How much is too much?
- Thread starter DaveyF
- Start date
That's a very pretty deck....not sure why all the bling is necessary
Maybe helps with the depth resolution
Maybe helps with the depth resolution
That's a very pretty deck....not sure why all the bling is necessary
Looks like something that could have been in Captain Nemo's submarine ... They may think Audiophiles like gold-plated things ..
Perhaps tape decks don't cost $140k because there have not been any revolutionary new designs that justify the expense
Mike
OT...
I have no doubt that there can be some LPs on a particular TT that sounds extremely good. I am however certain that these LPs would have to be inferior to their Master Tapes or a second generation R2R copy of their Master Tapes. It is just Physics. We are bound to the law of Physics ...
We have had this discussion in the WBF. A copy can only be equal to the original. Repeating myself here: We may prefer a copy to an original, however a copy can not be superior to the original.
Frantz, how many members do you have to block to hold on to this belief?
Tim
Subjectivity is held in high esteem in Audio. I understand that and I hold my share of subjective point of views... That a copy, however, cannot be superior is , alas, an incontrovertible fact.. As is gravity...
I have only blocked 3 people out of the thousand we have here at the WBF... in percentage that is as close to zero as one can get
Frank? Surely you had to block Frank to continue believing in gravity?
All joking aside, I have no one on ignore here, not even the ever-interesting Frank.
Tim
All joking aside, I have no one on ignore here, not even the ever-interesting Frank.
Tim
Oh dear! That wascally wabb... er, Tim , is on the rampage again. I'd better get out my twustee shotgun ...
Frank
Frank
Hey, I called you "interesting." I think that's a compliment. This early on a Thursday morning, I'm sure it is.
Tim
I was sure I was going to get a "What's up, doc?" or something similar. My excuse is that it's getting late in the evening and I've been fighting an irksome clattering space bar on my keyboard, which I hope I have just solved with some wool fat (what the???) ...
Frank
Frank
Frantz,
logic and your feeling for how things ought to work is one thing, and i agree that my expectations about what should happen match yours exactly. how can a copy sound better (not just different) than the source?
but it turns out that the vinyl playback chain at it's very very very best is more advanced than the playback capabilites of tape decks. so we are not looking at a fair fight. maybe if there was 50 companies trying to make the perfect tape deck, and another 50 trying to make the very best heads and tape path bits and pieces, and they'd been working hard at it for the last 20+ years, then the scales would be clearly tipped in the favor of the tape deck as the clearly better playback source. and if we are generalizing about better vinyl playback and better tape decks then the advantage is clearly with tape decks.
but i'm only talking about one specific vinyl playback chain.
i sat here telling the 'guys' that no way could the vinyl compete with the best that my Studer/King Cello could deliver. then i had to admit that what i was hearing was on the same level (and maybe slightly better) than the tape deck, and this is playing as good a master dub as i've heard. this is where i have a very good vinyl pressing and a 15ips master dub. in some cases the vinyl pressing becomes the limitation. obviously we are talking about the varibility in both Lps and master dubs here in addition to format maturity. and possibly (likely) there are better RTR playback chains than i possess.
and this particular vinyl playback chain is not wholey currently purchasable.
i have no illusions to convince anyone who has not heard what i'm talking about that this is true. which is why i only said 'when you visit'.
Mike
Last edited:
back on target---what is worth 140k of technology in this Constellation Audio.
all i see are a series of mosfet amps with large transformers in a big nice box. there is something about N and P transistors---perhaps someone could enlighten the forum and why this is revolutionary (i'm not being rhetorical, either)
Frantz,
IMHO, these are just philosophy issues, not physics, and any debate must be made in the philosophical debate field, where it is simple to prove you are wright. Any extra processing deteriorates the original.
The second generation R2R versus LP made from the master tape can never be proved in the real field as you can not compare a tape with an LP (magnetic dipoles versus groove modulations?) you just comparing the reproduced sound of both media, using different playback systems. And the action of comparing is always a question of preference. But I also find difficult that an LP can sound as good as second generation tape, unless the LP was manufactured when the master tape was fresh and the tape copy was made much later, when the tape quality had deteriorated a little.
What Frantz said + 1.
A copy better than the original has only occurred once and that was in the movie Multiplicity
A copy better than the original has only occurred once and that was in the movie Multiplicity
Tom, what's interesting is that if you actually listen to a 'live' guitar and then to a 'mono' reproduction of the same instrument, you will hear how very far away the two sounds are from each other.
I have done this very test with my Taylor guitar vs. numerous high-end systems reproducing a feed of the guitar in both stereo and mono and of a mono and stereo guitar LP.
There is even more of a dichotomy between the sound of a 'live' orchestra and the reproduced sound of an orchestra.....even though some on this forum don't seem to think so
I have done this very test with my Taylor guitar vs. numerous high-end systems reproducing a feed of the guitar in both stereo and mono and of a mono and stereo guitar LP.
There is even more of a dichotomy between the sound of a 'live' orchestra and the reproduced sound of an orchestra.....even though some on this forum don't seem to think so
Hi
OT
I don't think there is much to debate about the fact that a copy can not be better than an original. To me that is an incontrovertible fact. As for preferences, I leave it to what it always will be ... up to the individual.
I am somewhat interested in another facet of this debate.. philosophical , this one... A digital copy doesn't suffer from jitter. Jitter is related to timing. A copy is a (relatively) simple process of copying bits . You know the patterns, number and position of the bits in a given medium, you also know when the bits are not the same on the copy and correct for that fact, thus it simply the transposition of the exact same bits to the other medium. My question then.. Have we found a way to combat entropy? Asked in all seriousness. As any transformation should increase entropy.. Would that be the case of keeping it constant? Seriously, as a copy of a digital data string seems to be able to be the exact same data ... That would be a case where the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not hold ... Weird .Unless it is an early morning brain fog .. Too tired to sleep due to extensive travel ... ..
Back to the subject... It seems that many of us audiophiles holds the view that it is never too much as long as they can rationalize the product worth. As KeithR so pointedly asked, what is revolutionary about of these megabucks products? I don't seem to see anything really new .. I am however not an expert in Audio circuits, I could be missing a lot ... Could someone illuminate objectively my engineering (but this morning foggy) mind? :_
OT
I don't think there is much to debate about the fact that a copy can not be better than an original. To me that is an incontrovertible fact. As for preferences, I leave it to what it always will be ... up to the individual.
I am somewhat interested in another facet of this debate.. philosophical , this one
... A digital copy doesn't suffer from jitter. Jitter is related to timing. A copy is a (relatively) simple process of copying bits . You know the patterns, number and position of the bits in a given medium, you also know when the bits are not the same on the copy and correct for that fact, thus it simply the transposition of the exact same bits to the other medium. My question then.. Have we found a way to combat entropy? Asked in all seriousness. As any transformation should increase entropy.. Would that be the case of keeping it constant? Seriously, as a copy of a digital data string seems to be able to be the exact same data ... That would be a case where the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not hold ... Weird .Unless it is an early morning brain fog .. Too tired to sleep due to extensive travel ... ..Back to the subject... It seems that many of us audiophiles holds the view that it is never too much as long as they can rationalize the product worth. As KeithR so pointedly asked, what is revolutionary about of these megabucks products? I don't seem to see anything really new .. I am however not an expert in Audio circuits, I could be missing a lot ... Could someone illuminate objectively my engineering (but this morning foggy) mind? :_
The second law holds. In order to make a perfect copy, the system needs energy. So the overall entropy has increased.
Similar threads
