Would you buy a turntable? (1 Viewer)

[King Ghidora]

Van could have re-recorded the whole album onto better tapes and made it sound nearly identical to the original. I've heard about this happening but I've always been skeptical. I think the quality of the medium has improved a lot in 20 years and it continues to improve. At the beginning I think it would have made a huge difference going with higher res and less time on the CD's but at this point I think even Redbook stuff sounds very good if it's mixed well. The thing is it often isn't mixed well at all. I've been disappointed by too many re-mixes of the classics. But Morrison's stuff has always seemed to stand out as very well done on CD. It's probably because Van is such a perfectionist about his sound that he wouldn't let any crap get released. I have a USA copy of Moondance made by Warner Bros. for BMG that I think sounds exceptionally good. It's probably true that Van used better than average quality equipment way back when too.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

" At the beginning I think it would have made a huge difference going with higher res and less time on the CD's but at this point I think even Redbook stuff sounds very good if it's mixed well. The thing is it often isn't mixed well at all."

I agree. Some consider Glyn Johns, Van's main guy, of the better rock recording engineers but I have heard some stinkers from him from time to time.

 

[King Ghidora]

Morrison came out of the Ray Charles mode for singers where it's all about the sound being just right and not about special effects and whatnot. I think that's why his music has stood the test of time so well. It isn't over produced like so much stuff is. I like well done over produced stuff but if it's done badly it really stinks. I don't think it's as hard to get a few instruments down as it is to get a whole orchestra and a synthesizer or two to work right. Van has always kept it simple and made it sound right IMO. That's what makes his sound so good. Genuinely talented musicians are better to listen to than untalented Hendrix wannabes with 800 tracks to work with. And it gets back to the whole brickwalling thing quick when I try to listen to anything recent (unless I recorded it myself ).

 

[Mattias_ka]

Either you had have a really bad cartridge or your table had a really bad setup for the cartridge.


And about the question, I would buy a turntable, if I didn't have one. But my VPI HW-19MK4 works really great and I listen to some of my 2000+ vinyls everyday.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Great table, a friend has one. I use a VPI Scoutmaster and love it.

 

[Kipnis Studios]

Lee,

How about the ELP Laser Turntable? Eh?

 

[Kipnis Studios]

$50!

 

[Ron Reda]

I'm so on the fence about getting a TT...while I'm certain I'd love the sound there's a few things holding me back:

Space - as it is, I'm kinda cramped in my current HT room. If I added a TT, I'm be that much more cramped.

$$$ - As it is, I already spend more money than anyone I know on CDs and have amassed quite the collection. If I get into vinyl, I'll SURELY go broke! :frowning:

 

[muchojackdaniels]

i have a couple turntables and i love them

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Howdy stranger! - PM sent

I don't have any direct experience Jeremy.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I purchased one recently for $150 bucks. I like it, but it's not running through phono on my receiver. Does that make a difference? I use the white and red RCA outputs right now.

 

[Mike_G]

Last year I picked up one of those USB turntables even though I have my dad's old Yamaha turntable from 1978. I bought it becuase the Yamaha needed repair and it would cost as much to fix that than it would to get a USB turntable. Since all I wanted to do was transfer what I had to CD easily, it was the easiest choice.

So I plugged it in, transferred a few albums and that was the end of it.

Then I had this idea to do something new in the house which was to pick up some old albums and frame them. In doing so I thought about listening to the vinyl I bought on this thing and hear how it sounded. My Denon 5800 has a Phono jack, even though the USB turntable has a "Phono/Line" switch, I stuck with "Phono".

The audio was surprisingly good. I was impressed. Some of the old vinyl I picked up was in very good condition which would make sense since I bought the albums that had covers that were in very good shape.

So then I started buying some of these new reissues, but I haven't done a direct comparison to CD or SACD/DVD-A since I haven't had the time. Also, this turntable suffers from the same problem I've heard for years - that it doesn't reproduce the "S" sound properly. The "S" sound, when sung, smears all over the place, sounding more like a bad hiss. I don't know if I'm going to invest in a better turntable yet, I'm still in the "ZOMG I haven't done this since the 80's, this is fun" stage. If I do, I'll have to research what's a good turntable and cartridge.

Has anyone done direct vinyl-to-digital comparisons, be it CD, SACD, DVD-A, 24/96 (eg: NIN's "The Slip" or "Ghosts")?

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I have done comparisons and my view is this ranking:

1. LP, SACD are the best
2. DVDA 24/192
3. DVDA 24/96
4. CD

 

[Philip Hamm]

Bad news from someone who's been using LP since it was the dominant format in the 70s. There's no solution for this. There are so many factors involved; if the needle's misaligned or worn it can cause this; worse yet, it can damage records when you play them; exacerbating the situation. If the pressing is bad even if the record is brand new never been played it will cause this. If the record has been damaged by a misaligned needle it will cause this even if played on a perfect uber-expensive system. The problem gets worse on the inside grooves of a record, so that maybe the first song on the side sounds great, but the last song on the side has problems.

These are all reasons that music lovers embraced the Compact Disc Digital Audio System.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

"Bad news from someone who's been using LP since it was the dominant format in the 70s. There's no solution for this."

You may just need a better cartridge. Sibiliance is not an issue on a good arm and cart. You may have an alignment or tracking issue.

 

[Ockeghem]

Yes, I own two turntables, and would buy another one if I needed to do so. CDs are fine, but so are LPs for a number of reasons.

I have also found a degree of sibilance on CD recordings, particularly where vocal music is concerned.

And then there is the sibilance heard from Ringo's drums, which can be quite different in degree depending on whether the pressing is U.K. or American.

 

[KurtEP]

I've done direct comparisons on Dark Side of the Moon and Getz/Gilberto and generally found that SACD sounded the best, followed by LP (if you can ignore some noise) followed by CD. I never did a comparison with any newer CDs.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

This is a good point. Sibilance can be an artifact of the source or the recording.

 

[MielR]

I was thinking the same thing- a better cartridge perhaps and an alignment tool to make sure it's installed properly.

I have a modest turntable set up (well, expensive to me, but modest to others- LOL!) a Shure MM cartridge (their 2nd best, at the time) and a Technics sl-mk2000 turntable. I used the cartridge alignment tool that came with it and I can't say I've had any problems with sibilance.

But sibilance inherent in original recordings is also a possibility.

"Print-thru" is something else that I discovered early on when upgraded by turtable/cartridge from my plastic shelf-system record player. I didn't know what it was at first, and thought maybe I had done something wrong. I asked a few people on an audio forum, and it was explained to be that it comes from the master tape being on a spool. Parts of the recording transfer to parts of the tape that touch each other, and you can hear it usually right before a song begins- it sounds like a pre-echo of the first few notes of the song.

 

[Philip Hamm]

As Lee has pointed out, I think much of that may be inherent to the original recordings.:frowning: