metal beat Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 and your new turntable setup is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABG Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 @crisis Do you have a record cleaner? If not, see if @Simonon or one of the other local SNA crew can pop a few records into a bath and see how you think things compare after that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crisis Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 26 minutes ago, metal beat said: and your new turntable setup is? SRM Arezzo 18 minutes ago, ABG said: @crisis Do you have a record cleaner? If not, see if @Simonon or one of the other local SNA crew can pop a few records into a bath and see how you think things compare after that. Cheers. I picked up a , ahem, Studebaker from the post office this week. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABG Posted November 17, 2017 Share Posted November 17, 2017 39 minutes ago, crisis said: Cheers. I picked up a , ahem, Studebaker from the post office this week. See if someone nearby with an ultrasonic cleaner will give a few of your records a bath, preferably followed by a vac. I reckon you will be astonished by the difference it makes - I know I was. Try a few of your best sounding, as well a few of your crackliest, poppiest records. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 For what it's worth.... I don't ever compare CD and vinyl as I don't think that's where it's at. Yet I enjoy both and really enjoy different light and aspects of the music delivered by both (plus flac and other high end digital). And I think the strength of vinyl is precisely there. While CD/digital is clinical and clean, there are aspect of music unavailable to it, yet clearly achievable with vinyl. I also like the more tangible aspect of vinyl playback, as you have to place the stylus on the medium (in non auto TTs). Hence to me, linear trackers and autos don't appeal as much. This is all purely subjective, but most things are unless under RDBT conditions. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted November 18, 2017 Volunteer Share Posted November 18, 2017 12 minutes ago, zippi said: <snip> This is all purely subjective, but most things are unless under RDBT conditions. I reckon a lot of arguments would be avoided if more people would say things like that 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal beat Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 17 minutes ago, Sir Sanders Zingmore said: I reckon a lot of arguments would be avoided if more people would say things like that you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crisis Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 23 minutes ago, zippi said: For what it's worth.... I don't ever compare CD and vinyl as I don't think that's where it's at. I was applying my usual pragmatism to the subject and for me I had a collection of records dating back over 40 years I wanted to play. Some of them I have duplicated with CDs but not all. Even my old CD players outperformed my modest Rega 2 so it has always been the case that I have accepted CD to be "better". I am not completely ignorant or pig headed, really, so within a fair budget and due to the problems I had with the motor of my 30 year old Rega I bought the Arezzo. My criteria remains that if one is "better" than the other it must be compared on a dollar for dollar basis otherwise if I only have $1000 I am buying the format that performs "best" (according to my applied criteria) for the money. The result of my admittedly limited and compromised experiment is that ( I got new goodies!!!! ) and I am content that I can listen to either source with broadly equal satisfaction. Vinyl is still compromised as I have outlined above but when it gets it **** together I find the detail and transparency in the case of my admittedly modest equipment is on par. 23 minutes ago, zippi said: While CD/digital is clinical and clean, there are aspect of music unavailable to it, yet clearly achievable with vinyl. ? 23 minutes ago, zippi said: I also like the more tangible aspect of vinyl playback, as you have to place the stylus on the medium (in non auto TTs). Hence to me, linear trackers and autos don't appeal as much. This is all purely subjective, but most things are unless under RDBT conditions. Agree 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 What I firmly believe is that vinyl can be (and is) subpar (pops, crackle, SNR) and superior (analogue integrity, bass extension, warmth) to digital/CD (cleaner, higher SNR) at one and the same time. They are just better at different things / aspects. Any recording can only be captured via analogue mic and this signal can only be fully reproduced in analogue form hence vinyl. Digitisation regardless of how sophisticated always truncates the signal and something is lost, whereas analogue remains faithful to the original in its flawed way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 An interesting article that's along similar lines to what I think...https://www.cnet.com/news/digital-vs-analog-audio-which-sounds-better/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crisis Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 (edited) 17 hours ago, zippi said: What I firmly believe is that vinyl can be (and is) subpar (pops, crackle, SNR) and superior (analogue integrity, bass extension, warmth) to digital/CD (cleaner, higher SNR) at one and the same time. They are just better at different things / aspects. Any recording can only be captured via analogue mic and this signal can only be fully reproduced in analogue form hence vinyl. Digitisation regardless of how sophisticated always truncates the signal and something is lost, whereas analogue remains faithful to the original in its flawed way. The issue that people seem to have with digital, philosophically speaking, is that they believe it is compromised because of this "digitisation". It is more important to explain why this would be a problem than that it simply occurs. There are theories, some of which I have read and some I have even understood. A bit.. But the fact that the "sound" is converted to one medium and back does not necessarily preclude it from being accurate. Our ears transfer the sound into electrical impulses that reach our brain which then decides what that sounds like. Analogue undergoes its own change from the recorded microphone to our speakers. It goes through the process of preemphasis and deemphasis in order for the record to basically hold the information and be able to play it back. The sound replayed directly from a record without a RIAA pre amp (decoder if you will) is unlistenable. Ultimately it doesn't matter what form the sound is converted to as long as when it is converted back to something we listen to it has neither added or lost anything. 17 hours ago, zippi said: An interesting article that's along similar lines to what I think...https://www.cnet.com/news/digital-vs-analog-audio-which-sounds-better/ There are certainly badly engineered and recorded CDs around. Digital doesn't own poor recordings but the "loudness wars" definitely created its monsters. My older CDs mostly do sound better than most of the new ones. Edited November 18, 2017 by crisis 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted November 18, 2017 Share Posted November 18, 2017 Putting my old crap TEAC CD player through and old crap PP EL84 valve amp killed off my fairly old crap vinyl set up at the time.............but I still remember how much 'jump factor' it had and haven't replicated it since! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Muon N' Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 I wish people that denote pops and crackle to vinyl would clean their bloody records and stylus. It is not indicative of vinyl playback, It's only indicative of poorly cared for vinyl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wimbo Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 23 hours ago, crisis said: Ultimately it doesn't matter what form the sound is converted to as long as when it is converted back to something we listen to it has neither added or lost anything. Thats always been my bugbear for me with digital plus the fact that I was selling it back in 83 and a lot of the time I got an "Ice Cream" ache from it. I admit though that a lot of it has to do with me. When I was racing bicycles,I was most probably the last in the bunch to get "Clipless" pedals. I don't have a mobile as such and I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. I did'nt vote the Popular vote and the way I'm going, I will never go digital. Too much Vinyl for a start. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allthumbs Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 .....so you take this piece of hardened rock see and wire it up at the end of an arm, that at one end wobbles on a weighted stanchion suspended and balanced by a weight with a thin plumb line. So far so good, The arm hovers above a piece of plastic about a foot in diameter that has an inexact and variable groove in it loaded with electrical signal to be extracted by the hardened piece of wired rock. So the aim is the for the piece of sharpened rock to try and stay in the groove after you lower the arm on the spinning piece of plastic on a rotating plinth driven by a rubber band and presto ...music. I call it a record player , it's just a concept at the moment, but I can't think of a better way 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 .....so you take this piece of hardened rock see and wire it up at the end of an arm, that at one end wobbles on a weighted stanchion suspended and balanced by a weight with a thin plumb line. So far so good, The arm hovers above a piece of plastic about a foot in diameter that has an inexact and variable groove in it loaded with electrical signal to be extracted by the hardened piece of wired rock. So the aim is the for the piece of sharpened rock to try and stay in the groove after you lower the arm on the spinning piece of plastic on a rotating plinth driven by a rubber band and presto ...music. I call it a record player , it's just a concept at the moment, but I can't think of a better way orta patent it mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevoz Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 (edited) Firstly, I don't stream HD digital so I can only reason with what I have but my experience makes things clear to me in this debate. Starting my audio journey with analogue and loving it then succumbing to digital age convenience for around 30 years and ?loving it, before returning to analogue, I have listened to CD's on about 10 occasions compared to many hundreds of LP's played in the last two years. I have a $1300 disc player and a vintage TT that I've spent about $200 on(not including carts of course), they both go through a $2300 amp/receiver (the TT via a $400 phono stage) and arrive at the same speakers. The bottom line to my ears is that CD's cannot match the sonic joy of the analogue source. Oddly, I listened to 3 CD's only yesterday, of music I haven't heard for awhile because I don't have it on vinyl......it just confirmed to me what is the superior format. The fact that vinyl/analogue comes in an awesome and artistic physical package able to be proudly possessed by it's buyer is just a bonus.......and actually pays more artistic and financial respect to the creator of the music that is contained in that awesome package. Yes, it's all subjective but for me, analogue is just more natural......on so many levels. Edited November 19, 2017 by stevoz 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LogicprObe Posted November 19, 2017 Share Posted November 19, 2017 1 hour ago, Wimbo said: Thats always been my bugbear for me with digital plus the fact that I was selling it back in 83 and a lot of the time I got an "Ice Cream" ache from it. I admit though that a lot of it has to do with me. When I was racing bicycles,I was most probably the last in the bunch to get "Clipless" pedals. I don't have a mobile as such and I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. I did'nt vote the Popular vote and the way I'm going, I will never go digital. Too much Vinyl for a start. I would have loved to have seen those Penny Farthings go round.............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crisis Posted November 20, 2017 Share Posted November 20, 2017 On 11/19/2017 at 5:02 PM, Noum said: I wish people that denote pops and crackle to vinyl would clean their bloody records and stylus. It is not indicative of vinyl playback, It's only indicative of poorly cared for vinyl. The pops and cracks that are audible after the record and stylus have been cleaned are indicative of damaged vinyl playback. 21 hours ago, stevoz said: Firstly, I don't stream HD digital so I can only reason with what I have but my experience makes things clear to me in this debate. Starting my audio journey with analogue and loving it then succumbing to digital age convenience for around 30 years and ?loving it, before returning to analogue, I have listened to CD's on about 10 occasions compared to many hundreds of LP's played in the last two years. I have a $1300 disc player and a vintage TT that I've spent about $200 on(not including carts of course), they both go through a $2300 amp/receiver (the TT via a $400 phono stage) and arrive at the same speakers. How much did the cartridge cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Had this in my youtube feed for ages - only watched it today and it made me think of this (slightly dated) thread instantly. Adam's silly shenanigans aside, as well as some generalisations eg. assuming whenever you're recording analogue - it is always cut to the record master immediatly (analogue tape??...hello), etc... However the things Jack White said about analogue being like a continuous line drawn by chalk or pencil, where digital is a series of tightly spaced dots (discrete samples) are very similar to my thinking of the two types of audio. Obviously as you increase the digital sampling frequency the dots become ever more tightly spaced, however there is no getting away from discrete nature of the digital signal. And from the empty spaces beetween the individual samples either. With higher sampling frequencies they are there in even greater numbers, however taking up much less space overall. I hope the above is not a bore or too technical...Hence in my comment toward the start of the thread , I simply called digital "trunkated", but Jack White's analogy is alot more accurate and elegant. Anyway...here it is...the video 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ittaku Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 7 minutes ago, zippi said: However the things Jack White said about analogue being like a continuous line drawn by chalk or pencil, where digital is a series of tightly spaced dots (discrete samples) are very similar to my thinking of the two types of audio. Obviously as you increase the digital sampling frequency the dots become ever more tightly spaced, however there is no getting away from discrete nature of the digital signal. And from the empty spaces beetween the individual samples either. With higher sampling frequencies they are there in even greater numbers, however taking up much less space overall. I hope the above is not a bore or too technical...Hence in my comment toward the start of the thread , I simply called digital "trunkated", but Jack White's analogy is alot more accurate and elegant. This is a commonly held belief that digital is dots trying to represent the waveforms the way you've described them. While it is an easy way to think of how digital is made from analogue and then turned back to analogue, it is, unfortunately, wrong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Ittaku said: This is a commonly held belief that digital is dots trying to represent the waveforms the way you've described them. While it is an easy way to think of how digital is made from analogue and then turned back to analogue, it is, unfortunately, wrong. Is digital not a discrete signal? @Ittaku Could you shed some light on why the above analogies are wrong? In my course of Digital Circuits and Devices as well as Analogue Circuits and Devices, Digital Comms etc etc this was precisely how the two signals were described. Analogue always as a continnuous line and Digital as a series of dots or a staicase type approximation. I was affraid this may be too technical etc... A good starting point for understanding this is looking up Discrete-time signal Continuous-time signal Understanding sampling frequency Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem as a bare minimum.... Edited March 3, 2018 by zippi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted March 3, 2018 Volunteer Share Posted March 3, 2018 33 minutes ago, zippi said: dots or a staicase type approximation. The staircase analogy is incorrect. That's not how the nyquist transformation works. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippi Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 13 minutes ago, Sir Sanders Zingmore said: The staircase analogy is incorrect. I know, hence I did not use it initially, and there is more to digitasing a signal than described in the "dots" analogy, but those dots are always the starting point, making the digital signal and digital audio discrete (both in time and amplitude). This discretenes is both the strenght and limitation of the digital signal is my argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted March 3, 2018 Volunteer Share Posted March 3, 2018 4 minutes ago, zippi said: making the digital signal and digital audio discrete (both in time and amplitude) The sampling may be discrete, the reconstructed waveform is not 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts