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Vinyl LP vs Digital


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27 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

I worked a number of years in various Studios in the 1970s

All there was ....  Vinyl ...gave it a hard roll off at 40 Hz

 

 

 

 

 

 

inyo


Record players of this century are far better than what was available in the 1970s. If you haven’t heard a good table and cartridge lately, you don’t know.

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I know vinyl can sound great, that's not the point. I have cassettes and MP3s that can sound great.

 

Travis  @Travis In Austin has a quote of Ray Charles loving analog, but I also read an article of him liking (at least not DISliking) digital.

 

I understand liking the vibe of vinyl, the easier to read liner notes, the cover art. I don't usually stare at those while listening to the music though.

 

What I like about digital is no tape his, no wow and flutter, pitch is always what it was when recorded.

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2 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

Record players of this century are far better than what was available in the 1970s. If you haven’t heard a good table and cartridge lately, you don’t know.

The cutting lathes and pressing plants aren't doing much better, though. DBX encoded records were awesome... inky blackness.

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22 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

I worked a number of years in various Studios in the 1970s

All there was ....  Vinyl ...gave it a hard roll off at 40 Hz

 

 

 

 

 

 

inyo

 

40Hz is still fine for all but maybe organ music. Low E on the bass is 41 Hz.  And not all that many speakers dig very well below 40 either.

 

I think it was Bell Labs in the `1930s that ran a lot of tests and concluded that "balanced freq response" was more important than extremes at either end. In other words, they reckoned that if you had eqaul octave above and below 1Khz, the sound was "natural." So, in this scheme 60Hz is 4 octaves below and 8Khz us 4 octaves above - so that sounds more natural than say, 60Hz to 20KHz. This "theory" they had was employed in telephonic circuits and for sure their old roatary phones sounded 1000% better on a phone call than a $1400 Apple phone does today.

 

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah....40Hz. When I was at ADC (makers of the famous QLM and XLM-II phono cartridges) they didn't try to go much below 40Hz either. I think when they made the Boron cantelever cart they got 32 Hz, but that's from my spotty memory of 1980.

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I’m not a digiphobe. Digital has come a long way, especially in the last ten years. Performance that could only be hinted at for tens of thousands of dollars can now be had for a fraction of that. I enjoy my Lumin/Denafrips combo immensely, almost as much as my vinyl front end.  Both do what they do well.

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Getting LPs to sound great was kind of a "black art" back in the 1970s. Not everyone was good at it. And when you could get a "dialed in setup" you had kind of mastered something....like painting with watercolors and not making a muddy mess. It was like being a good chef.  Or, the kind of scout that could always start a fire even in the rain.

 

I was not patient enough. But I had a friend who was, and his LP setup was the one everyone wanted to hear a new record on. He had dozens of tiny tweaks, and adjustments and a really good pair of ears too.

 

It's all just games of mastery and aesthetics at the end of the day. Some guys think a Tesla Plaid is a muscle car, others who own a 1970 HemiCuda ain't gonna buy into that. This stereo crap is about personality, eccentricity, weird preferences and what not. It's all fun WTF, right?

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3 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

I’m not a digiphobe. Digital has come a long way, especially in the last ten years. Performance that could only be hinted at for tens of thousands of dollars can now be had for a fraction of that. I enjoy my Lumin/Denafrips combo immensely, almost as much as my vinyl front end.  Both do what they do well.

I also enjoy my Node2i and Denefrips Dac very much! So why can't Digital be great and Vinyl be great? I agree with Shakeydeal - my Dual 1229 sounded very good as did my Technics 1200 with a nice Denon cartridge but my Mofi Precisiondeck with the Master Tracker cartridge is so much enjoyable to listen to then those older TTs

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3 minutes ago, RealMarkDeneen said:

Getting LPs to sound great was kind of a "black art" back in the 1970s. Not everyone was good at it. And when you could get a "dialed in setup" you had kind of mastered something....like painting with watercolors and not making a muddy mess. It was like being a good chef.  Or, the kind of scout that could always start a fire even in the rain.

 

I was not patient enough. But I had a friend who was, and his LP setup was the one everyone wanted to hear a new record on. He had dozens of tiny tweaks, and adjustments and a really good pair of ears too.

 

It's all just games of mastery and aesthetics at the end of the day. Some guys think a Tesla Plaid is a muscle car, others who own a 1970 HemiCuda ain't gonna buy into that. This stereo crap is about personality, eccentricity, weird preferences and what not. It's all fun WTF, right?

I totally agree!! FUN is what its all about. I can enjoy music thru an old transistor AM radio playing some music I like.

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28 minutes ago, Marvel said:

I know vinyl can sound great, that's not the point. I have cassettes and MP3s that can sound great.

 

Travis  @Travis In Austin has a quote of Ray Charles loving analog, but I also read an article of him liking (at least not DISliking) digital.

 

I understand liking the vibe of vinyl, the easier to read liner notes, the cover art. I don't usually stare at those while listening to the music though.

 

What I like about digital is no tape his, no wow and flutter, pitch is always what it was when recorded.

I will have to pull out the date of the quote. Bruce, as you know from the recording end, there were a lot of engineers (really good and famous ones) who initially stated misgivings about digital but came around to being big fans. The constant theme with all of them was the quality of A/D converters initially in conjunction with the limited bit depth.

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18 minutes ago, RealMarkDeneen said:

It's all just games of mastery and aesthetics at the end of the day. Some guys think a Tesla Plaid is a muscle car, others who own a 1970 HemiCuda ain't gonna buy into that. This stereo crap is about personality, eccentricity, weird preferences and what not. It's all fun WTF, right?

I would love to quote that in my signature, sort of hits the nail on the head doesn't it?

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3 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

Some of it had to do with microphone technique. ....

Up close mixed with room space ambient

On Axis

Off Axis

6 "

12"

A foot ...

 

 

 

 

Another of the several  "black arts" involved in music making that the end listener has precious little insight into.

 

Oh boy, pretty soon we're going get into "imaging" where the real fun begins!

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40 minutes ago, Travis In Austin said:

The constant theme with all of them was the quality of A/D converters initially in conjunction with the limited bit depth.

 

Curious if anyone can supply more detail on this point.

 

I can only compare my 1990 Magnavox CDB 650 to my 2021 Topping E30 DAC.

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