TURNTABLE SETUP Questions thread - don't start a new thread, ASK YOUR QUESTION HERE!

[leafs]

Using a Schiit Mani and Rega RP1, with performance pack.

Noted with thanks. Do you like it with your RP1?

 

[Anavel0]

Yeah I love it with the RP1. Full disclosure I'm also using a Valhalla 2 and HD 650. Some say the Mani is a bit bright but with my setup I couldn't tell. It's definitely not fatiguing like bright setups can be fatiguing. Setting up the Mani was easy. I did adjust the gain to better match the Rega Bias 2.

I was worried about the lack of a separate ground cable but I haven't had any issues with hum or other ground loop symptoms.

 

[leafs]

Yeah I love it with the RP1. Full disclosure I'm also using a Valhalla 2 and HD 650. Some say the Mani is a bit bright but with my setup I couldn't tell. It's definitely not fatiguing like bright setups can be fatiguing. Setting up the Mani was easy. I did adjust the gain to better match the Rega Bias 2.

I was worried about the lack of a separate ground cable but I haven't had any issues with hum or other ground loop symptoms.

Thanks for sharing. That's a nice setup. I also read similar comment on the Mani. I figure I can use my Soloist with pre-amp to speakers, or amp to headphone. I might get a tube amp down the road.
 
Glad you like yours!

 

[analogsurviver]

 
Thanks for the advice. I was eying a Prestige Blue, but there are some worrisome reviews about Grado's whole line of P-mount cartridges when it comes to heavily layered music. I wish that Ortofon still made their old line of P-Mount cartridges so I could at least consider another option at this price point. It seems that Grado has the market cornered, aside from some cheaper Audio-Technica options that I can't easily distinguish from one another. If an adapter likely wouldn't work out that well, I guess Grado is the only real choice.

I would suggest, STRONGLY, Grado Gold. In P-Mount or universal 1/2" version.
 
I did mount one recently to a Technics linear tracking TT - and was astonished at the precision this relatively inexpensive cartridge is made/performs. Whatever it costs, it is MUCH more than just worth the difference to any of its lesser siblings..
 
Provided you can adjust it optimally for everything. In my case, only a slight azimuth correction was required - and the thing performs unbelievably well. I did not have time to record the setting up as a primer - but one would be really hard pressed to improve upon this combo. In Technics linear arms, Grado consistently performs better than in anything else yet tried ( short of Dynavector arm(s) ) .
 
Remember - Gold is selected out of all the production for this model - and only a handful % meet the criteria. For precision of this calibre to be guaranteed , you would have to make a much BIGGER hole in your pocket. It's not cheap , but sure is a bargain value - worth every cent.

 

[RUMAY408]

I haven't chimed in for a while, and not so much a setup issue, as much as a sound comparison between my current audio setups:  TT vs Digital
 
TT:  Technics 1200MK2>Ortofon Super OM40>Fisher T100
Digital: OPPO BDP-105 (SACD/DVD-A/CD/Hi Res 24/96)
 
Amp: Headamp GS-X mk2
 
HP's: LCD-3F and HD800
 
Doors "Greatest Hits" SACD vs Vinyl (Original);  Vinyl is the winner better balanced and less strained
 
John Mellencamp's "Lonesome Jubilee" CD vs Vinyl (Original)  Vinyl is a big winner, mids are plush and smoother, soundstage and imaging on the HD800 are next level 
 
Weezer's "Blue Album" SACD vs Vinyl (MoFi Master) vs CD;  Vinyl sounds better, and honestly hard to hear much difference between the SACD and CD versions
 
The Cars "The Cars" "Candy O" "Panorama" "Heart Beat City"  24/96 vs Vinyl (Master) vs CD;  Hi Res and Vinyl are sonically very close, but both versions are better than the CD
 
Beatles "Let It Be" CD vs 24/44 vs Vinyl;  I know their are a lot of versions that exist in vinyl, but the naked vinyl is flat out stunning
 
Pink Floyd "Dark Side Of The Moon" SACD vs CD vs Vinyl;  SACD>Vinyl>CD
 
Eagles "Hotel California" DVD-A vs Vinyl vs CD; DVD-A>Vinyl>CD
 
[size=x-small]Similar cost between vinyl and digital set up, but vinyl wins most of the time with the albums and almost all the time better than CD's, and clean original vinyl can be less expensive bought 2nd hand than a CD and [/size]definitely less expensive than a SACD or DVD-A
 
 

 

[johnman1116]

i have a question, or set of questions,. that i am fairly confused about but will probably ask incorrectly... so please bear with me.

is it not ideal to purchase a record album that has been recorded and transferred via analogue such as remasters from the original tapes?
Arent most, if not all, modern day music recorded digitally and therefore vinyl records are just digital transfers?

does this not bother anyone? it kind of bothers me. to me, its like upsampling in a sense.. or maybe more like ripping vinyl to digital. who would want that? (no offense!)

my follow up question is, is there any sort of indication that one can use to determine whether or not a record is "pure analog" or is a digital transfer? or is it safe to assume that 99% of Amazon's "vinyl" are digital transfers?

i'm not trying to get technically or do i want technicalities; its more the principle of analog.

btw, where do people typically buy new records?

THANK YOU!

footnote: i do have records and a turntable

 

[analogsurviver]

i have a question, or set of questions,. that i am fairly confused about but will probably ask incorrectly... so please bear with me.

is it not ideal to purchase a record album that has been recorded and transferred via analogue such as remasters from the original tapes?
Arent most, if not all, modern day music recorded digitally and therefore vinyl records are just digital transfers?

does this not bother anyone? it kind of bothers me. to me, its like upsampling in a sense.. or maybe more like ripping vinyl to digital. who would want that? (no offense!)

my follow up question is, is there any sort of indication that one can use to determine whether or not a record is "pure analog" or is a digital transfer? or is it safe to assume that 99% of Amazon's "vinyl" are digital transfers?

i'm not trying to get technically or do i want technicalities; its more the principle of analog.

btw, where do people typically buy new records?

THANK YOU!

footnote: i do have records and a turntable

It depends on your primary goal in using analog.
 
I do subscribe to the "no digital" to be the purest way - with the direct to disk recording to be the purest - and by FAR the best - way of recording and playing back the music. Followed by 35 mm film, then analog tape.
 
I am not going to say there are no decent sounding digital recordings ( mostly PCM ) available on vinyl - but they are a cut below the above mentioned pure analog recorded vinyl. Although the very first PCM recorded vinyl was, in general, real turkey, there are a few exceptions; like http://www.discogs.com/Vienna-Philharmonic-Willi-Boskovsky-New-Years-Day-Concert-In-Vienna/release/3205216  Tracks D1 and D2 had shown, back in 1979, what a decent digital should be capable of doing .
 
On the other hand, there IS digitally recorded vinyl any decent by now rare>unobtainium really high quality cartridge WILL start waving with a sign reading "do you really want to grind my precious stylus for this digital crap ?!?".
 
I have been accused of being snobbish on this last issue. Let me explain. If you know which the truly great cartridges, now DECADES out of production, were, then trying, OVER A DECADE, to finally get in possession  of a NOS, or at the very least, usable sample of such a cart, by getting the stylus  least a decade prior to being able to get the cart with which it is used - AND AFTER FINDING OUT THE CART TO BE SUPERIOUR , OVERALL, TO ANYTHING HEARD OR HEARD OF - would you go playing a mediocre digital recording on vinyl with a cart that can truly do justice to the best recordings ever put on vinyl ? Knowing that, for all practical purposes, you are unlikely to find a replacement stylus for that cartridge - ever - and that retipping can not achieve the quality of the original ? On purpose, I did not mention any "price point" - because, contrary to the in US so prevalent money=quality, with carts this rare money is, regardless of the actual price,  a non-issue. 
 
Finding one is.
 
There used to be a VERY clearly audible gap between pure analog and digitally recorded vinyl. Recently, this gap is getting smaller - but still discernible. 
 
Of course, I do listen to digitally recorded vinyl of music I like and is otherwise not available. But I will not use an irreplaceable stylus to do that.
 
Things go so far that even Absolute Sound, in reviewing of one of truly remarkable direct to disk recordings back in the day, missed the boat - by a mile. For a very simple reason; a cartridge/stylus, truly capable of playing those monstrosities ( tamed down in most cases, so that can be played by "average" equipment ) recorded in those grooves, at the time simply did not - exist.
 
Whenever searching trough used vinyl bins, there is one quick way to tell whether the recording is original analog or "digitally remastered" or digital - back in the day of analog, EAN code(s) have not been invented yet.
So, no analog recorded vinyl can have an EAN printed on its sleeve. Re-issues can have them, and there are cases where it is explicitly written the disc has been cut using all analog setup from the original analog master tape - and there are digital remasters.
 
With the advent of relatively mass use of ultrasonic cleaning for vinyl records, people are discovering original issues, when properly cleaned and played on high quality equipment, are generally preferred to reissues and remasters.

 

[Skylab]

There are also plenty of reissues that are completely analog. Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, Analog Productions, Music Matters...just to name a few.

I buy vinyl mainly from Music Direct and Soundstage Direct.

 

[Shaffer]

It depends on your primary goal in using analog.

I do subscribe to the "no digital" to be the purest way - with the direct to disk recording to be the purest - and by FAR the best - way of recording and playing back the music. Followed by 35 mm film, then analog tape. [...]

You might want to listen to even a 2nd or 3rd generation master tape before posting something like this. FWIW, I have plenty of direct-to-disk LPs.

 

[johnman1116]

i see; thank you all for the insight and recommendations.

 

[analogsurviver]

You might want to listen to even a 2nd or 3rd generation master tape before posting something like this. FWIW, I have plenty of direct-to-disk LPs.

I do not have to resort to 2nd or 3rd generation analog master tapes; my own DSD128 masters take care of that. It is the best approximation of analog yet, being superiour in some and inferiour in some parameters; overall, it is about equal.
 
Unfortunately, I do not have many direct to disc records; when they were current, I was about 17-18, they were not available in Yugoslavia, except trough black market smugglers - at a price. I am familiar with practically all of them from that time, but find it hard to justify the cost of say Flamenco Fever - not at present prices for a sealed sample.
 
But yes, unless one has heard what a truly great direct to disk recording can accomplish, one did not hear a turntable at its best. And specially not if not heard any of the few cartridges that do not rely on magnetic inductance principle and are free from hysteresis distortion. They can really shine with direct to disk, where there is no tape hysteresis distortion to begin with, already present in the master made from analog tape. Particularly audible on vocals and piano - two of the most difficult to get right .
 
Pair this source with headphones or speakers inherently free of hysteresis ( high voltage amps driving electrostatics ) - it does not get any better than that with analog (short of live microphone feed ). This later does not have to cost an arm and a leg; baby Stax IEMs is all that it takes. I even find midrange of baby Stax to be superiour to their full size models ( except perhaps for the 009, which I have yet to audition ).

 

[Shaffer]

I do not have to resort to 2nd or 3rd generation analog master tapes; my own DSD128 masters take care of that. It is the best approximation of analog yet, being superiour in some and inferiour in some parameters; overall, it is about equal.

We were talking about tape. The odds of you having compared a master tape to a commercially available recording of the same are slim to none.

There's no reason to discuss this any further.

 

[analogsurviver]

We were talking about tape. The odds of you having compared a master tape to a commercially available recording of the same are slim to none.

There's no reason to discuss this any further.

Not so hastily... - although I do not approve studio recordings and generally work in the studio, it does not mean I do not know friends who do.
 
I will try to arrange analog tape master vs pressed LP comparisons "in reasonable time". The one with stellar sound (despite being in mono ... ) I first thought of is this one:
 
http://www.discogs.com/Toma%C5%BE-Pengov-Odpotovanja/release/1235381
 

 
and the second that might be possible to arrange is this one (from another studio I am not sure it exists anymore ) :
 
http://www.discogs.com/Begnagrad-Begnagrad/release/1287442
 

 
Chances that these two can be arranged are a bit better :
 
http://www.discogs.com/Quatebriga-The-Choice-Of-The-New-Generation/release/1238564
 
http://www.discogs.com/Quatebriga-Revolution-In-The-Zoo/release/1237820
 

 
The last two feature  drummer Aleš Rendla,  with whom I am planning to do a really good percussion/drum recording in forseeable future...
 
The classical music is quite a bit more challenging. In Yugoslavia ( which's existence  roughly corresponds with time analog vinyl was being made - worldwide ), there was a standard practice for the musicians to record in their native republic, but final release of the sound carrier ( including master tape ) has been done in another. So, many of the master tapes of Slovenian (and other as well ) analog master tapes were destroyed during the US/NATO attacks on Belgrade, now Serbia; it all went up in flames; quite some re-releases on CD had to be done from vinyl preserved as well as possible.

 

[Shaffer]

Not so hastily... - although I do not approve studio recordings and generally work in the studio, it does not mean I do not know friends who do.

I will try to arrange analog tape master vs pressed LP comparisons "in reasonable time".

Heh, good luck with that. FYI, a 3rd generation copy is ~$600 and there's a year's waiting list. The odds of you finding one and actually buying it, and then locating the appropriate pressing is a pipe dream. Friends who work in a studio who can get you the master (ie. post-mastering) and the pressing that originated from the tape? Is this a joke? Clearly, you have no idea as to the recording process, either. I really don't understand how you can make these unequivocal statements, and then do nothing to acknowledge your frequent mistakes. I only point them out when it's too absurd to ignore. Is it so hard to say that you misspoke, instead of all this silliness?

 

[penmarker]

Not to be rude and intrusive, but analogsurviver is actually a recording engineer. A good one at that. He does have friends in the audio industry.