More Ramblings from a Fellow 'Phoole

MGPK

WilliamM2 wrote: »

All that rambling, and you failed to mention one of the most important things. The ROOM.

Room treatments will yield much greater improvement than any equipment upgrade.

And Steve is right on about listening to the music, not the equipment.

You hit the nail on the head. Besides speakers, your room is the second most important component. This is what I believe to be the hierarchy of an audio system in order of importance:

1. Speakers
2. Room (acoustical treatments)
3. Source components
4. Amplification
5. Cables

Systems

MGPK wrote: »

This what I believe to be the hierarchy of an audio system in order of importance:

1. Speakers
2. Room (acoustical treatments)
3. Source components
4. Amplification
5. Cables

I agree mostly,I might give 1 and 2 equal #1 status.
A good speaker in an excellent room may well sound better than a excellent speaker in a poor room.

W WALDECKER

Numbers #2 #6 and #11 especialy ring true with me ,:D thanks for a Great Topic Early B....WCW III

Polkitup2

#3 - Just replaced my source to pre interconnect and pre to amp interconnects with audioquest Viper and Diamondback respectively. I had been using Outlaw Audio interconnects and some cheaper Transparent interconnects. After I bought them and I was driving home I was thinking like what an idiot I am for spending money on new cables when my existing cables should be just fine. After listening, it was much more of an improvement than I expected and I felt the money was well spent.

reeltrouble1

#12 get some tubes.:D

RT1

mulveling

A corollary to #2 and #4: Get a good vinyl rig! Do it right. Fund it by selling existing gear, if you have to. Go vinyl hunting! It's fun, and once you're all set up you'll have an severely enhanced ability to enjoy music, not just analyze it.

Yashu

Or on the flip side of that coin I would put my rule #13:

A PC, when set up properly, competes with the best transports out there, yet you can have every album you own right at your fingertips. I look at the PC (as a source) sortof like a TT... there is a certain combination of science, art, and luck (and money)... it is a tweaker's paradise.

F1nut

A PC, when set up properly, competes with the best transports out there, yet you can have every album you own right at your fingertips. I look at the PC (as a source) sortof like a TT... there is a certain combination of science, art, and luck (and money)... it is a tweaker's paradise.

I think not.

madmax

Yashu wrote: »

I look at the PC (as a source) sortof like a TT...

Look at it as a source if you must but please, not like a TT. :eek:

More like an audio library. I've heard sources such as FM, XM radio etc described this way. The PC fits right in.

madmax

Yashu

You cannot compare a PC to low-fi sources like XM and FM (even indie FM) radio. With PC audio you can tweak so many things with so many varying qualities that, like it or not, are analogous (pun intended) to a phonograph. Just like a TT, every tiny little detail makes audible differences, there are a million and one ways to get from point A to B, and it can get very expensive very fast if you are not careful.

I am not knocking vinyl at all, I am saying that just because PC audio is digital, doesn't make it any less difficult or rewarding to pursue. I have both a TT and a PC in my hifi, and both require just as much planning and effort to get the most out of them.

I love my TT, but besides a few nitche audiophile pressings, good vinyl just isn't being made anymore... and if you ever do find some modern music on vinyl it is either made for DJs, or some "nostalgia" pressing that, at best, is going to sound only as good as it's redbook counterpart.

But that is not what I was talking about anyway, as I said, PC audiophilia can be a rewarding effort, and is worth consideration, especially if you love to tweak.

hearingimpared

Yashu wrote: »

Or on the flip side of that coin I would put my rule #13:

A PC, when set up properly, competes with the best transports out there, yet you can have every album you own right at your fingertips. I look at the PC (as a source) sortof like a TT... there is a certain combination of science, art, and luck (and money)... it is a tweaker's paradise.

There is no way on God's Good Green Earth that you can even consider or even make a comparison "sortof like a TT". :eek:

markmarc

A PC, when set up properly, competes with the best transports out there, yet you can have every album you own right at your fingertips. I look at the PC (as a source) sortof like a TT... there is a certain combination of science, art, and luck (and money)... it is a tweaker's paradise.

Convience, absolutely. Tweaking opportunities, you bet. Transport quality, not even close. Too much vibration, electronic noise, output connection, etc. etc.

While I'm a firmbeliever in synergy, quality source componentry still trumps it, but not by much, IMHO. The key is finding the best of both worlds. That to me requires patience, and the ability to listen to the experiences of the various forum(s) members.

hearingimpared

Yashu wrote: »

I love my TT, but besides a few nitche audiophile pressings, good vinyl just isn't being made anymore... and if you ever do find some modern music on vinyl it is either made for DJs, or some "nostalgia" pressing that, at best, is going to sound only as good as it's redbook counterpart.

That is soooooo not true. I can name several great recordings that are new by pretty new bands and are excellant vinyl examples. I'm no DJ just the average Joe LP purchasing dude.

I will pit my copies of Maroon 5's "Songs about Jane," The Shins, "Wincing the Night Away," "Chutes Too Narrow," & Arcade Fire "Funeral" against their redbook counterparts and the LP blows the CD away with ease. I would have to agree with you when it comes to Red Hot Chili Peppers "Stadium Archadium" but that is only because whoever did the engineering and mix for the LPs of this album completely compressed the music so much that the CD sounds way better. Even the Killers "Sam's Club" is better on vinyl that the CD. Other than that one example of RHCP I totally disagree with you.

Don't you find it interesting that newer bands starting way back with Pearl Jam had their music put to vinyl. Why do you think that is?

madmax

Yashu wrote: »

You cannot compare a PC to low-fi sources like XM and FM (even indie FM) radio.

Sure I can. As a matter of fact, I think I did.

It is a convienient source of countless songs, video, information etc. They are going to be of all qualities from AM radio class to CD class. A library of media at your fingertips with countless ways to manipulate it.

Now if you want to add super quality outboard dacs and some mastering software with a bunch of live recordings to mix down and play at super high bit rates (in the realm of SACD) then we are talking something else, something more than mere convienience and mass storage.

madmax

reeltrouble1

maybe a tubed PC, oh wait, we already did that in 50's.................

our generational diversity continues to widen at Club Polk.

The digital age is going to save high end audio, like all formats it may have problems but as things get ironed out you will have access to more material than we ever thought possible at very high resolution, first the masses then the hobbiest/audiophile.

I am all for the future, especially the tubed future........

RT1

madmax

hearingimpared wrote: »

Don't you find it interesting that newer bands starting way back with Pearl Jam had their music put to vinyl. Why do you think that is?

Not to mention Alison Krauss, Tom Petty, Marilyn Manson and way too many more to think of. Of course these people are into sounds, not a collage of noise.

Mark my words, within the next decade vinyl is going to go mainstream again. (said with the shakey voice of an old grey bearded man with a cane).

madmax

Yashu

Even your pearl jam example, I had lumped into my "nostalgia" pressing pile... and as far as modern vinyl sounding better than the CD? The vinyl version is going to be limited by the Master... the same master that is used to make the CD. I guess it would depend on where in the chain the vinyl version was made... if the album was mastered in 20 bit and the vinyl was made from that point, then there is a chance at better dynamic range, but if the vinyl was cut from the same 16bit master that the CD is cut from, then all you are getting on the record is all the downside of reading a groove mechanically with none of the upside over the CD.

I don't listen to pop music, so maybe I am biased, so I am sure you are right about many of the more popular artists, if they have competent engineers that cut the vinyl from the high rez master, it can sound better than the CD. (yes I agree about RHCP, their last album was even worse, even the CD sounds thin and dimentionless)

It's too bad that the high rez digital formats didn't catch on as well...

madmax

Yashu wrote: »

if the album was mastered in 20 bit and the vinyl was made from that point, then there is a chance at better dynamic range, but if the vinyl was cut from the same 16bit master that the CD is cut from, then all you are getting on the record is all the downside of reading a groove mechanically with none of the upside over the CD.

Its my understanding that most artists who are into sound still use 2" tape and those who choose digital for convienience are mastered at a minimum of 24 bit.

madmax

Yashu

quality source componentry still trumps it, but not by much, IMHO.

Not even the BEST real time redbook playback and error correction can beat the accuracy of ripping a CD to your HD... Ripping a CD with max error correction can take hours, and once it is done, you have a bit perfect copy that is going to play perfectly every time. Real time playback can't match this. The PC gives one the *potential* to have better digital playback than even the best CDP, and at a fraction of the cost. That is the key for me, anyway... even compared to vinyl, your money can go farther in the digital world.

All these hipsters embracing vinyl is more of a "cool" factor than fidelity.

As far as FM and XM, FM does not have the dynamic range of redbook or vinyl, and XM/Sirius are compressed and are closer to MP3 format than redbook digital. HD radio... well... until decent (EG non-payola) indie stations start using that format, it is useless except for NPR.

treitz3

Yashu, were gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.

Yashu

Don't get me wrong... this is the first time since the CD was released in '82 that digital can truly give vinyl a run for it's money... That alone should be a testimant to the enduring quality of mechanical recording.

The guy that said Tubes and PCs... hehe... well the latest FAD in the PC audiophila world are tubed DACs with built-in USB support.

madmax

Yashu wrote: »

Don't get me wrong... this is the first time since the CD was released in '82 that digital can truly give vinyl a run for it's money...

So what is this piece of breaking technolgy you are talking about?

Yashu

I am talking about the current state of digital... We are only now getting the full potential from redbook CDs, it has taken 20 years or so but digital as a hi fidelity medium that can transport you to the "performance"... that has finally arrived and is within reach of the average audiophile.

Vinyl has been able to do this now for half a century, well... it has had the capability anynow, the rest of the components had to catch up, but when the CD came to the scene in 82, vinyl was where digital is at today... mature.

I don't think vinyl is the long term answer to what we are searching for, however. It may come back (and it has somewhat, I have seen more TTs for sale at big box stores now than in the 90's) to a point, but digital is only going to become more ubiquitous with higher resolutions and increasing quality. Hopefully there will be a standard high rez format that we can settle and work on in the way we have done with redbook CD over the last 25 years.

The only other thing, though, is nothing so far beats the "fun" of playing a record, watching it spin, the delicate needle threading through 40 minutes of groove... ever notice that when playing vinyl you are more apt to sit and listen to the music intently, and with digital you may want to pick up a book or magazine, or surf the web... still enjoying it, but not really zoning out as much to the music. Tape was cool too, I miss making mix tapes on a good deck with a good metal bias cassette...

mulveling

Yashu wrote: »

All these hipsters embracing vinyl is more of a "cool" factor than fidelity.

Haha
So I hope you have extensive experience with vinyl and high end downstream gear to back that statement up. My digital reference points are a Meridian G08 for redbook and a Sony SCD1 for SACD. For both fidelity & musicality, I prefer my turntable over either.

hearingimpared

Yashu wrote: »

... ever notice that when playing vinyl you are more apt to sit and listen to the music intently, and with digital you may want to pick up a book or magazine, or surf the web... still enjoying it, but not really zoning out as much to the music. Tape was cool too, I miss making mix tapes on a good deck with a good metal bias cassette...

You rested my case!!!:D

markmarc

Yashu:
Every format has it's advantages, as well as its low points. The problem with PC recordings (I'm not talking Olive Music Servers but true PC's) is that the componetry is not designed for audio, period. Way too much noise is emitted from the power supply. Even if the unit is sent to an outboard DAC, that garbage interfers with the end result. Secondly, hard drives are not a perfect medium either, plenty of coded info gets garbled or lost. Error correction is an endless task of any computer.

Respectfully, I'll stick my Jolida redbook cd player against any PC, I'll win every time. Why, it's designed for musical reproduction, not Bill Gate's latest version of Office.

But you are right about zoning out with tape and vinyl, there is something truly organic and wonderful. I can kick myself now for selling my 125 albums in college, some 90% that had only been played once for a buck a piece to finance my first dozen cd's in 1985.

reeltrouble1

wow, vinyl can sound better than digital, stop the press............

Yashu no offense but you do realize this is the Advanced Two Channel forum???

I can only think of Sherlock Holmes telling Dr. Watson, elementary......

The Meridian company mentioned above is envisioned and driven by Robert Thomas, Meridian invented a whole high resolution process called MLP, the best you can find in DVD-A, you really think some machine designed to process data can match the circuitry design of this machine specifically designed to do MLP playback?

Someday maybe it might approach some level, however, any multi functional machine is a compromise to convenience over quality. First digital will capture the masses, well in fact it has, then quality over quantity will eventually take place and bring a whole new generation of audiophoole's to bear. Moving digital formats along the path with them.

RT1

hearingimpared

reeltrouble1 wrote: »

First digital will capture the masses, well in fact it has, then quality over quantity will eventually take place and bring a whole new generation of audiophoole's to bear. Moving digital formats along the path with them.

RT1

Very well said, vinyl spinner.;)

schwarcw

Great discussion guys! I need more popcorn:D

tonyb

No doubt digital has room to improve on the quality side.But quality is not where the money is...quantity is.Thats why the hi-rez formats have stalled.Your typical age bracket of 12-20 yr olds don't give a hoot about quality.It's all about the cool factor and convenience.Only when you rippen to the age of Jesse or Ted,will you start to yearn for quality.I should talk,eh?:)