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A Long time ago I had a Luxman PD121 direct turntable. Built like a Rolls Royce and beautiful. It was also my last DD TT. It was in the adjacent dining room and I could place the stylus on a non-moving record and induce system feedback without turning the volume up all that high. Although I'm sure the ultra low mass Infinity Black Widow tonearm and high compliance Sonus pickup didn't help. Tonearm/pickup/turntable selection are all interrelated. Choosing the wrong combination can result in poor results regardless of price.

And......eventually you'll probably come across more than one classical recording made in an old concert hall that was built before there were subway trains running nearby underneath it. That' always fun to hear. Or Glenn Gould on the Goldberg Variations, you can hear his finger nails clicking on the keys as well as him humming along. His humming was surprisingly terrible. Then there's one of my favorites, Joe Walsh The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get. If I remember correctly, on track 4, Midnight Moodies, at the very end, at a very, very low level you can hear someone (presumably Joe Walsh) say "That sounds like S***". It's not on the Tidal Hi_Res stream. Seems to have been cut off. The fade out ends abruptly. I'll have to listen to the CD and LP again.

Welcome to the club. There should be lots more WOW moments ahead as you continue the journey.

Yes, the crossover networks should probably be replaced. Contrary to popular belief, capacitors actually last longer when they are used frequently. I know that is true in vacuum tube amplifiers. The capacitors need to be "re-formed" after prolonged time of not being used. I'm not sure to what extent that may be true in a passive device like a crossover network. Maybe someone here can jump in and clarify that. But 45+ years of mostly non-use is probably not a good thing. If the price you got these at was low enough you might consider upgrading as much as you can to current standards, drivers/horns & network.

Which is? (what)

And, every so often you'll come across something (like this one) that's not on Tidal (yet) (or maybe the songs are, but on another release - Morricone was rather prolific), and you have to ante up and buy it. I've had to do that with a few, but it's becoming less and less every day.

Nope. That's not quite what I'm talking about, even in the digital domain. When someone says "I listen to and prefer digital" (or analog) what do they really mean? In the digital domain, what I'm referring to is the media itself. In most cases this is predominately some kind of disc, like CD. This CD "media" needs some kind of player, an additional component to play it. 1) This CD, has errors on it. It is a pressed piece of (usually) some kind of aluminum substrate. It is "pressed" much like a vinyl LP pressed - to make an impression in the media of the data/information. It is not perfect. The laser(s) in the CD player that read the disc are not perfect, and they do not read the digital data perfectly while the CD is spinning at a constantly varying speed. That's why we have digital error correction, otherwise the this would not work at all. 2) The CD player is another electronic component. It has its own contributing noise and distortion. 3) Then you have to connect the CD player to something. Most people use the analog outputs. There are analog interconnecting cables to connect the CD player to the amplifier. The affect of this on sound quality is debatable, but it's still something to consider. MY story: A long time ago I acquired my second CD player, a Revox B225. It had volume controls. One day I got the bright idea that I might be able to bypass my preamp (Audio Research SP6B). I connected the Revox directly into my Luxman MB3045 triode power amps (I could control the volume/gain on either). To my surprise (this was 35 years ago) removing the ARC SP6B (still a highly regarded tube preamp) from the signal chain improved the sound quality significantly. Fast forward 35 years. We now have Hi_Res streaming. Analog aficionados will tend to look at this the same way they "perceive" (conceive) analog - as if the digital "bits" are being "streamed" in an analog (serial) fashion from a server "somewhere out there" to our smart phone or PC or some other device that acts as the "player". That's not what is happening. When you have a true digital playback system(except for the speakers, obviously) there are no analog components in the signal path. That means no A/D conversions. No analog volume controls. No analog cables, connections. And no digital player that has (plenty) of analog circuitry. Ultimately, there is no "player" per se'. The preamp/amp/player are all one (digital) component. It's all just software. And the digital "source", the media so to speak, is just a digital file. There are no errors. It's a perfect copy of the original. It is not streamed from the server (like Tidal or Quboz) bit by bit. It is sent as a file. File loads into the player memory and plays. No spinning disc. No laser reading. No physical media with errors or that can be damaged permanently.

I always liked the Bedini Class A amps. But some years later I ran across something about John Bedini and his perpetual motion (ie: free energy) motor and was kind of like scratching my head. And then came the Bedini CD Clarifier. Made me wonder even more if this guy had his head screwed on straight or was just a snake oil creator. Maybe something happened after those class A amps were made? The Bedini Class A 25/25 and 100/100 make sense. The CD Clarifier does not (well, except financially, for Bedini) 😱

Google Loudness Wars + Iggy Pop. There's an excellent example floating around out there showing how Iggy Pop literally destroyed remastering one of his older recordings for re-issue to make it sound louder. It ain't pretty. A perfect example of how & why the older original recording "sounds better"

1) The recording engineer is king. Everything and anything he/she does will affect how EVERYTHING further down the line will sound. As Chris mentioned above there are a multitude of things that can be done, especially nowadays, to enhance or destroy the quality of the recording depending on the poison(s) chosen. 1B) add to that the mastering engineer 1C) add to that the post production engineer 1D) add to that any re-mastering engineer (happens more than you think) 1E) hopefully the producer and mastering/remastering engineer are not someone like Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop or Pete Townsend - guys who are not quite completely deaf yet, but might as well be. 2) Then there is the room YOU are listening in. This is often the most overlooked, unacknowledged component. In my experience, when you finally get your "system" (including the room) properly balanced, unbiased, you will still notice all these differences from recording to recording (as you well should), but you'll also begin to notice that many of the irritating qualities of various recordings go away, or at least are substantially reduced. More of what you listen to will sound better.

Yep. And how about all those junction boxes between the outlet you're plugged into - which are connected to a bunch of other outlets and switches along the way to the breaker box, connecting wires all just twisted together with cheapo twist-on wire connectors, not to mention the bare electrical supply cable buried in your yard - or the one hanging in the air like an antenna. Yes Sir. Some really expensive power cords & connectors will compensate for all that. 🤡

Oh Maynard.............surely you know that TWO resistors sound Two times as good as only one resistor. And it's completely logical. Especially when the purveyor of such technological improvements is constantly proclaiming less is more. 🤢 Just like his proclamations regarding the stock market. I guess less is more there too(for him). 🤑

I decided to take look at this, even though it's from an audio publication I have little (if any) respect for. Biggest problem? This year, Dennis played Rosanne Cash singing "When Your Master Calls the Roll" from the album The River & The Thread, and it sounded exactly as (I imagine) God intended it to. Yes, Ms. Cash had "presence," but she also had depth and human soul. Her pure-female Carter-family persona was in the room with us. So what do I find wrong with this? Not good enough, certainly not good enough for me. Wrong audio objective entirely. First of all, those tiny rooms cluttered with equipment & crowed people at audio shows are one of the worst places to hear anything. The majority of rooms are basically the size of bedrooms. IMO, Rosanne Cash should NOT be "in-the-room". The playback system StereoPhool's Herb Reichert speaks of with Fraker's amps & speakers obviously isn't good enough to "take YOU there". And Robert Fulton was another nut who didn't know his dupa from a hole in the ground. EDIT: Jeffery, if this makes you sad, or you think what I said is sad, it's time for you to pick yourself up, and get up to the next level(s).

Sounds a lot like going to church to me. The swamp is getting BIGGER

No I'm not. I'm no bozo. I'm with Insane Clown Posse, on the other bus!!! over there

Yeah, I know. The photographer who came over to do the Stereo Review shoot of my room did the same thing, except his picture came out more distorted - as in curved, but he spliced it well. And of course had a tripod. Nice rig for that age! At that point in time I was just stepping up from a top-of-the-line Zenith console (which I naively thought was the best you could get at that time, DUH) to a Thorens/JBL L100/Crown D60 & IC150. I don't I even knew anyone at that point who had a setup like yours. Love those Hasselbad.

I don't have a problem with the electoral college per se'. However, it should also be required by law that the electors vote the same way as those they represent. At the moment, they do not have to vote as their constituent. And if they are found not to vote that way, there should also be substantial punishment and fines levied against them. Unfortunately, none of this is in place, so what's the point?

Well, that certainly hasn't worked - on more than one occasion.

What they are going to say is "What the hell is this S***?" regardless of whether it's an iPod or tape or LP or CD.

For me............ 1) I can't even tell you how many records I've returned over the decades because of skips, ticks & pops. I remember one I took back maybe 5 or more copies - all had the same (severe) defect. More recently similar experiences even with $50 LP from high-end purveyors like Analog Productions/Acoustic Sounds. 2) I have a couple thousand LP. Almost all in super excellent condition. And some of the most highly regarded equipment to play them with. I have done direct 1 on 1 comparisons to their digital counterpart. In my experience, as you get your playback system closer and closer to "neutral" (unbiased for any particular kind of music or media) the differences become less and less - but in the end, digital has less noise & interference (ticks, pops, skips on LP). and is certainly much more convenient and easy to use). 3) I've said this before but merits being said again. The phonograph record was NEVER an "ultimate" playback media. It was always the "poor man's" high fidelity. Real audiophiles used RTR tape.

Kind of like "give me that good ol' time religion" kind of stuff

One of the long standing problems of retaining fidelity - of the original - in the form of duplication (especially analog), has ALWAYS been the physical medium. It is a major limiting factor in regards to what we hear. And that is not only because of the physical media itself, but also the additional equipment that's required to play it, all of which add their own additional noise, distortion and phase artifacts in addition to that of the physical media itself. We don't have to do that anymore. So, I really don't understand why anyone still insists on "preferring" a physical medium. Even cost is not an excuse anymore. Better sound quality can now be obtained without the physical media, and without the additional equipment and cables/connections required to play it, not to mention the ease of use and access to it virtually anywhere you want.

Hey Claude, that R2R deck and center speaker look a little jacked out

That happens to me one Friday night a month when my wife is out with her "dog" (I do mean dogs,. real dogs) friends for a girl's night out. I stay home with our (boy) dog. I call it "boy's night in" On goes an initial medley of Avril Lavergne with the opening track from Alice in Wonderland --> Extreme - Am I Ever Gonna Change --> Insane Clown Posse, Welcome to the Carnival. All at house shaking levels

Chris, interesting which three concert halls you chose as examples. The "shoe box" shape, as well as the actual dimensions, more specifically, the width of these halls, were in fact determined by the architectural/structural limitations of the time. It actually has nothing to do with what they were trying to achieve acoustically. They didn't know that much yet. And, in fact, music itself, was composed, quite literally, to "sound it's best" in these concert halls (or whatever kind of venue it was intended for). At the time, the width of these halls was determined by the longest practical unobstructed span that we knew how to build. The use of steel in building construction didn't come about till later in the 1800's.