High end recording gear vs high end audiophile listening gear.

[ecc83]

"or me this has very little to do with fidelity because it’s about the superior listening experience." See, it is phrases like that which raise hackles. There is nothing "superior! about a vinyl playback system. The original master tape will be better and the cutting amplifiers and process will add their distortions. With the very best MC cartridge and expertly setup 12" arm, thd at peak velocity is still unlikely to be better than 2%.

That people LIKE the sound of vinyl playback is an inescapable fact but don't for one moment think is in any way "superior" to the original tapes and it will be technically clicks behind a digital master.

Having struggled to keep records clean AND buy flat, unscratched copies I had my first CD experience with Bat out of Hell. The intro came out of a velvety silence then smacked me between the eyes...GOT to get me one of those!
Amp was a Quad 405 into Chartwell Acoustics speakers IIRC.

Dave.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

"or me this has very little to do with fidelity because it’s about the superior listening experience." See, it is phrases like that which raise hackles. There is nothing "superior! about a vinyl playback system.

I said it’s not about the fidelity, it’s the listening experience that is better. You have to take a record out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable, then when side is finished playing you have to get up and turn it over. This action requires you to pay more attention to the record itself and combined with the artwork and info on the cover and in the liner notes you generally get a lot better representation of the music from the way the artist intended it than in other listening forms. This is the best listening experience IMO, it’s also the best way to support an artist especially if you buy the record from their merch table at a show. This is also why more vinyl records were produced last year than in any past year in history.

 

[Papanate]

Have you been in there? You can get vertigo just standing in there. There are zero reflections from the walls.

Yes I was there a few years ago - in that room - and you are right - it’s very disorienting for the first 10 minutes or so -
As for the Monitor - i asked that they move our of the line of sound - which they agreed too - but added that it would
make zero difference! - honestly I could barely tell if it interfered - barely - but it did something I could hear.

 

[TalismanRich]

This is also why more vinyl records were produced last year than in any past year in history.

That's not even close to true. Here are the numbers for vinyl record sales. Last year was about 12% of the highest sales in the past. CD came out commercially in 1982 and in 10 years, record sales went to almost nothing. One of the tricks that people like to play is saying how the growth is so high by percentages. "Growth was 100% last year"... yeah, you went from a million to 2 million. Like cassette sales, an estimated 480,000 were sold last year. That's PEANUTS compared to almost 1 billion CDs that were sold in 2000, or the 340 million records sold in 1977. In the late 80s, about 450 million cassettes were sold, so it's almost 10% of peak. It wasn't so long ago that cassettes sold something like 4000 in a year. So the spin is either a 12000% increase in cassette sales, or it's down 90% from peak.

 

[JimmyS1969]

That's not even close to true. Here are the numbers for vinyl record sales. Last year was about 12% of the highest sales in the past. CD came out commercially in 1982 and in 10 years, record sales went to almost nothing. One of the tricks that people like to play is saying how the growth is so high by percentages. "Growth was 100% last year"... yeah, you went from a million to 2 million. Like cassette sales, an estimated 480,000 were sold last year. That's PEANUTS compared to almost 1 billion CDs that were sold in 2000, or the 340 million records sold in 1977. In the late 80s, about 450 million cassettes were sold, so it's almost 10% of peak. It wasn't so long ago that cassettes sold something like 4000 in a year. So the spin is either a 12000% increase in cassette sales, or it's down 90% from peak.

View attachment 143059View attachment 143061

Burn! LOL

There has been a recent rise in Vinyl sales and production. I am proud to have a few I have been a part of producing here from my studio. It is just an old man thing though. Some of us miss that 'thing' that comes from playback on vinyl...

 

[ecc83]

"I said it’s not about the fidelity, it’s the listening experience that is better. You have to take a record out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable, then when side is finished playing you have to get up and turn it over."

Fine, super, great. For those with the time, equipment, 'clean room' and absence of contamination by kids, pets and 'king life I can see the attraction. But, "superior" it ain't, just a lifestyle choice.

The "pop/rock" v classical-acoustic scenario goes like this...
As I said, 'pop' is a manufactured product designed more and more these days to generate income. Nothing wrong with that but the music is not 'real' Also very few pop records had a dynamic range better than 10dB so cutting levels can be kept well above surface noise and the inevitable clicks.

The orchestra has a DR easily above 90dB (so just within the capability of CD). In fact vinyl cannot even capture the range of the grand piano. If reproduced at natural sound levels there will be noise on very quiet passages or between movements and no way could any stylus track the full welly of the Hammerklavier!

So, the DR has to be very skillfully managed to get a reasonable range on black disc. Of course, even CD and other digital media have to use a degree of 'gain riding' but there is a heck of a lot more DR to play with! (whether the record companies do so sensitively is a whole OTHER bag of wriggly things!)

There is no reason why CDs or even downloads could not have optional artwork or sleeve notes if peeps want to pay for them.

Dave.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Burn! LOL

There has been a recent rise in Vinyl sales and production. I am proud to have a few I have been a part of producing here from my studio. It is just an old man thing though. Some of us miss that 'thing' that comes from playback on vinyl...

I’m old so there you go. Records are still the best listening experience in your home.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

"I said it’s not about the fidelity, it’s the listening experience that is better. You have to take a record out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable, then when side is finished playing you have to get up and turn it over."

Fine, super, great. For those with the time, equipment, 'clean room' and absence of contamination by kids, pets and 'king life I can see the attraction. But, "superior" it ain't, just a lifestyle choice.

The "pop/rock" v classical-acoustic scenario goes like this...
As I said, 'pop' is a manufactured product designed more and more these days to generate income. Nothing wrong with that but the music is not 'real' Also very few pop records had a dynamic range better than 10dB so cutting levels can be kept well above surface noise and the inevitable clicks.

The orchestra has a DR easily above 90dB (so just within the capability of CD). In fact vinyl cannot even capture the range of the grand piano. If reproduced at natural sound levels there will be noise on very quiet passages or between movements and no way could any stylus track the full welly of the Hammerklavier!

So, the DR has to be very skillfully managed to get a reasonable range on black disc. Of course, even CD and other digital media have to use a degree of 'gain riding' but there is a heck of a lot more DR to play with! (whether the record companies do so sensitively is a whole OTHER bag of wriggly things!)

There is no reason why CDs or even downloads could not have optional artwork or sleeve notes if peeps want to pay for them.

Dave.

Take one album: Kind Of Blue
I have it on vinyl, CD, and digital download. The vinyl version sounds the best and it’s not even close.

I don’t have a ‘clean’ room and my cat sleeps on top of my amplifier right next to the turntable. I do have a record cleaner and almost all of my records are in pristine condition, so the need for a pristine laboratory is a misnomer.

I totally get the RIAA curve required to cut a record and how that is limiting in comparison to high res digital audio, but they still sound better to the ear on a decent system which I think has something to do with how the low end is reproduced on vinyl. In my studio I’m generally recording at 24 bit 88.2 K or 48k which to my ear is indistinguishable from higher res formats.

Digital art for an album requires scrolling through screens which ruins the experience for me. CD art is too damn small to read. Album art sits right in front of your face while you are listening to the record and is printed at an optimal size and usually contains a lot of information about how the album was produced.

The vinyl record is the perfect package for the entire work of art called an album or record. 50 million vinyl albums were sold in 2023

An album requires you to listen to the songs in their intended sequence which no other format except cassette or reel to reel provide.

For the car I used to love cassettes and then CDs. I still burn CDs of original music sometimes, but I put all my original music on a usb drive which is how I currently listen to it in the car.

I also put mp3s on my iPad for emailing or uploading.

Perhaps the most important reason to buy vinyl is when you purchase it directly from the artist then they get the best cut off the album sale. Downloading it from Spotify or Apple Music gives the artist the worst cut in comparison. This is why I prefer to buy vinyl records from the artist directly. Buying CD’s from them directly is good too, but they do better on the vinyl sales. I like actually supporting the artists I like.

 

[ecc83]

Take one album: Kind Of Blue
I have it on vinyl, CD, and digital download. The vinyl version sounds the best and it’s not even close.

I don’t have a ‘clean’ room and my cat sleeps on top of my amplifier right next to the turntable. I do have a record cleaner and almost all of my records are in pristine condition, so the need for a pristine laboratory is a misnomer.

I totally get the RIAA curve required to cut a record and how that is limiting in comparison to high res digital audio, but they still sound better to the ear on a decent system which I think has something to do with how the low end is reproduced on vinyl. In my studio I’m generally recording at 24 bit 88.2 K or 48k which to my ear is indistinguishable from higher res formats.

Digital art for an album requires scrolling through screens which ruins the experience for me. CD art is too damn small to read. Album art sits right in front of your face while you are listening to the record and is printed at an optimal size and usually contains a lot of information about how the album was produced.

The vinyl record is the perfect package for the entire work of art called an album or record. 50 million vinyl albums were sold in 2023

An album requires you to listen to the songs in their intended sequence which no other format except cassette or reel to reel provide.

For the car I used to love cassettes and then CDs. I still burn CDs of original music sometimes, but I put all my original music on a usb drive which is how I currently listen to it in the car.

I also put mp3s on my iPad for emailing or uploading.

Perhaps the most important reason to buy vinyl is when you purchase it directly from the artist then they get the best cut off the album sale. Downloading it from Spotify or Apple Music gives the artist the worst cut in comparison. This is why I prefer to buy vinyl records from the artist directly. Buying CD’s from them directly is good too, but they do better on the vinyl sales. I like actually supporting the artists I like.

Bully for you but I repeat, limited dynamic range. If I listen to a Bach invention I do not want my pleasure spoiled by a random click.
I think it was Debussy who said "music is the silence between the notes" I WANT that silence!

Dave.

 

[TalismanRich]

Take one album: Kind Of Blue
I have it on vinyl, CD, and digital download. The vinyl version sounds the best and it’s not even close.

I've got 6 copies of Hendrix Electric Ladyland. Two in vinyl after the first copy just flat wore out, a 2 disk US version where the doofus that mastered it did each disk like the record album ( so you get side 1, then 4, then 2 then 3. Hey dude, did you even LISTEN to what the F**K you mastered?), a copy of a British mastered CD, and a Japanese remaster, plus the box set.
The album is not even close to the CD. And I can put ONE CD into the player and listen to all 4 sides in sequence, just as Jimi and Eddie intended.

Perhaps the most important reason to buy vinyl is when you purchase it directly from the artist then they get the best cut off the album sale. Downloading it from Spotify or Apple Music gives the artist the worst cut in comparison. This is why I prefer to buy vinyl records from the artist directly. Buying CD’s from them directly is good too, but they do better on the vinyl sales. I like actually supporting the artists I like.

I can buy copies of CDs direct from the artist. I've got 5 or 6 Tommy Emmanuel CDs that I bought at performances, a few are autographed. I bought a few Joe Bonamassa CDs directly from his website, a copy of Nataly Dawn's CD from her website. Marcus King, and others, all bought off the merch table at concerts. That's no different from buying a record.

I'm glad you like your vinyl, but after so many years of listening to records, I was thankful when CD came out.

As for the bass on vinyl, to me, that's one of the weaknesses. It's got to be centered for anything significant. For digital, the recovery of the low frequencies should be the most accurate as you have way more samples per wave. (even with Nyquist saying you can do it with two samples). Low frequencies done with a stylus are subject to way more resonance issues, tracking issues, and linearity issues being another mechanical to electrical conversion process. It's like having one more microphone in the chain.

 

[ecc83]

In any event "The World" can surely do without the vinyl record! A pretty dirty industry using tons of oil based plastics and millions of kW of electricity. Huge tonnage to ship for next to buggerall playing time.
CD is rather better but the best environmental option is to download your music but please don't save it on a "cloud"!

Dave.

 

[RFR]

In any event "The World" can surely do without the vinyl record! A pretty dirty industry using tons of oil based plastics and millions of kW of electricity. Huge tonnage to ship for next to buggerall playing time.
CD is rather better but the best environmental option is to download your music but please don't save it on a "cloud"!

Dave.

Some of us like to ‘own’ our music. As in a physical copy. Something we can hold, be it vinyl, cassette, reel to reel or CD.

 

[ecc83]

Some of us like to ‘own’ our music. As in a physical copy. Something we can hold, be it vinyl, cassette, reel to reel or CD.

So put it on a stick!

Dave.

 

[RFR]

So put it on a stick!

Dave.

That also works. But they’re hard to label

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Bully for you but I repeat, limited dynamic range. If I listen to a Bach invention I do not want my pleasure spoiled by a random click.
I think it was Debussy who said "music is the silence between the notes" I WANT that silence!

Dave.

Random clicks? I don’t have that issue with any of my records.

Again, it’s not as much about the fidelity as it is by the actual listening experience as well as the purchasing experience when I buy a record from the artist directly.

Nothing gets me uninterested in listening to music faster than the scrolling process of figuring out what to listen to next. My wife had a collection of 500 plus CDs and she loaded them all onto her iPod and then wanted to throw away all the CDs, but insisted she keep them and eventually her iPod died and she would have lost all music. Spotify makes me want to just watch TV.

A menu with every song on it and the impending scrolling process to search for it I find distressing. Same thing in my studio,…working in the box using plugins and doing everything on a screen with a mouse makes me detest the process and I’m exhausted after a couple of hours, whereas working with a console and with hardware I lose myself in it and can go for hours without getting exhausted.

I can go through a pile records and quickly pick out a few that I want to hear and put them in my queue then I sit down and enjoy the music without any anxiety about the process. I will sit down and enjoy the side with no interruptions.

In a store I can browse albums for hours and not get bored. Looking at a Spotify playlist makes want to stab my ears with pencils…lol.

A good record on a great HiFI system sounds amazing to me with plenty of dynamic range for my old ears. I recently transferred some old cassette tapes and the sound was a lot better than I remembered.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

The original master tape will be better

Yep, that is my absolute favorite way to listen. While I’m mixing.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

I've got 6 copies of Hendrix Electric Ladyland.

I recently got the remixes with all the outtakes. On digital transfer from CDs. They sound great.

I can buy copies of CDs direct from the artist. I've got 5 or 6 Tommy Emmanuel CDs that I bought at performances, a few are autographed. I bought a few Joe Bonamassa CDs directly from his website, a copy of Nataly Dawn's CD from her website. Marcus King, and others, all bought off the merch table at concerts. That's no different from buying a record.

i agree, buying a CD from the artist is equal to buying the vinyl however I think the artist makes a little more on a vinyl sale than a CD,… at least I do at my shows. Buying a CD or Vinyl or T shirt, etc is the best way to support the artists you like. Buying the CD at Walmart or Amazon pays the artist almost nothing in comparison.

I'm glad you like your vinyl, but after so many years of listening to records, I was thankful when CD came out.

i have lots of albums on both CD and vinyl. The vinyl version almost always sounds better to me. I like CDs too and still burn rough mixes onto CDs but to me the ultimate end product for listening to music is the vinyl album.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

I recently got the remixes with all the outtakes. On digital transfer from CDs. They sound great.
i agree, buying a CD from the artist is equal to buying the vinyl however I think the artist makes a little more on a vinyl sale than a CD,… at least I do at my shows. Buying a CD or Vinyl or T shirt, etc is the best way to support the artists you like. Buying the CD at Walmart or Amazon pays the artist almost nothing in comparison. It felt good buying those CDs directly from Tommy Emmanuel. Those CDs should be much more valuable to you than some song downloaded from Apple Music.
i have lots of albums on both CD and vinyl. The vinyl version almost always sounds better to me. I like CDs too and still burn rough mixes onto CDs but to me the ultimate end product for listening to music is the vinyl album.

 

[RFR]

Let’s face it. Records are just fun.

At the very least they take you back to a simpler world, one where tick tock shorts didn’t exist and people had normal attention spans.

 

[TalismanRich]

And as usual, I pulled up a CD today. Gino Vanelli - Powerful People. That's just a good sounding, well crafted album. This was on the Vandersteens with the Onkyo receiver in the bedroom. A nice shower, fire up the music and relax for the next 45 minutes. I love laying in bed listening to music. I did that a bunch when I was a teenager (with those vinyl records, even!)

Then, just to support the artists, I took a friend of mine to the state fair for the Happy Together tour. Cowsills, Association, Vogues, Jay & the Americans, Turtles and Joey Molland of Badfinger. She loves her oldies and it was a fun night. The Cowsills and Association were really good. The Vogues and Jay & Amrericans had some great harmonies. Joey Molland seemed to struggle with vocals on a couple of the songs. I wonder how long Mark Volman will be with us. He's got Lewy Dementia, the same thing that Robin Williams had. You could see the tremors in his right hand, but he was still out there having fun. Good for him.

Random clicks? I don’t have that issue with any of my records.

BTW, no matter how gently I treated my albums, they always developed that odd click and pop. Once they happen they almost got ingrained in you mind. I had a Kansas album that had 2 clicks at the beginning of Carry on My Wayward Sun. I listened to that album so much that even when I hear the CD version, I hear those clicks in my mind. It's almost like I miss them.

I also have two boxes of records with no jackets. They were on the bottom shelves when my basement flooded years ago. I tossed the wet nasty jackets, but kept the records. I've cleaned quite a few, even came close to buying a VPI or Record Doctor record cleaner but I don't know that they would remove all the crap in the grooves. I would probably take an ultrasonic cleaner to really do it, plus new sleeves and jackets are going to cost as much as many of the records cost me originally. However CDs that got wet were wiped clean and sound the same as they did before the flood. Oh yeah, I tossed out about 20 reels of 1/4" tapes. A few were irreplaceable. Alas, transferring to digital wasn't something that had done, otherwise I would still have copies.

The Interesting thing is that I really don't spend a lot of time listening to music on the JBL monitors that I use for my recordings. I tend to listen mostly on the Vandersteen/Onkyo/Sony system. The Polk 5.1system is almost exclusively TV related. I do like listening to the Vandys.