CDs Over Vinyl Any Day

[eleiko]

yeah, i am thinking the pearl is better dropped in the garbage disposal. figuratively speaking, that cart is no pearl. of course dont destroy it, give it to a needy friend. SERIOUSLY. in its price range, get a grado black and be much happier with music. for a hundred, an AT440ML is the choice or a shure m97xe.

a shure v15Vxmr can be had for $200! up the ladder to the clearaudio aurum beta. moving coil definition for mm prices and output.

the pearl is limiting you to entry level vinyl and cd sound. youve got a good tt, put a decent cart on it.

clicks and pops only detract from the music if you focus on them. focus on the music instead. it works. the 1812 on telarc should only be tried with top cartridges and tonearms. lets face it, its one of the most challenging recordings on vinyl. yeah, cd is more conducive to playing this cut without fault but more musical value comes through with analog.

there are SOME people for whom analog isnt right. for those people, ticks and pops ruin the music. they should not buy vinyl. to maintain the level of musicality of vinyl and still remain digital, go for sacd. dvda MIGHT do but i cant say.

the lowest priced rbcd player ive heard in my system is my sony ns500v ($169 shipped). it is wonderful, better than any i have had in the house, and thats quite a few. good analog or digital doesnt need to be expensive. for $2-500 a good tt can be had, same for cdps. still, at that level, vinyl will sound better overall.

let me say that at the $100 level, a cdp WILL sound better than a tt. at the $200 level, it reverses. from there up, vinyl will sound better for the same money. and the gap widens in favor of vinyl as you go up. at $1k, the difference is laughable. vinyl is hands down the winner there.

at new prices, the mmf5, at about $5-700 is unbeatable. at used pricing, its even nicer.

eleiko, what ever possessed you to unload the denon cart? and how could you base your arguement on the pearl???

dan, my friend had two nad cdps and never a prob with the transport. the dac compared on equal footing to the AA dac in the box, not bad. it worked very well with the cal sigma tubed dac, a NICE unit.

eleiko, being 6 years your senior, i DO hear the diffs and it doesnt take golden ears. it takes educated ones. that can be acquired.

Hi Tommy: I got rid of the Denon because it had over 500 hours of play time. If it was designed to play for much longer, I wasn't aware of it. I don't think the Sumiko Pearl is bad, but it can't compete with the Denon I had in extracting detail. If there's some way I could A/B the Pearl and Blue Point - there isn't - I'd do it and then buy the latter if the sound differences warranted it.

[hifitommy]

I'd love to find that cartridge for less than $325. Do you have a link where it can be had for $200? Thanks.

trty here but you have to request it.

http://www.jacksmusicfactory.com/default.asp

[Mash]

'Search' on "shure v15Vxmr"

Lots of offers pop up.

for $217.50 +$5 shpg
http://store.beachaudio.com/v15vxmr.html

Sometimes Audio Advisor offers the shure v15Vxmr at $225 and if you have a "10% off with free shipping" coupon...... I bot 2.

[hifitommy]

http://www.jacksmusicfactory.com/default.asp

you may have to ask for it.

[kajguy]

This is a great discussion and, frankly, I appreciate the merit to both arguments. I have very mid-range Turntables and CD Players and there is clearly a difference in sound between the two formats using the same material. On the turntable, there are the irritations of little nicks and pops. However, the sound on the CDs just, to my ears, does not sound as "life like" as the best of my vinyl stuff. Then, there is that "compression" issue.

For day in and day out listening the cleaness, the convenience and programmability of the CDs can't be beat. But, I must confess, when I really want to treat myself to some aural pleasure, I go to one of those few MINT LPs I have lying around. That makes me pretty happy until the neighbor starts pounding on the wall.

[kajguy]

I just picked up a Sony Turntable with a Bio-Tracer Tonearm on E-bay and was wondering if anyone here knows anything about this. It is supposedly "origianal owner" and I like the looks......but, soundwise, I know not to get too excited about it.

[Feanor]

I didn't flame you before, but you stated exactly as I suspected. You do not own high end, and cannot speak from experiance, and do not have a good point of reference. You are making a call from rationalizing cheap gear. I won't say it doesn't sound good, but it is a long way from what vinyl and digital can do.

Sure, I might like cd better if all I knew was sub $1k stuff. But there is no exaggeration when cd players and lp's get far better than what is offered at "a few hundered bucks."

That's almost like saying bose is as good as it gets.
..

I'll never know how great vinyl sounds either. Yes, on my cheap "mid-fi" crap, the superiority of that medium, such as it might be, isn't evident.

I'm not making the "diminishing returns" defence. Nor the, "I have more brains than money" defence. The fact is I'd probably spend the dough if I had it. Maybe then I'd find out.

Meanwhile I'll just have to take your word for the greatness of vinyl.

[hifitommy]

is in de back yard. its a good defense against trespassers. ;^)

[Feanor]

is in de back yard. its a good defense against trespassers. ;^)

Seriously: I'm contemplating a new, $500 CDP, so maybe I should buy a TT combo in that range instead.

The only one that comes to mind is the Music Hall MMF-5 with the Goldring G012. I might stretch to Rega P3 but that doesn't come with cartridge (or a dust cover?). Did somebody mention a NAD based on the Rega?

My own LP collection is small but in very good condition. Of course, I'd be looking for good used LP -- then I guess I'd need cleaning equipment.

[hifitommy]

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....abl&1091837187

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....abl&1091824724

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....abl&1091374144

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....abl&1090612527

just a sampling of whats available . i have no connection with any of them, i just thought you might have overlooked this resource.

;^)

[Feanor]

... i have no connection with any of them, i just thought you might have overlooked this resource.
...

I have always been leery about buying second hand sight-unseen, but it might be time to take the plunge.

Any tips for shopping Audiogon? Note that I'm constrained to sellers willing to ship to Canada.

[hifitommy]

on general asylum and ask that Q. my daughter has made some transactions there at AG for my friend without snag.

[BRANDONH]

I vave have a reissue of the
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture (4 disc set) 45 rpm, 12-inch, Single-sided Collectors Ser. 200g vinyl and it is extremely quiet and my Shure V15VXMR cartridge tracks it beautifully..
http://www.classicrecords.com/catalo...ku=LSC-2241-45.
As far as Vinyl vs. Digital I have a Pioneer Elite PD-65 CD Player and a Pro-ject 1.2 turntable which I upgraded the Sumiko Oyster it came with to the Shure V15VXMR and (in my opinion) the natural sound of vinyl wins over the artificial sound of digital hands down.

[jbangelfish]

The Telarc digital master is extremely difficult to track, some consider it impossible. It's one of those rare recordings that was made with no compression or compromise. Not my favorite music by any means but the actual cannon blasts on the recording are quite a test for any system and there are warnings on the jacket that damage could occur to your equipment. My system will not track it flawlessly but nearly so and I track at 2g with a fairly pricey MC cartridge. I can get through all but about two of the cannon blasts without a problem and the violence and air movement of the actual cannons is very impressive. But that's about it, impressive but not particularly enjoyable.
I choose to listen to vinyl for nearly every listening session because I get a lot more from it, in my system. Maybe a 4k or 10k cd player would make me enjoy them more but I may never find that out. My Denon cd player was around 2k new and I bought it used for less than $200. It does sound better than the 200 disc Sony that it replaced even though it is older. Maybe someday I'll find a true high end cd player for a reasonable price used but I have so much vinyl that I'll never run out of LP's to enjoy.
For me, I have a fair amount of money in my turntable and analog setup and this does make a difference. Even so, I've heard much more from vinyl with old, inexpensive turntables, (Pioneer, Marantz, Yamaha) and reasonably good cartridges (Shure V15's, GradoF1, AT440ML) than I've ever heard from any cd player that I or any of my friends have ever owned. I cannot say I've ever heard a 5k or 10k cd player but I suppose I'd at least like to hear one.
I am also in my 50's (52) as it appears that many of us here are. My hearing is not what it used to be either but I am able to hear far more music from vinyl than from cd. It just sounds more complete and natural. There is a very noticeable blackness or dead silence to cd's which is pleasant. If they would only figure out how to get the music part of it right, a lot of us would be happier with them. Much of the highs (especially cymbals and high pitched percussion) seems distorted, sometimes beyond recognition. Some of it is completely eliminated on cd. Call it poor engineering, call it whatever you like. Maybe it's my 2k cd player, who knows?
I also have many LP's that are very silent. They have to be extremely clean and in excellent condition. The tiniest speck of dust will make noise and the tiniest scratch or imperfection will also. CD's have the advantage here but in my experience, convenience and ease of care have not been enough to convert me. I have around 200 cd's and 4,000 LP's and the vinyl collection is growing much faster than the cd collection.
OK, enough rambling from this old vinyl nut.
Bill

[jbangelfish]

I've purchased a couple of items on Audiogon with no problems. There is more equipment available on ebay but you need to be careful. I bought a perfectly mint appearing AR turntable that had a bad motor and missing stylus. There is more of an audiophile crowd at Audiogon, higher end equipment and maybe a better chance at getting what you pay for.
I thought you had a nice European tt to work on. Did you give up? There are plenty of well made, old tt's out there, ebay or Audiogon, that would probably make a bigger improvement in your system than a $500 cd player. Thorens, Micro Seiki, AR, to name a few. Some can be had for as little as $50 or so but usually the better tt's will bring $150 to $350. Maybe not world beaters but many would outperform the newer tt's that are going to cost $500 to 1k. Maybe the best deal for new is the RM4 by Project?, I think. Get's pretty high praise for a reasonable price.
I can't say about the MMF5 or the Goldring cartridge but I don't see a lot of people bragging about them. There are many out there and they may be a good intro to vinyl, I don't really know. The Shure V15 might be the best MM cartridge out there. Even the high end vinyl nuts have nothing but good things to say about it. I know that I always enjoyed my V15III back in the 70's.
Anyway, good luck and I would strongly urge you to pursue the turntable. With the right setup, you'll never regret it.
Bill

[jbangelfish]

Nobody seems to like the Blue Point Special, anywhere. The AT440ML is a bargain at under $100 but you'd be most likely to appreciate the finer points of vinyl with the Shure V15. I don't think I've ever read anything negative about it and as I said in an earlier post, even the high end big money boys have respect for it.
Bill

[jbangelfish]

There is an MMF5 with Goldring 1012?, I think on Audiogon for $350. The seller says it has about 20 hours on it, if I remember correctly. Just check under analog classifieds. There were several decent tt's from $250 to $500.
Bill

[Pat D]

No doubt at all that CD is the superior medium, far more capable. Flat, consistent frequency response, great dynamic range, no audible flutter. This is a different question from whether a given issue is superior in its LP or CD format--I've had it both ways. However, most of my CDs sound very good to excellent and include some of the best recordings I have ever heard. So I have no problem with CDs and consider it a far better storage medium than LPs--because that's what both are, although many people don't think of them that way.

Ahh, but I do have quite a few LPs and even buy some used ones from time to time, mostly from the library sales. Many of them are not available on CD and I don't play a lot of them often enough to justify replacing them with a CD, just a relatively small number of favorites. Quite a lot of them sound great, I must say. I do have to wonder where the idea comes from that LPs are more dynamic than CDs. The loud peaks are compressed on LPs--they have to be and it's often audible enough, though it's often pleasant. Maybe many people like that. As well, LPs often seem to have less energy in the upper midrange and lower treble, which can sound pleasant.

Indeed, I also have a number of old mono recordings originally issued on 78s: especially some of the old singers like Caruso, Gigli, Richard Crooks, Lawrence Tibbet, John Charles Thomas, Pinza, Ezio Pinza, Elizabeth Rethberg, early Schwarzkopf, Frieda Leider, Bidu Sayao. I find they usually sound best on really good speakers with a flat midrange.

[hifitommy]

pat,

i just looked at your equip list and it seems that from all indications you have the right stuff to hear what i am going to relate. perhaps some of us should be saying "dynamic CONTRAST" instead of dynamic RANGE in regard to superior dynamics with vinyl.

the JUMP factor is many times more evident using vinyl playback than with rbcd. if you may have noticed, there has been a lot of banter about compression being too routinely used on cd but also with the reasoning behind it (SALE-ABILITY to radio types, louder is better).

needless to say, i dont believe that RBcd is superior, especially in sound. it has the potential in many areas to be so but usually doesnt live up to that paradigm. where it falters is in hi-frequency reproduction. PLEASE dont recite the nyquist theorem baloney. not true, not relevant to any real discussion about ACCURATE hi freq playback.

i too have a grace F9E, a good reason to keep your address secret. mine was bought new by me and used often enough to stay usable. i just wish i had gotten a ruby stylus (cantilever) for it before they became unobtanium.

[RGA]

Hifitommy - the definition was changed by the cd makers with the advent of cd - there is no dynamic range advantage and that is a FACT - Cd players post 100+DR figures and when you back calculate it comes to about 79-80.

The word diminishing returns is being used often as if to say there are no returns. I saw a speaker radio set for $1.00 in my dollar store. going from no sound to that $1.00 system is a HUGE fantastical improvement. going from that to an Atom yields X improvement. Blah.

Go to Soundhounds in Victoria BC. You can listen to the Audio Note Turntable TT3(Voyde Reference) Against the Top of the line Linn rig and Linn's $30k Cd player or any other cd player they carry since they all sound the same when in working order and not deliberately altered??)apparently and The AN DAC/Transport combo's

Bring a bunch of LP's and the REFERENCE CD's stereophile globs all over. And they have nice 30k speakers.

It will be abundandly clear that the Linn etc cd players do somehting other than make real life music.

In fact that table/system has renewed my interest in turntables. The Project which was not too pricey at around $500.00Cdn was quite good. The cd variants had less of 3d soundstage and more of a compressed rather uninteresting sound.

You certainly DON'T need to be a golden ear to tell which one makes a guitar and piano sound more like a guitar and piano. It doesn't matter - because most people won't listen - they will rely on what magazine reviews and those who measure the wrong things tell them. But of course you can't rely on what you hear - I mean buying music and listening to music requires none of that listening.

Cd's are handier ergonomically friendly, portable, easier to copy, used copies are generally as "perfect" haha, as they were when new - some used LP's are horrible, poorly pressed poorly maintained by prior owners etc.

And most people geenrally had lousy tables which are lousier than cd players. Hell even my NAD - just getting a slight alignment adjustment and a proper stand.

Buying the relatively new Sarah McLachlan Remixed album - more deep bass and not some euphoinic bass the SS crowd likes to incorrectly infer, but actual deep bass. Where my cd player wins is high frequency extension(not smoothness) but my rig is pretty low end. There is still no question between the LP and CD which is superior. And the CD version is about as well-recorded as CD gets. No pop click or anything else either.

[Norm Strong]

I wouldn't spend more than a few hundred dollars for either a turntable or CD player. As you know, there's a point of diminishing returns when you reach stratospheric heights in audio (or anything else for that matter). I've never found CDs "cold", "vapid" or any of the other adjectives some audiophiles use to describe their sound. The quiet background alone sold me on CDs as preference to vinyl.

What is the smallest amount that qualifies as "a few hundred dollars"? I would guess $300, which would be excessive for any CD player (IMHO)

There's something wrong when an audiophile pays more for a turntable, arm & cartridge than the price of the master recording lathe that made the original.

[RGA]

There's something wrong when an audiophile pays more for a turntable, arm & cartridge than the price of the master recording lathe that made the original.

Do you have a technical reason with proof as to why?

[DMK]

[QUOTE=Norm Strong
There's something wrong when an audiophile pays more for a turntable, arm & cartridge than the price of the master recording lathe that made the original.[/QUOTE]

Hmmm... there must then also be something wrong when a music lover pays more for a pair of speakers than the price of a pair of studio microphones used to record. Or spending more for a complete system than the price of the acoustic guitar that made the recording. Er... not that I'm dogging your opinion, Norm! That's a good way to get thrown out of here! But...ah... is fidelity a dirty word where you come from????

[DMK]

[QUOTE=Pat D]No doubt at all that CD is the superior medium, far more capable. Flat, QUOTE]

Cool. My opinion is the opposite of yours. I do agree that the CD sounds flat, though. Don't you just love this copy feature? It really helps me take things out of context so much better!

For those who find the CD superior, I offer the 45 RPM LP as strong evidence to the contrary. Amazing! I've never heard a redbook CD or even an SACD capture the quality of live music the way these LP's do. I wish I could afford more.

[BRANDONH]

For those who find the CD superior, I offer the 45 RPM LP as strong evidence to the contrary. Amazing! I've never heard a redbook CD or even an SACD capture the quality of live music the way these LP's do. I wish I could afford more.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you on the 45 RPM vs Digital.
I recently purchased a new MOFI 180g 1/2 speed mastered Gain 2 ultra analog Primus - Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People and it simply sounds amazing.
http://www.mofi.com/newreleases.htm (scroll down to Primus)