How many are out there?

[DaveyF]

One of the topics that my a'phile group discussed at our last meeting was the preponderance of tapes that are available to the a'phile community or lack thereof. We all felt that R to R was possibly the highest attainable front end sound, however, our concern and one of the main reasons that I personally have not invested in the format, is the basic lack of available 'software'- if you will.
Additionally, for me to acquire a library of tapes is not an option at this stage...I already own over 5000 LPs and hundreds of CD's...to add hundreds or even thousands of reels just isn't in the cards.
To those who are now getting 'vested' in the format...are you not concerned about this issue
How many of you...besides of course Mr. ML, already have a large LP collection, a large CD collection and are now willing to obtain a large reel collection ( if that is even possible)

 

[jazdoc]

The lack and cost of software has definitely prevented me from getting into RTR. You gotta stop somewhere. Of course, the guy typing this just took delivery of a Telos

 

[flez007]

DaveyF - in my case I am getting just very selected titles in tape format, I am not willing to rivalize with my LP (+1000) or my CD (+500) library.

My R2R is just waiting for me as another source (the best sounding in my case) with around 50 titles (slowly but wisely growing) when I want to enjoy my system at its maximum potential.

Interestingly, 30% of my listening is devoted to R2R, my guess is that as my tape library keeps growing, it will get even more pleasing listening hours..

 

[mep]

The lack and cost of software has definitely prevented me from getting into RTR. You gotta stop somewhere. Of course, the guy typing this just took delivery of a Telos

Mark-One thing I learned about you is that your system is esoteric and off the beaten path. I’ve been in this hobby for more years than I care to admit and you own some gear I have never heard of. I did hear your new tonearm though at RMAF.

 

[c1ferrari]

Hi Davey,

Our digital library, exclusively redbook, is modest and approximates our vinyl collection. Analog reel, in my direct experience, supersedes DSD digital that I am seriously investigating -- it is THAT good -- and direct to disc vinyl (more compromises than master analog tape, I believe).

Tapes are out there and the penultimate. Personally, recording one's own analog tape would be the ultimate
Aside, did you make it to Roger's, recently? If possible, I'll make the meeting in Poway...I'd like to hear those speakers -- they look rather groovy -lol.

 

[DaveyF]

Hi Sam, I did make it to Roger's. We listened to the Estelon speakers and his very nice Nak TT, good sound...NOT great sound, IMHO.
While there, I enjoyed a group discussion with Jan, Doc, Jay and Tim among others. Lots of good thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, I will be out of town for the next meeting in Poway
Please give me an update if you can

 

[LL21]

With all the madness pretty all of us on this forum endure, i promised myself i would NEVER go vinyl and just focus on getting the best from redbook...and waiting very patiently until higher-res had matured and become more widely available in terms of source material. Happy to listen to CDs...just probably pushing past 1,000 at the moment.

 

[c1ferrari]

Hi Davey

Hi Sam, I did make it to Roger's. We listened to the Estelon speakers and his very nice Nak TT, good sound...NOT great sound, IMHO.
While there, I enjoyed a group discussion with Jan, Doc, Jay and Tim among others. Lots of good thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, I will be out of town for the next meeting in Poway
Please give me an update if you can

I had an opportunity to listen to the Estelon's at Roger's, earlier; albeit, NOT on the Nak tt :-(
In Roger's room, I felt the Estelon's rendered upper bass quite nicely

 

[DaveyF]

Hi Sam,

I had an opportunity to listen to the Estelon's at Roger's, earlier; albeit, NOT on the Nak tt :-(
In Roger's room, I felt the Estelon's rendered upper bass quite nicely

I wasn't as impressed with the Estelon's as Roger was. However, when I listened to the speakers, Roger had his favorite VMPS's positioned right next to the Estelon's, which I suspect created a 'vertical blind' effect that i heard in the imaging. It is a shame that more a'philes do not believe in the one pair of speakers per room aspect, that I think Ivor T at Linn was proposing many years ago. I really do think that if you listen closely to a room that is filled with speakers that you can actually hear all of them contributing to the music. Which, IMHO is NOT a good thing. In Roger's instance, not only did he have multiple speakers in the room, but the other speakers were right next to the ones under review

 

[Bruce B]

It is a shame that more a'philes do not believe in the one pair of speakers per room aspect, that I think Ivor T at Linn was proposing many years ago. I really do think that if you listen closely to a room that is filled with speakers that you can actually hear all of them contributing to the music. Which, IMHO is NOT a good thing. In Roger's instance, not only did he have multiple speakers in the room, but the other speakers were right next to the ones under review

Has any used an accelerometer attached to the other speakers or can you actually feel the other drivers moving?

 

[fas42]

Has any used an accelerometer attached to the other speakers or can you actually feel the other drivers moving?

Of possible interest, I in fact have 4 pairs of speakers very close to the one's running, and it appears to not be a problem ...

Frank

 

[MylesBAstor]

One of the topics that my a'phile group discussed at our last meeting was the preponderance of tapes that are available to the a'phile community or lack thereof. We all felt that R to R was possibly the highest attainable front end sound, however, our concern and one of the main reasons that I personally have not invested in the format, is the basic lack of available 'software'- if you will.
Additionally, for me to acquire a library of tapes is not an option at this stage...I already own over 5000 LPs and hundreds of CD's...to add hundreds or even thousands of reels just isn't in the cards.
To those who are now getting 'vested' in the format...are you not concerned about this issue
How many of you...besides of course Mr. ML, already have a large LP collection, a large CD collection and are now willing to obtain a large reel collection ( if that is even possible)

I have roughly 10K LPs, 500 CDs (essentially in storage) and now a collection of 15 ips/2 track R2R tapes that numbers 50-70 or so. I hope to increase that number of tapes over the next couple of years to over a hundred. Oh and I'm still buying LPs; I have a standing order from Acoustic Sounds and Music Matters Jazz for any new LP that comes out. Trouble is, those 45 rpms take up a crapload of room --though not as much as that album on tape (two reels).

For me, I'd rather have one Armani suit than ten store brands Same for the tapes: Would rather have a ten really good musically and sonically superb tapes than a 100 CDs. Besides, 150 tapes and 10,000 records is enough for me to listen to for the rest of my life I've also managed to find music on reel-to-reel that I don't have on any other format and some that was actually never released.

And once you've heard a really tape played back through a top flight system, there's no going back!

Right Steve?!?!

 

[tony ky ma]

I have roughly 10K LPs, 500 CDs (essentially in storage) and now a collection of 15 ips/2 track R2R tapes that numbers 50-70 or so. I hope to increase that number of tapes over the next couple of years to over a hundred. Oh and I'm still buying LPs; I have a standing order from Acoustic Sounds and Music Matters Jazz for any new LP that comes out. Trouble is, those 45 rpms take up a crapload of room --though not as much as that album on tape (two reels).

For me, I'd rather have one Armani suit than ten store brands Same for the tapes: Would rather have a ten really good musically and sonically superb tapes than a 100 CDs. Besides, 150 tapes and 10,000 records is enough for me to listen to for the rest of my life I've also managed to find music on reel-to-reel that I don't have on any other format and some that was actually never released.

And once you've heard a really tape played back through a top flight system, there's no going back!

Right Steve?!?!

100% agree, especially listen to the master tape recorded by ourselves really hard to go back, for me I like the sound quality is more than the player's performance because I don't have much knowledge on music, we have some CD from our master tape too, better try our CD first to check the recording quality before to go for the tape copy
tony ma

 

[DaveyF]

Has any used an accelerometer attached to the other speakers or can you actually feel the other drivers moving?

I have not used an accelerometer, but have seen drivers moving and felt drivers moving. I suspect that the effect is akin to the passive radiator; plus the physical presence of--in this instance- our fellow 'phile Roger's largish VMPS speakers sitting right next to the main speakers was definitely a detriment to the imaging of the mains. At least IMHO.. a double whammy to the mains.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Of possible interest, I in fact have 4 pairs of speakers very close to the one's running, and it appears to not be a problem ...

Frank

if you have dormant speakers in a room you need to give them a slight load to stabilize the drivers or they will sing along with the music. and remember that speaker drivers are particularly sensitive to pressure since they are designed to project it efficently.

when i had multi-channel speakers in my 2-channel room i could tell when i forgot to turn on the rear amplifiers when i was playing 2-channel. it's possible you cannot hear the difference, but 100% for sure it's having an effect....the effect simply may be below the noise floor of your system.....or masked in some other way. subwoofers are particularly notorious for this effect.

the effect is a tonal shift, slight loss of focus, as well as a softening of transients and impact to some degree. like having a loose driver. makes sense when you think about it. these are elements of system refinement we try so hard to find, and even a slight loss in these areas just to have speakers sitting around is unfortunate.

 

[mep]

*Sounds* like I need to move the pair of JBL 4312C speakers I just bought from the original owner for $100 out of my listening room and into another space until I can unload them to a new owner. I couldn't resist for $100 since they are in fantastic shape.

 

[fas42]

if you have dormant speakers in a room you need to give them a slight load to stabilize the drivers or they will sing along with the music. and remember that speaker drivers are particularly sensitive to pressure since they are designed to project it efficently.

when i had multi-channel speakers in my 2-channel room i could tell when i forgot to turn on the rear amplifiers when i was playing 2-channel. it's possible you cannot hear the difference, but 100% for sure it's having an effect....the effect simply may be below the noise floor of your system.....or masked in some other way. subwoofers are particularly notorious for this effect.

the effect is a tonal shift, slight loss of focus, as well as a softening of transients and impact to some degree. like having a loose driver. makes sense when you think about it. these are elements of system refinement we try so hard to find, and even a slight loss in these areas just to have speakers sitting around is unfortunate.

Thanks for that, Mike. One thought I just had, have you tried, or has someone suggested actually shorting the terminals of the unused and unconnected speakers? This is effectively creating close to "perfect" damping, at least from the outside of the speaker box.

It's very possible there is such an effect, but at the moment I'm still fighting other system demons, which definitely have more of an impact, at least for me. Since you're very sensitive to the subtleties of sound tweaking, have you experienced the phenomenon of the sound building steadily to a peak of quality, and then going "off", slowly or quickly losing that high point of reproduction quality? Does this make sense to you?

Frank

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Thanks for that, Mike. One thought I just had, have you tried, or has someone suggested actually shorting the terminals of the unused and unconnected speakers? This is effectively creating close to "perfect" damping, at least from the outside of the speaker box.

It's very possible there is such an effect, but at the moment I'm still fighting other system demons, which definitely have more of an impact, at least for me. Since you're very sensitive to the subtleties of sound tweaking, have you experienced the phenomenon of the sound building steadily to a peak of quality, and then going "off", slowly or quickly losing that high point of reproduction quality? Does this make sense to you?

Frank

the phenomina you describe; "cycling" sounds to me like somewhere in your neighborhood there is a large draw of current like a compressor motor turning on and off to keep a air pressure high, or something along those lines. or maybe a microwave transmitter or shortwave radio that is causing varible noise in your system. it does not sound like a gear issue unless you have a power supply that overheats or something like that. likely power grid related if i had to guess.

if you can find a way to eliminate your power grid from your system temporarily and then observe if things even out. i'd try a generator but most of those are noisey themselves both from the motor and their power.

also try changing out each individual component and observe whether the problem remains; which will tell you it is the power grid or something outside the system.

you could also have a loose ground wire acting as an antenna that is picking up crap somehow. this takes trial and error to find. i had a ground wire that i sometimes used that was not attached to anything except to the ground on a duplex outlet. it was there in case i needed to try it on something. for a few months i noticed that when i used my lights i would get noise sometimes. i was mystified why this was happening all of a sudden. i tried everything to figure it out. then a friend saw this ground wire and mentioned it would be better to eliminate it since it might be acting like an antenna. sure enough when i removed it no more noise from my lights.

and finally maybe it's your meds kicking in and out. sorry, could not resist.

 

[fas42]

and finally maybe it's your meds kicking in and out. sorry, could not resist.

Definitely not them for a start ...

The antenna issue is one that needs careful resolving; I mentioned just recently that the setup is still sensitive to cell phones, and remotes. Still not quite sure why the latter can be a problem, I haven't analysed or looked at the circuitry in a typical such unit, but if there's a high frequency clock in there it may be able to spray out just enough interference to cause damage. The thing is, at the very high frequencies wireless devices use, over 1 GHZ, a tiny length of wire, of a few inches, is enough to pick up a signal ...

No, this is more a properties of materials issue, a form of static buildup, which can be very difficult to eradicate. Digital playback is especially prone to it, and it's the cause of a great deal of that hated, either dull or flat, or scratchy CD sound.

Frank