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Post by autiger on Aug 11, 2014 9:40:48 GMT -5
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geebo
Emo VIPs
"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are driving taxicabs and cutting hair"
Posts: 24,188
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Post by geebo on Aug 11, 2014 9:46:53 GMT -5
This is one old timer that does not miss vinyl in the least. I'm glad to be rid of the hiss, pops, ticks, clicks and necessary cleaning rituals that needed to be performed before I could listen. I just wish more producers would take advantage of what even 16/44.1 has to offer.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2014 11:27:48 GMT -5
+1
Another reason I think Qobuz is king right now! But yeah, CD has much more capability than a lot of recording engineers take advantage of. Maybe as Hi-Rez becomes more mainstream, and as disk space capacity becomes greater, more people will demand less, or no compression, from the recording engineers.
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Post by vneal on Aug 11, 2014 11:42:24 GMT -5
I use both formats and there is something special about vinyl and sitting the needle down on the record. And the fact that how you care for the record affects the sound. Other formats are much more convenient. I play CDs and stream music also
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Post by drtrey3 on Aug 11, 2014 12:08:16 GMT -5
I find that is I rip my vinyl at 24 bits I get a lot of the great sound with all the convenience of digital. The wife and I were listening last night and she said "This must be digital." When I asked her why she said she could hear it in the cymbals, they were tizzy. Now this was a nasty digital recording, not the best 16 bit by far. Then one of my vinyl rips came on and she said "That is what a cymbal sounds like." She was right on both counts.
Obviously, 16 bit digital done right can be stellar, but in my experience, it is often flat and a vinyl rip beats it if the record is mostly quiet.
Trey
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Post by garbulky on Aug 11, 2014 13:09:01 GMT -5
This is pretty funny because it flies in the face of pretty much everything audioholics stand by. They use solid measurement data to back up all their claims. But now it appears that something drastically worse performing is consistently selected better unanimously. Even when they are sourced from digital copies. Also of interest they mentioned technical people suffer from "close minded syndrome relying solely on hard data and facts to draw a conclusion before testing the reality of the situation to determine correlation". Meanwhile if anybody watched their atmos video where they pretty much trashed the whole thing and the new "atmos" speaker - which they laughed at even though they haven't actually tried it.... Or if anyone read their comments on axiom audio's dual tweeter units and claims of poor bracing on internet direct brands, one wonders if they need to take a look at themselves. Next they caleld people that insisted on double blind tests "forum trolls". How interesting, I was under the impression that was their majority readership! It sounded to me like a defensive move against anybody who is actualyl following the company line of leading first with measurements that starts questioning. But even here their test is flawed. The biggest and most obvious thing is: 1. We have no guarantee that the masters are identical and all that's different is a simple Analog to digital conversion. 2. They are using an Oppo 105 - a device meant to do video and multichannel audio and comparing it with a $1500 vinyl table. So you are comparing a DAC to a turntable. Not necessarily CD to vinyl. But it is unavoidable, one must use something. 3. The pre-amp unit is built into AN INTEGRATED AMP - granted a good one. But it's an integrated amp. And it's not even the amp used in this situation. IF the integrated amp essentially used a passive volume control vs an active one that can make a difference in the sound. What I would have done is used one dedicated pre-amp. I have found the pre-amp makes a difference. And also would have used one high end 2 channel DAC vs a high end Turn table. I would do more but it's obviously meant to be a fun evening with friends so there's only so much stuff one can endure. Now the most interesting thing I found in the review is one of records (breakout?) was originally a digital master. However the vinyl sounded better. This was interesting. And I think it really needs to be explored more. We know that DAC's have flat Snr and better frequency response and distortion values than vinyl. But what causes the sound to be "better"? If the sound is unanimously better, we can't dismiss it with vague things like "better mastering. Distortion is pleasant to the ears." Even if those were true, we have to find out what about it specifically did that. Single that stuff out. Compare the analog waveforms of the two formats outoputs. They noticed better dynamics. Well let's see why they noticed that etc. For instance if the waveforms were identical as in the peaks were the same but the dynamics were better. Well....what did that?! Or if the peaks were not the same....why is that? What would be very nice is that if they could record a performance using a simple mic setup and then master it on both and see if there is a sound difference.
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Post by thepcguy on Aug 11, 2014 13:48:03 GMT -5
2. They are using an Oppo 105 - a device meant to do video and multichannel audio and comparing it with a $1500 vinyl table. So you are comparing a DAC to a turntable. Not necessarily CD to vinyl. But it is unavoidable, one must use something. Yes, it is comparing a DAC to a Turntable. CD is digital so it needs a DAC.
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Post by garbulky on Aug 11, 2014 14:31:50 GMT -5
2. They are using an Oppo 105 - a device meant to do video and multichannel audio and comparing it with a $1500 vinyl table. So you are comparing a DAC to a turntable. Not necessarily CD to vinyl. But it is unavoidable, one must use something. Yes, it is comparing a DAC to a Turntable. CD is digital so it needs a DAC. I addressed that it is unavoidable. But...you are still having to use a DAC and in this case one in a box with digital video and multichannel outputs and motor mechanisms. So you are still comparing the output of a DAC to a the output of the vinyl player. The oppo has a special two channel section. And it costs $1200. Considering all of the other components, we can't say that it's a $1200 two channel DAC. I would rather they use a 2 channel DAC at say the same price as the $1500 turntable. Granted price doesn't equal quality, but at least get a "star performer" for the price bracket. I remember they used the XSP-1 and compared it with the output of a multichannel pre-pro one time and went "yeah it was better". Which was a terrible way to review a $1000 pre-amp imo. Compare apples to apples in this case an XSP-1 to another $1000 pre-amp. Another audio magazine compared the ERC-2 with....a sony playstation 1 CD player. P.S.: A CD doesn't always need a DAC to produce proper sound. Hehe.
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Post by jmilton on Aug 11, 2014 14:32:27 GMT -5
2. They are using an Oppo 105 - a device meant to do video and multichannel audio and comparing it with a $1500 vinyl table. So you are comparing a DAC to a turntable. Not necessarily CD to vinyl. But it is unavoidable, one must use something. Yes, it is comparing a DAC to a Turntable. CD is digital so it needs a DAC. This is a job for...
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Post by thepcguy on Aug 11, 2014 14:43:36 GMT -5
P.S.: A CD doesn't always need a DAC to produce proper sound. Hehe. What kind of sound would that be? If we don't convert digital to analog, can we hear it?
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Post by garym on Aug 11, 2014 14:50:44 GMT -5
The opinions of anyone who spends $50K on speakers should be dismissed out of hand. He is utterly detached from reality.
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Post by garbulky on Aug 11, 2014 15:27:01 GMT -5
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Post by thepcguy on Aug 11, 2014 16:05:54 GMT -5
From the M2's Data Sheet:
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Post by garbulky on Aug 11, 2014 16:09:24 GMT -5
From the M2's Data Sheet: Not my fault they don't know their own product : P
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Post by thepcguy on Aug 11, 2014 16:14:12 GMT -5
From the M2's Data Sheet: Not my fault they don't know their own product : P Marketing Genius don't you think? I guess even seasoned 'Audiophiles' can be tricked by this.
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Post by Bonzo on Aug 11, 2014 16:23:31 GMT -5
This is one old timer that does not miss vinyl in the least. I'm glad to be rid of the hiss, pops, ticks, clicks and necessary cleaning rituals that needed to be performed before I could listen. I just wish more producers would take advantage of what even 16/44.1 has to offer. Yep. And vinyl is such a "physical" format. It doesn't just "lend" itself to constant tweaking, it MUST be constantly tweaked to work it's best. Cartridges and belts and lubricating and aligning and all the other jargon I'm not familiar enough with to remember. Even the weather and humidity effects it. It's like a 1950's car vs a modern car. You can tweak it and upgrade it to death and never be done. And even after you do all that, there is still dust in the air that makes for those nasty pops that I just can't stand. Vinyl is an "experience," sure, but it's also a ton of hassle. Boats are awesome too, but the best boat is someone else's boat. Using the latest Zep re-releases as an example, even my vinyl junkie friend says he can't really tell any difference between the hi-rez 24/96 version and the vinyl. So which would you use? I'll take the 24/96 any day. I wish they would make it available as a pressed SACD, DVD-A, or Blu-ray. But until then my LPCM DVD-R will have to do.
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Post by yves on Aug 11, 2014 19:53:03 GMT -5
Even though IMO my nearly 3 years old $1100 DAC with the tube removed and hooked up to a $400 laptop via USB is sonically superior to the Oppo 105, $1500 is chump's change if you're talking about spending it on a turntable. I mean, if you spend five times that amount on a DAC setup, assuming you will choose it wisely, you will hear a fairly noticeable improvement over the DAC setup that I have, but this improvement will be nowhere nearly as big as the difference between that $1500 Marantz turntable and a $7500 VPI turntable. That is, assuming you know how to fully customize a VPI.
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Post by yves on Aug 11, 2014 20:53:38 GMT -5
But what causes the sound to be "better"? There are numerous theories and speculations about the reason why. A lot of it has to do with the mastering used, that is for sure. Dynamic range compression, and more in particular the loudness war, definitely also comes to mind. However, to get the most from both formats, the mastering *has* to be completely different. Every mastering engineer, or should I say, every *sane* mastering engineer will tell you that. So let's assume for a moment that you have a perfect recording, and let's assume that you have a team, or maybe even multiple teams, of mastering engineers who are going to do the perfect job for CD *and* the perfect job for vinyl. Let's also assume that you have the perfect CD playback setup and the perfect vinyl playback setup. What will happen next is you will be able to zoom in on those various characteristics of the sound that separate both media from eachother. How you zoom in on them depends on you, the listener. Yes, you can eliminate the individual listening experience by gathering a very large and widely diverse panel of listeners, and then adding statistical analysis to your strategy. The downside of that is I don't want to reject my personal listening experience. I don't want to replace those characteristics of the sound with ones the vast majority of people prefer. The vast majority of people prefer to listen to mp3 sound so.. no dice.
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Post by ocezam on Aug 12, 2014 7:33:38 GMT -5
This is one old timer that does not miss vinyl in the least. I'm glad to be rid of the hiss, pops, ticks, clicks and necessary cleaning rituals that needed to be performed before I could listen. I just wish more producers would take advantage of what even 16/44.1 has to offer. X2. I was thrilled when CDs were invented. Clicks, pops, and hiss sucks! The only problem with digital is it reveals all the mistakes made in the recording/mixing process. I'd rather hear that than noise.
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Post by AudioHTIT on Aug 12, 2014 17:59:17 GMT -5
2. They are using an Oppo 105 - a device meant to do video and multichannel audio and comparing it with a $1500 vinyl table. So you are comparing a DAC to a turntable. Not necessarily CD to vinyl. But it is unavoidable, one must use something. I've always heard the Oppo 95/105 were well regarded for 2 channel audio (using the analog out). Also a $1500 turntable isn't really high end considering the lower quantities make the price higher, did he even mention the cartridge, that's what really determines the sound. I'd say the two devices are probably a fair match. As for the preamp, like you say they have to use something. There will always be something better but that in itself doesn't negate the test.
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