Why every music lover needs to buy a turntable - discuss.

Johnny Vinyl

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Goes both ways Tim. Always does. The other side is always saying analog lovers like what they hear because of distortion. Something I for one do not totally agree with. Sorry Tom, I think yours is a gross misrepresentation. What's more curious is why anybody let's themselves get pissed off at all. What it boils down to is "strict adherence to fidelity" vs "success at creating an illusion". I sell digital gear, some, really expensive digital gear. I am not ashamed to say that analog really does the latter better IMO. The designers of the digital companies I represent won't be angry with me either. Didier (EERA), Larry (Light Harmonic) and Nishikawa (TechDAS) are all chasing what analog does so well, flow and continuity, while PRESERVING digital's advantage in silence and dynamics particularly in the lower octaves. They aren't doing it by adding distortion.

The problem is the preconceptions of the hardliners of both sides. The digital only guys will imagine pops, ticks, groove noise the moment they hear the word Turntable. Admit it you're one of these guys :p :D. The analog only guys will imagine edginess and glare the moment they hear the word digital. So these three designers and many, many more, are trying to make digital that flows better not make a DAC that sounds analog by introducing ticks, pops et al. If you think about it, that actually wouldn't be too hard to do at all. Fact of the matter is, with a quiet table, well set up cart, proper gain staging and most important of all a clean, well pressed LP, levels of noise are low enough that once the music starts playing the existing noise is masked to a very great degree to the point that it in no way detracts. On the other hand turntable manufacturers are doing their thing to get at digital's strengths by making tables ever more immune to acoustic feedback and with ever better speed stability and ever lower self noise.

Maybe someday the two will meet. I don't think we're at that point and I don't know if it will ever happen. I surely don't know what I would do if and when it does. In the meantime, I intend to try and enjoy both as best I can.

Jack - most excellent post indeed I must say! And for me the bolded and underlined particularly hold true and are about as accurate as anyone could describe...even on my less than SOTA setup.
 

mep

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Jack - most excellent post indeed I must say! And for me the bolded and underlined particularly hold true and are about as accurate as anyone could describe...even on my less than SOTA setup.

John-It's oh so true, but it will forever go unnoticed by those who are in a monogamous relationship with digital.
 

rockitman

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John-It's oh so true, but it will forever go unnoticed by those who are in a monogamous relationship with digital.

why even bother justifying vinyl to "head in the sand" digitalphiles ? Let them go on thinking they have the best sounding format.
 

Johnny Vinyl

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why even bother justifying vinyl to "head in the sand" digitalphiles ? Let them go on thinking they have the best sounding format.

And I'm okay with that.....no problem there whatsoever. Just don't bash my choice.
 

mep

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why even bother justifying vinyl to "head in the sand" digitalphiles ? Let them go on thinking they have the best sounding format.

Conversely, I try not to be a "head in the sand" analog person and I listen to digital on a regular basis. I have said many nice things about the sound of DSD and I enjoy listening to it. It's much easier to make meaningful comparisons between different formats when you own all of them and listen to them in your own system regularly. I find these comparisons to be more interesting than listening to the comments from someone who is wedded to a single format (be it analog or digital) blathering on about how badly the format they don't own is flawed.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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And you certainly contribute a fair amount of posts to every one of those threads.

I do. I think I'll save a couple of responses to just cut and paste in going forward. The long version will be something like I posted above which points to the fact that you boys are constantly doing the elephant walk with no trunk to swing. The short one says: You don't trust the science; I don't trust your ears. Are we done?

Tim
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Conversely, I try not to be a "head in the sand" analog person and I listen to digital on a regular basis. I have said many nice things about the sound of DSD and I enjoy listening to it. It's much easier to make meaningful comparisons between different formats when you own all of them and listen to them in your own system regularly. I find these comparisons to be more interesting than listening to the comments from someone who is wedded to a single format (be it analog or digital) blathering on about how badly the format they don't own is flawed.

Both formats have their flaws, but also their advantages. Focusing in on the positive ones allows you to appreciate what they each bring to the table. I love my vinyl, but I have plenty of CD/SACD titles that are beautifully recorded and bring me much pleasure. I could as such never live in an exclusionary world.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Goes both ways Tim. Always does. The other side is always saying analog lovers like what they hear because of distortion. Something I for one do not totally agree with. Sorry Tom, I think yours is a gross misrepresentation. What's more curious is why anybody let's themselves get pissed off at all. What it boils down to is "strict adherence to fidelity" vs "success at creating an illusion". I sell digital gear, some, really expensive digital gear. I am not ashamed to say that analog really does the latter better IMO. The designers of the digital companies I represent won't be angry with me either. Didier (EERA), Larry (Light Harmonic) and Nishikawa (TechDAS) are all chasing what analog does so well, flow and continuity, while PRESERVING digital's advantage in silence and dynamics particularly in the lower octaves. They aren't doing it by adding distortion.

The problem is the preconceptions of the hardliners of both sides. The digital only guys will imagine pops, ticks, groove noise the moment they hear the word Turntable. Admit it you're one of these guys :p :D. The analog only guys will imagine edginess and glare the moment they hear the word digital. So these three designers and many, many more, are trying to make digital that flows better not make a DAC that sounds analog by introducing ticks, pops et al. If you think about it, that actually wouldn't be too hard to do at all. Fact of the matter is, with a quiet table, well set up cart, proper gain staging and most important of all a clean, well pressed LP, levels of noise are low enough that once the music starts playing the existing noise is masked to a very great degree to the point that it in no way detracts. On the other hand turntable manufacturers are doing their thing to get at digital's strengths by making tables ever more immune to acoustic feedback and with ever better speed stability and ever lower self noise.

Maybe someday the two will meet. I don't think we're at that point and I don't know if it will ever happen. I surely don't know what I would do if and when it does. In the meantime, I intend to try and enjoy both as best I can.

Well, let me qualify that for you, Jack. The additional "goodness" that can be quantified in vinyl is distortion...and noise...and a bunch of it, and I'm going to assume that the difference that we know is the difference that you hear until someone comes up with something else. YM, as always, may vary. At least I'm not telling you you have bad hearing or crap gear for liking what you like. It sounds good to you? I don't really care where it comes from, I'm happy for you. I just can't fathom why so many can't return that favor.

Tim
 

mep

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I do. I think I'll save a couple of responses to just cut and paste in going forward. The long version will be something like I posted above which points to the fact that you boys are constantly doing the elephant walk with no trunk to swing. The short one says: You don't trust the science; I don't trust your ears. Are we done?

Tim

You're never "done" Tim. You love to argue far too much to ever be "done." Whoever said that I don't trust science? I know I never made that statement.
 

mep

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Well, let me qualify that for you, Jack. The additional "goodness" that can be quantified in vinyl is distortion...and noise...and a bunch of it, and I'm going to assume that the difference that we know is the difference that you hear until someone comes up with something else. YM, as always, may vary. At least I'm not telling you you have bad hearing or crap gear for liking what you like. It sounds good to you? I don't really care where it comes from, I'm happy for you. I just can't fathom why so many can't return that favor.

Tim


Oh boy, here we go again. Have you been hanging out with Tom and drinking whatever he's been drinking?
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Same number of steps.

Really? Try again.

The flaw in your assertion is that vinyl technology slept for those 30 years. I see parallels between the way vinyl technology was advancing in the early 80s, and the way digital audio technology is advancing now.

Puhleeze... Don't lecture me about analog. You don't know me nor what you're talking about. Where did I ever say that? You're the one talking about old turntables, not me. I'm not the one who abandoned the medium. Plus I've reviewed tables, arms, cartridges, phono sections since 1980. So don't tell me that I said there haven't been advances. Few have been as lucky as I have to hear all the advances to the very best today.

Also, the greatest advances in current vinyl technology are coming about due to digital - not audio, but in areas such as greater automation of vinyl production lines and FEA of turntable and cartridge designs.

And not materials? So let me see. So if there wasn't CAD, analog wouldn't have advanced? C'mon, all it does is speed up things like steroids but doesn't change the results.

Vinyl production? Really with 2000 limited runs? Not exactly what Ford would call assembly line production. Have you actually read one piece about what's going on at QRP? Or have you been following how Chad is going back to the hand stamped LPs? Hardly automation unless you consider humans machines.

As you point out, pressing plants still struggle to match 30 year old quality. There are so many little "tricks of the trade" that were once common but have been lost and must be rediscovered.

Puhleeze I said nothing of the sort. The pressing quality of records back in the late '50s, '60s and so on was hardly exemplary. In fact pressing hit rock bottom with Dynawarp and reground vinyl. Records then were filled with many pressing defects back then. Bubbles, off center records, groove stitching, narrowing, warps, were major issues.

The biggest difference between now and then is the record labels didn't muck around with things like today. I believe that was due to the producers and engineers back then were real musicians, not some techno knob twiddling hacks.

Plus they got the sound right to start with--rather than trying to fix the recording after the event. And that began with the recording venue that any recording engineer will tell you is 80% of the battle.

And your post shows just how little you know about what's evolved in the best pressing facilities.

And those tricks as you say have hardly been lost with the engineering work of Stan Ricker, Bernie Grundman, Kevin Gray, Steve Hoffman, Tim de Paravicini and others. Check out their resumes; they're hardly Johnny come latelys.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Oh boy, here we go again. Have you been hanging out with Tom and drinking whatever he's been drinking?

Standard answer (short version):

The noise and distortions of vinyl are measurable, documented and well-known. If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Show me.

Tim
 

mep

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Standard answer (short version):

The noise and distortions of vinyl are measurable, documented and well-known. If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Show me.

Tim

If I felt like all I was hearing when I listened to LPs was a bunch of distortion and not what sounds like the closest I can come to hearing what sounds like real music, I would have abandoned the format long ago. And remember, digital has millions of distortions and they all haven't even been identified yet. Everyday it seems like some new digital distortion is identified. If you think for one second that the process of digital recording and playback isn't introducing crap to the sound you are hearing, you truly do have your head stuck in the sand. So no need to stick your digital nose in the air and act like baby never takes a dump in his digital diapers.
 

rbbert

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Dec 12, 2010
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As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, for some reason professional recording & mastering engineers like to do so much fiddling with commercial digital releases it's a little hard to tell which distortions are inherent to digital and which are part of the over-processing. Even older 16/44.1 digital (i.e. before higher res was routinely used in recording) which has been minimally futzed (Winston Ma's releases, Stereophile CD's) can sound very good.
 

Don Hills

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Jun 20, 2013
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Really? Try again. ...

Really. You made the claim, prove that D2D has fewer steps than this:

1: Tape to lacquer
2: Lacquer to matrix
3: Matrix to mother
4: Mother to stamper
5: Stamper to vinyl
If a large release is anticipated, copy mothers are made from some of the stampers before they are used.
5: Stamper to copy mother
6: Copy mother to stamper
7: Stamper to vinyl

I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here.

Edit: Maybe you're thinking of DMM, not D2D?
 
Last edited:

Phelonious Ponk

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If I felt like all I was hearing when I listened to LPs was a bunch of distortion and not what sounds like the closest I can come to hearing what sounds like real music, I would have abandoned the format long ago. And remember, digital has millions of distortions and they all haven't even been identified yet. Everyday it seems like some new digital distortion is identified. If you think for one second that the process of digital recording and playback isn't introducing crap to the sound you are hearing, you truly do have your head stuck in the sand. So no need to stick your digital nose in the air and act like baby never takes a dump in his digital diapers.

You seem to have changed the subject. Does that mean you have no substantive response to Standard Answer (short version): The noise and distortions of vinyl are measurable, documented and well-known. If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Show me.

Tim
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Really. You made the claim, prove that D2D has fewer steps than this:

1: Tape to lacquer
2: Lacquer to matrix
3: Matrix to mother
4: Mother to stamper
5: Stamper to vinyl
If a large release is anticipated, copy mothers are made from some of the stampers before they are used.
5: Stamper to copy mother
6: Copy mother to stamper
7: Stamper to vinyl

I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here.

Edit: Maybe you're thinking of DMM, not D2D?

Really? There's no tape to lacquer with D2D? Duh, direct to disc. What do you think? They make a tape copy of the lacquer? Go check and see how M&K and others ran tape in parallel as a backup. Just like many ran parallel digital and analog in the early days of digital.

For your edification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_to_disc_recording

Read sentence 1 and advantages where up to four generations of tape are bypassed.

Need I say more?
 

Don Hills

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Jun 20, 2013
366
1
323
Wellington, New Zealand
why even bother justifying vinyl to "head in the sand" digitalphiles ? Let them go on thinking they have the best sounding format.

"why even bother justifying digital to "head in the sand" vinylphiles ? Let them go on thinking they have the best sounding format."

Fixed it for you... :)
 

Don Hills

Well-Known Member
Jun 20, 2013
366
1
323
Wellington, New Zealand
Where's the tape to lacquer step genius with D2D?

You might have missed where I said:
"I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here."

... in other words, still 5 to 7 steps from source to LP. We're discussing the differences between vinyl production and digital. Everything before the two paths diverge is the same (and out of scope). You're trying to move the goalposts.
 

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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Really. You made the claim, prove that D2D has fewer steps than this:

1: Tape to lacquer
2: Lacquer to matrix
3: Matrix to mother
4: Mother to stamper
5: Stamper to vinyl
If a large release is anticipated, copy mothers are made from some of the stampers before they are used.
5: Stamper to copy mother
6: Copy mother to stamper
7: Stamper to vinyl

I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here.

Edit: Maybe you're thinking of DMM, not D2D?

Really? Prove it has less steps?? Do you not realize that D2D doesn't use tape and the signal is being fed to the cutting lathe in real time?
 

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