More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

Author
Discussion

TheExcession

11,669 posts

249 months

Friday 25th April 2014
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TonyRPH said:
Back when I had my turntable, I had a pretty decent setup, and for clarity, CD could not be beaten.

And the bass was superior too IMHO.

And to my mind, the convenience of CD (and latterly streaming) just cannot be beaten.
biggrin

Years back I bought one of these



I only had a mediocre HiFi set up, some valve based amp I inherited (of which I cannot remember the name) and a couple of Wharfedale speakers all wired up with bit of mains cable.

I bought this CD player with money saved from working in a record shop earning £7 for a Saturday's work - about £100 IIRC.

It was bought in Boots! It came with a choice of 3 CDs. I chose
Marillion - Misplaced Childhood, a U2 album and something else I forget now (probably Kate Bush).

The clarity on the Marillion album was beyond belief. I don't know if it was the production or what.

I took the CD player and my vinyl and CD copy of Misplaced Childhood down the road to a mate's Dad's house for him to take a listen.

Him being a bit of an audiophile, I left it there for a few days. When I went to collect my gear he'd bought himself a CD player.

I never could fathom the 'vinyl is warmer than CD' - the clarity from a CD is astonishing - but I do think the production/mastering has an awful lot to do with it.

For kicks and fun I've just bunged on that album via a Sony MP3 Walkman, pumped out through a two decade old Panasonic Midi system - still sounds fking ace!


spikey123

56 posts

120 months

Friday 25th April 2014
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The wharfdale Lintons!!!! 3 speakers, a tweeter a mid and a woofer, class eh? No, crap, eh. I recall my first real speakers ( Musical Fidelity reference 2s ) blew them right out of the water.
I had a Leak amplifier, the higher power ones used to regularly blow the output transistors...hey I saw a pic of Jimi Hendrix with the exact same model. A garrard deck and nasty speaker wire and a Phillips reel to reel. I loved them then, but wouldnt give them to the dog now

robbyd

595 posts

174 months

Friday 25th April 2014
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Sparky137 said:
What a brilliant analogy, I'll have to remember that.
In defence of vinyl - I think you should hear a modern high-end turntable and you'll be very surprised!

Sparky137

867 posts

180 months

Friday 25th April 2014
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robbyd said:
In defence of vinyl - I think you should hear a modern high-end turntable and you'll be very surprised!
What makes you think that I haven't? Having said that, a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.

I have ammassed rather a lot of kit over the years including some classic valve amps and a couple of high end turntables. I much prefer the unprocessed sound of older amplifiers but the 'artefacts' that come hand in hand with vinyl rather spoils my enjoyment of it compared to CD's.

TonyRPH

Original Poster:

12,963 posts

167 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
quotequote all
robbyd said:
In defence of vinyl - I think you should hear a modern high-end turntable and you'll be very surprised!
My entry to the world of high fidelity began in the late 1970's.

Over the years (before I got a CD player) I went through various turntable / cartridge combinations and the sound was always satisfactory, simply because I had not heard anything better.

For me, the problem with vinyl at the time was that when you got a good pressing / production, it sounded superb. The trouble was, good pressings (of the music I liked at the time) were relatively scarce and expensive.

The rest of the time, vinyl just sounded okay to mediocre.

Then I heard my first CD player (I was working in audio repairs at the time) and I was blown away, especially given that it was one of the first (a Sanyo DAD8).

Latterly, I worked for a Sony distributor, and bought my first CD player (a Sony CDP-190) which was a budget model. I had a few reservations about the top end on that, but on the whole, it was better than the majority of my vinyl.

Later CD players removed the vast majority of my reservations about the top end, and on the whole the music was simply more enjoyable due to the lack of surface noise, longer playing time and the overall durability of CD as a whole.

And of course you could leave your CDs to gather dust without ill effect.

And yes - I'm aware of the claims surrounding deterioration of CDs over extended periods, however many of mine are now 20+ years old and there is no evidence of corrosion (yet!!).


Sparky137

867 posts

180 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
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TonyRPH said:
And yes - I'm aware of the claims surrounding deterioration of CDs over extended periods, however many of mine are now 20+ years old and there is no evidence of corrosion (yet!!).
Frighteningly that has just made me realise that a lot of mine are now about 30 years old, bought in the early eighties when CD players first came out. I'm suddenly feeling rather old!!

In the seventies my first job was as a salesman in a HiFi shop (Bryants HiFi in Aldershot). We stocked the range of Sheffield Labs direct cut discs and they really did sound stunning. I recall listening to them played through a huge JVC receiver into a pair of floor standing Jennings Research speakers and being completely blown away by the sound quality. No CD's back then though to compare them with.

Crackie

6,386 posts

241 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
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Sparky137 said:
a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.
A rather sweeping anecdotal comment...........which specific so called high end turntables and which vintage one, in your opinion.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 26th April 17:46

TonyRPH

Original Poster:

12,963 posts

167 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
quotequote all
Regarding my post about non oversampling DACs on page 47.

Here's a capture - the red trace is the audio output form a Cambridge 340C player.

The yellow trace is the audio output from a NON O/S DAC.

Frequency is 2kHz.

It makes for interesting viewing.

Despite this stair step effect, the NON O/S DAC still sounds pretty good, if a little over bright sometimes.

The DAC chip used here is a TDA1543 - commonly used in budget CD players back in the 80's / 90's.


Sparky137

867 posts

180 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
quotequote all
Crackie said:
A rather sweeping anecdotal comment...........which specific so called high end turntables and which vintage one, in your opinion.

Edited by Crackie on Saturday 26th April 17:46
That depends on the definition of high end. A number of mainstream manufacturers consider their turntables high end and market them as such when they are in fact pretty average performing but damned expensive to buy. I don't consider that high end is based on price but is based on performance irrespective of price (I seem to remember a number of the HiFi mags in the nineties raving about the musicality and timing of a £29 Bush turntable!). But then again, a lot of the esoteric reviewers will invoke brand name and price based HiFi snobbery on something that should be high end but can be distinctly lacking in comparison to, say, a thirty year old Systemdek - which in itself was a fair way from the best you could buy in its day. But as with all things audio, its audio performance is subjective and what one person loves another may hate. As my opinion is subjective only to me I see no need to share it with the rest of the world and start off a whole pointless argument based on nothing more than each individuals opinion and very little fact. We all know that a piece of kit that measures well in tests can, for some reason, sound pretty poor in reality.

Crackie

6,386 posts

241 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
quotequote all
Sparky137 said:
As my opinion is subjective only to me I see no need to share it with the rest of the world and start off a whole pointless argument based on nothing more than each individuals opinion and very little fact.
I couldn't agree more but your earlier post does share your subjective anecdotal opinion with the rest of the world doesn't it ?

Sparky137 said:
a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.

Sparky137

867 posts

180 months

Saturday 26th April 2014
quotequote all
Crackie said:
Sparky137 said:
As my opinion is subjective only to me I see no need to share it with the rest of the world and start off a whole pointless argument based on nothing more than each individuals opinion and very little fact.
I couldn't agree more but your earlier post does share your subjective anecdotal opinion with the rest of the world doesn't it ?

Sparky137 said:
a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.
Yes, but it's a generic comment and needs no qualification as it is only my opinion based on my thoughts and experiences which I see no need to share. It's not specific to comparing new turntable 'A' with old turntable 'B'!!

Riff Raff

5,086 posts

194 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
Crackie said:
Sparky137 said:
As my opinion is subjective only to me I see no need to share it with the rest of the world and start off a whole pointless argument based on nothing more than each individuals opinion and very little fact.
I couldn't agree more but your earlier post does share your subjective anecdotal opinion with the rest of the world doesn't it ?

Sparky137 said:
a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.
I'm not going to get really involved in this, except to say that what matters isn't so much the turntable on its own, but the combination of the turntable, arm, cartridge and phono stage. And the plinth/support arrangements for all of those. I moved from an SME Model 10 and Model 20 to this combo - (indirectly - see below). The turntable is just about as old as I am.

So it's an oil bearing Garrard 301, 12 inch SME 312S, Koetsu Rosewood (recently re-built by Dominic Harper of North West Analogue), mounted into a slate plinth from SMD. Phono stage is an EAR MC4 into a modified EAR834P.



Before that I used the same turntable with a different SME 12 inch arm (and a different plinth):




And before that a Garrard 401:



The latest combination works for me. Even though the turntable is over 50 years old.

Edited by Riff Raff on Sunday 27th April 10:41

Riff Raff

5,086 posts

194 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
Crackie said:
Sparky137 said:
As my opinion is subjective only to me I see no need to share it with the rest of the world and start off a whole pointless argument based on nothing more than each individuals opinion and very little fact.
I couldn't agree more but your earlier post does share your subjective anecdotal opinion with the rest of the world doesn't it ?

Sparky137 said:
a lot of the so-called current high end turntables can still be outperformed by a decent vintage turntable.
I'm not going to get really involved in this, except to say that what matters isn't so much the turntable on its own, but the combination of the turntable, arm, cartridge and phono stage. And the plinth/support arrangements for all of those. I moved from an SME Model 10 and Model 20 to this combo - (indirectly - see below). The turntable is just about as old as I am.

So it's an oil bearing Garrard 301, 12 inch SME 312S, Koetsu Rosewood (recently re-built by Dominic Harper of North West Analogue), mounted into a slate plinth from SMD. Phono stage is an EAR MC4 into a modified EAR834P.



Before that I used the same turntable with a different SME 12 inch arm (and a different plinth):




And before that a Garrard 401:



The latest combination works for me. Even though the turntable is over 50 years old.

Edited by Riff Raff on Sunday 27th April 10:43

spikey123

56 posts

120 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
Who would have thought that a stylus scraping its way around a plastic disc on a plate would have survived into the 2000s ?!? How archaeic and old fashioned is that? Seeing this system is like going to a museum, such old technology. " My God Captain, its like the dark ages" I guess it is why folks still smoke real cigarettes and pipes, it is the ritual of the high maintenance, mine is bigger than yours, mentality.
Cds, put them in, play them, listen. Give it up vinyl lovers, it is the whole foreplay of alignment, cleaning, taking out of wrappers, lifting the tone arm that you love. CDs are just the music, without the faff.
OH, yes cds dont suffer from rot now and since they stopped taking the aluminium coating to the middle and edge where it was exposed to the elements, they should last a loooong time.

TonyRPH

Original Poster:

12,963 posts

167 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
spikey123 said:
<snip>it is the ritual of the high maintenance, mine is bigger than yours, mentality.<snip>
I think that's a bit unfair to vinyl lovers!!

Each to their own I say.

Personally, I could no longer be asked with the upkeep of vinyl, and sound quality trade off or not - I was happy to embrace CD.


TonyRPH

Original Poster:

12,963 posts

167 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
Riff Raff said:
<snip>


<snip>
Riff Raff - is that speaker not a little too close to your turntable?

Or do you tend to listen at really low levels?



Riff Raff

5,086 posts

194 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
TonyRPH said:
Riff Raff - is that speaker not a little too close to your turntable?

Or do you tend to listen at really low levels?
Given the listening room layout, I don't have a lot of placement options for the speaker. The only saving graces are that the turntable plinth weighs nearly 40Kg in total, and the top and bottom plinths are isolated by sorbothane balls, and in normal use the front face of the speaker is positioned well forward of the equipment rack, so airborne/floorborne vibration isn't an issue.

Edited to add........ and maybe most important of all, the from floor is concrete. Thinking about it, even with the weight in the plinth, I probably would have a problem if it was a suspended wood floor.

Edited by Riff Raff on Monday 28th April 09:52

Jon1967x

7,175 posts

123 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
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This all reminds me of a competition years ago on who could do the best imitation of a trill phone. The real thing came 3rd (possibly lower) In a blind listening. For some reason, accuracy is not always preferable and just goes to show the only thing that really matters is the one we prefer.

TwigtheWonderkid

43,248 posts

149 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
spikey123 said:
Who would have thought that a stylus scraping its way around a plastic disc on a plate would have survived into the 2000s ?!? How archaeic and old fashioned is that? Seeing this system is like going to a museum, such old technology. " My God Captain, its like the dark ages" I guess it is why folks still smoke real cigarettes and pipes, it is the ritual of the high maintenance, mine is bigger than yours, mentality.
Cds, put them in, play them, listen. Give it up vinyl lovers, it is the whole foreplay of alignment, cleaning, taking out of wrappers, lifting the tone arm that you love. CDs are just the music, without the faff.
OH, yes cds dont suffer from rot now and since they stopped taking the aluminium coating to the middle and edge where it was exposed to the elements, they should last a loooong time.
You could also argue that a modern 1.4 hatchback is far better to drive than an E Type Jaguar.

IforB

9,840 posts

228 months

Sunday 27th April 2014
quotequote all
TwigtheWonderkid said:
You could also argue that a modern 1.4 hatchback is far better to drive than an E Type Jaguar.
In many ways they generally are. I know which one I'd rather be driving though!