How much does it bother you to see people arguing on the forum. Analogists and digitalists and subcategories.

[Al M.]

My phonograph records are well maintained and rarely do I hear a click or pop so noise not an issue for me.

If it works for you, that is great.

I appreciate the convenience of CDs but prefer the sound of analogue. In fact, digital, to me, has less emotion, and sounds a bit etched/sharp (not everyone hears the same).

Most digital sounds a bit etched and sharp, I agree. It doesn't have to.

 

[Massimo66]

Dear forumers, I am sure I can say that giving an incontrovertible answer on what the best audio reproduction system (source) could be is impossible. . this thought starts from the assumption that none of us has been able to try all the hi-end knowledge that has been produced or that is on the market, much less all its combinations. therefore we must base our opinions not on scientific data (the classic solved equation) but on a probability sample. I can hardly believe that someone who has invested around $350,000 in a system with a digital source doesn't achieve super excellent quality. in the same way I find it hard to believe that anyone who has invested around 130,000 on the analogue system for the source alone should at least see two wonderful girls coming out of their speakers who take care of him. I think that if this were not the case it would be appropriate to look in the mirror and say the worst rubbish to yourself. (once a guy approached a guru who was talking to himself and asked him if everything was okay... The guru replied that he was asking for advice from an expert) certainly based on my limited experience I have almost always felt greater satisfaction listening to music being played from top analogue sources compared to top digital ones. For those who have spent these sums and have not reached nirvana, if I were them I would be really pissed off at myself and would ask myself if I hadn't been better off paying a fee to a great artist to have him play in my house. At this point my motto would become: better one day as a lion than a hundred as an idiot. sorry for my bad english

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Dear forumers, I am sure I can say that giving an incontrovertible answer on what the best audio reproduction system (source) could be is impossible. this thought starts from the assumption that none of us has been able to try all the hi-end knowledge that has been produced or that is on the market, much less all its combinations.

sure.

therefore we must base our opinions not on scientific data (the classic solved equation) but on a probability sample. I can hardly believe that someone who has invested around $350,000 in a system with a digital source doesn't achieve super excellent quality. in the same way I find it hard to believe that anyone who has invested around 130,000 on the analogue system for the source alone should at least see two wonderful girls coming out of their speakers who take care of him.

yes.

I think that if this were not the case it would be appropriate to look in the mirror and say the worst rubbish to yourself. (once a guy approached a guru who was talking to himself and asked him if everything was okay... The guru replied that he was asking for advice from an expert) certainly based on my limited experience I have almost always felt greater satisfaction listening to music being played from top analogue sources compared to top digital ones. For those who have spent these sums and have not reached nirvana, if I were them I would be really pissed off at myself and would ask myself if I hadn't been better off paying a fee to a great artist to have him play in my house. At this point my motto would become: better one day as a lion than a hundred as an idiot.

has anyone complained they are not happy, that have made these commitments?

sorry for my bad english

your English is just fine.

spit it out. what exactly is the point you are making?

 

[Massimo66]

sure.

yes.

has anyone complained they are not happy, that have made these commitments?

your English is just fine.

spit it out. what exactly is the point you are making?

at certain levels and with a good base of experience, spending those figures I mentioned before, you have to be a real asses and put in the effort to ensure that your system is no less than fantastic. then I like a blonde more, you like a brunette more, he likes a dark more and the others like a redhead more. but who cares in the end they are all beautiful. it would be like asking ourselves if when choosing a partner we want her to be beautiful or wonderful... I like them all

 

[andromedaaudio]

at certain levels and with a good base of experience, spending those figures I mentioned before, you have to be a real asses and put in the effort to ensure that your system is no less than fantastic. then I like a blonde more, you like a brunette more, he likes a brunette more and the others like a redhead more. but who cares in the end they are all beautiful. it would be like asking ourselves if when choosing a partner we want her to be beautiful or wonderful... I like them all

Well thats your problem then .
Just like with women you have to choose in life or else you end up with nothing

 

[Massimo66]

Well thats your problem then .
Just like with women you have to choose in life or else you end up with nothing

You are right why listen to the lyrics of this song "the triangle no"

 

[Mike Lavigne]

at certain levels and with a good base of experience, spending those figures I mentioned before, you have to be a real asses and put in the effort to ensure that your system is no less than fantastic. then I like a blonde more, you like a brunette more, he likes a dark more and the others like a redhead more. but who cares in the end they are all beautiful. it would be like asking ourselves if when choosing a partner we want her to be beautiful or wonderful... I like them all

well, there you go. you did spit it out. thank you.

 

[caesar]

For exploration, best is vinyl rips on YT streamed to a soundbar. You don’t need hifi for exploration.

Excellent point. YT is owned by Google/ Alphabet, one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. Objectively! Their goal is to keep people engaged on YT as long as possible so they can play more ads and not lose the customer - so they can keep raking in the cash, as they are at the mercy of the free market.

In an ideal world, we could run an experiment of recommendation engines of roon, tidal, Qubuzz, spotify, youtube, etc., and determine which algorithm spits out the most musically compelling tracks. (And , of course, as part of exploration, one can also check out what Sirius XM suggests, read the Penguin guide to Jazz, follow top critics and DJs, etc., so one can make their decision on a much more diverse set of information.)

Outside of the experiment, I am with you. I would bet a good amount of money the YT recommendation engine blows away Roon , Qubuzz, and other crap audiophiles choose. Whatever, these audiophiles choose, it's likely the same echo chamber, instead of intellectual diversity... as always with these guys

Anecdotally, I was hanging out with some audio buddies and we were streaming. We took a lunch break, and when we came back, Roon radio was playing Sara K

 

[caesar]

Personally, in the last few days I have encountered a continuous squabble in some posts within the forum. I have no problem reading opinions that differ from mine, nor do I feel threatened by those who express thoughts diametrically opposed to my own. On the contrary, I try to read and understand the reasons for the opinions expressed by others and I always try to take them into account. Something can always come up that in my journey as an audiophile I had underestimated or had never taken into consideration. Someone very wise said that true knowledge is knowing that you don't know. If the opinions expressed by others do not convince me or I do not find confirmation of them, even simply based on my personal taste, nothing happens. I am truly tired of those who address others on the assumption that they possess the revealed truth. and who, hiding behind their superior idea, attack those who do not submit to their reasoning. Live and let live

Hey Massimo66,
Another point: when I was getting into the hobby and was trying to understand the crazy audiophile, hobby, I read Jonathan Valin's book the Music Lovers to better understand this awful and toxic audiophile culture.

Valin is a brilliant guy (when he's not peddling bad hifi drek, like a cheap shoe salesman). The Music Lovers book is an excellent read for those who love mystery and suspense. It is set is the early 1990s, before the internet, and just like here on the site, a small number of guys in the Cincinatti audiophile club were complete d!cks, making each other's lives miserable due to naive realism. Like I said in the above post, this stuff will go on forever

 

[skids929]

Personally, in the last few days I have encountered a continuous squabble in some posts within the forum. I have no problem reading opinions that differ from mine, nor do I feel threatened by those who express thoughts diametrically opposed to my own. On the contrary, I try to read and understand the reasons for the opinions expressed by others and I always try to take them into account. Something can always come up that in my journey as an audiophile I had underestimated or had never taken into consideration. Someone very wise said that true knowledge is knowing that you don't know. If the opinions expressed by others do not convince me or I do not find confirmation of them, even simply based on my personal taste, nothing happens. I am truly tired of those who address others on the assumption that they possess the revealed truth. and who, hiding behind their superior idea, attack those who do not submit to their reasoning. Live and let live

Live and let live 100%...Therefore don't let it bother you. Simple as that. Move on...

 

[SoundMann]

And the quality of distortion in digital is such that miniscule distortions can have a much more pernicious psychoacoustic effect than some larger distortions in analog (similar considerations of quantity vs quality of distortions hold in the tube vs solid state debate).

I think that you will be surprised to learn just how much distortion and nonlinearities exist in the digital audio domain. It is hardly miniscule.

 

[SoundMann]

What I find odd, regarding the so called analog/digital debate, is why the contingent of vinyl users who:

a.) use only vinyl. B.) wouldn't be caught dead using digital.

feel the compulsion at every possible opportunity to proselytize the superiority of their vinyl choice and their conclusion that digital audio is irredeemable inferior.

I wonder what the motivation is? Can the enjoyment of their concept of superior vinyl playback only exist relative to something they deem inferior?

Except for the proselytization part, this is me in a nutshell.

 

[Atmasphere]

I don't mind seeing people debate this stuff. I often have a viewpoint at odds with the extremes of either end due to my experience in the industry. Examples:

LP vs digital: The main problem the digital guys have with the LP is ticks and pops. But I've found that phono sections rather than the LPs are often the reason why this happens, because the designer of teh phono section didn't take into account the implications of putting an inductor (the cartridge) in parallel with a capacitance (the tonearm cable). This results in an electrical resonance which can overload the input of a phono section, resulting in a tick or pop.

Conversely, in updating an older TEAC transport, I realized that the clock it used had about 2 orders of magnitude more drift (jitter) than clocks you can get for $15.00 on ebay. That's just one aspect of digital playback; its gotten a lot better over the decades!!

My work mastering LPs has shown me that the medium is a lot quieter and with much lower distortion and wider dynamic range than detractors realize. IMO if you're going to attack a thing, its a good idea to at least be informed about that thing. Most digital guys really don't know how good the LP really is. But a lot of the LP guys don't realize how good digital is either.

Tubes Vs transistors: This topic is almost entirely about distortion and neither the subjectivist or 'objectivist' camps seem to realize it! Tubes make a 2nd and 3rd harmonic which can mask higher ordered harmonics so they sound smooth. 99% of all solid state amps made tend to have unmasked higher ordered harmonic which is why they tend to sound brighter and harsher. There's more to it than that of course but the main thing is that measurement technology, like all other tech, has improved dramatically in the last 35 years yet audiophiles of both camps live as if nothing has happened since the 1980s. These days if the measurements exist and you know what you are looking at, you can draw a direct line between what we hear and what we can measure.

That old saw about we can hear things we can't measure is no longer true. IME, both the subjectivist and objectivist camps hate on the idea that you can tell how something will sound from the measurements.

Now that we know why tubes and solid state sound different (distortion), this is an access to ending the debate. You can design a solid state amp to have the same (beneficial) distortion character of a tube amp (so its nice and smooth) but with lower distortion (and distortion obscures detail). So you can have the detail without the brightness normally associated with solid state. Class D has offered tremendous inroads to solving this issue.

So here are some takeaways. If you're into LPs and your phono section designer did his homework, the playback will be low noise and no ticks or pops. But the main advantage is if the power goes out your music library stays put. That's actually the main reason I still play LPs- they have a longer shelf life.

I'm known as a tube manufacturer but these days IMO the main reason for owning tube amplifiers is the warm glow. There is literally nothing tube amps can do that you can't get a class D amp of proper design to do just as well except clipping overload. People don't realize most of that right now; in fact tend to not believe me despite Atma-Sphere being well known as making some of the most transparent tube amps made (OTLs have ruled the roost in that regard since their introduction in the 1950s; what we did was make them also reliable), so when I say tube power amps are on borrowed time the comment goes in the 'tubes vs transistors' box rather than being taken for what it really is. The war in Ukraine has hurt tubes a lot by increasing prices worldwide (and undoubtedly also because tubes in storage have been destroyed) but it no longer matters so much because after only 60 years after tubes were declared 'obsolete' the succeeding art (semiconductors) has finally gotten to the point that tubes are seriously challenged in every way that audiophiles value.

These are just two examples. When people debate these sort of things, sure there's that desire to be right all the time but there's also the interest in getting to the bottom of the matter. IME the actual reality is a lot more nuanced than is easy to discuss online. But I try to bring that into the discussion anyway.

 

[Carlos269]

I don't mind seeing people debate this stuff. I often have a viewpoint at odds with the extremes of either end due to my experience in the industry. Examples:

LP vs digital: The main problem the digital guys have with the LP is ticks and pops. But I've found that phono sections rather than the LPs are often the reason why this happens, because the designer of teh phono section didn't take into account the implications of putting an inductor (the cartridge) in parallel with a capacitance (the tonearm cable). This results in an electrical resonance which can overload the input of a phono section, resulting in a tick or pop.

Conversely, in updating an older TEAC transport, I realized that the clock it used had about 2 orders of magnitude more drift (jitter) than clocks you can get for $15.00 on ebay. That's just one aspect of digital playback; its gotten a lot better over the decades!!

My work mastering LPs has shown me that the medium is a lot quieter and with much lower distortion and wider dynamic range than detractors realize. IMO if you're going to attack a thing, its a good idea to at least be informed about that thing. Most digital guys really don't know how good the LP really is. But a lot of the LP guys don't realize how good digital is either.

Tubes Vs transistors: This topic is almost entirely about distortion and neither the subjectivist or 'objectivist' camps seem to realize it! Tubes make a 2nd and 3rd harmonic which can mask higher ordered harmonics so they sound smooth. 99% of all solid state amps made tend to have unmasked higher ordered harmonic which is why they tend to sound brighter and harsher. There's more to it than that of course but the main thing is that measurement technology, like all other tech, has improved dramatically in the last 35 years yet audiophiles of both camps live as if nothing has happened since the 1980s. These days if the measurements exist and you know what you are looking at, you can draw a direct line between what we hear and what we can measure.

That old saw about we can hear things we can't measure is no longer true. IME, both the subjectivist and objectivist camps hate on the idea that you can tell how something will sound from the measurements.

Now that we know why tubes and solid state sound different (distortion), this is an access to ending the debate. You can design a solid state amp to have the same (beneficial) distortion character of a tube amp (so its nice and smooth) but with lower distortion (and distortion obscures detail). So you can have the detail without the brightness normally associated with solid state. Class D has offered tremendous inroads to solving this issue.

So here are some takeaways. If you're into LPs and your phono section designer did his homework, the playback will be low noise and no ticks or pops. But the main advantage is if the power goes out your music library stays put. That's actually the main reason I still play LPs- they have a longer shelf life.

I'm known as a tube manufacturer but these days IMO the main reason for owning tube amplifiers is the warm glow. There is literally nothing tube amps can do that you can't get a class D amp of proper design to do just as well except clipping overload. People don't realize most of that right now; in fact tend to not believe me despite Atma-Sphere being well known as making some of the most transparent tube amps made (OTLs have ruled the roost in that regard since their introduction in the 1950s; what we did was make them also reliable), so when I say tube power amps are on borrowed time the comment goes in the 'tubes vs transistors' box rather than being taken for what it really is. The war in Ukraine has hurt tubes a lot by increasing prices worldwide (and undoubtedly also because tubes in storage have been destroyed) but it no longer matters so much because after only 60 years after tubes were declared 'obsolete' the succeeding art (semiconductors) has finally gotten to the point that tubes are seriously challenged in every way that audiophiles value.

These are just two examples. When people debate these sort of things, sure there's that desire to be right all the time but there's also the interest in getting to the bottom of the matter. IME the actual reality is a lot more nuanced than is easy to discuss online. But I try to bring that into the discussion anyway.

And we haven’t seen anything yet, graphene transistors and semiconductors are going to revolutionize electronics in the not so distant future. Signals propagate at rates 10 times faster in graphene substrates than on traditional silicon. This development along with advances in quantum computing, super-capacitors, and digital signal processing are leading to so many new possibilities in the world of electronics. Emulation and modeling of traditional analog processing has been around for some time, with devices like the Sintefex FX-8000 convolution replicator and Kemper Profiling amplifier, but things are soon going to turn more interesting in both the technical and creative aspects.