Yes, all these things can mean a lot to the sound.
Well, you just pointed out that these are not quibbles, and I agree with you that they are not.
Paul McGowan Prefers Digital
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Yes, all these things can mean a lot to the sound.
Well, you just pointed out that these are not quibbles, and I agree with you that they are not.
Because the inputs are different. For example, if you have a Lampi tube Dac, how does that effect your phono preamp decision since Lampi doesn't make one? How many DHT phonos are out there? Very few if any manufacturers make SOTA phonos and dacs. I've made this point many times that I'd rather have tubes only in a preamp because of this reason. Too many variables.
And then you have phonos/SUTs and servers/routers and other components that are different for each chain or not even used. How about differences in vibration control. Not to mention analog vs digital cabling.
I now personally am more in the camp of optimizing for one format and enjoying the other with finite funds. I also note in our own group Ron, every single audiophile goes much more in the direction of one format (analog, except me).
Bill, thanks. I'm up to over 600 albums (900+ reels) of 15ips 2 track tapes. No Taylor Swift or any other recent releases that were done only digital however. I've got about 150 more on my want list, mostly classical, that I will probably buy over the next couple of years, plus others that will come into view. I'm ignoring several times as many titles for which I have no interest, but would certainly be interesting to many.
Larry
About a week ago a digital friend asked me what comes after death, I replied: Nothing, your body ends up like dust in the wind and your mind wondering across the seven seas.
If my other analog friend would have asked me the same question he would have get the same reply.
If my other analog friend would have asked me the same question he would have get the same reply.
Let's see, best I heard Lampi was with Analog Domain integrated, and one of those AD set ups had the Aesthetix IO signature complete clean sounding spectral like SS, in another set up with Aries Cerat pre (Also Christoph now uses an all tubed chain with Aries Cerat pre and Kronzilla), in Dctom's set up with Ypsilon Passive pre (he has the Ypsilon phono, with Lyra SUT), then with AR preamps including the Ref 10 (where it sounded considerably better than the Select 2, essentially it enhances Ref 10 signature with Ref 10, massive air and layering and backward staging and slam, also reminded me of the IO eclipse), audioquattr has tried a variety of preamps has ended up with TAD (SS) and will move to Alieno pre (OTL valves), his phono is Pass' top model, and Alrainbow who had the MSB Platinum and Big 7 together (preferred the big 7, now moved to the Pac), used the internal MSB pre, and then I liked it in an all spectral system,, and then if you go to the SET owners thread, it exists in many SET systems in an all tubed system.
Hmm, So, what exactly is the preamp strategy for a Lampi owner. By rolling the right tube, it sounds better than anything with any pre, though I personally would use a preamp that works only with a 242 valve. But, in short, it kicks ass with most preamps, though it sounds better and can be optimised significantly more when tube rolled correctly with the pre (so many Lampi owners who love their Lampi have not heard it at its best), so I would have two preamps, if the main pre does not work with 242
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This raises the question (not that I necessarily think this is a valid question) if one should optimize for a particular source even within a given medium? In other words does one optimize for tape replay versus vinyl replay?
I would say “no.” I would use the same line stage and the same cables and the same speakers and the same amplifiers for both vinyl playback and tape playback. The only thing that would be different would be the phono stage for LP versus the tape repro amplifier for tape.
That's a good question Marc because nobody mentioned 45rpm and 33 1/3rpm.
Only very few people are interested by the gear used in the systems, both analog and digital.
The rest are considering the essence; the music they love listening to...genre, artists, medium, accessibility, what they have and not, their year of mastering, record label, sound recording engineers, mics they used during the recording sessions (live and in studios), which recording facilities and where, amount of 'DNA' applied to the music recordings, and the magic moments of capturing the musicians and singers @ their best in the best circumstances of space and time.
...The music recording's own acoustic spaciousness. It's there first what we hear last in our rooms with our ears and our gear and acoustics and fine tunings.
I think MikeL knows best, among others like Paul...and a whole bunch more from the vast field of music recording expert mixers and listeners and lovers and deeply involved in the home music system audio reproduction.
We can only refer to our own preferred experience @ home and @ friend's homes.
Me I simply believe the people who have more experience than I.
If the majority says that vinyl is best overall with everything that what it supposes to do; all good.
If the majority says that tape is best ...
If the majority says that digital is best ...
If the majority says that both analog and digital sound wonderful ...
What we us listen to and them is what makes us and them who we are the music we love listening to on highest emotional level closest to the gates of heavens.
Synthesizer music, organ music, Operas, Chorales, etc., they sound as grandiose as what and where and who recorded them and as the musiciens play their instruments and voices them.
Was it on tape, on digital recordings machines, how was the transfer to vinyl done, what speed, what digital resolution on Audio files, what upsampling, what careful hand on the mixing console, etc.?
Yes, for the next one thousand years we are going to talk analog versus digital.
We won't be here, we will be buried with our LPs and CDs and digital computer audio music files.
Our children's future blood generations will inherit our history and they'll be the ones living with its consequences, including the perpetual talk of an analog world inside a digital one.
...In the year 3019
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So there isn't a phono preamp strategy for a Lampi owner - made my point, thanks.
ps. nice shade thrown on MSB
How? IO, Ypsilon, phonos, both SS and valve preamps match. Is there some preamp that doesn't match. Probably. But it is not based on some topology of tubes and why tubes should not be in the front end of the digital system like you were mentioning.
that host of phono preamps means no optimization - different sounds for different formats
if your digital friend is thinking of death, tell him to get an analog set up.
would you use a tube phono pre and SS tape pre?
aren't you using a Herzan under your IO, but not your tape pre? I forget, so apologies if this is incorrect.
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I don't think there has been much discussion (maybe I missed it) of the actual source, the materials used to play analogue or digital. In particular I want to comment on digital. Just because I tend to comment on tape and vinyl, it doesn't mean I am not a digital person also. I have more digital files than most people (60TB), and many of you know I ripped over 10,000 vinyl and tape albums to hirez (192/24) digital over a period of 6 years using what I think is still the state of the art or very close to equipment (you can see it in my signature). I also may be one of the biggest customers of Native DSD, having purchased over 200 albums (both stereo and mch versions) of Channel Classics albums from them.
Here are my observations on digital albums. These are the ones that end up as downloads and physical media (hirez and CD level). I am specifically talking about ones for which the original masters are analogue (generally between the mid-50's and the early '80's). My collection is very highly classical, so they are not affected by the horrible compression of the loudness wars.
Here is what I observe. First, the vast majority of CD and many (most) of the hirez digital versions were converted for to maximize profit and not sound quality. Mastering engineers who do the conversion are not paid to do extensive (and expensive) editing of the master tapes, tweaking EQ and other tricks of the trade. Also they are normally not using the highest level pro digital equipment in the conversions.
For example, back in the mid 2000's one of the few companies which emphasized sound quality in their digital conversions was First Impression Music (FIM) owned and run by Winston Ma. Winston hired some of the very best mastering engineers for these conversions. For example, he released about 17 Decca recordings from the golden era, getting the master tapes from Decca, to produce his CD versions. Grammy winning engineer Paul Stubblebine did the mastering. Rather than just taking the master tape and converting it to 44/16 and producing a CD, Paul first converted the master tape to 192/24, using the famed Pacific Microsonics Model Two designed by Keith Johnson. He then edited the file, applying corrections to the sound quality and Winston, as the ultimate arbiter of the sound quality would listen and make his comments. They would go back and forth until they were happy with the sound quality. The Model Two then played the 192/24 file in analogue which was captured by a second Model Two recording in 44/16 for the CD master. The production of the CD's was done in a plant that specialized in very low error rate CD's. The result was the FIM CD, more costly than a regular CD.
I was able to compare many of the FIM Decca CDs with the same titles that Decca released as CD's in their bargain boxes in the earlier part of this decade. I also have the original vinyl versions of all of the CDs that I could compare. Pretty easy to tell the difference, with FIM clearly better than the Decca bargain CD. The bargain CD's were sold in boxes with 50 CD's at retail for a little more than $1 per disc, several times cheaper than Winston's cost of producing his version. I got to experience the FIM system in the process of writing my Decca book for FIM in 2013-4. Winston included 4 Decca compilation CD's with the book and I participated in some of the back and forth between Winston and multi-Grammy award winning mastering engineer Michael Bishop as they were going through the sound quality of each cut of each CD.
Even for albums that were originally done in digital, Winston had Michael and his colleagues at Five/Four productions remaster a large number of albums that Telarc originally released on CD (Five/Four was formed by former Telarc engineers). I have a couple of the original Telarc CD's and compared them with the FIM versions. There were subtle, but clear improvements with the remastered versions.
One more story. Chris Connaker runs the Audiophile Style Forum (formerly Computer Audiophile). He is an absolute digitalphile. He was visiting a couple of years ago and was looking over my tape collection, particularly my safety masters. He saw the Miles Davis Cookin' album (one of a series of mono albums that Davis did with his Quintet in 1956 for Prestige) which I have on a 1/2" safety master. He asked to hear it. He said it was his favorite album and that he had it in every digital format available and intimately knew every nuance in the album. We started playing it and he immediately started hearing subtleties that he had never heard before, even with the fanciest DAC's that he has reviewed and the latest hirez remasters by RvG. He said it made him think seriously about going into tape!
My conclusion is that if companies spent the time and care (and money) in remastering their conversions of analogue masters to digital (at whatever sampling rate - my experience is hirez is better than CD rez) we could have much better sounding digital (from analogue) albums. Of course, it comes with a price that most companies and consumers are not willing to spend.
Larry
Here are my observations on digital albums. These are the ones that end up as downloads and physical media (hirez and CD level). I am specifically talking about ones for which the original masters are analogue (generally between the mid-50's and the early '80's). My collection is very highly classical, so they are not affected by the horrible compression of the loudness wars.
Here is what I observe. First, the vast majority of CD and many (most) of the hirez digital versions were converted for to maximize profit and not sound quality. Mastering engineers who do the conversion are not paid to do extensive (and expensive) editing of the master tapes, tweaking EQ and other tricks of the trade. Also they are normally not using the highest level pro digital equipment in the conversions.
For example, back in the mid 2000's one of the few companies which emphasized sound quality in their digital conversions was First Impression Music (FIM) owned and run by Winston Ma. Winston hired some of the very best mastering engineers for these conversions. For example, he released about 17 Decca recordings from the golden era, getting the master tapes from Decca, to produce his CD versions. Grammy winning engineer Paul Stubblebine did the mastering. Rather than just taking the master tape and converting it to 44/16 and producing a CD, Paul first converted the master tape to 192/24, using the famed Pacific Microsonics Model Two designed by Keith Johnson. He then edited the file, applying corrections to the sound quality and Winston, as the ultimate arbiter of the sound quality would listen and make his comments. They would go back and forth until they were happy with the sound quality. The Model Two then played the 192/24 file in analogue which was captured by a second Model Two recording in 44/16 for the CD master. The production of the CD's was done in a plant that specialized in very low error rate CD's. The result was the FIM CD, more costly than a regular CD.
I was able to compare many of the FIM Decca CDs with the same titles that Decca released as CD's in their bargain boxes in the earlier part of this decade. I also have the original vinyl versions of all of the CDs that I could compare. Pretty easy to tell the difference, with FIM clearly better than the Decca bargain CD. The bargain CD's were sold in boxes with 50 CD's at retail for a little more than $1 per disc, several times cheaper than Winston's cost of producing his version. I got to experience the FIM system in the process of writing my Decca book for FIM in 2013-4. Winston included 4 Decca compilation CD's with the book and I participated in some of the back and forth between Winston and multi-Grammy award winning mastering engineer Michael Bishop as they were going through the sound quality of each cut of each CD.
Even for albums that were originally done in digital, Winston had Michael and his colleagues at Five/Four productions remaster a large number of albums that Telarc originally released on CD (Five/Four was formed by former Telarc engineers). I have a couple of the original Telarc CD's and compared them with the FIM versions. There were subtle, but clear improvements with the remastered versions.
One more story. Chris Connaker runs the Audiophile Style Forum (formerly Computer Audiophile). He is an absolute digitalphile. He was visiting a couple of years ago and was looking over my tape collection, particularly my safety masters. He saw the Miles Davis Cookin' album (one of a series of mono albums that Davis did with his Quintet in 1956 for Prestige) which I have on a 1/2" safety master. He asked to hear it. He said it was his favorite album and that he had it in every digital format available and intimately knew every nuance in the album. We started playing it and he immediately started hearing subtleties that he had never heard before, even with the fanciest DAC's that he has reviewed and the latest hirez remasters by RvG. He said it made him think seriously about going into tape!
My conclusion is that if companies spent the time and care (and money) in remastering their conversions of analogue masters to digital (at whatever sampling rate - my experience is hirez is better than CD rez) we could have much better sounding digital (from analogue) albums. Of course, it comes with a price that most companies and consumers are not willing to spend.
Larry
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