It's the only reason I have a digital setup, certainly not for sound quality
! But even then I can't bring myself to listen to computer digital.david
Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement v2
- Thread starter jfrech
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It's the only reason I have a digital setup, certainly not for sound quality
! But even then I can't bring myself to listen to computer digital.david
It's the recordings and the phono that will make bigger difference, I think. What vinyl recording vs what tape
I wish my clock had started 50 years ago, before I was born, and stopped in the 80s. I would have a thorens, original Decca and EMI and Phillips and many other labels and monos all picked up cheap, into theater horns at one end and apogee full range on the other.
IME at any level equivalent R2R is better than record players, it's more natural sounding but the limitation is software so in the real world record players rule the day, at least for now.
david
Dear Mike,
I have been saying offline to a few friends about how my vinyl could attract me to spend time on listening without missing tapes. I have no doubt your vinyl front can sound differently better than tapes. I think this is part of the reason ddk don’t go into tape. Frankly, if I have not put a lot of money into tape already I really don’t have strong incentives to keep buying tapes. Tape is so dependent on ...well...tapes. Ron will realize this once he put his feet in it
Kind regards,
Tang
Dear Tang,
I screwed up. and when I wrote it I knew better and even foresaw what reaction it might create. I was too much in a hurry yesterday getting ready to host my group to go back and delete it.
there was a good reason I had not listened to those classical tapes 'for years' I mentioned that my vinyl bettered. I suspect they were 7 and 1/2ips 1/2 track sourced. they were iconic performances, and were pretty good, but never super to my ears. and I wanted to revisit them and see whether my system and tape path upgrades boosted them and whether they would still hold up. alas, they did not. I made my point about the GFS but really did not do a proper job of the details. going back and forth between vinyl and tape is part of my enjoyment of the hobby, and throw digital in there too. the whole hierarchy of formats and the nuance of all that has been a obsession for me for a couple decades. which is why have ultimate performance of all three is important to me.
anyway...….tape rules. maybe it rules by less of a margin than before. but it's still king.
yesterday with my group we played maybe a dozen tapes, and lots of vinyl and digital too. we went from about 12:45pm to after 9pm (this morning i'm exhausted). most of the tapes were at least a half a reel. they were musically amazing and not 'audiophile' tapes......no 'soft jazz' or 'pretty female vocal' simple stuff. my vinyl sound fantastic.....but....tape rules.
so when I read about tape not getting it done, my eyes roll a little. no doubt I have some stinkers in my 175-200 title tape collection. and the line separating the haves and have nots where vinyl is better has moved. but mostly I have epic tapes and it takes me and my fellow listeners to a place nothing else can. which does not mean tape at the highest levels is worth the effort.....that's a personal call.
i'm still 100% bullish on the GFS and it is the real deal.
best regards,
Mike
This is exactly my point. I never said tapes in general sound inferior to vinyls. I said its sound is dependent so much on the quality of the software itself. If you have access to master or excellent copies then rtr is the best sounding format. I just don’t have many accesses to those. I listen mostly jazz of 50’s and 60’s original non-covered music and “I” “me” haven’t found tapes that better vinyls of titles l like. I own less than a dozen Jazz tapes that obviously sound better than vinyl..most from IPI some from Fone. I don’t just want to listen to good sound. I also want to listen to music and songs I like and familiar with.
Kind regards,
Tang
I should have deleted mine too
. If you can get access to excellent tapes of titles you are interested in then rtr is it. Imo, go for rtr if you 1) has many accesses to excellent softwares 2) have tape technician who really know what he is doing to service your machine at your convenient 3) want a reference sound to measure your gears against. I don’t have 1) and 2). Apologize for getting off subject of the thread. My bad talking about what I have limited resource and experience in.
Kind regards,
Tang
You hit the nail on the head. That's my argument mentioned with my friend who was trying to justify it all before he went head first into an exotic machine and tape pre. He bought a tape collection of over 300 commercial tapes at 7 ips and was not to impressed running them direct without his Doshi. IMO the selection of tapes is next to nothing compared to vinyl. $500 for a tape is more than I am willing to spend on a single album. As I write this I am listening to a record I paid $2 for. The sound is good for 2 bucks, but know my expectations are all lot lower at that price vs $500.
I do like the sound quality of good tape titles that I am into, and yes they are better than good vinyl in the same setup.
Just an interesting foot note. I was at the recording session for "Fatha" which was made in the Jonas Miller's Audio shop on Wilshire Blvd. after hours. Hines suddenly started to have a nosebleed so Ken Kreisel stopped the recording. I was a medical student at the time so I treated him by having someone run out to the pharmacy to get some neosynephrine (vasoconstrictor) which I put on a swab an held it in his nose until the bleeding stopped. In the meantime, someone cleaned the blood off the keyboard and voila, the recoding was restarted and he finished without further incident. You can't make this stuff up!!
Marty, Marty, Marty . . . I appreciate you are a medical doctor, but what about the Audiocratic Oath?
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won sonic gains of those audiophiles in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of audiophiles in need, all tweaks [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-tweaking and objectivist nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to audio as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the scientist's measurements or the objectivist's ridicule.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not why something sounds the way it does," nor will I fail to call in my friends when the skills of another are needed to solve a frequency anomaly.
No matter how dire the need of another person, I will not shirk my responsibility to plug a recording device into the mixing console whenever, and for whatever reason, I find myself in a recording session.
I will respect the hard-won sonic gains of those audiophiles in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of audiophiles in need, all tweaks [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-tweaking and objectivist nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to audio as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the scientist's measurements or the objectivist's ridicule.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not why something sounds the way it does," nor will I fail to call in my friends when the skills of another are needed to solve a frequency anomaly.
No matter how dire the need of another person, I will not shirk my responsibility to plug a recording device into the mixing console whenever, and for whatever reason, I find myself in a recording session.
Ron was asking how GFS compare to Opus1 and AtlasSL. (I throw in AtlasSL because I like it ) I only have about 20 hrs on GFS but can state a few obvious that I hear without thinking what to look for. Once again, my AtlasSL is on Axiom/927. The GFS/3012R and Opus1/SAT on AS2000.
- GFS and Opus1 have the same level of extraordinary clarity. If AtlasSL is on AS2000, it likely has the same clarity also. Why I suspect so? Because before my AS arrived, the clarity of EMT, Kronos and Techdas were at the same level and I had Opus1 and AtlasSL on all of them at the same time. I didn’t find Opus1 any more transparent or clear than AtlasSL. Next week I will put AtlasSL/Axiom on AS and I will know for sure.
-All three are very very dynamic, involving, create great presence.
- Orchestra is quite a distant awaywith GFS. I don’t know how many rolls, but even farther back than AtlasSL. Mike and Ron might not agree. I sit 5.2 meters away from my speakers and the orchestra was quite a distant back away from my speakers. So it felt far for me. While Mike does near field if that makes any difference. The Opus is most upfront. Each cart you will get very different view and hearing of a symphony. But on jazz AtlasSL and GFS have more realistic size and scale of a band when talking “they-are-here” perspective.
- GFS’s high, on every instruments, is most vibrant of the three. Very refreshing. Yet the extension is not as good as the other two. More time will extend more?
- AtlasSL’s midband attacks, surges = Opus1 > GFS.
- Opus1’s vocal tone is most refined and ear pleasing. GFS and AtlasSL are more less the same on this regard. Every so often can hear “hairline” (I don’t want to say roughness) in sound.
- For decay, room ambient, woody sound Opus1 is best. GFS and AtlasSL about the same.
- GFS and AtlasSL have no immersive effect like Opus1.
- Instrument distinction is best with GFS. Listen to John Fahay’s After the Ball, I wish I knew How it would feel to be Free. This song has many instruments jamming at the same time. GFS pretty much makes different brass and string instruments sound more distinctively to one another at busy play than the other two carts. On orchestra, although sounding distant away, the GFS enable me to differentiate different instruments really well. So it could still fools me real like listening in the hall on back row. Very different kind of fools me real from Opus1 that makes me see everything hear everything up close.
That’s it for now. Any particular sound aspects you want me to look for just let me know.
Kind regards,
Tang
) I only have about 20 hrs on GFS but can state a few obvious that I hear without thinking what to look for. Once again, my AtlasSL is on Axiom/927. The GFS/3012R and Opus1/SAT on AS2000. - GFS and Opus1 have the same level of extraordinary clarity. If AtlasSL is on AS2000, it likely has the same clarity also. Why I suspect so? Because before my AS arrived, the clarity of EMT, Kronos and Techdas were at the same level and I had Opus1 and AtlasSL on all of them at the same time. I didn’t find Opus1 any more transparent or clear than AtlasSL. Next week I will put AtlasSL/Axiom on AS and I will know for sure.
-All three are very very dynamic, involving, create great presence.
- Orchestra is quite a distant awaywith GFS. I don’t know how many rolls, but even farther back than AtlasSL. Mike and Ron might not agree. I sit 5.2 meters away from my speakers and the orchestra was quite a distant back away from my speakers. So it felt far for me. While Mike does near field if that makes any difference. The Opus is most upfront. Each cart you will get very different view and hearing of a symphony. But on jazz AtlasSL and GFS have more realistic size and scale of a band when talking “they-are-here” perspective.
- GFS’s high, on every instruments, is most vibrant of the three. Very refreshing. Yet the extension is not as good as the other two. More time will extend more?
- AtlasSL’s midband attacks, surges = Opus1 > GFS.
- Opus1’s vocal tone is most refined and ear pleasing. GFS and AtlasSL are more less the same on this regard. Every so often can hear “hairline” (I don’t want to say roughness) in sound.
- For decay, room ambient, woody sound Opus1 is best. GFS and AtlasSL about the same.
- GFS and AtlasSL have no immersive effect like Opus1.
- Instrument distinction is best with GFS. Listen to John Fahay’s After the Ball, I wish I knew How it would feel to be Free. This song has many instruments jamming at the same time. GFS pretty much makes different brass and string instruments sound more distinctively to one another at busy play than the other two carts. On orchestra, although sounding distant away, the GFS enable me to differentiate different instruments really well. So it could still fools me real like listening in the hall on back row. Very different kind of fools me real from Opus1 that makes me see everything hear everything up close.
That’s it for now. Any particular sound aspects you want me to look for just let me know.
Kind regards,
Tang
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