Not Klipsch - but a nice little system all the same

[NJbob]

To add fuel to the fire, after being a CD guy for the last 10 to 15 years I started playing around with Vinyl again and have to agree that almost 100% of the same music (I have) on records sounds better than CD's.

Just this weekend after listening to 1812 overture on digital, I was discusted and had to turn it off, I then fired up my old Empire rig and Kaboom. No comparison the cannons, bells and the rest of the music came alive. The CD is realy sounded compressed.

From my understanding CD's are not complete they only store the 100% of the analog source on about 60% of their storage so therefore miss some harmonics found on the record (at least that was the way it was explained to me)

This was the first time I herd that record on my Lascalla's I was blown away. No other speaker took that cannon the way the LS took it. I didnt even have to turn the volume down.

[greg928gts]

Max, was that you in the Youtube video I just watched, "Greek Audiophile"?

Great video, shows just how nuts we really are. I saw a little of myself in that video. Embarrassing.

Greg

You have been to Greece?

No, Youtube. Close though. []

Our friend Max is 2nd in order of appearance.

Greg

[Mallette]

Bob: I've an "old Empire rig" as well I use for 78's. As I've never been able to find anyone who could tell me how to tweak the Empire I finally got a VPI. Does super on 78's.

Anyway, your experience with CD is about par with mine. I would say I have about 10 out of 250 or so that are well engineered. However, I have a few and a few I recorded myself that are comparable. You are correct in that there is a perceptable "brick wall" at the top of a cd and no harmonics beyond about 22kHz.

24/192 is 16 times the resolution of CD. The average LP requires over 5GB of storage when transferred. Not surprising that it should sound not only better than a CD but, IMOH, equal to the original, even superior once digitally denoised and expanded a bit to restore the dynamic range no LP can provide.

Problem is, few audiophiles have any interest in these hi-res formats. Go figure. We wind up comparing apples and oranges. Given the math, it would be pretty shocking if they compared.

Dave

[kaiser SET say]

Nice review Max and anyone that has the bug as bad as I do for equipment knows that is top shelf all the way and as ugly as that B&W was/is they sound awesome[] (Never cared for that look as well as the WATT brand or the infamous butt ugly Dunlavey's, I'm going to take some heat for that one[])

Saturday night I listened to music until 3:00am and my wife told me the next morning she could hear me walking over to flip every 15 to 20 minutes and I told her it was because they sounded so good I was on a vinyl roll. Dave, I know you love your digital and I have not even begun to mess with upsampling. You may be right but I have such an emotional connection when I'm listening to vinyl that I just don't get with digital period. I'm sticking to my guns on the fact that we hear in analog and even when I had cassette in my car it sounded far superior to digital even with HISS!

I do love a Klipsch enthusiast who's as tenacious as a HArley enthusiast though[]

[Mallette]

kaiser:

I do not nor have I ever have upsampled anything. TBHWY, I do not even understand the idea. Seems to me you can't make more stew by putting it in a larger pot.

I record at those higher rates, and always at even multiples to allow non-dithered downsampling.

Dave

[maxg]

Max: First, I am HOPING you took my earlier komment in komedy. It was intended as such and that is, indeed, a visually stunning rig. I'll have to take your word for the sonic qualities.

On the vinyl squashing CD front, I must conclude that either the source material was krap or there is an issue with his playback. As you may know, I am a vinyl/analog lover, but my own experience in location recording has proven to me that it is about the recording method and the engineering whether digital or analog. I have a lot of LP piano recordings, but not one of them is even close to the reality of one of my digital recordings. This has been verified also by objective hornhead ears. I suppose you might respond that perhaps my vinyl rig is not up to snuff...

Last night I was listening to a 24/96 downsampling of the 24/192 surround recording I did about 4 years ago of the Asylum Street Spankers band at a club in Austin. No vinyl could have come remotely close to that reality. Applause, which normally sounds like rain or frying bacon on either vinyl or CD was crisp with real percussive quality.

I will grant that 90% of CD's released are easily bested by even an average CD, and that even the best 16/44.1 recording will exhibit some limitations of the low sample rate. However, higher digital sample rates can and do yield sound quality equal to or greater to vinyl, and all of them overcome the highly compressed dynamics that are inherent in vinyl. All in all, you pays your dollar and takes your choice of issues except with well engineered digital recordings at the higher sample rates or analog R2R at higher speeds with DBX encoding for a reasonable dynamic range.

Dave

Dave,

There really are 2 possibilities here arent there - accepting that we could agree when we heard them which was better:

The quality of digital you have heard is vastly superior to anything I have come into contact with.

The quality of analogue I have heard is vastly superior to anything you have come into contact with.

(Possibly both of course)

It gonna be REALLY hard to address that on a forum isnt it!!!

The only reason that this experience has largely convinced me that vinyl rules is as follows:

To date every system I have been to has been biased to a greater or lesser extent towards vinyl. This has been either a budgetary bias - my own system as an example or an implementation bias where equipment has been chosen to the benefit of the analogue and potentially to the detriment of the digital.

In this case, however, everything in the chain from the CD transport to the amp is from a single manufacturer and not cheap stuff. According to those present Theta is a very well respected mark and regarded as one of the best implementations around. The vinyl sub-system is the one that obviously appears to be tacked on. The phono stage, table and arm and cartridge are of different makes and were presumably not designed with the pre-amp / amp backend in mind.

Now it might be that the quality of CD's used was not good. I would be surprised by this as this was, afterall, an audiophile meeting and people generally tend to use their best recordings for the job. Further, we played a goodly number of CD's throughout the night - they can't all have been bad!

On the flipside - we played a number of vinyl records - mainly from requests. The probability that these were uniformly good is no higher than the probability that the CD's were uniformly bad. We can assume that the host had no interest in promoting one over the other.

Towards the end of the evening we broke up the listening session to discuss what we were hearing. I mentioned that when listening to the CD source the sweetspot was less than a meter wide. The host corrected this down to 20 cm (about 9 inches) [:^)]

When we switched to the vinyl rig, however, the sweet spot opened up enormously. I would guess it encompassed 2 meters (6 foot plus). God only knows why, but it was a huge and immediately apparent difference - it meant I could stop fighting with Tony for pole position for a start!!

This was just one difference noted - there were many. From bass reproduction to soundstage to depth to mids and highs the vinyl was clearly - and massively better.

Clearly the match between Dynavector cartridge and the arm (a badged SME 5) and the match to the phono stage was supremely good - but this is the point isnt it.

Ultimately I may still be wrong - but I really will take some serious convincing of the fact now.

Having said all of that I am happy to accept that this is an almost entirely academic argument. Choice of medium is always going to be dictated largely by the availability of your chosen musical genre.

Further, whilst digital may ulitmately be capable of matching or even surpassing vinyl it does seem to be a rarity. The majority of CD titles DO appear to be worse recordings than the equivalent vinyl issues. This could entirely be a function of the greater care taken in producing the recording for vinyl in the first place - but does that matter if the result is that the music from vinyl is better?

[arfandbark]

That final statement is just perfect, maxg. Who can argue that?

[Mallette]

Thanks for the point-by-point Max. I really enjoy these...it's pretty much the definition of "Forum," isn't it?

"In this case, however, everything in the chain from the CD transport to the amp is from a single manufacturer and not cheap stuff."

From my experience, irrelevant. I can tell a fine recording from a poor one on a boombox. Perhaps this is my "Golden Ear" power? I don't know. I know I can't tell zip cord from 14 carat gold speaker cables and that probably pretty well ends any credibility I might have with much of the crowd, but when it comes to source quality I'm all ears.

"I mentioned that when listening to the CD source the sweetspot was less than a meter wide. The host corrected this down to 20 cm (about 9 inches) "

Anyone who can feel free to correct me here, but I am not aware of any inherent quality of a either medium properly engineered that would have any impact on sweet spot. IMHO, it defies logic.

"The majority of CD titles DO appear to be worse recordings than the equivalent vinyl issues."

I agree there. I originally postulated that this might be from the application of analog/vinyl engineering protocols to digital. Well, it's been around 25 years now and it doesn't seem likely that the industry is still loaded with old geezers from the analog age. So, the anwer is...danged if I know. I know that even with 78's I've never heard a transfer to commercial CD that sounded remotely as good as the original except my own...though I do them at 24/88.2 which is 4 times CD resolution and that might well account for it.

It may always seem that I undermine my own argument by constantly agreeing that the vast majority of CD issues sound lackluster to awful. So be it...it is a fact. My "voice of one crying in the wilderness" though is that it is PROCEDURE or some other scientifically definiable issue, not medium, that is to blame. If one has heard ONE digital recording that was as good as analog the point is proven. If not, the debate remains open. A related point would be HDTV. Granted, the best video won't fool my cat, but how many pine for the days of analog video? How many doctors wanting analog CRT or MRI? Visibly far finer detail and accuracy in the digital domain here. Seems rather strange this could not also extend to the audible...

I wonder, perhaps, that in the same way many "hear" the differences between one tube and another, one source of AC and another, or cute little feet under the CD transport makes a difference, if many have learned nuances and cues that make one source sound "better" to them than another?

I know one thing: My own position is that our systems are relevant only after the source material. No system can can make a poor recording sound good, and no player can make a good recording sound poor. That's what my ears tell me. A "real world" honest, impromptu, unscheduled double-blind test a few years ago that I will not bore you with here proved that to me for all time.

I appreciate the thoughtful consideration and response on my thoughts, Max. Your opinions are generally accepted by me as "gospel" given your track record vis a vis my experience. The only exception is when your opinion crosses my direct experience.

[smilin]

Max, I would love t put my digital up against that TT[]4 guy's I know, sold their TT's after getting the NWO 2.5T I have.[Y]PLus, it's so much more convenient.

www.aplhifi.com