "low end" of analog. What was fact for one person, was fiction for another person.

Millercarbon,

" The great mass of people abandoned the quality of records for the convenience of CD." (not true)


For the great mass of people, CD was far superior to records, and CD is still far superior to records if you don't have a "high end" analog rig. No, you didn't witness mass insanity, what you saw was reality.

I had a Gerard GT55 and a Shure V15 cartridge, which was in the class of TT's that the masses had, and CD is still far better to that. When "noiseless" CD came out, those in "low fi" (most people) immediately switched over. While those who were in the "high end" said "What's the big deal". No, it wasn't about convenience, it was about superior audio.

When they said "What's the big deal?", I said one of us is crazy. No, both of us were right; it was just that one of us had a high end rig and the other didn't. Today, my cartridge alone, costs twice as much as my entire rig back in the day, and that's not due to inflation. CD still sounds better than a mediocre vinyl rig, and anyone who says different is pushing some kind of agenda.

Supply and demand "always" rules price, not superiority and inferiority; that's the way capitalism works.