Hi-Fi Corner - Vinyl, CD, Cassettes and the rest

[Vanni]

I got the Denon cart on the strength of a recommendation on vinylengine - something to do with tonearm mass or somesuch. I had OM10 and OM20 carts on a Dual 505 I had - I liked them a lot, but they weren't a good fit for the Thorens apparently, so they got sold.

Well, if you're a contributor to forums such as Vinyl Engine then I do sincerely apologise. Sometimes such forums can be helpful, in fact I remember the only time I posted on VE was some 5 years when a mate of mine had a cart I couldn't recognise and so asked the experts on there what it was, and sure enough they helped me out. Also, like I said before, sometimes I google something like "does 'insert name here' cart sound bright or dull' and I get redirected to VE and other similar forums. Although no one has the same ears and what one reads isn't always the truth.

But, otoh, I don't like endless debates on DD vs BD, or new vs vintage. Especially when some poor guy asks about two recent decks and he gets told to seek out vintage instead. For starters, he's asking about new because he is probably useless with a soldering iron or any other repairs that one encounters when going vintage. Sure, tell him once that vintage means better value but if he says no then stop there.

But like I said before, I'm sorry if you're a member of VE and others.

 

[appletablepenny]

God no, don't apologise. I registered to ask the question, no offence taken at all.

 

[Vanni]

Excellent. Now I'm off to listen to the one and only Jaz Coleman and the rest of his gang, the Joke.

 

[Vanni]

A guy comes home after a hard days work (modelling clothes for some high street brand), looks through his mediocre record collection and picks out some generic house music crap on a 12" ep. He then determines if the record he's about to play is flat, and after he's satisfied that indeed it is, he puts it on the platter, lowers the tonearm and........voila, the platter is floating. Astounding!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/245727224/mag-lev-audio-the-first-levitating-turntable

My question is this - what difference does it make if the record is flat or not when the platter's wobbling? (disclaimer - at least that what it looks like )

 

[Habbinalan]

A guy comes home after a hard days work (modelling clothes for some high street brand), looks through his mediocre record collection and picks out some generic house music crap on a 12" ep. He then determines if the record he's about to play is flat, and after he's satisfied that indeed it is, he puts it on the platter, lowers the tonearm and........voila, the platter is floating. Astounding!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/245727224/mag-lev-audio-the-first-levitating-turntable

My question is this - what difference does it make if the record is flat or not when the platter's wobbling? (disclaimer - at least that what it looks like )

I can think of so many better uses for that technology (apart from use in ground breaking animations with monorails or Hoverboards) but, when I looked for some images to mess with, I discovered I'd been beaten to it.

How about a levitating blue-tooth speaker? I'm tempted but for the backroom, bedroom or kitchen - not to replace my Dentons

.....or for the bedroom?

 

[Vanni]

Sorry guys but I need to take this off my chest!

I think I was a bit harsh on those audiophile forums yesterday. Thing is there are several aspects to deal with when it comes to audio, and turntables probably top this list. For instance, let's take EightiesRobin's dilemma of whether he sticks with Denon carts or go for another brand. First thing he's got to find someone who has got personal experience with said cart, otherwise any advice given would be pretty much useless. And where is the likeliest place to ask around? The audiophile forum of course.

Another thing is that I was 'lucky' in a sense as I spent close to year doing some part time work with an audio importer/retailer, back when the internet wasn't widespread as it is now. My job was ordering spare parts and the like, but I also got to spend a lot of time with the techies, so I got to learn about stuff like cartridge alignment/overhang/anti skating/tonearm resonance and other things. Added to this, I often used to bump into a neighbor of mine who knew a lot about this whole stuff, so that certainly helped too.

Point I'm trying to make is this - I didn't have to ask around on the audiophile forums, but only because I found help from other places. So yeah, audiophile forums are most certainly beneficial especially for novices.

 

[Habbinalan]

OK. So this thread, that I worried was going to die a death as we recalled shopping expeditions like a bunch of wannabe David Dickinsons, has already proved cathartic for some of us and

upset.

others.

The Soimii Pancota thread brought a warm glow as I remembered buddies from Pitești, Brașov and Dotnuva Akademija (Lithuania - another story). This one brings back memories of cassettes picked up in Sierra Leone in 1982 (I think).

It has also got me working on the wife to consider a new sound system for the garden room and considering a cartridge change. Should I go for:

".....MIYAJIMA ZERO
Price: £995
www.time-step.com


Available in both 1mil or 0.7mil formats, this hand-made mono design from Japan is set within African Blackwood (known for its musical qualities, this Tanzanian wood is used to make musical instruments such as clarinets). Playing the 1mil version on old jazz vocal records was nothing short of a revelation. Put it this way, the Zero made a mono record sound far more exciting and impressive than any stereo record that I’ve ever heard. In fact, stereo sounded gimmicky, in comparison. It was that good...."

or should it be:

".....REGA CARBON
Price: £25
www.rega.co.uk


Nice thing about this budget MM cartridge is that it sounds good, despite what you might do to it. So, unlike those expensive cartridges that demand an exacting set-up procedure, the Carbon is a pretty relaxed cookie. Offering solid bass and decent upper mids, this is one cartridge that will never let you down....."


Remembering that the kids in the Shoutbox (and from Google) are watching, is there anything else that someone wants to get out there?

 

[appletablepenny]

I would refer you to any number of audiophile forums for further advice.....

 

[Aber gas]

This is one from boot sale trawling. Quite hard to find and expensive but I got it for about £1 in a mixed lot.
I was very pleased.

 

[appletablepenny]

I never see anything of that ilk at car boots, good score

 

[Vanni]

Well, the reason for my previous post was because I thought there has got to be some forum members who contribute to audiophile Forums so I didn't want to come across as rude, or even worse,someone who knows it all because I most certainly do not.

Now Alan,what's this Rega Carbon business all about? Pfft.....go for the other one even though I've never heard of it before.

 

[Habbinalan]

Well, the reason for my previous post was because I thought there has got to be some forum members who contribute to audiophile Forums so I didn't want to come across as rude, or even worse,someone who knows it all because I most certainly do not.

Now Alan,what's this Rega Carbon business all about? Pfft.....go for the other one even though I've never heard of it before.

Random ridiculousness - although I did like the idea of a wooden cartridge. I can't even remember what cartridge I've got.

http://thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-fa...cartridges-to-achieve-ultimate-sound-quality/

 

[Vanni]

Random ridiculousness - although I did like the idea of a wooden cartridge. I can't even remember what cartridge I've got.

http://thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-fa...cartridges-to-achieve-ultimate-sound-quality/

I know you were only kidding Alan! The disparity between those two carts couldn't be more obvious, and not only in cost price. The Zero or whatever it's called is a Mono cart.

As for that article you've linked, the only one I've got out of that lot is the humble AT95E, and I only got it so I could see what all the fuss was about. I'm happy to report that it is indeed a giant killer, and easily beats other carts costing twice as much.

 

[Stagat]

These are ace.

Alex Bartsch has cycled around London rephotographing the locations of classic British reggae albums – from back gardens to ruined abbeys

 

[Modernist]

I used to be a bit of an audiophile with my vinyl.
I was so obsessed with the sound that I would constantly look out for what was deemed to be the best set up.
I realized that the fun of the music was being lost when all I cared about was 'is this the best it could sound'.

So one day I said screw it. Went back to my old hacker grenadier, bought cheap vinyl and went back to loving playing music again and the sound to me sounds just as good.

I'm a big 45rpm fan so have a large singles collection. All my albums are on cd though. This works out great though I can listen to both formats plus singles are pretty cheap and cd albums are too so I can constantly buy stuff.

Never really understood the appeal of mp3, to me it sounds awful, but that aside apart from the ability to listen to music on the move I don't know why anyone would want to listen to mp3 at home. The idea of not owning a physical copy of the music just seems like a massive rip off.

 

[Pagnell]

Sound quality is important to me, but not to the point where I sit next to the speakers and try to discern the difference between a high bit rate lossy or FLAC and a vinyl or CD. And anyway, for that difference to be obvious you would need to be playing it through some expensive kit, and I have more important things to spend money on. Half the time the quality limitation is what you're playing it through, not the quality of the source itself.

Touching the point raised in the previous post, I used to collect a lot of music, and not having it in the form of a physical medium would have annoyed me. But like with books and ebooks, such things no longer bother me. As long as I have a means of legally playing the music, and the quality is good enough to appreciate it, I'm happy. For some the act of having to change the music in terms of a vinyl or a CD is part of the listening experience, and that's a perfectly valid claim. I don't buy into it myself though, and having a thousand albums in lossless format a couple of button presses away is the way to go.

 

[Techno Natch]

I used to be a bit of an audiophile with my vinyl.
I was so obsessed with the sound that I would constantly look out for what was deemed to be the best set up.
I realized that the fun of the music was being lost when all I cared about was 'is this the best it could sound'.

So one day I said screw it. Went back to my old hacker grenadier, bought cheap vinyl and went back to loving playing music again and the sound to me sounds just as good.

I'm a big 45rpm fan so have a large singles collection. All my albums are on cd though. This works out great though I can listen to both formats plus singles are pretty cheap and cd albums are too so I can constantly buy stuff.

Never really understood the appeal of mp3, to me it sounds awful, but that aside apart from the ability to listen to music on the move I don't know why anyone would want to listen to mp3 at home. The idea of not owning a physical copy of the music just seems like a massive rip off.

I used to feel the same way it simply isn't economical to buy new single EPs for £8 plus. As Pagnell has said Flac and Wav files sound just as good or at least it's not that noticeable to me that it destroys my enjoyment. No one should be buying MP3's really and they do sound bad on a proper set up.

 

[Vanni]

Flac, Wav and other lossless formats are a better option than mp3's, especially on a revealing sound system. Still, there are cases when one would have a very hard time distinguishing between a 320kbps and a Flac, esp. on certain music genres but only as long as it's a 320 one, as it's rather easy to hear the difference between a 128kbps mp vs Flac.

To say there is no difference between digital(Flac) and analogue is just plain wrong. I don't want to be misunderstood, I have hundreds of cds and flac files so I'm most definitely not a vinyl-only snob. In fact, I only buy vinyl new records by my favourite artists, and go for the cd/flac option for those artists I'm not that keen on, and I do this more nowadays as new vinyl is getting costlier by the day. Still, the fact remains that digital formats are being mixed way too loud nowadays and way too compressed, and in a lot of cases virtually unlistenable.

 

[Pagnell]

To say there is no difference between digital(Flac) and analogue is just plain wrong..

I don't think anyone has claimed that, have they? Quite often there is no discernible difference, as a result of the playback equipment as much as anything else.

 

[Vanni]

I don't think anyone has claimed that, have they? Quite often there is no discernible difference, as a result of the playback equipment as much as anything else.

Techno Natch said and I quote - "I used to feel the same way it simply isn't economical to buy new single EPs for £8 plus. As Pagnell has said Flac and Wav files sound just as good or at least it's not that noticeable to me that it destroys my enjoyment"

I take it he's referring to vinyl.

 

[Pagnell]

Techno Natch said and I quote - "I used to feel the same way it simply isn't economical to buy new single EPs for £8 plus. As Pagnell has said Flac and Wav files sound just as good or at least it's not that noticeable to me that it destroys my enjoyment"

I take it he's referring to vinyl.

But that's not claiming it's no different, that's saying the difference often isn't noticeable. And to touch on my previous comment regarding the quality of the playback equipment, it's not an unreasonable assertion.

 

[Vanni]

But that's not claiming it's no different, that's saying the difference often isn't noticeable. And to touch on my previous comment regarding the quality of the playback equipment, it's not an unreasonable assertion.

Then I beg to differ. There is always a discernible difference afaic as vinyl can sound great if played on a decent turntable, and very poor if played on some ION crap.

 

[Pagnell]

Then I beg to differ. There is always a discernible difference afaic as vinyl can sound great if played on a decent turntable, and very poor if played on some ION crap.

How does that differ to the quality differences various DACs would produce from a digital source?

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Touching the point raised in the previous post, I used to collect a lot of music

 

[Pagnell]

Alas, I don't have that single Carel.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

 

[Techno Natch]

Techno Natch said and I quote - "I used to feel the same way it simply isn't economical to buy new single EPs for £8 plus. As Pagnell has said Flac and Wav files sound just as good or at least it's not that noticeable to me that it destroys my enjoyment"

I take it he's referring to vinyl.

Yeah worded it slightly wrong. Basically it's not noticeable enough that it destroys my enjoyment. There is definitely a difference between vinyl and Digital. When I started mixing I was all out vinyl but the debates been done to death.

 

[appletablepenny]

Here is part of a great jazz vinyl score from a couple of years ago. Average price about £2 each.

 

[appletablepenny]

 

[appletablepenny]