Vinyl - Audiophiles

[meridannight]

Top 5%? What do you have McIntosh stuff?

Yeah I get it... 384 kHz /48-bit DAC is going to beat anything else out there....

Now that being said, I think a lot of the Hi-Fi market is largely snake oil... I get these magazines in the mail (Music Direct is one of them) and they're selling power cords for $200 because they're supposed to make your music sound better...bullshit.

The biggest upgrade one can do, besides choosing SACD, CD, Vinyl, etc is your speakers...

Anyway, I take you don't collect vinyl? lol

I am also curious about your top 5% system...

not McIntosh. DAC is 24/192. the 5% refers to sound quality, not to most expensive or exotic system. you can end up with a crappy sound on your 5-digit-expensive sound system if you have no idea what you're doing. this isn't about cost. i invested in high-end CD and DVD players, and speakers. the amplifier is entry-level as far as price goes, but it does its job well in all its technical aspects. i might be able to squeeze out a few-percent increase in sound quality if i invested in a high-end amplifier as well. maybe, maybe not. what i have is more than adequate, but i probably will experiment with high-end amplifiers at some point.

yeah, i have excellent speakers at home. they were specifically designed for a recording studio when they were made. i got them when that studio upgraded their hardware. their balance is brilliant. it's perfect, in fact. i haven't heard a better system yet, but i'm giving the benefit of the doubt, thus top 5%.

also, over the years of work as a sound engineer i have come across a lot of sound systems, public, studio, and private. the only systems that have compared to sound quality at my home have been recording studios. public entertainment venues usually trade quality over cost, 99.9% of them are not interested in driving up the cost for improved sound. they also tend to add extra processing somewhere along the line, which will always reduce the clarity of the original signal.

some private systems probably will compare up to my own, but i haven't come across any yet. but, yes, they would need high quality speakers that are well-balanced in low, mid and hi range. and such quality balancing can most only be found in professional-grade speakers not consumer-grade, which is what most homes end up with. consumer-grade speakers tend not to live up to their professional counterparts at all, in my experience.

i can safely say that out of 100 sound systems sampled at random -- public, studio, private -- mine ends up among top 5.

[NativeSon]

Well, first this isn't a format wars thread

Didn't take it as such.

No fun in downloading, I agree.

[East]

I have an entire room full of vinyl...don't even know for sure how many..thousands and thousands...everything I have ever bought I still own...

I love the cover art....the smell....the sound...

I still have the first two LPs I ever bought with my own money....

The Kinks



The Turtles



My favorite two albums of all time would be Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark and Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life...and I have many copies of each. If I am somewhere and I see a copy in mint condition...I can't resist...

I can't part with any of them.....I still listen to vinyl and prefer it...for many reasons....

I liked all the Vietnam War Protest Songs and I would buy all of the LPs in that genre....spent all my money on LPs and then in my 20s I spent Saturdays in San Francisco going from Used Record Store to Used Record Store..there were over 30 of them at one time...ahhhhhh...pure bliss...great place to meet men too!

My favorite protest LP....Melanie's Lay Down Candles in the Rain (she was at Woodstock)....still play this LP all the time. I heard the CD version and it is missing something....the grainy part is what makes it raw...so it loses something in translation....

[InbetweenDreams]

not McIntosh. DAC is 24/192. the 5% refers to sound quality, not to most expensive or exotic system. you can end up with a crappy sound on your 5-digit-expensive sound system if you have no idea what you're doing. this isn't about cost. i invested in high-end CD and DVD players, and speakers. the amplifier is entry-level as far as price goes, but it does its job well in all its technical aspects. i might be able to squeeze out a few-percent increase in sound quality if i invested in a high-end amplifier as well. maybe, maybe not. what i have is more than adequate, but i probably will experiment with high-end amplifiers at some point.

yeah, i have excellent speakers at home. they were specifically designed for a recording studio when they were made. i got them when that studio upgraded their hardware. their balance is brilliant. it's perfect, in fact. i haven't heard a better system yet, but i'm giving the benefit of the doubt, thus top 5%.

also, over the years of work as a sound engineer i have come across a lot of sound systems, public, studio, and private. the only systems that have compared to sound quality at my home have been recording studios. public entertainment venues usually trade quality over cost, 99.9% of them are not interested in driving up the cost for improved sound. they also tend to add extra processing somewhere along the line, which will always reduce the clarity of the original signal.

some private systems probably will compare up to my own, but i haven't come across any yet. but, yes, they would need high quality speakers that are well-balanced in low, mid and hi range. and such quality balancing can most only be found in professional-grade speakers not consumer-grade, which is what most homes end up with. consumer-grade speakers tend not to live up to their professional counterparts at all, in my experience.

i can safely say that out of 100 sound systems sampled at random -- public, studio, private -- mine ends up among top 5.

Well I mentioned 384kHz/48-bit because they actually sell one...saw one in Music Direct and they certainly stuck a big price tag on it too...

Well my system is basically an entry to mid range reciever... Yamaha RX-V379, has pretty much the standard features you would expect. Use fiber optics from the computer at 96kHz/24-bit, I think that's the highest my sound blaster/receiver will support...Then I have a full set of Klipsch Reference speakers: R-28F Floor speakers, R-25C Center, R-14M Surround speakers and a 10" powered subwoofer R-10SW. The problem is the room... I need to at some point get some foam or bass traps to get rid of the nulls...

Not truly sure where the sound quality stands but they are definitely a huge step up from what I had... I had an old receiver (JVC circa 1998) and I'm pretty sure there were some capacitors that are way out of tolerance/leaky....have to crank the treble all the way up to get it to sound normal.

The enviroment also makes a huge difference... I brought my stereo setup to my sister's wedding, sounded totally different in the beach house... So I think getting the room setup right will make it even better...

The other ground pounder I have is a 1962 Motorola Console Stereo... Not quite there on sound quality but for something in a wood cabinet it will run you out of the room... All vacuum tube (except for the FM multiplexer for stereo)...all works, turntable could probably use a new rubber wheel... I got another old turntable that was supposed to be restoration project....rubber wheel totally dried out...cost is about $50 to get a new one......

[NativeSon]

Yeah, currently don't have a turntable, but I still do buy vinyl.

It's a luxury.

[LJay]

Good grief! So I am not crazy for saving my 78's.

Now they are just another possession that would cost my a great deal to enjoy, but I still keep them. I have aToscanini-led Beethoven's Fifth that was my favorite record(s) as a kid.

[InbetweenDreams]

Good grief! So I am not crazy for saving my 78's.

Now they are just another possession that would cost my a great deal to enjoy, but I still keep them. I have aToscanini-led Beethoven's Fifth that was my favorite record(s) as a kid.

I have a few 78's and a 78 stylus for my cartridge....they sound pretty darn good, almost high fidelity...seems the recordings vary a lot but then again one would expect that with some of these records being 75+ years old... Come to think of it I always forget to adjust the tracking force on the 78's...the stylus calls for 2 grams and to adjust the anti-skate weight...

Anyway, I have a few uploaded to YouTube... And just a note on some of these I had the recording level a little too high, so some have a bit of distortion (clipping)... I really need to redo these...I suppose I could "cheat" but I like to capture the audio at the time I take the video...
















This one was recorded from the old Motorola turntable...has a lot of rumble...I had to filter out...everything else above is as is...just cranked the gain up too much...