maxg

Interesting comment. I havent measured them directly - but I have observed very varrying behaviour in amplifiers at the low end of both the frequency spectrum and the price range. It could be that this is not a designed in feature if one were measuring into a constant impedance load but a side-effect of dealing with the changing impedance of a speaker which becomes more noticable in the lower registers. Suffice to say I stand by my observation - even if I am not explaining fully or correctly. To witt: Same system (Heresy's at the time) - amp change from Aiwa to Yamaha (2 models - 492 and 595) to Accuphase to 6550 based 45 wpc PP tube to EL34 35 wpc PP tube to 70 watt ultralinear to 100 watt ultralinear etc etc. First 4 (including the accuphase E211!) show a boost in the 50 Hz range - others dont. The current amps - 150 watt SS and 500 watt digital dont either but I have changed speakers since then.... Dunno Mark - but I dont think you are gonna get resonant frequencies of the arm out of a pair of LS.

""Massive EQ" I like first order filters, but the experts tell me -- they're not steep enough, too shallow, not enough of this, not enough of that. Yet, if you apply the same amount of EQ in a filter to compensate for the driver's natural falling response on a CD horn -- it becomes "massive" EQ -- too much, waaay too much." Funny thing - similar observation here - different conclusion. My conclusion when I ventured into this whole speaker building thing was to choose the best matching drivers I could find and stick with a first order Xover. I never got passed - the best X-over is no X-over, so, accepting that a single driver solution would not work for me, the minimum possible X-over is desirable. If your drivers are rolling off towards the point you want to cross anyway there is less of an issue with how steep the X-over is. Just MHO and not directly related to the drivers in this scenario. Now if we could just come up with a bass bin that went a little higher a first order filter in a 2 way design would be a whole lot easier.....

"This evening I completed the LS relocation and put the SETs in play - no rumble or noise at all!!? So my question is, is this suppression of rumble a SET thing, is this a monoblock thing, or is this a tube thing? Anyone experience this?" Instinctively I would say none of the above. I might suspect that the Pioneer has a peak somewhere around 50 Hz - not uncommon amongst budget equipment to give the illusion of more bass than it actually has. I dont think the LS on their own are even capable of registering sound at 10 Hz. If there is such a peak - and if it is the cause then the most likely source of the rumble is through the stand your TT is on. A better isolation platform to go between stand and TT would be the probably solution. I have seen this happen before with a pair of 802's which would vibrate wildy with the TT but were fine with a CD player. Installing one of those sandwich isolation platforms stopped the vibration dead. Just a guess - interesting observation.

As most of us are fond of saying from time to time - it is all about the music. There was simply too little of it for too long on both SACD and DVDa to make any kind of inroad. What needed to happen was that all music on Cd became by default music on one or other of the above 2 formats. In other words - all disks from, say, 2000 onwards was on a dual layer disk that would play in a normal CD player and a SACD/DVDa player. Didn't happen. Greedy manufacturers tried to charge a premium over the already over-inflated CD pricing and the thing died. Now - several years on, the technology has moved on - the storage space that much greater, the access times that much less and new facilities abound. There is no reason at all why Blue Ray or HDDVD cant outperform SACD and DVDa for music. For one of these 2 to take off we need them to make a step akin to the one above. There is plenty of room to have a Hi Def movie and a Hi Def sound-track. Price the software like a common or garden DVD of today and they could finally have a winner - otherwise it is an MP3 future with a sprinkling of vinyl loons. As I think Gary said - make the recording software freeware and it can really take off - if I could rip my vinyl to a digital format that actually matched it sonically I would do it in a shot - why not?

Hate hearing stories about appendectomies as I still have mine and I am kinda attached to it. All the best. Looks like the family are rallying round - the forum at least!!! Be up and about in no time I am sure.

Tracking weight does not seem to have too much relation to record wear. I think that the wear is caused by impurities from the air being caught up in the vinyl over time. this is exacerbated by the needle passing through the groove heating up the vinyl and making it softer. The actual wear suffered is probably very little different between a tracking weight of 0.5 and 5 grams (assuming a proper setup). As for noise reduction on a good table - not sure. I think that a decent setup provides a greater apparent dynamic range from the vinyl and so the noise is reduced in comparison to the recorded sound. At the same time in a system with a decent soundstage - as might be obtained from a good vinyl front end - the noise tends to hover around the periphery of the music and is a lot less bothersome there than it might be if it appeared to come from the middle. The combination of the above means that record noise is less impinging on the sound in a good setup. Proper setup and alignment is, of course, essential in this regard.

As possibly one of the more diplomatic members of the forum I do not think diplomacy is a lie. It is more a means to an end. As Sean said "It sucks" is of absolutely no use whatsoever to the person whose system you are listening to. However bad a system is (and I have heard a few) most do something well enough. Start there - and then work around to the issues. I try to bring people back to the real performance - or what they might imagine the real performance was like. In other words phrases like "OK - now listen to the violin. Does that sound like you imagine the actual violin sounded like? How does it differ? Does it fool you into thinking its real? Close your eyes - is there a violinist in front of you? etc etc." I have found that telling people what I hear in their system is functionless. If, however, I start to ask them questions as to the sound we can get to the truth without smashing them over the head with criticism. When it comes to evaluating the advice of others I find it helps to know how their system sounds. The converse is also true. If I am advising someone on their sound it really helps if they have heard my system and know where I am coming from. Interestingly enough they do not have to like my sound - they just have to understand why it is what it is - in other words why I chose it. Even if their desired sound it the polar opposite of mine this does not rule out my being able to provide useful input. Funnily enough quite recently a guy from another forum (in the UK) visited Greece and we spent half a day together listening to various systems including mine. I had not thought I listened particuarly loud to music but his average volume is apparently way below my own. He found my sound too "in your face" and we went around several shops to listen to different setups to find his sound. We did in the end and AFAIK he is very happy. Now advising on line is, of course, a whole other matter. All I think you can do it to relate your own experiences - others will differ.

Funny you should mention the Playstation. At the High End show one of the presenters had a system using that as the source. It sounded diabolically bad. I asked if it was some kind of protest against high end audio - they didnt take that question very well.....

Doug, Got it and replied by email. Max

Dave, Its only partially my discipline - it is mainly a "keeping SWMBO moderately happy" issue. We have an agreed storage area for my records - there are 2 overspill areas that have been added on. Total holds around 1000 records. Not allowed records on the floor - fair enough - wouldn't do that anyway - and really very few handy places to store more. Course it aint easy to remember the limits sometimes - we have 29 vinyl shops in the vicinty that I am aware of now. I reckon Athens is probably one of the best places in the world to be a vinyl lover. BTW - 3000 records at one per night average is about 9 years with minimal repetition - you know that dont you. Still there are worse - a guy over here claims to have 45,000 records - not seen it but I think I believe him (he owns a very well stocked 2nd hand record shop). At my rate of listening that is 145 years - my great, great, great grandchildren would complete the task. Kinda pointless if you ask me. I guess he is the collector Mark does not want to be.

If it is an RB300 clone than chances are you are out of luck. Roy Gandi does not believe in VTA adjustment. Having said that there are various aftermarket items you can add to the arm to provide VTA adjustment. Others can chime in with more relevent options for someone in the US than I.....

That is interesting Mark. I used to be like that with CD - and I am not denigrating that format in any way - it was just that I tended to buy music that was rather of the moment. Much of the collection was modern music of the time (Purple Rain for example) which does not really hold much interest for me now. With vinyl I was both more selective and more ready to give stuff away to friends where I felt I had made a mistake. The nice thing about classical music for me is that such mistakes are rare as there are few pieces that I did not already know from childhood and classical mad parents. That is not to say I have not made some discoveries along the way - and even a few mistakes - but they are fairly few and far between. In translation - I have bought about 2000 records and kept about half in the last 6 years or so. Those I kept - I want, but it is hard to average more than one record per night.

Ben, You could be right as I do not own the Reiner version. I just like the way Montreaux handles more laid back symphonies - funnily enough his Beethoven's 6th is also my favorite. I find Montreaux just gives the time to these pieces that they deserve. I tend to associate Reiner with more dramatic works - I adore his Sherherezade for example - but of course this is entirely in the realm of personal preference. Suffice to say I too listened, as I said I would, to the piece last night and found it wonderful, haunting and a fabulous accompaniment to a good night's sleep that stayed with me throughout the night. The only problem I have is that my copy is a touch noisy so I do need to find another one anyway.

I think I am even worse than you are in this respect. I cant even build up the energy to go look for more records. I figured out with the current collection and my listening habits that I would be lucky to be able to listen to each disk I own once every 3 years. Adding to the collection now seems fairly pointless. The above does not factor in my favorites which get played regularly. In reality some of my records will not see the platter for many years - if ever again. Isnt that strangely heart-breaking? As for the system - lets just say it does it for me. Last night I posted to a thread on Tchaikovsky and then went to listen to the Pathetique before bed - twas truely wondrous to behold to the point that the music invaded my dreams all night. Cant get much better than that now can it?

A short list of things I do not know - anyone with answers will be most welcome: Are the lasers on a CD player standard items? Are there better ones and worse ones? Is there some kind of grading system for lasers like there is for processors on a computer - for example? Isn't reading a red-book CD rather a different process than reading a Data CD? As I understand it reading a data CD allows for multiple passes of the CD to get the best shot at the data whilst Red-book is a single pass system? True or not? Is vibration control important to a CD or not? Some are strongly arguing not - others are arguing it is. I lean to the latter from the following observation: I have 2 portable CD players from way back when. One of them will skip if I blink in the vincinity - the other one doesnt skip even when I am running with it strapped to my hip. The latter has (or purports to have) some kind of buffer. I would guess most normal CD players do not. Interestingly the one with the buffer does not sound as good to my ears - using the same headphones as the one without (when I am motionless). Now - I am happy with the concept that bits are bits - you either read what is there or you don't, but, is time important here? In other words reading a data disk the computer will sit and wait for the data to be presented. The computer has much more processing and facilities than a CD player to deal with the data coming from a CD (or DVD). A CD player has to read and present the information to the DAC in something akin to real time. Where there is need for error correction this must need some finite time to operate. Does Red-book interpolate the data quicker than normal data CD (Yellow book?). The example of the portable players is extreme for sure, but, it would imply that any vibration the player is subjected to will bring the error correction into play more often. When that happens does the sound suffer - through timing rather than information issues?

Missed this thread first time around. Good recommendations all. My personal favorites are his violin and piano concertos. I have an excellent Violin concerto on an audiophile version of a DG original with Tibor Varga and the Festival Orchestra under Jean-Marie Auberson. Wife listens to that one about once a week on average. As for the Piano Concerto I have an Ashkenazy/London Symphony with Maazel conducting on a Jap version of a London Original (super analogue KIJC 9225). Peformance is great - but would you beleive the recording is actually not all that good? My favorite First Piano is actually Philippe Entremont with the NY Phil and Bernstein conductiing. It is an old Columbia recording - mono - sound is a bit crunchy at times but still wonderful. Actually as Larry mentioned it I also have the Piano Concerto No. 2 on Fontana with Nikita Magaloff on Piano and Colin Davis conductiing the London Symphony. frankly - rather a disappointing piece - no wonder the first is the one we all know. All these responses and not a single Ballet rec? Stick to highlights and get a Swan Lake, Nutcracker or even Sleeping Beauty. Lots of choice performances/recordings out there. Oh - Pathetique - Montreaux/Boston on living stereo - seems ok to me although I would agree the DG / Karajan version is a bit more.....lively? Anyway - that will do - off to listen to the Pathetique now.....

I just realized I quoted Larry twice instead of quoting Tom the second time as I wanted to: " The real issue on current CDs probably is due to the error correction (for big errors that cannot be corrected but need to be interpolated)" Now that is definitely what I was talking about....I think.

"I'm not so sure that these mechanical issues differ fundamentally from a TT, although opinion clearly varies." Didn't someone else say something like that? I think page 6 is definitely my favorite of this thread thus far..... []

"I'm not so sure that these mechanical issues differ fundamentally from a TT, although opinion clearly varies." Nice one Larry - we are on the same page evben if most others here disagree with us. PaulN, I might agree if I understood the issue. I am sure there are many other variables in play than we have covered in this thread - and I am still not sure we (all of us) understand what they really are or their relative importance.

Nice one Joe. Congrats. Get used to the lack of sleep - it becomes a habit. Cheers - and pass a Cigar this way (we wont tell SWMBO who has banned them).

Should work - although you might be better off merely replacing the Nad with the vintage unit - or buying a dedicated external phono stage that can be plugged into any available RCA port. Of course doing it your way would increase the number of available pre-amp inputs if that is an issue for you.

I dont want this to turn into a dick measuring contest but I have a funny feeling neither Robert nor Mark have heard a $20K player. I am fairly certain that if they did we would not be having this conversation. No computer internal CD drive is going to compete with it - believe me. Well - that is not actually quite true - there is one computer that pounds it into the ground - actually it probably pounds vinyl into the ground but I am working from memory and anyway am not actually supposed to ever tell anyone - suffice to say all my hints as to error correction being an issue are....well......correct. Now I am not sufficiently expert in all of this to explain anyway - but suffice to say it is not the job of error correction to merely fix the errors in the data reads - that fix must be carried out in a timely fashion - especially where there is a constant stream of data and minimal buffering. Of course - this is less important when reading computer data than it is for Red book CD.

Bloody hell Mark - there is a lot there. Where to start? OK - high mass CD players - kinda goes with the territory but is that really unreasonable? If, as I posited, reading a CD is actually a very physical process then isolation for your CD player should be every bit as important as it is for a record player. I have seen many designs over the years - even suspended players - all apparently trying to isolate player from environment. Generally the more work they have put in the more I like the resultant sound - but not always. The dig at the music is a bit confused - I cannot tell if you are railing against the lack of good taste in the world or the horrors that CD has inflicted on music. There is nothing inherent in the design of CD playback that I can see that should deny a musical experience and as others have said there are perfectly horrible records out there. You could say that the modern disease of compression of the sound (to make it sound good on the interent radio station) is largely at fault for the paucity of the modern musical experience - but again that is hardly a fault of the medium. CD can cater for an enormous dynamic range - and sometimes does. I would also not be that sure that the analogue experience is really quite as "infinite" in its equivalent of sampling rate as you state. There must be a lower limit on the amount of motion of a coil through a magnetic field that can produce a detectable output - there, if not in one of many other places, is a limit. How that compares to 44.1 Khz I have absolutely no idea - maybe it is better than 2.8 million Hz that is SACD for all I know. Of course I cannot argue that CD sounds better than vinyl - that is simply not my experience - but I am not at all sure these issues are the real issues. Finally - I think it says something that we are still discussing CD as the primary digital medium so many years after the launch of SACD and DVDa - I am just not sure what.....

I dont think we are fooling ourselves - but I kinda have my own suspicions as to the whys and wherefores of that. I think everyone - just about recognises that there are differences in how DAC's perform. Some simply seem to do a better job of the conversion than others. The one bit DAC that came on the 5 disk AIWA changer I still have is frankly poor in comparison to the Marantz CD6000. At least I think it is - maybe the transport for all I know - but suffice to say the Marantz sounds a lot better - and that is hardly the pinacle of CD players. My old original Sony CD player from 1984 played better than the AIWA too - but not as well as the Denon 3000 DVD player that in turn is bested by the aforementioned Marantz. Anyway - I mentioned above my own suspicions as to reasons for differences so I will mention them here. Please note - I have no scientific evidence for this - just thoughts and ideas: As follows: If we take 2 transport mechanisms - one a nice solid well put together unit and the other a cheapie unit with a distinct wobble to the Cd tray and generally poor construction. They may well use the same laser - and much the same error correction, but, I would expect that error correction to have to cut in more on the cheap unit than on the expensive one. If we consider for a moment what is actually being read by the laser it is, of course, not ones and zeros at all - but pits cut into the surface of the aluminium. These are interpreted as ones and zeros. It stands to reason, therefore, that a "wobblier" transport will call upon the error correction more often than the solidly built unit (assuming the CD to be correctly aligned in each case). The simple theory is - the less the error correction cuts in - the better the playback. Might be totally off-base - just a theory. Error correction might be totally undetectable to the ear for all I know - or it might cause deterioration (Jitter perhaps - never understood what causes that beyond it being timing errors). Maybe it causes some other form of deterioration. If anyone else has any thoughts on this one I would welcome them. For what it is worth the best of breed CD player over here right now is reckoned to be an Esoteric unit. I think it is about $20,000. Built like a tank - sounded good to me - still prefer vinyl though.

I have been rather disappointed with the 802D's each time I have heard them - in comparison to the previous model the 802N. Frankly - I would take an 802N in a heartbeat but the D's you can keep. I know they are supposed to be better - but my ears just dont get it. As for the matching of the larger B&W's with Rotel - you are kidding surely.....Rotel is a decent high power amp but you are not going to get anything like the full potential of the 802 from a Rotel - especially at lower volume levels. Best amp I have heard with the 802 is the one I am currently running - the Yamaha MX-D1. 500 watts of digital power with a slightly soft signature when mated with a decent tube pre-amp (Klimo in my case). Just for reference I have heard the 802's with Krell, Rotel, this Yamaha, Classe, Accuphase, Levinson and Halcro. Cant remember the model numbers of those amps - but they were generally the larger models. I think they were all over 200 wpc into 8 ohms. How do these setups compare to a KHorn / Tube setup? Different. Its about all you can say. Make your choice - pay your money.