More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t

[Nomme de Plum]

nigelpugh7 said:

And to the point of this thread it’s really apparent that a lot of people buy high end turntables for their looks and the whole mines better that yours pub bragging rights.

I mean at the end of the day you can’t get away from the fact that a turntable, any turntable is an analogue device that’s only function in life is to play a record that was probably purchased for about £20, but in reality its a peice of cheap pressed vinyl plastic that will have a production cost of pennies.

And so now matter how good or expensive the turntable, the tone arm, the motor, the cartridge and the stylus, they all come down to that one point which is a tiny surface area diamond stylus running in the groove of a cheap peice of plastic.

My Audio Technica AT-LP 240 turntable cost me around £400 about 10 years ago now.

I love the whole drama and theatre of putting a record on it and playing it, but the sound coming out of it is only as good as the quality of the record itself.

I keep looking at the new Technics 1200 GR turntable and feel like treating myself, it’s about 4 times the cost of my Audio Technica turntable, I’m pretty confident it won’t sound 4 times better on my 40 year old vinyl collection.

And to reference the £130K turntable I just posted, I’m also pretty sure that turntable will not sound 100 times better than the £1500 Technica 1200 GR I fancy buying myself.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the rub, this is the whole point of the post from the start, I give you pure audiophile Bull*hit!

I've a Michell Orbe turntable, Origin Live arm and Dynavector Cartridge. I've had it years but rarely use it now as a good digital recording is generally better.

It looks pretty cool though although not as good as its predecessor the Michell Electronic Reference turntable i bought in 1976

Edited by Nomme de Plum on Tuesday 11th April 17:09

[nigelpugh7]

Nomme de Plum said:

I've a Michell Orbe turntable, Origin Live arm and Dynavector Cartridge. I've had it years but rarely use it now as a good digital recording is generally better.

It looks pretty cool though although not as good as its predecessor the Michell Electronic Reference turntable i bought in 1976

Edited by Nomme de Plum on Tuesday 11th April 17:09

Always loved the Michell turntables! As lots of high end turntables they are true works of art, and if that’s what you love and can afford it then of course why the hell not!

I have always craved the SME Turntables as objects of desire, but again for the latest version of the Model 60 it’s £50K, and yet it’s still belt driven, I’m now sure why but I feel that direct drive is a must for a high end turntable, belt drive just seems like a poor method of platter propulsion to me!

[OutInTheShed]

nigelpugh7 said:

And to the point of this thread it’s really apparent that a lot of people buy high end turntables for their looks and the whole mines better that yours pub bragging rights.

I mean at the end of the day you can’t get away from the fact that a turntable, any turntable is an analogue device that’s only function in life is to play a record that was probably purchased for about £20, but in reality its a peice of cheap pressed vinyl plastic that will have a production cost of pennies.

And so now matter how good or expensive the turntable, the tone arm, the motor, the cartridge and the stylus, they all come down to that one point which is a tiny surface area diamond stylus running in the groove of a cheap peice of plastic.

My Audio Technica AT-LP 240 turntable cost me around £400 about 10 years ago now.

I love the whole drama and theatre of putting a record on it and playing it, but the sound coming out of it is only as good as the quality of the record itself.

I keep looking at the new Technics 1200 GR turntable and feel like treating myself, it’s about 4 times the cost of my Audio Technica turntable, I’m pretty confident it won’t sound 4 times better on my 40 year old vinyl collection.

And to reference the £130K turntable I just posted, I’m also pretty sure that turntable will not sound 100 times better than the £1500 Technica 1200 GR I fancy buying myself.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the rub, this is the whole point of the post from the start, I give you pure audiophile Bull*hit!

But does an expensive clock or watch tell the time better than a cheap digital?
People buy expensive stuff because they can and they like it.

[Diderot]

OutInTheShed said:

911hope said:

This article is in fact a marketing piece by a DAC could many claiming an advantage over can meeting DACs using off the shelf chips.

The cases they talk about are when the recording has been badly processed and the content is clipped.....

May we can de-clip that and recover the original content?

You can de-clip a sine wave by filtering off the harmonics.

Some CODEC processes will reduce some harmonics and put in peaks.
Some of those peaks may be what was clipped originally.

This has me confused. A a single sine wave doesn’t have any harmonics, just the fundamental?

[TonyRPH]

Diderot said:

This has me confused. A a single sine wave doesn’t have any harmonics, just the fundamental?

If the signal is clipped, there will be distortion which means there will be harmonics.

[Sporky]

OutInTheShed said:

But does an expensive clock or watch tell the time better than a cheap digital?

For clocks, yes. Cheap digital clocks are hilariously innaccurate.

[Diderot]

TonyRPH said:

Diderot said:

This has me confused. A a single sine wave doesn’t have any harmonics, just the fundamental?

If the signal is clipped, there will be distortion which means there will be harmonics.

Digital clipping doesn’t introduce harmonics like analogue processes (3rd order etc.), it just mutilates the waveform irrecoverably because the system has no way of describing/calculating the amplitude; full scale is full scale, and there are only anharmonics generated. Or are you talking about a sine wave in the analogue domain pushed into ‘saturation’ like it might have been to tape?

[TonyRPH]

Diderot said:

Digital clipping doesn’t introduce harmonics like analogue processes (3rd order etc.), it just mutilates the waveform irrecoverably because the system has no way of describing/calculating the amplitude; full scale is full scale, and there are only anharmonics generated. Or are you talking about a sine wave in the analogue domain pushed into ‘saturation’ like it might have been to tape?

Here's an FFT of a 1kHz +2dB .wav file which was generated using the 'sox' utility.

sox -b 32 -r 96000 -c 2 -n distorted_file.wav synth 100 sine 1000 vol +2dB
sox WARN vol: vol clipped 7600000 samples; decrease volume?

Unless I'm misunderstanding this - I see much distortion and plenty of harmonics.

This is entirely in the digital domain, the signal has not passed through any analogue interfaces.



And here's an FFT of an unclipped file. (-1dB)

Edited by TonyRPH on Wednesday 12th April 08:10

[AdeTuono]

It appears that this thread has morphed into that which it originally mocked.

That's a shame.

[911hope]

AdeTuono said:

It appears that this thread has morphed into that which it originally mocked.

That's a shame.

You are mixing up BS with actual technical information.

Understanding the technology allows the BS to be exposed.

Edited by 911hope on Wednesday 12th April 12:37

[robinessex]

Not quite, from the little I can understand, it's a discussion on the distortion (and rectification ) of a digital signal. I hope I've got that correct.

[AdeTuono]

robinessex said:

Not quite, from the little I can understand, it's a discussion on the distortion (and rectification ) of a digital signal. I hope I've got that correct.

I know; isn't it a shame that it's drifted so far from the thread's original intention.

Now, where are my anorak and adenoids?

[Diderot]

TonyRPH said:

Diderot said:

Digital clipping doesn’t introduce harmonics like analogue processes (3rd order etc.), it just mutilates the waveform irrecoverably because the system has no way of describing/calculating the amplitude; full scale is full scale, and there are only anharmonics generated. Or are you talking about a sine wave in the analogue domain pushed into ‘saturation’ like it might have been to tape?

Here's an FFT of a 1kHz +2dB .wav file which was generated using the 'sox' utility.

sox -b 32 -r 96000 -c 2 -n distorted_file.wav synth 100 sine 1000 vol +2dB
sox WARN vol: vol clipped 7600000 samples; decrease volume?

Unless I'm misunderstanding this - I see much distortion and plenty of harmonics.

This is entirely in the digital domain, the signal has not passed through any analogue interfaces.



And here's an FFT of an unclipped file. (-1dB)

Edited by TonyRPH on Wednesday 12th April 08:10

Thanks Tony. That makes perfect sense. It’s the harmonic content of the resulting square wave which was created by the clipping and quantisation.

[Deranged Rover]

nigelpugh7 said:

My Audio Technica AT-LP 240 turntable cost me around £400 about 10 years ago now.

I love the whole drama and theatre of putting a record on it and playing it, but the sound coming out of it is only as good as the quality of the record itself

I hate to break it to you, but I would also prefer listening to digital if i had an Audio Technica AT-LP240. It's perfectly competent but thoroughly unspectacular OEM Chinese direct drive with an Audio Technica badge on it. It is not a labour of love from the heart of AT's Japanese development laboratories!

If you want to get a bit more serious about vinyl, then try an SL-1200G - heck, even try an SL-1500C. You might be surprised.

Oh, and someone mentioned the SME Model 60. I've spent time with it and came to the inescapable conclusion that it was worth every penny of its £60k asking price. It was truly, utterly astonishing. Heck, compared to a few hundred thousand quid's worth of TechDAS ground anchor, you could even argue that it's a bit of a bargain.

[Elderly]

Nomme de Plum said:

It looks pretty cool though although not as good as its predecessor the Michell Electronic Reference turntable i bought in 1976


]

I had one of those at about the same time; I bought all my hi-fi equipment primarily on looks .

Then in 1982 I stupidly decided to make the sound reproduction quality a priority and so changed it for an oh so naff looking Linn LP12 ( and a Meridian Active set-up) which I still have.

I wish I still had the Michell. I so very rarely listen to any vinyl and in any case I mainly listen in a normal room with various acoustic musical instruments lying around, have tinnitus, and have age related upper partial hearing impairment ….. so for me now, it IS all bullsh*t !

[Nomme de Plum]

nigelpugh7 said:

Always loved the Michell turntables! As lots of high end turntables they are true works of art, and if that’s what you love and can afford it then of course why the hell not!

I have always craved the SME Turntables as objects of desire, but again for the latest version of the Model 60 it’s £50K, and yet it’s still belt driven, I’m now sure why but I feel that direct drive is a must for a high end turntable, belt drive just seems like a poor method of platter propulsion to me!

SME are in a different league engineering wise. IMO Just superb.

[Nomme de Plum]

Elderly said:

I had one of those at about the same time; I bought all my hi-fi equipment primarily on looks .

Then in 1982 I stupidly decided to make the sound reproduction quality a priority and so changed it for an oh so naff looking Linn LP12 ( and a Meridian Active set-up) which I still have.

I wish I still had the Michell. I so very rarely listen to any vinyl and in any case I mainly listen in a normal room with various acoustic musical instruments lying around, have tinnitus, and have age related upper partial hearing impairment ….. so for me now, it IS all bullsh*t !

At the time I recall the Linn with Grace arm was actually less expensive. I started with the forerunner of Meridian which was the Lecson AC1 and AP3 which i still have. Very 70s looking.

I then morphed to Meridian stuff 207 CD and DAC various amps including Denon 6600A mono blocks, superseded by Aragon 8008B balanced amp, which I also still have, Can't lift it though 35kg+

Then Merdian Gear 7000 fronts 5200 centre 3100 rears, 861V8 Processor G98 DVD and MC200

I'm disposing all of it now as downsizing house.

Sorry about your hearing issue.

[robinessex]

Nomme de Plum said:

Then Merdian Gear 7000 fronts 5200 centre 3100 rears, 861V8 Processor G98 DVD and MC200

I can beat that. My first system and I still have it. Meridian Boothroyd Stuart MCA Component Amplifier, MCD player, and M10 speakers. The player doesn't always read the disc start-up tracks and stops. 2 of the units in the M10s are poorly, and the cabinets could do with a refurb. I have a list of the bits I need, just need to sneak it all past SWMBO.

[Nomme de Plum]

robinessex said:

I can beat that. My first system and I still have it. Meridian Boothroyd Stuart MCA Component Amplifier, MCD player, and M10 speakers. The player doesn't always read the disc start-up tracks and stops. 2 of the units in the M10s are poorly, and the cabinets could do with a refurb. I have a list of the bits I need, just need to sneak it all past SWMBO.

Mine was the Lesson AC1 and AP3. It was Boothroyd Stuart stuff before they formed Meridian.

[robinessex]

Nomme de Plum said:

robinessex said:

I can beat that. My first system and I still have it. Meridian Boothroyd Stuart MCA Component Amplifier, MCD player, and M10 speakers. The player doesn't always read the disc start-up tracks and stops. 2 of the units in the M10s are poorly, and the cabinets could do with a refurb. I have a list of the bits I need, just need to sneak it all past SWMBO.

Mine was the Lesson AC1 and AP3. It was Boothroyd Stuart stuff before they formed Meridian.

I well remember that as well.