specialx

I do like to listen to a bit of music, I made a few dance tunes back in the day and was talking the other night to a friend about music production and the quality of sound etc. We even had the debate regarding stupidly expensive hifi set ups at 100k plus, are they worth it considering most music studio's reference speakers in the main do not cost as much but that's another story!

We got talking about playback quality and I chipped in "you can't beat vinyl!" CD on the main for me is great but very clinical (no pun intended) you can't better a bit of wow and flutter!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow-and-flutter

I do like the practicalness of digital music for the car & living room but for me my 1210's tucked away upstairs in the studio were the best 2 things I ever bought!

Analogue records rock!


Or am I just too old and only 8 people on here own a record player?

Looking forward to hearing your views CD? or Vinyl?

Oh and anyone know where I can get one of these bad boys?





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Jamz3k

I prefer CD as i have a feckin' great CD Player. Vinyl sounds amazing when played thru a good turntable. I keep looking at a Project Genie turntable and its only a matter of time before its added to my system as its cheapish upgrade with decent gains compared to my old Direct Drive Numarks.

corradoboy

Vinyl, but only through an outstanding turntable like an LP12 or Gyrodek. 1210's are alright for DJ'ing, but being direct drive to allow immediate start-up they have awful motor noise, and being Japanese they simply can't match the aural beauty of a Linn, especially through a good valve amp like maybe a Red Rose into some stunning speakers such as Wilson Benesch. I used to have the LP12's baby brother, the Basik with Akito arm and K9 cartridge, played through a Cyrus II/PSX into Mission 764i's and it was stunning even on a budget. CD players have improved, but I doubt they'll ever be able to generate the ambience and musicality of analogue. With nearly all modern music being recorded digitally now there's less and less point as converting a digital source to analogue is pretty futile. I lost the drive to seek out quality recordings long ago when work and family commitments ate up the spare time and money it takes to find worthwhile recordings, and don't even buy CD's any more. Shame, as it was a real passion for many years.

dunx

iTrader: (3)

+1

I still remember hearing my first quality system, the ambience, detail and "warmth" was something a digital system can only pretend to mimic.

Frequency domain VS Time domain, no contest.....

dunx

P.S. I use a PC into Cyrus system now as many years in engineering have dampened my acoustic response.

dnc

CD for convenience......................................b ut 1200s for proper enjoyment

dnc

daviee

vinyl all day long got a rega planner 2 with goldring 1085 cartrage blows away my arcam cd player that cost twice as much. I have a confession tho I now use mp3 music through a good sound card and a portible hard drive with 4000 albums on it takes up as much space as a vcr tape, the wife loves the fact the rega n arcam are boxed away.

legb4rsk

It depends on my mood.I have always been into vinyl so consequently have many albums.
Also you can pick up some good stuff at boot sales & charity shops very cheaply these days.
I have had many turntables over the years & it seems the better engineered the better the sound,microscopic movement & any 'play' in moving parts are critical. Unfortunately this comes at a price.I currently have a Roksan Xerxes turntable which sounds great.
Also they need setting up very accuratley . Level,VTA,bias, tracking weight etc...so a bit of a pain but every little bit helps.
Mostly have found that isolation from vibration has the greatest effect on sound!(I have found that goes for all my hi-fi equipment,speaker placement is also fundamental)

Also have a Cyrus CD6s which also has a fantastic & hassle-free sound.


The LP record player as a machine appeals to the engineer in me.(bit like my Scooby).
Also the cover art work is great.

The sound of both is close,the LP is warmer & the CD is a little more analytical.
They both get you close to the music which is the whole point I guess.

It can take many years to get the sound you want but it is definately worth it!

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Vinyl. I have a good CD player and a good turntable and the latter is to my ears just that bit more 'musical'

bigsinky

have to agree an LP12 in rosewood sounds mighty fine when paired with a set of misson floorstanders. having said that have you seen the price of rare (and not so rare vinyl). i was looking for a copy of Beth Gibbons with Rustin Man a few months back. CD was £6-7, the vinyl was £250

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

I'm torn on this one. when I started DJ'ing back in 2002 I splashed out on a pair of 1210 m3d ltd ed. Technics and still have one today for the 6-700 vinyl I have. There is a purity about the analogue vinyl sound and a natural deepness about the bass which .mp3 or even .wav cannot reporduce.

I personally use CD's to DJ now as modern CDJ's (see my Pioneer related thread) are just so much more capable now. DJ's these days do more of a live performance for a crowd rather than mix a few choons together.

I will never, however get rid of my vinyl and for that reason will always keep my solitary 1210 upstairs with a decent Stanton stylus.

GC8

Was the original question: which do you prefer / which sounds best? I prefer digital, with the right sampling rate and descriptor length. 44KHz / 16 bit isnt brilliant, which is why records sound better in a number of ways - but when you increase the sampling rate to 96KHz and the descriptor length to 24 bit then it sounds fantastic.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Both

Vinyl when it wears loses its high end sparkle and falls to peices during to high amplitude parts of a song. Nothing annoys me more when I get a bit of dust of a record. CD doesn't wear, doesn't deteriorate and is far more durable/tolerant to wear and tear.

When its new, great, there is some je ne se quoi there. I also belive that albums that were printing on vinyl (especially more modern stuff) has alot more studio production effort put in to make it sound right. Whereas alot of mainstream CD albums seem to have been recorded on the cheap.

(Although a contridiction is Oasis, which did have their albums put on vinyl, and alot of their stuff sounds like it was recorded in a broom cupboard with a tape recorder.)

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

LOL, I know what you mean, there is ni dynamic range, it is just a wall of sound.

Having said that have a listen to anything produced by Steve Lillywhite in the 80s .... oh dear. He has to be deaf.

Dingdongler

I have a romantic notion of vinyl but I think the reality is different. I keep toying about getting a deck, but to do it properly would cost £1000s. Then there is the storage problem as well, and calibration etc

I'm happier with CD most of the time. What winds me up though is people who listen to music through crappy MP3 systems, so much detail, soundstage etc is lost, its horrible

Simes777

Overall it would be vinyl for me as well, although having a Gyrodeck I might be slightly biased. The only CD Player I have is in the car. And MP3 is horrible as well.

stormyuklondon1

vinyl for me(another gyrodec owner).
although the convenience of my macbook and dac is great, and a much less destructive to use when i'm half cut..

Chip

I have a vintage Leak Delta 70 amp , thorens turntable and some old Wharfedale speakers which still sound better than anything Ive heard that is digitally produced.

chip

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Mate, there is a whole generation growing up who think that MP3s are as good as it gets.

The thing I don't understand is how people are happy to listen to music on crappier and crappier formats and systems yet home cinema systems are all the rage with sound playing a major part of the selection process.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I like MP3; Without it I'd need a 500 CD juke box in the house and a 500 CD changer in the car

HOWEVER. It has to be encoded by me, using my software and usually at 320bps minimum and I always use fixed bit rates. And of course, its done using a LAME encoder.

There is a noticable difference between using different software encoders.

FLAC is an alternative, but personally I find despite it allegedly being lossless, it sounds "odd". I prefer OGG, but not much stuff supports it (my old archos won't even do WMA )

What compounds the problem is alot of MP3 players have poor quality line-out stages. I can notice just using earbuds, so if its jacked into a Hi-Fi amp (or a docking station with crappy quality line out drivers), it multiplies the problem ten fold. This is where I love my old Archos Jukebox; It has SPDif outputs, so bypasses the output stages entirely leaving my old Technics amp to sort out decoding the bitstream (48kHz ) back to analogue.