Will SACD make vinyl obsolete?

[poneal]

Any comments?

[Tarheel_]

I can't speak for vinyl (see my other post) but I can say as a recent (xmas) owner of a sacd player it is superior to CD. The digital brightness is removed, but now includes more detail, a wider soundstage and more precise imaging (on my system).

[Geoffcin]

Any comments?

Vinyl was obsolete in an ergonomic sense the day they released CD's.

Sonically the debate goes on.

There is no doubt in my mind that DVD-Audio, and SACD will eventually provide the closest approximation of recorded sound available to consumers. Will that make vinyl any more obsolete now than it already is? Who knows.

One thing is for sure. They will keep pressing vinyl until people stop playing it. And my guess is that it will be a long time.

[jbangelfish]

You'd have to convince a lot of people, myself included, that SACD is actually superior to vinyl in all ways. I still would not get rid of my vinyl collection of some 4000 plus LP's even though I have made the comment that I would. It's just too much good music for me to replace in my lifetime. I would certainly welcome any CD format that truly has better sound, I just haven't heard it yet.
Most of the vinyl crowd who have heard SACD will say that it's better than RBCD and getting close to vinyl, not quite there, but easy enough on the ears to listen to. Not really a rave review. It will be interesting to see what happens but I will never get rid of my vinyl collection. Many chose to do so when CD's came out (and many regretted doing so) but I already had too much vinyl to replace with CD. When I did buy CD reprints of old vinyl, they were terrible and I'd rather hear an old scratched album which I hate.
Pristine vinyl has the ability to stun and amaze the listener. CD and SACD also has the ability but does so only on rare occaision. If they did it right all of the time, I wouldn't be looking for vinyl. I still buy vinyl often and I very rarely regret it. There is a big comeback in vinyl that is going on with more turntables available maybe than there ever was. There is also a lot of vinyl being released by both new and old artists. The reason is simple, people who buy it and enjoy it have still never heard better. We might be a relatively small group in the big picture but a large enough group to keep it going or it would be gone already. I am thankful that it's still here and doing well.
Bill

[spacedeckman]

to double blind testing, and so must just be taken as casual observations and not given the weight of actual scientific data to be used to prove a case in a court of law or scientific journal. It represents my humble opinion which will range in the readers perspective to vary from Gospel to heresy. So let it be.
(Legal Disclaimer)

SACD and DVD-A are new formats. It has taken 20 years to get CD right, and it still isn't cheap, and we are still learning. Figuring learning curve and all that, we are looking at about 5 years or so, things could get interesting. That said, SACD and DVD-A will become a fact of life within that timeframe whether you like it or not. It all has to do with licensing money. Follow the cash flow.

SACD vs Vinyl. I've spent a few hours on this. With nice analog setups and very nice SACD players. I consistently like the LPs better, but always have something complimentary to say about the SACD. That doesn't happen with CD with a VERY nice CD player.

Add to that, many of the old rock albums that were transferred to CD were done horribly. I can't listen to old Pink Floyd on CD. Even the remasters aren't very good. The vinyl I can play all day. That is another consideration that gets overlooked.

Then, I've never had someone pick CD (very nice Arcam CD72) over my Analog rig. I've had some try to argue that I had it backwards...until I pulled the CD out of the drawer.

And that's how it works in my life.

[Beckman]

I hope so. The market would be flooded by used vinyl for cheap.

I for one don't plan on buying an SACD or DVD-audio player until I get my $40,000 worth of student loans payed off.

[skeptic]

There is an undeniable hypnotic magic to watching the black disc spinning round at about one revolution every two seconds while a tonearm and cartridge visibly follow all of the wiggles and undulations of the grooves. Especially when the equipment is as visually pleasing as my Empires. The experience of playing a cd is comparatively sterile with the disc hidden in a drawer in a black box with a digital display counting up or down the seconds and minutes.

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.

[Geoffcin]

There is an undeniable hypnotic magic to watching the black disc spinning round at about one revolution every two seconds while a tonearm and cartridge visibly follow all of the wiggles and undulations of the grooves. Especially when the equipment is as visually pleasing as my Empires. The experience of playing a cd is comparatively sterile with the disc hidden in a drawer in a black box with a digital display counting up or down the seconds and minutes.

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.

Try the Shanling CD player. One of the most visually arresting CD players, and tubed to boot.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0902/shanling1d.jpg

[jbangelfish]

While I do admire a good looking or unusual looking turntable, it has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to listen to vinyl. When I have a serious listening session, I turn off the lights and usually even close my eyes. What my turntable is doing or what it looks like is the furthest thing from my mind. It's very high in a cabinet anyway and I can only see it by standing up, don't have to bend over to do the tedious labor of love like lifting the arm, cleaning the LP, etc.
I don't do these things for any reason other than the total enjoyment that I get from the sound. LP's are a pain in the arse as anyone who has them will tell you and you know it as well. You and I listen to the same speakers (although you have yours modified), I use quite a bit more power with 385wpc 4 ohm but your amp seems to drive your AR9's to your satisfaction. Our findings in LP and CD are just completely different. I will keep searching for great sounding CD's and I'll let you know when I find them.
Did you see my post elsewhere about the Tori Amos album, Under the Pink? I asked you to try it and tell me what you think of it. The version that I have is actually on pink vinyl and the sound quality is outstanding. I am offering for you to buy the CD version (or even the vinyl) and if you don't like it, I'll buy it from you. It's safe to say that you would not like every song but I'm sure that you would enjoy many of them. I listened to it and the piano and other strings sounded as natural and real as I've ever heard. Some of the songs get off to a funky start but give them a chance and many develop into beautiful music and many others are just beautiful all the way through. Play it loud and you'll enjoy some great dynamics that you like to refer to with classical music. This girl plays piano as well as anybody, has a great voice and she actually writes this stuff. Will you give it a try?
Bill

[Feanor]

There is an undeniable hypnotic magic to watching the black disc spinning round at about one revolution every two seconds while a tonearm and cartridge visibly follow all of the wiggles and undulations of the grooves. ...

... adjusting stylus weigh, angle, etc. I'm sure a lot of people derive a masochistic satisfaction from all this tedium.

Not me, though.

[DMK]

While I do admire a good looking or unusual looking turntable, it has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to listen to vinyl. When I have a serious listening session, I turn off the lights and usually even close my eyes. What my turntable is doing or what it looks like is the furthest thing from my mind. It's very high in a cabinet anyway and I can only see it by standing up, don't have to bend over to do the tedious labor of love like lifting the arm, cleaning the LP, etc.
Bill

I'm with you. It's true that bias can enter into the equation when one sees what piece of gear is playing. I think the biggest myth in audio occurs when someone reads specs and becomes enamored of them, thereby becoming biased into thinking superior specs mean superior sound. CD's just can't compete sonically so measurements are pulled out as a defense mechanism.

SACD will likely not replace the LP but it just might put the CD where it belongs - into extinction. It is clearly superior to RBCD and competes well with vinyl, even besting it in some key areas. But I have yet to hear anything short of a master tape that sounds as much like live music as the two 45 RPM LP's I own. Sadly, they are expensive and only worth it (to me) as representations of the superiority of vinyl. I don't care to spend $50 per disc even if it does sound at least twice as good as a CD. Regular vinyl at $10-12 a pop is still superior to RBCD and the ability to buy used LP's for a buck or two makes the process even more enjoyable.

[DMK]

[QUOTE=Geoffcin]Try the Shanling CD player. One of the most visually arresting CD players, and tubed to boot.

That is one beautiful CD player! Who says they all have to look cheap?

[jbangelfish]

I found a CD which I found completely enjoyable and having no digital signature that I could hear. That's about as high of a compliment as I have ever given to a CD. The title is Bach, Great Organ Works performed by Virgil Fox at both The Riverside Church in NYC (his home organ for 30 years or so and the largest organ in NYC) and also at the Royal Albert Hall in London. This is an RCA Victrola label CD, distributed by BMG in 1988 #7736-2-RV.
There is a notable hiss in the background during quiet passages which is a minor annoyance but it must come from the master tape that it was recorded from as between tracks is dead silent. Would have been nice to filter out the hiss but if any music would be lost, it would not be worth the effort as during most play, you are not aware of the hiss. Anyway, I could find nothing wrong with this CD with the pipe organ sounding exactly as it is supposed to and Mr Fox's performance is outstanding as always.
Now, if I had that Shanling, maybe it would be even better but it was good enough for me to completely enjoy with no listening fatigue. It's rare for me to find this with CD but more and more decent ones seem to be being made. And this is an old one. OK, I found one, yippeee. Still looking for some more.
Bill

[DMK]

OK, I found one, yippeee. Still looking for some more.
Bill

Bill,

I have quite a few good sounding CD's - perhaps 300 of them. Unfortunately, out of a total of about 4000 CD's, that's pretty lame. I have about the same number of vinyl pieces and all but about 100-200 sound excellent. I guess if even one CD sounds good, the medium itself isn't at fault. However, one recording engineer I know who consistently puts out top quality CD's says that to do so is a major PITA and it isn't worth it for major labels to take on that cost. He wasn't in the business during vinyl's heyday so he couldn't really answer the question of why so many of them sound so good if cost is such a factor.

The fact of the matter is that I don't care if it's the medium or the recording/mastering or the phases of the moon that cause CD's as a rule to sound distorted and lifeless. They do and until they can come out with a consistently good product, vinyl will retain its crown as the closest to live music.

[Feanor]

Any comments?

Though I haven't given away my LP collection.

SACD is even better than CD, at least typically for the recordings I've heard.

[DMK]

Though I haven't given away my LP collectio .

If you decide to do so, don't forget your pals here at AR! :)

I believe you posted that you had a rather modest analog front end. Unfortunately, it does cost a bit of money to maximize the sound of LP's, moreso than CD's. I guess I should say instead that vinyl playback gets noticeably better as your components are upgraded. That doesn't mean you can't get satisfactory sound from modest gear, though. It just means you have to add a little luck with some learning of what's good for minimal bucks. I bought an old Technics turntable from someone who used to post on AR for $75, including arm and cartridge and while it isn't nearly as good as my main setup, it toasts CD sound. Now my kids use it.

[Beckman]

If you decide to do so, don't forget your pals here at AR! :)
I bought an old Technics turntable from someone who used to post on AR for $75, including arm and cartridge and while it isn't nearly as good as my main setup, it toasts CD sound. Now my kids use it.

That is what I would have said prior to my purchase of a used Technics table for $40. It has better dynamics and sounds more "real" than my $400 CDP. Unfortunately much of the music I like to listen to isn't available on vinyl and my CDP does make CD's sound quite good.

[Feanor]

... That doesn't mean you can't get satisfactory sound from modest gear, though. It just means you have to add a little luck with some learning of what's good for minimal bucks. I bought an old Technics turntable from someone who used to post on AR for $75, including arm and cartridge and while it isn't nearly as good as my main setup, it toasts CD sound. Now my kids use it.

By the way my vinyl playback is this: Realistic LAB-2220 linear tracking turntable (c.1993) & Grado Prestige Red cartridge. The former has noticable flutter if not played for a few weeks (!?) but is otherwise tolerable.

That is, # CCS-7001, and I listened to the J.S. Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in D Minor, (BWV 565, not that Crystal mentioned the fact). I have no direct comparison obviously, but I listened to the only other recording I have of the work, Peter Hurford on Argo, 411 824-2, recorded 1979 and released on CD (and bought by me) in 1984.

Which did I like better? Well, um, the Virgil Fox on LP. Overall a richer sound -- also Fox gave a more romantic performance than Hurford's which was "gothic" let's say. But was the sound better because of the medium?

I couldn't say so. The warmth might very well have come from the recording venue, (Garden Grove Community Church, Garden Grove, CA <i>versus</i> Ratzeburg Cathedral), or from the sound engineers. Bottom line for me based on this limited trial: not compelling reason to invest scarce $$ in new vinyl payback.

[DMK]

That is what I would have said prior to my purchase of a used Technics table for $40. It has better dynamics and sounds more "real" than my $400 CDP. Unfortunately much of the music I like to listen to isn't available on vinyl and my CDP does make CD's sound quite good.

That's the primary difference between the two mediums - one sounds "good" and one sounds "more real". You hit the nail on the head! My thoughts exactly.

[DMK]

By the way my vinyl playback is this: Realistic LAB-2220 linear tracking turntable (c.1993) & Grado Prestige Red cartridge. The former has noticable flutter if not played for a few weeks (!?) but is otherwise tolerable.

Perhaps instead of purchasing a new 'table, you may want to get the Realistic to a repair shop. Flutter isn't a good thing and will certainly skew your results.

I wouldn't expect anyone to invest money based on just a few trials. But it appears that you are "getting" vinyl sound - harmonically rich and live sounding. But if the differences aren't worth it to you, I respect that. Whatever you decide, enjoy the music.

[jbangelfish]

I had a Yamaha linear track tt which was a fairly high priced unit in it's day compared to what else was out there. While it wasn't bad, it wasn't as good as some other very basic and inexpensive manual belt drives. Too much mechanical junk for me and all that stuff makes noise and resonance. If it could be done correctly, it should track better than anything and get the most of an LP but I think you'd have to spend a lot of money to find such a rig. There are some very expensive tt's made in linear track and I'm sure they perform well but most of us won't be buying them as they just cost too much. I also don't understand how you could make the mechanical devices that would allow for perfect tracking any better than gravity and simply following the groove. If you feel that linear tracking is important due to allignment or something, try listening to an album and tell me how much better it sounds at the beginning, the middle or the end. The difference is so minimal that it gets no mention anywhere that I've seen.
Any Virgil Fox recordings that I have seem to be very high quality and I would expect them to be so. I think he may be the best organist to ever play the instrument. It is like an extension of himself and his recordings are better than any other organ music that I have. I posted elsewhere that I was even perfectly happy with a CD of his and that is rare for me. I intend to buy others that I find but I'm also buying all of the vinyl of his that I can find if it is mint.
In my search for Virgil Fox recordings, I read that he made the first digital recording in the US in 1977. It appeared that they were saying this was the first digital recording in the US by anyone. Does anyone know if this would be the case? Doesn't really matter, I just thought that it was interesting. Mr Fox became quite popular in the 70's with many live performances around the world and sometimes having a light show which brought some younger people to hear Bach and some of the other classics in a way that they had never heard it or cared to hear it before. Heavy Organ is one of the album titles and that rather says it all.
It was like a rock concert in many ways with the light show and very loud pipe organ playing Bach. I don't think anyone ever did it better.
Bill

[Feanor]

[QUOTE=DMK]Perhaps instead of purchasing a new 'table, you may want to get the Realistic to a repair shop. Flutter isn't a good thing and will certainly skew your results. ...QUOTE]

I won't spend on dime on the Realistic; (for one thing I don't trust Radio Shack Canada to do the job right). But I have another option.

Sitting on dusty shelf I have French-made ERA Mk 4 turn table that worked fine last time I used it 10 years ago. With it I have a Grace 707 tonearm which needs a minor repair; one of the four leads to the cardridge connecting pins is fell off and is missing. I imagine this won't be a difficult or costly repair. I might need a new cartridge though, because the Grado on the Realistic is a 'P' mount.

Do you suppose this combo would be worth fixing it?

[Feanor]

... Any Virgil Fox recordings that I have seem to be very high quality and I would expect them to be so. ...

... was made "direct to disc".

[jbangelfish]

If it has a Grace arm, it's probably a few shakes better than the Realistic linear. It's quite possible that it would sound very good, many European models did and do perform well. See if you can fix it and give it a try. I used an old Pioneer PL12D belt drive, pure manual (hate semis and autos) and with a Shure V15 MM, series 3, it sounded quite good. This was a long time ago but the tt still worked up until a few months ago with my son using it. Good enough to give you a taste of what vinyl can offer. Your French tt would probably be even better. I bought an NOS Grado cartridge on ebay for $100 as a backup and it was well worth it. There may be other bargains around that price. Look for separation of 25 or better and a range of better than 20hz to 20khz and you should have a decent start.
Bill

[Feanor]

If it has a Grace arm, it's probably a few shakes better than the Realistic linear. It's quite possible that it would sound very good, many European models did and do perform well. See if you can fix it and give it a try. ...Bill

I'll try to get around to it. The Grace has every sort of adjustment that's imaginable, hence is a huge pain in the butt to set up. Maybe my tech will fix the missing connection and set it up too.

[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]

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[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 (http://www.live365.com/)). see what theyve been playing by going HERE:

http://64.78.57.99/playlist_dspjanmar/index.asp?dt=1/14/2004 (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. ...
:o 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! :D

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

[Chas Underhay]

I'm sure that SACD is a fine format. My only scepticism is based upon the mass market's willingness to welcome it sufficiently for it to be viable for the music industry to produce it long term.

At one time, there was the 78 record only, the music buying public had no alternative. (I know that reel to reel tape existed but to my knowledge pre-recorded tapes were not generally availability.)

Round about the 1950s, the LP was introduced, this appealed to the public as it had the advantage of holding, probably, 5 times the ammount of music on the same sized record. The industry made it easy for the public to accept the LP by producing record players (for better or for worse) that played all speeds and had a flip over stylus, one side for their old 78s and one side for their new LPs. The LP along with its little brother, the single, continued unchallenged as the only carrier for pre-recorded music untill the mid 1970s.

As you rightly say, one problem with vinyl is portability and this gave rise to the highly popular compact cassette tape (forget the fasle start for the now long defunct 8 track tape). At the time this was considered to be wonderful, the mass market, at last, had a truly portable format and also you could record your favorite records to play in your car, marvelous.

When CD emerged in the mid 1980s, vinyl was still the main music carrier but it did not take long for the mass market to totally adopt CD. Don't forget though, that the mass market were not using good quality turntables, they simply compared cheap and nasty CD players with their existing, equally cheap and nasty record players and with the added convenience, CD won, big time. By 1990 the LP seemed to be as good as dead.

Compact cassette continued on, partly as portable CD players (in car etc) weren't available and obviously, you could not then record onto CD. (Remember though, the false starts at that time for DAT and digital compact cassette.)

With the advent of CDR compact cassette died, this effectively gave the complete mass music market to CD.

The other format which emerged at around that time, was DVD video, ok I know it was probably originally intended for films but it lends itself perfectly to live performances of anything from rock gigs to opera, and it could be argued that, for example, being able to watch Freddie Mercury strut around between your speakers beats just listening to Queen, no matter what the format, and that is a big advantage for many people over CD.

Vinyl still has a small but re-growing following, this is based partly budding DJs and partly old hands with substancial existing vinyl collections who still buy new vinyl when available.

I realise that SACD players also play CD and that the CD layer of an SACD should play in a CD player but the question I ask is, does SACD offer sufficient advantage over CD to a sufficient number of people for it to sell in sufficient numbers to survive?

It will be good if it does and then I'll buy an SACD player as well, because I never thought CD had high enough resolution to reproduce a full orchestra but I'll be using it as well as my turntable, not in stead of, even if SACD is better. The reason? already got about 2000 LPs from Purcell to U2, many of which belong to Her Indoors.

[DMK]

.

I realise that SACD players also play CD and that the CD layer of an SACD should play in a CD player but the question I ask is, does SACD offer sufficient advantage over CD to a sufficient number of people for it to sell in sufficient numbers to survive?

.

The bigger question is - will the mass market perceive SACD to offer sufficient advantage over CD? I doubt it. The mass market is what drove CD to take over the market when it clearly is inferior to vinyl. The mass market isn't concerned with subtleties of sound, or creating the live experience in their homes. They are concerned with convenience, such as not having to clean the discs and having shuffle play and the ability to skip tracks easily and; they are concerned with portability. Those things already exist with RBCD and the added depth, dimension, accuracy and resolution of SACD will be lost on them. It will also be lost on that segment of the audiophile community that doesn't pay attention to sonic differences except to assume they are imagined. They only read specs to tell them what sounds good and, for them, RBCD is enough. SACD's only prayer is that it has the ability to play in multichannels and it can be copy protected.

The mass market already turned its back on THE high resolution medium - vinyl. It's funny because I find that people STILL compare a clean CD played on a decent player to a beat to crap LP played on the equivalent of a Sears Close-N-Play and then proclaim CD to be superior. I've yet to find the person that has a state of the art system in both analog and digital that believes CD to be superior... or even halfway to state of the art. Those who choose not to maximize the ability of vinyl by way of their equipment often prefer CD but I take their opinion with several kilos of salt. How could they know which is better if they don't seek the truth? But since you're fairly new here, it may surprise you that lack of knowledge doesn't stop many of our regular posters from having an opinion. Thankfully, most of them don't spend much time at the Analog Room.

[Feanor]

The bigger question is - will the mass market perceive SACD to offer sufficient advantage over CD? I doubt it.
...
The mass market already turned its back on THE high resolution medium - vinyl. It's funny because I find that people STILL compare a clean CD played on a decent player to a beat to crap LP played on the equivalent of a Sears Close-N-Play and then proclaim CD to be superior. ...
Most of the mass market are happy with 96 bps MP3, so I too doubt that most will care about superiority of SACD to CD. But some will, so perhaps enough will by hybrid SACDs that recording companies will spend the extra to produce most new "CDs" this way. I'm not prophesying, but I think SACD has a good chance.

Yes, you guessed it. My vinyl playback isn't even half way to state of the art, and as a consequence of that, maybe, I don't consistently hear the superiority of vinyl over CD. Or maybe it's my aged ears, though I was listening years before CD was conceived. I don't proclaim that CD is better (other than in the obvious ways), just that I don't hear enough of the advantage of vinyl for it to matter to me.

No, I don't care about the truth enough on the vinyl vs. CD issue to spend $1000+ just to find out. However my $200 Sony CE775 is enough to convince me that SACDs -- in general -- sound better than CDs.

[jbangelfish]

Didn't you have a French tt that needed a minor repair? If you have any LP's that are in good enough shape to appreciate, you should be able to hear at least some of what we vinyl nuts rave about. You might need to spend $100 or so to get a decent cartridge but it might be worth it. If your album collection is too beat up, it may not be worth your while. Scratched LP's will sound like crap even if you have a 50k rig. I admit that it would cost several thousand dollars to match my turntable, cartridge, tonearm and phono stage if you bought all new. I spent $1800 (plus a few 100 more on NOS vintage tubes) or so used so it isn't cheap to put together a fine analog system. I have no regrets as the sound is very rewarding. You can appreciate it for much less but $500 might be about the bare minimum to get good results.
Anyway, since it appears that most of the world is perfectly happy with RBCD, then if SACD is here to stay, it may just fill a niche market as audiophile grade vinyl does. It appears that the average home stereo or average listener does not pay enough attention to the details of music to make a difference. It has been pointed out numerous times that even RBCD is capable of sounding perfectly acceptable and maybe even perfect in every way. The recording process seems to miss the boat all too often for whatever reason, probably due to cost and a general acceptance no matter what they turn out. How much better SACD is than very well made RBCD, I don't know as I have not heard it yet but the unfortunate thing in my mind is that not enough buyers care enough to get the message to the CD makers to get it right all the time. It must not be cost effective for them to do so
but this is a sorry excuse if you ask me.
I still like the approach that recording companies took 30 years ago and for that matter all the way back to the beginning of recording. They did their absolute best to produce a quality product (in most cases) and were only limited by the technology of the day which seems to have found near perfection to occur as far back as the 40's or 50's for master tapes and they figured out how to perfectly transfer to vinyl somewhere in the 60's and 70's. When they achieve this with RBCD, SACD or any media, whatever it is should be here to stay. If not one of these two, then probably some even better digital medium will drive them both into obsoletion. At least in the same sense as vinyl is obsolete, not gone, just obsolete. Joe average won't care and will buy it no matter what so it's up to kooks like us to ask them to do it right and JA will just tag along for the ride.
Bill

[Chas Underhay]

Scratched LP's will sound like crap even if you have a 50k rig. I admit that it would cost several thousand dollars to match my turntable, cartridge, tonearm and phono stage if you bought all new. I spent $1800 (plus a few 100 more on NOS vintage tubes) or so used so it isn't cheap to put together a fine analog system. I have no regrets as the sound is very rewarding. You can appreciate it for much less but $500 might be about the bare minimum to get good results.

I don't disagree but decent equipment can help minimise surface noise and minor scratches

Her Indoors treated me to an Ortofon Kontrapunct b for Christmas and this really does help, I have got LPs from the dim and distant past, many of which have been played on equipment that should have been handed in to the nearest police station.

After installing the new cartridge and playing some good LPs I was feeling very pleased with what Santa had brought. I eventually dug out one of my knackered but at one time favorite ones; Super Session, Al Kooper, Steve Stills etc c 1970, remember it? and guess what, it was nothing like as knackered as it sounded the last time I played it and that wasn't that long ago. It was as like the stylus riding on virgin vinyl that my lesser cartridges had never touched before.

Whilst, I agree nothing can totally eliminate damage and wear, this cartridge has given my collection a new lease of life.

To me the argument for vinyl vs digital is more fundamental than just sound quality, I grew up with vinyl and many of my LPs are part of my life history. I will not stop playing them no matter what present or future technology brings.

[Chas Underhay]

Scratched LP's will sound like crap even if you have a 50k rig. I admit that it would cost several thousand dollars to match my turntable, cartridge, tonearm and phono stage if you bought all new. I spent $1800 (plus a few 100 more on NOS vintage tubes) or so used so it isn't cheap to put together a fine analog system. I have no regrets as the sound is very rewarding. You can appreciate it for much less but $500 might be about the bare minimum to get good results.

Sorry the first para of my previous posting was intended to be a quotation from the posting by jbanglefish

[jbangelfish]

You can minimize surface noise to some degree but I guess I'm talking about severely abused LP's that are just unlistenable for me and I have a few of them. For some reason, my cartridge is able to bring out more music and hide more noise than others that I have used before and as you say, I'm able to enjoy some that before, I could not. Maybe it's because it's a low output MC or maybe it's because the stylus is a line contact type and reaches farther into the groove, I don't know. The part about reaching farther down into the groove is a definate improvement and I've said more than once that I hear more from my vinyl than ever before. This is good.
Santa was very good to you. The Kontrapunkt b is certainly a fine present. I don't think I have the Al Kooper LP that you are talking about but have at least some of his work, haven't heard it in quite some time. Of course I have Stills on many LP's in various groups, just don't remember this one.
Bill

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

If I didn't know you guys were serious about this topic it would be laughable. If anyone thinks that vinyl sounds better than SACD, they need a VERY strong drink. Human ears love distortion. That is why there is vinyl and stereo. Both distort the recorded signal profoundly. I do not know any vinyl setup with a linear flat frequency response to 20khz. I do not know of any vinyl setup that is free of noise,distortion, wow and flutter. Even the big buck TT have measured noise and wow and flutter. This is as bad as digital jitter.

Vinyl will alway be around as long as delusional people exist(DJ's excluded as they have a reason to buy vinyl, and sound quality is not an issue). Different strokes for different folks I always say.

[DMK]

If I didn't know you guys were serious about this topic it would be laughable. If anyone thinks that vinyl sounds better than SACD, they need a VERY strong drink. Human ears love distortion. That is why there is vinyl and stereo. Both distort the recorded signal profoundly. I do not know any vinyl setup with a linear flat frequency response to 20khz. I do not know of any vinyl setup that is free of noise,distortion, wow and flutter. Even the big buck TT have measured noise and wow and flutter. This is as bad as digital jitter.

Vinyl will alway be around as long as delusional people exist(DJ's excluded as they have a reason to buy vinyl, and sound quality is not an issue). Different strokes for different folks I always say.

Sir Terrence the Terrible!!!! To post such garbage on the Analog Room site elevates you to this prestigious award! Well done, sir! Now that you've had your fun, it's ok to go back to your distorted CD's and enjoy! No need to stop back by again - you've certainly put us in our place and we have been duly humbled by your measurements which as we know ALWAYS correlate to better sound... hahahahahaha... oops, I mean er... yes, indeed! Bye now!

[DMK]

Scratched LP's will sound like crap even if you have a 50k rig. I admit that it would cost several thousand dollars to match my turntable, cartridge, tonearm and phono stage if you bought all new. I spent $1800 (plus a few 100 more on NOS vintage tubes) or so used so it isn't cheap to put together a fine analog system. I have no regrets as the sound is very rewarding. You can appreciate it for much less but $500 might be about the bare minimum to get good results.

I don't disagree but decent equipment can help minimise surface noise and minor scratches

Her Indoors treated me to an Ortofon Kontrapunct b for Christmas and this really does help, I have got LPs from the dim and distant past, many of which have been played on equipment that should have been handed in to the nearest police station.

After installing the new cartridge and playing some good LPs I was feeling very pleased with what Santa had brought. I eventually dug out one of my knackered but at one time favorite ones; Super Session, Al Kooper, Steve Stills etc c 1970, remember it? and guess what, it was nothing like as knackered as it sounded the last time I played it and that wasn't that long ago. It was as like the stylus riding on virgin vinyl that my lesser cartridges had never touched before.

Whilst, I agree nothing can totally eliminate damage and wear, this cartridge has given my collection a new lease of life.

To me the argument for vinyl vs digital is more fundamental than just sound quality, I grew up with vinyl and many of my LPs are part of my life history. I will not stop playing them no matter what present or future technology brings.

I just bought myself a Kontrapunkt B a few months ago to replace a Benz Glider and it was one of those times where the couple of hundred bucks extra was repaid several-fold. It's a great cartridge. Too bad I had to buy it myself! :) And your correct, surface noise is minimized while detail is maximized. I've heard great cartridges before but they always cost upwards of twice the B. I'm a very happy camper.

[Woochifer]

Sir Terrence the Terrible!!!! To post such garbage on the Analog Room site elevates you to this prestigious award! Well done, sir! Now that you've had your fun, it's ok to go back to your distorted CD's and enjoy! No need to stop back by again - you've certainly put us in our place and we have been duly humbled by your measurements which as we know ALWAYS correlate to better sound... hahahahahaha... oops, I mean er... yes, indeed! Bye now!

Well, before you spout off on Terrence, you really should know that he's one of the few people on this board who knows what original studio masters sound like, and how transparent the various formats are to the original source. The problem with using vinyl records as the basis for an argument about perceived flaws that are format based, is that nobody except somebody who works in a studio environment with access to studio masters or board feeds knows what a source is supposed to sound like.

You're welcome to extol a preference for vinyl, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a representation of what the full potential of a specific recording is. Granted, there are plenty of vinyl records in my collection that sound better than their CD counterparts, but is that more a reflection of superior vinyl mastering technique and flawed CD transferring, than something inherently format based? Based on my comparisons between the 96/24 PCM discs that I own (which were carefully transferred by Bernie Grundman, and often supervised by the original production team) and the vinyl versions of those particular albums, I've yet to find a vinyl version that's audibly superior to the high res PCM disc. So, that would indicate that there is some other variable that's not entirely format based.

[hifitommy]

being familiar with master tapes doesnt qualify one to be a jerk. or maybe in this case it does. i am familiar with live music, and vinyl reproduction gives me more of the cues that suggest the real thing than does rbcd.

you can blab on about the ear loving distortions all you want, its meaning less, just as the remixmastering (TM) just for vinyl only or whichever format youre trying to put down at the moment, is.

fyi, tonite i put on the NEW al green vinyl i just received, and it sounds closed in. some remixmastering (TM) job! i am considering sending it back, and i LIKE the music! it just sounds like it were recorded in a closet.

it sounds less good than the tori amos but the tori music isnt that good imho. maybe i have to listen more to that. suzanne vega does a lot more for me.

sacd is good but the jury is still out whether or not its better than vinyl. with more original dsd recordings, we will find out. the reissues dont prove it yet.

[rb122]

Well, before you spout off on Terrence, you really should know that he's one of the few people on this board who knows what original studio masters sound like, and how transparent the various formats are to the original source. The problem with using vinyl records as the basis for an argument about perceived flaws that are format based, is that nobody except somebody who works in a studio environment with access to studio masters or board feeds knows what a source is supposed to sound like.

You're welcome to extol a preference for vinyl, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a representation of what the full potential of a specific recording is. Granted, there are plenty of vinyl records in my collection that sound better than their CD counterparts, but is that more a reflection of superior vinyl mastering technique and flawed CD transferring, than something inherently format based? Based on my comparisons between the 96/24 PCM discs that I own (which were carefully transferred by Bernie Grundman, and often supervised by the original production team) and the vinyl versions of those particular albums, I've yet to find a vinyl version that's audibly superior to the high res PCM disc. So, that would indicate that there is some other variable that's not entirely format based.

I don't think we have reached the "full potential of a specific recording" and even if we have, the best don't come close enough to the real thing. I'm not too familiar with high resolution digital at this point, having heard only a few, so I can't say what is superior and what isn't. But I'm going to parrot Hifitommy's point that even if Sir Terrence has a lot of experience with master tapes (and how do you know this, anyway?), that doesn't qualify him to go "Skeptic" on us. The human ears love distortion? These two don't! These two love whatever format gets them closest to the sound of live music. So far, that's vinyl. Perhaps SACD will beat vinyl - I guess we'll find out.

[Chas Underhay]

I don't think I have the Al Kooper LP that you are talking about but have at least some of his work, haven't heard it in quite some time. Of course I have Stills on many LP's in various groups, just don't remember this one.
Bill

Hi Bill

Super Session was recorded in 1968 and it's on the CBS lable. It features Mike Bloomfield with Al Kooper on side 1 and Steve Stills with Al Kooper on side 2. It contains blues classics such as Alberts Shuffle and Really plus a few other good non-blues tracks.

Reference to this album was made, both in the opening speech and the sleeve notes on:- The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, recorded in September 1968, also on CBS.

"Sir Terrance" should realise that no matter how good SACD players might be, there are a lot of people out there with substancial collections of historic music on vinyl who try to get "best possible" (within sensible reason) out of it.

So in closing, I would suggest that if the above two classic albums are not yet available on SACD. then it's "off with his head" and he wouldn't be the first cavalier that went that way.

All the best

Chas

[jbangelfish]

If I didn't know you guys were serious about this topic it would be laughable. If anyone thinks that vinyl sounds better than SACD, they need a VERY strong drink. Human ears love distortion. That is why there is vinyl and stereo. Both distort the recorded signal profoundly. I do not know any vinyl setup with a linear flat frequency response to 20khz. I do not know of any vinyl setup that is free of noise,distortion, wow and flutter. Even the big buck TT have measured noise and wow and flutter. This is as bad as digital jitter.

Vinyl will alway be around as long as delusional people exist(DJ's excluded as they have a reason to buy vinyl, and sound quality is not an issue). Different strokes for different folks I always say.
Sir Terrence:
In what capacity are you involved in the recording process? Are you responsible for any of the bad CD's in my collection? If so, I would have fired you and anyone else who was involved in the process. OTOH, if you were solely involved in making any of the ones that are very good, then I have the utmost respect for you.
Yes, there is w&f with a turntable but I can't hear it on any of the rigs that I have owned. I've always wondered at what point it becomes audible. CD players seem to run very steadily without audible distortion from jitter or w&f or whatever you'd like to call it. The problem with many CD's is the distortion of the natural sound of instruments which occurs all too often. When it's done right, it's as good as anything and the clean background is pleasant.
SACD seems to be doing a better job for whatever reason. If you are in any way responsible, thanks. But, if you are responsible for the distortions that we have all heard and fail to get it right, shame on you.
Bill

[jbangelfish]

being familiar with master tapes doesnt qualify one to be a jerk. or maybe in this case it does. i am familiar with live music, and vinyl reproduction gives me more of the cues that suggest the real thing than does rbcd.

you can blab on about the ear loving distortions all you want, its meaning less, just as the remixmastering (TM) just for vinyl only or whichever format youre trying to put down at the moment, is.

fyi, tonite i put on the NEW al green vinyl i just received, and it sounds closed in. some remixmastering (TM) job! i am considering sending it back, and i LIKE the music! it just sounds like it were recorded in a closet.

it sounds less good than the tori amos but the tori music isnt that good imho. maybe i have to listen more to that. suzanne vega does a lot more for me.

sacd is good but the jury is still out whether or not its better than vinyl. with more original dsd recordings, we will find out. the reissues dont prove it yet.
I know someone who often has access to master tapes and when he can't listen to them, he listens to vinyl. I guess that distortion that he gets from it sounds the most like the master tapes, go figure. It's been pointed out here and at AA that when a CD has an audible hiss, often, it will be a better quality recording than one with a dead silent background. It appears that CD will often clean up a recording and miss some of the music along with it. I have found the same.
Sorry, it seems you don't care for the Tori Amos vinyl as much as I thought you might. I played it for my jazz loving buddy and he didn't care much for it either. He at least thought that it was a great recording and I do too. I enjoy almost all of the music on it and think her piano skills are outstanding. It's different but I do enjoy it.
It does seem that some new vinyl is not as good as most old vinyl, goes back to the same old thing, engineering, paying attention to detail or whatever. I posted earlier about a 180 gram "Tea For The Tillerman" (Universal, digital master) that just doesn't sound right. Over 30 bucks, had to wait for it and was disappointed. Even the hole is drilled off center. If I want to hear this LP, I now play my original which is over 30 years old and still sounds great.
I hope we're not heading into an era where nobody cares to make recordings sound as good as they did 40 years ago. It is quite evident that a great deal of effort went into the making of vinyl recordings (not always) and they seemed to take great pride in producing the best product that they were able to. This all too often does not seem to be the case any more. The ironic thing to me is that in the 60's and 70's very few people had a stereo that was good enough to even appreciate what was being produced. Now, a much higher percentage of people own better quality equipment and the quality of recordings seems to be significantly lower (often, not always).
Bill

[Feanor]

Didn't you have a French tt that needed a minor repair? If you have any LP's that are in good enough shape to appreciate, you should be able to hear at least some of what we vinyl nuts rave about ... Bill
Actually, it's not my ERA TT that's the problem. It's my Grace 707 tonearm that needs a new cartridge pin connector plus a new cartridge -- not sure what cartridge, though, on a budget of US$150 or so.

I hope to get around to these things because my smalll vinyl collection is in very good shape, in fact.

[jbangelfish]

I don't know about replacing a pin, sounds like a tech job. You might ask the question over on Audio Asylum. Tommy or some others should be able to put you onto the best cartridge in your price range. I think AT makes some decent ones around $100 or a little over. Let us know when you get it going and what you think. I believe the Grace arm is a pretty good one.
Bill

[Chas Underhay]

I just bought myself a Kontrapunkt B a few months ago to replace a Benz Glider and it was one of those times where the couple of hundred bucks extra was repaid several-fold. It's a great cartridge. Too bad I had to buy it myself! :) And your correct, surface noise is minimized while detail is maximized. I've heard great cartridges before but they always cost upwards of twice the B. I'm a very happy camper.

Hi DMK

It's nice to know that I am not just imagining it.

Don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods but in the UK it's very difficult to audition this type kit, SACD players yes (if you are that way inclined), but here, you have to try to do your homework then take the plunge and hope for the best.

Oh and by the way, don't be too put out by having to pay for yours yourself, I had to spend even more in a jewlers shop by way of compensation but that's life.

All the best

Chas

[Chas Underhay]

Actually, it's not my ERA TT that's the problem. It's my Grace 707 tonearm that needs a new cartridge pin connector plus a new cartridge -- not sure what cartridge, though, on a budget of US$150 or so.

I hope to get around to these things because my smalll vinyl collection is in very good shape, in fact.

Good man Feanor

Can't help you much on the cartridge pin, I'm sure others over your side of the pond can but I would add that once you are up and running again, you should be able enhance your vinyl collection very, very cheaply.

All the best

Chas

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I don't think we have reached the "full potential of a specific recording" and even if we have, the best don't come close enough to the real thing. I'm not too familiar with high resolution digital at this point, having heard only a few, so I can't say what is superior and what isn't. But I'm going to parrot Hifitommy's point that even if Sir Terrence has a lot of experience with master tapes (and how do you know this, anyway?), that doesn't qualify him to go "Skeptic" on us. The human ears love distortion? These two don't! These two love whatever format gets them closest to the sound of live music. So far, that's vinyl. Perhaps SACD will beat vinyl - I guess we'll find out.

[QUOTE]being familiar with master tapes doesnt qualify one to be a jerk. or maybe in this case it does. i am familiar with live music, and vinyl reproduction gives me more of the cues that suggest the real thing than does rbcd.[\QUOTE]

Its okay if you call me a jerk, it wouldn't be the first time on these boards this has happened. Nobody likes someone else to challenge a format that one has grown to really like. I understand that completely. But let's be realistic, even with a mega buck TT and the best pressing and mastereing, the format has inherent problems that cannot be overcome with even the best of these things. Working with vinyl is much like working with video tape. Once you play it once, the deterioration and degredation begins and its down hill from there. Expensive cartridges and cleaners are no help at all. Any medium where the reproduction device touches the media is prone to this. That is just reality.

Chas, just because what is on vinyl is not on SACD means nothing. When talking audio sound QUALITY rules not media QUANTITY. Sometimes the best possible is not good enough.

RB,

It matters none the least to me whether you believe what I do for living is true. I just don't care. It is a fact that some humans(and I repeat again, lovers of vinyl records and stereo sound are amoung these humans)love distortion. If you like any of these two, you LOVE distortion, whether it be the distortion of the spatial cues, or distortion of the signal. Some humans really love the roll off characterstics of the vinyl medium, and whenever a full frequency recording is presented to them, they find it bright sounding. We get used to what we like, flaws and all.
I have never been a big fan of redbook CD, however I am a HUGE fan of multichannel DVD-A AND SACD because they come the closest to recreating a live event. Two channel vinyl(or CD) fail meserably in this area because by shear fomat design they misplace spatial cues, and have problems with handling the harmonics of cymbal crashes(which have huge amounts of energy to 40khz) and percussive transients of drums, piano's chimes and glocks. Anytime a format rolls off the highest frequencies, it will have a horrible time with the leading edge of transients.

On two occasions in the last year I have had the opportunity to compare the outputs of DVD-A, SACD, the mixing desk versus the live performer simultaneously using a ABX comparorator(switching device). 90% of the time I couldn't tell which was which. Try that with the vinyl format and it won't even be close.

In my twenty years of recording audio I have gotten the chance to compare my master tapes to first vinyl pressing, and the first lot of the duplication process of the CD's. The vinyl record sounded fine between 50hz and 4khz. But below and above that it betrayed itself. The CD sound fine until about 7khz, and then I noticed a closing in, and loss of air. Neither IMO were good for high frequency harmonics of some instruments which makes them both not in the same class as DVD-A and SACD whose response can extend to 50khz and above. So I say in the words of Chas"off with THEIR heads!"

RB, if you are REALLY interested in hearing what is closer to the live performance then vinyl should not be your medium of choice. If you are interested in keeping a vast library of vinyl discs in rotation, that's a different story. But if you HONESTLY BELIEVE the vinyl two channel format is the most accurate representation of a live event, you are just fooling yourself. Its really easy to dismiss and relegate the truth as "GARBAGE on an analog forum",

I would also in the future take a good look at the reproduction chain of your system(especially speakers and room acoustics), because sometimes the software is not the problem, the hardware is. Alot of vinyl lovers tend to spend copious amounts of money on there system(which is a small part of the reproduction equation) and spend no money on the acoustics of the room(which is a HUGE part of the reproduction chain). I am not trying to offend anyone, but trying to inject a little reality into this vinyl lovefest.

[rb122]

[QUOTE=jbangelfish]
Yes, there is w&f with a turntable but I can't hear it on any of the rigs that I have owned. I've always wondered at what point it becomes audible. /QUOTE]

I've found that audibility isn't the issue with those that cite specifications when arguing digital over analog, particularly those people who do so on this board. They seem to believe that if it's measurable, it must be some distortion causing byproduct. I feel that if something isn't audible, it's a non-issue.

The best test for wow and flutter is sustained piano notes. I have heard these notes change pitch on cheap Sony and Pioneer turntables but never on my VPI. As a result, it's a non-issue but measurement hounds do enjoy bringing it up anyway. I wonder which cheap turntable they used to listen to... and how dirty their records were? Granted, there are inherent problems with vinyl playback. However, most of them can be mitigated through proper gear and meticulous record cleaning and most of them pale in comparison to the distortions I hear in CD's. As Sir Terrence said, to each his own. I prefer the sound of live music. When I don't have that, I resort to the next best thing which is vinyl. SACD may change my mind on that.

[rb122]

[QUOTE]being familiar with master tapes doesnt qualify one to be a jerk. or maybe in this case it does. i am familiar with live music, and vinyl reproduction gives me more of the cues that suggest the real thing than does rbcd.[\QUOTE]


RB,

It matters none the least to me whether you believe what I do for living is true. I just don't care. It is a fact that some humans(and I repeat again, lovers of vinyl records and stereo sound are amoung these humans)love distortion. If you like any of these two, you LOVE distortion, whether it be the distortion of the spatial cues, or distortion of the signal. Some humans really love the roll off characterstics of the vinyl medium, and whenever a full frequency recording is presented to them, they find it bright sounding. We get used to what we like, flaws and all.
I have never been a big fan of redbook CD, however I am a HUGE fan of multichannel DVD-A AND SACD because they come the closest to recreating a live event. Two channel vinyl(or CD) fail meserably in this area because by shear fomat design they misplace spatial cues, and have problems with handling the harmonics of cymbal crashes(which have huge amounts of energy to 40khz) and percussive transients of drums, piano's chimes and glocks. Anytime a format rolls off the highest frequencies, it will have a horrible time with the leading edge of transients.

On two occasions in the last year I have had the opportunity to compare the outputs of DVD-A, SACD, the mixing desk versus the live performer simultaneously using a ABX comparorator(switching device). 90% of the time I couldn't tell which was which. Try that with the vinyl format and it won't even be close.

In my twenty years of recording audio I have gotten the chance to compare my master tapes to first vinyl pressing, and the first lot of the duplication process of the CD's. The vinyl record sounded fine between 50hz and 4khz. But below and above that it betrayed itself. The CD sound fine until about 7khz, and then I noticed a closing in, and loss of air. Neither IMO were good for high frequency harmonics of some instruments which makes them both not in the same class as DVD-A and SACD whose response can extend to 50khz and above. So I say in the words of Chas"off with THEIR heads!"

RB, if you are REALLY interested in hearing what is closer to the live performance then vinyl should not be your medium of choice. If you are interested in keeping a vast library of vinyl discs in rotation, that's a different story. But if you HONESTLY BELIEVE the vinyl two channel format is the most accurate representation of a live event, you are just fooling yourself. Its really easy to dismiss and relegate the truth as "GARBAGE on an analog forum",

I would also in the future take a good look at the reproduction chain of your system(especially speakers and room acoustics), because sometimes the software is not the problem, the hardware is. Alot of vinyl lovers tend to spend copious amounts of money on there system(which is a small part of the reproduction equation) and spend no money on the acoustics of the room(which is a HUGE part of the reproduction chain). I am not trying to offend anyone, but trying to inject a little reality into this vinyl lovefest.

Actually, it doesn't matter to me if you are who you say you are or if you aren't. It also doesn't matter to me if I believe you or not. I'm not saying I didn't, in all honesty. But there seems to be a bit of truth bending on A/R about people's resumes and such. That was never really the point, however. The point is you can challenge us if you must but we were simply responding in kind.

I've posted here recently on this very thread that I have no real experience with SACD or DVD-A so I can't comment. My comparisons are solely between vinyl, redbook CD and the music I hear and/or perform almost nightly - at least it SEEMS nightly. I'm considering taking some time off from performing. I need the rest! Anyway, the only direct comparisons I've been able to do is vinyl against redbook CD. I've also stated that the problems I associate with rbcd may very well be NOT inherent in the medium. When I compare the two, I'm comparing the final product against the final product which is the LP vs the CD and not the mechanics. At least 95% of the time, the vinyl is musically satisfying and the CD is not. I don't find CD's "bright" all the time - in fact, I find their biggest problems to be in the lower treble/upper midrange and the problems are largely of tonal imbalance. If that's the recording/mastering, fine. It still makes for a poor sounding product whereas the corresponding LP is excellent. I don't argue mediums because my issue is sound, not analog over digital.

I did not "get used to" what I prefer. On the contrary, I grew up with CD's. My music career postdated the vinyl era. My parents had old beat up records and a cheesy system and I assumed that's what vinyl sounded like. I also knew as I grew older that CD's just sounded flat and "unreal". But I learned to deal with them as a fact of life -that live music and reproduced music were totally different worlds.

When I first heard vinyl done properly about 8 or so years ago, I was floored! I was not prepared for recorded sound to be so real! If I had a bias, it was decidedly against vinyl. I bought a rig and started my LP collection. Some of them are nasty sounding if they have surface noise or are recorded poorly but the vast majority of them sound proper to my ears. I have gotten "used to" them because they sound most like what I hear when I'm on stage or in the audience (I'm a semi-professional jazz guitarist - good enough to make a little money and not piss off the pianist but not good enough or brave enough to go fully pro).

I may be "fooling" myself but that's what reproduced sound is all about - fooling yourself into believing the musicians and the listener aren't separated by wires, wood and knobs but are together in the same room. As I've said, multichannel SACD or DVD-A may be the ultimate answer but I've little experience with high resolution digital and virtually NO experience with multichannel. I'm only comparing vinyl with rbcd. And I just recently coughed up money for a new system and NOW you're telling me I need new stuff? :)

P.S My system is VPI HW-19 jr/Graham Robin/Benz ACE; Rega Planet (original); Coincident Partial Eclipse; Manley Stingray; My total investment was about $5000. I've begun reading about room acoustics and am a little while away from deciding what I want to do there but will eventually do something.

[soundhd]

Not unless the record companies re-release all the vinyl titles in a SACD format.............and the CD titles as well..............but I doubt very much if that will happen...........so vinyl on...................

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir Terrence:
In what capacity are you involved in the recording process? Are you responsible for any of the bad CD's in my collection? If so, I would have fired you and anyone else who was involved in the process. OTOH, if you were solely involved in making any of the ones that are very good, then I have the utmost respect for you.
Yes, there is w&f with a turntable but I can't hear it on any of the rigs that I have owned. I've always wondered at what point it becomes audible. CD players seem to run very steadily without audible distortion from jitter or w&f or whatever you'd like to call it. The problem with many CD's is the distortion of the natural sound of instruments which occurs all too often. When it's done right, it's as good as anything and the clean background is pleasant.
SACD seems to be doing a better job for whatever reason. If you are in any way responsible, thanks. But, if you are responsible for the distortions that we have all heard and fail to get it right, shame on you.
Bill

Bill,

I am involved in the recording/mixing stage, and occasionally master my own stuff if the budget doesn't allow me to go to my favorite mastering house. Am I responsible for some of the bad recording in your collection? I don't know since I have no access to your collection. As of lately I have been doing mostly live recording of classical music, and film scores for movie soundtracks. I would like not to think that I turn out bad work, but ones hearing capabilities, and Idea of good sound is so subjective that I could not know. You have heard the old adage that one persons floor is another ceiling? That applies to audio one hundred fold. I have had producers who thought I mixed bad sound, only to find out that the digital to analog conversion(D/A dacs) was being done by cheap chips. I have had other engineers make comments about my work only to find that THEIR dsp processing was dropping bits while mastering.

About 95% of the complaints I have received about the sound of CD's doesn't lie in the software itself, but in the reproduction chain. 100% of the complaints lie within either the speakers, cheap DAC chips, or poor room acoustics. The problem is that listeners would prefer to blame the engineer rather than their own equipment which is the problem most of the time. Not that there are not bad mixes(there are more than I want to admit) but they are not always the culprit.

As far as w&f in turntables it would have to be pretty severe to be audible. Unless you have perfect pitch like I was born with. It can also be hidden by room acoustics if there is insufficient absorbtion or diffusion within the room. Speakers that have very steep crossovers slopes can hide it(since the crossover can ring and take away phase integrity)
The point I am trying to make is that the software is not always to blame, but it is the easiest thing to do rather than looking at our equipment or room.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Actually, it doesn't matter to me if you are who you say you are or if you aren't. It also doesn't matter to me if I believe you or not. I'm not saying I didn't, in all honesty. But there seems to be a bit of truth bending on A/R about people's resumes and such. That was never really the point, however. The point is you can challenge us if you must but we were simply responding in kind.

Good, because this eleminates any distractions from the topic at hand. Since I have no desire to impress anyone, bending my resume is unnecessary.



I've posted here recently on this very thread that I have no real experience with SACD or DVD-A so I can't comment. My comparisons are solely between vinyl, redbook CD and the music I hear and/or perform almost nightly - at least it SEEMS nightly. I'm considering taking some time off from performing. I need the rest! Anyway, the only direct comparisons I've been able to do is vinyl against redbook CD. I've also stated that the problems I associate with rbcd may very well be NOT inherent in the medium. When I compare the two, I'm comparing the final product against the final product which is the LP vs the CD and not the mechanics.

I would have a problem with this comparison because mastering for CD is different than mastering for vinyl. That would make any comparison unfair. I however commend you on your honesty regarding your understanding, and your experience(or lack of)of each format. Most people here would not admit to not having experience just for the chance to argue.



. At least 95% of the time, the vinyl is musically satisfying and the CD is not. I don't find CD's "bright" all the time - in fact, I find their biggest problems to be in the lower treble/upper midrange and the problems are largely of tonal imbalance. If that's the recording/mastering, fine. It still makes for a poor sounding product whereas the corresponding LP is excellent.

Then my argument would be that the mixing and mastering was aimed at turning out a superior vinyl sound, and not digital. There is absolute nothing in the sampling process that alters tonal balance in the range you describe, unless a low sample rate(and bit rate) was used. If MP3 or minidisc was used as the recording device(as most non budgeted recording uses) then the CD will sound like crap compared to the vinyl product. There are so many specifics not included in your post(like recording equipment, bit rate and sampling used, setup, insturmentation, etc) that it is just impossible to track down any deficiency that can occur in the digital product.


I did not "get used to" what I prefer. On the contrary, I grew up with CD's. My music career postdated the vinyl era. My parents had old beat up records and a cheesy system and I assumed that's what vinyl sounded like. I also knew as I grew older that CD's just sounded flat and "unreal". But I learned to deal with them as a fact of life -that live music and reproduced music were totally different worlds.

I think you assesment of CD sound is way to general. Some discs sound flat and unreal. The better sounding ones are the total opposite of that.


may be "fooling" myself but that's what reproduced sound is all about - fooling yourself into believing the musicians and the listener aren't separated by wires, wood and knobs but are together in the same room. As I've said, multichannel SACD or DVD-A may be the ultimate answer but I've little experience with high resolution digital and virtually NO experience with multichannel. I'm only comparing vinyl with rbcd. And I just recently coughed up money for a new system and NOW you're telling me I need new stuff? :).

Please accept my most humblest of apologies about this ;>) Sometimes you don't have to fool yourself. Sometimes the recording is is soo good it can fool ya. I would suggest to you to hear a VERY good demo of multichannel SACD or DVD-A on some good equipment in a room with tight controls on the acoustics. I think it would go along way in helping you to understand(not necessarily except) my opinion.


P.S My system is VPI HW-19 jr/Graham Robin/Benz ACE; Rega Planet (original); Coincident Partial Eclipse; Manley Stingray; My total investment was about $5000. I've begun reading about room acoustics and am a little while away from deciding what I want to do there but will eventually do something.[/QUOTE]

[DMK]

\QUOTE]

. Working with vinyl is much like working with video tape. Once you play it once, the deterioration and degredation begins and its down hill from there. Expensive cartridges and cleaners are no help at all. Any medium where the reproduction device touches the media is prone to this. That is just reality.

In my twenty years of recording audio I have gotten the chance to compare my master tapes to first vinyl pressing, and the first lot of the duplication process of the CD's. The vinyl record sounded fine between 50hz and 4khz. But below and above that it betrayed itself. The CD sound fine until about 7khz, and then I noticed a closing in, and loss of air. Neither IMO were good for high frequency harmonics of some instruments which makes them both not in the same class as DVD-A and SACD whose response can extend to 50khz and above. .[/QUOTE]

It's true that once you play vinyl, the deterioration and degradation begins. Perhaps in about 20 years, it may start to become audible if cleaned thoroughly and regularly. I own LP's that were made in the 1950's that sound fantastic - little noise and no distortion. Now THAT is what I call reality!

Since you listed frequencies and problems with vinyl and RBCD, I found your comments interesting and asked a few recording engineers I know about them. Since we really didn't know what you mean by "fine" and "betrayed itself", we had to make some assumptions, which may be inaccurate.

One RE pretty much agreed with what you said. He couldn't recall the specific frequencies but said your numbers seemed about right with his recollection. Suffice it to say that he's touting high rez digital with a vengeance!

One said RBCD is all that's required and that DVD-A and SACD was only necessary for their multichannel capabilities. He did concede that that capability would absolutely make it sound better than CD and LP, however. But as for two channel audio, his main comment was that if we are not utilizing all that redbook has to offer, what's the fuss about high rez? It should be no better than the best RBCD can do. LOVE those idealists! :)

The third said that if your LP's only sounded "fine" to 50 hz and to 4 khz, there was a severe problem somewhere in the chain. He's recorded LP's that sounded "fine" much deeper than 50 hz and "miles higher" (his words) than 4 khz. He's firmly in neither the digital nor analog camp and does well in both formats.

Again, we're not sure what you mean by "fine" and we may be misreading you so we'd appreciate a little more clarity if you'd be so kind. But so far what this tells me is that there is no absolute agreement on what is good sound. You have your opinions and so do I. But I'm no more in need of a strong drink than you are!

Actually, a strong drink sounds pretty good since it's freakin' 5 below zero out here! Mine's Highland Park single malt straight up. Cheers! :)

[hifitommy]

[QUOTE=Sir Terrence the Terrible][QUOTE]

STtT,

sorry for the insult, but your off hand attitude about vinyl was a bit condescending. you know, its all about the music. I am enthusiastic about sacd and am supporting it with my buying power. i am really trying to increase my inventory of pure dsd recordings to have a broader base of comparison.

the reissues have proven to be a good application of dsd technology and yield some of the same attributes of analog at its best contrasted with rbcd which rarely produces this effect. its unfortunate that many of the original analog tapes from decades ago are deteriorated due to poor storage and handling. even worse-the LOST or destroyed ones.

i dont have vinyl so elevated in status as to be blind to other improvements going on. with rbcd, i wanted it to be better, it just wasnt . dsd makes WAY more sense and listening has proved out a lot of the promise.

mega buck TTs DO make a difference but to be honest, it doesnt take MEGA bucks. a larger budget can make for a VERY nice sounding result. of course tonearms and cartridges are included in this reference. you obviously havent embraced analog and therefore dont have the knowledge and experience to comment about that particular subject.

a friend of mine had nicely optimized his rbcd setup and was quite resistant to upgrading the vinyl rig. long story short-a sota saphirre/mmt arm combo came into his possession and he nearly STOPPED listening to digital. and he also resisted sacd. he has since passed away so i never got to prove out its viability to him. i ASSURE you, i would have.

another factor of the vinyl process is the low cost of the software. MUCH used product is available in good shape and new product as well. and if you buy a couple of $1 vinyls that are in rotten condition or not music you like, you can throw it away. not so with those $15 digital mistakes.

record cleaners (machines etc) can make a large diff, i use the sink for now. i will get a vpi rcm sometime soon. the cleaning chemicals will wait, but the mechanical device is worth the outlay.

theres something DIRECT about the vinyl storage method. even different sounding cartridges (and they ALL sound different) sound right. more right than the rbcd medium, sacd has yet to prove out here. i am hopeful that it does. then all recordings will be available that way and prices will come down.

degradation. no doubt there is some each time ANY disc is played. it is not known what damage is done each replay digitally. perhaps minuscule properly done, the same can be said for vinyl. the records and stylus must be CLEAN, the cartridge/stylus in excellent shape. tonearm friction should be as low as humanly possible.

the fact that vinyl itself is pliable and not rigid as some other record materials were is a real benefit. it is said that its not the surface but just below it that is played on vinyl. think surface tension. all in all, 100 year old technology does a DAMN nice job.

information retrieval is handily accomplished by a relatively low high end tt. i was fortunate enough to get the same effect from a low end sacdp. and its rbcd perf is exemplary. its not always that way. a LOT of money can be expended getting ACCEPTABLE sound from rbcd.

spatial cue distortion. microphones hear differently than human ears do. they do so ruthlessly. we can concentrate on one part of the event, the mics hear it all. same with vision. imaging captured by the mics is addictive. this is the pinpoint imaging not available to anyone except the conductor of an orchestra.

i have to differ with you about the top octaves of vinyl reproduction, the airiness and similarity to what i have heard live exists in the vinyl medium.

so youre a pro, we all have our preferences, opinions, and biases, you included.

[DMK]

[QUOTE=hifitommy
so youre a pro, we all have our preferences, opinions, and biases, you included.[/QUOTE]


That sums up my post above. Even RE's don't agree on the final sound. Of the three I spoke to, one said rbcd was the ultimate, one favored vinyl and one favored DSD. It's all a matter of your preferences, biases and opinions. They all admitted that the multichannel capability of SACD and DVD-A would turn the tide in high rez digital's favor, however. But they all also said that with the preponderance of shoddy recording and mastering in the world today, multi channel would largely be a sonic mess. And for two channel, they all disagree with one another on which produces the best sound. I don't doubt Sir Terrence's experiences and that he heard what he did but I particularly don't doubt the RE's I spoke with since one is a personal friend and the other two are friends of friends. Since we all hear differently, etc etc and so on....

I meant to ask the vinyl guy about 45 RPM because NO two channel medium portrays the Bill Evans disc in a more real way than vinyl. None. If high rez can better it in multi channel, I'm on board. We'll see.

Record cleaners don't make a difference??? Perhaps to someone who has never used one! I've restored more crappy sounding LP's to good sounding ones with record cleaning than I've heard good sounding CD's - and by a WIDE margin! :)

Turntable rigs also make big differences. I've owned several, from my former Basis 2500 with Graham 2.0 and Benz Reference to the cheap Technics my sons now use to my last crappy table, an old Sony. Some of them aren't notably different sounding from each other (the high end from another high end, low end from another low end, etc) but comparing different levels of rigs would possibly be an ear opener for Sir Terrence.

[jbangelfish]

And letting us know what part you have and for being civil. We vinyl nuts don't take kindly to our pleasure being trashed. It is the best that many of us have ever heard and this is mostly from a group who has heard alot of live music.
I have no idea if you have been partially responsible for the many CD's that I have and will pick apart for various faults. My collection is widely varied from rock and pop to celtic and classical. The classical recordings seem the least offensive, for whatever reason. I have only a very few CD's that I consider to "get it right" but am perfectly happy with them. Oddly, they are mostly remakes of very old recorded music which is totally analog but some are newer.
Most of us will never claim that any recording medium is better than another and I have said more than once that CD or SACD or some other digital format may indeed be the best that is available and truly as good as it can be. For some reason, many of us are most pleased with the largest percentage of our vinyl collections. It does actually seem that the vinyl makers made a better effort to produce a superior sounding product. Just don't patronize us and say that we like the sound of distortion because we are a pretty discerning group of listeners and are very critical of bad recordings, no matter what they were recorded on, including vinyl.
You stated that you were born with perfect pitch and I'm assuming that you are talking about the kind that can tell me what note or frequency that I just farted in. That's commendable and better than most of us. I can tell you when something is flat or sharp and that's about it. Most of our complaints about CD's are not in this area but more in the area of just distorting the natural sound of an instrument which most of us would hear as something wrong.
Your points about multi channel, SACD or other digital formats are just not widely understood. Most of us have heard what a HT system has done for music in most cases and a friend of mine said it best. "Take it outside, pour gasoline on it and set it on fire".
Well made multichannel and even two channel SACD may very well do an outstanding job but with very extensive LP collections and RBCD collections, we look to maximize what we can glean from them. It is certainly possible that these new media are capable of doing better than the 1960's technology that gave us great vinyl, I should hope so. That said, vinyl still gets many of us closer to live than anything else that we have experienced.
W&F specs, I like them as low as possible because I don't know where the threshold is that is is audible. My tt has a .028 W&F spec, lower than most and I sure as hell can't hear it. Why even talk about it? If your tt has audible W&F, it should not have been sold but probably many were.
Room acoustics can certainly be an issue and is so with my listening room. This being the case, I can only expect it to get better as I correct it and I'm pretty happy now. The fact remains that more LP's sound better in my system than CD's. Certainly, I have CD's that I enjoy and listen to regularly but I often find myself thinking how great it could be on vinyl. This just should not be. When 30 or 40 year old vinyl sounds better than a brand new CD, something is seriously wrong and it's up to guys like you to fix it.
I honestly look forward to getting an SACD capable player and some SACD's as I've heard more than one vinyl nut speak highly of them. Please use your perfect pitch and discerning ear to make sure that they are done as well or better than the 30 and 40 year old vinyl that many of us love to listen to.
Thanks very much for listening to us, as you are one of the few people who we know who can actually make a difference.
Bill

[hifitommy]

once identified in your system must me EXPUNGED. i had it in my rabco st4 tt, dual 1215 tt, and various cassette decks, mobile and stationary. my current TTs do not exhibit audible w+f nor does my sony cassette deck. it can even be heard in recordings from the cutter lathe and source open reel deck. that is one feature of digital that can be endearing, that is-its lack of speed variation.

with high quality TTs, it isnt a problem. measurable maybe, audible not. if so, time for a different tt.

[DMK]

once identified in your system must me EXPUNGED. i had it in my rabco st4 tt, dual 1215 tt, and various cassette decks, mobile and stationary. my current TTs do not exhibit audible w+f nor does my sony cassette deck. it can even be heard in recordings from the cutter lathe and source open reel deck. that is one feature of digital that can be endearing, that is-its lack of speed variation.

with high quality TTs, it isnt a problem. measurable maybe, audible not. if so, time for a different tt.

Sir Terrence is a notable exception to this point, but I've noticed that many of the people on A/R that complain about measurable wow and flutter in turntables have no problem with measurable differences in cables. They write off these differences in cables as being inaudible. So why do they make such a fuss over measurable but inaudible w + f? They complain even when measurements add up to squat sonically and complain when there are no measurements to explain sonic differences. To me, that adds up to almost cultlike behavior. I guess I'll stick with reality, thank you.

[skeptic]

Excellent turntables of even many decades ago such as ReK-o-Kut, Empire, Thorens, AR exhibited no wow or flutter that was audible. The ultimate test of audible w&f is usually considered to be sustained piano chords or notes. When audible, it can be extremely irritating. The main principles of eliminating w&f are either the high inertia of a massive cast aluminum platter which is the so called battleship design combined with a high power high torque hysteresis synchronous motor and belt coupling, or direct servo control often using a quartz lock servo loop drive and a dc motor and a lighter cast aluminum platter. Rim drive of a stamped platter with an idler wheel driven by a high torque induction motor can be acceptable but was much less expensive and usually reserved for low cost automatic record changers being able to drive the arm positioning and record drop mechanism as well. These types usually develop some w&f over time because the idler wheels tend to wear or build up a thin film of oil and slip slightly. Replacing them often restores original performance. Some good ones were made by Miracord, Dual, and Garrard. Anybody remember the Zero One Hundred with the articulating arm claimed to have zero tracking error? By the late 1970s there was no reason why even inexpensive turntables couldn't achieve inaudible wow and flutter. So called cogwheeling of direct drive turntables is a joke and is completely inaudible. BTW, precision of bearings, and balance as well as isolation help to reduce rumble and acoustic feedback. The main shortcoming of many turntables therefore is the tonearm where precision of design and manufacturing is still a very expensive manufacturing cost. Dynamic balance, geometry with low tracking error, well damped resonance at a very low frequency and very low friction sealed jeweled bearings are still the hallmark of an excellent tonearm. Ball bearings can be OK but jeweled bearings are usually better.

[Chas Underhay]

Chas, just because what is on vinyl is not on SACD means nothing. When talking audio sound QUALITY rules not media QUANTITY. Sometimes the best possible is not good enough.

I do beg to differ old boy but to most of us, this means everything. We either listen the music of our choice on whatever format it happens to be on (for better of for worse), listen to whatever the music business sees fit provide, at it's own convenience or sit there in bloody silence.

I suppose there may be those whose percieved cullinary standards are so high that they would starve themselves to death simply because the available cuisine was not perfect, not this bugger, I'll either shoot something or drag it out of the water before I go hungry.

Now, I'm off to listen to some cool records acompanied by a warn English beer or three.

Chas

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

=DMK][QUOTE=hifitommy
so youre a pro, we all have our preferences, opinions, and biases, you included.

I may have some personal biases that I act out on my system, but my clients usually cannot afford by biases or preferences in the studio, so I don't have any in that respect.


That sums up my post above. Even RE's don't agree on the final sound. .

Well, according to the stat's taken at surround 2003, RE generally DO agree about what constitutes good sound. What they don't always agree on is how to get there.


Of the three I spoke to, one said rbcd was the ultimate, one favored vinyl and one favored DSD.

Unfortunatly when you look at the consensus of a larger group, neither vinyl nor rbcd appear on the radar screen amoung the 500+ RE at the surround 2003 conference. Amoung those polled where at least 60-80 grammy award winning RE. Also, it seems that SACD is favored by 60% of those polled.


It's all a matter of your preferences, biases and opinions. They all admitted that the multichannel capability of SACD and DVD-A would turn the tide in high rez digital's favor, however.

With RE, its not a matter of THEIR preference. Its a matter of the clients preference. I have had no clients in the last 3-4 years come into the studio requesting a two channel mix. They are now aggressively requesting 5.1 channel mixes. For compatibility sake, they are asking for optimized mix downs of the 5.1 audio to two channel.


But they all also said that with the preponderance of shoddy recording and mastering in the world today, multi channel would largely be a sonic mess.

Now here is where I would take issue with all of them. These guys(or women) are acting like bad recording and mastering began with multichannel audio. Bad recording and mastering has been around as long as vinyl itself. Way back when, only Mercury, and Phillips were turning out decent recordings. The only way to REALLY enjoy Mercury's recordings was via three channel reel to reel, because cutting techniques were way less than perfect, as were the materials they used. It was only just before the introduction of the CD that recording on vinyl turned out pretty good.

During the quad era, bad recording and mastering was rampant. Which, aside from the lack of compatibility between formats lead to the demise of this format. So I think that it is slightly misleading to think that recording or mastering will make a mess of multichannel now. The real mess comes from the manufacturers who under pressure from the major studios didn't make the digital connections(coaxial) available to the consumer because of fear of digital to digital copying. This rendered bass management, and delay for time alignment(which is essential for optimizing 5.1) usless. This however is no fault of the individual RE.

There are some bad mixes out there, but there always was whether it was vinyl, CD or mutichannel as the release format.


And for two channel, they all disagree with one another on which produces the best sound. I don't doubt Sir Terrence's experiences and that he heard what he did but I particularly don't doubt the RE's I spoke with since one is a personal friend and the other two are friends of friends. Since we all hear differently, etc etc and so on.....

I personally do not think you will get a consensus for two channel delivery anymore. Two channel as a sole release format is dead. The results of two years worth of inquiries at surround 2002-2003, AES the last three years, and at too many conferences in the last three to four years to mention confirm that. Any two channel mixes created these days will be mixdowns from original 5.1 mixes. Based on inquires almost everyone is recording, mixing, mastering, and archiving in 5.1 channel 24/96khz. Downsampling, and downmixing occurs from there.



Record cleaners don't make a difference??? Perhaps to someone who has never used one! I've restored more crappy sounding LP's to good sounding ones with record cleaning than I've heard good sounding CD's - and by a WIDE margin! :).....

I have used vinyl cleaners. They cannot RESTORE(which denotes making them back to new status). They can make them more playable, and listenable than before, but you cannot restore any medium where the pickup touches the medium itself. Once the deterioration occurs, the damage is permanent. The best one can do is lessen the audiblilty of the damage, which isn't always possible.

I would suggest that you haven't really heard enough really good CD's, because they are out there.


Turntable rigs also make big differences. I've owned several, from my former Basis 2500 with Graham 2.0 and Benz Reference to the cheap Technics my sons now use to my last crappy table, an old Sony. Some of them aren't notably different sounding from each other (the high end from another high end, low end from another low end, etc) but comparing different levels of rigs would possibly be an ear opener for Sir Terrence.

Just so you understand, my assumptions don't come from pure, ignorant lack of experience . I used to own a custom built Rockport Sirus III about 4 years ago(had to eat beans and rice for a month!), which at the time was considered to be the best TT ever made. But even this rig only equalled my Wadia transport, and D/A converter with a well done PCM mix and it cost about 60g's more than my Wadia setup. So I am VERY familar with good turntables, and how different tone arms and cartridges can make them sound. However, it takes a 75g high end TT to equal a 15k high end digital setup. And setup for the TT was MUCH more difficult. Most people do not even own a TT that cost 10g's let alone a 75g one.

After reading some of the posts here, I really appreciate the effort some of you guys put into getting good sound from vinyl. I also find it rather refreshing to see folks willing to spend for quality, as opposed to the "do it on the cheap" that I find in my favorite forum(hometheater). I can fully understand your aprehension regarding multichannel if you base it on the average cheap" hometheater in a box" representation. But there is a whole world out there of high quality 5.1 equipment out there that is able to "wow" even the most ardent audiohile. I was one of them. I think to draw from a few experience(rather bad one I can guess) and make a conclusion on those experiences does multichannel a disservice. If you take some time to really seek out a good demo, I think your minds would be changed. I don't expect anyone here to give up their vinyl(you guys probably have as large a collection of vinyl as I have of DVD-V, DVD-A 's and SACD disc's) but at least you have a better understanding(and representation) than a poor HTIB as an example of VERY good 5.1 audio

p.s. Any measureable deviation from flat that is measured in cables, makes this cable not read for prime time, and not allowed on my mixes or in my system.

[DMK]

I have no doubt that SACD was favored by 60% of the RE's. I'm surprised it wasn't a higher percentage. We're never going back to vinyl because it isn't convenient and most people concerned with sound quality aren't taken in by RBCD.

None of the three RE's said that there hasn't been foul sounding recordings in the past. There have been plenty and they all agree. However, they feel, as do I, that the CD era has more than its share with the concern for getting the product out with a minimum of cost and fuss. With the large collection I own from both the LP era and the CD era, I find that indisputable... at least if roughly 4000 CD's and 4000 LP's is any indication. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it's a lot of circumstancial evidence!

I have to disagree that "it was just before the introduction of the CD that vinyl recording turned out pretty good". Overall, that was at least among the worst, if not THE worst, years for sonics in vinyl, at least in my experience.

Thinking that multichannel as a format is somehow going to solve the problems with recorded sound seems a bit of a naive stance for an RE. Bad recordings are bad in two channel or four or 5.1. There isn't much concern for good quality recordings now (excluding the RE's - they'd all KILL me if I didn't qualify that statement!) - what makes you think that will change with the advent of multichannel? In spite of that, I'm cautiously excited about multichannel audio. I'm looking forward to auditioning it and I'm saving my pennies.

Your suggestion that I haven't heard enough good sounding CD's is accurate. As I mentioned, I own roughly 4000 and I have no complaint with about 300 of them (SWAG). Yes, they are out there - just not enough of them, at least not in the music I listen to which is mostly jazz, with rock, blues and classical thrown in. Perhaps rap and country produce the best sounding CD's. If so, I'm afraid I'll never hear them.

I'd eat a years worth of rice and beans to own a Rockport Sirius. I'd have killer sound in my house but the foul air would mean I wouldn't be able to show it off! :)

Again, I'm not anti-multichannel. I think it's the old audiophile guard that rejects it out of hand and even those folks are slowly becoming interested. Lastly, as much as I ***** about the sound of CD's, I continue to buy them because if I didn't, things such as Peter Brotzmann's "Funny Rat" would pass me by... and THAT can't happen under ANY circumstances! :)

[jbangelfish]

Nice of you to come down to earth for a moment. You seem to have a very good understanding of what you speak of and that's always good. Hopefully, you have some understanding of what the vinyl crowd complains about with so many poor CD's in their collections. As we move up to SACD, it appears that people are much happier with the sound and even of their RBCD on SACD players. At least something seems to be going in the right direction. I only hope that they won't forget about all of us who use two channel systems to enjoy our music and just produce crap for us so we will someday be forced to move into 5.1 if we want any new music.
Many of us have several thousand LP's and are not likely to ever get rid of them because it would be impossible to replace them with something else. Most of us have found when we bought CD remakes of old vinyl that they were absolutely terrible. It doesn't really matter to us whose fault it is, it just makes for a bad experience and leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, or ears. This is not always the case and some have been redone very well but they seem few and far between.
My only experience with 5.1 has been the typical system that nearly everyone seems to have in their home today for watching movies. For some reason, most of these people seem to think that as long as they can shake the walls with a subwoofer and some semblance of music comes from the speakers, that they have a fine audio system. Many of them have never heard vinyl or have never heard a decent stereo system, period. For these folks who are apparently the majority of the world, their 1k or 2k HT system is all they will ever need and are perfectly happy. Fine for them.
On the other hand, I don't doubt that what you say about a quality 5.1 system which plays music that was made for it should be able to sound excellent. I just can't throw out all of my old music and start over and neither can most of us here. There are people over an Audio Asylum who have 10,000 or even 20,000 LP's. I don't think they will go for this either. If money is no object, then they can have both and buy new 5.1 music but I don't anticipate it for myself. I'm really quite satisfied with what two channel does for me when it's done well and I have enough recorded music to last me for the rest of my life. Still, I buy more. Must be a disease.
Anyway, thanks for dropping in and please don't forget about us old audiophiles who plan to enjoy two channel music forever. Get your friends to make some good recordings for us and we'll be happy, quiet, and you'll find us listening to music.
Bill

[Beckman]

Anyway, thanks for dropping in and please don't forget about us old audiophiles who plan to enjoy two channel music forever. Get your friends to make some good recordings for us and we'll be happy, quiet, and you'll find us listening to music.
Bill

Well put! Its the music that matters, not how many speakers you have or how much money you have invested in stereo equipment.

[DMK]

I don't think anyone is suggesting we sell off all our vinyl - and if anyone on this site does, PLEASE contact me BEFORE you list it to the general public! :).

I think multichannel is the future of audio, good, bad or indifferent. I think it could be a good thing and, if so, that's the format we will buy our NEW music in. That doesn't deny the validity of our current collection.

In the future, I will still be hitting the used vinyl racks and will likely be able to pick up 15-20 "new" LP's with the same money I'll have to spend on one 5.1 SACD. Thank goodness most vinyl has excellent sound!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I have no doubt that SACD was favored by 60% of the RE's. I'm surprised it wasn't a higher percentage. We're never going back to vinyl because it isn't convenient and most people concerned with sound quality aren't taken in by RBCD.

It probably would have been more if it wasn't for guys like myself. I have no favorite between these two formats. They are both excellent to me, and I enjoy working with them both. There are a large crowd of folks that DO like RBCD. They are usually the ones that use external D/A conversion rather than the CD players internal converters.(I am amoung this crowd) I think one of the biggest problems with RBCD has more to do with the hardware than with the software(though as I said earliers, its easier to blame the recording than to be honest about our equipment.) You will only get as much quality in terms of DAC as it takes to meet a price point.



None of the three RE's said that there hasn't been foul sounding recordings in the past. There have been plenty and they all agree. However, they feel, as do I, that the CD era has more than its share with the concern for getting the product out with a minimum of cost and fuss.

With pop music and some jazz music this was the case. With classical music, alot more care went into getting good sound, though sometimes bad microphone position, wrong microphones, once again bad DAC, too much gain, not enough gain often betrayed the means to the end. But rather than just generalizing, I would have to say it highly depended on the label.


With the large collection I own from both the LP era and the CD era, I find that indisputable... at least if roughly 4000 CD's and 4000 LP's is any indication. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it's a lot of circumstancial evidence!.

I would say that if you had that many bad sounding CD's, I would check my equipment, or the acoustics of my room.


I have to disagree that "it was just before the introduction of the CD that vinyl recording turned out pretty good". Overall, that was at least among the worst, if not THE worst, years for sonics in vinyl, at least in my experience.

I was referring to the recording of the smaller niche labels, not the big congloms. Mobile fidelity, and Telarc were producing some of the best sounding classical music LP I have every heard.



Thinking that multichannel as a format is somehow going to solve the problems with recorded sound seems a bit of a naive stance for an RE. Bad recordings are bad in two channel or four or 5.1. There isn't much concern for good quality recordings now (excluding the RE's - they'd all KILL me if I didn't qualify that statement!) - what makes you think that will change with the advent of multichannel?.

It has changed. With two channels you can hide alot of things in the mix. You can gate out errors, compress without to much penalty, and mix so much into a small funnel and coverup things. With high rez 5.1 there is no where to hide. A bad sound sticks out like a sore thumb because everything is so spread out. Limiting, and gating if not carefully done is very audible. Editing and any other post DSP processing is also very audible if not done well. According to some of the comments from RE and surround 2003 DVD-A and SACD has made RE take a look at the way the record from the top, all the way down.


I'd eat a years worth of rice and beans to own a Rockport Sirius. I'd have killer sound in my house but the foul air would mean I wouldn't be able to show it off! :)

Now this is were it pays to be a latin man, I was born to consume beans and rice without the residual effects of their digestion. Now milk is a problem though. OMG is the Rockport one serious piece of equipment. I had to crate it up and put in storage for a while until I build my new mixing/screening room. There is just no place to put it in my temporary digs.

[hifitommy]

i LOVE saying that.

ok, its time to come clean. who are you, where do you live (geographically), and what is your personal equip list for home listening?

its also time to not sit so highly on the horse. if you really have access to a sirius, and you dont think vinyl is superior to rbcd, then i think you DO need a drink. i have a mapleknoll athena air bearing tt and arm and have heard NOTHING as vivid, vinyl or digital, any of them.

theres another RE around that is primarily digital based (or was) but way prefers analog playback. he was the KEY digital reviewer for stereophile and expresses himself in terms that leave you with no doubt in what he means.

he is also a stalwart supporter of dsd over rbcd and may not be very popular because of it. his current job is at tas, the mag that people love to hate. yup, you guessed it-robert harley. this guy has access to it all, studio and home audio of all kinds.

he comes off as authoritative but not haughty. tas should be read without preconceptions, just as any other magazine of worth.

so lets come back down to earth and stop suggesting that because you have access to studios with their higher levels of sound quality (real or imagined). talk TO us, not DOWN to us. perhaps you believe you are but you arent.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

i LOVE saying that.

ok, its time to come clean. who are you, where do you live (geographically), and what is your personal equip list for home listening?

its also time to not sit so highly on the horse. if you really have access to a sirius, and you dont think vinyl is superior to rbcd, then i think you DO need a drink. i have a mapleknoll athena air bearing tt and arm and have heard NOTHING as vivid, vinyl or digital, any of them.

theres another RE around that is primarily digital based (or was) but way prefers analog playback. he was the KEY digital reviewer for stereophile and expresses himself in terms that leave you with no doubt in what he means.

he is also a stalwart supporter of dsd over rbcd and may not be very popular because of it. his current job is at tas, the mag that people love to hate. yup, you guessed it-robert harley. this guy has access to it all, studio and home audio of all kinds.

he comes off as authoritative but not haughty. tas should be read without preconceptions, just as any other magazine of worth.

so lets come back down to earth and stop suggesting that because you have access to studios with their higher levels of sound quality (real or imagined). talk TO us, not DOWN to us. perhaps you believe you are but you arent.

Mr hifiTommy,

I owe you nothing. No names, no place of residence, no job title, no nothing. You have no right to make that demand. What I listen to equipment wise is none of you business, or anyone elses. It would be stupid of me to tell you my name, what city I live in, and whats in my house on a public forum. Would you do such a stupid thing?

I was never on a HIGH horse, just on a more realistic one than you are currently on. I am entitled to MY opinions, assertions based on my experience and education just like you are. You state your opinion, I state mine. You don't like mine, fine. I don't like yours, we agree to disagree. You like vinyl, I think it time has come and gone, and there are other formats that are better. You disagree, so be it.
I am not here to prove anything to anyone.The only way one could believe that I was talking down to you is if you have some sort of self esteem issues. I state what I know to be fact, not some "I am so in love with a vinyl disc that I cannot enjoy anything else" kind of belief that you expouse.

I never said my sirius did not sound good. It sounds better (by far) than any TT currently in the market, and better than any mass market CD player. I assert that it only sound AS GOOD as my $15G wadia setup, but it costs WAY more. That is my opinion, and you cannot change that.

You say vinyl is the end all of sound quality. I disagree, but I didn't ask you to devulge personal information about yourself just because of your beliefs. And so, you have no right to demand that from me because of mine. You don't like what I have to say, fine, don't read it. But these demands in your post are a complete turn off, and I am not obligated in anyway to comply.
If I told you everything you ask it still wouldn't change your mind, so whats the point? DO NOT TRY AND SUPERIMPOSE YOUR BELIEFS OVER MINE. It will never work. I hear differently than you do, and my taste coresponse with that.

Until you become God himself, your demands are noted, but compliance is at my discretion. Cool?

[DMK]

"I would say that if you had that many bad sounding CD's, I would check my equipment, or the acoustics of my room."

First, let me qualify "bad". I should probably say "sonically compromised" compared to what I've come to expect from vinyl. Most of them aren't "bad" per se. If it was the fault of my equipment or room acoustics, I'd have tackled the problem already. It took me several years and a lot of misses, near and far, before I settled on my present gear. The speakers in particular are as neutral and transparent as any I've heard and, as a result, they lay out the flaws of the CD in a most naked fashion. Headphones as well put a glaring spotlight on those flaws. My headphones are my reference for speakers.

Correctly or no, I use live music as my guage for recordings. Even with a heavy rock band. If they sound as though they are playing in my room at the exact volume that is on my preamps dial, the recording is good. If not, it isn't. I posted earlier that I was at the downtown NYC jazz club Tonic in 2001 when the William Parker Clarinet Trio recorded the music that went on their CD "Bob's Pink Cadillac". When I bought the CD, the cymbals had what I have come to hear as typical "spray can" sound and the acoustic bass was very boomy. Boom and tizz are NOT qualities of my system! Had I heard those sounds at the live show, I would have immediately noticed them. They weren't there. The CD had additive distortion that was quite noticeable and annoying. And so it goes with a lot of my CD's. But some of them are excellent. Granted, it's probably the recording technique but it still makes for a less than high quality product.

To sum up, I'm not anti-digital, not even anti RBCD. I AM anti-less than stellar sound, particularly when it could be stellar. RBCD is much more consistently flawed than vinyl, hence my preference for the latter. I'd say it was my choice of music styles except that most of my classical vinyl beats my classical CD's and it ALWAYS does when I have the same recording to compare on both mediums. For whatever reason, vinyl for me is still King. Whether dsd changes that remains to be seen. As I said, I'm cautiously optimistic.

[hifitommy]

attitude as EXPECTED high horse man!

its what i expected but was hoping against. i was hoping for a measured response of a REAL professional, which you are obviously not. a poser or poseur i see. lots of crowing and wing flapping by the COCK of the walk.

if you were WORTHY of breathing air in the same room as al schmitt or robert harley, i MIGHT be humbled. i am not humbled by trolls.

if you believe that the sirius (and i DOUBT that you have one) doesnt sound far and away better than rbcd, then you have a hearing deficiency worth pursuing. i am including "your" wadia player too. sacd and vinyl sound better than that, and thats based on experience.

i never once said vinyl is the end all of sound quality. its your attitude that interpreted it that way.

i judge your age to be no more than 22yrs due to the knee jerk reactions you have exhibited. i would NEVER try to superimpose my beliefs over yours, i would not want to be confused with, nor associated with you. perhaps you would more likely be associated or confused with one MTRYCRAFTS.

Cool? not you.

[Beckman]

I don't think anyone is suggesting we sell off all our vinyl - and if anyone on this site does, PLEASE contact me BEFORE you list it to the general public! :).

I think multichannel is the future of audio, good, bad or indifferent. I think it could be a good thing and, if so, that's the format we will buy our NEW music in. That doesn't deny the validity of our current collection.

In the future, I will still be hitting the used vinyl racks and will likely be able to pick up 15-20 "new" LP's with the same money I'll have to spend on one 5.1 SACD. Thank goodness most vinyl has excellent sound!

I agree 100%

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

attitude as EXPECTED high horse man!

its what i expected but was hoping against. i was hoping for a measured response of a REAL professional, which you are obviously not. a poser or poseur i see. lots of crowing and wing flapping by the COCK of the walk.

if you were WORTHY of breathing air in the same room as al schmitt or robert harley, i MIGHT be humbled. i am not humbled by trolls.

if you believe that the sirius (and i DOUBT that you have one) doesnt sound far and away better than rbcd, then you have a hearing deficiency worth pursuing. i am including "your" wadia player too. sacd and vinyl sound better than that, and thats based on experience.

i never once said vinyl is the end all of sound quality. its your attitude that interpreted it that way.

i judge your age to be no more than 22yrs due to the knee jerk reactions you have exhibited. i would NEVER try to superimpose my beliefs over yours, i would not want to be confused with, nor associated with you. perhaps you would more likely be associated or confused with one MTRYCRAFTS.



Cool? not you.

I guess I am supposed to be insulted by this. Well, you missed your mark. You judgement about my age, off base much like your comments regarding vinyl. I once again expouse that it is easier to critisize others without looking in your own backyard. You are particularly good at this. So let's agree to disagree, and please, don't be mad because you didn't get the information you wanted. It was stupid of you to ask in the first place. Any other negative attack that you would like to launch, save it. When It gets personal(and not about audio) I disengage. Personal attacks are a distraction to the real issues and I do not play that. So whatever scratch you have on your vinyl(or chip on your shoulder) maybe you need to deal with it. I do not need to be Al Schmitt or Robert Harley, I am very content just being myself. I'm still professional even if you don't think so, the people that pay me apparently do. You got your little insults for today filled, I hope it makes you feel better.

I say this with no attitude whatsoever ;>)

[hifitommy]

"I say this with no attitude whatsoever ;>)"

a real PRO wouldnt have to defend anything. there was no real personal attack, just observations. if i got your age wrong, i cant be off by more than 4 years.

disengaging is the right thing to do here.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

"I say this with no attitude whatsoever ;>)"

a real PRO wouldnt have to defend anything. there was no real personal attack, just observations. if i got your age wrong, i cant be off by more than 4 years.

disengaging is the right thing to do here.

I guess I am a real pro, because I have nothing to defend. There was a personal attack which is why I chose not to engage with you in this thread. You are now wrong twice about my age, so it might be adviseable to stop guessing. When you start making negative comments about my age, what I do for a living, and what kind of equipment I have, that constitutes a personal attack by anyone's measure. It doesn't make you look big and that is for sure.

[hifitommy]

after reading the posts you underwent with mtry, i am in awe. mea culpa. only someone with intimate studio KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE could have gone the distance with him.

he has always impressed me as well read but without ANY real experience, which is what it takes to really make MEANINGFUL comment on the subject of audio. theorizing and conjecturing on those theories only go so far. you, my friend (i hope), have transcended this point. i only wish i had the knowledge and tenacity to put mtry at bay the way you have.

what put me off was your seeming knee jerk reaction to my chiding. i have chided mtry with the same result you have received except you have substantive answers for him.

i have a nascient feeling for what is right vs what i actually know. as you have found out, i will challenge what doesn't seem workable in actuality. i may not be able to argue the point on a factual basis every time but i will fight the fight of sensibility many times, this proves out scientifically.

i inaccurately guessed at your age due to the response i got from you and i will concede, it was intended to be provocative. if you read my posts, i tend to try to draw out truths this way. i accede to your age. i guess you now to be between 30 and 40. if late twenties, then a fully experienced late twenties.

regardless, please accept my humble apology on this matter. anyone that can put mtry in his place, and you have, deserves my admiration and respect.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

after reading the posts you underwent with mtry, i am in awe. mea culpa. only someone with intimate studio KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE could have gone the distance with him.

Mr. Hifitommy, I have a long history of going toe to toe with mtry. And I rather enjoy it. He has used the internet in the most impressive fashion that I have ever seen from anyone. He has the theories down pat, and the ability to obtain knowledge, but his lack of experience ALWAYS betrays him. Without experience the theory is just a bunch of words.

he has always impressed me as well read but without ANY real experience, which is what it takes to really make MEANINGFUL comment on the subject of audio. theorizing and conjecturing on those theories only go so far. you, my friend (i hope), have transcended this point. i only wish i had the knowledge and tenacity to put mtry at bay the way you have.

I think you have the tenacity already LOL! I try and take what I have learned at put it in practice. I usually find that theories only work when ALL things are perfect. You and I know that there are so few perfect(insert whatever).

what put me off was your seeming knee jerk reaction to my chiding. i have chided mtry with the same result you have received except you have substantive answers for him.

My reaction may have seemed knee jerked to you, but do you realize how many people on this board love to tell me, or give me their expert advise, or anecdotal information about stuff I do for a living? After a while it gets pretty dang insulting especially when you know they are wrong as two left shoes.

i have a nascient feeling for what is right vs what i actually know. as you have found out, i will challenge what doesn't seem workable in actuality. i may not be able to argue the point on a factual basis every time but i will fight the fight of sensibility many times, this proves out scientifically.

Unfortunately sensibilties, and what is factual or science doesn't always square. Sensibitlities also vary from person to person and sometimes can be a poor basis for a contentious argument. The facts are undisputeable and make a solid foundation for an arguement. They also transend personal sensibilities.

i inaccurately guessed at your age due to the response i got from you and i will concede, it was intended to be provocative. if you read my posts, i tend to try to draw out truths this way. i accede to your age. i guess you now to be between 30 and 40. if late twenties, then a fully experienced late twenties.

I knew you were trying to get my dander up, but this wouldn't have been successful anyway. I NEVER get really upset on a online forum at anyone. What's the point? If you want to draw out the truth(at least as I see it) just ask, provocation not needed LOL. And see, not that you have a clear head, you actually guessed the area of my age correctly.

regardless, please accept my humble apology on this matter. anyone that can put mtry in his place, and you have, deserves my admiration and respect.

awwwww sheesh, no need to apologize, it wasn't that serious. I harbored no ill will against you anyway. Anyone who loves audio as much as I do is a friend, and even my friends take a poke at me occasionally. I think its the New York in me, we are a very misunderstood breed. Anyway, its all good, let's let the past be the past. This is about audio, not about our disagreement on a personal basis.

[hifitommy]

hey, i'm from BUFFALO! some new york in me too. good to know ya.

[soundhd]

Was at the Audiokarma.org event a couple weeks ago and was lucky enough to hear a comparison of a SACD/Vinyl title (Weather Report) and the vinyl source (Music Hall MMF-7) was just a little bit better, not much but it was better....took a few minutes of listening but I was surprised.......so I guess it goes to show that vinyl is as good if not better then a SACD..it takes alot of doing....turntable set-up, phono pre-amp, the right cartridge, making sure the record is properly cleaned, ect.....vs just putting the SACD in it's player......but I guess thats what it is all about.......hands on to get it right.............not to mention all that vinyl we have that has not been re-released on CD, or SACD, or DVDA, or..........

[Sealed]

Lets not for a minute think SACD equals analog, it doesn't. It is still sampled and processed. It's better than cd (arguably, given how good cd players have gotten) but not vinyl.

It doesn't even take a "killer" turntable setup to beat an sacd player. A well prepped affordable rega p3 will do it for thousands less than an SCD-1.

I have a/b'd my scd-1 vs my lp-12. The lp-12 clobbers it. By comparision, the sacd versions of what little they have...simply do not sound as full or natural.

FWIW: in the same reporting timeframe (this past year) SACD sold 100,000 new units while vinyl sold 600,000. That doesn't account for USED vinyl, and that is with few companies making vinyl.

If SACD replaces anything at all, it has a LONG, LONG way to go to catch up. At this rate, it will catch up in maybe 30 years.

[hifitommy]

you cant really compare fairly, the original vinyl to the reissue sacd due to the age of the tape. i agree that vinyl is readily heard to be the superior of RBCD but not so readily in the case of sacd.

someone must have done a comparison somewhere of original analog tape, original DSD, sacd of said analog tape, and vinyl pressings of both said original recordings. i am referring to these original recordings being done all from the same performance and right from the board.

it sounds exhaustive and it is but manufacturers and scientists do this sort of exhaustive testing.

also, it wont be until DSD original recording is ubiquitous that we will get a full measure of how good it really is. in the meantime, vinyl has a long life expectancy, even if not a primary source but as a niche product.

[Sealed]

I have a number of SACD's that are plain rubbish. Poor recordings that aren't worth of a RBCD let alone SACD.

I can A/B all day long and I say vinyl is almost always superior on the same recordings, it's not a rare event.

At a recent London HIFI show, Nottingam analog had a setup with CD, SACD and the hyperspace.

The vinyl was clearly better.

SACD will have to jump up to MLP, because as of yet- they have not been able to obsolete anything. I have XRCD's that sound on par with many SACD's. Additionally, many SACD players need mods to sound as good as the hype says they do. Some of them sound quite artificial. My SCD-1 is included in that. I will have it modded soon to help that.

I read you used to be a "vinyl junkie" so that begs the question: What table/arm/cart and power supply did you get rid of in favor of digital?

[soundhd]

What is RDCD and MLP? Did a search on the internet and all I could find for RBCD is info about ammunition and MLP came up with all kinds of wierd stuph.......not related to audio thats for sure........thanks.....

[Sealed]

RBCD stands for "Red Book CD" or the basic Compact disc format.

MLP stands for "Meridian Lossless Packing." It is a digital compression format developed by Boothroyd/Meridian UK that maintains data integrity without loss like MP3 has.

[hifitommy]

Sealed (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=234591) :


i believe you are answering my post. i have NOT given up vinyl (there are 4-5k LPs all over my house. go to:

http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/588.html (http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/588.html)

and see my system. i too see the very high sound quality of vinyl and also realize that digital isnt mature yet. with sacd and dvda, thats drawing nearer.

soundhd (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=233997) :

RBCD is redbook, or standard CD. the redbook is a set of CD standards to which they must adhere in order to play in players or use the name compact disc. other processes fit within that standard such as XRCD which is just better mastering with better equipment. we deserve that quality for regular CD pricing. i wont pay $26 for those OR mofi SACD as the gouging will continue if you encourage the gougers.

[Sealed]

Sealed (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=234591) :


i believe you are answering my post. i have NOT given up vinyl (there are 4-5k LPs all over my house. go to:

http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/588.html (http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/588.html)

and see my system. i too see the very high sound quality of vinyl and also realize that digital isnt mature yet. with sacd and dvda, thats drawing nearer.

soundhd (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=233997) :

RBCD is redbook, or standard CD. the redbook is a set of CD standards to which they must adhere in order to play in players or use the name compact disc. other processes fit within that standard such as XRCD which is just better mastering with better equipment. we deserve that quality for regular CD pricing. i wont pay $26 for those OR mofi SACD as the gouging will continue if you encourage the gougers.

With Fried's, Spendors, and a vpi hw19III/smeIV/mit cable with WBTs I'd have little interest in digital also! That VPI is a *SUPERB* deck that will embarass most digital sources I have heard. Cool setup! :D

[hifitommy]

Sealed (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=234591) :

with sacd and since i got my sony ns500v, rbcd has been sounding ever so much better than before. i assume this is due to the upsampling used in the player.

and i DO so like my sacd sound. the thelonious monk-straight, no chaser-reissue is quite natural in sound and you can hear down into the throat of the sax and the splash of the piano notes off the soundboard of the instrument.

listening from the other room is revelatory, the music doesnt sound as canned as with rbcd.

[Sealed]

Sealed (http://forums.audioreview.com/member.php?u=234591) :

with sacd and since i got my sony ns500v, rbcd has been sounding ever so much better than before. i assume this is due to the upsampling used in the player.

and i DO so like my sacd sound. the thelonious monk-straight, no chaser-reissue is quite natural in sound and you can hear down into the throat of the sax and the splash of the piano notes off the soundboard of the instrument.

listening from the other room is revelatory, the music doesnt sound as canned as with rbcd.

I think "canned" is an apt description on many cd's. The SCD-1 has more "air" and "fluidity" than most cd's but falls short of analog IMO. It is also arguable that some premium cd players sound as good or better than the current crop of SACD players. That is a whole other debate though.

All else equal...Vinyl IMO rules the midrange.

[soundhd]

With Fried's, Spendors, and a vpi hw19III/smeIV/mit cable with WBTs I'd have little interest in digital also! That VPI is a *SUPERB* deck that will embarass most digital sources I have heard. Cool setup! :D


I know what a MIT cable is but what is or are WBT's....?

[hifitommy]

a brand of connectors that LOCK physically to the corresponding jacks. the RCAs lock in and cant be removed accidently, and the bananas do the same. the contact made is also better, nearly a molecular level. it makes sense that these contacts are better than standard slide in connectors.

they are relatively expensive but deluxe pridu8cts usually are. audioquest interconnects do this but it isnt widely touted as such. you have to twist the collar to loosen and tighten.

[happy ears]

"i believe you are answering my post. i have NOT given up vinyl (there are 4-5k LPs all over my house."

Dear Hifitommy

4-5K of LP's are to much for one person. As you say they are all over you house so please send me a couple of hundred that you are not using. What type and style of music does not matter just send me some. People tell me that I spent to much on my stereo they never look at how I have invested in music. They would truly think I went over the deep end. My mother laughs and asks if I am starting a radio station , yes when tommy sends me some ancient vinyl records. Thanks tommy I will not forget you.

Does this hobby every add over time just a couple of dollars here and there. then the next thing you know is that several thousand dollars are sitting on a shelf just waiting to be spun. Boy I am spoiled.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I have a number of SACD's that are plain rubbish. Poor recordings that aren't worth of a RBCD let alone SACD.

I can A/B all day long and I say vinyl is almost always superior on the same recordings, it's not a rare event.

At a recent London HIFI show, Nottingam analog had a setup with CD, SACD and the hyperspace.

The vinyl was clearly better.

SACD will have to jump up to MLP, because as of yet- they have not been able to obsolete anything. I have XRCD's that sound on par with many SACD's. Additionally, many SACD players need mods to sound as good as the hype says they do. Some of them sound quite artificial. My SCD-1 is included in that. I will have it modded soon to help that.

I read you used to be a "vinyl junkie" so that begs the question: What table/arm/cart and power supply did you get rid of in favor of digital?

I use to have a fair amount of vinyl records that sounded like trash. I have some CD's that sounded like garbage also. Sometime a bad recording job is just that, a bad recording job. It has nothing to do with the carrier of the signal at all.

Your second comment
I can A/B all day long and I say vinyl is almost always superior on the same recordings, it's not a rare event.

is too general and very difficult to quantify. Since its usually years that the SACD is released in respect to the vinyl, you don't know what kind of changes the master tapes have been subjected to. Equalization for getting optimum sound from vinyl is different than what you would use on digital sources, so that will greatly influence what you hear. Biases also directly influence which we choose as the best sound. To say one format is better than another is a totally subjective opinion that with DBT can change either way. In the two DBT I have participating in with vinyl versus digital, the digital one won out, and was even chosen by the lovers of vinyl.

Once you get away from using the internal DAC of CD players and get turned on to external DACs, listening to CD's takes on a whole new meaning. The benefits of SACD have not even been realized yet, and when it does, some vinyl lovers will be quite surprised at what they hear.

[DMK]

"In the two DBT I have participating in with vinyl versus digital, the digital one won out, and was even chosen by the lovers of vinyl. "

I was in a couple also. In both we used Theta digital separates and a VPI TNT Jr - the cost was roughly the same. Something like 15 people as I recall. It was single blind - how did you blind the tester to make it a DBT? Anyway, only 1 person chose the digital. I guess, as you said, it depends on the recording/mastering.

"Once you get away from using the internal DAC of CD players and get turned on to external DACs, listening to CD's takes on a whole new meaning."

The Theta separates I mentioned above were mine. They weren't enough to turn the CD into music. Where's the break even point on cost? Or are DAC's just (something like)
400-500% better than they were in 1996?

"The benefits of SACD have not even been realized yet, and when it does, some vinyl lovers will be quite surprised at what they hear"

I am SO ready for that day! When the convenience of CD and the superior sonics of vinyl (hopefully) meet in SACD, it will indeed be a joyous event. Not far to go, based on my ears. The few SACD's I own are stellar and I don't miss vinyl when I listen. I'm sold! I'm curious, though - is it somehow more difficult to record in that format than in RBCD with the superior resolution, etc? What's your experience?

[Chas Underhay]

I am SO ready for that day! When the convenience of CD and the superior sonics of vinyl (hopefully) meet in SACD, it will indeed be a joyous event. Not far to go, based on my ears. The few SACD's I own are stellar and I don't miss vinyl when I listen. I'm sold! I'm curious, though - is it somehow more difficult to record in that format than in RBCD with the superior resolution, etc? What's your experience?

But will you rush out and replace all your vinyl with SACDs? I doubt it. Will you stop buying second hand gems on vinyl? I doubt that as well and nor will anyone alse I know.

I have no strong veiws on whether SACD is sonically superior to vinyl and we already admit that CD made vinyl obsolete as far as the mass market is concerned but when the shear quantity of vinyl already in existance is considered, it is my opinion, that it would take another fifty years for vinyl to be made truly obsolete by SACD

[DMK]

"But will you rush out and replace all your vinyl with SACDs?"

Nope.

"Will you stop buying second hand gems on vinyl?"

Nope.

BUT...

Will I stop replacing a crappy sounding piece of digital recording with the vinyl version at every opportunity?

Yes.

Will I stop complaining about the sound of digital?

Yes.

Will I replace a lot of RBCD's with SACD's?

Yes.

SACD is potentially HUGE for me. I buy a lot of CD's simply because music is more important to me than sonics and the availability is there. Imagine buying a lot of SACD's and getting great music AND great sound? Enticing, no?

Heh, heh - as for giving up my vinyl, I'm sitting here contemplating purchasing a used Sota Cosmos with Graham 2.2 tonearm and I mean SERIOUS contemplation! I'll be pretty surprised if that puppy isn't sitting in my house sporting my Kontrapunkt within the next week or so. :)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

"In the two DBT I have participating in with vinyl versus digital, the digital one won out, and was even chosen by the lovers of vinyl. "

I was in a couple also. In both we used Theta digital separates and a VPI TNT Jr - the cost was roughly the same. Something like 15 people as I recall. It was single blind - how did you blind the tester to make it a DBT? Anyway, only 1 person chose the digital. I guess, as you said, it depends on the recording/mastering.

"Once you get away from using the internal DAC of CD players and get turned on to external DACs, listening to CD's takes on a whole new meaning."

The Theta separates I mentioned above were mine. They weren't enough to turn the CD into music. Where's the break even point on cost? Or are DAC's just (something like)
400-500% better than they were in 1996?

"The benefits of SACD have not even been realized yet, and when it does, some vinyl lovers will be quite surprised at what they hear"

I am SO ready for that day! When the convenience of CD and the superior sonics of vinyl (hopefully) meet in SACD, it will indeed be a joyous event. Not far to go, based on my ears. The few SACD's I own are stellar and I don't miss vinyl when I listen. I'm sold! I'm curious, though - is it somehow more difficult to record in that format than in RBCD with the superior resolution, etc? What's your experience?

Difficult, no. More tedious, definately. There are some things with CD you know might be lost in the wash(mixdown to two channel) SACD(and DVD-A) on the other hand is VERY revealing. Microphones, pre-amps, placement in some cases, mixing boards, cable, and just about everthing else under the sun had to be re-evaluated because of both SACD and DVD-A's reveailing nature. IMO the more channels you have, the more potential to hear mixing and mastering mistakes.

[hifitommy]

[QUOTE=DMK
Heh, heh - as for giving up my vinyl, I'm sitting here contemplating purchasing a used Sota Cosmos with Graham 2.2 tonearm and I mean SERIOUS contemplation! I'll be pretty surprised if that puppy isn't sitting in my house sporting my Kontrapunkt within the next week or so. :)[/QUOTE]
damk!,

for punishment you must purchase new or used in A1 condition, a sota sapphire/mmt arm for me. i'll take care of getting the Kb, after all, i made you buy yours.

i actually believe the sapphire is superior to the vpi and as nice as the smeIV sounds, it doesnt have a universal detachable headshell. i truly LOVE swapping cartridges. HEY, doesnt that graham have interchangeable arm wands? get my drift??? orto, helikon, shelter, etc...

[hifitommy]

[QUOTE, yes when tommy sends me some ancient vinyl records. Thanks tommy I will not forget you..[/QUOTE].
be careful of what you wish for. no, i am not parting with mine BUT heres THIS:

http://www.recordcollectorsguild.org/record_stores/record_stores.html (http://www.recordcollectorsguild.org/record_stores/record_stores.html)

HAH! now youre infected! betcha cant buy just ONE!


;^)

[happy ears]

Been infected for many years just have been able to buy a nice table finally. Long drive for me to get to town so buying one would be a waste of gas but will have to wait for when I get back to the big city.

Being affected is an under statement, I work in the field and on longer jobs I bring with me a pair of Athena AS-B1-1 speakers which is powered by an Alpine car deck and an old Mitsubishi power amp. When I get a larger 13.8 VDC power supply I will replace the power amp with a car amplifier also need to install into a box for appearance. God does this hobby add up. Oh almost forgot got my father building me some small speakers can't wait until they are done

Come on hifitommy give those records a new home. Don't worry my music taste is all over the map, remembered when the young girl said "wow what a great selection of music". To which I replied it is still to limited because there is so much I have not heard. I was buying Classical blues rock and some country, see Skeptic even this young lady new some of that classical music. She even had two of the CD's I had bought and said i would really like them. Not all is lost but we will never be able to convince them but trying to force then down there throats. When young people tell me that they never heard any classical I just ask them haven't they watched and cartoons. I believe Disney was pretty big on it, you can slip it in but they never will try it when you push to hard.

Pretty please hifitommy, I'll even pay the shipping. When I die I want it to be listening to some great music and riding the woman. Boy do I want it all.

Enjoy the music life is to short.

[DMK]

BTW, my arm still hurts from you twisting it to get me to buy the Kontrapunkt! :)

Alas, a situation has occurred that precludes me from buying the Sota. The good news is that I spent a huge chunk of the money on used vinyl - old Blue Notes, Impulses, New Jazz, Riversides LP's from the 60's from a local dude. These things are nearly pristine and sound muy fantastico! I just got the batch home and have already listened to Archie Shepp's "Mama Too Tight" and am now starting Herbie Hancock's "Taking Off". Forget CD's being more accurate to the source, these LP's are more accurate to the MUSIC which is THE source as far as I'm concerned. I challenge any CD to get anywhere near the sonic purity of these puppies.Yes, they were expensive and yes, they were worth every bloody stinking nickel!

I'm not even at all sure that SACD could match these. Vinyl is still King until something comes along and consistently betters it. And we wait... and wait... and wait... and suffer!

Later, dude! Hard to concentrate on these posts.

[hifitommy]

Damn!

[Sealed]

Here is a comparision I got to do recently:

I just got Willie Nelson: Stardust on LP. I have the cd remaster.
- CD: very clean and crisp, mastered at a high level. Nice detail and immediacy
- LP: The presentation is a bit more laid back, it was done at a lower volume. It has a fluidity in the midrange that the cd lacks. The Cd is exceptional, the Lp has advantages in the midband

Dire Straits: brothers in arms
- Cd: won best recording of the year when made, deservedly so.
- LP: Sounds very close to the cd at the extremes, but again, there is a richness and timbral flow that the cd lacks. There is less sterility in the treble.

There is more involvement with the LP. So there is no one that can tell me "CD's are better"

SACD

Miles Davis kind of blue: SACD: better air than CD. There is more fluidity here, and an improvement in the presentation.

Vinyl: I'd still give an edge to the LP. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but it's the mids. The mids is the biggest slice of the spectrum. The horns here just shimmer with the proper life-like timbre and tonal color.

SACD sounds great, ideally--better than CD in most cases. But Cd and sacd are still a compressed/sampled version of an analog waveform. The "readers digest" version if you will. SACD has yet to prove to me that it can equal vinyl.

But, since I am holist about music, I have sacd, dvd-a, Cd, and vinyl. They all sound good. I just find that *NOTHING* has obsoleted vinyl, and nothing will for years to come.

"Vinyl-- it's more than a nail in a hockey stick grinding through a vinly plate"


Quote: "Anyone who cannot hear the difference between digital and analog is deaf"...Antony Michealson, Musical Fidelity

[Jerry Farber]

[QUOTE=poneal]Any comments?[/QUOTE
I enjoy good sound. In my opinion, good sound is not dictated by which format it is on. To put it simply, I enjoy the sound of a great CD or even SACD. However, I don't think anything can beat the sound of a pristine vinyl record: of course no matter what the format, it is up to the sound engineers and the performers to get the very best sound available available from that source. Let's face it. It makes no difference whether you play vinyl, CDs or SACDs. If you listen to a bad recording, that recording is going to sound bad.

I love the warmth of vinyl, but I also own a CD player and a SACD player. If I'm in a lazy mood, I'll play a CD or preferably a SACD. However, if I'm in the mood to be fully engrossed in a velvety sound I'll listen to the appropriate music from my vinyl collection.

I feel I must beg your pardon; I seem to have gotten away from the original question. My answer is NO; I don't think vinyl will become any more obselete than it is. As a mattter of fact, I believe the future will see a resurgence of the vinyl medium. On the other hand, Just because it is more convienient to slip a CD or SACD into a CD transport and hit the play button, does not make either one a better medium than the vinyl record. Records played on a good turntable with a good cartridge sound incredible. A properly recorded CD or SACD, played on a good deck also sounds incredible. Their is an old saying "what's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander". The same is true for audio sound in all formats. What I like is inconsequential. What is important is what you like.
Good listening,
Jerry