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69.198.90.199
After reading the thread below on precentage of your anolg systems it is pretty obvious why most of you prefer your analog.In general to what Iv'e seen below while analog is close to 50% of your total investment, digital hardly reaches 10%. Could this be why your prefer analog to digital, because your digital is basically crap when compared to your analog set-ups. You think?
Follow Ups:
My story:
I got into "audiophile" playback as CD only.
I had given all my records away over 15 years before I even heard of audiophile components.. A year or so ago I thought my tweaked out $2500 CDP was pretty good.. but although it impressed my friends, it still sounded a bit hard on my ears.. so I bought a tube amp and was fairly satisfied with my system.That's when a close friend went through a breakup/divorce and asked if he could store his old Technics TT and modest record collection with me. Of course curiousity took hold: I picked up a $99 phono preamp and fired up his TT through my existing system. The first track left my CDP in the dust.. the sound wasn't more detailed, dynamic, or whatever.. it was just more emotionally involving.
So $3000 or so later I have a good TT/cart/preamp and a cheapy cd player for background music in the kitchen.
Bonus: LP's are generally less expensive then CD's, and I find myself listening to a greater variety of genres.
It really doesn't cost much for a very high-quality digital recording and playback system. Now that dither is used in recording and jitter is virtually eliminated in playback, digital sound quality exceeds even the most expensive vinyl playback system.Best regards,
John Elison
nt
It's an Ack dAck filterless, non-oversampling DAC fed by a fifty-buck mildly-modded Toshiba 3950 DVD/CD player. It sounds so good I could, and sometimes do, listen to it all day.But I have three turntables, four tonearms, and endless cartridges, so I'm proving your point, right?
I really don't think so. For one thing, I also have a $3K Sony SACD/CD player I don't listen to much. For another, I've ALWAYS had three turntables (just not the same ones) and my current best-of-breed, doesn't cost that much more than the digital setup. For the record: re-plinthed Lenco L-78, Rega arm, Denon DL-103 cart, Denon step-up trannie.
There's no crap in my system -- well, IMHO. I prefer vinyl if only because I have five times as much of it. It's only been recently that I found digital very listenable indeed. I still (at 76) buy more LPs than CDs. But the bottom line is that it's all music and it can all be great-sounding. The vinyl just sounds a little greater.
No..My Vinyl started winning at 50% cost of my CDP, at equal cost vinly was a winner, at 150% cost I'm not willing to try make digital equal.
Which ver of digital would I thrown money at, CD (End of life technology), SACD, DVA Audio, do I look at hard disk of some kind & online downloads, what's that I hear abou blu-ray. I'll wait till something amazes me then consider..
Vinyl has staying power others may not & I can upgrade in stages, which is great. Need a new arm!!
Cheers.
Sometimes LPs sound better, other times the digital ones are better. To me, it's a function of the recording, not the playback method. But, I have roughy the same investment in both front ends. I might feel differently if my digital rig didn't have the same relative high performance as my analog rig.
Both my front ends cost reasonably the same at base purchase prices. I am adding upgrades to the vinyl because I became convinced that vinyl sounded better when I had a found-in-the-trash Sansui turntable and added a Grado Green cartridge ... which costs about $60, much less than the CDP at the time. And there was something that was organically lusher in the sound...this is the place where the vinyl-head becomes a vortex of adverbs.It is a wonder that the digitals browse thru these posts. Are they looking to be convinced of their rightness, looking for a fight [which is always fun], or looking to be persuaded into vinyl? Who knows.
that was at least as expensive as my analog stuff.I don't have high-end analog gear by any stretch of the imagination, but I had the opportunity to compare my CD player (ARCAM CD73) and a loaner (ARCAM FMJ-CD33) to my old analog stuff. Its no shock since I hang around here what I'll say next, but my preference for the analog front-end is not based on bias of any sort. It just sounds better.
Like many of the other vinylphiles here, I tried digital when it was released. I found myself unable to tolerate listening sessions I once found routine. After I returned to analog the long listening sessions returned. You could argue that digital has greatly improved over the years (especially in the past 10 yrs), but even my recent model ARCAM experience leves me cold toward digital. I still can't enjoy it for any length of time.
Perhaps its just my rotten ears, but I've got a lot of company around here that relay similar experiences.
Ed
We don't shush around here! (Siegfried)
My system
I had a $20,000 Linn CD12 at my home for a short while (with the prerequisite audiophile buddies that wanted to hear it) and a $350 Music Hall 2.1 turntable and the inexpensive TT sounded at least as good, if not better, on so many recordings that I thought...maybe I should dump my expensive CD player (NOT the CD12 I borrowed) and put that money into an analog playback rig. And guess what, I haven't regretted a day since.
I have 2 data points:1) I compared my eventual analog setup (VPI Scout/JMW-9 arm with HRX platter and bearing, Sumiko Celebration cartridge - total about $3500) with a high-end digital setup (Meridian 808 Signature Reference CD player - about $13,000). Both were connected to the same Classe CDP-500 Pre-amp (with integrated phono card) with AudioQuest Sky interconnects (RCA for the TT, XLR for the CD), which was connnected to the same downstream equipment - 2 Classe CAM400 monoblock amps, B&W 800D speakers, AudioQuest Everest speaker cables, AudioQuest Sky interconnects from pre-amp to amps.
I had several recordings on both vinyl and CD - 60s/70s rock, jazz, classical. Although the comparison varied a little from recording to recording, the vinyl always sounded at least as good as the CD to me and several others; on some recordings the vinyl "blew away" the CD, on others it was more of a draw. But the CD (and it's really quite a good one) never "blew away" the vinyl - despite being almost 4 times more expensive ($13K versus $3.5K).
2) My original TT was a Project Xpression 1 costing about $425. It always compared very favorably with my CD at home (a Classe CDP-100 costing about $3500), and "blew it away" on some recordings. So much so that I "converted" to vinyl and bought the VPI Scout combo described above. My new vinyl rig came in at about the same price as my CDP, and I enjoy it more.
I still enjoy CDs, but I probably listen to vinyl 85% of the time. I find it more engaging. I also never get listening fatigue with vinyl, but do sometimes with CDs. As a bonus, (most) LPs are cheaper than CDs (I buy mostly used LPs, usually for between 50 cents and $5).
Haven't compared an SACD, as it looks like they are not going to succeed in the market and SACD titles are still somewhat limited (at least for what Im'm interested in).
rlindsa - new vinyl freakThere are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats. (Albert Schweitzer)
In my post, I clearly indicated that my spend on the analog side was over 3 times that of the digital and that this confirmed that digital was an incredible bargain!!!I consider my analog rig and my digital rig to be substantially equal in terms of overall sound quality and listening enjoyment.
Sure, there are nits to pick on both but they are damned close!!!I never left the analog camp, but I also have invested heavily in the digital camp over the years since I love music.
I have had many mis-steps along the way, but I finally reached a point where the digital rig is up to snuff. Also, this is not even close to the most expensive digital front-end I have tried. In fact, it's one of the cheapest!It's all a matter of numbers now. There is way more R&D investment going on in digital audio than in analog; and that's the way it should be. New music typically only comes in digital format, so it would be stupid to invest otherwise.
I'm gratified that advancements have come fast and furious to the point where even dyed-in-the-wool analog guys can sit and listen to music from a cd without being horrified!
Happy fishing :-)
cheers,
Send an instant karma to me...
-Ray
even somewhat costly ones stop working for one reason or another and then the transports are no longer available. repair costs exceed the original value of the players.yes, there are some VERY reliable ones out there but many of us have had them fail at one time or another. this i only one factor.
i embraced digital somewhat early on but never thought of dumping my music collection, and i also didnt want to have the experience of those that dumped their tubed equipment early on for ss.
as time wore on, i felt that the sound of vinyl was ultimately superior, problems and all.
then i bought the sony ns500v entry level dvd/sacd/cdp so as to give sacd a try. sacd was fine right out of the box. then i came to realize that the RBCDs were sounding way better than i EVER expected using the sony.
this flies in the face of all i was reading on the net about cheeeep dvdps not sounding good with cd. now i buy more RBCD product (mostly because new music is mostly not on vinyl nor sacd).
as good as the sound has gotten, i still marvel how much better vinyl sounds and is RELAXING AND SATISFYING. those last words in caps are a key. rbcd is not those things. and it is not something you can detect in an A/B test of short duration.
i have made this suggestion to skeptics who much later (months) come back to me and remind me of that statement and indicate their strong concurrence. these are not audiophiles but average people that dont have huge amounts of cash tied up in either format.
i have been privy to some VERY nice digital reproduction equipment and none of it has R&S although it was certainly musical and entertaining.
so analog and digital co-exist in my system and will continue to do so for a LONG time.
...regards...tr
Two points Balance.(1)Hi-Fi mags I've read over the years, when testing Very,Very expensive CD players,nearly always come up in their conclusion comments-"This is the CLOSEST wev'e come to vinyl as yet".Says it all does'nt it.
(2)Was the advent of SA-cd an admittance that CD wasn't as wonderful as many were led to believe?And SACD hasn't, as far as I'm aware caught on.
I sold to a mate approx 18 months ago, a Teac 700 Transport and 700 Dac,at the time I had a Girodek,fully modded RB250,Denon DL304.Hardly used the Teac,could'nt come close to the analogue set-up,both cost the same give or take.
It was with a $1500 Nottingham, and it still is with a $2500 Scoutmaster. Go buy a good used album you've known all your life on CD and play it at a local stereo store that sells turntables. The game will be over. Was for me. Interestingly, it wasn't just a matter of "warmth," (my biggest peeve about CDs), but the astonishing improvement in imagining, stage depth and width too. But please, don't push up the cost of Lps on ebay anymore than they are. : )
Keep in mind that, once past entry level, analog involves more gear and more expensive gear than does digital. One can get a more than decent SACD player for $300 and that's all one needs. For analog you need a turntable with tone arm, a cartridge and a phono preamplifier. It does not take a rocket scientist to add the numbers.
Now, where is that troll policeman. Officer!! Yo!
HenryCogito Ergo Spud
wrong. go buy a mmf 2.1 or used rega p3. that'll sound better than a 30 sacd player. trust me, i've tried. used a mmf 2.1 with goldring cart vs music hall maverick, mmf 2.1 sounded better. you dont necessarily need to buy each piece individually, its a bit misleading.
my religion is rock 'n' roll
nt
HenryCogito Ergo Spud
I thought the point of this hobby (although with the large amounts invested by some it's more than a hobby) was to encourage and inform others and build up interest in vinyl and form a larger vinyl community. Perhaps it's just to pass along information. By using this "troll" label, it is clear that there is discrimination toward those who might become more interested in vinyl by looking here, if they are considered "outsiders" or uninitiated. This does no good to our "hobby" and ut frankly rude. or do some people feel that this site is a private domain where they have the right to exclude others?
Balance, I'm getting the impression here that you unloaded all your vinyl and now wish you hadn't.
HenryCogito Ergo Spud
others made great points, you on the otherhand........
many of us decide, for a variety of reasons, that analog is far superior, even on budget systems. THEN, we decide that analog is where our major investment should go.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
Hey Kava,That's EXACTLY correct. My system is growing more vintage all the time (don't have the big income anymore, but I digress) but in my case, I spent almost exactly the same on my digital and analog front ends, both obtained in the 80's. High quality stuff. Then over time there were an array of cartridges, DACs, cables, etc., etc. and I came to realize that digital simply doesn't move me.
I also think that because virtually all audio shops have used digital front ends for 20+ years, I can easily better the sound of 90% of what I hear in shops with my relatively modest system in my home. For example, when shopping for my Maggie 1.6's, the local dealer's setup couldn't even obtain a stable center voice image. It was pitiful, actually. His shop also carried Martin Logan but again, very poor sound quality obtained when being driven with a digital front end. I KNOW these baby’s can sing, but not in his shop. Digital is great for convenience, but I'm not into this hobby for convenience, you know?
Cheers, Joe
Hi Joe,Yup - I agree - I just find myself leaving the CeeDee player off most of the time. I CAN get into it - it sounds very good but - it ain't analog.
As for selecting gear in a salon - I can't remember the last time I was in one where the sound wasn't raucous. Just terrible.
There is (was?) a local dealer who sold the Maggies and I brought home a pair of the 1.6s sure that I would love 'em. Had original Vandie 2-Cs at the time. Damned if I could get 'em to work in my room. Tried them every which way. In one position everything but the bass was good - in another, ONLY the bass was good.
So - I settled on my current 2-CE Signatures which, believe it or not, share a lot of the planar characteristics. No mistake though, they are just as placement sensitive as the Maggies.
Your system looks great BTW and I am NOT dissing Maggies. I've heard them sound great on many occasions. Just not in my room. Drove the wife nuts moving them around.
Best,
Dave
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
Hi Dave,Yeah, I drove myself nuts for a LONG while myself, too. My issue was way too much sound coming from the left channel. I was going nuts trying to figure it out. I think in the end it was problems resulting from my biwiring with the Audioquest Midnights. I remember reading in the Mapleshade catalog that biwiring causes more issues than it solves. That really struck me because of course they manufacture and sell their own wires. I tried it and was very pleased with the results. Goes against the audiophile mantra that biwiring is THE way to go. Mr. Sprey knows his stuff, IMO.
Hey, believe me; I like the Vandy sound, too. I'm using my 2Ci's in my home theatre setup and every once in a while I haul 'em down into the basement just for the fun of it. 16 years later they sound great, and look like the day I brought 'em home. Wow, talk about a great value! Haven't heard the 2Ce Sigs but have no doubt they make beautiful music Richard van der Steen seems to be another one of those with the magic touch.
Cheers, Joe
You have honed in on the high dollar ones, but there are many of us with medium cost analog systems that still consider them to be way better than our medium level digital systems.Dick Schneiders
can blow the doors off much more expensive CDPs. BUT - I DO think I answered his question as to why analog expenditures seem high in the ration. He thought so anyway.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
.
My vintage analog setup beats my mid priced digital setup anyday!
If this is truly the case then I stand corrected. I was not trying to piss anybody off but it just sounded weird to me, thats all.CASE CLOSED
How can they make an educated decision, they just can't!!
They can listen at a friends house, borrow a high-end CD player or do a side-by-side in a store.You don't have to spend (waste?) money to make an informed decision.
Dean.
My digital front end cost nearly $4000. It was money wasted, and your theory doesn't hold water because an $80 Rek-O-Kut setup sounds better to me.
nt
my religion is rock 'n' roll
My Analog:Table: JVC QL-50 (used) $50
Arm: Luxman TA-1 (used) $75
Cartridge: ATOC9 (used) $150Total Analog = $275
CD Player: Audio Refinement CD Complete, Alpha Version (used) $595
Total Digital = $595
I spent twice as much on my digital as I did on my analog and it does not sound nearly as good. The only CD player I have owned that came close to sounding as good as my table was an ARC CD2 (bought used for $1500) ...which I sold, because for a CD player worth $1500 not to keep up with a table that cost me $275 seemed silly to me.
Dean.
nt
.
A picture says a thousand words ;-)
but c'mon you have to wonder if there is any merit to what I am saying. How someone say they prefer analog if they dont even give digital a chance. 30-40% compared to less than 10% You can't make an educated decision based on these numbers, you just can't!
Still, I don't think that reasoning explains most LP-listeners' preference for analog over digital.I have more invested in digital gear (not to mention a DAT machine is my most frequently used piece of equipment) but I still prefer the sound offered by records.
-Anthony
In a lot of cases guys bought into digital early on, and continued to progress with their digital setups. One day for some reason, maybe they wanted to convert a record to CD, or whatever, they pulled the turntable out of the closet. That's when they discovered that their old Dual sounded better than their brand new Krell transport and DAC. As time rocked on, the digital stuff found its way to the closet, and the turntable was exponentially upgraded, often to super analog setups. Most of us never bothered to look back as our records collections grew, and we probably never will.Me? I never left vinyl. I tried the digital, but it never set me ablaze with enthusiasm.
What if you never left vinyl but you kept buying digital equipment until one day you discovered that digital sounded better than vinyl. You discovered that digital recordings made with proper dither and played back on low jitter players with outstanding analog electronics sounded better than your best vinyl. Then you came into some money and you decided to upgrade your vinyl front end to the tune of $15,000 and low and behold, digital still sounded better. After that you knew that digital beat vinyl every time and you can't understand why all these vinyl enthusiasts can't hear the same thing you hear. You definitely hear the difference between CDs and LPs, but you prefer CDs every time. Then you get a real good high-resolution digital recorder and copy LP's to digital, and low and behold, the digital copies sound just like vinyl. This pretty much confirms all the distortion measurements you've read about relative to the two formats and you know beyond reasonable doubt that the difference in sound quality between digital and vinyl is totally due to significantly greater distortion produced by the vinyl format.What if it happened like that?
Best regards,
John Elison
I was setting up a new sub a few weeks back and after the vinyl test I gave it a cd test.I hadn't listened to a cd in over 6 months.I was quite honestly shocked at how inferior the sound was.I thought my draw to vinyl was for the ritual and tweaking.When I looked back I was surprised how long it had been since I played a disc.Also copied a few records to disc and tried the disc on my system...sounded like an early cd.So much for wasting my time with that....I will never listen to a digital copy of a record.
Regards
Larry.
Sound judgement is forced on us by age and experience
The original allure of digital was how quiet it was, combined with the fact that stores were dropping vinyl right and left. Of course, now I know a little bit more about how to get the most from LPs.-Bry
it is a hassle to get things right. but it is worth it. cd's brought a false sense of ease but if is really about the music then ... analog/vinyl front end, even with pops, clicks, whatever, even old records that just won't clean up good, or finding out of print stuff ... there is a passion here that is not expressed in the digital domain [pun intended]
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