Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

There are many cool things about vinyl.   A whole vibe that you simply can't get elsewhere.  But if we are talking purely about "sound" quality, the "average" consumer system for CD will crush any average consumer system for vinyl.  Vinyl is an archaic and noisy medium, requiring substantial roll-off in the lows and highs in order to get to the final medium (vinyl).   Why anyone would do that when the original digital source is available is beyond me (The "Surfacing" album mentioned is a digitally recorded source).   Listen to a classical record with a quiet flute part for example - and just the sound of the stylus dragging across a perfectly Mint vinyl record is too loud and audible against the flute itself.  I have around 8000 vinyl records, use a VPI Prime sitting on a HRS R3X isolation base with a Cadenza Bronze cartridge - a decent setup.   Side by side with the Esoteric K-07x there is no comparison 90% of the time.   Doesn't matter if the vinyl is MFSL, or Analogue Productions, etc.   I know I won't make any friends saying that, but do the comparisons yourself and see.   A high end CD or SACD player will simply crush a decent vinyl set up....  most of the time.  There are times this isn't the case  (original 60's or 70's vinyl with early 1A stampers or amazing engineering (Van Gelder, etc.).    But most of the vinyl today, including audiophile pressings (MFSL, Japan, AP, etc) are simply just EQ moves pushing highs and lows to make it sound better.    Do a true comparison, match the volume,  strip back those EQ moves, put the CD or SACD on, game over.    But there is no "vibe" just dropping a CD into a transport.   Bunch of us love getting together, shoot some pool, have a few beers, spinning vinyl, glazing over the gatefold artwork, chatting about this and that.  Another whole vibe to vinyl there that is very cool indeed.   But sound quality?  No.   As my one friends said:   If you want the best experience, put the record on.  Mute the vinyl output.   Now put the CD player on and listen to the CD while you watch the vinyl spin.   Best of both worlds.   : )

3 comments already mostly mentioned by others 

DL-103 not in the CD player class
Surfacing MOV is one of the weaker sounding reissue 
Try one of the new Rhino reissue 

A Denon cartridge? Why would you do that to your vinyl? You’re kidding me, right?

In legal circles, this is called a results based outcome. Sounds to me like you wanted the digital to win, and you put a piece $300 cartridge in there to make sure of it.

But I’m just a humble yet unreasonably and thoroughly opinionated know nothing with 51 years of audiophile experience behind me. What do I know?

Put a Koetsu or a Van den Hul in there. Even their entry level cartridges. Then write back to us. Please.

sbonamo, I disagree in your price point. More like around $15K. And if you are patient and shop around for used equipment in excellent condition, $7K.

Here's the reality - In general and with today's latest DACs / spinners $ for $ digital beats vinyl rigs up to about $15 - $20K. The main reason is - you need many more components for vinyl - TT, cartridge, phono preamp, isolation platform not to mention the mat, record clamp /weight, cleaning machine, on, and on. For digital, you need a DAC and a decent music PC or a stand - alone CD / SACD player. Once over $20K it depends but vinyl starts to take over.   

Of course, famous La Scala. Well, maybe better wait until January - plane tickets might be expensive and hard to get in December. But these days short trip to Europe can be relatively inexpensive.

"Why don’t you buy a plane ticket and fly to Milan ? You could feel that ambiance the day after tomorrow."

If you are suggesting La Scala in Milano, the season starts on December 7, 2018 with one preview on December 4th. So elizabeth will have to be patient for a few extra days.

A major problem that's holding back my digital system is that my vinyl significantly out-performs it. I'm trying to figure this out. It may be that it'll never be possible due to the dynamic superiority of vinyl? I went ahead and bought the Music on Vinyl release of Surfacing -- even though there's a Analog Productions release which is assuredly better.

My record playing system:
Triangle Art Concerto + upgraded platter / Jelco 750 / TA Zeus / TA speed controller / periphery ring and spindle weights.
Lite Audio all-tube phono stage + NOS 5751 with Herbie dampening rings...getting a Hashimoto SUT next week.

My digital system:
Custom PC no fans + linear PSU + battery isolated SSD + battery powered Paul Pang USB card / Win10 / Roon / HQPlayer / Fidelizer Pro.
Space Tech Lab DA-512DSD-1 / 274B + KT150.

Both systems (except the speed controller) are on a Chinese balanced isolation transformer I got in just this week.

Cabling is currently a mish-mash of pro cables, silver-plated copper customs from Amplifier Repair (on eBay) and an Audio Envy I picked up at a show. Power cables are mostly Audio Sensibility.

I got the Space Tech Lab a while ago to try and bridge the gap between my records and my digital because it was all-tubed with a big bottle 274B rectifier and no-holds-barred on the output tubes. The dynamics, especially with the all-tube phono stage, of my records are just in a different playing field compared to the digital and the new DAC didn't change that. When the Hashimoto comes in it'll probably take it up another notch.

I don't know what to do. If this keeps up I may abandon digital altogether. Do I need an Esoteric to reach the same level?

 

By the way, I disagree with those who think that good digital is less expensive, I think exactly the opposite. You really need extremely expensive equipment to make digital tolerable. With analog - just a few thousand $$$$. If you play your $10k Marantz or Esoteric or Accuphase etc and heard nothing better - you have no idea how digital might sound. Still, it sounds artificial no matter what you do with it, and it always will. By definition. But people are stupid and stubborn and so they will keep trying.

Not perfect but good enough.
Why don’t you buy a plane ticket and fly to Milan ? You could feel that ambiance the day after tomorrow .

Hello chadsort,

Your conclusion is dumbfounding to me, but I respect your report and your preference.

I agree with those who make the point that to experience the musical and emotional involvement of analog one should play an analog recording. Surfacing definitely is a digital recording. I see intellectually and hear sonically no point in playing a digital recording on an analog playback system, whether vinyl or tape.

Perhaps you simply subjectively prefer the drier/leaner/sharper sound of digital.

My live music listening and high-end audio systems auditioning leads me clearly, directly and unambiguously to the conclusion that state-of-the-art vinyl and tape playback of analog recordings recreates for me a much more musically-satisfying and emotionally-involving experience than does digital. With most digital playback of vocal recordings and piano recordings I find that I cannot even begin to relax and enjoy myself.

As stated brilliantly by Edward Rothstein in his amazing article about high-end audio in The New Republic:  "Analog seeks to approximate perfection, while digital seeks to perfect an approximation."

Elizabeth, you got a brain storm today. Who cares about music when the equipment is not good? First, make it sound right, then listen. No experience of any kind until it sounds acceptable. 

Good CD player, mediocre analog set up.  Digital has come a long way and in some respects is a much better medium than analog but in other ways not quite as good.  I am surprised that the analog had better bass weight because that is one area that a digital medium excels.  That said, I am sure you are correct, a good CD player today sounds better than an ok analog set up with an ok preamp that has a mediocre phono stage.

Elizabeth said: "Just dawned on me that what this entire thread is saying is WE ALL LISTEN TO THE EQUIPMENT, ALL THE TIME, and the ’music’ is just an excuse to use the equipment."
LOL! Yup. Gets even worse when you design equipment. Can you say, OCD? I knew you could. :-)

"I own thousands of LP’s...…...Analog needs not only money, a lot of learning patience..."

I see that many of you guys have a lots of records and cannot but wonder if you ever thought of switching to digital because of space constraints. Even CDs take less space, not to mention hard drives. Although I am not on as sophisticated analog level as any of you, I avoid buying records because of storage issues and consider digital superior on that level. I know, it is not about the sound but it does play a role when choosing the medium. I do buy records, I am awaiting for ten of them to arrive these days, but it is when they are really unavoidable for some reason. Admittedly, for all ten of these the reason is expected sound quality. And then I digitize them and put them away. Blasphemy, I know.

"Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD"

Everytime I revisit this site and see this  thread title, it reminds me of some of the headlines I see on the Yahoo home page.

Todays younger "journalists" seem to use crush,slay and break, quite a bit.

Anyhow, the OP  may be better off with his CD rig.

As mentioned earlier, unless  the OP is willing to update the phonostage, the VPI isn't performing near its potential. The Denon has been a popular cart for ages. I haven't personally tried one on my Classic. Finally,  a reissue of a 90's era album isn't going to make jaws drop compared to the CD.

Put a pre 80's LP on a properly setup Classic, thru a competent phonostage....now you will hear what the fuss is all about.

When I was in the Air Force, back in the good old days of propellers; once we were taking off overloaded, approaching the "go no go line", and about 10 feet off the ground;  it was time to come down, throw on the brakes, and reverse props. (especially with trees near the end of the runway)

You got to know when to hold, and when to fold; I think it's time for the OP to cut his losses short.

Raul.

A very honest and succinct post sir!

Sometimes the hard words have to be said.

And yes we are all learning in this game of ours, I hope I learn something every day.

Good luck to the OP but maybe digital is the correct path for them after all.

Here’s my (very simplified) take. My apologies if most of what I say has been covered. There are two major factors here contributing to what the OP has found.

1) Zu 103 is not a bad cartridge, but is a poor match with the VPI arm. Assuming proper setup in the rest of the analog front end and system as a whole, a more sympathetic, medium compliance cartridge with a more sophisticated stylus profile will sound MUCH better than the Zu on that arm.

2) To evaluate what good analog is capable of you need good analog recordings: either vintage records or quality all analog reissues of older recordings typically made prior to the early 80’s before digital recording became popular.

If the OP has only 50 records and listens primarily to newer music, he may be best focusing on digital as Raul just said above. If I only had 50 records, instead of the 2000 I have, 99% of which were recorded analog and are in mint condition, I probably wouldn’t start over with analog.

But how did you compare? Is it the same mastered track, volume matched? Otherwise there is no valid comparison that I can think of. All the talk of air is always cool and all, but its just gibberish.

Dear @chadsort: Sorry my fault ( thank's @uberwaltz . ).

I'm a music lover and like today digital and analog alternatives. Your digital hardware is a good one but nothing exceptional for today digital latest technology and even that " crushed " analog and you are rigth.

Latest today digital technology outperforms the best today analog one, no matter what and no matters hwta analog lovers ( like me ). could think: no one analog lover has true facts that can prove the analog superior quality performance other that: " I like it " and this is not an objective fact.

I own thousands of LP's and if I was you the best way to go is to put on sale the analog rig and LP's and invest the more you can in digital.

Analog needs not only money, a lot of learning patience, from whom you learn and years ( noth months ) to fine tunning the analog rig.
Even several of the gentlemans that already posted in your thread in favor of analog that already gave you their advises are still learning in the same way I do every single day.

If you can justified all the very hard efforts you must do to stay nearer to digital alternative that's up to you but with 50 LP's  ? ? ? ? , maybe with 500 LP's you can meke the analog home work but at the end: best today analog can't outperforms today best digital alternative to listen MUSIC.

No, that no one try to convince you that in a few more weeks/months you really learned about analog because the one that could tells that is a lier.

The analog forums ar full of audiophiles that own not hundreds of LP's but thousands of LP's and that are " accustom " for many many years to the analog distortions ( including me. ), exist a clear justification for the analog rig and the other is that even today exist some recordings that we can't get in digital format.
When we analog lovers are talking about always " win " our subjective opinion over facts. It's " crazy " but it's the way things are. MUSIC is not a subjective issue but objective one that intrinsically comes with some subjective characteristics, that's all.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Dave, maybe that was a little strong to say about Linn. Anytime someone finds out what table I have they tell me it's old technology, buy a better table, modern tables have come so far. I've just learned to accept most people love to bash my Linn. Mine is upgraded though with cirkus bearing, outboard power supply, greenstreet keel sub chassis, Ittok 3 and Naim Areo and audio quest PT 9 tonearms. I would be happy with just cirkus, pink link and ittok 3 or pt9 which is what I compared vpi classic 2 with plastic 3D arm. I still love my CD player I think it sounds very analog  and enjoy it very much maybe the tubes in it do help a little. Just stick it in the drawer and push play.

 @paulcreed  Why do you think most people hate Linn’s? Although this may be a slightly tougher statement than I would use, I do think that most people are happy to bash Linn. 
Those that bash Linn, IME have not heard what a well set up LP12 can do. As you noticed, your LP12 was more to your liking than the new VPI, no surprise for me there. Today, with the various mods that  are available for Linn owners, imo it can still be updated into one of the best tables available...at any price.

digital is getting pretty good these days.

I think digital got beyond pretty good to excellent long ago.I had a Meridian 508.20 cd player in the 90's and onward, and it sounded beautiful and quite "analog."  Today I use a Benchmark DAC and it sounds fantastic too (even though I have a high end turntable system, digital sounds wonderful too).

Raul
The OP answered that literally within 30 minutes of you asking previously.
Scroll back up and you will see it.

⬆⬆⬆

Honestly i don’t care about digital at all, i just don’t want digital to be played in my system, also i don’t want a computer screen between the speakers, many people don’t mind, but i hate computers and TV screens. What i like is music on original vinyl records (not on reissues). Sold all my CDs in the late 90s and never lookid back (an awful media).

In my opinion analog is analog. If you want to compete with digital you need a high-resolution cartridge first, definitely not Zu-Denon DL103 ! Conical stylus can’t even extract what’s in the groove, so no wonder that you prefer digital.

What is fascinating me is the quality of music on vinyl media, it’s all there, all you need is to extract it with proper cartridge, tonearm, phono stage ... This can be too complicated, an endless quests, some people just gave up.

@chadsort: Again, how many LP's do you own? Could you give an answer? Thank's

R.

digital is getting pretty good these days. i heard a system the other day and was pretty blown away with how far it has come. there is still something very special about vinyl but get that wallet out.

sejodiren 

Yes indeed. Between Lakenheath and Mildenhll I enjoyed 6 years in the UK.

As I have stated many times previously in many similar threads.

I do not even waste my time comparing vinyl to CD or streaming or cassette.

They are all individual and all depend on the quality of the source and the source material.

I just enjoy each medium as I hear it, or not in the case of a poor recording ... Lol.

Right now listening to a CD from 2016 and it sounds pretty darn good.

I also have vinyl by same artist, same label from 2015 and yes I would say the sq is more preferable to my ears on my rig but does not make the CD bad by any standards!

It does take more time and effort and usually expenditure to get vinyl to sound really good, most already know that.

Right now I am playing a $60 CD player, Nakamichi cd4, though a Peachtree Nova DAC and very happy with the SQ. Minimal cost and effort.

To exceed this SQ, my vinyl rig is many times the cost and requires periodic verification of the basic setup just to be sure.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

@wolf_garcia .....I own a U-Turn/Grado.  It's an amazing TT for the price.  It pairs well with my 'Yammy' and Dahlquist DQ10s.  Fabulous sound....
@iamhe....I graduated from Lakenheath High School in 1972.....Air Force Brat.  It's a small world my friend!

As a teenager me and my friends use to buy albums mostly Hiphop and R& B, because we DJ’d at house parties. When I joined the Service, I stop buying albums without a second thought because CDs was the new thing that promised better sound, portability and easy care.

My first direct comparison of vinyl and CD’s occurred when I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath back in the late 80s.

A friend I was picking up from his dorm room for a basketball game was playing some music (Jazz & Blues). I noticed that it was a record. As listed to the music, I said to him what’s up with the records.

He said because they sound authentic. I can’t recall all the records and CD’s we Compared. But what I do remember is on this one record we could hear the breathing in the mic and the creaking in the floor. Which the CD version did not have.

 

When I listen to CD's, I hear music, when I listen to records (thanks to exquisitely set up high end rig) I hear music in a much deeper fashion; I hear nuances in records that I've heard hundreds of times, that I've never heard before.

I hope to God when I play CD's, I never hear what the "Vinylytes" hear (they're an analog religious order that describe in the worst way what they hear when they play a CD).   It would ruin my life if I ever began hearing "digitalis" or any of the other strange things they describe about CD's and everything digital; I would no longer hear music when I played my CD's.

I have an old Valhalla LP12 and yes, it is very musical. Compared with my 401, it is all over the place unfortunately. However maybe it's not set up right I dunno.
But I did hear a VPI Scout once and thought it was very dull and grey. The VPI 40th sounds pretty good but it's $15k.

I bought a vpi classic 2 with Soundsmith cartridge to replace my lp12 cirkus, pink triangle pink link power supply. Vpi sounded like it was going down a gravel road and was set up properly, sold it, kept my Linn, so glad I didn't sell it. I have a Exemplar Audio modded Oppo tube CD player and Exemplar Denon 2900 tube CD player. Both CD players sounded better than vpi, Linn sounds better than both CD players, I did keep the Soundsmith. Most people hate linn, I think it's a very musical table, I guess it's all personal.

I was really just too lazy to bother dumping or selling my old LPs I accumulated while growing up.  They sat at my mother's place for years so they were available when I decided to re-visit them.

U-Turn audio tables are relatively popular around here with analog "newbies" as they're made in this area (Boston area), they sound great and are easy to use. They're popular in other places also, but hey...All of the esoteric heavy lifting involved with the Audiophile approach to vinyl simply confounds the general public and does nobody any good, although it keeps audio geeks entertained I suppose...I have a simple Linn I use whenever I feel like it, a good phono preamp with an outboard power supply, tubes...blah blah...but recommend U-Turn stuff to anybody who asks because it might get 'em to listen to all that great vinyl out there, and isn't that the fun part?

As long as you remain on the learning curve(asking questions and accepting advice), you can’t sound stupid. VPI’s leadership seems not the care for anti-skating. I have no experience with your particular setup,  but- the VPI Memorial arm supposedly has a spring/coiled wire arrangement, that doesn’t detract from sound quality.

Many thanks for all the advice and constructive feedback so far. I'm most likely going to hold on to the turntable for a while and see how much more performance i can extract from further tweaking. 

I'm facing quite a learning curve on the VPI tonearm though. I noticed that the entire tonearm can be rotated laterally, with 2 points where the tonearm seems to snap or click into place. Is this normal? If so, how do I know at which point the tonearm should snap into place?

Also, how fragile is the unipivot male bearing assembly and should I be applying any sort of lubricant/fluid? There is a section on damping fluid around the pivot in the VPI manual.

How about anti-skating? I know the general consensus seems to be a no for VPI arms.

Apologies, I realise I must sound really stupid right now.

@prof + 1

Very similar to my story, but at least 'Prof' was smart enough to keep his vinyl records. I was so stupid to fall for the 'perfect sound' hype and sold my records around 1988 and entirely switched to cd's. With hindsight it wasn't just cognitive dissonance, because cd's really did sound better to me at the time. My Japanese mid-fi DD turntable + Denon DL-160 cartridge was - to use the OP's phrase - crushed by a Nakamichi OMS-3 cd player.

Fast forward some 10 years when I first heard a top level analog rig and couldn't believe what I heard. This epiphany opened the flood gates and I jumped back into vinyl with a Clearaudio Master Solution + Unify arm + vdHul Frog MC into a Krell KRC HR preamp with Reference phono board. Not exactly top level, but still good enough to ignite an obsessive period of vinyl collecting, mostly classical and jazz record in original pressings of the '50's and '60's. The Krell KPS-20i cd player I had at the time was on 'stand by' most of the time.

Fast forward another 15 years (with the record collection more or less hitting saturation point) I started going down the rabbit hole of analog upgrading, acquiring various turntables, tonearms and cartridges as well as really getting into VTA, azimuth, SRA, etc. I soon discovered how much further there was still to go, despite my aging ears (I'm 58 now).

Comparing digital to analog is apples & oranges, but to me it seems there's a definite performance plateau for digital, while analog seems infinite. No matter how much you rotate those digits, it's still 16bit. If anything, the latest generation cd players that I have heard sound more manipulated and processed than earlier ones (like that Krell I fondly remember), despite the higher 'resolution'. I briefly owned an Esoteric K-05x, which to my ears falls into that category.

So if you are accustomed to that 'processed' sound, I can imagine you feel it 'crushes' your vinyl rig. But you have to realize that the DL-103 is a rather crude device that sets you on the wrong foot about what vinyl can do. So please don't give up. Start with a better cartridge and get someone to install it properly. You won't know what hits you. No, actually you will. Instantly.

Hi @rauliruegas Not too many..at this point i have a little over 50 LPs. Couple of digital reissues, but I do have some early pressings of records from Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits etc...your usual classic rock stuff

Dear @chadsort: How many LP's do you own? Thank's in advance.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Yes, the OP is far from starter; he's so close, all he needs is some professional help that will steer him into the necessary changes.

I've been listening to records since I was born, 78's; there is nothing special about a record until you add "expensive" high end hardware.

I hope young people who are deceived into believing that there is something special about a record with that "starter crap" can afford high end analog, otherwise they've wasted their money.

It really depends on what one considers as a "starter system;" at really low prices, digital players are vastly superior to cheap vinyl rigs which not only sound terrible, but also risk damaging records.  But, improvements as one moves up the price/quality curve for digital gear is less dramatic than is the case with phono gear.  The OP is placed quite far from "starter" with both setups.  

I would recommend that the OP first look into loading issues, and perhaps VTA--both are common sources of problems with shut in top end.  Excessive loading (too LOW a value for the resistance) and too low VTA, can cause this sort of problems.

Once performance is optimize, it might well be the case that the OP still favors the digital rig, probably because that sound is more familiar to the OP.  It may take some time, but, with setup optimized, the virtues of the vinyl sound may become more evident.  This is sort of a learning process and familiarity is important.  

I personally think both digital and vinyl setups can deliver great performance and I will not take sides in any sort of religious war.  I think there are far bigger differences when making other sort of audio choices: high power vs. low power amps, solid state vs. tube, electrostatic vs. dynamic drivers, planar vs. point source, and so on.

Ain't no way a starter level record player, can even beat cheap digital; or why else would millions of people chuck their mid fi turntables, and sell or give away records?

Because CD was the next BIG thing and "people" generally are stupid and sheep! It was space age, it was new, it was easy, it was convenient.
SQ was not part of the reasoning for the vast unwashed.

Rant over...lol

Ain't no way a starter level record player, can even beat cheap digital; or why else would millions of people chuck their mid fi turntables, and sell or give away records?