The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Geoff Kait
Machina Diabolical

Hi David

WHY IS THIS?????

Because TT's are adjustable.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/

>>> “WHY IS THIS?????
Because TT's are adjustable.” <<<

Your blanket reply to David, Michael, is not correct.

Because you can ‘treat’ the actual CD (say by cryogenically freezing it) and have the CD then sounding better than the vinyl. Then, you can go on to ‘treat’ the vinyl (say by applying a demagnetiser to it) and then the vinyl will now sound better than the CD.

WITHOUT “adjusting the TT” at all !!

In fact you can keep fluctuating between them (and how each sounds) by then ‘treating’ the actual TT and then ‘treating’ the CD player and so on !!

Regards,
May Belt,
PWB Electronics.

David Harper wrote:

I've been an audiophile for forty years, so I'm not a newbee.
I know that digital blows analog away in every measurable parameter.
CD is superior to vinyl. Intellectually, I know this is a fact.
So why does vinyl sound better to me?
Why does vinyl sound more physical, more immediate, more"live",more "real"???
Listen to Norah Jones "Come away with me" on a good analog rig.
It puts digital to shame.
Listen to Eric Clapton "Unplugged" on a good analog rig.
WHY IS THIS?????

I have been involved with audio since I built my first amplifier and Klipschorn speaker (from a Klipsch kit) 55 year ago, in high school. I have had a chance to listen to it all, and owned and listened to all sorts of good and not-so-good audio systems.

I have a very high-quality audio system, and listen to CD, LPs, and SACDs, and use HIGH-QUALITY PLAYBACK EQUIPMENT FOR ALL.

The fact of the matter is that the basic CD format is very good, and in the cases where I can compare my original excellent LPs to CDs, the CDs mostly sound just as good. BUT I AM NOT PLAYING THEM ON SOME SECOND-RATE CD PLAYER LIKE PRACTICALLY EVERYONE DOES.

The fact of the matter is that the CD players that most people buy and use are awful! They only get about 30% of the music off of the CD, because the processing circuits are not up to the job!! Is this the fault of the CD? Is it the CD medium that is at fault? Hell no, it is NOT!!!

The CD format has been ill-served by inadequate playback circuits for 40 years, and the CD format has been wrongly bashed because of it. Is it fair to compare a pretty good turntable to a bad CD player and blame the CD format for the bad sound? Hell no!

Only in the last few years have circuits become available that make it possible to built a really good player for under $2000.

If you get rid of the player you are using,, and spend $1300 on a OPPO BDP-103 or a Marantz UD-7007, you will find out how good those old CDs are!

Until then, QUIT BASHING THE CD FORMAT BECAUSE YOUR PLAYER SUCKS!!!!!!

(Note-I have a CD that I bought in 1985, the same day I bought my first Magnavox CD player. Back then, and for many years, I thought that CD sounded terrible. Now, on my OPPO or Marantz, it sounds absolutely wonderful. It is the first CD Delos ever made; "Nothin' But the Blues" by Joe Williams (Delos CD-4001). They used the Soundstream system for digital recording from the first, not the lousy Sony recorders that were used a lot in the 1980s).

David Harper wrote:

My player is a Marantz UD 7007

All I can say is that most of my CDs sound very good, and most of my LPs do too. My turntable is a Music Hall MMF-7, with a Benz Micro cartridge. I do have some LPs that sound wonderful, maybe better than anything else, but only a few are that good.

Maybe I need a better turntable or cartridge to hear what you are hearing...lol. Maybe, at 71, my hearing losses are starting to become a significant issue. I don't feel impaired in my listening, but I know I have a significant loss above 6 Khz from being tested.

SACDs also sound very good, but I don't find them all that much better than regular CDs in general.

But of course there are so many variations in the basic recordings themselves that the differences in format become secondary to how well the recording was executed in the first place.

By the way, David, my comments were not directed at you so much as just me blowing off steam about the subject in general.

Look no further than this thread for how to tell which format is better, CD or LP,

http://www.stereophile.com/content/how-tell-which-better-vinyl-or-digital

Cheers,

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

More sympathic I could not be. Thinking back 99% of my posts here the past two years, with the exception of disciplining Mr. Green and his loyal sidekick Chris, are concerned with the shortcomings of digital, what can be done about it and why analog is generally inherently superior to digtial when it come to naturalness, warmth, sweetness, openness and tonality. All things being equal I would much rather listen to a cassette on my trusty Sony Cassette Walkman of Heifetz playing that old warhorse, Brahms Violin Concerto, than the same piece on the RCA Living Stereo CD. All the right sounds are MIA on the CD. Frankly it doesn't even sound like a violin. No body, no tone, no sweetness, no warmth. The cassette kills the CD. End of story.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

David Harper wrote:

Commysman, your vinyl rig is probably at least as good as mine, maybe better. Mine is a Project Carbon Black DC turntable(599.00 retail) with an Ortofon 2M blue cartridge (about 250.00, I think)
I agree about the recording quality. In fact, I suspect the reason my vinyl sounds better is because when they master vinyl, they do it with the idea that anyone goofy enough to be listening to vinyl LP's (like you and me), is probably much more discerning about sound quality than the average music consumer.
Try to explain to a twenty-something that MP3 sounds like shit, and they look at you like you're crazy. I know, I have three daughters with boyfriends in that age group.

Well, you have to be careful about generalizing when it comes to MP3 quality.

I have many of my CDs ripped to my computer, and mostly use them to load onto USB memory sticks for playback in my cars. One 8GB stick will hold 50 or more CDs as 320K MP3s, which is what I use to rip them and store them; very convenient for on the road and pretty good sound.

As far as I am concerned, the 320K MP3s sound pretty good. The loss in quality there is not very great, and the storage space required is not too bad.

But many MP3 files use much lower bit rates, and the sound quality of those files is poor.

Of course, when you are talking about "music" that sounds like someone being tortured by the KGB, who cares about sound quality anyway?

commsysman wrote:

David Harper wrote:

I've been an audiophile for forty years, so I'm not a newbee.
I know that digital blows analog away in every measurable parameter.
CD is superior to vinyl. Intellectually, I know this is a fact.
So why does vinyl sound better to me?
Why does vinyl sound more physical, more immediate, more"live",more "real"???
Listen to Norah Jones "Come away with me" on a good analog rig.
It puts digital to shame.
Listen to Eric Clapton "Unplugged" on a good analog rig.
WHY IS THIS?????

I have been involved with audio since I built my first amplifier and Klipschorn speaker (from a Klipsch kit) 55 year ago, in high school. I have had a chance to listen to it all, and owned and listened to all sorts of good and not-so-good audio systems.

I have a very high-quality audio system, and listen to CD, LPs, and SACDs, and use HIGH-QUALITY PLAYBACK EQUIPMENT FOR ALL.

The fact of the matter is that the basic CD format is very good, and in the cases where I can compare my original excellent LPs to CDs, the CDs mostly sound just as good. BUT I AM NOT PLAYING THEM ON SOME SECOND-RATE CD PLAYER LIKE PRACTICALLY EVERYONE DOES.

The fact of the matter is that the CD players that most people buy and use are awful! They only get about 30% of the music off of the CD, because the processing circuits are not up to the job!! Is this the fault of the CD? Is it the CD medium that is at fault? Hell no, it is NOT!!!

The CD format has been ill-served by inadequate playback circuits for 40 years, and the CD format has been wrongly bashed because of it. Is it fair to compare a pretty good turntable to a bad CD player and blame the CD format for the bad sound? Hell no!

Only in the last few years have circuits become available that make it possible to built a really good player for under $2000.

If you get rid of the player you are using,, and spend $1300 on a OPPO BDP-103 or a Marantz UD-7007, you will find out how good those old CDs are!

Until then, QUIT BASHING THE CD FORMAT BECAUSE YOUR PLAYER SUCKS!!!!!!

(Note-I have a CD that I bought in 1985, the same day I bought my first Magnavox CD player. Back then, and for many years, I thought that CD sounded terrible. Now, on my OPPO or Marantz, it sounds absolutely wonderful. It is the first CD Delos ever made; "Nothin' But the Blues" by Joe Williams (Delos CD-4001). They used the Soundstream system for digital recording from the first, not the lousy Sony recorders that were used a lot in the 1980s).

For € 720 I bought an Oppo Bdp-103D which is a VERY high quality Cd/Sacd player...it's preamp section has a distortion so low some test rigs couldn't even detect it...somewhere around 0,00x or something.
Guess what...for 800 € I got a Rega Rp3 w Elys2...same amp...same speakers...the Rega just blows the Cd ! well recorded Sacd...very close...still a slight edge to the turntable (but imaging is better on sacd).
So your argument is wrong. Drums, sax, piano sounds so much natural and like real instruments on vinyl...there's no competition....even at same price point.
Furthermore...the more you go up in price the difference becomes even more embarassing. Yes I had 3000 € cd player in my system from my dealer and compared it to a Rega RP8 which I got to keep....it's just laughable really. even my wife said take that shIt off (the 3k cd player).

Up until a year ago I was the proud owner of what was probably the world's most modified and upgraded Oppo 103. And I think I can say without fear of contradiction that modded 103s in general are light years ahead of the stock 103 in terms of distortion. Everything is relative. The funny thing about distortion is you're not really aware it's there until it goes away or gets reduced. We all have our own idea of what's low distortion and what's not. It's frequently based on the erroneous belief that we know distortion when we hear it. Your ears are only as good as the best system you've ever heard. Folks are often confident their system sounds like Chateau Lafite Rothschilde but in reality it sounds like Boones Farm, I'm sorry to have to be the one to say it. The Emperor wears no clothes. Now, if I can be allowed to use cassette tape instead of vinyl to compare with my uber modded Oppo 103 the cassette tape - when compared to the same piece on CD on the Oppo - sounded fuller, more enchanting and entertaining, more like the real thing, more air, more dynamics. Even though the distortion and distortion is certainly higher for cassettes than CD,mat least so we are told. I suppose I'm making the observation here that distortion (and noise) is not really the bugaboo it's made out to be. Like the distortion in tube amps, it's not a deal breaker. I'm not saying ALL CDs are terrible, not at all. But it's all relative and subjective so it's a little tricky making gross generalizations.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica