seen this over at the asylum

[rickcr42]

www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Id=4104440&JRSource=googlebase.datafeed.DNN+DP300F

looks damn nice for the price of admission though maybe a bit whimpy in the plinth area (older Denons had massive plinths) plus the built in preamp has to go for any but emergency use but still that is dirt cheap and Denon DOES have a long pedigree in vinyl

[rickcr42]

oh yeah,for you vinyl "noobs",never ever play a disc with the dust cover attached to the plinth.It is a path for acoustic feedback and a big one so pull that sucker off while playing a disc

[xerxes]

I think for that sort of money I might be inclined to look for a used turntable; a lot of people have gone digital, myself included, and have sold or are selling good turntables. $300, or about £180 should buy a nice Rega Planar 3, or one of the many similar designs, some of which were quite highly regarded "entry level" decks, and which would probably outperform something like the Denon.

[Stormy]

Just out of interest: is belt drive considered a good or a bad thing in hi-fi turntables? I know it is shunned in the DJ'ing world in favour of direct drive stuff like the "good" old Technics SL1200, but when you don't need instant acceleration from 0-60 rpm, are there any other advantages/disadvantages to the two systems?

[rickcr42]

some of which were quite highly regarded "entry level" decks, and which would probably outperform something like the Denon.

Who is to say ?

Denon has made some very high quality and very expensive turntables in the past,way before the Rega's were even conceived of.To this day some of the most highly regarded cartridges on the planet are made by Denon,one of the better tonearms and good-to-top quality phono stages so i would not dismiss the deck out of hand.

I think for that sort of money I might be inclined to look for a used turntable; a lot of people have gone digital, myself included, and have sold or are selling good turntables.

two points on that

1-my vinyl rig murders every single digital rig I have ever owned and that not a contest.In fact for the accumlative cost of the entire shooting match i would put money down and match it against any similiarly priced digital rig

2-Why does "gone to digital" mean walking away from other formats ?

I too have digital and that just about every format of known to humans yet I would never give up my vinyl plyback system,my analog tape system or even my VCR or FM radio since last I checked having one does not make having other formats obsolete-just more choices is my thought (you will NEVER find some very great music on a CD unless that is you record it yourself and then we are back to owning a vinyl rig )

Just out of interest: is belt drive considered a good or a bad thing in hi-fi turntables?

trying to get me in trouble here dude ?

this topic is a can of worms every bit as contentious as SS vs. Valves,SE Class -A vs. PP Class AB,Planar speakers vs. cones.......


One camp says the servo loop lock of the motor speed combined with nothing between the motor and the platter (direct drive) is the only way to get proper pitch 100% of the time so in theory the more accurate way

The other camp (the one I am in ) beleives ALL motors have vibration and no matter how small is still larger than the stylus tip to LP groove playback interface vibration so the TIMBRE will be off because the vibration adds sympathetic tones that reinforce certain frequencies while cancelling out others,much the same way a CD player/rack shelf in operation,and that having the motor isolated from the actual playing surface by a micro-motion absorbing rubber belt eliminates 99% of this thus getting the "notes" right.

detractors say the speed will always be off,those in favor say it is better at all speeds anyways so why sweat the little shit ?

I choose tone over pace in this case though others feel the opposite,as in much of audio where there is choice

[xerxes]

1-my vinyl rig murders every single digital rig I have ever owned and that not a contest.In fact for the accumlative cost of the entire shooting match i would put money down and match it against any similiarly priced digital rig

2-Why does "gone to digital" mean walking away from other formats ?

The decision to replace my LPs with CDs was not for sonic reasons, more hapanstance and practicality.

I actually had a very nice Voyd turntable, however a couple of years after I bought it I left work and went to back to college and then to university. While studying I didn't have much spare cash, so I hardly bought any music for about 5 or 6 years, after which time LPs were already getting harder to find. You pretty much had to go to specialist shops or mail order companies and some new releases were not available on vinyl at all.

After uni I had several jobs all over the place, often living in temporary accomodation. During that period, I just had a small CD player/receiver and bought a fair number of CDs. Eventually, I ended up with way more CDs than LPs and many of my favourite recordings in both formats. A lot of the LPs I did not have on CD I didn't particularly care about, either I never really liked them or my taste had changed.

A while ago I bought a new amp without a phono input and I decided it would make more sense to sell the turntable and the LPs and cut down on the clutter, rather than spend more on a phono stage for a fairly limited LP collection much of which I also had on CD and which was unlikely to grow. The proceeds of the sale more than covered replacing any remaining LPs that I really wanted with CDs. Many of the LPs were fairly old recordings and CD copies could be picked up for 3 or 4 pounds new.

[rickcr42]

I actually had a very nice Voyd turntable, however a couple of years after I bought it I left work and went to back to college and then to university. While studying I didn't have much spare cash, so I hardly bought any music for about 5 or 6 years, after which time LPs were already getting harder to find. You pretty much had to go to specialist shops or mail order companies and some new releases were not available on vinyl at all.

I hear you there.I find myself buying new re-issue discs more often than not but I also thrill in the serch of bins full of NOS or used/pristine recordings never quite knowing what may turn up and if cover art is any measure LPs win hands down.

when I was but a wee lad my walls were totally platered with posters scarfed from my LPs and I still fondly remeber staring for hours at my Santana album until I TOO seen the real picture that was the lion on the cover.

try THAT with a CD

I even (uh oh,the secret is out now rick ;D ) have an extensive collection of 45's that are the only REAL way to collect songe from "one hit wonder" type groups,not MP3 or other carved up formats

Like with open reel tape nit is high speed that gets it right so truth is the 45 whips the LP ass in SQ with the only reason for the LP to even come into being is the "Long Playing" nature of the beast- :

Slower playing speed =more music on the disc just like slower playback of open reel tapes=more songs per linear foot of tape

A lot of the LPs I did not have on CD I didn't particularly care about, either I never really liked them or my taste had changed.

different strokes man.I feel there has not been too much FUN music has been recorded in the last twenty years.Some far better instrumentals but the heart and soul is not there nor is the sheer joy of the song so i like mine aged.

Early Motown,seventies fusion jazz,wicked ass analog keyboards from the like of Kieth Emerson or rick Wakeman,ancient blues from the artists later imitated by EC,the stones ,etc, late 60s to 70s protest rock,even some glam rock,early grunge,old school rap ala Curtis Blow or Wrappers Delight and some folk if it had a deadly message combined with a "fk it ! we can't do sh*t anyway" attitude.things modern music mostly does not touch because somewhere along the way to our electronics and sitting in front of a monitor/TV we forgot to live and have passion unless bitching ;D

Music really does mirro the times and radical times always ferment great music and those times were the domain of vinyl

A while ago I bought a new amp without a phono input and I decided it would make more sense to sell the turntable and the LPs and cut down on the clutter, rather than spend more on a phono stage for a fairly limited LP collection much of which I also had on CD and which was unlikely to grow. The proceeds of the sale more than covered replacing any remaining LPs that I really wanted with CDs. Many of the LPs were fairly old recordings and CD copies could be picked up for 3 or 4 pounds new.

whatever makes you happy man.Personally the CDP would be my first casulty followed by my cassette deck then FM tuner (already have one in the car ) but the open reel deck and table you would have to shoot me dead or it stays put.

as for built in phono stages-CRAP

99.9% crap across the board added as either a selling point or an afterthought.It amzes me that folks who will bitch about how bad their integrated amp headphone output is will spend large greenery on a dedicated amp but settle for whatever afterthought phono stage the manufacturer threw into the same integrated and then procaim vinyl at fault !

Then again,in audio nothing REALLY surprises me any more

[gns]

Vinyl?

Hey, you're speaking about my second love (sharing equal first place are my Diane and our son). Anything else gets a place in the bottom 50!!!

I've wasted most of my life on vinyl, not because it is bad, but when I say wasted, I mean in trying to show stubborn people that it IS ACTUALLY the best medium for analogue music reproduction on this rock we call planet earth.

By Analogue, I don't mean as in NOT DIGITAL, I mean AS IN MUSIC. Music is analogue - IT IS NOT DIGITAL, get it? I repeat - MUSIC IS NOT DIGITAL.

Click click click is digital - that's the sound you get through a speaker if you connect it to DC with a switch in series and keep flicking it. Flick it fast and you'll get a tone. That's digital!!!

Hey, why not the mechanical power amp? Signal into relay coil - output from contacts - that's digital!

Vinyl uses proper engineering science and not the Devil's own botch-up taught by failures in how to bias a transistor and greedy bastards for loverly money money money and FK everything else to reproduce the nearest you'll never get to the original sound.

ARE YOU HEARING ME? OR DO YOU LOOK LIKE A PICTURE OF TOMMY (by The Who)?? In these money obsessed days, it is so easy for the lame, the stubborn and the deceitful to lead the blind into oblivion.

Why my dears - what is CD but an optical soundtrack wound sideways-on into a spiral, and optical soundtracks are shite! So therefore it can only do 0's and 1's.

You try to turn it back into analogue using filters. Filters have phase problems. OK, SACD goes up to 90 plus kHZ. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS IN PHASE TERMS? ANSWER: 9 kHz if it uses oversampling and only a second order filter. In reality more like 4.5kHz! Or using a stupid notch filter like some manufacturers , it's ALL out of phase!

Hey, would not that be a backward step from the 1930's 30Hz-15kHz High Fidelity Radiogram. Eh?

Like I say, folk like me waste our lives trying to bring you the best in music from vinyl. Waste, yes it's a waste - a waste on blind people.

Let's turn off analogue - all the analogue transmitters - make it impossible to make analogue gear by cowardly legislation - in fact let's all live in plastic hell - eat pills for food - eat shit even! Just as long as it's convenient.............

"For they celebrated freedom while being manacled and measured for a straight-jacket, or even a coffin..."

G

[rickcr42]

Let's turn off analogue - all the analogue transmitters - make it impossible to make analogue gear by cowardly legislation -

Digital SATV/CATV alone should tell folks what digitizing music is doing to the essence of the music.Get a dropout and what do you see ?

The picture locks up and goes all "blocky" then unfreezes,reassembles one block at a time and plays until the next screwup event !

Early television did not have a "go/no go" but either great,not so great,good,not so good,piss poor,aggravating which ALL were at least viewable no matter what the interference.

Now I have digital TV legislated by law to replace ALL analog televisions,satellite radio slowly taking over my FM,I say slowly because like with the early days of cable TV as more and more subscribers sign up the stations will begin to back off on transmitting power thus providing a crappy signal causing more to suscribe making the stations cut even more corners until they have a transmission in name only having instead a nice big uplink and canned events played on a timed schedule (say goodbye to local traffic reports,no one will be actually IN the studio)

the CD has already elminated the vinyl disc as a medium for new recordings,something that was inevitable once Sony purchased CBS/Columbia records so they could control all ends of the home music industry-artist signup/recording/selling/playback (co-designer of the CD with Phillips)

Right after the purchase it was announced "Columbia Records along with all umbrella labels will no longer be producing analog records but instead will offer ALL new selections in the superior digital CD format" the end was near.They "fixed" the outcome by offering all new recordings only in Cd so if you heard it on the radio and wanted it you needed to get your ass down to Crazy Eddies and by a damn "new fangled" machine to play the music


Did any of the older crew ever think they would live to see the day when something called an "anti-aliasing filter" right smack in the middle of the food chain (music path) would be considered an acceptable thing ?

Where a "sample" of the music instead of the entire event as it was prefromrned would be a good thing ?

Where the dreaded static or hiss of a noisy recording,noise no more than the typical ambient background noise of life (jst siut and listen to the world one day ),is replaced by the most gawdawful sreetching and bleeping when there is a "dropout" (another "digital" term.Only BITS can have a dropout,a missing "bit" of the music) like i get when my SATV has rainfade and what has actually caused me to lose a pair of tweeters

Where first the claim is made of superior dynamic range then when it is discovered there is only around two to four bits of resolution at the lower end NOISE ADDED (dither ) so this nasty nasty sound has even a slight resemblence to music so they can fool you into thinking that you are hearing musical content down there (and why the low level resolution will never be right with digital) then because the top end has NO SHOT at 0dB because you see,digital has ZERO HEADROOM on the recording side,so a dead wall limiter needed and a -6dB


upsampling "tricks"

oversampling "tricks"

dither noise "tricks"

Limiting "tricks"

and now we have a whole class of "perfecting" add-ons to make digital listenable and we still think this is the better way ?

I have this piece of land for sale,presently under water but during the dry season it is BEEEEEUTIFUL so for a nominal fee of $$$$$$$ I can maybe let you have it if you talk nice

so here we are over twenty years later still trying to get this "perfect music forever" to sound like analog,something we already had and tossed as an idea kinda like scrapping flight and all current planes because someday.somehow we too may fly aeround like the Jetsons,and failing so looking to SACD and multichannel music (something that has failed for over thirty years being more FX than satisfying) to replace the lowly turntable.

Why ?

because you can't copy and share analog as easy is why and you can't "send" an LP electronically is why and because any idiot can toss an "all ciscuits are in the chip" DAC into a cheap transport and sell it but they can't design a functional turntable is why.Because designing a proper RIAA de-emphasis curve that works properly with a high gain stage without overloading it is a bitch and any knucklhead can design a brick wall filter and buffer stage is why.

Digital is a DATA storage medium because ones and zeroes are absolutes.Analog is a linear EVERYTHING THAT IS THERE ORIGINALLY medium that not only recreates the absolutes but the blanks in between where the emotional content of the original lives warts and all.
You gut the emotion,the "middle parts" from the whole and you do not have a 1:1 copy of but a representation of the original but sadly it takes work to get it right,takes talent to design the "parts" of the playback chain,and takes a little bit of in home work combined with a bit of TLC to maintain the standard and that is just too much...um...WORK

Too much work and too much time devoted.Time better spent talking about how something sounds than actually listening.No muss,no fuss,nothing but noise and all at the touch of a remote control !

Hell we all know getting up to move the tonearm is just too much effort ! WE BE TIRED DAMMIT !


Virtual Sex anyone ? You get all the good parts and none of the mess !




of course an hour later you will be horny and the event not one remembered but............SO ?


.

[xerxes]

Some more thoughts, in no particular order.

First, just let me say that I'm on the fence with regards to whether CD or Vinyl is best. I haven't heard the best ever turntable or the best ever CD player in order to decide for myself. However, I can say that my current CD player sounds better than the turntable I had, but then the rest of the system is different as well, so it's not a very useful comparison.

If you buy any main stream recording made within the last 10 or so years, it will almost certainly have had some digital processong at some point of its production. In recent years it is likely that the only analogue instruments used throughot the entire recording and production process are the microphones, into an A/D converter and thereafter all mixing and production process will have taken place entirely digitally. Even if you get a copy of music recorded and produced in this fashion on vinyl, it is essentially digitised music, converted back to analogue for transcription to vinyl. Effectively using the pressing factories D/A converter, instead of one in your own CD player.

Digital equipment and the ability to mix on a PC has meant that people can record and produce music to a fairly high standard for much less than was possible using a wholly analogue process. This means that people are able to wholly circumvent the major recording labels and can make and distribute their own music, which in theory should lead to a greater variety of more diverse music being available.

Vinyl can't compete with CDs on convenience, but turntables look way cooler than CD players. Mike gets all hot under the colar about PCBs; beautifully engineered mechanical things do it for me, and some turntables are a thing of beauty, like Ducati engines.

[rickcr42]

Some more thoughts, in no particular order

ooooh,your in trouble now baby !

Ready ? (in no particular order )

First, just let me say that I'm on the fence with regards to whether CD or Vinyl is best. I haven't heard the best ever turntable or the best ever CD player in order to decide for myself. However, I can say that my current CD player sounds better than the turntable I had, but then the rest of the system is different as well, so it's not a very useful comparison.

$30 CD player beats a $30 vinly rig and this holds true up until you hit around the $300 mark (brand new retail prices) where they run neck and neck.Beyong this point dollar for dollar vinly CAN be surperior but only if set up correctly.

CD is plug and play,vinyl is not and takes careful set-up combined with smart choices to work

If you buy any main stream recording made within the last 10 or so years, it will almost certainly have had some digital processong at some point of its production. In recent years it is likely that the only analogue instruments used throughot the entire recording and production process are the microphones, into an A/D converter and thereafter all mixing and production process will have taken place entirely digitally. Even if you get a copy of music recorded and produced in this fashion on vinyl, it is essentially digitised music, converted back to analogue for transcription to vinyl. Effectively using the pressing factories D/A converter, instead of one in your own CD player.

couple of points.

Many CDs are still made from 15 IPS master tapes which will whip the crap out of any format known to humankind in SQ IMO.

What digital offers is (just like at the playback end) easier use,less of a learning curve (unfortunately for us if all the complaints on the state of recorded music are any indicator).More options to fk with once in the digital state,bits are bits after all,and a more permanant storage ability,one that can be sent across the world over cable for more fking up by someone else without a clue.


I notice it is becoming common practice to "analog" the digital by running the original through triode stages or even re-recording to analog tape then back again to digital in an effort to "analog" it but these knucklheads fail to realise you can not ADD something alrady lost so all they are doing is adding a veil to an already flawed format and claiming success.

My opinion is if it is so damn good why the need to "fix" it ?

Digital equipment and the ability to mix on a PC has meant that people can record and produce music to a fairly high standard for much less than was possible using a wholly analogue process. This means that people are able to wholly circumvent the major recording labels and can make and distribute their own music, which in theory should lead to a greater variety of more diverse music being available.

Interpreting that from "techno-babble" to :english" means any knucklhead with a computer is now an engineer even if they have no clue.Readily available software and just enough knowledge to be dangerous

Vinyl can't compete with CDs on convenience,

nope.Just like a full sit down surf 'n turf dinner can not compete with a fast food burger for convenience and while both have a place in the world which would you prefer to take a date to if you want to leave a good impresssion ?

but turntables look way cooler than CD players

weeeelllll.............

on that one it comes down to taste.

I have seen turntables ugly enough to qualify as "gag me" material and digital decks good looking enough to give me a woody but this being an audio device it comes down to "how does it sound" and not "gee that looks good,must sound good "

Mike gets all hot under the colar about PCBs;

I get a bit horny like that when I see a beautifully conceived circuit

If it ends up pretty on the board too cool but if not yet still kicks ass in the SQ department way cooler.Look under the hood of some older highly regarded gear and you will flat out shit your pants !

NO WAY that can sound good yet it does because it was all about the circuit and laying it out for good sound,not good looks that took precedence and many of the "audio norms" we take for granted are no more than selling points to get into your pocket with the worst offender being PCB layout and parts color co-ordination over good RF/Sound theory

hell ! Who would want a nasty ass white "plain brown wrapper" or shit brown capoacitor when they can have flaming red and gold ?

Who in their right mind would use nickel plated jacks when there is GOLD out there ?

Who want a boring TRS jack when they can spend big money using a HUGE locking jack even though the "lock" will mostly piss them off in use ! All about the "look" right ?

beautifully engineered mechanical things do it for me, and some turntables are a thing of beauty,

You are confusing LOOK with performance again dude.Ugly does not preclude greatness just as much as beauty does not mean something will sound good,just that it will look good.

all that "engineering" even in the modern turntable has very little to do with form following function but more

"look at this beautiful mutha fkr dude !!!!! You WANT this ! You NEED this ! You can NOT live without it ! Never mind the price it is worth every single penny buckweed !"

like Ducati engines

more of a Hemi man myself ! Under the hood is all engine,on the road Pure Straight Line Kill power


Told ya you were in deep doo doo going up against the rickmonster

[PinkFloyd]

Look under the hood of some older highly regarded gear and you will flat out shit your pants!

You guys must do things differently in the USA Rick, I have never once shat my pants looking at a PCB. In fact I don't think I have ever shit myself whether it be looking at a PCB or anything. no, honestly I have never knowingly shit my pants ;D

Who would want a nasty ass white "plain brown wrapper" or shit brown capacitor when they can have flaming red and gold ?

Actually.... the shit brown ELNA Silmic is quite a nice looking cap. First impressions are "ooh shit brown" but once you pick it up, sniff it, solder it into position and listen to it you soon become aware that it is far removed from shit. True, it looks like a smooth brown well formed compact turd but it sings a very sweet song. Honestly rick, "brown" is very earthy and organic and shit brown / orange I forecast to be the colour of the moment in autumn 2006. Blue LED? Yesterday my friend, shit brown LEDs will be all the rage...... aluminium fascias? do me a favour...... "clotted turd" effect will be the new fad I assure you...... the finish will look like someone has eaten a sphincter cremating curry and has shat all over the front panel. I forecast this will be the in thing, it's organic, it's earthy, it's natural looking.... it's "turd effect"

Who in their right mind would use nickel plated jacks when there is GOLD out there ?

Brown phono sockets will be in vogue soon. Gold and nickel are just soooo pretentious.

Just like a full sit down surf 'n turf dinner can not compete with a fast food burger

A "surf and turf" dinner? what is das? Food from the sea and food from the land?? Cow pats are brown you know, very trendy. Eggs are brown, coffee is brown.... need I say more?

[rickcr42]

You guys must do things differently in the USA Rick, I have never once shat my pants looking at a PCB.

Must be the food .Ours has a way of going through as if greased which surprisingly does not directly relate to the amount of my fellow country man who are totally full of shit

A "surf and turf" dinner? what is das?

Steak and Lobster dinner mikester ! A "new" england staple,one that if you never tried you have not yet lived a full life





.

[Stormy]

rickcr42 said:

totally full of shit

Ah, that explains why you're all so much bigger than us.

And I naively thought it was just the quantity of food.

[rickcr42]

Brown phono sockets will be in vogue soon. Gold and nickel are just soooo pretentious.

a lot of times I will be doing a google search on a thing and as is my habit not actually LOOK AT the link destination but instead just "click" to get there which surprisingly brings me to Head-fi A LOT (and many times to my own posts ).A thing I find catches me off balance since as you know i banned myself

...anyway......caught a thread where someone was asking about the Switchcraft nickel plated RCA jacks which in response got "worst jacks I ever saw with the insulator worse than any other i have "

I busted up dude !

I find it ironic that the measure of a piece is "visual" in a medium that should be all about the sonics (video is the arena for "sight" and an AV form for sight & sound ) and rather than even try the damn things then listening to the results he decided right away they were garbage and never used the jacks

Well if you remember from another post about a month ago I just ordered twenty of the bastards for MY OWN PERSONAL Master Control Console,the prototype of a potentially commercial offering if i ever get the parts sourcing/cosmetics/pricing right,they are installed and working just fine thank you very much and indistinguishable from the former $5 per "low end" gold rear entry types I had in Version 5 unless you LOOK at them

So lets see now....hmmmmm....give me a minute I am a bit retarded as you know........um..........$5x20=$100....and ahhh $2.50x20=$50......hmmmmmm..........they sound about the same and i saved $50 dollars so ah I guess I should YANK them before someone looks at the back of my system,sees cheap ass Switchcraft jacks and Nickel plated Radio Shack PLASTIC BODIED RCA plugs on the ends of my Magnet Wire Interconnects or i just may be taken out back and whipped then have my Audiophile Nutboy Club membership revoked




so shhhhhhhh ! don't tell anyone dammit !



.

[rickcr42]

www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=186734

gotta love it man.

good enough for "beater" concert guitar amps which says a bit about reliability but not as good as the average total POS gold plated pcb mount assmblies from the orient using lord knows what for a base material

is it a great jack? one using the best base materials,heavy gold palting and a teflon dielectric ?

Nope.


Is as good as or better than most of the mystery jacks you get on commercial products ?

also yup with the real difference being it is a simple "pull and replace" upgrade later unlike the assemblies that once soldered onto a pcb have no shot at being replaced mostly but they ARE gold so no matter........

[PinkFloyd]

Back to the vinyl thing. I have to agree that CD just "doesn't" come anywhere close to vinyl in "any" department. I pulled out some of my old 70's disco favourites on CD and it's like listening to a cat scratching on a pane of glass... where's the bass? Certain recordings just sound totally crap on CD I mean the Trammps "disco inferno" sounds like they've recorded it inside a baked bean tin.. this puppy should be beating your chest and rattling your balls but, on CD, it sounds so thin and cruddy.

Yeh, I think I'll have to get back into vinyl again but stupid me sold all of my LPs (about 2,000 of them) in 1984 and went over to CD..... it's taken me 22 years to realise I made a BIG mistake

[rickcr42]

Back to the vinyl thing. I have to agree that CD just "doesn't" come anywhere close to vinyl in "any" department. I pulled out some of my old 70's disco favourites on CD and it's like listening to a cat scratching on a pane of glass

because it is not natural for humans to hear "bits" of things without the middle parts between the bits where the rest of the music once lived but sadly was lost when the "sample" was taken.

We do not process data but interpret the analog world around us in a manner determined by eons of human evolution.In our arrogance we think to make things better than nature has determined is the way of it which as usual when such efforts are attempted,fall far short of the mark.

Maybe in the next millenium folks with be processors (if we last that long) but not yet,not yet Mike.We would be just as likely to grow that third eye we all could use

where's the bass? Certain recordings just sound totally crap on CD I mean the Trammps "disco inferno" sounds like they've recorded it inside a baked bean tin.. this puppy should be beating your chest and rattling your balls but, on CD, it sounds so thin and cruddy.

are you crazy ? The digital crew can PROVE to you digital bass is far more accurate,goes deeper and is more linear than ANY music recording technology that has gone before and if you doubt it just look at the graphs dammit !

delusional mike ?

Yeh, I think I'll have to get back into vinyl again but stupid me sold all of my LPs (about 2,000 of them) in 1984 and went over to CD..... it's taken me 22 years to realise I made a BIG mistake

mine were in storage for years and some damaged in a flood which really pissed me off at the time because I personally placed the entire collection where it would have needed to be biblical in order for any harm to come to my treasures but someone (won't mention who but lets say family for now ) thinking "just a bunch of old records" moved the crates to the floor where many were destroyed.Many which included irreplacables such as

Beatles "White" Album in pure milky white vinyl

J.Giels band "Bloodshot" album in clear red vinyl

The Stones pre almost-lawsuit "Some Girls" album with all the original faces on the cover

Alice Cooper's "Schools Out" LP where the cover looked like an old time wooden school desk and it actually opened like one too.The disc itself was cased in plastic held on by a set of panities (one of my all time favorite packaging ideas,sick,very sick )

My Rare Earth "Live" that was an O.D. Green knapsack and opened like one-gone

Led Zep Vol lll with the spinny wheel

My gold vinyl Grand funk.......................


Man,I could go on but it would piss me off just writing it down so I won't

Why stored ?

Perfect music forever and easy opening can of course ! No more getting up,no more holding the disc just so,no more arm/cartridge set up and stylus replacing,no more careful placement of the deck,no more phono stage,no more music


OOOOPS !


Yeah.I fell for it too and thought there was something wrong me me for not hearing how BETTER digital was.I figured all those drugs of my youth were finally coming back to haunt me but instead of wrecking my brain just ruined my ability to know good when I heard it

sold the rig,stored the discs,bought a new rig,recovered what I could of the collection,party on





"fool me once shame on you,fool me twice shame on ME"



.

[rickcr42]

So we have :

RECORD SIDE :

Microphone>Mic Preamp>any processing>console>any post processing>master analog deck>RIAA curve Pre-equalisation>disc cutter

This original cut disc has in turn a wax cast made of it which in turn is used to create the "Master",an inverse of the grooves to press the copies onto vinyl

at worst compresssion used to bring the low notes up above the noise floor,a limiter used to bang down peaks to avoid tape saturation but even if some peaks squeeze by the results are still listenable-if it hits the mics it is there on the disc,all the music all the time just limited a bit in dynamics which even if it was not a limiting factor WE could not use the full dynamic range of a live performance in the home anyway !


OR

Microphone>Mic Preamp>any processsing>ADC (smple of the music,brick wall filters,dither noise added)>digital console and PC+any software for additional processing/signal manipulation>Disc burner

since digital has zero headroom anything over "0-dB" will be recproduced as a square wave with the resulting sound if allowed to pass of the most horrible beeps and blips you ever want to hear (have SATV ? Ever get rain fade ?) so you need to keep the expected absolute top signal level at -6dB and then have a ZERO SIGNAL PASS limiter set to the -3dB or digital 0 DB mark so there is no chance for anything to go over.this means you lose "bits" so your 24 bit ADC is now around 18-20 bits !

As you go lower in signal,down where the little silent parts are,the actual bit rate of the "Sample" is around 4 bits or so.
Digital does not resolve low level signal very well so unlike with an anolog recorder where you use compresssion to bring the signal UP above the noise floor of the tape with digital you add noise to fill in the spots between the notes ! This noise is called "Dither noise".So now we have not only lost some signal (depending on the SAMPLE rate how much of the music is SAMPLED) but we are now adding things not in the original perfromance just to get this to work !

Bottom line,after all the tricks and misdirection plays you get around 16 bits of resolution from a 24 bit ADC.The ultimate noise will be lower than the analog version,the on paper bass linearity way better than the analog version,the dynamic range ON PAPER way better than analog yet the truth is the dynamic range is theory only and has a total disconnect with reality when it is music and not a predictable test tone as the benchmark.

unlike the above analog recording we do not have "all the music all the time" but a facsimile of the original with some parts lost and some new things added but hey ! All about conveneince so what's the problem right ?
Why learn how to operate studio electronics that can totally fubar the sonics if not done right when any idiot that can operate a computer can now call themselves a recording engineer as long as the have the $500 to plunk down for the right sogtware


PLAYBACK SIDE :

Phono cartridge,vibrates in response to the grooves on the disc to recover the original signal>RIAA Re-Equalisation to a flat curve plus enough gain to have a usable signal>onto the main rig

OR

Laser pickup,depends on a stable speed and light diffraction to recover the original signal>digital interface from the laser pickup to the DAC stage which more often than not will have another brick wall anti-aliasing filter or if a slower slope filter an upsampler,another "trick" to fool the system into being something it is not-faster and with a higher bandwidth,said bandwidth already eliminated b the ADC filter >the analog section which has ANOTHER filter but this time in the analog domain (unless it is a 1X Oversampling type)



So on paper analog has limitations in the noise and dynamic range department,digital in the bandwidth area but the reality is in the real worl of a home playback system both are damn near dead nuts equal on both counts assuming systems of equal quality !

NMot only does the real world dynamic range of the vinyl disc equal the digital (screw all the papers saying otherwise,i know what I hear) but that "nasty noise" analog is known for is no more than teenagers of earlier times totally abusing the discs !

HELL YES a dirty smudged LP will sound like crap but did you ever try to play a dirty smudged CD ? Did it even load ? and if so did it actually PLAY without dropoutsa ?

so that too is all bullshit just as the original ad copy in the earliest days touting "you can throw the CD around,step on in and abuse it and it will still play unlike your dirty hissy records which always have noise no matter what you do"

BULSHIT !

The lie of "perfedt music forever" was a con job of grand proportions and my only question is why the hell did so many fall for it and never question ?

PERECT ?

Gimme a damn break ! nothing is perfect......not even me

[rickcr42]

...then there is this too

www.tnt-audio.com/edit/aaddict.html