Bishopwill, that is not a joke. I will simply add my two cents worth: aside from having a turntable for archival reasons (there still is great music that will never find its way unto cd) or simply because you are in need of a hands-on hobby, there is very little percentage in going the analogue/vinyl route. Whatever the highly touted "analogue" liqudity arguments from dyed-in-the-wool tt persons might say, for general listening of music with no background noise, and with all due respect to any dissenting opinions, cd is the way to go. Buy yourself $3,000 worth of cd.s, explore music you never even thought of buying, read up. If all else fails, some of the suggestions posted are corrrect. You can get a decent tt, arm, cartridge combo for not too much money. Leave this stuff about direct drive to djs. You will wind up with two hobbies: fussing with the tt. and going through bins for records, throwing out every second one because one can only eat so much bacon without having cholesterol problems. It's only a hobby. Don't you guys get all wound up now. |
Talk about confusion! Now we learn that cds are compressed! Oh yes, it's getting clearer now: cds have less dynamic range than lps; lps have better s/n ratio than cds; polycarbonate will disintegrate in five years, while vinyl is so stable it only gets mangled by a diamond stylus applying tons of pressure per sq. in. every time it's played; analog is more natural (the way God intended music to be reproduced), while digital is only numbers that can't possibly correlate with music, which is a spiritual experience; digital is harsh, while analog/vinyl is liquid and open and sweet and has that nice steady reassuring background noise plus all those attractive impulse noises to reassure you that the record is actually spinning, while cds have a pitch black, dark, gloomy, unnatural background; cds are sneaky little monstrosities that hide inside a skimpy little drawer doing their nasty Nyquist approved math stuff, while vinyl is played in clear sight and touch and feel of the happy user; all the nastiness of digital is right there in your face, all that missing information, the serious lack of detail, while a top cartridge (hello Micro Benz), a top tonearm (fill in your choice around $3000. or $4000.) and a great turntable (sky's the limit, but make sure the platter is as heavy as a manhole cover and the motor is twelve feet away with one Aramid fibre only connecting it to the platter) hanging from the ceiling on stainless steel cables or put on a granite/steel/concrete reinforced structure weighing at least three metric tons and the surface noise divorces itself from the music to live in another sonic plane which is invisible to the listener; and the list goes on. Give me a break, the only thing I truly miss about lps is the cover art and liner notes large enough for my aging eyes to read. Nostalgia sure ain't what it used to be, but you know whatever gets you through the night! |
Sedond, any digital at any price? Analog/vinyl reproduction is a system that is flawed from the get-go. Our ears must be really different and I am not proposing that mine are in any way superior. Strange thing, my wife can be in the car while I am listening to the radio and when I comment on something tells me she wasn't listening, simply turned her ears off she says. She insists it has nothing to do with not paying attention and insists she is filtering out unwanted signals. Says she gets it from her less than happy childhood. After all these years I am stupid enough to believe her. Could we be on to something: you can actually filter out background noise and impulse noise and just enjoy the music. I, on the other hand, am devoid of such filtration which prevents me from enjoying the music. See, put this way, I don't hear any better than you, I just hear differently. I have a long spiel saved on my hard drive about my opinion on analog/vinyl. I will not post it for two reasons: firstly, it will be judged inflammatory (hardly is, I can assure you); secondly, it will probably bore everyone to tears, since I have already vented on that subject in the past. You are an avid proponent of analogue/vinyl, more power to you, nobody can take that away from you (with the real exception of the recording industry over which neither you nor I have any control). On a balance of inconvenience, to use injunction language, I am of the opinion that the clear winner is digital/CD reproduction, teething pains and all. It takes all kinds. Regards. |
David 99. Please tell me what is a good analog front end and I will make every attempt to hear it. Please tell me if such a rig will give me a system where I can enjoy even the silence integral to music and delicate instruments such as solo classical guitar, without having impulse noise intrude and kill the spell for me. I am not kidding, I will take my best vinyl and will gladly give it the best, most open-minded, fairest audition I can. What I fear is that you, or someone else, will come back to tell me that the turntable/arm/cartridge combo was the right one but that it was not properly set-up, that the phono-stage was the limiting factor, that the record I used should have been wet or dry, or that too much static electricity was in the air, or the cabinet on which the turntable was placed was all wrong, should be decoupled from the room or really coupled to it, like a a monolithic concrete structure immune from vibration, etc. You see, not that my goal is to win any argument on the subject, but I cannot possibly reach a point were both you, and like-minded people, and I, and like-minded people, will be satisfied either way. If you add to that that there is a growing belief in audiophile circles that there is no objective standard against which to judge music reproduction, you can then pretty well see that we are talking at cross purposes. To paraphrase a great champion: " I ain't got no fight against them analog/vinyl guys". Best regards. |
Psychicanimal, I make no promises, but this is the last from me on the never ending analogue/vinyl vs. digital/CD debate: on the inherent musicality of a system as judged by a third party who is not into this audiophile thing, I can take the case of my wife. The first thing she mentions when coming into the room when an LP is playing music with less than a relentless musical groove to hide the surface noise is that there is so much noise present. On the other hand, when I got a home trial of the Arcam FMJ CD 23 (which I ended up buying despite what is probably also to you a well known phrase: "but you have a CD player") she was amazed at the difference between my JVC 1010 in terms of the oft-touted "musicality" and opined that it simply sounded more like musical instruments than its predecessor. And this is a machine that many consider entry level into better CD reproduction. Briefly put: in the roughly ten year span between these two machines a lot has been accomplished in CD reproduction which is not apparent in the measured performance. What has happened is "musicality" that rivals that of analogue/vinyl even in the handicap race always proposed between the two, and which surpasses it when background and impulse noises are part of the equation (which they should, since I can't buy the arguments that you can simply dismiss these two distinct and intrusive noises while concentrating on the detailed, relaxed and liquid analogue presentation). My most basic point is that unless you have compelling reasons to get into vinyl (inter alia, inheriting an analogue rig and/or a decent LP collection), one would be better to concentrate resources on what is the current generally accepted system of music reproduction, unless that is the "hobby" aspect of analogue/vinyl is too tempting, in which case the person, such as the original poster who still can't believe what his simple question engendered, should set himself a budget and get a good used turntable of Linn, VPI, SOTA or Oracle manufacture (or other manufacture where parts are still available) along with a decent arm (which is probably already installed on the tt), together with a new cartridge. That same person could also give one of the better CD players a listen and then decide if all the negatives attributed to CD reproduction, such as aggressive highs, lack of detail, lack of warmth, no toe-tappingness and other now time-worn and un-applicable clichés, are real or simply a rehashing of twenty year old biases, and maybe save some money in the process. |
I have always been almost maniacal in my care of LPs. And yes I listen to a lot of classical and jazz, but believe me blues is often heard in my room and rock also. As to the source of my disdain for surface noise, true enough solo flute or classical guitar or even orchestral music on soft or silent passages is what done it! Too bad we never did get analogue systems without the physical contact of stylus and groove! Some time ago, a system using optical means of pick-up was developped and marketed. Wrong time, it got killed by CD. |
The son of a lawyer I worked with lent me a copy years ago and, honestly, I did not get very far in my reading it. I've read so many articles on music and audio over the years that I probably have some patchwork equivalent in my brain. Why? |
Now I'm totally confused. Aaron Copeland was an analogue-type guy? And analogue can get me more emotionally involved with the music, but, if I understand, not with classical music, since you would not buy an LP collecton of classical music and, therefore, would go the digital/cd route for classical. Have I missed something here? Yes, perplexed and totally confused! |
Is the analogue community a gated community? I was convinced of the reasonableness of my various blurbs. I guess Bishopwill put it less in pamphlet form than I did, and I thank him for his good sense. I can see it now: two sold out digital-types playing good cop/bad cop with the "analogue community". Not to leave everyone convinced of my intellectual or hearing deficiencies I have two things to add in closing on analogue/vinyl: 1st) I still believe that in some critical aspect the best reproduction of music I have heard was from direct-to-disc analogue/vinyl LP. Why? The initial attack of the music, its leading edge was the closest to actual live music; 2nd) as pointed out by the Bishop, there is liquidity (or to put it another way, a fine texture) in analogue/vinyl, but it is a fleeting experience, to me at least, gone as soon as the impulse noise breaks the spell. At the risk of repeating myself, more power to those who can hear through it. I still believe that one is better off upgrading within one format, than splitting the available cash between two formats. By the way music, whether reproduced in one format or the other, when it's just right, can still put me in a sort of trance, it casts a spell and takes me away, but that has to do more with the performance and the performers and not the mechanics of its reproduction. Being moved by music does not require much in the way of reading, and certainly no self-improvement course. Elvis Costello said something to the effect that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. I have been moved to tears by music playing on my kitchen radio and have felt singularly unmoved by audiophlie recordings of inferior performances on high res sytems. Let's get back to music qua music. Regards one and all, whatever your avocation. |
