Will SACD make vinyl obsolete?

[jbangelfish]

Not so simple as bringing home a CD player, plugging it in and playing CD's. We don't do it because we like the work. It can be very rewarding in sound quality. Make sure the tech knows what he/she is doing.
Bill

[maxg]

No SACD will not make vinyl obselete any more than CD did. It is not an issue of sound - merely titles - there is too much out there that never came out on CD let alone SACD to make this happen.

[hifitommy]

While I do admire a good looking or unusual looking turntable, it has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to listen to vinyl.

its what comes out of the speakers that interests me. if i were so financially endowed, i would buy the BUTT UGLY walker proscenium tt for $29k! i have a mapleknoll athena (same lineage) in need of a nice quiet air supply and a couple of minor fixes and adjustments and i will say THIS: it is VIVID and it was the bottom of the line.

air bearing platter and air bearing linear arm. if youve looked at my profile, youll know i have adequate substitutes for now but i DO miss the sound of the athena. ergonomically its a bit difficult but some things are worth the inconveniences. a project for the future, too many more pressing issues.

i will be getting the tori and yoshimi discs from circuitcity.com (no shipping charge) for cheeeeep. go to the tori disc, click on other formats and wallawallawashington there they are! its where i got white stripes-elephant for cheep on vinyl.

bangle-be glad the hiss is there on the virgil fox cd. at least the original recording isnt a lo bit digital mess. i have a 1972 denon LP of pictures with fremeaux conducting and the digital grain is horrible. this is a worst case scenario but just be glad the original is analog to begin with. and you wouldnt want to filter out the hiss, they used to try that with 'no-noise' and it removed some of the highs of the music along with the hiss. the ear/brain filters out such steady state noise quite handily.

feanor-" With it I have a Grace 707 tonearm which needs a minor repair; one of the four leads to the cartridge connecting pins is fell off and is missing. " yes, this is a relatively easy fix. if you have no other source, a universal headshell, usually available for about ten bucks at sam ash has the necessary replacement leads. you could have a service tech snip the clips off one end of the wires and strip them. remove the old leads and resolder the ones from the headshell.

i recently had this done to a 707 for a friend, it was my actual old 707 that once owned, STILL a fine tonearm. the ERA tt is also a vg unit, definitely worth the fix. for a cartridge, an at440ML or shure m97xe (both around a hundred) will give you VERY satisfactory service for not a lot of cash.

the 707 is very straightforward to set up. once balanced, the height is easily set with the skinny fluted thumbscrew (dont use a screwdriver to overtighten this one). in the collar is a conventional setscrew to use for actual tightening.

before this final tightening is done, adjust the base with the cueing lever on it rotationally so the cueing lever sets in the proper place for cueing adjust the arm height so the arm is about level when the stylus rests on the vinyl. THEN tighten the setscrew.

if this all sounds complicated, you can call me and i will talk you through it. it just takes some patience for the learning curve. once learned, you will be calm the next time you change something. this arm was one of the joys of my hifi addiction. it allows each cartridge to sound like itself.

and hey, i'm almost a canuck, i'm from buffalo, ny!! now i live in southern california ;^)

[jbangelfish]

Let me know what you think of the Tori Amos vinyl, I think it might be her best although I like lots of her music. I picked up the White Stripes Elephant on red and white vinyl and wasn't real pleased. Found too much surface noise for new vinyl and most of the music was not my cup of tea. Some was OK and even good (maybe was in the wrong mood for it) but as I said, too much noise for new vinyl.
Yeah, I'll take alittle hiss any day over cutting some of the music out and as you say, your brain tends to filter it out anyway. The other Virgil Fox CD, Encores, is even better. Less hiss, barely audible and a great job of recording. I can't believe the master tape is from 1958. Excellent CD with no digital indications of any kind. The pipe organ sounds perfect and his playing is superb.
You're from Buffalo? One of my best buddies is from there. How could you give up all that lovely weather for So. Cal?
Bill

[hifitommy]

as you will read in another of my replies, the tori will come next week. white stripes is a bit noisy but the music is valid. and hey! beck is dating the girl. but the music is fine and its new vinyl, we must support that.

thats one of the reasons i am getting the flaming lips too. i snagged roger waters-amused to death when it was released. i bought it from ying tan (groove note) when he had a company called pacific vinyl, a small mail order company. it was $25 and sounds wonderful. q sound really puts things off the speakers.

let me guess, your buddy is italian or polish....

[jbangelfish]

Did you order the pink vinyl copy or black? I don't know if it matters but the pink one is outstanding. My Tori, Boys For Pele is on clear vinyl and also is very high quality. I wonder if these vinyls other than black are virgin vinyl or if there is any special attention to doing a better pressing as these are supposed to be limited versions.
The White Stripes had a nostalgic sound which must have been their goal but put me off on first listen. As I said, maybe I just wasn't in the mood. I like new vinyl to sound perfect and it usually does.
I did my own Christmas shopping and bought about 20 Virgil Fox albums and CD's, some other classical and a few new albums (Tori Amos, Sara Mclachlan and the White Stripes) and CD's. This worked out rather well, got exactly what I wanted. The last of them are still trickling in. Sara, Touch CD is a good one with maybe some of her best work. Sara, Vox vinyl, not for sale copy with 4 versions of the song, interesting and the detail is well... the reason we buy vinyl. I don't see much of her work on vinyl except in these single song demos, hate to buy them all that way. She does have a new release that you can get of remixes on double vinyl or CD. I'll probably get the vinyl.
Bill
PS, My buddy is mostly German but Polish also
PSPS, Cool Avatar, is that you or your alien friend?

[bturk667]

12345

[rb122]

The people who invented the cd should have spent a little more time on the esthetics of playing a cd instead of spending all of it eliminating wow, flutter, rumble, acoustic feedback, noise, hum, distortion, interchannel crosstalk, limited dynamic range, and frequency response irregularities. Until they do, there will always be a market for vinyl.

They also shouldn't have added electronic grain, severe HF cutoff, distortion, glare, harshness, tonal irregularities, and overall inaccurate sound. They shouldn't have taken away the life, body, harmonic integrity and "live sound".

I think CD is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Oh, by the way, if you're having problems with wow, flutter, fumble, feedback, hum, distortion and FR irregularites, try another turntable system as yours is apparently defective or, at least, isn't getting the job done that better turntables do.

As for SACD making vinyl obsolete, I don't think so. I think they will sit side by side as niche products while CD's remain king of the marketplace, if not king of accuracy.

[DMK]

They also shouldn't have added electronic grain, severe HF cutoff, distortion, glare, harshness, tonal irregularities, and overall inaccurate sound. They shouldn't have taken away the life, body, harmonic integrity and "live sound".

I think CD is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Oh, by the way, if you're having problems with wow, flutter, fumble, feedback, hum, distortion and FR irregularites, try another turntable system as yours is apparently defective or, at least, isn't getting the job done that better turntables do.

As for SACD making vinyl obsolete, I don't think so. I think they will sit side by side as niche products while CD's remain king of the marketplace, if not king of accuracy.

A little vitriol from mild mannered Rob??? Whoa - ho!!!! You are spot on with your assessment. But what's "fumble"? Is that what the CD engineers did with the sound?

I LOVE the feedback argument! What does a turntable feedback at, around 5 hertz? There's SO much musical information at that level, even in live music - NOT! Again, the so called "problems" with vinyl and turntables are mostly theoretical, not audible. CD's problems are mostly audible but not measurable. Hmmm... which should I choose?

SACD's replacing vinyl - I agree it probably won't happen. But I think the CD will die out when music becomes a computer hard-driven. Our systems will be linked to our computer and we'll download and store our purchases in a sort of WAV format, but more sophisticated. It will likely sound even worse than the CD because we're a society of convenience which is how the CD took off to begin with. Sad, but I think high fidelity will eventually become even more of a niche item. The CD staggered HiFi but I think the biggest blow is yet to come.

Nice to see you back!

[jbangelfish]

I've already found at least 2 or 3 cd's that I thought were excellent. I hope to buy more. Strangely, these had analog beginnings.
Bill

[rb122]

A little vitriol from mild mannered Rob??? Whoa - ho!!!! You are spot on with your assessment. But what's "fumble"? Is that what the CD engineers did with the sound?

I LOVE the feedback argument! What does a turntable feedback at, around 5 hertz? There's SO much musical information at that level, even in live music - NOT! Again, the so called "problems" with vinyl and turntables are mostly theoretical, not audible. CD's problems are mostly audible but not measurable. Hmmm... which should I choose?

SACD's replacing vinyl - I agree it probably won't happen. But I think the CD will die out when music becomes a computer hard-driven. Our systems will be linked to our computer and we'll download and store our purchases in a sort of WAV format, but more sophisticated. It will likely sound even worse than the CD because we're a society of convenience which is how the CD took off to begin with. Sad, but I think high fidelity will eventually become even more of a niche item. The CD staggered HiFi but I think the biggest blow is yet to come.

Nice to see you back!

Thanks, I'll be around but not as much as before. So little time.

Thanks for catching my "fumble". It was supposed to be rumble, of course. If it's a problem, it's the gear at fault, not the medium. In the case of both LP and CD, there are audible problems. I find those of LP to be less objectionable. I just have a problem with those who looks at the measurements and conclude that CD is without fault or even less without fault than the LP. If they believe that, they aren't listening to the same music I am, their ears or their standards aren't as good/high as mine, or they have a system synergy or room problem. I'm sorry but I can't back the CD because it fails me most of the time - too much distortion whether it's measured or not. When certain guitars lose their proper tone on CD, that's a sore spot with me. All the positive measurements in the world won't impress me if they can't get the sound right.

Skeptic's point was that the CD engineers solved all of analog's problems. Unfortunately, they threw the baby out with the bathwater and also added a few sonic unpleasantries. If the medium truly isn't to blame, when will they get it right? I agree that the technical limitations of vinyl are largely theoretical and don't show up under normal listening but I hold specifications at limited value if they don't produce something better. Convenience is nice and the LP doesn't rate with CD in that arena. Sonically, most of the CD's I've heard are severely compromised and none of them is "perfect sound forever". Those that blindly (deafly?) follow the measurements are advised to go listen to some live music once in awhile for perspective. The reproduction of music should be all about getting the sound right. Where did we lose our way?

[jbangelfish]

This is a sore spot for me as well. When I have LP's that were made in the 1960's that have better sound than CD's that were made in 2003, something is very wrong with the current state of affairs. This absolutely speaks horribly for the recording industry and is an insult to critical listeners around the world. I'm not good enough to listen and tell you what kind of guitar is playing or what kind of piano is playing (although I can usually tell if it's a grand piano or an upright) but I know when it has a more natural sound and for me, this is nearly always found with vinyl.
I have managed to find a few CD's that I would rate as excellent recordings and I speak freely about them whenever I find one. Most of my best were analog recordings from as far back as the 50's and their sound is close enough to vinyl that I'd happily listen to this quality in CD format indefinately. Why this is accomplished so seldom is just inexcusable. As I've listened to more classical lately, this is where I find more good CD's and Skeptic's points about this have made sense. Sadly.
So much music is not available on vinyl that we are forced to listen to the garbage that they turn out in CD's. It's a shame to think that I have to listen to some of my favorite music and think that it is merely tolerable to listen to especially when you think about how well it could be done as far back as the 60's and 70's or even earlier. I sit and listen to old vinyl from the 60's and wonder who even had a stereo that was good enough to really appreciate it. I'm just glad that they did take the time to record as well as they did and I will continue to buy new and old vinyl as long as it is available.
If everything goes to multichannel CD (which I highly doubt) then I will have to be content to listen to the old stuff that I have and I'm certainly glad that I never sold any vinyl as I have a substantial collection that would take a few years to listen to. On the other hand, there does seem to be more and more available on vinyl. Maybe they'll keep doing this to keep us vinyl heads quiet and happy. I would also be happy if they just made more quality CD's because I'm getting old and lazy and I'm content to sit back, drink a beer and push remote buttons as long as the sound coming out is better than just tolerable.
Bill

[rb122]

I'm not good enough to listen and tell you what kind of guitar is playing or what kind of piano is playing (although I can usually tell if it's a grand piano or an upright) but I know when it has a more natural sound and for me, this is nearly always found with vinyl.
Bill

Actually, you are good enough. Perhaps you don't have the experience of listening closely to different guitars or pianos but if you had, you'd pick out the differences. If you listen to rock at all, compare the sound of Jimi Hendrix's guitar to Jimmy Page's. Listen carefully and often. Now suppose that Jimi's guitar sounded like Jimmy's and you knew that they hadn't swapped. That's a generic example of what often happens with CD. It's irritating. It almost makes me wish I had never discovered vinyl but then when I put an LP on, I refute my last statement.

As for pianos, I have yet to hear them sound proper on CD and only occasionally do they sound proper on vinyl. It must be a very difficult instrument to record.

I've compared quite a number of classical vinyl with CD's and the vinyl comes out on top every time, at least in the parameters I find important which are tonal balance (CD's make instruments sound wrong) and "live" sound which is the ability of the recording to momentarily cause me to forget I'm listening to a recording. With CD's sonic anomalies, I'm constantly reminded that I'm hearing an electronic reproduction. If LP's are full of distortion and all the other problems that people complain about, give me more of it, because those "distortions" add the life and "live" sound of real music.

[jbangelfish]

My sons have a few guitars and I am able to recognize which one is being played as long as they don't switch amps on me. One has a Robin and a Fender Strat and the other has a Yamaha with double humbucker. I do know each of these by familiarity. I can sometimes pick a Les Paul on a recording but that's about it for me.
Piano must be very difficult, I agree. Tori Amos vinyl is as good as I've heard but I've also heard some very old recordings of Van Cliburn that were very good. Sarah Mclachlan CD's are some that I consider very tolerable and her stuff is rarely available on vinyl but the piano just sounds tinny or electronic. Really a shame, some good piano work.
Skeptic is the rare exception who finds CD to come out on top nearly always. And I'm willing to bet that he has a collection of very fine CD's. I don't know how he does it. I have heard some excellent CD recordings that I probably could not tell from good vinyl but they are few and far between for me. When a CD distorts the sound of an instrument, it is very annoying but perhaps is not shown as distortion by an electronic device. I don't know. Some have said that everything is measurable but maybe they haven't found the way to measure that yet.
Bill

[hifitommy]

CDs that are excellent recordings, some actually DDD, some AAD, etc. BUTTT, the best moments more frequently come from vinyl and that includes the relaxation, satisfaction, and feeling of "there" there.

the really odd thing is that you can change phono cartridges and still get ALL those feelings and still have it sounding different. one could argue that there is only ONE correct sound but that may not be so. it goes right along with changing loudspeakers or listening rooms. of course, the original performance sounded different in different parts of the room it was recorded in as well.

i am NOT giving up my cd collection, and you would have a hard time carting away all of my LPs. its ALL about the music and right now, i am listenin to radio (kkjz.org, also available on www.live365.com). see what theyve been playing by going HERE:

http://64.78.57.99/playlist_dspjanmar/index.asp?dt=1/14/2004

a great guide for purchases. one night i heard the carmen/betty/great american music hall on kkjz, went to record surplus the next day and BOUGHT IT! i just LOVE los angeles!

[Woochifer]

Vinyl will never be obsolete so long as you got the DJ market going strong. SACDs are potentially just as impossible to mix with as CDs are right now. Go down the list of world class club DJs and you'll find that NONE of them use digital sources as their primary material. Look up the world's top dance clubs, and you'll see that all of them have multiple turntable setups, but not all of them include a CD player in the playback rig.

Mixing, beatmatching, scratching, etc. with records essentially turns the turntable and mixer into an improvisational instrument. And the level of tactile on-the-fly control you get with a turntable just can't be emulated with a digital source. Denon and some other professional CD player manufacturers have tried to emulate the hands-on feel and variable pitch controls found with turntables by attaching oversized jog wheels, but none of those attempts have thus far caught on with club DJs. I only see those dual deck CD players used by DJs that play weddings and frat parties, and the stuff that they do is huge step down from what a good club DJ will put together.

If you're into dance remixes and electronica, a lot of the stuff in those genres are ONLY available on vinyl, or will only find the light of day on a digital format via DJ mix compilations (which are typically transferred using turntables anyway!). So long as you still have vinyl exclusives like that, I would not call the format obsolete.

I've frequently said that the Technics SL-1200 turntable is the ultimate cockroach in all of audio. It will outlive everything that we currently take for granted in audio!

[rb122]

My sons have a few guitars and I am able to recognize which one is being played as long as they don't switch amps on me. One has a Robin and a Fender Strat and the other has a Yamaha with double humbucker. I do know each of these by familiarity. I can sometimes pick a Les Paul on a recording but that's about it for me.
Piano must be very difficult, I agree. Tori Amos vinyl is as good as I've heard but I've also heard some very old recordings of Van Cliburn that were very good. Sarah Mclachlan CD's are some that I consider very tolerable and her stuff is rarely available on vinyl but the piano just sounds tinny or electronic. Really a shame, some good piano work.
Skeptic is the rare exception who finds CD to come out on top nearly always. And I'm willing to bet that he has a collection of very fine CD's. I don't know how he does it. I have heard some excellent CD recordings that I probably could not tell from good vinyl but they are few and far between for me. When a CD distorts the sound of an instrument, it is very annoying but perhaps is not shown as distortion by an electronic device. I don't know. Some have said that everything is measurable but maybe they haven't found the way to measure that yet.
Bill

You knew more than you thought! Your point about amps is a good one as amps have signature sounds as well and depending on how they're set, they may have more to do with the final sound than the guitars. But taking a Les Paul, a Gibson ES-334, a Gibson ES-175 (the one I use) and a Fender Strat just to keep it simple, they will all sound different from one another on EACH of their pickup selector settings when the amp is in "normal" mode i.e not overdriven. Even when overdriven, their signature sound at EACH pickup selector setting should be audible.

I know the playing of jazz guitarist Joe Pass very well. I could pick him out in a crowd. I know his guitars and how they sound just as I know his style. When I hear on CD his Gibson ES-175 but it sounds like a Fender Strat with the pickup selector switch at the neck position, I get irritated because I KNOW that isn't how Joe sounds. Pass could never be accused of sounding "thin".

Recording engineers were able to reproduce proper sounds on vinyl. The creation of a vinyl record was an art rather than the CD which is mass produced. I'm wondering if our society is truly as MacDonald's oriented as it must be for CD sound to be acceptable. I tire quickly of all the pro digital/anti analog arguments because sonics don't support those arguments. But most recently I've adopted the idea that it's pointless to argue about it - I'd rather just enjoy the sound of vinyl and the sound of the live music that vinyl does the best job at recreating.

[jbangelfish]

One of my sons uses a tube setup with 4X10 speakers (can't remember the name but is British made) and the other a SS 4X12 setup. The little tube amp gets very loud very easily and is rated at less than half of the SS which is a Crate/Celestion setup. Both sound reasonable but the little tube rig is impressive for it's size. Their sound is quite different but when used together (both playing) sound good together. The Robin is the nicest guitar and has a very distinct sound, has double Seymour Duncan pickups and a floating bridge which has good and bad points but sounds very good.
I don't know that I've heard Joe Pass but have certainly heard of him plenty. Sorry, not a big jazz buff but sometimes listen with one of my stereo buff buddies. I have enjoyed some of it (Al DiMeola) and that's about all I can say. Just wouldn't be my pick for a long listening session.
Yes, the old CD vs LP argument does get stale. Just to claim that one is better than the other seems impossible as the capability is there to be excellent in either form. The odds in how often it is done well appear to lean to vinyl and why is irrelevant. Get it right and I'm sure most of us would be happy to buy the CD. Where are these recording engineers who like to pop in and give us crap ever so often? They are the ones we should be talking to.
Bill

[jbangelfish]

I'd hate to think that we owe any thanks to the DJ techno crowd but if we do, I'll give it to them. Sort of a different world with that stuff but I guess you could say that it is widely used and they do need an indestructable turntable and some vinyl. The Technics 1200 is that animal. Have you ever looked at the specs on one of them? Actually very impressive specs and I've wondered how it would sound with an arm made for accuracy and a cartridge of the same idea. I find what they do with them hard to watch as I can only think what would happen if someone did that with my rig or one of my LP's. This would not be good.
There does seem to be enough people in the world who are willing to go out and spend quite a lot of money to put together an analog system and buy vinyl. I'm just hoping that there are enough of us to keep this going and it appears to me that there are. I see a lot of vinyl being made and more quality turntables, tonearms and cartridges available than there has been in some time, maybe ever. To me, this is a good indication that it will be here for a long time to come.
With people like myself and countless others who have several thousand LP's, I don't know of any who would be willing to part with it and start over with something which has yet to convince us that it is better. Even if it was clearly superior in all ways, I'd never give up all of my old vinyl. The good vinyl recordings in my collection which may be 70% to 80% of them are good enough that I don't care to replace them with anything else. Especially when I consider that I don't have a single copy of a CD that is better than the same piece on vinyl. This is just my situation and you may find someone who has it the other way around but for me and many others, the vinyl is here to stay.
Bill

[Woochifer]

I'd hate to think that we owe any thanks to the DJ techno crowd but if we do, I'll give it to them. Sort of a different world with that stuff but I guess you could say that it is widely used and they do need an indestructable turntable and some vinyl. The Technics 1200 is that animal. Have you ever looked at the specs on one of them? Actually very impressive specs and I've wondered how it would sound with an arm made for accuracy and a cartridge of the same idea. I find what they do with them hard to watch as I can only think what would happen if someone did that with my rig or one of my LP's. This would not be good.
There does seem to be enough people in the world who are willing to go out and spend quite a lot of money to put together an analog system and buy vinyl. I'm just hoping that there are enough of us to keep this going and it appears to me that there are. I see a lot of vinyl being made and more quality turntables, tonearms and cartridges available than there has been in some time, maybe ever. To me, this is a good indication that it will be here for a long time to come.
With people like myself and countless others who have several thousand LP's, I don't know of any who would be willing to part with it and start over with something which has yet to convince us that it is better. Even if it was clearly superior in all ways, I'd never give up all of my old vinyl. The good vinyl recordings in my collection which may be 70% to 80% of them are good enough that I don't care to replace them with anything else. Especially when I consider that I don't have a single copy of a CD that is better than the same piece on vinyl. This is just my situation and you may find someone who has it the other way around but for me and many others, the vinyl is here to stay.
Bill

The Technics SL-1200 is pretty much the most widely available turntable out there. I've even seen them at Best Buy. It's easy to find places that sell and service them, and there are plenty of aftermarket accessories available for those decks. Most of the DJ market has standardized around that particular model.

The SL-1200 is very well made and durable, plus it gives you both quartz lock and a pitch control variation of 10%. The tonearm is also pretty well balanced, though it has a lot more mass on it than typical high end tonearms. That S-shape and heavy arm weight are necessities for backcuing and frequent record swapping. In terms of sound quality, it's pretty good, but that high torque direct drive motor is designed more for heavy duty usage and quick starts/stops. Given that it's not well isolated, it adds noise to the mix. Not really a concern in a club/bar/garage situation, but definitely an issue during more critical listening.

The irony of the DJ market is that the CD single category has rapidly declined, and now a lot of remixes and singles are only available on 12" singles. Downloading has decimated the CD single, and most DJs never bothered with them to begin with. Even full length albums are getting released as triple-vinyl sets that play at 45 rpm. Wide grooves, 45 rpm speed -- these are things that have begun catching on in the audiophile vinyl market, yet they've been long established standards in the DJ market.

I wouldn't call the current state of vinyl a rennaissance. It's a niche market, and more players have stepped in to fill the void, but vinyl will never be anywhere near where it was at its peak. The vinyl market had been in decline since well before the CD took over (I believe that cassette sales surpassed LP sales in 1983, the year that the CD was introduced in the U.S.). There's still market demand out there, but it's not big enough for the large recording companies or audio manufacturers, so it left the market open for smaller players to fill the vacuum.

However, you don't have the same market coverage as before. New LP titles are now typically limited editions and only sporatically available at retail stores. The midlevel turntable market has all but disappeared. Not a whole lot of choices in the $300-$500 range. Aside from Music Hall and ProJect, no one else really devotes any attention to that market segment. Most of the turntables I've seen recently are either $100 bottomfeeders or $800+ audiophile models.

I'm not a vinyl purist. I keep a turntable because I have about 400 LPs and like to buy 12" singles or these collectors' reissues every now and then. Plus, there's plenty of music that will never make the transfer to digital. There are several records in my collection that sound inferior to the CD versions, and several that sound better. Typically, the older recordings that were originally released in LP format sound better than the subsequent CD transfers, especially if the transfer was done more than a decade ago. However, with newer recordings, I've not heard a lot of LPs that are superior to the CD versions. I think it has more to do with how the mastering was done than anything inherent in the formats. I've bought several 96/24 PCM discs and I've yet to touch an LP version that's superior to those discs. Is it format? Or is it because Bernie Grundman (the mastering engineer for those discs) researches out the original session notes to identify any EQ settings or processors to account for? I doubt that too many of the early CD transfers (most of which have never gotten a remastering) had that kind of care taken during the mastering process. Therefore, t's a case by case proposition IMO.

[jbangelfish]

At least the way that I see it. It is more available than it was a few years ago and at least some artists are offering their new releases in CD or LP. I don't have enough copies of both to figure out if one is doing better than the other in regard to quality. If the CD is made as well as the vinyl, most would opt for the CD, it's much easier to preserve and to deal with on the whole.
There are a lot of smaller companies producing 180g and 200g audiophile pressings but I have yet to decide if they are worth the extra money. At least in some cases, I found the original vinyl to sound better. Some of these companies are sure to be better than others and I'll just have to take note as to which ones get it right to me.
Getting a decent analog rig will cost alittle money and certainly more than a CD player that will get you by. There are also some very high priced CD players but most people seem to feel that they are not worth the added expense. $500 for a new turntable with tonearm and cartridge that is good enough to appreciate good vinyl seems reasonable when compared to other audiophile components. If you really want to get the most from it, you're going to have to spend more. It's worth it.
I've bought quite a few old pieces of vinyl lately and it's interesting to read what the various companies would print on the jacket. In 1960, Columbia had "Guarantees high fidelity" written in their logo and wrote "If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant, true to life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of it's becoming obsolete in the future". In 1963 Angel Recordings wrote "This recording will not become obsolete. Produced in accordance with the most demanding standards of engineering and manufacture, it will remain the source of excellent sound". In 1965 RCA came out with Dynagroove records and bragged about "Brilliance and Clarity, Realistic presence, Full bodied tone and surface noise being virtually eliminated, with the final test of any record in the listening" and they urge you to compare to others.
I just find it interesting what they were talking about so long ago. You can call it sales hype if you want but what better sales hype is there than producing the best product that you possibly can? What they said was no BS either, many of these recordings do in fact sound as good as anything that you can buy today and I don't see these claims on any CD's. If you are aware of any, I'd love to know. So, there must have been some point where they got everything that they could out of an LP and that seems to have happened a very long time ago.
Now, if every new release CD that came out sounded as good as well made vinyl from the 1960's or 1970's, I'd buy the CD every time. If engineering is the problem, they need to fix it but I suspect it lies deeper than that and goes into cost effectiveness etc. If I could be in charge of one of these companies, (my chance of being struck by lightning is better) I'd fire everyone from the producer down to the guy who made the popcorn during the recording session until my company figured out how to make a CD sound as good or better than a 40 year old record.
Bill

[Chas Underhay]

Rather than debate personal preferences, I would just like to concentrate on format logistics.

As far as the "mass" market is concerned, vinyl is already obsolete and has been since about 1990.

For better or worse CD is here to stay, at least for the forseeable future because of the following reasons:-
1. There are so many discs and players already in existance, most users are not audiophiles and are perfectly satisifed with the format.
2. CD lends its self to portability such as in cars, ghetto blasters etc.
3. With the advent of CDR, the format has taken over from compact cassette and could even make mini disc obsolete.

As a pure numbers game, there is probably even more vinyl in circulation than CDs and second hand, it is mostly dirt cheap to purchase. The more people cotton on to this, the more turntables they either buy or put back in to use. The more people have turntables, the more the music industry will release records on vinyl

Many formats have come and gone over the years, Reel to Reel, 8 Track, DAT, Digital Compact Cassette, Laser Disc etc.

We now have a war between 2 new formats: SACD and DVDA, it must be considered possible, that one of them will go the same way as Betamax.

As SACD sounds no better than good vinyl and if the music industry cottons on to the fact that vinyl can not be digitally cloned, it could be vinyl that makes SACD obsolete.

[Feanor]

... As SACD sounds no better than good vinyl and if the music industry cottons on to the fact that vinyl can not be digitally cloned, it could be vinyl that makes SACD obsolete.

In the first place SACD sounds better than vinyl if only because it doesn't have clicks & pops. On my crappy equipment it sounds better all 'round: granted maybe not on everybody's.

Regardless, the mass market consumer is not interested in going back to vinyl because both the medium and playback equipment are bulky and ergonomically unfriendly.

Likewise the mass market producers are not interested in going back to vinyl for a whole bunch of reasons. (Although, heck, vinyl has pretty good copy protection.)

[Chas Underhay]

In the first place SACD sounds better than vinyl if only because it doesn't have clicks & pops. On my crappy equipment it sounds better all 'round: granted maybe not on everybody's.

Regardless, the mass market consumer is not interested in going back to vinyl because both the medium and playback equipment are bulky and ergonomically unfriendly.

Likewise the mass market producers are not interested in going back to vinyl for a whole bunch of reasons. (Although, heck, vinyl has pretty good copy protection.)

Poor Feanor seems to have been upset by my closing sentence.

The Thread is:- Will SACD make vinyl obsolete?

I acknowledged that vinyl, as far as the mass market is concerned, is already obsolete.

My point is:- can SACD survive at all, with DVDA as a competitor and plain old CD totally dominating the mass market?

People will continue playing vinyl long into the future because there is so much of it out there to play. If SACD does not survive, my last sentence could come true.

[Feanor]

Poor Feanor seems to have been upset by my closing sentence. ...

I'm not saying SACD is sonically better than DVD-A -- or even vinyl. But I think SACD will survive if only because of hybid discs.

That's why DVD-A likely will go nowhere. You can put the hybrid SACD into youR Walkman and it will work, (usually). In any case SACD is gaining market momentum at an increasing rate. Soon it might overtake new vinyl sales!

But I'll admit I'm a bit of a vinylphobe: CD made vinyl obsolete for me.