I’m so much more impressed by good, <i>affordable</i> systems than I am by those costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I find it difficult to concentrate on music when I’m overwhelmed by the high prices of the gear delivering it. Price should never be the most impressive aspect of hi-fi.
As long as you're spinning an LP for your listening pleasure, and if digitizing it at a resolution of 24-bit/192kHz is transparent to the analog source, why not record and store the LP on your computer at that high sampling rate for future convenient playback via iTunes or for iPod use, or for burning to CD-R? And, while you're at it, why not record the LP unequalized and apply the RIAA curve in the digital domain, where you're not dependent on capacitors and resistors that are imprecise to begin with, and can drift over time? With no drift of phase or value, the virtual filter's results should be better than with any analog filter. And in the digital domain, you can program in any curve known, and select it at the click of a mouse. Aside from the sweat equity invested in programming it in the first place, it wouldn't add a penny to the program's cost.
The minuscule electrical output of an analog signal from a moving-coil cartridge needs to be boosted before it can be converted to digital and equalized in the digital domain. Of course, you could use your current phono preamplifier and record an equalized signal to hard disk, but then you wouldn't get to experience <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/computeraudio/pure_vinyl_lp_recording_amp_ed… Vinyl</A>'s digital RIAA correction—nor would you be able to avail yourself of all the equalization curves provide by Pure Vinyl, of which there are almost too many to count.
The minuscule electrical output of an analog signal from a moving-coil cartridge needs to be boosted before it can be converted to digital and equalized in the digital domain. Of course, you could use your current phono preamplifier and record an equalized signal to hard disk, but then you wouldn't get to experience Pure Vinyl's digital RIAA correction—nor would you be able to avail yourself of all the equalization curves provide by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/computeraudio/pure_vinyl_lp_recording_amp_ed… Vinyl</A>, of which there are almost too many to count.
For just a few days now I’ve been receiving mysterious e-mails from “Jazz on the Tube.” At first I wondered if they were spam, and I was afraid to click on the links inside. But they all seemed harmless enough: A few kind and thoughtful words, a passion for jazz, a hand held out in friendship, a smile. So I clicked the link and was taken to a simple page with a narrow, white field against a black border and a YouTube video at the center.
Just like me, Belle and Sebastian write about love. The band’s new album is due out here in the States on October 12. It will be mine. You can listen to a clip on <a href="http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2010/08/16/belle-sebastian-write… Matablog</a>. The song, “I Want the World to Stop,” sounds just as dark and groovy and infectious as you might imagine. I’ve listened to it about 69 times already.
The October issue of <i>Stereophile</i> shipped to press yesterday afternoon. (Hallelujah.) We are already deep into the November issue, while our new editorial assistant, <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_young_guy/">Ariel Bitran</a>, is tackling the <i>2011 Buyer’s Guide</i>. In addition to all of that, and on top of the regular stuff, the entire office is in <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/boltz_cd_rack/">the process of moving</a> onto the 6th floor of our 261 Madison Avenue location. Construction crews are tearing down walls and building new cubicles, painters are turning white and gray into blue and cream, movers are carrying tables and desks up flights of stairs. My office is cramped with <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/buried/">boxes</a>, but this time they’re moving boxes.
