The pecking order

[FrantzM]

i agree with Mark. no; it's not PC.....but there is no question he is correct.

screw propriety, let'r rip Tim.

in the opening post Mark asked those who don't have the proper tools at hand for vinyl and tape listening to bow out. that's not PC either. he wanted to hear from listeners with those choices to weigh in on their pecking order.

Bruce knew where this would go. me too and so i did not comment.

and what do you know here we are, on the 2nd page.

well?

Then I will have to bow out of this discussion after this post, Steve Williams may have to bow out too since he has R2R but no vinyl . I will no longer use any analog in any system I am likely to have. I have found myself satisfied with digital getting better and better and no longer see the need for any analog format.
What I find interesting is that preferences are invoked whenever necessary. Else the choices and preferences are posted as absolute. It becomes more curious when one consider preferences versus accuracy. I have read here and elsewhere that some people preferR2R from the direct feed. This direct feed is what the tape records. Recording invokes a transformation which according to every laws of physics must have some faults.. IOW the copy must be inferior to the original; yet, (some) people prefer the copy ... So this pecking order is one of preferences with no necessary regard to accuracy. A concept which audiophiles have the greatest difficulty separating from their preferences or what is to their ears euphonic.
Out of the discussion .. mep pecking order is ok with ,me and would have been mine a few years ago ... Not anymore ...

 

[Steve Williams]

Then I will have to bow out of this discussion after this post, Steve Williams may have to bow out too since he has R2R but no vinyl . I will no longer use any analog in any system I am likely to have. I have found myself satisfied with digital getting better and better and no longer see the need for any analog format.
What I find interesting is that preferences are invoked whenever necessary. Else the choices and preferences are posted as absolute. It becomes more curious when one consider preferences versus accuracy. I have read here and elsewhere that some people preferR2R from the direct feed. This direct feed is what the tape records. Recording invokes a transformation which according to every laws of physics must have some faults.. IOW the copy must be inferior to the original; yet, (some) people prefer the copy ... So this pecking order is one of preferences with no necessary regard to accuracy. A concept which audiophiles have the greatest difficulty separating from their preferences or what is to their ears euphonic.
Out of the discussion .. mep pecking order is ok with ,me and would have been mine a few years ago ... Not anymore ...

I agree about me and vinyl however I have heard some amazing vinyl systems who also had R2R and my observations remain the same. In fact Frantz before I bought my Studer I was seriously considering buying a TT until I heard R2R

 

[FrantzM]

I agree about me and vinyl however I have heard some amazing vinyl systems who also had R2R and my observations remain the same. In fact Frantz before I bought my Studer I was seriously considering buying a TT until I heard R2R

It is not about you . I do not presently possess an in-room system.. I have no speakers to start with.. I have two music severs , 3 NAS, various DAC, Benchmark, Lavry, HT Streamer and soon on order an M2Tech Young (Garry it better be good, else I will travel to the PNWS to deal with you and come back with a Gen 1 ) and 3 or 4 headphone amps , various and IMO superlative headphones and no analog. I have heard extraordinary systems (amongs them yours, many others and soon MikeL's , i would say my former system ( Maggies, Burmester Electronics, Basis TT , Graham and Lyra + Koetsu cartidges, Burmester Digital DAC and Transport) was up there with the best. I have had great vinyl and adequate R2R (Revox). I go to live music on a regular, quasi-continuous basis and hear great systems often. I think I can have a pretty good opinion of good sound but don't clearly possess, presently "the tools" ... That to me is the problem.

In fact come to think of it .. This already was a digital vs analog thread. The kind that ultimately devolves in a food fight ... I'll stay on the fences for now

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It's an incredibly boring old argument, and they always end the same way: with the people on the side of the argument which has none of the data in its corner declaring the objective superiority of that which is, by all objective measures, inferior, then piously condescending to everyone who doesn't "hear" that for which they haven't a thread of real evidence.

The realism may or may not be there, but the arrogance is palpable, and very effectively pressurizing the room.

There you go, mike: I let 'er rip. I think I'll save this as my standard response for the next round. It deserves no more than a cut and paste.

Tim

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike-I just wanted to give an honest assessment of how I think things stack up and was curious if other people who can play back all three sources felt the same. I wasn’t interested in being PC, I was/am interested to know if others feel the same as I do or if their rankings were different. I can’t get there without asking the question. I wasn’t looking to start another food fight which is why I asked those who don’t own all three sources to bow out. I didn’t want others to speculate and proffer opinions that aren’t based on first-hand experience and exposure.

as far as my personal pecking order; first, i like all three, tape, vinyl and digital. currently i'm listening to a good amount of server based dsd from SACD's thru the Playback Designs MPS-5 and it's USB box and it does make for excellent sound with minimal effort. when i'm reading or web surfing it's ideal.

in the past, no doubt 15ips 1/4" tape master dubs have been supreme in my system. high quality tape transfers simply provide an uncluttered view into the music in every way; particularly with the continousness and completeness of musical parts. also the dynamic energy and tonal truth from tape is on another level as it simply has this amazing density of information. your brain does not need to do much work when you listen as there is less of reality missing......the relaxation you mention.

i said 'in the past' because with my Durand Telos tonearm on the NVS tt, the lines between vinyl and tape have blurred. the Telos/NVS seems to be able to come up to the 15ips 1/4" master dub level much more frequently and even rise above it. fewer tapes are clearly better. state of the art vinyl playback performance continues to improve. i know that this perspective will be met with skepticism and i have no need to convince anyone about it. if anyone gets a chance to hear these products you should do it and see what you think for yourself.

i have a new Ortofon Anna cartridge on the way which i think is better than my A90. i heard it briefly a few weeks ago. it will take vinyl a bit higher i think.

overall; the best tapes are better, but not by nearly as much as previuously.

and even if i consider the vinyl from any of my recently departed tt's and arms it was still very very good and and on a whole different level than the best digital.

ultimately this question is one of software; very good tape and very good vinyl are laughably better than digital of any type. even on ordinary RTR decks and tt's great software shines thru.

for Tim--ymmv.

Also, I have been meaning to ask you how your Ampex electronics are coming along.

Dave Distenfass has had my 350-2 and pair of 351 mic pre's since November. i have not contacted him since then to even ask him about it. i was targeting end of February to contact him.

 

[mep]

Let me clearly restate that the purpose of this thread was not argue whether analog is superior to digital, but rather to see in what order people who have the ability to play back the 3 sources I mentioned rank the sound. And sure, it's a preference even though how you feel about is an absolute for you.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

It's an incredibly boring old argument, and they always end the same way: with the people on the side of the argument which has none of the data in its corner declaring the objective superiority of that which is, by all objective measures, inferior, then piously condescending to everyone who doesn't "hear" that for which they haven't a thread of real evidence.

The realism may or may not be there, but the arrogance is palpable, and very effectively pressurizing the room.

There you go, mike: I let 'er rip. I think I'll save this as my standard response for the next round. It deserves no more than a cut and paste.

Tim

thanks.

 

[flez007]

as far as my personal pecking order; first, i like all three, tape, vinyl and digital. currently i'm listening to a good amount of server based dsd from SACD's thru the Playback Designs MPS-5 and it's USB box and it does make for excellent sound with minimal effort. when i'm reading or web surfing it's ideal.

in the past, no doubt 15ips 1/4" tape master dubs have been supreme in my system. high quality tape transfers simply provide an uncluttered view into the music in every way; particularly with the continousness and completeness of musical parts. also the dynamic energy and tonal truth from tape is on another level as it simply has this amazing density of information. your brain does not need to do much work when you listen as there is less of reality missing......the relaxation you mention.

i said 'in the past' because with my Durand Telos tonearm on the NVS tt, the lines between vinyl and tape have blurred. the Telos/NVS seems to be able to come up to the 15ips 1/4" master dub level much more frequently and even rise above it. fewer tapes are clearly better. state of the art vinyl playback performance continues to improve. i know that this perspective will be met with skepticism and i have no need to convince anyone about it. if anyone gets a chance to hear these products you should do it and see what you think for yourself.

i have a new Ortofon Anna cartridge on the way which i think is better than my A90. i heard it briefly a few weeks ago. it will take vinyl a bit higher i think.

overall; the best tapes are better, but not by nearly as much as previuously.

and even if i consider the vinyl from any of my recently departed tt's and arms it was still very very good and and on a whole different level than the best digital.

Mike - I can imagine how good your vinyl set-up is in order to "rivalize" your RtR setup. I am heading where you are (I will have a full-KC preamp from Charles in some weeks with Mudorf caps) and as good as the EMT delivers, it is not there yet, not to say of my Digital sources .

 

[mep]

The thing you have to love about vinyl if you love vinyl is that when you make real upgrades to your table/arm/cartridge, all of your LPs sound better because you are now decoding more information than you previously were. Another great benefit is that the more improved your analog rig becomes, the noise floor becomes lower. Having said that, if the sound quality from LPs and tape were exactly equal, I would still prefer tape because it has a lower noise floor. The reality for me though is that my tape collection is super small and I spend the majority of time listening to LPs.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike - I can imagine how good your vinyl set-up is in order to "rivalize" your RtR setup. I am heading where you are (I will have a full-KC preamp from Charles in some weeks with Mudorf caps) and as good as the EMT delivers, it is not there yet, not to say of my Digital sources .

the King Cello is very very good; the best repro i have heard. it will lower the nosie floor, improve dynamic contrasts, and bring an overall increased refinement to the sound.

i assume you will be using it mostly with your Nagra T?

 

[amirm]

I have no objective observation to offer here.

Subjectively though, we have a loaner tape from Bruce for our R2R and there are tracks on it that are so enjoyable, so "high fidelity," that I am at a loss for words. Indeed, we made those tracks the primary demo material for our Mark Levinson/Revel system, making the digital second priority. I don't have an explanation for the observation as I don't have the digital versions of the same file to compare. It matters not in that I have the R2R and it exceeds the level of fidelity I desire in listening to the music. I was just listening to it yesterday and it was indeed the high-frequencies that caught my ear in the one track. It has a certain quality that I was not used to (in a good way). Maybe it is just the recording. I don't know. But the total package works and works very well.

BTW, there are passages in some tracks that peg the VU meter to the right. So much so that at first we thought the deck was broken. Then our main designer came and explained that when in his music recording business (he has a small studio), he would use that tactic on tape to get a nice effect on drums and such. It is remarkable to see that meter peg to the right yet not hear what in digital which would be a disaster. So perhaps it is the lack of the hard limit. I don't know. What I do know is what I said: that the tape achieves a very high level of satisfaction, its specs to be damned.

This is the first time I have been able to evaluate tape properly. The reason is that it has music that I like and am familiar with. The stuff that comes out of Tape project and such don't appeal to me and as a result, doesn't engage me in a serious way.

I wish there was a time when we could all get together and hear the same things. Without that point of reference, it is hard to make progress on these discussions. Summer is beautiful in Seattle. Maybe we should have an event here, making a tour of our place, Bruce, Mike, etc. What say you?

 

[Steve Williams]

I'm in if it's a weekend

 

[rbbert]

... And if Doug is so pro-digital, why's he back cutting LPs again? After he swore off vinyl a decade ago.

In an interview this last year in TAS (pretty pro LP), Doug Sax was bemoaning the fact that he was being paid more to master LP's than digital, even though he thought 24/192 PCM sounded better than the LP's he was mastering.

And the bottom line, I've been in both studio and high-end audio for 25+ years too. That gives me a little different perspective on things.

Only 25+ years? You've got a ways to go to catch up to Bill, who recorded and mastered "Mark-Almond '73". Or me (I co-founded the San Diego Audio Society in 1976).

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The thing you have to love about vinyl if you love vinyl is that when you make real upgrades to your table/arm/cartridge, all of your LPs sound better because you are now decoding more information than you previously were. Another great benefit is that the more improved your analog rig becomes, the noise floor becomes lower. Having said that, if the sound quality from LPs and tape were exactly equal, I would still prefer tape because it has a lower noise floor. The reality for me though is that my tape collection is super small and I spend the majority of time listening to LPs.

vinyl can have a very very low noise floor. as you go up the food chain of tt's arm's, cartridges, and phono pre's sometimes it is amazing when you hear a familiar pressing where you thought that the performance was a certain way and then you understand that was noise in the gear that is now gone.....and more music is revealed.

i'm not saying that either tape or vinyl has a lower noise floor because there can always be better gear found. but when it comes to noise floor in analog software it just seems to get lower and lower as gear gets improved.

 

[c1ferrari]

Okay, How About...

But comparing them to really well recorded tracks with good, current studio gear (analog or digital) and mixed to 192k digital or 2 track 30 ips on 1/2" tape, they are miles away. For being high quality dubs of original sessions done in the 60-80's and mixed to tape, they're probably very good. Though a good 192k rendering playback on good digital gear will reveal numerous shortcomings.

I have a whole wall full of studio masters at 15 or 30ips 2 track 1/4", and while they do sound very good, they don't approach the quality available on well recorded tracks 'now'. Still, they're sure fun to listen to.

--Bill

DSD (read: not PCM)?

I'm curious about quarter-inch, half-track @ 30 ips versus half-inch, half-track @ 15...no NR or processing (read: flat copies), CCIR or AES (as appropriate) EQ. In the context of a dupe chain, I would welcome your comments and experience informing us which yields a superior dub.

I'm awaiting delivery of two MRL Flutter and Speed Test cal tapes: 1/4", 15 in/s and 1/2", 30 in/s. I'll verify my A820 performance with an AP P1DD.

Personally, my sonic hierarchy has been amended: analog R2R (read: analog tracking, analog mixing, and analog mastering)...DSD...vinyl...RBCD (which gets short shrift not because of digital artifact but how it is applied).

Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts

 

[microstrip]

It becomes more curious when one consider preferences versus accuracy. I have read here and elsewhere that some people preferR2R from the direct feed. This direct feed is what the tape records. Recording invokes a transformation which according to every laws of physics must have some faults.. IOW the copy must be inferior to the original; yet, (some) people prefer the copy .

The preference of tape record versus line feed was presented as a singular example and not as a rule, just to show that these matters are not logical all the time. It had some special significance for me because it was coming from a sound engineer that is responsible for some excellent recordings I own and cherish.

Although copies or extra processing will degrade the original there is nothing wrong with a copy carrying some extra processing having some listeners preference - audio is not a purity constest. The interesting point would be finding why people seem to prefer it, and if possible reproducing the reason of this preference by pure digital means.

The thread Mep started is interesting because it was factual and looking for opinions of WBF members who have or have had experience with the three types of media. Value will be surely limited as most of the tape users will be making judgements using state of the art recordings from the Tape Project.

During some time I though that after several tens of years listening to analog distortions of vinyl, I got used to them and conditioned myself to this preference. However, a few recent vinyl experiences carried with much younger friends of my sons also confirmed this preference.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I have no objective observation to offer here.

Subjectively though, we have a loaner tape from Bruce for our R2R and there are tracks on it that are so enjoyable, so "high fidelity," that I am at a loss for words. Indeed, we made those tracks the primary demo material for our Mark Levinson/Revel system, making the digital second priority. I don't have an explanation for the observation as I don't have the digital versions of the same file to compare. It matters not in that I have the R2R and it exceeds the level of fidelity I desire in listening to the music. I was just listening to it yesterday and it was indeed the high-frequencies that caught my ear in the one track. It has a certain quality that I was not used to (in a good way). Maybe it is just the recording. I don't know. But the total package works and works very well.

BTW, there are passages in some tracks that peg the VU meter to the right. So much so that at first we thought the deck was broken. Then our main designer came and explained that when in his music recording business (he has a small studio), he would use that tactic on tape to get a nice effect on drums and such. It is remarkable to see that meter peg to the right yet not hear what in digital which would be a disaster. So perhaps it is the lack of the hard limit. I don't know. What I do know is what I said: that the tape achieves a very high level of satisfaction, its specs to be damned.

This is the first time I have been able to evaluate tape properly. The reason is that it has music that I like and am familiar with. The stuff that comes out of Tape project and such don't appeal to me and as a result, doesn't engage me in a serious way.

I wish there was a time when we could all get together and hear the same things. Without that point of reference, it is hard to make progress on these discussions. Summer is beautiful in Seattle. Maybe we should have an event here, making a tour of our place, Bruce, Mike, etc. What say you?

i'm all in. anytime i'm in town.....which is mostly always.

 

[MylesBAstor]

In an interview this last year in TAS (pretty pro LP), Doug Sax was bemoaning the fact that he was being paid more to master LP's than digital, even though he thought 24/192 PCM sounded better than the LP's he was mastering.



Only 25+ years? You've got a ways to go to catch up to Bill, who recorded and mastered "Mark-Almond '73". Or me (I co-founded the San Diego Audio Society in 1976).

The basic premise of my post remains the same. I can cite just as many pro analog mastering engineers as you can pro digital mastering engineers

Oh and let's not try to play the game of one upsmanship. As far as time in the hobby; I was only referring to my time spent as a reviewer for several magazines of the years. I've been in the game since 1972 and have done quite a bit over the years too

 

[Mike Lavigne]

The preference of tape record versus line feed was presented as a singular example and not as a rule, just to show that these matters are not logical all the time. It had some special significance for me because it was coming from a sound engineer that is responsible for some excellent recordings I own and cherish.

Although copies or extra processing will degrade the original there is nothing wrong with a copy carrying some extra processing having some listeners preference - audio is not a purity constest. The interesting point would be finding why people seem to prefer it, and if possible reproducing the reason of this preference by pure digital means.

The thread Mep started is interesting because it was factual and looking for opinions of WBF members who have or have had experience with the three types of media. Value will be surely limited as most of the tape users will be making judgements using state of the art recordings from the Tape Project.

During some time I though that after several tens of years listening to analog distortions of vinyl, I got used to them and conditioned myself to this preference. However, a few recent vinyl experiences carried with much younger friends of my sons also confirmed this preference.

my experience too. any 'civilian' exposed to analog, tape or Lp, and then even hi rez digital just wants to hear more analog. the more passionate about music, the more they get excited about how analog sounds. not any sort of scientific comment for sure, but proof armaggedeon may not be as imminent as it sometimes seems.

in my case only about 25% of my 15ips 1/4" master dubs are The Tape Project. many of mine are of titles most of us would know and own in one format or another......and like to play alot.

 

[FrantzM]

my experience too. any 'civilian' exposed to analog, tape or Lp, and then even hi rez digital just wants to hear more analog. the more passionate about music, the more they get excited about how analog sounds. not any sort of scientific comment for sure, but proof armaggedeon may not be as imminent as it sometimes seems.

in my case only about 25% of my 15ips 1/4" master dubs are The Tape Project. many of mine are of titles most of us would know and own in one format or another......and like to play alot.

What do we make of the fact that even for those accustomed to analog vinyl, the sound of an LP ripped to Digital (any DSD if you prefer) would foof more than one... That seems to screw the pecking order wouldn't you think?
I'll stop right at this point. Time to enjoy , first the ESPB blabber on the games, then the games themselves ...