2. analog
  3. 175229-135127

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
tunehead's avatar
tunehead
151 posts
 

@reubent 

As usual, you nailed it.

(right up top)

richedge
13 posts
 

Right on. Tunehead 

Pesky wabbit hit it !  Invest in what you  enjoy !

gerrie
107 posts
 

There is a lot of vinyl rubish also.

rudyb
141 posts
 

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.

 

clearthinker's avatar
clearthinker
1,582 posts
 

@vuch 

I just couldn't agree more.

Back in the day and the start of vinyl LPs in the 1950s and their heyday perhaps in the 60s, at least for us boomer rockers, the recordists, producers and engineers all cared deeply about sound quality.  Decca and EMI amongst other produced SQ that has never been equalled IMHO and possibly never will.

 

The contrast with today is palpable (good use here of that over-used word).  The guys today just don't give a damn, they just want to get the product out.  That's OK for most youngsters today they don't give a damn either and mostly listen on handphones, tablets and small computers with the whole electronics on a single chip and five inch high plastic speakers.

 

Ho hum.

More to discover