I'm a believer! Lp's really do sound better! (1 Viewer)

[Mike_G]

I'm not going to dive into the CD/LP argument. I spent most of my high school and college days buying at least 1 album a week, sometimes more. As stated here, no matter HOW well I took care of my albums, they NEVER survived. Dust, dirt, scratches, anything else killed my vinyl. I was very meticulous about my LPs and no matter what, I couldn't keep them in good shape. LP cleaners never worked 100%, so in 1987 when I bought my first CD player, I started throwing away my vinyl. They sound different, but I don't know if "better" is a definitive term for them. It would be interesting to compare an LP with an SACD/DVD-A.

Mike

 

[Grant B]

Then there is the inherent bass feedback, at decent levels you can't isolate the LF from the tonearm. I guess feedback equals warmth. I guess if you had a seperate turntable room in block house you could do it....then run over to the speaker room ... 20 minutes late run back.

Boy that's an improvement

What about that warmth of the Edison wax cylinder???? That was analog at it's finest...just throw in one of those tulip shaped horn speakers hooked up to the wind up Victorla and you have a system that woould be the envy of stereophile magazine readers everywhere

 

[DEAN DE FURIA]

Bass feedback is a non-issue if you have a turntable with a good isolation system. The Thorens I am using has a split-plith design with the tonearm on one and the rest of the turntable on the other. I can turn it up as loud as I want and get NO feedback at all. The Music Hall turntables have a similar setup and are under $500 with a cartridge already mounted. I also have a Technics DD unit which has terrible feedback. I used to hate the feedback problem!

 

[Mark_E_Smith]

When I bought my first cd player in '84 I immedeatly noticed harsh or edginess to the sound and a TOTAL loss of stage pressence, but they sure were convenant. At the time I had some pretty good stuff and had friends that were using Mark Levinson stuff. We were very critical on pressence. I supose this is why sound proccessors are so popular now.

 

[JaleelK]

There's something "airy" and visceral about the sound of a well-recorded vinyl production.

Yes, its called noise and distortion.

 

[KeithH]

Jaleel, you're doing it again. Easy now. You've already been warned about thread crapping. This is another discussion that was going along fine until you came along. I don't have a problem with people posting opinions, but your views make no sense whatsoever. Once again, you have come here to stir the pot. It's obvious.

 

[Bob_L]

OK. Before I go ahead and say something that EVEN I think is completely insane, let me insist that I'm not a GOLDEN EAR guy. I was a classical music critic for 15 years and have probably heard more live performances than most people would hear in two or three lifetimes. So I have a better than average understanding of what live music sounds like and, therefore, see all recorded media as a compromise of some sort. (Or, more accurately, a music art form unto themselves.)

Plus, although I enjoy analog recordings, I'm not slavishly faithful to them. I recognize the limitations of analog recording and delivery. And I like CD's immensely.

OK. HERE IT COMES ---

What about that warmth of the Edison wax cylinder???? That was analog at it's finest...just throw in one of those tulip shaped horn speakers hooked up to the wind up Victorla and you have a system that woould be the envy of stereophile magazine readers everywhere

Several years ago, I found an old Granada Victrola and purchased it as a conversation piece for the living room. I had never been around an acoustic record player before and it came with several old acoustically recorded disks.

I put a disk on, wound it up, and as soon as the first one started playing -- despite the flurries of scratches and fuzz and distortions -- I recognized that there was something, something, that sounded more REAL than the electric recordings I was raised on.

To this day, I don't quite understand what I heard but, on disk after disk, there was some quality to those flawed old acoustic disks that electrically recorded disks didn't have.

Go figure....

 

[Jeff Kleist]

When I buy an album, I want crystal clear, no distorition

LPs sound like crap IMO, Rice Krispies! I CAN hear the difference in tonal qualities, but I don't find it to be so greatly appealing that it even comes close to making up for the other flaws in the format

When I buy a concert, I want the live sound, and I still find CDs to reproduce better what I heard at the show.

 

[Rachael B]

I resisted switching from vinyl to CD for a long time. I had an LD player before I had a CD player. The CD's I heard, on other people's systems, in the early days of the format were anything but impressive. The first time I heard the Beach Boys on CD they sounded like merde. You could hear where the vocal dubs started and ended. I quess it was the mechanical noise of the studio's tape decks...? The noise floor of vinyl had always covered this up I think. There was an art of manipulating the noise floor to your advantage with record production.

The only thing I like better about CD's over records are the conviences and lack of wear problems. I finally got a CD player in either 1988 or 1989...about. By that point te records were being sabotauged basically to try to force the market to CD. The quality of the vinyl was at an all-time low IMO. I bet used vinyl was better than 50 % of what was in the melting pot. They were obviously using the masters way beyond what was prudent. It became a pain in the ass to buy records. I made a nusiance of myself at several record stores returning for exchange one copy after another demanding a proper copy.

I took three copies of one Prince album back in the course of about 2 hours to one store. When I asked for a forth they accused me of having too good of a turntable!!!!! I was so confident that the entire lot of their Prince albums were defective that I told the manager to put a nickel on his cartridge and to choose a copy and try to play it. He opened several copies and couldn't find one that would track side one perfectly even with a nickel's extra weight. All the store's copies were pressed with a worn out master, apparently. I joined the CD age for convience not sound quality.

This week I compared Santana's ABRAXAS on record and SACD. I thought the record sounded better, hands down. This is one of the weakest SACD's I've heard. I think the best SACD's would fare much better. I hope SACD and DVD-A stick around... BTW, I have alot of nearly perfect records because I used reel to reel and cassette tape for casual listening.

 

[Bob_L]

LPs sound like crap IMO, Rice Krispies!

Hmmm. A thoughtful criticism... In general, people should avoid eating over their vinyl collection. Particularly cereal.

 

[Bob Segno]

Rachael, I wish I could find a place here to buy albums. I didn't know they were even still being made. Any suggestions. Bob

 

[Miles_W]

While we are still on the topic...
I went "thrift" shopping yesterday, came up with a copy of Fans by Malcolm Maclaren that I had just ordered on cd ( I subsequently cancelled that order ) and the Chariots of Fire lp all for the massive total of $1.06 cdn... or about 65cent us... ah.... now that is what I call a bargin in music. Does anyone own a vpi 16.5 or 17 record cleaner? and do you recommend it?
thanks

 

[Mark_E_Smith]

I have been considering dragging out my old Kenwood composite base turntable and fixing the cable that broke, just to remember what LPs sound like. I have a fair amount of virgin pressings and special pressings of 70s music. I had considered transfering some of them to wav files in my computer, then burning to cds for storage. I remember in '78 one of my friends had a very expensive record cleaning machine that washed and vacuumed the record. I also remember radioactive record cleaning brushs and all the stuf allsop made to clean the records. You had to do something before you "droped the needle" to clean the record. I am laughing at myself now, I have more money in MC cartridges and exotic MM cartridges than I am considering spending on a SACD and DVD-A player combined!

 

[JaleelK]

Jaleel, you're doing it again. Easy now. You've already been warned about thread crapping. This is another discussion that was going along fine until you came along. I don't have a problem with people posting opinions, but your views make no sense whatsoever. Once again, you have come here to stir the pot. It's obvious.

What is wrong with my statement? What I said was the truth, I will contact the Administrator myself and ask is something wrong with that statement?

 

[KeithH]

Jaleel, similar to the SACD thread where you were warned, there is a tone, however subtle, to your post here that comes through like you think you know more about good sound than the vast majority of us. You can see from this thread that there are a number of people here who prefer the sound of vinyl to CD, and you are deriding this notion by saying that in essence, people prefer distortion over good sound. That is an insulting statement. As has been said in the past, you have a way of wrecking a thread by criticizing what people like. You are writing off the notion that many have that one format sounds better than another because people simply are fooled by distortion. You do this time and time again. There is a common theme to your posts, and it is to throw a thread off course with posts that insult people. You post the same things over and over again and it is getting really old.

What I said was the truth

In your mind, but you pass it off as fact. By the same token, the LP is an analog format, while the CD is a digital approximation. Should CD sound better than the LP? One should not make that assumption. You are making an assumption, but you pass it off as fact and insult people in the process.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

You could hear where the vocal dubs started and ended. I quess it was the mechanical noise of the studio's tape decks...? The noise floor of vinyl had always covered this up I think. There was an art of manipulating the noise floor to your advantage with record production.

I noticed this when I first heard The Wall on CD. I could hear where the dubbing in of some of the sound effects (for want of a better term) began with the slight "tick" of what I took to be a splice. None of my friends believed me.

 

[Scooter]

Still wondering about my question re: laser read LP's.

 

[Rachael B]

Bob, www.acousticsounds.com has quite a few LD's. Some are $10, most are alot more. Many are 180 gram audiophle records. Some of the prices may make you appreciate CD ! I noticed one that was $90 on a recent visit there. One of the local used record stores that I frequent gets some new records. I think they are for lack of a better term gray market items. I think they are made for export to places where CD hasn't exactly caught on yet. I could be wrong about this? I do know that alot of music gets put on record in very limited quantity however. You should call any and all used record stores near you and ask.
Robert, I certainly believe you about hearing the studio's tape machines on PINK FLOYD. It was painfully obvious on the BEACH BOYS CD, even the owner of the disc and brand new top-loading CD player could hear it. You couldn't miss it. This was about 1984. I imagine this was a CD that has been remastered....it might of been ENDLESS SUMMER? Producers depended on that noise floor to cover these little things. Alot of old albums sound better on vinyl because they were produced with that medium specifically in mind. To me, stuff like SMALL FACES' Itchycoo Park sounds poorly on CD. The highly echoed drum part just sounds wrong to me. I'm not exactly sure why...? It's different somehow.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Scooter- If they're out there, then they're very new. The problem with most vinyl is thatit's surface is not perfectly flat. While the needle could "ride the wave" as laster has a lot harder time I'm guessing

I said CDs do a BETTER job of producing the live sound. No concert recording is perfect

The Rice Krispies comment was directed to the snap crackle pop noises they generate while playing

 

[Rachael B]

Scooter, those non-contact turntables were developed about 25 years ago. They never figured how to make them cheap enough for consumers. I've only ever read about them. I could swear I heard in a thread that a Japanese outfit stille makes them. I wonder if they'd sound the same as a conventional turntable? Sampling might be in the equation? I have no idea about how they actually work. If I ever had an inkling, I forgot. I really don't know much about them other than you could get one for $30,000 many years ago. That figur stuck in my mind. Best wishes!