The State Of Analog

[jimtavegia]

In the May issue of Stereophile Jon Iverson in AS WE SEE IT made a great case for what kind of a music lover are you with a clear rating system based on Music, Quality, and Ease of access, rating each until you came up with a 100 point total. This is based on what each of us thinks is our rank of importance for each category.

If you will listen to music in any format then your Music quotient should be higher. Most IPOd'rs who listen to MP3 would be very high in Ease of Access. Most of us who want hirez as much as possitlbe woud have our quality number be the highest.

It is a great read.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Link?

John

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

To me the purpose of a discussion is either to convince or be convinced..Else there is no reason for debate or discussion. We discuss to advance our points or to understand the other point. It eventually leads, if the mind is open to better comprehension and to a revision of position.
I take myself as an example. I started being a digital hater...Your basic purist audiophile. Tube lovers, planar speakers, SS sucks, CD will suck forever, Cables make a humongous difference and I have held these for nearly 40 years ... I started early ... Then I began questioning, debating in forums that were not echo chambers ... Some were far from echo chamber since whatever you posted was returned to you with a load of Bovine Manure ..

I tried to understand and today I think, now I do... I love music even more .. and it is costing me less. My Windows based music server cost me a real small amount of money the most expensive part was the Sound Card ... My work laptop is also a music server ... Any decent PC has the potential to be a more than decent music server ...

Now to come back to the thread... Digital is moving swiftly toward supremacy ... There are many who resist but more and more audiophiles are using Music servers something that would be anathema 5 years ago... I think the great majority listen to digital in some form, likely CD and I would dare say that most of their listening is through digital ... So aside from the occasional fit of nostalgia even those who claims analogue superiority listen mostly to CD.. Am I wrong? Let's conduct a poll here and see the results .. Here in this very forum ...

The best of analog remain stupefying. A good RTR will shock mayy from their socks and the notion of ticks and pops endemic to Vinyl playback will be revised upon hearing a well set-up Reel to Reel tape system and so far they are relatively inexpensive ... I don;t know how long this will last. Those who have been in Audio for certain period may remember how the prices of the Mercury and RCA Ling Stereo shot up once their merits were recognized ...
This time is that there is an alternate, potentially better, definitely less expensive ( I know that the Audiophile mentality has gone to this as well as we see now Audiophile USB and CAT 5 cable costing hundred of dollars .. What's next ... $10K, Firewire cable?)
. I , for one find the Mercury Ling Presence CDs and SACD at least equal to their LP counterparts ( I worded it more strongly some time ago but I have friends on this forum so ...) , recently ripped 50 or 60 of these to my ($50 each) 1 TB Drives in RAID and am enjoying those often beautiful, superlatively recorded and performed (a rarity) piece of classical music ...

 

[terryj]

Hi

To me the purpose of a discussion is either to convince or be convinced..Else there is no reason for debate or discussion. We discuss to advance our points or to understand the other point. It eventually leads, if the mind is open to better comprehension and to a revision of position.

I think you are setting yourself up for a huge loss if you think, in audio, that discussion could/should lead to convince/be convinced. It won't, sadly.

The BEST you or anyone can do is find out new things, to see our familiar viewpoints from another angle, from an angle we may not have considered before. I crave and hope for that, I WANT to see things from new viewpoints, that my understanding as a whole can grow.

I thinks that is rather rare tho, most only want to prop up their pre-existing POV. And make themselves right in the process. (interesting human psychology point...have you ever noticed a common way people make themselves right?? By making others wrong. Sad eh. Their own argument does not have merit enough to support itself, so all that is left is make the other wrong than be intrinsically right. Trouble is, it seems to come part and parcel with a lack of self inspection...so good luck trying to point that out to them)

. I , for one find the Mercury Ling Presence CDs and SACD at least equal to their LP counterparts ( I worded it more strongly some time ago but I have friends on this forum so ...) , recently ripped 50 or 60 of these to my ($50 each) 1 TB Drives in RAID and am enjoying those often beautiful, superlatively recorded and performed (a rarity) piece of classical music ...

SERIOUS point here. (except for copyright, don't know enough about it)

there is a business potential surely??

(accepting that digital can put out a virtually indistinguishable replica) why not make, even amongst friends only or 'insiders' available these old, no longer available quality stuff that everyone raves about??

Take the R2R stuff (dunno if this was the thread where I saked these type of things and was ignored...people would rather bicker and get all wounded)...comments like 'wow, beats ANYTHING-digital or anlog-hands down!'

Ok, you gotta buy the R2R machine, THEN you gotta buy the tapes!! Not a huge range to pick from, and what % of what is available would you buy anyway not just because it is on R2R and magnificent;ly recorded???

Let's say they are not available, but YOU have them, then make digital copies. Ok, not as good as the original, but I'd never have the original anyway, so how the heckk would I know? At least I'd have them.

A friend of mine, really into classical yada yada, tons of early recordings, 78s and cylinders etc etc, rare old stuff. Again I don't know about copyright on something no longer available, 80 years old etc etc, but I could never work out why he did not make these recordings available to others who could NEVER access them in any other way.

 

[jimtavegia]

Stereophile As We See It

Link?

John

http://stereophile.com/asweseeit/the_holy_trinity/

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

http://stereophile.com/asweseeit/the_holy_trinity/

Thanks! I remember the article now as it was discussed in another fourm I belong to. Here is that post.

I would say, after having given this question some thought, that my MQE for Music only is:

M= 60
Q= 35
E= 5


I am overwhelmingly more interested in my music collection. And although I truly do appreciate great equipment (I wish I had some), if I couldn't play what I liked it would all be for not.

Having a decent equipment list is important, but I'm not one of those "audiophiles" who is contantly looking for the Holy Grail in music reproduction. Give me a well recorded, mastered and pressed piece of vinyl and I'll happily play it on a lesser system.

As my collection has grown over the years, the ease of access is becoming less significant for me. Although I continue to buy, I have enough here to last me and satisfy me for the rest of my life, and then some!

My MQE for HT would look like this:

M=45
Q=35
E=20

My M score is reduced here as the E factor carries more weight. I'm just beginning with any type of movie/concert collection, so the access to titles I'm interested in is still very important.

Believe it or not, but prior to Blu-ray I had no DVD collection to speak of. I never really thought they were worth owning, so I rented. Blu-ray has really changed that for me, and I'm happy about that. Bececause of the improved AQ/PQ of Blu-ray, movies now actually have a replay-ability factor.
.

 

[JackD201]

Frantz,

Convinced of what? That one is absolutely better?

It's a case to case deal. Simple as that. It's not just limited to the gear but also the particular recording. Many record players will get brutalized by a basic digital front end and the same can go the other way. "Oh look I have a GR-1 with a mis-aligned cart playing a dirt 'ol LP I picked up at the Salvation Army lets shoot it out against your Oppo". Of course the CD player will sound better! On the other hand here's a medium level belt drive with a mid level cart being compared to the analog outputs of an AppleTV which probably uses the cheapest darned op-amps available in the world. What do you think will happen?

For all this talk about Digital's inherent superiority. No one has addressed the fact that you can have identical chipsets (many do) but it is the analog output stage that can make the difference between good and plain crap. Take note. the ANALOG stage. All this talk about digital having no noise is true only in theory. In practice however, show me a digital recording and playback system from microphone to loudspeaker. The figures being bandied about satisfy us intellectually but not musically.

Jack

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It's an cute little formula and, I suspect, a nice diversion for the writer, but any MQE rating anyone puts on themselves, or anyone else, is ultimately pretty meaningless. I know a guy who has a very high end system and a very small music collection by my standards. I have seen him go through periods (when he had money) when he was absolutely obsessed about hardware acquisitions. I can't say I've ever seen him discover a new artist or genre and show anything close to the same kind of passion. Does that make him a 10/70/20? Only if I'm presumptuous enough to assume I know his heart about the music that he has collected.

I know a kid, 18, who in the last couple of months has become very excited about high bit rate and lossless files, upgrading the quality of his headphones, and using a simple, portable headphone amp to upgrade the signal (not convinced he's accomplishing this, but that's another story...) from his iPod Touch to those headphones. Has his Q factor dramatically risen this summer? Yes. Are his M and E factors still through the roof because he is still all about his favorite bands and a little pocket device that goes with him everywhere? Yes again. Can you apply anything to this formula that really reflects the changes he has gone through and still adds up to 100? No. Does it matter? Of course not.

P

 

[jimtavegia]

It's an cute little formula and, I suspect, a nice diversion for the writer, but any MQE rating anyone puts on themselves, or anyone else, is ultimately pretty meaningless. I know a guy who has a very high end system and a very small music collection by my standards. I have seen him go through periods (when he had money) when he was absolutely obsessed about hardware acquisitions. I can't say I've ever seen him discover a new artist or genre and show anything close to the same kind of passion. Does that make him a 10/70/20? Only if I'm presumptuous enough to assume I know his heart about the music that he has collected.

I know a kid, 18, who in the last couple of months has become very excited about high bit rate and lossless files, upgrading the quality of his headphones, and using a simple, portable headphone amp to upgrade the signal (not convinced he's accomplishing this, but that's another story...) from his iPod Touch to those headphones. Has his Q factor dramatically risen this summer? Yes. Are his M and E factors still through the roof because he is still all about his favorite bands and a little pocket device that goes with him everywhere? Yes again. Can you apply anything to this formula that really reflects the changes he has gone through and still adds up to 100? No. Does it matter? Of course not.

P

-----------------------------------------------

I thnk the gentleman you describe is a collector and not an audiophile. Many buy a number of expensive watches and it doesn't make them any more appreciate time per se. They are just collectors of "stuff".

I think the MQE can help people understand why the masses are into MP3s and the like. They want it the most convenient way possible and with them most of the time. As long as the format sounds "like" real music to them it is fine.

Jon Iverson never laid claim that it was perfect, but it is meaningful on some level. There are probably many music collectors that have large libraries of LPs, CD, tapes, etc., but use only what many audiophiles consider a modest system. For them as long as they have access to their collection and can hear it at some level of "hifi" beyond MP3, it suits them fine.

As with the Sooloos Music Server, with an extensive digitized music collection, I can see how ease of access could become important to "finding" the music you want to hear rather than have to resort to your own "Dewey Decimal System" cataloging your music. I would see that person as a 33, 34, 33 ranking where it all equally matters to them. I consider myself a 55, 40, 5 person as I love music, but also know that my systems are not Class A Stereophile, but I enjoy what gear I have and can hear the advantages of my own recordings of 2496 files. To me that is the bar to shoot for sonically. I will not sacrifice any sound quality for convenience, unless the convenience comes at no cost.

 

[JackD201]

Collectors focus on how a song sounds, music lovers focus on what the songs mean. A small collection does not make somebody any less of a music lover if he really loves his music. There are many people with thousands of tracks but listen to just a few of them. Sheer volume of software doesn't mean one is a music lover, he may very well be a collector. Lastly, one can be both.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Collectors focus on how a song sounds, music lovers focus on what the songs mean. A small collection does not make somebody any less of a music lover if he really loves his music. There are many people with thousands of tracks but listen to just a few of them. Sheer volume of software doesn't mean one is a music lover, he may very well be a collector. Lastly, one can be both.

Huh? Sorry Jack, but that makes no sense at all!

From Wikipedia:

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world. Others focus on a subtopic within their area of interest, perhaps 19th century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack.

John

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I agree with the last three characterizations. I even agree with Jack's post and agree with John's contention that Jack's post makes no sense. I can do that because this is all so personal. All the answers are right. Which is why the formula is wrong. An industry that claims the engineering is subjective attempted to put a formula on feelings. There's some irony for you.

P

 

[JackD201]

Hahahahahaha! Someone's obtuseness is rubbing off on me! Hahahahahaha!

Let me try again this time with quotation marks....

"collectors" of gear are sonic junkies. They pick apart well worn and familiar recordings and listen to the sound not to the song and what it is trying to communicate or elicit. Hence the smallish collections relative to the complexity of their gear.

Better?

Remember that english is my second language guys, albeit my SAT scores showed I'm pretty handy at it.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Hahahahahaha! Someone's obtuseness is rubbing off on me! Hahahahahaha!

Let me try again this time with quotation marks....

"collectors" of gear are sonic junkies. They pick apart well worn and familiar recordings and listen to the sound not to the song and what it is trying to communicate or elicit. Hence the smallish collections relative to the complexity of their gear.

Better?

Remember that english is my second language guys, albeit my SAT scores showed I'm pretty handy at it.

Much! Thx for the clarification Jack!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Hahahahahaha! Someone's obtuseness is rubbing off on me! Hahahahahaha!

Let me try again this time with quotation marks....

"collectors" of gear are sonic junkies. They pick apart well worn and familiar recordings and listen to the sound not to the song and what it is trying to communicate or elicit. Hence the smallish collections relative to the complexity of their gear.

Better?

Remember that english is my second language guys, albeit my SAT scores showed I'm pretty handy at it.

Your English is excellent. You could have convinced my you are an American living in abroad.

P