I have never had an analogy rig. My CD player is a Meridian 800, supposedly one of the very best digital players out there. From what I've read, it appears there is a consensus in our community that a high-quality analog rig playing a good pressing will beat a top notch digital system playing a well-recorded and mastered CD. So here are my questions:
1) How much would one have to invest in analog to easily top the sound quality of the Meridian 800 (or similar quality digital player)? (Include in this the cost of a phono-capable preamp; my "preamp" right now is a Meridian 861 digital surround processor.)
2) How variable is the quality of LPs? Are even "bad" LPs still better than CD counterparts?
Thank you for any comments and guidance you can provide.
From reading Sns post I think he meant optimizing each source not the system. I have gone thru that to. I started with an $8,000 piece of crap Krell CD player, then went to $4,300(at the time) Lector CDP-7t which blew the Krell and every other CD player I heard away, then I just upgraded to the $11,000 Lector Digicode and Digidrive. Now my digital system is optimized. However my analogue still is not optimized. Why? I have $16,100 into the turntable, cartridge, and arm, and it sounds incredible, so what's the problem? Well because when I can afford it I want the Brinkman turntable. Then my analogue system will be optimized. Of course if you heard my system you would think I was an idiot because it sounds amazing.
Acutally, I meant both, optimizing each source, and optimizing it within a single system. The sonics of each source will likely differ from one another, thus, synergize with the system differently. For instance, the bass in my digital setup is just right in the present system, the vinyl setup has been somewhat lightweight. This may require changes in vinyl setup only, or may require changes downstream which, will in turn, affect digital sound.
All the components and cabling from the AC outlets to the speakers were optimized for my digital, perhaps my analog rig will never sound it's best within this system. For an extreme example, let's say you have a severely analytical sounding digital source, you may have warmed it up with downstream components and cabling, these may not work with a typically warmer sounding analog setup.
For many a year I have always tried optimizing my system towards the type's of music that I enjoy the most. Since 1984 Iv'e used two different sets of speakers and amplifiers right up until recently.
Though many electronics ect. came and went over the years, at lease one component has remained since 1984. I still have my Quad electrostats that I use on occasion.
Here's one glowing example of what I'm talking about,optimizing your system for the music you listen to.
Member ThomasHeisig...Hungry Ear... the man like a few here on Audiogon is a serious collector of vintage vinyl.
If you are interested read his page.
One major problem with all digital is in the treble region...You do not have to listen very carefully, listen to any vocals, thats a good place to start.
Vinyl is better because it can drive you more crazy for longer periods than digital can.
Because music is MADE from materials as they vibrate,ie the WOOD body of a guitar VIBRATING, the METAL strings of a guitar MOVING,ie woods, metals, how cant a material that vibrates, namely, the materials that a plinth, stylus, cartridge body, , the stylus, the record mat be the IDEAL transducer to IMITATE those materials and THEREFORE real life music? (this has to be HEARD to be understood)
You cant get earthy tones from a laser pick up!
The sphere in which it operates is not mechanical or material sciences dependent, unlike real instruments, therefore it has a weakness.
Harnessing vinyls inherent potential and taking it to the extreme with few or any failings is more difficult than doing the same with digital.
Thats why we can get mixed results sometimes and contradictory reports.
On some days the the differences between vinyl and digital are negligable to me but on days when i want to strive for the best, i instinctively turn to "working" with vinyl.
If i am an extremely passionate winemaker i want to start with the best grapes from the best region and not just buy juice in pails or make wine from a kit, its the same with music playback for me, if i am striving for the best playback i start with the inherently better format and hope that as i process it i get one of the best wines ever, but its no guarantee, things can go wrong but nevertheless the potential is always still there, even if i might have to wait for next years grapes to try again. I dont start making wine from pails of juice because the magic wasnt realized! Wine from a kit has no potential to win any blue ribbons or compete with grapes but yes it can taste good and if theres nothing better you can still enjoy it.
The answer to whether a person should go vinyl is a question each must answer for themselves. It depends on how intense and passionate the audiophile is and whether they enjoy striving,working and chasing after mediums of playback that have their pitfalls and foibles as part of their pleasure!. If you are a audio aficionado of the highest degree you will inescapably pursue vinyl. Its unavoidable in my opinion OR you are not as serious as you might have thought and you prefer convenience over the pursuit of perfection.
If you pick apart what vinyl playback is doing or trying to do you realize that it is 'nature' trying to imitate 'nature' BY 'nature', whereas digital, i believe, is something more 'polluted' or one or two steps further removed from that. What can imitate 'nature' better than NATURE?
Thats my take on the digital vs, vinyl discussion.(june 2011)
Just enjoying these astonishingly-mellow responses. All I'd add is that "the work," involved in vinyl playback seems just a touch overstated: cleaning the record, setting it on platter and dropping need takes literally a minute. With regard to the "interruptive" necessity of turning a record over, I can report symphony orchestras often re-tune between Symphonic mov'ts, so it's a "tie" there. : ). Tics and Pops? I listen to Classical and was able to put together a pretty large collection that was oh, 98% "digitally" silent. What I've not seen vinyl enthusiasts point out is that--however incredible vinyl's reproductive capacity--the last 1/3 of records are audibly compromised.
If you can find me a turntable/cart combo that makes "O Fortuna" (of Carmina Burana) sound that same both in the opening grooves and the last grooves (the piece opens and closes with the same material), please tell me about it. Maybe a linear tracker?
Or take the spectacular closing of Boito's Mephistopheles Prelude: huge orchestra, chorus, thunder machine, pipe organ, off-stage trumpets, floor-rattling percussion, (gives me goosebumps just thinking about it); it's all just too much for those last grooves.
Yeah, and then there is the cannons. "yawn" I don't know where you live but if you can get over my way I'd be more than happy to take you up on your challenge.
This theory that there is an inherent flaw in tracking the inner grooves of vinyl is an urban legend propped up by less capable equipment and/or setup skills.
Hi-rez, that which we can reasonably purchase for our homes, still does not give me as good a presentation as vinyl.
to echo Dan's comments, i'll be glad to compare any digital hi rez format to the inner grooves on any of my classical Lps.
yes; i've owned world class linear tracker arms and they do give you some benefits. however, the better and best pivoted arms properly set up eliminate any audible inner groove distrotion. i have many reference and test tracks that happen to be in the inner grooves without ever needing to concern myself.
as far as Carmina Burana, i have 4 or 5 pressings of it....and another 3 or 4 digital examples of it. come on over and let's do the comparison.
Mike, I know you'll appreciate this. I heard a pivoted Talea laugh out loud at a Kuzma Airline. The Kuzma does have something special when playing girl with acoustic guitar. But as soon as you add the second girl with guitar the Kuzma didn't know what to do with the extra vibrations so it just dumped them back into the cartridge. Linear trackers have their own set of problems.
Just a general response to your responses; I wasn't comparing Vinyl with Digital, (hi-rez or otherwise), just vinyl in the first 1/3 with vinyl in the last 1/3. FWIW my "best" set up was the Scoutmaster with 9" arm and Dyna XX2 cart.
Dan, your mention of cannons leads me to believe you possibly interpreted my post as a lament about mis-tracking? Needles jumping out of grooves? If so, that wasn't my point. I never had a problem with mis-tracking, it was just depressing to hear sound "thin" as the arm proceeded through the last 1/3 of record. I'm just not interested in spending beyond the Dyna. If your systems do better, fair enough, no argument or suspicion from me. If you've obviated the problem then I'm happy for you. Indeed, I've never heard digital come close to the immediacy of the best vinyl. At least in the best 1/3. : )
Jdaniel13, I understood what you meant. This does come up from time to time. I would agree with Audiofeil that the arm was probably the source of the issue. FWIW, I've been using a 20x2H for the last few weeks and before that a 10x5. It is definitely not the cartridges. I hope you didn't get so discouraged that you gave up. And, no, you don't have to spend mega bucks to get there.
I think, some analog Set Ups can create ear cancer. Analog reproduction has a lot to do with precision and the knowledge what-is-responsible-for-what.... Digital can be ok, when the Mastering of this silver thing was made from someone who was not totally deaf. but I think, after 30 years of sonic revolution we are no in the Hi-Rez era and all fans from that deserve it. Let's wait a few years and some will say, they heard a felt drum in a dark cave and that was the most natural sound they ever heard...
Dan, that's very interesting. I started with the Dyna 20xH and within 30 seconds (of listening to the opening of Rodrigo's Concerto) I was hooked. I must say that upgrading to the XX2 cart better fleshed-out the sound at the end of records but obviously not enough. I bought the Mint Lp protractor as a last resort but never thought about the arm.
For me this argument is a very simple one to answer....
Listening to vinyl for several months at a time before switching to a CD based session (and this because someone requested a current album that I didn't own a vinyl version of) pretty much tells me everything I need to know about each medium.
Newly acquired, unfamiliar, music becomes a hypnotic experience on vinyl, but a chore to listen to on CD. There is a feeling you can take the most "difficult" music e.g. 15 Shostakovich String quartets and listen to all of them in sequence with ease. With CD, I challenge anyone to get past one Shostakovich string quartet before reaching for the Iron Maiden or Killing Joke as light relief....
The popular belief of CD as strictly a "background medium" is not inaccurate. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the theory... As for the "high res digi formats" that cropped up in the 90's etc. If they were any good, the market would be bulging with them, we'd all be using them now and vinyl would be a distant memory. I rest my case.
Overall...I do belong to the "vinyl is superior" camp BUT there are times when one track, of one record, in one "incarnation" of digital based system will beat the same track, of a particular pressing, in one "incarnation" of a different vinyl based system.
In other words...Judging which sounds better must be done on a system to system , track to track, case to case basis. The heated arguments begin when we make blanket statements about unheard, unfamiliar systems, of unknown cd or vinyl pressings, of which we have no reference to be able to make informative and meaningful discussions and statements just dogmatic statements.
My digital front end is pleasing to listen to. I say this against the backdrop of my vinyl front end listening. But the pleasantness of my digital front end must be interpreted in the context of how each independent system of my system, ie, my tube amp, my preamp, my speaker cables, etc, is contributing to the final "digital" sound i am hearing.
To date, with the best moments of my vinyl playback i have not been able to get the quality of timbre from my digital front end that i get from my vinyl front end. On occasion, if the vta is out or the recording is just ok, then the virtues of vinyl sometimes seem "awol".
To sort through this maze of differences in outcome, i prefer to judge on a case to case basis as listed in the first two paragraphs of this post.
i notice a few 9 year old posts from me in this thread. my digital is much, much better now, but what's crazy is so is my vinyl much, much better now.
and better vinyl (even sometimes but not always digitally sourced) is still easily better than the very best digital. but the very best digital is now super good and streaming has opened up so much music that digital is really amazing.
so it's now 'best sound' verses best way to listen. i have top level vinyl, but mostly listen to digital. i follow the music.
"and better vinyl (even sometimes but not always digitally sourced) is still easily better than the very best digital
"
mikelavigne-I'm glad you made that statement, and not me! Some of the digital rigs I've heard have been truly been wow, but I still don't hear WOW!
There is still an emotional engagement(not technical/scientific) that a record(no reissues!) provides to my ears.
Maybe it's just me, but a 1960 mono copy of Ella Fitzgerald singing "Black Coffee" from "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" versus the latest file, is still "missing" something I can't explain?
Also it doesn't necessarily need to be on a stellar phono setup, just properly set up.
That said, If I did have a streaming setup, I likely WOULD use it more than my table. Nothing like typing into your Ipad, whatever you want to hear!
Particularly convenient for entertaining, hanging out with non audio friends.
Of course DACs don't sound digital. The noise is missing. No turntable can sound digital. Too much noise. Sound quality as in fidelity between vinyl and the best high res digital set up depends on the master. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Blanket statements either way are an indication of personal bias not reality. Like Mike I simply go where the music is.
You're both missing the point I guess. I'm not talking about surface noise. That is what it is and nobody strives to achieve that. I'm talking about the actual reproduction of the music. My point stands, when a DAC is really good it's described as "analog sounding" (MSB, Lampizator, Aqua, etc). Sounding analog for a DAC is the ultimate compliment. Sounding digital for a turntable is the ultimate insult.
Maybe a look at a simple tube phono stage schematic vs a DAC schematic might shed some light on the subject.
For you non technical guys maybe the KISS principle might apply. For over 30 years they have been telling me how great digital is. Well I have a system which I have modified beyond belief and I use it on stuff that did not make it to vinyl.
If I want something that really sounds like real MUSIC out comes the black disc. The best thing digital has done for me is it bought down the price of albums for a few decades.
Getting your turntable to sound digital is easy. Play most of the reissued/new release albums. They sound like the CD you could have purchased instead of a record that needs to be handled with some care.
My point stands, when a DAC is really good it's described as "analog
sounding" (MSB, Lampizator, Aqua, etc). Sounding analog for a DAC is
the ultimate compliment. Sounding digital for a turntable is the
ultimate insult.
@tomcy6 it’s of no concern to me what you listen to. If you want to listen to inferior digital and enjoy it then great! I don’t blame anyone for listening to this lesser format as it’s a lot cheaper and easier to manage. I’ve been there myself trying digital but it couldn’t compare to vinyl so I ended up sticking with the best.
I used to listen to CD and vinyl equally for many years. Although I always thought my turntable sounded better, I really enjoyed my CD player too. Very similar to what Mikel stayed about his digital. I then sold my CD player about 6 years ago and only use the turntables. I now get little satisfaction from anything digital. I think if I got used to it again I might hear it in a pleasing way again. My point is I understand you can enjoy digital as much as analog, and love it, if that is what your regularly listening to. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing inferior about loving digital if you are a digital listener as I once was.
I find streaming and vinyl can be equally engaging. That’s the top consideration - does it make me happy. I appreciate detail, imaging and all the other buzzwords but if it’s musically dry, reality or not, all that crazy priced gear is a waste. I prefer a record and a charcoal bar-b-que. I’ll stream and cook on gas though.
The only sure distinction between high res digital and the best vinyl is vinyl is noisy and digital is not. As for the sonics, it depends more on the mastering than anything else including the format. High res digital 24/48 and above has the capability of sounding superior to vinyl. If you do not believe this get Chick Corea's Chinese Butterfly in 24/96. Steve Gadd on drums. God knows how many records I have but I do not have one that sounds better than this. Playing vinyl is almost an art firm, digital not. I still buy vinyl and like it very much but to dis digital is a big mistake. To do it right all you need is a Mac Mini, Channel D's Pure Music and a hard drive.
Yes. For people that can’t hear past the ticks and pops, digital would be the better choice. As with many others, I’ve learned to be able to tune out the noise and just focus on the music. If you’re able to do this, vinyl I believe will always be preferred. I wonder why some people aren’t capable of this and some are. I found that it takes time. Maybe the digital only listeners just didn’t give it enough time. I’ve never heard this phenomenon discussed, it probably has been though, how we can train our brains to filter this noise from our records.
Well, if we could always listen to master tape dubs we wouldn't listen to either vinyl or digital. Both are consumer grade not pro grade formats. Digital cannot, at least at present, capture the emotional content of music. You have to 'imagine' it with digital, with analogue you don't have to. That said, compressed analogue recordings are no fun, but still better overall than digital. Sadly, I too listen to more digital on youtube through headphones than vinyl and Nak tape deck through speakers because there is so much new to me music over there. Mint good pressing vinyl can be very quiet, no ticks and pops. Most of my favourite records do have some noise, though. Also depends on your table set-up and how well the records are cleaned.
Yes. 1/4” tape. I’ve never heard any debate from the vinyl crowd on which is more superior, many discussions though. All seem to agree that tape is the best. I don’t know if this is also the same consensus the digital crowd shares too.
Some of us record music ( live stuff not a copy of ) using high speed tape and great A2D converters and are well aware of the manifest advantages and disadvantages of each format. Both can provide stunning realism and emotional connections....
Yes. 1/4” tape. I’ve never heard any debate from the vinyl crowd on
which is more superior, many discussions though. All seem to agree that
tape is the best. I don’t know if this is also the same consensus the
digital crowd shares too.
The digital consensus is, "Its better." The analog consensus is, "Its not."
The digital consensus, well I hate to get all technical and everything but its what we call, "Wrong."
@millercarbon Your last post, I didn’t understand what you meant. Sorry but I have to ask. Did you agree with me or was that a disagree. Either way. All good.
sdr, he does not know and you will confuse him by asking:) I love R to R. I grew up with an Ampex in the days when you could get prerecorded tapes for just a little more than the vinyl. But when you have to pay $350 to $500 for just one title and when you can count the number of titles on two hands? Does not seem very practical. If you were a rich guy who just wanted to use it for demonstration purposes I suppose It would be fun. If you had access to live venues with permission it would be a lot of fun. Music is emotional. Digital and analog are methodologies.
Yes. 1/4” tape. I’ve never heard any debate from the vinyl crowd on which is more superior, many discussions though. All seem to agree that tape is the best. I don’t know if this is also the same consensus the digital crowd shares too.
here’s the rub.
i love my tape (observe my system page), and have plenty of great tapes. but as my vinyl has improved over these past few years, more and more times i find that my vinyl equals or even slightly betters the tape reference that i had. it’s not that tape should not be better, more that tape varies so much as to the provenance, quality of transfer, and age at transfer.
i have now 20 year old 45 rpm re-issues that were transferred when the master was much younger. now we see these same titles offered on tape that are not as good as my vinyl. OTOH; acquiring those fantastic 20 year old 45 rpm reissues might cost you more than the tape, so a case can be made to own that tape for less.
the answer is, like most things, is that ’it depends’.
tape is king, but only when it’s optimal. i have been very selective as i’ve acquired tape titles over the years, and my tapes are generally a cut above my vinyl, but i do find lots of exceptions. and this has caused me to slow down my tape buying considerably and be very picky.
now when you get into 1/2" tape titles, or 30 ips tape titles, sourced from 1/2" or 30 ips, then it’s easy to be confident that it will be superior. nothing quite like 1/2" tape. if digital people think it can compete with 1/2" tape, i have to laugh, that is just ignorant.
there are a few labels that disclose a choice of 1/2". and those sometimes disclose the source tape’s details. so you have to dig a little to find this information. the cost of 1/2" is typically 66% to 100% more. it’s not just more expensive tape stock, it’s also setting up the 1/2" machine.
with grey market tapes this is a ’grey’ subject. how do you know the exact source tape? was it 1/2" or 30 ips? again; hard to know.
i have maybe a dozen 1/2" albums i know are 1/2" sourced, then another 10 i don’t really know. a 1/2" dub of a 1/4" tape will sound better than a 1/4" dub.
read Lp jacket covers and many times you will see a 1/2" tape source.
how many legit 1/2" tapes are out there to buy? can’t say, but would guess a few dozen. a separate question would be how great is the music?
@mikelavigne Wow. That’ sounds like an impressive sounding vinyl setup you have now. I heard tape at your place many years ago and was very impressed. That was my only real experience with hearing tape. I always thought 1/4” tape was regarded as superior to vinyl. Very cool. I stand corrected. Steve. Vancouver, B.C.
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