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  1. #26
    Suspended Smokey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by basite
    The highest dynamic range I found in a recording was like, 30-40db, and that was exceptional, every single pop, and most other popular genres don't even have audible dynamic range, everything is compressed.
    I can't argue with you there as it seem compression problem have gotten worse. But that still does not win argument as to superiority of vinyl over CD. If a CD remastering is done right, vinyl can not touch it in terms of dynamic, noise and frequecy response.

    David Bowie CDs from Rykodisc is good example of how wondefrul CD sound is when remastering is done right.

  2. #27
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    Smokey, CDP's frequency response are 20-20khz, a phono cartridge frequency response can go much wider. Here's a couple examples and they aren't even the extreme; http://www.soundhifi.com/denon%20pho...artridges.html

  3. #28
    Phila combat zone JoeE SP9's Avatar
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    I was poking around (looking for something else) and found this nice shot of the Finial ELP-1 Laser LPplayer


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  4. #29
    Suspended Smokey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
    Smokey, CDP's frequency response are 20-20khz, a phono cartridge frequency response can go much wider. Here's a couple examples and they aren't even the extreme; http://www.soundhifi.com/denon%20pho...artridges.html
    Impressing numbers, but as I said in my first post, you are limited by vinyl itself.

    Frequecy response of typical vinyl is probably around 50-15 khz. Most signal above and below those limits is likely to be noise (rumble and hum below 50-60Hz. Clicks, pops, hiss and harmonics above 15,000kHz). And also as an added bonus, you will lose high frequecy response gradually as groove move inward due to speed velocity change.

  5. #30
    I took a headstart... basite's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Smokey
    I can't argue with you there as it seem compression problem have gotten worse. But that still does not win argument as to superiority of vinyl over CD. If a CD remastering is done right, vinyl can not touch it in terms of dynamic, noise and frequecy response.

    David Bowie CDs from Rykodisc is good example of how wondefrul CD sound is when remastering is done right.

    ture, there can be some noise on vinyl, although good quality vinyl, and good quality TT's and cart's are waaay quieter than other vinyl.

    and on remastering: well, that's what they do with remastering, they make it sound different/better, including "more dynamics" (sometimes, exaggerated dynamics, actually). and then they put it on cd, and they also remaster it for a cd, if they were to remaster it, and do it properly and then put it on well pressed vinyl, it is just as dynamic sounding as the cd. Just less harsh, more natural, and fuller.
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  6. #31
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    Smokey, do you have a reference for LP's high frequency averaging 15khz? I've never heard that before and 15khz is about the limit for FM and LP's to my ears far surpass FM.

  7. #32
    M.P.S.E /AES/SMPTE member Sir Terrence the Terrible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phileserver39
    Hello Sir Terrance! If I may ask, is there a difference in DSD or DXD from SACD or DVD-Audio? I have a Pioneer DVD player which plays both hi-def formats. Thanks!
    DSD is the raw stream which is the basis for SACD. DXD is the highest recording resolution every acheived, and can be losslessly transferred to SACD and DVD-A. With DVD-A, you can only use two channels of 24/192khz, and 5.1 channels at 24/96khz. With DSD(and therefore SACD) you can use all 5.1 channels. With the Blu ray format you can use 5.1 channels of 24/192khz, and 7.1 channels of 24/96khz PCM audio.

    The pioneer unfortunately turns the DSD stream into PCM so that bass management can be used. This degrades the audio a bit - which is audible when compared to a player that can process the raw DSD stream.
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  8. #33
    M.P.S.E /AES/SMPTE member Sir Terrence the Terrible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    And it may also be why the best CD players that I have heard don't used any Brickwall filters and actually let more of the disc get to the preamp. And what do you know these CD players tend to always be described as more analog sounding, more real, etc etc. However, they don't look as nice on the graph. Again do we want to be a slave to the numbers or our ears? I prefer being a slave to the ears since that is what I use to listen. I am listening to such a CD player right now and my other player is so unbelievably horrible in comparison. To me that is also key when evaluating any gear. How much better does one thing sound over another. Like the other thread in the analog forum - CD players also tend to sound a lot more similar to each other than they ought to. Going from a $500 TT to a $2,000 TT it is a massive striking very noticable difference. Going from a $700 Arcam Alpha 7 to an over $2k Alpha 9 not much difference. Too subtle and no one will pass a DBT kind of subtle. For 4 times the money it should be a wow strimking kind of improvement not a "I need to have it in my house for 2 months to know for sure" kind of improvement.
    Brickwall filters went by the wayside in the middle 90's. With oversampling being used at both recording and playback, there is no need for them anymore. Plus, prefiltering already happens during the recording process via the digital recorders anti alising filters, so a filterless CD player will probably sound no better than an oversampling one.

    the brick wall at 20 khz, and 20 hz for example with cd's, while vinyl goes far below 20 hz, and very far above 20khz, without problems
    Vinyl does not go below 20hz, as there is no way a stylus would stay in the groove at that frequency. The CD format does not have brickwall filters at 20hz, it is at 5hz. Vinyl barely goes above 20khz, and probably peaks at somewhere around 25khz, of which the difference between 22.5khz of CD, and 25khz of vinyl represents about a single note on a scale.
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  9. #34
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phileserver39
    Hi AR. I have had an idea for a while but have thought that it was too simplistic and must be missing something fundamental in nature. I would appreciate your input...

    The laser is a very precise instrument- it is used to accurately read the 0's and 1's on a compact disc which is spinning at high speed. Analog rules because it there is no need to sample or "dumb down" the signal to 0's and 1's. Why not marry the two technologies?

    After all, the problem with analog lay with the quality of the needle, cartridge, tone arm, platter, etc. Any physical contact between the needle and record, for instance, will ensure that the next time the record is played, it will not sound EXACTLY the same.

    If we could use lasers to read an analog format I think that we could get the best of both worlds. Your thoughts?
    Been there, done that. Early on in the development of the CD format, there were plenty of discussions about whether the CD would be an analog optical format, similar to the Laserdisc format, which already used an analog FM audio carrier.

    As others have mentioned, there are already laser turntables that play LPs.
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  10. #35
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    I don't know if it is technically "brick wall" filtering but current CDP's absolutely still have filtering. My player is a current model and I actually can choose between two different filter slopes. I really believe this filtering is how manufacturers are able to achieve certain sound characteristics they like for their unit to have.

  11. #36
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    I think one of the biggest reasons for analog support was the mishandling of CD and the slogans of Perfect Sound forever. You didn't need perfect listening pitch to tell you that a good turntable systems beat the ever loving crap out of CD and their terrible players for more than a decade.
    I see that you've gone back to the wild broad brushed generalizations. Basically, my view has been unchanged -- there are so many variables to account for, particularly with vinyl playback, that it's ridiculous to makes these generalizations. You have to scrutinize the turntable setup, the condition of the stylus, the tonal characteristics of the cartridge, the mastering and press quality of the LP itself, the preamp stepup, etc.

    Vinyl playback has a huge range of sound quality that you're totally discounting here. When I made the mistake of switching the cartridge on my turntable to a Sumiko Black Pearl, I was hard pressed to find an LP playback that I preferred to the CD. Now that I bit the bullet and went back to the Ortofon OM30 (upwards of $250+), my vinyl sounds great and preferable to the CD playback in MANY but not ALL cases.

    With CDs, you have much higher sound quality at the low end. That's just undeniable. I lived through the era of portable record changers, and all-in-one systems with the droptop BSR and Garrard spindle spinners. Play one of those systems and tell me how superior the LP sounds with a straight face. No low end CD player sounds as bad as a low end record player, and the low end is coming back with a vengeance with the flood of USB turntables now on the market (also bringing the return of fixed head cartridges, spherical stylii, nonadjustable counterweights and tracking force -- what's next? the return of the penny taped to the headshell to keep the records from skipping?).

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Audiophiles who owned good rigs were not convinced and a decade later many still were not convinced. And when a new digital format comes out with "this is much better than CD...." you can't really blame the vinylphiles for being highly skeptical. I auditioned SACD at a "special event" with the top Sony player and a surround set-up with Martin Logan and top of the line Bryston and heard a live SACD disc and could hear a guitar behind my head - it was interesting but completely fake and artificial sounding to me. Plus it required a HUGE outlay of cash because now you had to buy 5-6 loudspeakers instead of two to get that artificial sound. They put on a few other discs - Hotel California particularly stunk up the joint on SACD and a few less than memorable classical pieces.
    So, you're discounting an entire approach to audio on the basis on one audio demonstration?

    Just with my own modest surround setup, I can play an SACD from SF Symphony's Mahler series and get a more representative playback of the audience experience inside Davies Symphony Hall than the two-channel playback can. It's all dependent on the mix, and having sat in many different locations within Davies Hall, I can pick out exactly what "position" within the hall that the 5.1 mix is aiming to reproduce. The two-channel mixes don't even come close to that -- yes, they sound quite good and if you're unfamiliar with Davies Hall's acoustics, you might even think it sounds better, depending on your biases. But, because I know how the orchestra actually sounds inside the hall, to me the two-channel mixes are more of a caricature of the live experience than an accurate reproduction of it.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    So I like many decided that SACD was another perfect sound forever gimmick - not being able to copy them - ahh I surmised that this was the main reason it was brought out - charge $30 instead of $12.99 and you can't make a copy of it. Protects the industry and artists more than being about good sound quality.
    If both the SF Symphony and London Symphony are continuing to issue 5.1 SACDs natively recorded in DSD on their own record labels, how's it not about sound quality? Anyone who wants to copy the disc, can simply rip the CD layer. Or is this news to you, that SACDs are typically hybrid discs that are playable on regular CD players?

    I've never seen a $30 SACD with a $13 CD equivalent. Please point out an example.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    And contrary to pupular belief there are many makers still trying to make turntables better and are working to make the LPs better but obviously there is less time and effort here but if there were who knows how much better it could have become - maybe there would be a Super Audio 45 today!!
    And in case you haven't noticed, the price for a typical new LP is over $20. The state of the art in vinyl often comes down to the skill of the lathe cutter and the quality control steps used in the mastering and pressing processes.

    Bob Ludwig, generally considered one of the top LP mastering engineers in the business, has consistently stated over the years that you have to tweak with the LP to get it to sound right. But, he also says that under no circumstances will you ever get an LP playback to sound transparent to original source. Keep in mind that this is someone whose work I have a great deal of respect for, and in many cases, the LPs that he mastered subjectively sound much better than the CDs (for example, the LPs he mastered for Rush). By comparison, he has stated that high res digital (he prefers 192/24 PCM) can sound indistinguishable from the original master.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Audiophiles and DJs kept vinyl going and it has seen a steady rise in sales the last 5 years doubling the previous year's sales each year. Overall sales are pitiful compared to CD but it has never left.
    It never left, but that doesn't mean that it will ever amount to anything other than a niche. The only reason why sales are now coming back is because more titles are getting reissued. You still barely get any new releases coming out on vinyl. And all of these LPs are getting released because the record companies turned the LP into a low volume, high margin, limited release product that can cost upwards of $30 each (in contrast to those $30 SACDs you talk about, I have seen $30 LPs).

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Interestingly some artists came out with Vinyl only albums with downloadable MP3 versions for owners. In a sense vinyl is a better protection against copying because to copy a vinyl requires real time copying and the gear to get it to sound good will be pricey.
    Weren't you just chastising the SACD for its copy protection, yet here you are praising the LP for being more difficult to copy?
    Last edited by Woochifer; 08-27-2010 at 04:50 PM.
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  12. #37
    Silence of the spam Site Moderator Geoffcin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Going from a $700 Arcam Alpha 7 to an over $2k Alpha 9 not much difference. Too subtle and no one will pass a DBT kind of subtle. For 4 times the money it should be a wow strimking kind of improvement not a "I need to have it in my house for 2 months to know for sure" kind of improvement.
    Bwahhh!! I assume that you chose this analogy because you know I use an Alpha 9. They haven't made this player in nearly a decade so perhaps your a bit behind the times as far as digital tech eh?

    FWIW; The Alpha 9 is one of the first of the oversampling players. The technology they use was derived from the much more expensive dCS ring dac. The difference being that dCS manufactures their dac using fully discrete components, where Arcam uses the same topology in a IC form. Basically the ring dac converts jitter to white noise which is much less noticeable. (at least to me) The difference between it and the Alpha 7 was pretty obvious to me because of this. However, BOTH player using a state-of-the-art recording like the XRCD of Diana Krall will change your mind about how good a CD can be.

    http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo....mber=VERSXR018

    I only have a few of these XRCD's but every one played though my CD player sound better than ANY vinyl recording I've ever heard, and that includes 200gram pressings played on a reference quality system.

    Even as good as my player is, I had a chance to hear the Meridian 800 when I bought my Arcam Alpha 9. (2001) This player really impressed me and I would say that at the time it was the absolute pinnacle of playback performance.

    Since that time I've chased DVD-Audio with little success, and had an abortive go at SACD. Hopefully the next format will see them re-engineer the recordings to take advantage of the fidelity of the format.
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  13. #38
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    Smokey, take a look at this, I found it very interesting and supports what i said earlier about not hearing LP's lack of dynamic range compared to CD. I also would like to state I am not a hardliner for either format.
    http://www.audioholics.com/education...-part-4-page-2

    Sir T & Smokey, this clearly shows LP goes beyond 25khz
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eC6L3_k_48

    As I stated I use both CD and LP, and not hard line on either side but LP as a format isn't as handicap as you want to make it out to be.

  14. #39
    RGA
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    I'm not going point by point because I don't have time to reply to everyone so I will do my best quicky from what I can remember

    1) we are in agreement that at the low end CD player are generally better - depends on the units but I would agree.

    2) I have heard SACD several times but the main audition with surround was set-up by professionals. If they can't do it the average audiophile has no hope. My issue has never really been the spatial effects of SACD but timbre and tone. I don't buy the sound of basic instruments and voices - the immersive factor may have just stunk on the disc they showed and maybe vastly better - I give that since this is true of movie soundtracks - some sound better than others. It was still a SS system and perhaps with other gear it would be better but very few places bother to demo it anymore since there is rumbling that is in its death throws - it is pretty tough for high end dealers to continue with it. Soundhounds may be the only one in my area still supporting it.

    3) no one here is selling SACD anymore from what I can tell but A&B sound did and their SACD titles were considerably more expensive than their CD counterparts. That may have changed but 4 years ago that was the case. A&B went out of business. I saw no SACD titles at Best Buy or Future Shop today. The Sony store here doesn't sell a single machine that is SACD capable. All of this was not the case 3-4 years ago.

    4) you are right - LP is generally more expensive but the prices are coming down - several popular titles are under $20 including the likes of Lady Gaga or Jackson Browne mentioned above.

    5) I am happy to give SACD another try - I have had 4 long auditions and I didn't like any of them. Regardless of the music played. With it seemingly on life support I didn't see the need to seek it out yet again. I need more popular titles to come through than classical. If I hear it sound better than the same title I have or it is music that I like that I can't get on the other formats I would buy it - but as you point out it also carries the Redbook encoding which makes it less of a need to spend a massive amount of money on a processor/5 channel power amplifier 5 loudspeakers or more to get SACD when I don't like the sound of receivers just for 2 channel vocals. I suppose I could look at the top Arcam rigs but those are probably in the $4,000 range and I still need speakers. This is a huge undertaking.

    6) with number 5 said I have a plan to get back into home theater. And that plan will include SACD. At that point with more of my own "control" over what the gear will actually be I will be able to better judge it. Listening to a few set-ups that dealers - professionals or not - and manufacturers set-up still doesn't leave the control with me. And I am pretty picky about which speakers get used. In all the set-ups I hear the speakers I would not find acceptable in 2 channel so not sounding good with 5 of them hardly helped matters!

  15. #40
    RGA
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    I had no idea you owned Arcam of any kind.

    I used them as an example frequently because I almost bought a 7 and a 9 - I liked the CD 6 over the 7 and 8 back in the day. I use example frequently because Arcam had a clever modular upgrade approach where the same transport was used and you could upgrade essentially the processing unit - but at high costs relative to the expense of the chips used. I was not attacking them - pretty much everyone else did the same thing including Cambridge Audio. Basically the DAC magic back then used better DAC than what is in the CD 6 though the DiscMagic transport is the same. They could have charged $100 and put the same DAC in there and it would have been a helluva CD player - but no you had to spend $700 to buy the external DAC with the extra $5.00 worth of Chipset. UHF did a review of all this back in the day.

    I don't know why people think I am anti-technology or anti-CD. I am reviewing a CD player for heaven sake - talk about dead technology and it doesn't play SACD and it doesn't upsample. It's sounds excellent. I just think LP gets a bum rap. I have albums on LP you can't get on any other format and the sound is outstanding. I have an LP rig that several LP 12 owners have dumped for it. Some of those LP12 owners on AA made more direct comparisons. I believe the vinyl is really good once you're in the LP12 kind of class. So I am not a vinyl guy in the sense that anything will do - I had the Duals and Regas of the world. It takes a fair bit of expense IMO to get vinyl to the point where the nasties of vinyl dissapear. Inner groove distortion, bass wobbles, HF spittiness. Lower end decks that get away from that tend to have anaemic bass and sound leaner and CD like. Which is probably not a bad compromise. The Project decks sound tight and fast and are quite inexpensive but they don't really represent what vinyl can do. A popular MM cartirdge is the Shure M97xE and I owned it. But really it's completely outclassed by better MM and MC carts.

    Most of the best rooms at CES all ran vinyl - but the cost of playback as Woochifer alluded to is out of the realm of affordability for most of us on this board. I can get pretty good digital for $1,000 and less but I am not sure I can find a good vinyl spinner for that and maybe not under $2k when the cart and arm are factored in. And that's assuming a good phone stage. You're probably into the $4k and up range to really start having Vinyl pull away. UHF argued at least $2500 just for the table a while back and they may not be far off.

  16. #41
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    2) I have heard SACD several times but the main audition with surround was set-up by professionals. If they can't do it the average audiophile has no hope. My issue has never really been the spatial effects of SACD but timbre and tone. I don't buy the sound of basic instruments and voices - the immersive factor may have just stunk on the disc they showed and maybe vastly better - I give that since this is true of movie soundtracks - some sound better than others. It was still a SS system and perhaps with other gear it would be better but very few places bother to demo it anymore since there is rumbling that is in its death throws - it is pretty tough for high end dealers to continue with it. Soundhounds may be the only one in my area still supporting it.
    But, on the flip side to this (and this is probably more a comment on multichannel than SACD specifically), a good 5.1 mix can actually liberate the instruments and voices from a highly processed and compressed stereo mix. The Concord Jazz SACD releases reveal a huge amount of detail simply because the 5.1 mixes eliminated the excessive processing that accompanied the original two-channel mixes and by spreading the instrumentation into the surrounds, each of the instruments sound much better defined.

    The positioning of the speakers is absolutely critical for multichannel music. Because of how a lot of movie soundtracks are mixed, you can get away with improperly positioned surrounds in those cases. But, with anything mixed with spatial cues in the surrounds (which includes almost all 5.1 music and many newer 5.1 movies), you have to be as deliberate with the positioning as you would with a two-channel setup.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    3) no one here is selling SACD anymore from what I can tell but A&B sound did and their SACD titles were considerably more expensive than their CD counterparts. That may have changed but 4 years ago that was the case. A&B went out of business. I saw no SACD titles at Best Buy or Future Shop today. The Sony store here doesn't sell a single machine that is SACD capable. All of this was not the case 3-4 years ago.
    The reason I still keep a SACD player in my system is because I have a collection of SACDs, and the SF Symphony's Mahler series (all done in DSD and 5.1 SACD) is one of my most essential listenings. There are still a fair amount of classical titles that come out in SACD, and the London Symphony also continues to support the format on its label.

    If you're not already invested, then it migth not be worthwhile unless you have some essential titles that you want in SACD. And I say the same thing to people who are thinking about getting into vinyl.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    4) you are right - LP is generally more expensive but the prices are coming down - several popular titles are under $20 including the likes of Lady Gaga or Jackson Browne mentioned above.
    But, then you also have some titles that go for $30 or more. I saw a Pink Floyd LP tagged for $40 a while back. To me that's ridiculous, but if people are willing to bone up that much money, then I guess it's justified by the demand.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    5) I am happy to give SACD another try - I have had 4 long auditions and I didn't like any of them. Regardless of the music played. With it seemingly on life support I didn't see the need to seek it out yet again. I need more popular titles to come through than classical. If I hear it sound better than the same title I have or it is music that I like that I can't get on the other formats I would buy it - but as you point out it also carries the Redbook encoding which makes it less of a need to spend a massive amount of money on a processor/5 channel power amplifier 5 loudspeakers or more to get SACD when I don't like the sound of receivers just for 2 channel vocals. I suppose I could look at the top Arcam rigs but those are probably in the $4,000 range and I still need speakers. This is a huge undertaking.
    But, you see I'm coming at it from the perspective that 5.1 music (no matter the format) can convey spatial cues that no two-channel playback can match. If one of the objectives with an audio system is to represent a live performance, 5.1 music conveys specific attributes of the live performance far more convincingly than a two-channel system will. It doesn't take a massively expensive system to do this. Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of new releases coming out, until maybe Blu-ray begins to pick up the slack.
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  17. #42
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Smokey
    I can't argue with you there as it seem compression problem have gotten worse. But that still does not win argument as to superiority of vinyl over CD. If a CD remastering is done right, vinyl can not touch it in terms of dynamic, noise and frequecy response.

    David Bowie CDs from Rykodisc is good example of how wondefrul CD sound is when remastering is done right.
    In my experience, the quality of the playback might be as simple as the choice of playback rig used during the mastering process. After doing a bunch of listenings and comparisons with Mobile Fidelity's SACD and LP releases versus other versions for specific titles, I just get the impression that they get their releases to sound so good simply because they use a highly customized reel-to-reel player during the transfer process. Their analog chain purportedly measures flat all the way up to 100 kHz, and every component in that analog sequence is custom built. They like to tout the gold substrate on the discs and how they do the bitmapping, but to me, differences in digital equipment pale in comparison to differences in the analog domain.

    Comparing the SACD and CD layers, I notice a slight difference, but even the CD layer on Mobile Fidelity's Gershwin release subjectively sounds better than the 96/24 PCM version that I have from Classic Records.
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  18. #43
    M.P.S.E /AES/SMPTE member Sir Terrence the Terrible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
    Smokey, take a look at this, I found it very interesting and supports what i said earlier about not hearing LP's lack of dynamic range compared to CD. I also would like to state I am not a hardliner for either format.
    http://www.audioholics.com/education...-part-4-page-2

    Sir T & Smokey, this clearly shows LP goes beyond 25khz
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eC6L3_k_48

    As I stated I use both CD and LP, and not hard line on either side but LP as a format isn't as handicap as you want to make it out to be.
    Does it really matter if you cannot hear beyond 12khz? Secondly how many LP have such a wide frequency response...hell I can find one that does, but can I randomly pick an LP and it will have signals above 25khz? That is the question to me..I always knew that LP had a wider frequency response up top, that was never the issue.

    Most of what he picked up on the analyzer wouldn't be audible anyway, as there was not that much output above 25khz. If we could hear that high, the signals would have to be as strong on top as they were near the bottom of the range. It was clearly not that close, and there wasn't THAT much output up there.
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  19. #44
    M.P.S.E /AES/SMPTE member Sir Terrence the Terrible's Avatar
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    Bob Ludwig, generally considered one of the top LP mastering engineers in the business, has consistently stated over the years that you have to tweak with the LP to get it to sound right. But, he also says that under no circumstances will you ever get an LP playback to sound transparent to original source. Keep in mind that this is someone whose work I have a great deal of respect for, and in many cases, the LPs that he mastered subjectively sound much better than the CDs (for example, the LPs he mastered for Rush). By comparison, he has stated that high res digital (he prefers 192/24 PCM) can sound indistinguishable from the original master.
    Bernie Grundman said exactly the same thing. When I posted that in the analog forum, I was shouted down, and Grundman experience was quite frankly discounted by folks that seemed to know more than he does. Ludwig, Grundman, Ainley, and Elliot Schneiner have all said this, but apparently the armchair listener know more than these guys do.
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  20. #45
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    RGA, must you always go to extremes? I have a very competent CDP, my Rega Planar 3 and cartridge is able to hold it's own against it. They sound different but I enjoy listening to both. The point being is you can pick up a P3 and cart for less than $2500.00 and it sounds high end enough to fully demonstrate the strengths of vinyl. Frenchmon recently started running an entry Music Hall and that was enough he could tell the difference from mass market tables like Technics. You make it sound like some one either has to have $2500.00 or greater, or forget vinyl. When Frenchmon heard my rig he could also hear how mine was quieter. So my conclusion would be that turntables are no different than any other component in the way you have different levels with different abilities. So you measure what table you need by what system you have or plan to have. Actually, it was a mere P2 that put my jaw on the floor from the Pioneer rig I previously had. It was a huge improvement.

  21. #46
    Suspended Smokey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
    Smokey, do you have a reference for LP's high frequency averaging 15khz?
    I think if you look at RIAA Curve de-equalization, it might give clearer picture of vinyl frequency response.



    As you can see high frequecy are attenuated at 6 db/per octave (double frequency), and at 19khz there is 20 dB attenuation which mean any usable bandwidth will be below 19 khz. And if you count wear, dust, dirt, inner groove distortion, misalignment, etc.., your high frequecy response will be much lower than 19khz.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir TT
    Does it really matter if you cannot hear beyond 12khz? Secondly how many LP have such a wide frequency response...hell I can find one that does, but can I randomly pick an LP and it will have signals above 25khz?
    With RIAA frequecy response being between 20-20kz, wouldn't anything above 20khz contain all noise due to attenuation?

  22. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
    Bernie Grundman said exactly the same thing. When I posted that in the analog forum, I was shouted down, and Grundman experience was quite frankly discounted by folks that seemed to know more than he does. Ludwig, Grundman, Ainley, and Elliot Schneiner have all said this, but apparently the armchair listener know more than these guys do.
    Some "armchair listeners" may not have more knowledge but they know what they prefer. Knowing a professional prefers digital isn't going to make some one else go digital when they prefer vinyl. Presenting the information is all one can do.
    Last edited by Mr Peabody; 08-28-2010 at 06:13 AM.

  23. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
    Does it really matter if you cannot hear beyond 12khz? Secondly how many LP have such a wide frequency response...hell I can find one that does, but can I randomly pick an LP and it will have signals above 25khz? That is the question to me..I always knew that LP had a wider frequency response up top, that was never the issue.

    This is a very dismissive attitude and statement when presented with the facts, much like an "arm chaire listener" might do. Both CD and LP go beyond 12khz thankfully, so one's hearing range is irrelevant.

    What was the issue? I first thought "dynamic range" until you said in reply to, "the brick wall at 20 khz, and 20 hz for example with cd's, while vinyl goes far below 20 hz, and very far above 20khz, without problems

    Sir T, "Vinyl does not go below 20hz, as there is no way a stylus would stay in the groove at that frequency. The CD format does not have brickwall filters at 20hz, it is at 5hz. Vinyl barely goes above 20khz, and probably peaks at somewhere around 25khz, of which the difference between 22.5khz of CD, and 25khz of vinyl represents about a single note on a scale."

    At which point I became curious and found the bit of information I posted. You, are welcome to do with it what you will but you shouldn't be so judgmental of how others take your information without first cleaning off your own stoop.

    For the record Mobile Fidelity's vinyl prssing of 1812 Overture is said to extend from 8hz to 50khz. Probably not typical but I guess the range is there if one wanted to use it. A lot like CD would certainly sound better if it wasn't so compressed and record levels maxed out.

    Most of what he picked up on the analyzer wouldn't be audible anyway, as there was not that much output above 25khz. If we could hear that high, the signals would have to be as strong on top as they were near the bottom of the range. It was clearly not that close, and there wasn't THAT much output up there.
    That's open to interpretation I suppose and it's true our hearing is certainly limited but from what I understand the wide frequency response is necessary for harmonics. I don't know how much value you personally place on harmonics but from a training seminar I attended with JBL/Harmon Kardon they presented a convincing case.

  24. #49
    Silence of the spam Site Moderator Geoffcin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Geoffcin

    I had no idea you owned Arcam of any kind.
    I find this difficult to believe. My CD player has been in my signature since I joined the AR forums. To say you've never read my signature after all the responses to my posts you've made over the years means you have some form of optical or memory problem, or possibly both.

    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    I don't know why people think I am anti-technology or anti-CD. I am reviewing a CD player for heaven sake.
    Not only does the combined body of your posts lead anyone with even the slightest ability to read come to the conclusion that you are most assuredly anti-CD, but your recent post in THIS thread points to your inability to differentiate between a good, and a better CD player. Do your readers a favor and do NOT review things you are obviously not qualified for.
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  25. #50
    Forum Regular pixelthis's Avatar
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    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by phileserver39
    Hello Sir Terrance! If I may ask, is there a difference in DSD or DXD from SACD or DVD-Audio? I have a Pioneer DVD player which plays both hi-def formats. Thanks!
    SACD uses DSD(direct stream digital). Don't worry about DVD audio, its practically dead.
    So is SACD , although DSD might be kept as an archiving format, and SACD is still very
    popular in Europe, I am told.
    Also, a lot of the early "problems" with CD couldn't be heard by a GERMAN SHEPARD,
    and were mainly the worry of neurotic audiophiles and their fanciful imaginations , most
    loved the format, hence the HIROSHIMA like way it treated records, which now are a niche
    market.
    ALSO DSD is kinda analog, as it uses ones and zeros to recreate a sine wave.
    One controversy about DSD is the noise it creates, which is pushed up into the inaudible range.
    Not that any of this matters, tech based on BLUE laser, maybe the BLU format itself,
    is the perfect medium for music, both two and multichannel, and is the future.
    ALL THE REST OF THIS, including the CD, will be coming soon to an attic near you.
    Which is why I wont waste any more money on them, much as I love SACD, BLU
    is the future. Blu and downloads.
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