Preference for music listening.... Vinyl, CD, Streaming?

[thebraketester]

miniman said:

Part of the appeal of vinyl for me is that CDs and every other digital media is about capacity to store ones and zeros, but vinyl is this:

They still amaze me... I’ve got some fairly old vinyl ~60 years old and they still play and sound great. Quite remarkable..

[miniman]

Itsallicanafford said:

Thanks for the tip, reading up on them I think I might give one a miss. They are also Pretty expensive, I have a small stack of early 90’s mid range Sony ES components, their combined cost would be about the same as a period DAT player

Lovely, I had a few rungs down the range but still going strong 30 years later

[996owner]

Itsallicanafford said:

996owner said:

Itsallicanafford said:

Note to self - must buy a dat player...

I own 3 DAT players. All a pain in the ***** When they work their fine, avoid Panasonic. Sony are probably the best of the format PCM2700 are the machines I've had least issues with. I use to maintain DAT machines many years ago

Edited by 996owner on Sunday 11th October 22:32

Edited by 996owner on Sunday 11th October 22:33

Thanks for the tip, reading up on them I think I might give one a miss. They are also Pretty expensive, I have a small stack of early 90’s mid range Sony ES components, their combined cost would be about the same as a period DAT player

A Sony DTC60es would probably suit well. I have one, its more reliable than the pro machines I have.
This one on Ebay is from a seller who refurbish them, I have had my machine serviced by him, I don't have the tools, test equipment or enthusiasm to service DAT anymore..
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-DTC-60ES-DAT-Recor...

[Arnd]

miniman said:

Part of the appeal of vinyl for me is that CDs and every other digital media is about capacity to store ones and zeros, but vinyl is this:

I seem to remember reading the left and right channels were represented by vertical and horizontal movement respectively

[Arnd]

nelly1 said:

Amen to that!

Depends entirely on the music and the mood.

Some familiar items there.

I don’t stream anything, it’s all old school for me.

[ian996]

Arnd said:

I seem to remember reading the left and right channels were represented by vertical and horizontal movement respectively

That is correct (or vica-versa, I can never remember) - it's kind of hard to get your head around the motion that is involved and the ability of the generator to pick up the information. It was once described to me as being a little like "a tennis ball, travelling round a piece of guttering at the speed of a formula one car"...I think the reference to the speed of the formula one car related to the lateral and vertical accelerations/decelerations, rather than the actual linear speed through the groove!

I love miniman's pics - the one showing the "needle" and left and right channel profile explains pretty clearly why high-end cartridge makes obsess about their tip profiles.

[bazza.]

ian996 said:

bazza. said:

I'm more a vinyl type of guy myself

Another Vinyl /SME 5 Man here.



I remain in awe of just what is possible from vinyl. From a purely personal POV, I still think it has a naturalness that digital just can't match. Overall, I probably listen to 60% CD, 30% Vinyl and 10% Streaming (well, my CD's stored on a Bluos Music Vault and played through my main DACS).

I certainly wouldn't be able to distinguish between using the CD Transport or the Bluos for the digital stream in any kind of blind test, but I do find that, whenever I use the Bluos as source, I end up having a shorter listening session than if I'm listening to CD or Vinyl. My take is that I'm just not quite engaging with the music to quite such a degree when using the Bluos (either when track skipping or playing full LPs - it happens with both).

Very nice Sir I've now removed the bridge from my V arm sounds a lot better IMHO

[theboss]

ian996 said:

That is correct (or vica-versa, I can never remember) - it's kind of hard to get your head around the motion that is involved and the ability of the generator to pick up the information. It was once described to me as being a little like "a tennis ball, travelling round a piece of guttering at the speed of a formula one car"...I think the reference to the speed of the formula one car related to the lateral and vertical accelerations/decelerations, rather than the actual linear speed through the groove!

I love miniman's pics - the one showing the "needle" and left and right channel profile explains pretty clearly why high-end cartridge makes obsess about their tip profiles.

ISTR that what you end up with is the difference between the two channel levels not two separate channels.

It still seems astonishing to me that such resolution is available by running a needle in a tiny groove cut to match the waveform of the sound, that can be mass produced reliably by essentially stamping or moulding a piece of plastic, and that the means to do this existed many decades before my parents were even born. The manufacturing tolerances seem so incredibly small, unless you start comparing with digital audio I suppose!

[Itsallicanafford]

996owner said:

A Sony DTC60es would probably suit well. I have one, its more reliable than the pro machines I have.
This one on Ebay is from a seller who refurbish them, I have had my machine serviced by him, I don't have the tools, test equipment or enthusiasm to service DAT anymore..
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-DTC-60ES-DAT-Recor...

Many thanks for the link - I will keep on eye on units he is selling - that might be my Christmas present for this year sorted...

Cheers

[Itsallicanafford]

miniman said:

Lovely, I had a few rungs down the range but still going strong 30 years later

Yeah, the build quality of the units, especially the Amp and the CD player is superb..

The CD player was bought from a charity shop for £50....I knew I was in for a treat when the old lady serving struggled to carry it from the back of the shop!

[ian996]

bazza. said:

Very nice Sir I've now removed the bridge from my V arm sounds a lot better IMHO

Thank you! Yes, I remember the tweak being suggested in HiFi+ in the early noughties, just after I bought the tonearm & deck. SME's unsurprisingly non-committal comment was that removing the bridge would do no harm, but that replacing it could damage the bearings if over-torqued. I chickened out from trying it on that basis.

[bazza.]

ian996 said:

bazza. said:

Very nice Sir I've now removed the bridge from my V arm sounds a lot better IMHO

Thank you! Yes, I remember the tweak being suggested in HiFi+ in the early noughties, just after I bought the tonearm & deck. SME's unsurprisingly non-committal comment was that removing the bridge would do no harm, but that replacing it could damage the bearings if over-torqued. I chickened out from trying it on that basis.

Its so easy to do and you get a far better top end as for over torquing the screws I cant see that happening if your just using a normal allen key
Its really worth trying

[ian996]

bazza. said:

Its so easy to do and you get a far better top end as for over torquing the screws I cant see that happening if your just using a normal allen key
Its really worth trying

Yes, I have heard the A/B comparison in a friend's system. After a bit of soul searching, I decided to leave the tone-arm intact on my arm. With regards to the over-torquing, I think SME's line was that, while the bridge is not structural, the component it is clamped to is and, due to the precision of the bearings, if the bolts on the bridge are unevenly tightened, it could have an adverse effect. They emphasised that the tolerances were so tight that the tiniest distortion could be an issue.

Quite possibly, that's just a bit of sniffy "don't mess with our engineering" bullst, but if you ever do decide to replace the bridge (probably only in the event of selling it on if you are happy with the bridgeless sound), its probably best to proceed as if they were cylinder head bolts on an engine block made of icing- sugar, and nip them up alternately a tiny bit at a time!

[toon10]

I have a large vinyl and CD collection and a Hi-Fi system capable of playing both but my all of my listening is done with Spotify connect or my FLAC collection ripped from my CD's via USB. My amp can be powered on with my phone and it's just too convenient for me to listen while in my chair than to use physical media. Not very "cool" I know but I've moved with the times. So much so that I want a system in my home office/summer house and all I want is a one box just add speakers solution rather than separates. Something like a Naim Atom would do.

[Itsallicanafford]

Vinyl this weekend...Sony PS-Q3A

[ae111sr]

In the past i've used vinyl, cassettes and CDs but now I stream everything. All my music (flac rips from CD or flac downloads) is stored on a Melco N1A. I have a Tidal subscription which ends soon and will probably not be renewed. If I get a CD to try I can quickly rip it or connect a stand alone BluRay burner to the Melco and listen through that.

Edited by ae111sr on Sunday 25th October 16:02

[doodlebug]

ian996 said:

Arnd said:

I seem to remember reading the left and right channels were represented by vertical and horizontal movement respectively

That is correct (or vica-versa, I can never remember) - it's kind of hard to get your head around the motion that is involved and the ability of the generator to pick up the information. It was once described to me as being a little like "a tennis ball, travelling round a piece of guttering at the speed of a formula one car"...I think the reference to the speed of the formula one car related to the lateral and vertical accelerations/decelerations, rather than the actual linear speed through the groove!

I love miniman's pics - the one showing the "needle" and left and right channel profile explains pretty clearly why high-end cartridge makes obsess about their tip profiles.

No, it isn't correct, and hasn't been since 1931. Each channel is recorded at 45­­° to the record surface on opposite sides of the groove. By definition, the LH channel is recorded on the inner side of the groove and the RH channel on the outer part.

Apart from the obvious audible merit of each channel being symmetrical, it also allowed stereo discs to be played on a mono player which would not be the case if the stereo was encoded as you describe.

[Troubleatmill]

thebraketester said:

miniman said:

Part of the appeal of vinyl for me is that CDs and every other digital media is about capacity to store ones and zeros, but vinyl is this:

They still amaze me... I’ve got some fairly old vinyl ~60 years old and they still play and sound great. Quite remarkable..

As an aside.

A record made by John Logie Baird - was found to be unplayable.
Around 20 or so years ago - someone had an idea. And made a record player to play the content back.

It turns out - John Logie Baird invented the video recorder - but he never got around to making the video player.

[C n C]

As a kid it was the occasional vinyl played on my Dad's Sanyo music centre, but mainly C90 cassette tapes recorded from the radio in stereo with an Alba radio/cassette player (photo from the Argos "Book of Dreams" 1982).

Alba_stereo by conradsphotos, on Flickr

First proper hifi was bought in the second year at college (1987) and was CD player, separate amps and speakers, so I never got into vinyl in those days.

Fast forward to around 15 years ago and to add to a decent hifi, I bought my first turntable (Project Expression II) and started to collect a few albums on vinyl (before it was a "cool" thing). Guess by now I've probably got between 500 and 1000 vinyl albums.

I then ripped all my (1500-2000) CDs to FLAC and put them on a NAS and access them via Sonos Connects into external DACs. I still buy a few CDs, but these get immediately ripped and the CD put away.

I guess these days maybe 20% listening to vinyl, 40% streaming from NAS and 40% streaming from Spotify.

The one I get most pleasure from is the 20% listening to vinyl - the sound is great, especially through a good tube amp and with a better turntable (Ace Spacedeck with Audionote Arm 1 mark 2, Lyra Delios cartridge and Wave Mechanic power supply) and it is more of an occasion putting on an album. I also concentrate on the music far more and just sit and listen rather than doing other things at the same time.

TT1 by conradsphotos, on Flickr

[spyder dryver]

doodlebug said:

ian996 said:

Arnd said:

I seem to remember reading the left and right channels were represented by vertical and horizontal movement respectively

That is correct (or vica-versa, I can never remember) - it's kind of hard to get your head around the motion that is involved and the ability of the generator to pick up the information. It was once described to me as being a little like "a tennis ball, travelling round a piece of guttering at the speed of a formula one car"...I think the reference to the speed of the formula one car related to the lateral and vertical accelerations/decelerations, rather than the actual linear speed through the groove!

I love miniman's pics - the one showing the "needle" and left and right channel profile explains pretty clearly why high-end cartridge makes obsess about their tip profiles.

No, it isn't correct, and hasn't been since 1931. Each channel is recorded at 45­­° to the record surface on opposite sides of the groove. By definition, the LH channel is recorded on the inner side of the groove and the RH channel on the outer part.

Apart from the obvious audible merit of each channel being symmetrical, it also allowed stereo discs to be played on a mono player which would not be the case if the stereo was encoded as you describe.

Before the advent of stereo the groove usually went from side to side. It certainly does on the "78s" some of us can remember. There had at one time been the Diamond Disk format which used a "hill and dale" groove. My wife's cousin owns one of these rare machines.