The problem with streaming


As I sit here listening to America Includes: "A Horse With No Name", I realized the problem with streaming. Who knows what source material you're getting with streaming? The album I'm listening to is a Warners Brothers green label. Sonics are absolutely incredible! The band sounds like they're in the room! 

Navigating the pressings to find the best one can be challenging but that's part of the fun of the hobby. I doubt the same care is taken when generating streaming recordings. You're stuck with what they use, thus missing the incredible texture of the best recordings.

Of course, great care must be taken to set up the turntable and match all components downstream. I find the effort to be well worth it! There's just no substitute for great analog!

128x128vuch

Funny someone mentioned Deja Vu. From the time it came out, I always thought it sounded exceptional.

The title of this thread should have read ’The problem with bad pressings’.

Maybe to some it is ’part of the hobby’, but the mere fact that pressings can be bad and that one has to search for a good one already is reason enough to me to stay far away from vinyl.

And even a good pressing is a bad one. If one considers the countless electrical, mechanical (!) and chemical (!) steps in between the master tape and the signal going into your amplifier ... the audio compression to limit the dynamic range, the RIAA compression to limit the bass groove amplitude, the cutting of the master disk, the wear of the master disk, the chemical and heat treatment steps with pressing the disks, the wear of the vinyl, the dust and (micro) scratches, the shape of the needle, the player rotation speed error, the disk non flatness and non centeredness, the arm angle and weight correction, the wow, flutter and rumble, the process of translating mechanical movement into a tiny delicate electrical signal, the problem of stereo separation, the need for great amplification, the introduced noise floor, the reversed RIAA correction ... it’s even a miracle that any decent sound can be retrieved this way from what once was the master recording.

If the sound is bad, it could be a bad pressing. Or it could be a bad master recording / mixing ... a good pressing won’t make the sound better ... on the contrary.