Any home audio geeks out there?

[Hotsauce]

Vinyl is the original high definition format. Digital symply doesn't have the dynamic range that a record does. Digital is a jagged edge that approximates an analog waveform. It doesn't have the secondary harmonics that a real analog recording has.

Its the same difference between a poor quality MP3 recording and a CD, ecxept a record doesn't have a sampling rate, its a real analog waveform.

Biju: I think the choice of turntable wil not be as much difference as the cart you use on it, and those 2 not as signifigant as what phono pre you use. A $20 garage sale turntable and a tubed phono stage will kill $1000 table/cart combo fed into a solid state pre.

Remastered usually means ruined. In most cases there is less background noise, but all dynamics are gone because of the compression used to supress noise. The wort 2 examples I can think of are Billy Joel - Glass Houses, and Jethro Tull - Aqualung. probably the worst 2 CD's ever made vs the record.

This link may help you understand.

http://www.xanga.com/sonickGQ/501878133/item.html

John C.

[WyrreJ]

You are talking about first gen masterings to CD which were often crap. I'm talking about double and triple dipping by the record labels where they RE-master from the original studio tapes and have FINALLY got it right. Just because a recording is on CD does not mean it must be over-compressed.

The record labels are pursuing this route because they can't sell their new artists to anyone who is not brainwashed by MTV, so in order to keep milking that market segment they keep releasing the same albums again and again. Except for artists like Jimi Hendrix who are constantly recording new tracks from beyond the grave, the only thing they can offer to convince people to rebuy CDs that they already have is with improved sound quality.

For example, just about the entire Rolling Stones catalog has been remastered (for SACD, but the same masters were used to make the CD layers on the same discs that only golden ears with solid-silver cables can distinguish from the DSD versions). Similarly most of Yes, Rush, Sabbath (Ozzy Years), Steely Dan, AC/DC, CSN(Y), Simon & Garfunkel, Dylan, etc name almost any great group from before the 80s and their stuff is getting remastered the right way. Even the Tull catalog has received a make-over, yet somehow they still can't get Aqualung right - at least not mainstream CD releases - DCC did a good job, just about indistinguishable from their vinyl edition.

So, for those albums, the difference is no longer equivalent to a poor-quality MP3 vs a CD, it is more like a high-quality MP3 - say 220Kbps VBR Joint-Stereo and the CD it was ripped from. Which is to stay, indistinguishable for 99% of the population.

And to take it one step further - there are plenty of crap-quality vinyl pressings - 'fixing' them is how boutiques like DCC and MoFi got started. Unless you've got an audiophile label pressing or an expectionally well engineered mainstream release, the correctly (re)mastered CD versions won't just equal it, it will greatly surpass it. Super-22Khz harmonics just don't mean jack when the base frequencies are lo-fi - and for those frequencies a properly mastered CD does not just approximate a waveform it exactly reproduces it. Nyquist's theorem is for all practical purposes an indisputable law of nature, just like the laws of gravity and electromagnetism.

[biju]

People, people...!

Great info, but to be honest - my interest in vinyl might disappoint some. See, I happen to think vinyl's just 'fun'. Yes, fun. It's a good conversation piece, takes a little more involvement and, yes, it sounds good too (warmer).

Sorry for the ingnorant question Hotsauce, but what do you mean by "pre"? Also, what kind of "cart" do you recommend?

Thanks.

-biju.

[Hotsauce]

There are 2 basic types of cartidges, not counting exotics like strain gauge carts. Moving coil, and moving magnet. I feel the MM are better on rock, and the MC show more subtle details on complex music. Until you become an audiocrackhed stick to MM carts. The music Hall TT's already come with a cart thats well matched to their arm.

Neither type of cartridge has enough output to be connected directly to the input jacks of a standard reciever or preamp. Some preamp or recievers will have a specific set of inputs marked 'phono' and they will have an additional gain stage inside.

So, what you need is a phono preamplifier to bring the low level signal up to the voltage that the inputs expect to see.

John C.

[AnalogVX]

The record labels are pursuing this route because they can't sell their new artists to anyone who is not brainwashed by MTV, so in order to keep milking that market segment they keep releasing the same albums again and again.

The only reason the record labels aren't selling any new artists is beacuse most of them are crap. Seriously, doesn't it suck when you buy a CD and there's only one good song on it?

There are some remasters that sonund good, the Rolling Stones on SACD that you mentioned, and some that sound like crap too, Van Halen's remasters, to me, sound horrible.
I love vinyl. Yea, it's fun, yea it takes work on the set up and maintenance, but that's half the fun! As far the CD vs vinyl debate, it's all subjective. I have CDs that sound good and some bad and vinyl that sounds good and some bad.

[Triathlete]

Not only that but I have quite a collection of late 70's and 80's punk that will never be available on anything but vinyl!
Of course most of it was on very small indi lables and was ONLY available on vinly!

[WyrreJ]

Not only that but I have quite a collection of late 70's and 80's punk that will never be available on anything but vinyl!
Of course most of it was on very small indi lables and was ONLY available on vinly!

You might be surprised at what is out on the net in the shadows. There are people with similar collections as yours who have invested the effort to "rip" the vinyl to digital formats (MP3 for the stuff like punk where fidelity is not an issue and FLAC or APE for the other stuff). Find the right community online, and you may well find that your entire collection plus stuff you never thought you'd ever find is available to download.

Of course actually downloading it is a federal crime with punishment guidelines that often exceed those for rape and murder...

[biju]

All's well, but - back to the thread topic all...

Need input on components to my setup - specifically (now) the table. Got any?

-biju.

[Triathlete]

When I was in Japan they have a SUPER store called Dieechis (sp?). They have an entire floor of audio. Everything from inexpensive to $50,000 mono tube amps. Anyway I remember they had these high end turntables that were mounted in 4-5 inch slabs of marble to make sure they were stable. Pretty sweet stuff. Thats also were I picked up my Nachamichi cassette deck!

[WyrreJ]

Something like 90% of all media (tv, print, movies, radio, etc) are owned by just 5 companies. The new 'artists' are crap because they are not chosen for their music - they are chosen for their cross-marketing potential. If they actually produce music worth listening too, that's just icing on the cake as far as the MAFIAA are concerned.

Teens are their prime market because they are highly suggestible and have lots of their parent's money to spend on high-profit-margin, disposable junk. Like ringtones - $2.50 on average for a lo-fi snippet of today's "hot" single vs $1 for a mid-fi version of the entire song. That's nucking futs, but its proof of how powerful the MAFIAA's marketing machine has become.