I still have hundreds of vinyl records. Even some MFSL stuff. So yes. I've heard "good" vinyl.

If "better" means "more accurate representation of the recorded performance", then a properly mastered CD is objectively better than any vinyl copy.

Don't confuse "digital vs. analog" with "CD vs. vinyl".

Hmmm... kind of loose on the "is it a product?" and "is it revolutionary?" questions. I dunno.

Repeating.

Yes in both cases.

Repetition doesn't make it so. And don't think that I missed the part where you deleted the operative text when quoting me.

And if you want to actually learn something other than what Stereophile's advertisers want you to "know", start here: https://www.theaudiocritic.com/cwo/Back_Issues/

Keep laughing. It's your money.

I'm a CD devotee but I still think that vinyl has something in instrument tonality that CD can't touch. More organic.

Digital just needs more than 16 bits to get there. You can hear the difference if you listen to the new Beatles remasters on CD then listen to the 24-bit flac files on the usb Apple. It's a slight difference, which would be more obvious without the noise reduction, but it's there. The tonality is improved. It's not like Sgt. Pepper's is a super-duper-high-resolution-audiophile recording either.

As far as I'm concerned, an audiophile is someone who wants to hear ALL of the music instead of just some of it.

That's a big assumption.

I have heard the same disparaging comments w.r.t. Tubes vs solid state.

Not everyone treats the CD as the reference and approaches audio with the idea of reproducing what is on the CD. Some people are more concerned with the sound - not some measurement wonk's numbers. To me, the sound from tubes is FAR closer to a live concert than anything solid state. My theory is that the frequency response and even-order distortion more closely mimics what the ears hear in a concert hall.

I don't really use vinyl, mainly because of the convenience factor, but the few times I've heard it on a good system, it has been jaw-droopingly good.

It's called distortion, compression and noise. For some inexplicable reason, some people like it.

Cos a linear transfer function is obviously the best.... right.

The Audio Critic mag is about as biased as Stereophile - while they dont peddle snake oil like Stereophile or TAS, their slavish devotion is to "high fidelity" as in, linear frequency response and low distortion - completely ignoring the fact that perception and enjoyment of music are not necessarily correlated to a flat FR. To these guys, perception is hard to measure, and so is best ignored in favor of what can be easily quantified. That is effectively like losing your keys in the garden but looking indoors because the light is better.

I find both sides - one with their insistence on breaking in $500 audio cables and the Shakti Stones (I finally remember what it was), and the other with their insistence that only numbers matters in an area which is so subjective - laughable.

In the meantime, give me my high distortion tube sound. I get goosebumps when I listen to Stravinsky on it - pretty much every symphony comes alive in a way it never did when I had the hi-fi, low-distortion Stereophile-approved Class A amps.

If I cared, I'd feel sorry for those who have closed off their minds to tubes b/c of the distortion measurements, but I don't so I don't

V.

Vinyl has been dead to me since 1984.

It's called different strokes, that's what it's called.

Your opinion doesn't make you an expert. It's worth exactly 2 cents.

You can have the last word . . . cherish it, I won't fight you for it. It's not that important to me to prove something to an anonymous stranger on the internet.

We're still just talking about 2 cent opinions! Here, you can have my 2 cents since it's so valuable to you.

shopping.google.com doesn't seem to show where I can pick one up.

Well said, even if our thoughts aren't in lock-step - there truly are vehement idiots on both side of divide, but I find the numbers guys even more deplorable as they feel entitled to espouse their beliefs as scientific fact.

All of your comments contradict your statement that you've experienced "good" vinyl. Anyone that knows vinyl knows that to have a disk in good shape is 5% of the equation. You made no mention of your 'table, your arm, your cartridge, your phono stage. Assuming that you have decent equipment that's in good condition (big assumption), you then have to consider set-up, which, as on a good road bike, is everything. Who mounted and aligned your cartridge? Set up the VTA and tracking force? If, as I suspect, your vinyl days were decades ago and/or your equipment was of that vintage, you'd have to consider cartridge compliance and effective mass of the tonearm - were they compatible? Was the gain on your phono stage appropriate for the output of your cart? Or were you over- or under-driving and then compensating elsewhere? How about the phono stage resistance settings - were they adjusted properly, or were you just using the internal 'stage on your receiver? Oh, and let's not forget about phono EQ curves - fess up! Were you listening to Columbia recordings with RIAA equalization? Naughty boy.

Beyond all of this, let's dispense with the notion that measured results are the most reliable indicator of what's best. Measurements obviously don't capture the whole picture. The best microphones in world, coupled with huge computational horsepower still can't match the voice recognition processes of a 3-year-old with a working set of ears. When you've got an algorithm that can decode not only what someone is saying, but what emotional state the speaker is in while saying it... we'll be 10% there and we'll revisit. Until then, I'll let my ears decide if the tonal qualities of a cello recording are closer or further from what I hear in real life.

Your comments about tubes brought a couple of memories to the fore. One is not related at all but is a fond memory. The other is semi-on topic.

Going to the Army-Navy store was a regular weekend occurrence as they sold TV vacuum tubes and had a free tube tester as well. He was aggravated, I'd imagine but I enjoyed the car ride and walking around the store while he was figuring out which tube was blown.

Shortly afterwards both my father and I got into the CB radio craze of the 1970s and ran "base" units in our house. Of course, lots of people cheated on the max wattage the FCC allowed and ran amps. The "old" (even then) tube amps really boomed. Even through tinny CB radio speakers you could tell who was running one of those as opposed to a solid state amp.

FWIW.

And thus the real reason for vinyl hugging. Infinite tweakability and the opportunity to throw an infinite number of dollars at a solved problem.

Oh my. You're confusing reproduction with interpretation.

BG/L is no longer sold. (Used racks sometimes make it on the market, though.) You'd need to buy a BG/P system and I assure that if you have sufficient funds, you WILL be able to purchase one from an IBM representative. Neither BG/L nor BG/P were/are "one-off" systems.

So, how'd we go from Metrigear onto an audiophile pissing match mixed in with arguments over good ol' Blue Gene?

Most of this is just weird.

To me, good music is like good food. People don't have to have good food to enjoy eating, certainly don't need it to survive. But, some people can appreciate good food, so they seek it out. But if you have to have good food all the time, you kind of forget why we eat to begin with. I don't see how music is any different, other than that we don't need music at all. If you want to try to have the best sounding music there is, great. But that doesn't make your music any better than anyone else's, any more enjoyed, and certainly any more necessary.

Epic fail, actually, for thinking that the two are separate topics as far as the listener is concerend.

Go with the flow, young paduwan. It's a Pcad thread, it was destined for greatness.

Fact is, halfspeed, if you ever listened to vinyl on good equipment you would become slack-jawed in wonderment. It's stunning, much like riding Steel or Ti*.

You're still relatively young and relatively healthy, open up your mind and treat yourself before you really get set in your ways.



*Obligatory biking references.

ah. cool.

Fact is, I have. I've also heard analog from a good source medium. Half-inch two-track at 30 ips.

My mind is open to objective evidence and not magical thinking.