Vinyl, it does sound better than cd..

[the record spot]

I really believe it's down to the cartridge/deck combination people are using - a lot of the carts out there are on the smoother side, which isn't to say warm and fuzzy, but just lacking a bit on the upper end of the scale. Have to say, the comment drummerman made that a good Rega can't match a budget CDP is a slice of hokum IMO!

Just been listening to a stack of music this morning; everything from 1970s ZZ Top to Little Feat, Lone Justice, Thin Lizzy, orchestral and Genesis and they all sound excellent on the P3/AT combo.

I'd suggest anyone using a combination they aren't mad over, or doesn't hit the same spots as their CDP should investigate a cartridge change and take it from there. The idea vinyl can't be as good as CD is a non-starter. Pure opinion obviously, but plenty of evidence to back it up.

 

[John Duncan]

the record spot:The idea vinyl can't be as good as CD is a non-starter.

Agreed, and indeed it obviously has the potential to be better because of it's full bandwidth. Am just saying that in my system, it's not.

 

[matengawhat]

took the day off work today and reading this finally got me to pull my finger out so thought i would finally set my deck up again - i moved house in October last year and has been sat on top of my rack since then with no wires in it - great way to spend a £1k - thats nearly a year so guess you can say im firmly in the CDP camp.

so reconnected my project xpack with rondo red cartridge going through a mf XLPS and have to say i now remember why i bought it - its fantastic - not as easy to use, look after or gfriend friendly as CD but wow. However just played the same album Tracy Chapman on CD through my MF Xray V8 and V8 DAC and honest comparison is that when the dac is set to solid state the deck edges for warmth but when the dac is set to tube the warmth returns and its too close to call.

The Project deck killed my Kandy CDP this is first time i have compared it to the mf setup and its very very close. thin ksome more playing this evening with a bottle of wine!!!

 

[the record spot]

Great idea, but bottles are hopeless at tracking I hear....

 

[matengawhat]

just listening to fleetwood mac rumours - picked it up for next to nothing ages ago never listened to it - can't believe this is thought of as a calssic!!!! Sounds so flat

 

[matengawhat]

just hit don't stop and go your own way - both good tracks but sure any remaster of this will sound a million times better

 

[Anonymous]

You need cleaner and more powerful amps to get the best from CD or HD sources. Once you have these, it's no contest.

I loathe vinyl especially with classical music and I've tried cartridges up to about £1K and turntables up to, I think it was £15K and it still sounded a like a turntable. It looked fantastic though. If you search Youtube you'll find the Greek Audio society's film of their 20,000 Euro systems. They are using Earthquake proof turntables, 7 watt triode Amplifiers and huge Horn loudspeakers. Technically dreadful but they are happy as pigs in you know what!

Ash

 

[Tear Drop]

So there won't be a turntable from AVI any time soon...?

 

[John Duncan]

They do great two-way passive speakers though, paradoxically

 

[chebby]

Ashley James:I loathe vinyl especially with classical music and I've tried cartridges up to about £1K and turntables up to, I think it was £15K and it still sounded a like a turntable. It looked fantastic though. If you search Youtube you'll find the Greek Audio society's film of their 20,000 Euro systems. They are using Earthquake proof turntables, 7 watt triode Amplifiers and huge Horn loudspeakers. Technically dreadful but they are happy as pigs in you know what!Ash

Most everything we love in this world is 'technically dreadful' or at least technically imperfect. Mechanical Swiss chronometers, steam engines, classic cars, our families, fine wine and food, our favourite football teams (at times) and so on. (Substitute your own.)

I would not go within a mile of a turntable system that sounded 'technically perfect' because it wouldn't make me want to thrash around like a loon playing air-guitar

Gawd preserve us from the rationalist's idea of perfection when it comes to the satisfaction of the senses.

 

[Tear Drop]

chebby:I would not go within a mile of a turntable system that sounded 'technically perfect' because it wouldn't make me want to thrash around like a loon playing air-guitar

Gawd preserve us from the rationalist's idea of perfection when it comes to the satisfaction of the senses.

You're confusing music with hifi, art with technology. An extremely common 'audiophile' error.

 

[chebby]

Tear Drop:You're confusing music with hifi, art with technology. An extremely common 'audiophile' error.

Hifi is a means to enjoy music. No confusion. I have walked away from many systems in the past because, despite being technically impressive, they couldn't do music very well.

After all the 'deep silence between notes' and 'width of soundstage' and 'detail resolution' etc etc... a system has a primary duty to remind me of the excitement of being 17 again when I hear the music of my teens.

For some reason (probably hard-wired in my head somehow) a good turntable 'shortcuts' into that where many CD players have not. I am not saying that turntables offer that 'shortcut' for everyone, obviously they don't. I am not a dogmatist. I am talking about what works best for me. Eeveryone is different. No technical/rational/scientific argument is going to dissuade my senses.

Back in the 1980s I went to a live performance by Desmond Dekker at a local club. A couple of nights before playing our club, another gig on the same tour was recorded for the "Officially Live and Rare" album. I still have that album on both Vinyl and CD and the Vinyl version always took me back to the gig and the CD version never does.

 

[Anonymous]

I think if you have never used vinyl you don't loathe it or its tactility. Having never owned vinyl and being that of the CD generation it seems most well suited to the 'older ear'.

 

[chebby]

Brisk:I think if you have never used vinyl you don't loathe it or its tactility. Having never owned vinyl and being that of the CD generation it seems most well suited to the 'older ear'.

OK. You propose that Vinyl is suited to the older ear. Maybe you are right. (I cannot comment as I am now in my forties and therefore 'old' I suppose.)

That does not invalidate it as a medium though.

I actually think the sheer number of young people who have enjoyed vinyl from 1948 until today sort of invalidates your idea though. All those hundreds of millions of teenagers of the last 60 years did not have prematurely 'aged' ears that were pre-disposed to vinyl singles and LPs just as kids born since 1983 did not have ears programmed to respond better to CD or kids born in the iPod/iTunes era... you know what I mean

 

[Anonymous]

A few replys then.. From what ive read its a matter of taste or how you like your eggs, my copy of pink floyd's echoes special vinyl edition has just arrived and l have to say it sounds excellent, The point im makeing is that haveing spent a fair bit of money on cd players such as the cyrus dad3 q, musical fidelity x-ray and the arcam cd192, it's fair to say im enjoying listening to my music through a entry level pro-ject genie more than any of those players, Some like chedder, i like stilton....

 

[Anonymous]

Invalidating it as a medium was my last intention.

People obviously were (and still are) enjoying it, but vinyl as a preference seems rooted mostly in the exposure to it in youth, kind of, stick to what you know and love. There is nothing wrong with this but CD have not been contesting LP's since its dawn, unlike today. My use of, 'older ear' merely reflects that to grow up purely will vinyl as a medium you have to have clocked up a few years :>)

I do although find it unsettling knowing that people growing up with MP3 and CD are experiencing it at a lot less of its full potential as a trade for convenience. Whereas vinyl was
appreciated for quality more universally due to the convenience restrictions of the medium.

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the club Jimm!

I bought a Rega 2 (with a steel counterweight mod) early this year having just bought a marantz cd 5001 and PM 4001. I hardly listen to my cd player any more (or watch TV!). It's not that the Marantz is bad - it's a worthy 5 star budget cd player - it's just that listening to music on vinyl makes my heart sing in a way that CD does not, regardless of the snaps crackles and pops. What's more when the the same cd and vinyl is played side by side my wife, children, friends and anyone else I can cajole into a blind (as it is possible to be) listening test have always preferred the sound of vinyl.

The other advantage is that there is a lot of music out there on vinyl (often in suprisingly good condition) that still is not readily available on cd, especially if you're into jazz and blues. For the price of one cd you can go to the local tip, charity shops, or car boots and and buy an artist's complete back catalogue. And for the price of a packet of twiglets you get to discover artists you never knew you liked. Just build yourself a record cleaning machine (a vacuum cleaner in a box whatever the manufacturers tell you) and you're away.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm seriously old at 62 and I've never liked vinyl, I might even prefer 78s. I always remember sitting and listening knowing it would get worse towards the centre and mistrack if a Soprano let rip or whatever, it spoilt all but simple Pop which had evolved around the recording process so had been adjusted to suit.

Art I'm fanatical about and I love beautiful old cars, Impressionist paintings and mechanical devices that look the way they do because that's the best shape for them to work properly. A Manx Norton or an AJS 7R were works of art as well as the best racing motorbikes of their day and I'd admit that some turntables look wonderful, but they sound horrible and measure horrible to me.

I'd challenge anyone who suggest that technical perfection doesn't produce the best musical results because it's so easy to show that it does.

Think if it in its simplest terms; Assume a perfect acoustic and an excellent Band playing. It's what we all want to hear - why don't we hear that from our hi fi system? Because it is distorting and even the best distort what they play. I'm leaving the recording process out for obvious reasons.

Surely if something is distorting and spoiling what we want to hear, all we have to do is make every measurement know to man, identify every single distortion type and how offensive it is and then set about removing them all. That's what we do and we use professional Broadcast sound men, record producers, film people and musicians who have recordings they've made to check out what we've done. I'm sure most companies do something similar and the results they achieve will indicate how well they've done it.

Trust me - the best engineers produce the best results and there have been many in this country over the years.

Ash

PS. No turntable sorry, but I'd recommend an SL1210 though.

PPS. Music is the most a wonderfully uplifting experience, all hi fi can do is obstruct the process of enjoying it, the less the obstruction the better the music.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Brisk:Invalidating it as a medium was my last intention.

People obviously were (and still are) enjoying it, but vinyl as a preference seems rooted mostly in the exposure to it in youth, kind of, stick to what you know and love. There is nothing wrong with this but CD have not been contesting LP's since its dawn, unlike today. My use of, 'older ear' merely reflects that to grow up purely will vinyl as a medium you have to have clocked up a few years :>)

I do although find it unsettling knowing that people growing up with MP3 and CD are experiencing it at a lot less of its full potential as a trade for convenience. Whereas vinyl was
appreciated for quality more universally due to the convenience restrictions of the medium.

Incidentally, sales-stats show one of the fastest-growing demographics for vinyl purchase are the under-25s. Admittedly a lot of that is DJ-based, but not all - hence a lot of modern bands releasing vinyl versions of their albums....

EDIT - recent US story illustrating growth of under-25 vinyl purchasing...

 

[Tear Drop]

Not sure I get the point of your post Ashley - are you saying that CD has less musically damaging distortions than LP? Or less distortions related to 'sound quality'?

 

[chebby]

Ashley James:I'd challenge anyone who suggest that technical perfection doesn't produce the best musical results because it's so easy to show that it does.

Think if it in its simplest terms; Assume a perfect acoustic and an excellent Band playing. It's what we all want to hear - why don't we hear that from our hi fi system? Because it is distorting and even the best distort what they play. I'm leaving the recording process out for obvious reasons.

Surely if something is distorting and spoiling what we want to hear, all we have to do is make every measurement know to man, identify every single distortion type and how offensive it is and then set about removing them all. That's what we do and we use professional Broadcast sound men, record producers, film people and musicians who have recordings they've made to check out what we've done. I'm sure most companies do something similar and the results they achieve will indicate how well they've done it.

Yikes no thanks! Perfect acoustics, perfect instruments, perfect musicians, perfect recordings....(and presumably perfect listeners) this all sounds quite horrific. A world where music and it's replay is entirely governed by lab technicians in white coats removing everything that is 'offensive' to the measuring equipment.

 

[chebby]

Clare Newsome:Incidentally, sales-stats show one of the fastest-growing demographics for vinyl purchase are the under-25s. Admittedly a lot of that is DJ-based, but not all - hence a lot of modern bands releasing vinyl versions of their albums....

DJ/Club based influences (in terms of the use of Vinyl) have been around since before CD arrived right up to the present so is a constant. Cannot see that it would suddenly become a major influence now. In fact less DJs are using Vinyl nowadays.

The growing use of vinyl amongst the under 25s probably has some other explanation.

Maybe it is a rejection of that whole 'thing' of living (and being entertained) in a digital bubble. Maybe the teens are beginning to rebel against the idea that the whole world can be just be 'downloaded' in virtual form into their bedrooms. Maybe they are exploring the idea of getting out to gigs and buying some vinyl afterwards and going round to their mate's places and swapping and playing something they can touch.

It is also not entirely unknown for one generation to get nostalgic about something a previous generation experienced and to find they actually like it.

 

[Anonymous]

Ashley James:I'm seriously old at 62 and I've never liked vinyl, I might even prefer 78s. I always remember sitting and listening knowing it would get worse towards the centre and mistrack if a Soprano let rip or whatever, it spoilt all but simple Pop which had evolved around the recording process so had been adjusted to suit.

Art I'm fanatical about and I love beautiful old cars, Impressionist paintings and mechanical devices that look the way they do because that's the best shape for them to work properly. A Manx Norton or an AJS 7R were works of art as well as the best racing motorbikes of their day and I'd admit that some turntables look wonderful, but they sound horrible and measure horrible to me.

I'd challenge anyone who suggest that technical perfection doesn't produce the best musical results because it's so easy to show that it does.

Think if it in its simplest terms; Assume a perfect acoustic and an excellent Band playing. It's what we all want to hear - why don't we hear that from our hi fi system? Because it is distorting and even the best distort what they play. I'm leaving the recording process out for obvious reasons.

Surely if something is distorting and spoiling what we want to hear, all we have to do is make every measurement know to man, identify every single distortion type and how offensive it is and then set about removing them all. That's what we do and we use professional Broadcast sound men, record producers, film people and musicians who have recordings they've made to check out what we've done. I'm sure most companies do something similar and the results they achieve will indicate how well they've done it.

Trust me - the best engineers produce the best results and there have been many in this country over the years.

Ash

PS. No turntable sorry, but I'd recommend an SL1210 though.

PPS. Music is the most a wonderfully uplifting experience, all hi fi can do is obstruct the process of enjoying it, the less the obstruction the better the music.

Arthur C Clarke's First Law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

 

[Clare Newsome]

chebby:Clare Newsome:Incidentally, sales-stats show one of the fastest-growing demographics for vinyl purchase are the under-25s. Admittedly a lot of that is DJ-based, but not all - hence a lot of modern bands releasing vinyl versions of their albums....DJ/Club based influences (in terms of the use of Vinyl) have been around since before CD arrived right up to the present so is a constant. Cannot see that it would suddenly become a major influence now. In fact less DJs are using Vinyl nowadays.The growing use of vinyl amongst the under 25s probably has some other explanation.

I made the DJ caveat predicting an avalanche of responses saying "but that's all DJs, not home listeners"... Figures on sales (of turntables and discs) show it's a good mix of DJ and mainstream stuff.

 

[Anonymous]

Im listening to the beatles sgt pepper on vinyl, im well aware of crackles and pop's, so what if the fidelity isnt crackle free like the great cd, i like crackles, i like toast and i prefer the beatles on vinyl....