[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif These are among the best recordings I own. In the back row: Bill Evans - Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Analogue Productions 45 RPM 180g Vinyl Reissue) Johnny Hodges, Soloist, Billy Strayhorn, and the Orchestra (Speakers Corner 180g Vinyl) Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus (Analogue Productions 180g Vinyl) Dinah Washington - Dinah Washington Sings Fats Waller (Mercury Records Vintage Original Vinyl Pressing) Judy Garland - Judy (Capital Records Vintage Original Vinyl Pressing) Pearl Bailey - The One and Only Pearl Bailey Sings (Mercury Records Vintage Original Vinyl Pressing) In the middle row: Bill Frisell - Gone, Just Like a Train (CD Audio) Jascha Heifetz - Beethoven / Mendelssohn Violin Concertos (RCA Living Stero Hybrid SACD) Patricia Barber - Night Club (Mobile Fidelity Hybrid SACD) Oscar Peterson - The Sound of the Trio (Verve Master Edition CD) In the front row, all on 1/4" four-track stereo tape: Beethoven Symphony Nos. 4 and 5 - Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony Miles Davis - Kind of Blue Beethoven Symphony No. 9 - Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony Henry Mancini - The Pink Panther (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) A few notes are in order. These are just a few of what I consider my best sounding recordings...period. I have about 2,600 CDs, a few hundred SACDs, 1,600 vinyl LPs, and about 200 1/4" stereo tapes and overall I am very happy with what I have. Sure, there are some disappointments such as the RVG remasters of the Blue Note catalog on CD, and I have a small number of records that most certainly have issues but they are quite rare and dear to me so I keep them. I have so far had the fewest issues with tape, but I have not bought enough for it to be a problem I suppose. But so far I have only had about 3 bad ones. In some cases, such as Kind of Blue and Saxophone Colossus, I have them in numerous masterings on multiple media. It should also be noted that the Dinah Washington and Pearl Bailey albums have never been issued on CD. No biggie if you don't care for their music. Pretty important if you do. You might be able to find some of this music on compilation CDs, but it is doubtful that you will find all of these tracks presented in their original order with the original cover art and liner notes. The Judy Garland album has been issued on CD but the original Capitol Records vinyl sounds better to my ears. Also note that the vintage records shown here are not beat to death examples that I dug out of someone's basement. These are all museum-grade LPs and play perfectly with no pops, clicks, or noise. I could have bought the Pink Panther soundtrack on CD since there is a CD called Ultimate Pink Panther. But that disc is a compilation of select tracks from a number of the Panther films. I found a sealed original vinyl pressing on eBay and was bidding on it until it hit $50, when I found this tape, also on eBay, for $7. With all that said, you can try to suffocate me under a mountain of specs if you want. But none of that really matters to me. Knowing that CD specs out a little better doesn't make my great vinyl and stereo tapes sound any less spectacular. In some cases the records and tapes sound better because they are either closer to the original source than the CD or they were, in the case of the Bill Evans album, mastered by an engineer who did a better job of it than his counterpart did on the CD. But it is not about formats for me, it's about music. I can't imagine cutting myself off from music that I love over something so inconsequential as the recording media. But to each his own. --Jerome

What's the setup cost for an audiophile 1/4" player? It's not on my priority list, but if the cost is low enough I might grab one.

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Publius /img/forum/go_quote.gif Make up your mind. Which is it? I'm really tired of people going "pops and ticks don't exist on good vinyl!" and then quickly backtrack with "well, they're there, but on a good record and a good system you should not notice them". Or even better, "they're there, but you really shouldn't bother with vinyl if you care much about them." (You didn't say that, but that has been lobbed at me on occasion.) I listen to a lot of classical vinyl, that is well cared for, and I hear lots of transient noise. It generally doesn't distract from the performances, but I wouldn't for a minute suggest that the noise doesn't exist. It can be inaudible with some music and some playback systems and some listeners, but you'll find it on every record. To say otherwise is to take your audience to be a bunch of chumps.

Well, if you'd spent more time reading my comments than you did on putting them in bold type

you'd see the two aren't even remotely contradictory.

One is a comment about pops and ticks. The other is about general surface noise. The two are not the same thing. Pops and clicks are static and scratches, surface noise is inherent in vinyl, I'm guessing due to stylus drag.

I'm guessing that if you've never heard near silent vinyl, you either don't have a record cleaner/de-static device or you don't have a good turntable (or both).

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ah, okay I can give you a better answer on this. To me the argument revolves around what HiFi means. My take on it is that the purpose of a hifi playback system is to neither add nor take away from the data it is given. So the perfect system does not add noise or distortion or change the frequency balance or dynamics it merely changes the data from one representation to sound waves. When I have listened to LP I can tell that there was stuff there (noise) that should not have been there, since I do not have access to the masters I cannot tell if stuff has also been ommitted that should be there, of course the same is true for CD. When I listen to CD I do not get this noise. So if you want a wholly unscientific qualitative impression CD sounds cleaner to me and I equate that with greater accuracy.

I hope you're not basing your entire view of vinyl on your Rega. There's a huge jump in quality as you go up the line. I know that the VPI Scout has a decent reputation and would probably be considered a better table; I can tell you that, after owning one, I can say with certainty that even if you've heard something as nice as the Scout, you really haven't heard what vinyl is capable of.

I'll play Bad Analogy Theater for a moment (it's one of my favorite games

)... it would be kind of like saying that you've driven one of those giant 1970s Cadillacs that had a 0-60 time of 15 seconds, and because of this, you're certain that no sedan can accelerate quickly

.

 

[jsaliga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by earwicker7 /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the setup cost for an audiophile 1/4" player? It's not on my priority list, but if the cost is low enough I might grab one.

Back in the 1960s and 70s reel-to-reel was considered THE audiophile format. There were a lot of great decks made during those years and there are a few shops that specialize in refurbishing and reselling them. I have an AKAI GX-635D that I bought refurbished for $600. I chose the AKAI because of its glass ferrite heads, which pretty much never wear out. The bang for the buck that I am getting out of this deck makes it the best $600 I have ever spent on home audio.

There are a lot of great decks for under $1,000 that you can buy: Revox, Teac, Pioneer, etc. Shop around.

--Jerome

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsaliga /img/forum/go_quote.gif Back in the 1960s and 70s reel-to-reel was considered THE audiophile format. There were a lot of great decks made during those years and there are a few shops that specialize in refurbishing and reselling them. I have an AKAI GX-635D that I bought refurbished for $600. I chose the AKAI because of its glass ferrite heads, which pretty much never wear out. The bang for the buck that I am getting out of this deck makes it the best $600 I have ever spent on home audio. There are a lot of great decks for under $1,000 that you can buy from Revox, Teac, Pioneer, etc. Shop around. --Jerome

Bang for the buck, eh? I didn't think you were the massage parlor type

. Ah, memories...

Since I'd otherwise be doing the silly audiphile thing and blowing my money on an uninformed purchase, do you know of anything in particular to look out for, or maybe a website with more info on reel-to-reel players? Are there specific models to look out for within the different brands? Ebay has them up to as much as $2,900 for a Technics

.

My new Transrotor table should be here in a week or two, so if I also had a reel-to-reel in my bedroom, I'd be a few pieces of art deco furniture away from an Austin Powers pad. Sweet.

 

[jsaliga]

Well, I searched this forum for related threads and then found a couple of dealers on eBay and exchanged a few emails with them. After finding one I liked I had a couple of phone conversations with that dealer and then made my purchase.

Yes, you can spend thousands. But you don't need to do that to extract quality playback from commercial tapes, since none of them are recorded at speeds faster than 7.5 ips. The very expensive decks will give you 15 ips, and unless you are going to buy a subscription to the Tape Project you really don't need it.

To everyone else, sorry for taking this thread a bit OT.

--Jerome

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by earwicker7 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I hope you're not basing your entire view of vinyl on your Rega. There's a huge jump in quality as you go up the line. I know that the VPI Scout has a decent reputation and would probably be considered a better table; I can tell you that, after owning one, I can say with certainty that even if you've heard something as nice as the Scout, you really haven't heard what vinyl is capable of.

So basically to get decent LP playback I need to invest , what £1000 , £2000 , £3000 ?

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nick_charles /img/forum/go_quote.gif So basically to get decent LP playback I need to invest , what £1000 , £2000 ?

Unfortunately, vinyl ain't cheap. In my opinion, it's not at all like digital, where you can make the leap from mid-fi to hi-fi without going broke. $2-3k will get you a really nice CD player. With vinyl, if you factor in the table, cartridge, tonearm, phono stage, set-up tools, record cleaner and anti-static device, I don't think that would get you hi-fi equipment. It will certainly play well enough for 99.9% of the people in the world, but I don't think you're going to get the fabled "black background" at that price level. So I totally understand why most people, even on Head-Fi, say that vinyl is a really noisy medium. But listen to really nice vinyl equipment once and you'll understand the magic.

CD still rules for most classical, though. There will always be that occasional pop and tick on vinyl, and it really takes me out of the performance for classical (unless it's really noisy, bombastic stuff to begin with). But it's a minor inconvenience on every other genre.

 

[jonathanjong]

Major bumpage action. I was wondering about SQ difference between analog and digital, and came across this thread.

I set up a vinyl rig for two reasons a) records can be had for cheap, b) I was curious. But I've since found a third reason to keep it: c) girls dig it. At least, the ones who's come into my room do.