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Topic: USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity (Read 16294 times) previous topic - next topic
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USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #25
That's the real problem right there. Even the people who should know better, the engineers, have no clue.

The problem that there are many of self-proclaimed "sound engineers". Those aren't actually engineers at all. There are some short careers (2 years or so) with title of "multimedia designer"  or "sound recording" etc.  They actually don't know how exactly Fourier transform is calculated but they can speak about it hours.

Ironically it's not rarely to see that some audio producers aren't actually sound engineers but electric/electronic engineers. Because they can measure and they don´t use terms like "musical", "warm-tube", "clinical".

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #26
Even if it were real engineers, I wonder what actual percentage of them believe in such stuff. For example, there are a few real MDs who don't accept evolution, and many that peddle alternative "medicines". Between thousands of engineers (or MDs) it shouldn't be that hard to find a few that conform to your prejudices even if it goes against their field's well established consensus.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #27
The problem that there are many of self-proclaimed "sound engineers". Those aren't actually engineers at all. There are some short careers (2 years or so) with title of "multimedia designer"  or "sound recording" etc.

In Germany, at least, you can't just call yourself "engineer" (Ing.), since the job title is protected by law. You have to have a degree from an university (of applied sciences) to be allowed to take the job title. Though this has only been the case for 40 years now. I gathered this info from the german wikipedia. So here self-proclaimed engineers should be rare to find. Maybe that's why I am shocked when statements like in the article are made by engineers.

Even if it were real engineers, I wonder what actual percentage of them believe in such stuff.

I don't suspect (or hope) that there are a lot of engineers who think that way, maybe the surge of articles dealing with the anti-digital engineers has a sampling bias by the media. It is probably not as interesting to report about engineers who know what they're doing and don't make up colorful terms when talking about their craft.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #28
The article has no scientific signature. There is no solid data, no measurements.
Pay atention to wording. There are no professional terms like dynamic range, physical properties of media, the measurements of noise, comparisons.
Not even single term.

Now that is worth to read -> http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...ths_%28Vinyl%29
Not because it's trying to demyth Vinyl but it has a serious material with a correct wording.

Here we go, the education of Pat McMakin is 2 years  and he calls himself "engineer". http://www.linkedin.com/pub/pat-mcmakin/3/745/9b8

I don't think there are many true professionals ( with solid knowledgment of  physics, analog/digital technologies) prefer Vinyl.
Because it's very well known that dynamic range of Vinyl is at best 70-75 db (melt state.)

Now there are people who admit that Vinyl is technologicaly inferior to CD but still prefer it because it add some pleasant harmonic distortion. And  It's OK indeed! But some people go beyound of that and start to create then own "theory"  to defend their preferements from digital followers.While  the actual generations (young and 30 years. old people) prefer a clean sound of CD. Just notice that most of the time the Vinyl layers are pretty old people. Not descrimination but observation.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #29
From linkedin of Pat McMakin:

Quote
I have a business education...


Who give him the right to opinate in technological field?!
His opinion is not competent  here.  It doesn't matter the years of the experience. 
The medics to operate people must be professionals.  The same is for technologies.
It's as bad as scam.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #30
Quote
Now there are people who admit that Vinyl is technologically inferior to CD but still prefer it because it add some pleasant harmonic distortion


It is not only that, vinyl technology permits relatively easy tweaking:  cartridges, tonearms, mats, phono preamps (not all of them make an audible difference, but might look good on your rig)
which cannot be done with the same effect as with cd or PC playback.
Also, a vinyl rig can look more stunning than anything else in audio.

I know, I have four TT still in operation and two more in the cupboards), among them a Transcriptors Hydraulic Reference Turntable, two Thorens TD 125 with different arms and a Technics SL10.

I usually listen to the PC server most of the time, but sometimes I feel the need to do the vinyl ritual: clean the LP, put it on, and drop the arm and listen. Plus the artwork on a 12" Lp has so much more impact then the display on the monitor or on a CD jewel case.



USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #31
Great points! And nice equipment.

I usually listen to the PC server most of the time, but sometimes I feel the need to do the vinyl ritual: clean the LP, put it on, and drop the arm and listen. Plus the artwork on a 12" Lp has so much more impact then the display on the monitor or on a CD jewel case.
I’ve thought both these things before. The physicality of the medium and size/scope of the artwork/packaging sometimes seem appealing. And I have bought vinyl editions of some of my most favourite albums. However, considerations of space, ease, efficiency, cost, the environment—, and who knows what else—mean that I wouldn’t buy vinyl records on a regular basis. Heck, I don’t even really have anything to play them on! Just an ancient Pye all-in-one hi-fi that apparently has one broken speaker/output… heh.

Back to your main argument, though, I completely agree that vinyl can be appreciated for its genuine distinctive qualities (whether audible [i.e. distortion] or not) and that there only starts to be a problem when people inevitably begin to spread unsubstantiated woo and FUD. Woo and FUD. Does anyone want to start a cartoon with characters called those?

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #32
Funny, I grew up in the transitional period from vinyl to CD, and played both media regularly at my parent's home. As a child I always found the crisp tech-ness, the compactness, the tiny booklet of the CD case and CD itself, and the sleekness of the CD-player far more appealing than the stuffy, floppy sleeves, unwieldy, fragile, dust-prone records and ditto player. Combine that with how a lot of album art is, in fact, something only a mother could love, and see me waving a fond good-riddance to all things vinyl.

So I suppose that makes me irrationally biased against vinyl?

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #33
Nah dhromed, I don't think it makes you irrationally biased. Sounds more like a rational preference

@ Kraut: that is a nice looking setup you have there. Looks like you've quite a collection of LPs as well.

I love digital audio. It was a blessing to me when I got my first CD player. I hated the cassettes I grew up with and didn't buy much on vinyl. Looking back I wish I had because those tapes were a nightmare...favorite ones were always getting chewed up.

I find myself interested in vinyl for the collectible aspects. I have to agree with db1989: I too will pick up a copy of some of my favorite albums on record. Just for the hell of it. (I like to think of it as supporting the artists I really love...even though I bought the CD or iTunes version.) They don't sound "better." They just sound "different."

My belief is that it is mostly nostalgia. When certain "audiophiles" stop crying about digital and begin admitting that it's all just "tradition" then I believe many will cease in their (very successful) efforts to debunk their bullshit.
The Loudness War is over. Now it's a hopeless occupation.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #34
Quote
So I suppose that makes me irrationally biased against vinyl?


Why irrationally? Biased is just fine on its own.

I usually warn every one off who as a newbie wants to get into vinyl. That is why I rarely participate anymore in threads when someone asks advice.
In my experience there is no, absolutely no vinyl out there that is without surface noise, and I have to rely on almost fifty years of vinyl playback.
Even in the golden age of vinyl, often enough I put on a new LP that started with a barrage of surface noise on the lead in track, to continue like that throughout the record in between songs.
No amount of cleaning would do.
I have one among two thousands records I own at present one (there maybe one or two more at max)that is really quiet, and could be mistaken for a CD - a first Canadian pressing of the first Stones album. But even there - Some noise can be still heard on some breaks between tracks, but it is pleasantly unobtrusive.

I buy all my vinyl used, some is still from my original collection from the sixties and seventies. I ran wet, and still do on the Thorenses today. On the Technics that is not possible, with the result that even on clean records (I clean before every playback with 50/50 Isoprop/aqua dest.) after playback I have dust bunnies collected on the stylus because of the static attraction.

I love vinyl still because I grew up with it, my first TT was a Braun (1966) with considerable rumble, and it was then I started to tweak to get the noise down. The Transcriptors in the picture above I own since 1971, when I picked it up from a dealer in Oxford Street, London.
Yes, there is tacky artwork out there, but that applies to CD's as well. And if it is tacky (like the Hendrix EL with the nudes) - I want to see it in the full revealed glory of at least 12" x 12".

I embraced CD fully when it came out, and after a relapse triggered in part by Fremer's tirades I set up my vinyl again in 1995, only to conclude after AB comparisons  that the CD sound is in no way inferior, and superior to the LP being free of surface noise.
I still have the players as I like the "tangibility" of vinyl and the accompanying rigging (I clean and maintain and tweak all players myself), and the nostalgia of my own life with HIFI.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #35
I was a wee lad in the 80's. Yes, my bias against vinyl was intuitively practical in nature (small hands, large record), but my preference for CD was 100% emotional, as I had absolutely no technical concept of audio -- save for a "laser" that would reflect off a "pattern" on the pretty shiny CD.

My final sin against sanity, putting heart over mind, was ripping my all-time favourite CD at 48KHz/320CBR. After that I wizened up.

Quote
Yes, there is tacky artwork out there, but that applies to CD's as well.


All the more reason to make this art as small and unobtrusive as possible.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #36
two Thorens TD 125 with different arms


Hm, none of which seem to look like mine. Lots of them here: http://thorenshistorypage.tripod.com/ .
Some even equipped them with a tangential arm: http://www.wired4sound.net.au/sources/thorens/thorens.htm

Mine looks a bit like this: http://www.retrohifi.co.uk/thorens_125.html . With SME 3009. Last seen fitted with an Ortofon MC-30 Super (not even a Supreme) ... once in a different millennium. But selling my vinyl? Naaaah ...

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #37
As the thread is off the rails for now...

The one Thorens has a plinth made of three layers of marine plywood, and sports an SME III tonearm.
The other Thorens is just painted black (any good audio equipment has to be black imho) and is equipped with an tangential air bearing MG1.

 


I have no interest on keeping electronic artifacts I use pristine for collectors purposes. I change them and - sometimes - succeed in "upgrading" them, making them more useful.

USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #38
Also, a vinyl rig can look more stunning than anything else in audio.

I must respectfully disagree:


USA Today: Music lovers pursue technologies to return to high fidelity

Reply #40
(any good audio equipment has to be black imho)


Well ... a web search suggests that the JBL Paragon was at one point in time available in black, so ... that means Avantgarde has no valid excuse anymore?

I'm willing to forgive these guys for choosing red, though. It probably doesn't make the big difference to the spouse acceptance factor:
http://www.mollamusic.com/uploads/images/w..._18-08-2004.jpg

Edit: Haha! http://community.klipsch.com/forums/storag...20119967914.jpg