You are happy with both your high quality Digital front end and your Record Player. How much do you use the latter?

analogmusic posted:

well - analog tape got a nice sound to it, but digital masters at 192/24 are more true and realistic.

analog tape and vinyl got a slight softness which doesn’t happen in real music

 

not my point of view when listening.  Original lps sound more dynamic in my system vs 24/192 or dsd.   I bought around 20 albums of my favorite lps, well recorded also, in digital format : 24/96 or 192, and 4 dsd.  Just one come close to the vinyl, in dynamics and naturalness ( jeff beck: blow by blow).

The 19 other albums, from 1972 to 1979, like Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, stevie ray vaughan( 1983), dire straits....are even not close to the lps.

nds/555dr/unitserve -uptone linear ps/ cisco 2960 / audioquest diamond 

rega rp10/ lyra delos/ ear 912 phono

Even Jimmy Page said that the Led Zeppelin albums were mastered for vinyl 

and that’s why he personally remastered them for digital 

Beachcomber posted:

 not least because real vision is three dimensional

 

Only for things within a relatively few feet of you.  Beyond that it is 2D.  You can test this quite easily - look at some distant objects and repeatedly close alternate eyes.  There will be no discernable parallax effects.

Not so, unless your relatively few feet mens hundreds or more Looking about 32 feet away where a wall ends and another wall is visible 8ft beyond, The images from my eyes are sufficiently different that a mark on the wall about 1cm long is completely visible to one eye and not at all the other. And the effect is noticeable even when sufficintly far that my eyes cant see fine enough detail to know if one eye sees something beyond an edge that the other doesn’t:  Staying perfectly still looking out of the window where I am now, picking on two objects one about 80 yards away and another seemingly next to it but about 110 yards away, with one eye shut I cannot tell which is nearer, but with both eyes open I immediately can.  

analogmusic posted:

Even Jimmy Page said that the Led Zeppelin albums were mastered for vinyl 

and that’s why he personally remastered them for digital 

Most of Led Zeppelins albums were mastered for Vinyl because digital didn't exist in the studio until around 1979.

analogmusic posted:

The Led Zeppelin deluxe reissue series closes out today with newly expanded and remastered versions of 1976's Presence, 1979's In Through the Out Door and 1982's Coda. For guitarist Jimmy Page, who curated the reissues, it marks the end of a very long chapter in his career.

Noting that the new versions of the albums leave fans with "double the amount of [Led Zeppelin] studio information and studio material that there was in the first place," Page tells ABC News Radio that he's satisfied he's given the band its due with the remastered records and their attendant bonus material.

 "There's such in affection for Led Zeppelin music within the audience, it could only be the right thing to do to put out a real authoritative package," noted Page. "And here we are at the end of it."

Fans might be tempted to take that with a grain of salt, given that most major rock artists have seen multiple rounds of reissues over the past 25 years, but Page feels the current versions of the albums have been future-proofed as much as possible. "The last time that Led Zeppelin music was remastered it was for the advent of CDs over 20 years ago," he pointed out. "I wanted to really approach every way that you could listen to it outside of MP3 [and] let it be available for people who want to hear it … with all the distance in it and the depth and the 3D picture of the mixing, etc, etc."

Now that the reissues have been closed out, Page will presumably return his attention to his solo career, which he plans to revive with new tour dates and an album he's hinted will be "quite different" from anything people expect.

i recently bought on lp the led zep 2 , a 1973 french   reissue, in mint condition.  The sound is terrific !     i had a remaster from 2010(?) on classic records, it is like the cd sound.  

Mutton

you did not understand the point. 

a good album recorded in digital, and mastered for digital sounds extremely good without the limitations of analog tape, or vinyl.

once an album is recorded on tape the sound of tape is all over the music.... it’s a nice sound but it’s not a true sound. It’s hard to compensate for that later on when transferring to digital. 

A recent all digital album is superb. The Dua Lipa debut album in one example. 

analogmusic posted:

you did not understand the point. 

a good album recorded in digital, and mastered for digital sounds extremely good without the limitations of analog tape, or vinyl.

 

but the led zeppelin, the best of their albums, were not recorded in digital first.   As for limitations of vinyl, i don’t see any.

I agree that albums recorded in digital and remastered for digital can sound extremely good.  But, for me, my best recorded lps sound better than the best hirez i have.    I am far to be the only one to think that.      These are different feelings and points of view, you have yours, i have mine.  no problem with that.

Beachcomber posted:

 not least because real vision is three dimensional

 

Only for things within a relatively few feet of you.  Beyond that it is 2D.  You can test this quite easily - look at some distant objects and repeatedly close alternate eyes.  There will be no discernable parallax effects.

Not so, unless your relatively few feet mens hundreds or more Looking about 32 feet away where a wall ends and another wall is visible 8ft beyond, The images from my eyes are sufficiently different that a mark on the wall about 1cm long is completely visible to one eye and not at all the other. And the effect is noticeable even when sufficintly far that my eyes cant see fine enough detail to know if one eye sees something beyond an edge that the other doesn’t:  Staying perfectly still looking out of the window where I am now, picking on two objects one about 80 yards away and another seemingly next to it but about 110 yards away, with one eye shut I cannot tell which is nearer, but with both eyes open I immediately can.  

French Rooster posted:

analogmusic posted:

you did not understand the point. 

a good album recorded in digital, and mastered for digital sounds extremely good without the limitations of analog tape, or vinyl.

 

but the led zeppelin, the best of their albums, were not recorded in digital first.   As for limitations of vinyl, i don’t see any.

I agree that albums recorded in digital and remastered for digital can sound extremely good.  But, for me, my best recorded lps sound better than the best hirez i have.    I am far to be the only one to think that.      These are different feelings and points of view, you have yours, i have mine.  no problem with that.

Yes, I can hear what you talk about. My issue is that when I heard albums on tape/Vinyl over and over again, and then was lucky to hear the live shows... I can tell you analog tape or Vinyl is not what the real music sounded like, but yes it's very pleasing to the ears.

The real music was something else altogether.... 

Try to listen to a Chord Hugo or Dave sometime.... I know it's not easy, but you need to listen to one to hear what digital is capable of.

Even my Chord Mojo with a vertere interconnect  sounds shockingly like real music with the appropriate recordings....

French Rooster posted:

i recently bought on lp the led zep 2 , a 1973 french   reissue, in mint condition.  The sound is terrific !     i had a remaster from 2010(?) on classic records, it is like the cd sound.  

 

And I bought LZ I in 1970, playing on my first hifi system. It was great. I still had it 40 years later. It was great - as long as you ignored the hiss, eggs and bacon frying in quiet moments, and occasional clicks. I don’t have it any more, and I can enjoy the music without background noise. 

I always took scrupulous care of records, though in fairness  it had been played 100s of times. Maybe a major culprit was dust, despite cleaning every play - but cleaning machines weren’t something people had or even know about, and I just thought it was wear.

analogmusic posted:

French Rooster posted:

analogmusic posted:

you did not understand the point. 

a good album recorded in digital, and mastered for digital sounds extremely good without the limitations of analog tape, or vinyl.

 

but the led zeppelin, the best of their albums, were not recorded in digital first.   As for limitations of vinyl, i don’t see any.

I agree that albums recorded in digital and remastered for digital can sound extremely good.  But, for me, my best recorded lps sound better than the best hirez i have.    I am far to be the only one to think that.      These are different feelings and points of view, you have yours, i have mine.  no problem with that.

Yes, I can hear what you talk about. My issue is that when I heard albums on tape/Vinyl over and over again, and then was lucky to hear the live shows... I can tell you analog tape or Vinyl is not what the real music sounded like, but yes it's very pleasing to the ears.

The real music was something else altogether.... 

Try to listen to a Chord Hugo or Dave sometime.... I know it's not easy, but you need to listen to one to hear what digital is capable of.

Even my Chord Mojo with a vertere interconnect  sounds shockingly like real music with the appropriate recordings....

Muttonjef i don't see anything funny that you're trying to mock.

What is funny is how you actually believed that the Hugo TT has a real analog preamp  

analogmusic posted:

Muttonjef your constant insipid remarks doesn’t cover up an unimpressive lack of interest and knowledge in hi fi

Analogmusic............please accept my sincere and profound apologies for the disrespect I've shown ones clearly superior knowledge and experience of all thing to do with HiFi.

I've never claimed like some to be an expert on HiFi as it's only a means to an end. I love music and thats what for me it'a all about.

I feel truly inferior and accordingly doff ones hat to you.

analogmusic posted:

interesting, but in my opinion It's more of a technical issue, as Simon has explained before in this thread.

Digital playback can be just as enjoyable as the best Vinyl. and it took one particular DAC (and the innovation behind it) to get there.... In my opinion .....

And that is the optimum word - opinion.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Beachcomber posted:

 not least because real vision is three dimensional

 

Only for things within a relatively few feet of you.  Beyond that it is 2D.  You can test this quite easily - look at some distant objects and repeatedly close alternate eyes.  There will be no discernable parallax effects.

Not so, unless your relatively few feet mens hundreds or more Looking about 32 feet away where a wall ends and another wall is visible 8ft beyond, The images from my eyes are sufficiently different that a mark on the wall about 1cm long is completely visible to one eye and not at all the other. And the effect is noticeable even when sufficintly far that my eyes cant see fine enough detail to know if one eye sees something beyond an edge that the other doesn’t:  Staying perfectly still looking out of the window where I am now, picking on two objects one about 80 yards away and another seemingly next to it but about 110 yards away, with one eye shut I cannot tell which is nearer, but with both eyes open I immediately can.  

There is a huge amount of debate (and research) over how far we can use our eye separation to detect depth (stereopsis).  Some researchers have put it as little as 20 feet.  Others have put it out to about a kilometre.  There are two aspects to this.  One is detecting that one things is further away than another (and we use lots of clues in doing this, such as knowing that domestic cats are smaller than cattle, for instance, quite apart from stereopsis).  The other is determining by how much one things is further away.  Over very short distances we can do this quite well using stereopsis alone.  Over longer distances, not so good. 

If I look out at my barn and some trees about 30 metres away, lining up the ridge of the barn roof with a branch of a tree (not far behind the barn) I can detect no parallax effect of any note - so no 3D.  The branch is only about 3 metres behind the ridge.  Looking at trees on the other side of one of our fields - about 80 metres away) I can see no parallax effects of the various branches in the trees.

Of course, if I look at bushes about 20 metres away, and in front of those same trees, I can then detect parallax - not a huge amount, but some.  But for real stereoscopic vision I think we are talking 20 to 40 metres.  Looking at the far wall of the Grand Canyon is not going to give you stereoscopic vision.

Steve

Mutton

apology not accepted as the usual from you

I don’t know about superior but I’ve requested you not to engage in any discussion with me so kindly please do so. There’s nothing more to be said. 

French Rooster posted:

 Original lps sound more dynamic in my system vs 24/192 or dsd.  

Not sure what you mean by more dynamic.  In terms of dynamic range, it is impossible for vinyl to get the dynamic range of digital.  In theory, vinyl can get about 60dB, maybe up to 80 dB (I think tape can get to about 80dB, not sure that vinyl ever can).  Digital, even CD quality, can get 90 to 96 dB (though it is up to the engineers - in both cases) to actually achieve these figures.

analogmusic posted:

Mutton

apology not accepted as the usual from you

I don’t know about superior but you sold yer main naim kit so clearly .... your opinions on a Naim forum don’t carry the conviction and not very interesting for me. I’ve requested you not to engage in any discussion with me so kindly please do so. There’s nothing more to be said. 

Sorry I think you mistook my sarcasm as an apology.

French Rooster posted:

original lps, from analog era, where cut directly from master tapes. I can’t see how it is further from the original sound than good digital.  Can you explain please ?

Because of what happens when the vinyl is cut, and again when it is played (leaving aside the (smaller) problems with tape).  The vinyl is cut with a parallel tracking arm (usually, if not always).  It is played back with an arm that makes the needle describe an arc over the record, so the alignment of the stylus to the groove changes across the width of the record.  The linear velocity of the stylus against the record surface varies with its position across the width of the record, so the resolution changes.  The music signal has to be modified (RIAA) to try to fit the dynamic range and frequencies into the available space and physical distances that the stylus can move.  Then it has to be reverse-filtered to get it back from RIAA to 'reality'.  What is put onto the LP is very different from what is on the master tape.  What comes off is different again.  Digital has none of these problems.

What a strange place this is - a load of grumpy late middle aged blokes having a go. Get out more gents!

Would it be unfair to say this is a debate between:

- people who have both formats, love both, but think vinyl is capable of sounding better, and frequently does;

- people who have put all their Audio eggs in the digital basket and really want us to agree that digital must be better?

I’m currently listening to a nearly 40 year old pressing of Never Forever. It sounds utterly mesmerisingly gorgeous. To be fair, Kate Bush has to take a big slice of the credit.

Keith

Great album, sublime on vinyl, Aerial is also pretty damn fine on ripped cd too. Good point on both formats I'm happy with digital AND vinyl these days.

Yes, exactly, Ariel sounds fabulous in 16bit digital form, which is the only format I own it in in.

Beachcomber posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Beachcomber posted:

 not least because real vision is three dimensional

 

Only for things within a relatively few feet of you.  Beyond that it is 2D.  You can test this quite easily - look at some distant objects and repeatedly close alternate eyes.  There will be no discernable parallax effects.

Not so, unless your relatively few feet mens hundreds or more Looking about 32 feet away where a wall ends and another wall is visible 8ft beyond, The images from my eyes are sufficiently different that a mark on the wall about 1cm long is completely visible to one eye and not at all the other. And the effect is noticeable even when sufficintly far that my eyes cant see fine enough detail to know if one eye sees something beyond an edge that the other doesn’t:  Staying perfectly still looking out of the window where I am now, picking on two objects one about 80 yards away and another seemingly next to it but about 110 yards away, with one eye shut I cannot tell which is nearer, but with both eyes open I immediately can.  

. 

If I look out at my barn and some trees about 30 metres away, lining up the ridge of the barn roof with a branch of a tree (not far behind the barn) I can detect no parallax effect of any note - so no 3D.  The branch is only about 3 metres behind the ridge.  Looking at trees on the other side of one of our fields - about 80 metres away) I can see no parallax effects of the various branches in the trees.

 

Whether the difference in the images from the two eyes is sufficient to be discernible as parallax is immaterial - the brain can process finer detail and tell that one thing is further than another up to quite some distance - in my quick look out of the window earlier it was two things about 80 and 110 yards away I could immediately see which was further away with two eyes, but unable to tell with one eye. I think what matters is the relative difference as well as the distance away, so my example was one a third as much further away than the other. But 3D it was.