Modern Turntables

[scorpio]

I think that this is very much like the compression driver/horns vs direct radiator debate, there is no single good answer.

Me, I'm a 61 vintage, I always had vinyls, never got rid of them, and I keep buying plenty of them. I also have a pretty good CD set-up, I enjoy both just as well. And I have vinyls (lots of them) that are just as quiet as CD's.

Would I go into vinyl today if I had never used one before, probably not, I'd avoid the financial dilution it creates.

Yet, it's difficult to resist to these huge piles of fine vinyls at 4 or 5 euros/piece, when even a second hand CD is easily 8 euros...

And for me, the best bass I have ever heard are from a well set up turntable, maybe not as deep or percussive, but a whole lot more refined.

As someone else's here signs, it's all compromise! But as long as you enjoy it...

Cheers

[nrwjbl]

.... you will not hear all the noise a vinyl record produces. Hizz, Kick, Pops. On a cd you don't get this ...
...

Hi,

I can't find within my collection starting late 60's any vinyls that create those remarkable "hizz, kick and pops" as you describe. Probably because I
did not buy bad recordings you definitely find on vinyl. Further I take much care in handling them and using a Keith Monks washing machine to keep them clean even after decades. I tried a lot but a washing machine really helps to keep your (big) vinyl collection clean and sound very nice. Looking at the liquid vacuumed after cleaning from the surface of a vinyl you find a jelly-type of dustcream that was not cleaned by industry or caused by dust over the years. After cleaning they sound really fantastic again.
I bought lots of very fine vinyls on secondhand markets, they were nearly spoilt by dust and bad fingerprints and could be cleaned essentially with Keith Monks machine, thanks to KM that Englishman who built that first classic machine that still works with no problem for years.

I own (and owned) some pretty CD-Players (Mark Levinson, McIntosh, Teac-Esoteric, Bumester etc.) and of course have the direct comparison to vinyls. For sure Cd produce fantastic quality. Comparing recordings on vinyl and CD I prefer vinyl. Some of them have more dynamics than same recordings on CD. They give more emotion, don't know why but it is.

Maybe because it's more fun to take them out your collection, looking through very fine covers, pictures and informations within or printed outside as to take that cheap little plastic cover hardly readable and miniaturized with just a silver disc in it. It's more action preparing to play a record on a record player - but I like that trouble.

I think both medias are excellent to listen to your favourite music. But my vinyls are a piece of my life for me and I appreciate them as much as a good book I bought. I collected them from different places in the world and many of them you will never find on CD.

By the way: some days ago I finished copying my CD-Collection on harddisc. Have two HD's with each 1 TB space (backup), enough for thousands of titles uncompressed. What was really upsetting me was the comparison beetween a Mark Levinson CD-player and harddisc reproduction. Music from HD played so soft and "analog" reminding me of vinyls. A perfect reproduction, nearly equal to high-end CD-machine. An investment for HD-reproduction is only 10% compared to the price for a high-end CD-machine. In the future I will listen to my digital library only by harddisc. High quality, low investment, indipendent from "windows-world" as you do not need running your computer when playing and listening, and going through all your library sitting comfortably in your armchair with remote control and just listen. That can be very relaxing sometime.

So play your music enjoy it maybe analog or digital, what matters ....

peter

[rs237]

By the way: some days ago I finished copying my CD-Collection on harddisc. Have two HD's with each 1 TB space (backup), enough for thousands of titles uncompressed. What was really upsetting me was the comparison beetween a Mark Levinson CD-player and harddisc reproduction. Music from HD played so soft and "analog" reminding me of vinyls. A perfect reproduction, nearly equal to high-end CD-machine. An investment for HD-reproduction is only 10% compared to the price for a high-end CD-machine. In the future I will listen to my digital library only by harddisc. High quality, low investment, indipendent from "windows-world" as you do not need running your computer when playing and listening, and going through all your library sitting comfortably in your armchair with remote control and just listen.
peter

Hello Peter,

I have the same experience. I also have my CD collection on hard copy (3 terabyte NAS Storage) and play them on my LYNX TWO B sound card. Cd player all I heard sounded not so good

Regards
Juergen

[hjames]

Seems to be UK only sales -
http://www.keithmonks-rcm.co.uk/

Tell us a bit more about your hard drive music solution ... There are a number of them out there, which are you using?

Hi,
I take much care in handling them and using a Keith Monks washing machine to keep them clean even after decades. I tried a lot but a washing machine really helps to keep your (big) vinyl collection clean and sound very nice. Looking at the liquid vacuumed after cleaning from the surface of a vinyl you find a jelly-type of dustcream that was not cleaned by industry or caused by dust over the years. After cleaning they sound really fantastic again.

...
A perfect reproduction, nearly equal to high-end CD-machine. An investment for HD-reproduction is only 10% compared to the price for a high-end CD-machine. In the future I will listen to my digital library only by harddisc. High quality, low investment, indipendent from "windows-world" as you do not need running your computer when playing and listening, and going through all your library sitting comfortably in your armchair with remote control and just listen. That can be very relaxing sometime.

So play your music enjoy it maybe analog or digital, what matters ....

peter

[Hoerninger]

"In the future I will listen to my digital library only by harddisc. ... indipendent from "windows-world" as you do not need running your computer ... sitting comfortably in your armchair with remote control and just listen."

Hallo Peter ,
interesting reading. How do you manage to have access to your harddisk without running a PC? iPot or something else?
____________
Peter

[Rolf]

Very well folks. I can ... to a certain point understand if you want to play music from the 40's, 50's, even earlier that is not available on CD's. But please understand me too. I can't do that, because I hate all the surface noise, and this is ruining the music to me.

To those who says that the LP is as quiet as a CD: How is that possible? You have a needle in a groove, and that make a noise by itself.??

I will not comment this further, as I understand it has no point.

[rs237]

Seems to be UK only sales -
http://www.keithmonks-rcm.co.uk/

Tell us a bit more about your hard drive music solution ... There are a number of them out there, which are you using?

I use a small mini PC without fan and without Harddisk. The operating system is on a flash disk, the Soungcards is the LYNX TWO B

http://lynxstudio.com/lynxtwo.html

Lossless grab for the CDs I use audigrabber 1.83

http://www.audiograbber.de/download.phtml

for play foobar2000

http://www.foobar2000.org/

regards

juergen

[readswift]

What was really upsetting me was the comparison beetween a Mark Levinson CD-player and harddisc reproduction. Music from HD played so soft and "analog" reminding me of vinyls. A perfect reproduction, nearly equal to high-end CD-machine. An investment for HD-reproduction is only 10% compared to the price for a high-end CD-machine. In the future I will listen to my digital library only by harddisc. High quality, low investment, indipendent from "windows-world" as you do not need running your computer when playing and listening, and going through all your library sitting comfortably in your armchair with remote control and just listen.
peter

please more info about your computer chain. Thats really-really hard to beleive for me , let's say technical specs dictate much worse perfomance compared to ML !

[readswift]

computer playback has triple amount of jitter (plus clocking is corrupted by HF garbage from pc psu. Mark Levinson has multibit converters , something non existent in soundcards. BTW . I have Lynx AES-16 , I think a high quality slaved CD transport can beat it in jitter spec. No compare yet.

[rs237]

computer playback has triple amount of jitter (plus clocking is corrupted by HF garbage from pc psu. Mark Levinson has multibit converters , something non existent in soundcards. BTW . I have Lynx AES-16 , I think a high quality slaved CD transport can beat it in jitter spec. No compare yet.

No sir, computer playback is not comparable with CD playback. The only jitter at the computer blayback relevant, comes from the clock generator on the sound card.At the CD player is the biggest part of the jitter from the transport.This part is not at the computer playback.

regards

juergen

[readswift]

Ok , then look for measurements at stereophile.com. Three times lower numbers for transports than RME soundcard. RME not even tries to stand out with their numbers "better than 1ns" ha-ha-ha. The thing is about asynchronous datatransfer without corrupted clock over Firewire or USB or recently HDMI, this would equal in theory - reading audio cd as files instead of tracks.

[readswift]

so no Sir, it cannot be *that* simple thing to kick the ML out of its playground.

http://www.lessloss.com/computer_audio_usb.html

[rs237]

hello readswift,

Would be nice if you have a link to the test at stereophile.com might indicate. If you talk over

"asynchronous datatransfer without corrupted clock over Firewire or USB or recently HDMI"

it seems the test is not going to do what we are talking about.

regards
juergen

[readswift]

of course the test has nothing to do with async data transfer, thats just the "future" in the form of HDMI.
You can buy however custom Async USB or Firewire solutions, very far from consumer mainstream , stuff Like Prism , Wavelength audio 3000 USD+ .


google is easy to do, like- stereophile.com RME - and better brands, look for the last pages inbetween measurements. I remember most of the nice transports are about 50ps. Rme analog out - 140. Spdif out- 250 or so

[nrwjbl]

Hallo Peter ,
interesting reading. How do you manage to have access to your harddisk without running a PC? iPot or something else?
____________
Peter

Hi Peter,

here some more details about HD-music reproduction:

1. Hardware:
   - 2 Maxtor Shared Storage harddisks (1: music data; 2: backup)
   - DAC-converter (Mark Levinson ML 36, RME Fireface 400 interface)
   - Sonos Zoneplayers plus Remote-Control (www.sonos.com)
   - network connection to router for internet access.
   
   Harddisks are connected via Ethernet with Sonos Zoneplayer. Digital files run into my DAC-Converter (RME Fireface or ML 36) which is connected to my preamp (either analogue or digital). On the other hand I can give digital or analogue signals back into Sonosplayer and connect it to my computer for recording by using Wavelab etc.
   Very comfortable and easy to handle and no conflicts with a computer network.
2. Software:
   - grabbing software (i.e. mediamonkey, EAC = exact audio copy etc)
   - Sonos Control-Software if you want to play by your computer
   - built in Software of Sonos Remote-Control to use without computer in function.
3. Proceeding:
   Storing digital files via computer-network on NAS-Storage-harddisk. By this I can easily transfer my music on HD and get title informations and if I like CD-covers as software calls it from internet while loading. Music can be grabbed in lossless formats (wave, flac). Tests in different audio magazines have proven that digital files can be stored with no loss of quality on harddisks.

For playing the music from harddisk I do not use my computer as I apply Sonos remote control with built in software plus monitor. This (stand-alone) unit is only connected to my router to get contact to internet for software update or internetradio.

Sonos Zoneplayers are equipped with insufficient DAC-Converters. To satisfy high quality reproduction I apply a very good additional external converter. This connected to the system gives really good performance.
I use it now for several months and cannot detect any jitter-problems. Sound is crisp and clear and with real fundamental bass, laid back, no harshness, not nervous at all..! I'm judging about just listening with my ears, I'm no technician to get measure datas. Sorry.

Listening to HD and switching to conventional ML 36/37-DAC/Disc-drive gives me a different "sound" but it's not at all a question of quality but of personal taste. I am very satisfied with my digital files now. Banned 8 head-high shelves with plastic CD-boxes from my listening room and replaced them by two tiny HD-drives which gave much room optimizing placement of my 4435's.
Even there is only slight noise of harddisks audible I put them next room to be sure not to get disturbed.

Maybe some did understand my contribution blaming Mark Levinson - not at all. I like this outstanding equipment and used it for years. But price is outstanding too.
We tested with Esoteric CD too and got nearly same result.
For me it's striking to reach such perfect results by using less costly digital harddisk reproduction.

Hope I could give some more information

peter