NWR: Stereo Disorder Question
- Thread starter Ian Fitzsimmons
- Start date
Larry Stein
Larry Stein
Yup. I also bought some at Berigan's and Rasputin's. I might have at Leopold's, but I'm not certain.
Larry Stein
Larry Stein
I bought a TD160 in 1972. It was my first piece of real audio equipment. I never bought another one. Once I sold my vinyl, it found a happy home with a friend.
Karen Goetz
Karen Goetz
Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
Okay, many points there. Big picture: you keep disparaging the idea that "accuracy" is anything a hi-fi enthusiast would be concerned with. Another word for accuracy is "fidelity," as in the second word in "high fidelity." So obviously searching for the more accurate sound is not only relevant but also kinda the whole point of the thing.
However, I didn't start talking about fidelity because it's something I'm obsessed with or even something I'd consider myself particularly skilled at judging. There are an insane number of other advantages to digital that, in my opinion, would justify some sacrifice in fidelity to enjoy them - for example, being able to make a nice mix playlist without having to get up off the couch 11 times and do all the record cleaning and storage rituals. But my assumption is that all THOSE advantages are conceded, which leaves the only argument in favor of vinyl, "It sounds better."
Now, there are two senses in which that claim has meaning. The first is fidelity to the master, which may indeed be something measured far more accurately by machines than by our poor primate eardrums (especially primates that haven't had a chance to sit at the mixing desk to audition the master), but it is at least something objectively measurable and when you read about all the manipulations that have to be done to master for vinyl and the inherent limitations of the medium it is difficult to justify any claim the LP is superior. (First Google result: "At 33 ⅓ RPMs, the outermost groove has a groove speed of 20 inches per second while the innermost diameter runs at a mere 8.3 inches per second. This slow groove speed causes both cutting losses and tracking losses. The cutting stylus ends up having to fit much more sonic information in a shorter, smaller amount of groove space, causing more complex and rapid groove modulations. Because the playback stylus struggles to accurately trace these grooves, you end up compromising the fidelity of your top end. The nature of the format means you can never completely eliminate this deterioration....")
The second is pure subjective preference which I am supposed to accept as the end of the matter on "de gustibus non est disputandum" grounds. But I am sorry, I am just a disputandum kind of guy and do not give up so easily. My argument is that our subjective preferences are easily manipulated by psychological tricks of the sort that make you think your wine tastes different on account of varietally specific Reidel glass shapes directing it to particular areas of your mouth when in fact you're doing most of your tasting long after you put the glass down and mostly retronasally. Or maybe it is more like letting yourself get manipulated by a classic label.
As for the questions about my personal experience, I actually *am* old enough to have grown up around my dad's records + a beautiful pair of Ohms, and have had friends join the vinyl cult, so I'm not unfamiliar with what records sound like (or the inconveniences of playing them). But if I have said anything to suggest I have anywhere near the level of audiophile geekery to be interested in a blind demo of four DACs, let me make clear that is most certainly NOT the case. I find the audiophile community endearing because geekery of any sort is part of the same universal brotherhood of geeks, which is My People, but I don't personally have room for another pastime to get THIS geeky over, particularly one where the bullshit (cf., CD mats and speaker-cable risers) somehow manages to exceed the already formidable pile of bullshit in This (Wine) Thing of Ours. I also find much truth in the quip (I cannot recall the attribution): "Remember, they are not listening to your music; they are using your music to listen to their gear." That's just not something that motivates me. My current home systems (since you asked!) are the aforementioned 5.1 with Klipsches powered by a humble Sony, a stereo Peachtree driving B&Ws, near field Emotivas on a desktop PC, and a trusty set of Grado headphones. Nothing by the likes of Naim is within my budget or commitment level.
I don’t find vinyl “inconvenient” at all. My vinyl system (a hand me down from BJ, no less) is packed away at the moment, but what I miss the most about it is that it’s a very different way of interacting with the music. There’s nothing nostalgic about it for me. I just appreciate that one is forced to be present with it. That you only have about 20 minutes before another decision needs to be made. Playlists can be too easy for me to zone out on. I really like the compulsory interaction inherent to vinyl.
I won’t make any claims to sound quality (though maybe that’s the main point being debated here), as much of that is wasted on me, but it strikes me as odd to be so disparaging over “convenience” when that interactivity is clearly much of what people enjoy.
I won’t make any claims to sound quality (though maybe that’s the main point being debated here), as much of that is wasted on me, but it strikes me as odd to be so disparaging over “convenience” when that interactivity is clearly much of what people enjoy.
Pavel Tchichikov
Pavel Tchichikov
the latest exchanges here remind me of an evening at sfjoe's that saw an extensive debate break out over the pros and cons of stelvin closure, a good portion of which made me regret falling asleep in class when required to take seven semesters worth of chem and biochem in order to get my home ec degree. Refusing to leave without contributing to the discussion, I addressed sfjoe with something like "i just don't like the way that wine tastes," to which he turned to me excitedly: "that's the best scientific argument i heard all day!"
Robert Dentice
Robert Dentice
Pavel you nailed why I love vinyl! I just like the sound better.
I like digital for many of the reasons Keith has mentioned, number for me is convenience and the ability to have someone half way around the world send me a link to a file that I can easily listen to anywhere, anytime.
Robert Dentice
Robert Dentice
And I would add the experience of going to a record store hanging around talking about music and these days drinking wine is one of my all time favorite experiences.
Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
The pleasures of record stores are undeniable; along with wine shops and used book shops they were some of the last retail spaces in every city that are unique spaces not replaceable with chain stores. But this is not really a matter of analog over digital so much as a matter of physical things over downloadable things. I can relate to all the pleasures BJ describes of shopping for secondhand records but I have had those same experiences from the period when the shops had largely transitioned to CDs. (I particularly relished the moments of excitement of seeing a new bootleg pop up at GEneration Records or Second Coming in the Village and bringing it up to play in store to test drive the sound quality, but as memorable as those moments were they pale in comparison to the current situation where in a couple minutes you can torrent a vastly superior sounding version of the same thing that is often literally the product of 30 years of weaponized Internet geekery tracking down the master tape to someone's attic in Belgium, prying it away from the widow, and giving it a studio-quality high-definition transfer.)
As for this...
As for this...
...would you listen to yourselves!! Now we've reduced the advantages of this format to the COMPULSORY aspects? This is nothing you can't replicate by putting down your cell phone or taking the batteries out of your remote control. I remember audio cassettes as having similar inconveniences, when's the cassette revival coming? I rest my case on the matter of records playing tricks on people's minds and am beginning to suspect something even more nefarious is going on, like the ultimate culprits behind this being Lizard People.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Thanks to all for the discussion.
I'm staying with Schitt for the DAC, but opting for their multi-bit Modi, rather than the two I mentioned at earlier. A bit more $, but the upgrade is for sound quality, which I care about, not balanced output, which I don't. I haven't found an obviously superior alternative to the Songbird streamer, so that's still my default.
BJ: I appreciate your ideas on amps; the ones you pointed to are beyond my budget, and, as noted, I'm not comfortable shopping second-hand for this equipment without knowing the lay of the land better than I do. At my level, after examining your suggestions (again, thank you), I still think the Emotiva BasXA2 is the best quality/value package available me now. I'd likely go to Akitika as first choice, but I don't have the patience to wait another three months before powering up.
Good to know a transcript of the landmark vinyl-digital debate will be on file for future reference, when I'm considering the pros and cons of adding a turntable and phono preamp.
Cheers all.
I'm staying with Schitt for the DAC, but opting for their multi-bit Modi, rather than the two I mentioned at earlier. A bit more $, but the upgrade is for sound quality, which I care about, not balanced output, which I don't. I haven't found an obviously superior alternative to the Songbird streamer, so that's still my default.
BJ: I appreciate your ideas on amps; the ones you pointed to are beyond my budget, and, as noted, I'm not comfortable shopping second-hand for this equipment without knowing the lay of the land better than I do. At my level, after examining your suggestions (again, thank you), I still think the Emotiva BasXA2 is the best quality/value package available me now. I'd likely go to Akitika as first choice, but I don't have the patience to wait another three months before powering up.
Good to know a transcript of the landmark vinyl-digital debate will be on file for future reference, when I'm considering the pros and cons of adding a turntable and phono preamp.
Cheers all.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Deftly-placed, as well as Talmudic, and puts paid to any conceit of my chatter as being thoughtful. Thank you.
Here’s hoping that, should we find ourselves at the same table on Yom Kippur one year, the thorniest issue we’ll have to resolve is that of which wines to open with the meal.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Past sundown is after Yom Kippur, not on it. Yes. Apologies. Good catch.
Well Keith, you've (mostly) redeemed yourself, but you kicked this whole thing off with aggressively uninformed drivel, calling vinyl "pathetic" and making absolutist statements about digital having better fidelity than vinyl. Those are clueless fighting words. It might be fine in the courtroom, but you should know better than doing that in a geekery such as this. This is WD, for God's sake.
I've tried to represent a number of perspectives. Accuracy, or fidelity (let's treat them as the same), sounds like an easy topic, but it is really really not. Some things are measurable, some things not. What are you trying to be accurate to? And since listening is a subjective, human experience, does it really make sense to design audio to data points? Recognizing these challenges, all great audio is in part designed by ear.
This is not to say that fidelity isn't important - it's central. But fidelity isn't etched in steel. Some of the elements are measurable, many are not. And how do you handle fidelity when the delivered sound comes from a number of components acting together as a system? Fidelity is foundational, but it's not absolute - perhaps it is best to think of what is sought as "analogously fidelous". Within this context, vinyl can provide a very very high level of fidelity (and to be clear, measured accuracy of vinyl systems can be outstanding, too).
In the context of all these variables, most audiophiles don't bring computers to their listening sessions to measure fidelity of frequency response, and instead seek what Robert is talking about - what sounds best, what sounds most musical, most lifelike. Ultimately they want to hear music. So that's what they seek. They recognize very few systems "have it all" but rather deliver some things better than other. Some audiophiles obsess about soundstage accuracy, while others recognize they rarely hear that in amplified live settings, and that it can often be an artifact of post production. Like every live music event is different, every system is different. Vive la difference.
I'll finish with an anecdote. When I was a young audiophile in the 80s, I read Stereo Review voraciously. At the time, SR was in the thrall of Julian Hirsch, who essentially was a testing slave - it was all about "accurate reproduction", ignoring all the factors I've been discussing (and there's nothing special about what I've been writing, it is reflective of most of the audio community believes). Julian would almost always trash British hifi as inaccurate, with testing curves to prove it. One month he presented a super value, highly accurate/fidelous JVC receiver as the absolute cats meow - a new paradigm in cost effective musical reproduction. I begged my Mom to buy it and replace our old Sansui receiver (which, actually, sounded quite good). We got it home...and it was horrible. Almost unlistenable. Especially fatiguing after an hour or so. My 16 year old self was confused, but knew something was wrong. After that, I started actually listening (yes listening) to systems around Bay Area shops, and started getting it. Those Brit systems that Julian Hirsch so trashed sounded awesome, and thus the adventure began.
I've tried to represent a number of perspectives. Accuracy, or fidelity (let's treat them as the same), sounds like an easy topic, but it is really really not. Some things are measurable, some things not. What are you trying to be accurate to? And since listening is a subjective, human experience, does it really make sense to design audio to data points? Recognizing these challenges, all great audio is in part designed by ear.
This is not to say that fidelity isn't important - it's central. But fidelity isn't etched in steel. Some of the elements are measurable, many are not. And how do you handle fidelity when the delivered sound comes from a number of components acting together as a system? Fidelity is foundational, but it's not absolute - perhaps it is best to think of what is sought as "analogously fidelous". Within this context, vinyl can provide a very very high level of fidelity (and to be clear, measured accuracy of vinyl systems can be outstanding, too).
In the context of all these variables, most audiophiles don't bring computers to their listening sessions to measure fidelity of frequency response, and instead seek what Robert is talking about - what sounds best, what sounds most musical, most lifelike. Ultimately they want to hear music. So that's what they seek. They recognize very few systems "have it all" but rather deliver some things better than other. Some audiophiles obsess about soundstage accuracy, while others recognize they rarely hear that in amplified live settings, and that it can often be an artifact of post production. Like every live music event is different, every system is different. Vive la difference.
I'll finish with an anecdote. When I was a young audiophile in the 80s, I read Stereo Review voraciously. At the time, SR was in the thrall of Julian Hirsch, who essentially was a testing slave - it was all about "accurate reproduction", ignoring all the factors I've been discussing (and there's nothing special about what I've been writing, it is reflective of most of the audio community believes). Julian would almost always trash British hifi as inaccurate, with testing curves to prove it. One month he presented a super value, highly accurate/fidelous JVC receiver as the absolute cats meow - a new paradigm in cost effective musical reproduction. I begged my Mom to buy it and replace our old Sansui receiver (which, actually, sounded quite good). We got it home...and it was horrible. Almost unlistenable. Especially fatiguing after an hour or so. My 16 year old self was confused, but knew something was wrong. After that, I started actually listening (yes listening) to systems around Bay Area shops, and started getting it. Those Brit systems that Julian Hirsch so trashed sounded awesome, and thus the adventure began.
Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
I didn't call vinyl pathetic. I called the current fad for vinyl pathetic. Vinyl itself isn't pathetic (just inferior and obsolete!).
Jayson Cohen
Jayson Cohen
It took me over an hour to read through this thread. I can’t believe how geeky you guys are. Jk. Excellent thread. Long live WD’s tolerance for things non-vinous.
For some reason I never caught the audiophile bug and have nothing to contribute other than boiling down all the arguments over sound quality to: everyone has an individual brain, dynamic in nature (as are its sound measuring devices), and so (like wine) individual preferences dominate. It’s all just a bunch of transfer functions and then it gets to your brain, where you process and decide what you like. That’s all good, but there is no objective truth to find in recording quality or listening pleasure/utility/whatever you want to call it.
Actually, it’s unlike wine, where clearly Pavel knows the objective truth. :)
Like Keith maybe, I only have brain space and time for one all-consuming hobby even if I do consume much more music than wine on a daily / hourly / minute(ly) basis.
Life is also a periodic barrage of live music at home these days, created by teenage sons, who ironically and utterly lack tolerance for any other apartment-wide audio, such as mine. (Do others also live with such intolerant creatures?)
Going to stream Milstein’s Bach performance from 1975 for the 1000th time now (through my cheap Bose speaker or headphones) while catching up on some work . The performance never gets old however crappy the medium that channels it to my brain.
For some reason I never caught the audiophile bug and have nothing to contribute other than boiling down all the arguments over sound quality to: everyone has an individual brain, dynamic in nature (as are its sound measuring devices), and so (like wine) individual preferences dominate. It’s all just a bunch of transfer functions and then it gets to your brain, where you process and decide what you like. That’s all good, but there is no objective truth to find in recording quality or listening pleasure/utility/whatever you want to call it.
Actually, it’s unlike wine, where clearly Pavel knows the objective truth. :)
Like Keith maybe, I only have brain space and time for one all-consuming hobby even if I do consume much more music than wine on a daily / hourly / minute(ly) basis.
Life is also a periodic barrage of live music at home these days, created by teenage sons, who ironically and utterly lack tolerance for any other apartment-wide audio, such as mine. (Do others also live with such intolerant creatures?)
Going to stream Milstein’s Bach performance from 1975 for the 1000th time now (through my cheap Bose speaker or headphones) while catching up on some work . The performance never gets old however crappy the medium that channels it to my brain.
Pavel Tchichikov
Pavel Tchichikov
Subtle. He maintains neutrality but makes sure we know the Milstein is not scratched up after 1000 playbacks.
That's solo Bach sonatas and partitas, for the casual observers of this thread, which is why indicating the vintage is critical. This is a wine board, after all.
Watch the first 15 seconds. ( Or the whole thing is you are in the mood ).
Very nice Jayson.
We don't have kids and even though I have a demanding job, I've managed to get into probably 1-2 hobbies too many. Wine has been ever present for the last couple decades, though honestly on the wane to a certain degree (with the loss of our passive cellar at our house move nine years ago). Audio was a high school/college love, never fully went away, but then had a resurgence about 16-17 years ago and I've just slowly upgraded the system to a pretty sweet set up now. Collecting records is a sibling to audio (and now I can afford to go to the live music I couldn't when I was a kid). Watches ebb and flow, the QPR now just isn't there but they are pretty cool. I'm a time locked 1980s bicycle mechanic and so ebb and flow on that, I would probably endlessly collect all the ridiculously underpriced sweet 70s/80s bikes but we just don't have space, but do have two sweet rides. NW art is a big passion, started maybe 15 years ago. We're into birding, so optics (binoculars and scopes) have of course become of source of geeky interest. It's frankly all too much, and ironically I'm trying simplify and be more mindful, and it just doesn't all go together. At least I am primarily a vintage type guy so the associated carbon footprint is less, except for wine. Of all the hobbies, they all have good QPRs except for wine and watches.
I would encourage all of you to invest in a decent audio system. If you have money to buy the wine we discuss here, you have money for audio, and unlike our beloved wine, it does not disappear with use. We are truly in the golden age of audio right now - $2k (or less if you're focused like Ian) will buy you an excellent system. Depending on your temperament and preferences, you could either take the streaming or vinyl or dare I say FM route. I guarantee you will enjoy it.