HiFi/Highend/Audio Gear

I agree. But our reg-writers in this part of the world would likely demand so many "protection" stuff and warning labels that it would be the size of an oven range when it becomes available. 3-phase power supply would be cool too but I guess you literally have to build a house around that.

I had a Crest 220 volt amplifier for a while (this was about ten years ago). It took up a normal double rack spot. Wasn't overly sized and worked fine. It was ridiculosly powerful. 1100 watts at two ohms bridged. I think they sell for right around $500 now. Still less than 1% THD and for subs it was hard to beat.

I had a Crest 220 volt amplifier for a while (this was about ten years ago). It took up a normal double rack spot. Wasn't overly sized and worked fine. It was ridiculosly powerful. 1100 watts at two ohms bridged. I think they sell for right around $500 now. Still less than 1% THD and for subs it was hard to beat.

 

Exactly. Look at what had evolved since. Just look at the hassle that UR, CE, CSA etc... had done in the last 7 years just on the power cord receptacle on the pwr amp. Yes, it's all done for sake of "safety" but since one is dealing with a high voltage/wattage apparatus, isn't it given that one should be cautious and careful? Another compounded issue thanks to all the legal disclaimer etc...

 

Btw, have you heard back from Nelson Pass yet?

Exactly. Look at what had evolved since. Just look at the hassle that UR, CE, CSA etc... had done in the last 7 years just on the power cord receptacle on the pwr amp. Yes, it's all done for sake of "safety" but since one is dealing with a high voltage/wattage apparatus, isn't it given that one should be cautious and careful? Another compounded issue thanks to all the legal disclaimer etc...

 

Btw, have you heard back from Nelson Pass yet?

Believe me I know. I deal with UL and CSA inspectors all the time. Pretty much a joke. Those amps are still readily available brand new on the interwebs.

 

Haven't heard back from Nelson. When I talked to the engineer at PassLabs he made it sound like Nelson was semi-retired, "He may be in some time this week". May have to try and rewrite or resend the email. On a possitive note I did get the amp running last weekend. I gradually increased the fuses on each channel and everything seems to be fine. The amp doesn't fit in the stand that I have the turntable and speakers hooked up to, so I'll have to figure that one out. Pretty cool that that same amp design built by PassLabs won the Stereophile amp design of the decade award for the 90's. The design is almost identical to what my dad put together in the early 80's and is pretty much the same as Nelson's design I found from 77'. Some of the horn designs and experiments on PassDIY are really cool. Thanks again for making that connection for me.

 

Believe me I know. I deal with UL and CSA inspectors all the time. Pretty much a joke. Those amps are still readily available brand new on the interwebs.

 

Haven't heard back from Nelson. When I talked to the engineer at PassLabs he made it sound like Nelson was semi-retired, "He may be in some time this week". May have to try and rewrite or resend the email. On a possitive note I did get the amp running last weekend. I gradually increased the fuses on each channel and everything seems to be fine. The amp doesn't fit in the stand that I have the turntable and speakers hooked up to, so I'll have to figure that one out. Pretty cool that that same amp design built by PassLabs won the Stereophile amp design of the decade award for the 90's. The design is almost identical to what my dad put together in the early 80's and is pretty much the same as Nelson's design I found from 77'. Some of the horn designs and experiments on PassDIY are really cool. Thanks again for making that connection for me.

 

^ I am honoured to have played a part (inadvertently) in connecting you with Mr. Pass. I hope everything will turn out great. Quite sure that Mr. Pass doesn't really "work" anymore; i.e. he likely plays the chairman/consultant part in his operations where he has a final say on a design. One thing I am sure that he is still doing is recruiting some of the brightest designers to work under the PassLabs brand as a full-time or guess designer for new products. Another possible activity that Mr. Pass is currently undertaking is gearing up for the annual CES show as it's just under 6 weeks away.

 

Agreed on the UL & CSA inspectors.

Figure this was the appropriate place to put this:

 

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/beatle...o-and-aaa-vinyl

 

Every Beatles album re-released to vinyl, all MONO, cut straight from tape.

 

Interesting back story.

That is very cool!

 

Better get that transferred to mp3 immediately ! *

 

4,000khz 2kps should suffice! *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Joke

That is very cool!

 

Better get that transferred to mp3 immediately ! *

 

4,000khz 2kps should suffice! *

 

 

* Joke

 

Haha.

 

Actually, there's some guys who do "needle drops" transferring to digital straight off the vinyl for less compressed sound compared to CDs. If I had a nice A/D converter, I'd do it too for the hell of it.

Upping the thread slightly...

 

For this render!

 

 

 

And how's audioholics here doing gear/music-vise?

That room is just crazy.

Upping the thread slightly...

 

For this render!

 

 

 

And how's audioholics here doing gear/music-vise?

 

Perhaps I am not getting the whole picture but to be honest, while the guy may not be "doing it all wrong", he isn't "doing it right" either. As impressive as it may look, something is definitely not right here. First, the sofa/chairs will never be placed like this in a music room. Ok, so it isn't a music room, it's an entertainment/recreational room or simply a place to chill/hang out/man cave etc... If so, then he picked the wrong speakers. And what's with all the room treatment if it isn't a music room? I don't know if those "acoustics wood work" is symmetrical or not; well, they shouldn't be. The idea is to avoid parallel surfaces as much as possible. Those are horn-loaded speakers by Avantgarde Acoustics --- a German speaker company. The models are Trio + Basshorn respectively (the 3 cone-shaped ones are the Trio and the curved silver facade is the Basshorn). The Basshorn is essentially a huge bass unit (they are about 87" tall). Neither front-end equipment (turntable, CD player, reel to reel deck etc..) nor amplification (pre-amp + power amp) are shown so it completely lacks any point of referencel. Most horn-loaded speakers sound best with tube amplifiers. The Basshorn is active (i.e. they have built-in amps to power them). Horn speakers, being very efficient, can sound harsh if they are "over-powered". As Fellippe would probably agree, low-powered Single-End-Triode amps would work best here. The problem would be whether the SET amps will work at the same "pace" as the Basshorn built-in solid-state amps. The tonal signature of most German speakers is fast, clean, crisp and perhaps a bit too "clinical" with a tad of being "hard" sounding. So, what we have here is a clean, fast sounding speaker in a room with plenty of hard surfaces --- the only exception being the leather chairs and, possibly, the black grooves on the ceiling and the back wall (cannot tell what those black materials are). The sound, henceforth, would "bounce" all over the place. Add gigantic bass units like the Basshorn and you would definitely "feel" the bass in addition to hearing it. Overall, this looks like more of a "statement" rather than anything else: i.e. visually, it is impressive and one will be literally "shaken" by the bass (although it only goes down to 18Hz, yes, it's below the human audio spectrum but something this size should be able to go lower still. It really isn't a subwoofer at all). But for a true audiophile, this room would --- at least fundamentally --- earn a failing grade. All in all, overly done for the wrong purpose and wrong type of speakers. One very easy way to improve the sound is to lay down a high-quality Persian rug on the floor to soften/absorb the bouncing acoustics.

 

Regrets for all the hi-fi jargon but I'm not sure if I can say it in plain English --- at least not without a long-winded explanation.

VCR, you're a saint as always......I wouldn't have gone into that much detail, but I did enjoy the breakdown.

 

Trying to make a speaker with that many drivers (and a sub) sound coherent would be a tough task for anyone in any room, but this would be too much I think. No carpet or other means of sound absorption also won't help. Hardwood floors are better than carpet in 99% of life for me, but for audio it is not ideal unless it has some rugs -- which would be my preference (and others as well) from an aesthetic point of view anyways.

 

The walls and ceiling look cool but will add to the acoustical challenges. A shame when you consider how much work it must have taken to mold all of that.

 

A lot of Vu's best listening rooms often resemble a nice library more than anything else.....carpets/rugs galore, nice couches and chairs, shelves with books or LPs, etc. They do not look like purpose built listening rooms at all (save for the gear) and sound very nice. His store feels like a very nice apartment not a museum gallery or recording studio.

 

The one thing this room (and gear) would probably have going for it is the massive visual statement would probably have a positive effect on the average listener, already hyping up in the mind to like what he/she is about to hear regardless of how it actually sounds.

 

Pyschoacoustics is a powerful thing.

http://www.laweekly.com/music/why-cds-may-...n-vinyl-5352162

 

 

^ LOL, the eternal debate of audiophile vs. recording engineer; empirical experience vs. laboratory data. So at the latest CES in Vegas just wrapped up less than a month ago, how come nearly all the highest end hi fi gear manufacturers used turntables as their front end sources? And THE current trend of highend hi fi is an interface box that goes between the source (disc drive, USB, HDD etc...) and the DAC --- all to mimic the sound to resemble "analogue". If CD is already "perfect", then why all the fuss?

 

To be fair, CD --- the medium itself --- on a physical aspect is superior to vinyl (yes, anyone is more than welcome to quote me on that). CD lasts much longer since all the contact is optical rather than physical. In more than 30years of its release, no one has claimed than the laser pickup on a CD player or disc drive had actually degraded the CD disc; although there had been report of and I had personally witnessed "CD rot" --- oxidation of the silver coating on the CD but that's due to poor/inadequate manufacturing process. As depicted in the article, the stylus of a cartridge makes physical contact with the vinyl grooves and it literally scrapes them as it is played. Over time, the high frequency loss would be inevitable. And it's obvious that vinyl (LP) does not stand the slightest chance against CD on ease of handling and being scratch-resistance. It is an obvious and given fact that --- providing the quality of the recording on both the CD and LP is identical --- the CD which had been played 20X will sound superior than the LP which had been played 20X. the CD as a storage medium is fine.

 

It's how the CD gets converted back to music --- that is the question and hence the debate. The same article already said the 44.1kHz 16bit 4X sampling is theoretically ideal; so why are we at 24bit/96Khz or even 24/192 and beyond now? Music signals are sine waves. Analogue can reproduce that identically. Digital quantizes that by dividing the frequency of the wave into sectors. Hence, you have a "bar graph" that forms/resembles the curvature of the sine wave. The problem lies in the voided areas between the columns of the bar graph. Those "jagged edges" are the source of the problem. The more columns (higher frequency upsampling) the less the jagged edges, the smoother the "digital curve" and thus the better the sound. But however minute, it is still jagged. Modern technologies are doing everything to smooth out those jagged edges and I do not doubt that one day they will succeed. But until then, whatever the masses believe and ready to spend on it would be acceptable; market dictates afterall. But to those esoteric few, they will stand by what their ears tell them. Subjective, yes; opinionated, absolutely. But their money, their toys and their preferences. And there will be plenty of manufacturers, stakeholders and hobbyists from either medium ready to defend and debate.

 

As mentioned prior, a $20 Casio will always provide more accurate time than a $50k Patek Philippe. If time accuracy is the only requirement, then buy a Casio (not to belittle Casio, of course). Similarly, the Aventador is almost a State-of-the-Art sports car and would drive circles around a Diablo. So why isn't all the Diablo owners trading in their rides for the Aventador? How come there are people on this very forum actively pursuing the purchase of Diablo's? Nostalgic aside, something about the Diablo must be rewarding enough to validate the quests. Can one really relate data to that? No matter how one cuts it, the data on the Aventador will be far superior. But Diablo's are not all being scrapped in a hurry now, are they?

 

Honestly, nothing new at all. Old debate; perhaps with some so-called refreshed insights but nothing to be resolved really and it is not going to be settled or go away anytime soon. Meanwhile, just enjoy the tunes. Keep in mind, it's not the high fidelity sound but the actual music that matters.

^ LOL, the eternal debate of audiophile vs. recording engineer; empirical experience vs. laboratory data. So at the latest CES in Vegas just wrapped up less than a month ago, how come nearly all the highest end hi fi gear manufacturers used turntables as their front end sources? And THE current trend of highend hi fi is an interface box that goes between the source (disc drive, USB, HDD etc...) and the DAC --- all to mimic the sound to resemble "analogue". If CD is already "perfect", then why all the fuss?

 

Please dont take following text as agressive, as I just figured out it might come off as that.

 

Reason why:

Vinyl has most amount of gear needed to "audiophile" -sound. More for sellers to gain selling endless pipedreams and catalogs full of cartridges, needless, slipmats, tonearms, phonostages, clamps, damperfeets, isolation boards and more for hobbiers to twiddle and burn money to infinity. Yet in home environment you will have dust, and dust will land on your records and either you will run a lab level cleaning hobby on a side or your records will sound pretty rash needle jumping on those old and often ill pressed grooves, and at least tracks that have been accompanied with another 1 or 2 tracs on same side will sound horrible towards center. Even with all toys and a 100kg babylon tower of LP-ultimatum.

 

And it's not only that. It's also that most of them are fysical mechanical contacts that very easily get out of shape and while I like tinkering, it would wear me out thinking what's going out of balance next. another one for me is physical media, I love making cover art but I also hate the space physical media tooks, either cd or dvd or vinyl or cassette or diskette.

 

I mean fine, you like vinyl and all that goes with it and it is perfectly okay. Diversity is always plus and I like sound from vinyl just like I enjoy it from any other source. Music is what matters, over the quality, and definately over the medium.

 

BUT, mediums are already obsolete. 99% chance is that the new vinyl you buy has been zeros and unos when it is made in Logic Pro or mixed in studio. After the vinyl very many use room corrections and such that spins all back to bits anyway.

 

So this is my opinion and I am sorry if my passion comes up as rude because it is not that it is just my opinion, but if you like vinyl and valve coloration that is fine, I like it too, one of my amps has valve preamp stage, but I dont ever miss it with another gear.

 

I have to say that I really like latest turns on audio. Spotify, internet song stores, streaming. I like it all, it just makes things so much easier that I personally enjoy and listen lot more music than I ever was before. When there's lesser amount of pieces on a puzzle, you have more time and more strenght left to look at the picture.

 

I found out that what I might miss on the level of "imaging" or another property of hifi playback, I usually like the music more and have more fun and enjoyment with all kind of songs.

 

I got my self an another egg, basically to add more bass sources to kill my previously bad ~80Hz room mode.

 

I just realized I have now three sets which all are 2.1 setups. Finding one in matching (production ended) color, unused and with latest iteration of D-class amp was needle in a haystock hard. So it came all away across from Bulgaria and damaged on the way, luckily I was able to fix it.

 

Also I put lot more acoustic panels on that room, including those black panels made of Finnish surface peat.

 

Some might look these speakers as cheap turds compared to your really high end stuff, which they ofcourse relatively are.

But they actually sound quite decent because of through out B&W components and same engineer that made Nautilus speakers. Actually I friended this audio company owner who told the story: "Actually Lawrance was the guy that brought Simon into B&W to make the Blueroom speakers. And after Simon made the first Podspeakers - Lawrance could finish the Nautilus because he hadnt thought of using glassfiber before Simon introduced him to the material.. The story is so fantastic." So I have more respect towards these affordable blue oddballs cause they were small but essential step in making of legendary Nautilus speakers.

Perhaps I am not getting the whole picture but to be honest, while the guy may not be "doing it all wrong"...

 

 

VCR, you're a saint as always......I wouldn't have gone into that much detail, but I did enjoy the breakdown...

 

Relax guys it's just a render for client not actual room. I love Trios + Basshorns but they are only renders too. I posted it because of cool and calculated room design, it was photo from Swedish acoustical engineering company. I guess the person who did final render with those sofas didn't really care much for the hifi. Or then he was diehard flat earth guy, lol

 

 

ps. Roof on that image is totally absorbing under those planks, I think rear wall was also absorbing. Also there is horn directivity combined with stepped diffusing walls and basshorns in that space acts almost like a virtual single source and could product almost perfect planar wave up to certain frequency. Call me not audiophile enough but I could easily live or get buried with that setup. Sofa, that I can move to spot my self ;D

If you understand the way digital audio is encoded and decoded there is no question and no debate. VERY few people take the time out to properly understand digital audio. Key point being there is not an infinite amount of information in any recorded audio, analogue or otherwise, so there is not an infinite amount of information to decode.

 

 

Also, I upgraded to Duntech Statesmans speakers a while back.

I've never heard Duntech but their reputation is very very good and I like their functional way of building speakers.

 

I understand digital audio well because I have done electronic music since early teenage and from my studies but I have nothing to add to that subject.

Please dont take following text as agressive, as I just figured out it might come off as that.

 

 

No worries at all my friend; healthy debate is always good. You are by no means rude at all and I hope my response don't come across as negative either.

 

Actually, over the years there are a ton of "accessories" for CD's as well. One of the criteria for good digital sound is clean AC supply. At one point, "playing" with electricity was the norm to ensure good sound from digital sources. Hence that gave rise to a plethora of products that were suppose to clean-up the household AC supply. Some worked, some are akin to snake oil and most ultimately boiled down to trade-offs. At one point, colouring the edge of the CD discs was suppose to yield better sound so $40 magic markers in green colour were appearing at hi-fi shops! Stabilizing rings, discs, covers; isolation platforms and levelling paraphernalia; certain brands of CD readers/drivers pairing with other brands of DAC's; and the interconnects that link up the two --- RCA to RCA, BNC to BNC, AES/EBU (XLR to XLR), Toslink plastic fibre optics and AT&T glass fibre optics etc... And let's not forget the metallurgy in the wires --- 6N copper, silver, gold, palladium, rhodium...the list goes on. And they even make gadgets that de-magnetize and de-statictize the CD discs; some even polish and coat the discs with protectant!

 

Perhaps different school of thoughts but tinkering and tweaking is part of the fun in hi-fi. Adjusting the azimuth of the cartridge to be in the right tracking angle with the LP's grooves in order to extract the last bit of info. and to strike that tonal balance; not unlike tuning a V12. But I understand what you are saying; perfectly fine if you do not want to deal with the fuss. Although I am not sure if I would side with your concerns about dust. It really isn't as bad as you think or have depicted. A simple cleaning with an anti-static brush would do a swell job. Those who are serious enough to invest on a fine turntable will not be shy from purchasing a record (LP) cleaning machine either. These things literally wash and vacuum dry the LPs with ease so it's all good and rather easily done. There are turntable with built-in vacuum downforce to flatten the LPs during play; they even have gadgets that repairs warped LPs. Most new LP's on the market today --- due to their scarcity --- are very well made. Chances are you will fine more poorly mixed new CD's than poorly pressed new LP's. And if one has a good turntable set up, would one simply drop a $2 LP one just picked up from a garage sale without a good inspection and/or cleaning of it first?

 

Storing LPs is a challenge though, they do need a good amount of TLC, they weigh a ton and they are fragile. But that is not very different from looking after any vintage item.

 

Please do not be mistaken that nothing else but LP would do. I have a rather large collection of CDs as well (think 4-digit, i.e. physical count of discs). And to further support my sincerity, you will be pleased to know that less than a week ago, I had acquired a new CD-drive unit (pic attached). With the advant of downloadable software and streaming music, days of the CD's are likely numbered too (but, like LPs, they will survive; just not being mainstream anymore) so it's time to acquire what might be a final top-quality disc-drive before they are either obsolete or become $$$$. So I am for the CD as well. It's great to see that space will not longer be a requirement since plenty of music can be stored on HDD, USB etc... But we can be sure that more gadgets are on their way to supplement these technologies for the next audio medium. We are already seeing the interface box which I mentioned in my last post. Interconnects companies are already making "hi-end" USB cables. The cycle simply repeats itself but in a different guise.

 

I wouild not belittle the B&W's at all. As previously said, the B&W 801s were the forefather of studio monitors which can also be used as home audio speakers (that's way before the Nautilus and some later versions of the 801's had Nautilus technologies integrated into them). And although many speaker companies had come along to match or surpass the B&W's, Bowers & Wilkins remains a good benchmark and, quite honestly, they really haven't made any model of speakers that were total duds; most are in fact very good. And no one ever said you need to rob a bank to have good sound; it's all in the matching. Assembling a system using the top brands does not necessarily mean a guaranteed good sound; just like we don't need to all drive Lambos to have a great driving experience; on the wrong road and with congested city traffic, driving a Lambo can and will be a nightmare. As I had said at the end of my last post, it's the music that really matters. So long as you enjoy what you have and what you are hearing, that's what matters.

 

 

 

Joe-Trojan, congrats on the Duntech --- now there's a name that I haven't heard in a very long time. The Duntech Sovereign was THE speaker to own in the 80's. Founded by John Dunlavy, Duntech started life in USA but it flourished when Dunlavy moved to Australia. Then Dunlavy parted ways with the company and went back to the US and started Dunlavy Audio Labs which was eventually sold off and disappeared altogether while Duntech carried on separately. Glad to see that Duntech is still doing it right and withstanding the test of time.

 

I wrote an university term paper on encoding/decoding digital media during my college days so perhaps I am no expert but I have knowledge on the subject and it is obviously augmented by my hobby.

Oh these statesman are nothing special, but great for my listening environment. Australia subsidized or gave grants to speaker manufacturers, no doubt assisting John Dunlavy and Scott Krix among others.

 

OK so digital isn't something you dismiss and maybe I have mis-interpreted your posts. You seem to be quick to point of the weaknesses of digital formats but I'd love to hear your take on the weaknesses of analogue formats.

OK so digital isn't something you dismiss and maybe I have mis-interpreted your posts. You seem to be quick to point of the weaknesses of digital formats but I'd love to hear your take on the weaknesses of analogue formats.

 

My friend, if I came across as being anti-digital, then you have my regrets. I am not an analogue diehard and arch-defender of the vinyl LP. I embrace LP with a passion but digital definitely has its virtues. It’s hi fidelity music that I am/we are pursuing, not the medium that it comes in. Of course, whichever medium can reproduce closest to the real thing (whatever the technologies we have then and now, we are still quite far from 100% true reproduction) would get the ultimate vote but once a new medium/format reaches certain criteria and benchmark; providing it is steadily available with ease and at affordable costs; that would be welcomed as well.

 

The ultimate in reproduction, IMO, is actually open reel to reel tapes (Fellippe would be very pleased to read this). But aside from doing you own recording and providing you have the equipment to do so, software availability is absolute zero. And unless archived properly, tape recording disintegrates over time. So despite being THE format to be, practicality had totally ruled out open reel to reel tapes.

 

I had made many previous posts stating that a $1000 turntable/tonearm/cartridge set up would unlikely outperform a $1k CD player. CD would likely still have the edge at the $5k range. At $20k+ range, the gap narrows quite a bit and anything beyond $75k the analogue rig will surely have the leading edge --- but that comes with a substantial caveat. Setting up a turntable/tonearm/cartridge properly is a huge undertaking. In fact, selecting the “right” combination between turntable, tonearm and cartridge is no simple task to begin with. Again, one can drop serious serious coins on getting the very best products of each genre but the combination will not guarantee good sound. Types of turntable --- belt drive, direct drive, suspended plinth, solid plinth, metal bearing, mineral stone bearing, air bearing, vacuum hold-down, single motor, multi-motors; types of tonearm --- tangential tracking, linear tracking, air bearing, Gimbal bearing, unipivot bearing, fluid dampening, light/medium/high-mass compliances; types of cartridges --- moving iron, moving magnet, moving coil, line-contact stylus, Shibata stylus, Van den Hul stylus, cartridge compliance and impedance etc… Depending on one’s perspective, finding the proper combination can either be a barrel of fun or an endless nightmare (or both). Putting the three together properly is almost an art although there is science behind it. Basically, absolute leveled surface with vibration-free isolation, a precise tonearm protractor, a tracking force scale and very steady hands with delicate articulation. (I had seen many had broken a cartridge during installation; long before it plays its first tune.) And the ultimate set up test is, obviously, through hearing; so it is an absolute fuss but, depending on one’s interpretation, it’s also a good fun challenge. This versus a CD player that one puts down a box, connects the power cord and signal interconnects, turns it on, plops a CD in its receptacle and voila, you have tunes. Even if you go esoteric, it’s only 2 to 3 boxes, some basic leveling and isolation, select the power cord and interconnects to match and that is basically it. So for ease of operation, the CD player categorically blows the LP turntable clear out of the water.

 

LP vs. CD itself: enough said about the CD’s, given reasonable care --- properly storing them in their boxes, avoid scratching them (although the consequences are nowhere as dire as LP’s), clean them as needed (easily done) and they would essentially last a life time. LP’s are fussy, they warp (even when they are brand spanking new), they are fragile and they need plenty of TLC. And they will wear out as they are being played (loss of high frequencies). There are plenty of tinkering involved when playing a LP: tracking force, anti-skating, vertical tracking angle, azimuth etc… Conversely, one cannot tinker with the CD player’s laser pick-up at all. So it’s just leveling, isolation and “playing with electricity” (AC filtration and isolation, choosing power cords and interconnects). Since phono cartridges have very low output, a phono amplifier is needed (more power cords, more interconnects, more isolation etc…). And cartridges are very sensitive devices so they are prone to outside interferences: humming is the most common gremlin due to grounding issues, RF interference, motor noises and interferences. Impedance matching between cartridge and phono stage is another fun-filled challenge. Wows and flutters are undeniable characteristics of turntables. And most turntables require maintenance of some sort, suspension recalibration, belt change and even oil change (almost like a car). Then there is the vinyl LP itself, warped LP creates rumble and muddles the bass (as do poorly design turntables). Scratched surfaces basically kill the enjoyment of music and surface noises diminish the same. There are rare cases where the hole is not dead centre so that creates chaos to the tracking. Set up needs to be perfectly precise to get that ideal sound; margin of error is almost nil. Even at perfection, the sound would fundamentally degrade over time due to the nature of the phonograph playback --- it is essentially making direct physical contact (i.e. scratching) with the recoding grooves of the LP with the stylus.

 

Succinctly put, plenty of work (mostly delicate ones) is needed to realize the full potential of LP’s whereas CD’s are relatively simple. Keep in mind that convenience played a major role in the CD’s success. And to the majority of consumers, that convenience also offers better-than-expected sound quality which lasts a long time (cassette tape was a major convenience too but its sound quality pales by comparison to CD and tapes do not last). But if one is willing to invest the money and the time (although it has a steep learning curve), LP still have its merits. Yes, there are wows and flutter and rumble etc…but there are devices to counter and/or to minimize those negatives. It really isn’t unlike automobile: the VW’s Golf GTI or R offer very rewarding drives; even a Scion FR-S/Toyota FT-86/Subaru BRZ is plenty of fun. They are relatively inexpensive to purchase and to maintain; but they are not Lamborghini’s. Yet the price of admission for a Lamborghini can be high and maintenance is certainly pricy; and they are not exactly user-friendly either. But given the proper set up and right road conditions, the drive would be very gratifying for the most part. LP is still king but it has its shortcomings and there are plenty; so it will remain as an esoteric luxury. CD or the subsequent digital media offers a much more compact, portable and convenient package with adequate sound quality at minimum fuss; so to each its own. There will always be defenders of both camp much like manual and e-gear. For the analogue vs. the digital debate, as long as they reached a certain sound quality and provided I could afford them, I would welcome and embrace all. Analogue remains to be more "musical" or closer to the real thing than digital; but it is a huge task to extrapolate that nth degree of realism and it has its fundamental drawbacks. Digital may not be the ultimate but it is at the door step with much ease and convenience. At the end of the day, it will always be better to have both or more.

The same article already said the 44.1kHz 16bit 4X sampling is theoretically ideal; so why are we at 24bit/96Khz or even 24/192 and beyond now?

 

Yeah it also mentioned that in double-blind tests people couldn't tell the difference between hi-res and CD.

 

Got to admit that suprises me (assuming they used decent source material / reproduction kit) - shame there was no link to the test results...

 

Music signals are sine waves. Analogue can reproduce that identically. Digital quantizes that by dividing the frequency of the wave into sectors. Hence, you have a "bar graph" that forms/resembles the curvature of the sine wave. The problem lies in the voided areas between the columns of the bar graph. Those "jagged edges" are the source of the problem. The more columns (higher frequency upsampling) the less the jagged edges, the smoother the "digital curve" and thus the better the sound. But however minute, it is still jagged.

 

It's a myth:

 

...

 

edit: good video seems to be going through similar points I typed.

Yeah it also mentioned that in double-blind tests people couldn't tell the difference between hi-res and CD.

 

Got to admit that suprises me (assuming they used decent source material / reproduction kit) - shame there was no link to the test results...

 

Nor were there any hints of the test subjects; I would like to know who these people were as age and occupational hazards can substantially skew one's hearing.

 

It's a myth:

 

 

Glad you posted this video which I am quite familiar with. Watch part 2 (dither) and 3 (timing) which is basically what I was saying. I was not entirely clear and detailed on my post. It is a myth (and incorrect) that the DAC output signals are in stair steps; they are in perfect sine waves as they should be. Where I did not go into detail explaining was how the DAC made those sine waves from the stair steps to smooth curves and the video basically explained it --- with dither and time alignment. These "compensations/fillers" are also the root of the problem; the so-called digital noise. They are needed in order to generate the sine wave --- to "fill up" those jagged edges to make the sine wave --- but they also induce gremlins. Aside from the noise floor, the video did not say how that would affect the sound. Note that they used a signal generator and generated one tone. What we are talking here is music which are complex mixtures of tones. Anyway, the point being the dither and time alignment are both the good and bad guys as far as digital audio is concerned. High-bit and higher sampling frequencies minimize the jagged edges so there are less voids to fill up. Thus minimizing dither has long been an eternal quest in digital audio (remember "de-emphasized" CD's?), and the state-of-the-art CD playback system (6-figures behemoth) comes with its own signal clock and sync-cables to time-align the signals as close as possible. All to reconstruct and recreate the perfect sine wave without using too many "filler" materials which will pollute the sound.

VCR, amazing insight into a world I will probably never experience.

 

Now, not be come across and dismissive, aggressive, or anything negative, but I was asking more regarding sound quality, and in a blind test to eliminate all bias.

 

In a blind test with vinyl recorded to digital, and the two recordings played back, I just can't tell the difference, no matter how hard I try and regardless of the level of playback, headphones or speakers. Yes this was done with ~1k bits of kit, at CD quality.

 

Re. dithering etc there is a website somewhere giving audio demos of the effects of dithering etc. The artifacts are far below the noisefloor of analogue anyway.