The big sound

[muralman1]

I am not a fan of subwoofers. The subject of subs has been debated at great lengths in an old Apogee forum. I believe the general consensus was subs are very hard to integrate with Apogees. I have a friend that used a Studio Grand, and eight subwoofers. He could blast your ears deaf when playing taiko drums. But, the subs are turned off when playing a songster.

I won't listen to sustained music measuring over 90 dB. I prefer keeping my ears keen for a long time yet. My system can do rock gratifyingly. I would think only giant horns and massive subs can reproduce it. Orchestra is where my system glows it's best.

I truly believe CDs rule over vinyl when you bring out all that a CD offers. My sound has all the natural warmth vinyl lovers crave. It also can convey an explosion that vinyl will only approximate.

 

[mep]

I am not a fan of subwoofers. The subject of subs has been debated at great lengths in an old Apogee forum. I believe the general consensus was subs are very hard to integrate with Apogees. I have a friend that used a Studio Grand, and eight subwoofers. He could blast your ears deaf when playing taiko drums. But, the subs are turned off when playing a songster.

I won't listen to sustained music measuring over 90 dB. I prefer keeping my ears keen for a long time yet. My system can do rock gratifyingly. I would think only giant horns and massive subs can reproduce it. Orchestra is where my system glows it's best.

I truly believe CDs rule over vinyl when you bring out all that a CD offers. My sound has all the natural warmth vinyl lovers crave. It also can convey an explosion that vinyl will only approximate.

Muralman-I'm glad you love your system so much and it brings you so much pleasure. Also way cool that you can convey an explosion that vinyl will only approximate. I knew there had to be something I was missing.

 

[DonH50]

Explosions in vinyl always make me think of the old Telarc (I think?) 1812 LP... Most cartridges simply ran and hid when they saw those tracks coming...

 

[mep]

Don-That was the 1812 overature alright. Most cartridge/arm combos couldn't track it. A friend of mine used to have a Denon DP-33F table with a Dynavector 10X series HO cartridge and that combo could track it. Go figure. Now that we have digital, we can save all of the explosions for that format.

 

[DonH50]

My Grace F9E would track it; my Grado would not, nor would my Denon (303? I forget). Some of the very best cartridges of the day (1980's) failed miserably (Koetsu, few others in the $1k+ range). Some would handle it, but only with 2 - 3 g or more tracking force. Assuming the arm itself didn't start to oscillate wildly. I seem to recall measuring 6 Hz fundamentals. The tracks on the LP looked (relatively) like the Grand Canyon. I think I still have it in a box in the basement, lurking malevolently until I set up my TT again...

 

[mep]

You can look at the record and easily see where the cannon shots are. It's pretty violent. I think the main frequency of the cannon shots was something like 16Hz. I have a good memory, it's just not very long.

 

[JackD201]

Never had problems tracking Telarc's 1812 or Telarc's Round Up. No problems tracking Dafos or Paramita either. Hmmmm.

 

[mep]

I would say that you had a good cartridge and arm then Jack. Many combos can't track those blasts.

 

[DonH50]

Take the brick off the top of the cartridge, Jack... Seriously, I agree with mep (shocking!) -- you must have a good cartridge/arm setup. I saw LOTS of failures when that LP came out, some pretty spectacular. We (store I worked for at the time) kept buying extra copies because the "wannabee" systems were trashing the vinyl when we played it.

 

[fas42]

Frank-I don't know you so it must be your subconcious nagging at you.

No, only because up to that time I had given no indication of what I was listening to, whereas Tim (the most likely other suspect?!?) had stated what he used in previous posts.

Sorry about that ...
Frank

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

The only problem with the Telarc 1812 was that at least five of the cannon shots were severely clipped. They always sounded that way, and it wasn't until I got the CD and my first CD ripping software that I was able to see the clipped waveforms. Naturally, I went about hand reconstructing the clipped explosions, but to do so, I had to lower the entire track volume by 9dB to accomodate the reconstructed peaks.

 

[JackD201]

I think it's not so much that I have a good arm and cart but because my turntables have always been set up far away from the loudspeakers in the most convenient null nodes. Even when I was using an Aries 2 and the old JMW 9 and a Clearaudio Strad on a flexirack it went through the cannon torture. I was using VR-4SR Mk1s and a Levinson 332 at the time. I've witnessed an arm practically fly off in a system using the same speakers with the same cart but CA Satisfy Carbon Fiber on a Solution Table but I think it was because the rack was smack in between the speakers and a 3 or 4 feet from the front wall. It was a really scary thing to witness. 3 tubes on the JA-200 failed after that. It was nasty. The warning on the label really should be heeded! The speakers were unscathed. Thank God.

 

[naturephoto1]

I never had the 1812 Overture, but I had/have the Frederick Fennell and the Cleveland Symphonic Winds of the Holst, Handel, and Bach Telarc pressing. The disc had warnings regarding the Bass particularly specific sections of the Holst marches due to the Bass drums that could cause mistracking. I never experienced a problem with my modified Thorens 125 MKII, Rega RB300 tonearm, and my Monster Alpha Genesis 500 cartridge that I used in the mid 1980s till about 3 years ago. I am sure that my present Teres/Soundsmith system should have little problem as well.

Rich

 

[muralman1]

The only problem with the Telarc 1812 was that at least five of the cannon shots were severely clipped. They always sounded that way, and it wasn't until I got the CD and my first CD ripping software that I was able to see the clipped waveforms. Naturally, I went about hand reconstructing the clipped explosions, but to do so, I had to lower the entire track volume by 9dB to accomodate the reconstructed peaks.

That is what I surmised. There was a very violent crack, then nothing sustained.

 

[ack]

@Don - great to see you still have a pair of MGIIIa's!!! I sold mine (in a second system) about 3 years ago, due to space limitations.

@original poster: I am kinda weird guy; I keep a second system around from the '80's to see what really has changed since then - just for the heck of it, and I like (or liked) to compare Maggies vs. MartinLogan. My MGIIIa's were driven by the Acoustat TNT-200 amplifier and, ahem, a PS Audio 5.0 preamp, neither of which have had the need for any repairs yet... fed to by an original and then-famous Magnavox CDB-650 and a Thorens TD-166/Dynavector Karat 23D/Grace arm... Currently, I have a pair of more current Monitor Audio RS-1's in there, supplemented by an Entec SW-5 sub (had to replace the surrounds once). After switching to new-age Nordost and Kimber cables (old Distech eventually corroded), enjoyable sounds are still coming out with jazz CDs - with the MGIIIa's, Keith Jarret on ECM still gave me the chills; symphonic classical is significantly-to-severely distorted by today's standards, phono is crap (cartridge too old, phono section of the PS Audio out of date); overall, system not that well together as the main one. PS: My arsenal still includes an original Supex 900, which I haven't mounted for well over a decade...

For current main system, see signature. Music reproduction has improved by leaps and bounds since the '80's.

 

[ack]

I never had the 1812 Overture

@Rich - funny, I have two LPs (I believe they are both pressed by Teldec). On one, my Dynavector tracks and plays all canons but one; on the other, it tracks and plays back exactly one, skipping on the others... Goes to show how pressings were (and still are?) different from batch to batch?

 

[Ethan Winer]

I'm not interested in arguing who has the biggest whatever. But I will address this:

I get a kick out of people who don't really have a listening room and can't set up anything analog in their system and yet pronounce digital to be the end-all of music reproduction.

If you think about it, every music system in the world has at least some analog components. My fully digital system has power amps and loudspeakers. Further, the source music we play passed through one or more stages of analog gear starting with the microphone preamps. Logically speaking, why would it matter where in the chain (or when) "passing through analog" happens? Not that I agree music must pass through some number of analog stages before it can sound good.

BTW, I agree with the basic premise that music systems should be capable of playing the full range of frequencies, or at least most of the range, cleanly and at satisfying high volume levels.

--Ethan

 

[mep]

Not my point Ethan. I didn't mean to imply you have nothing analog in your playback chain, but rather some people can't play back any analog medium be it LP or tape. My further point was/is that I believe that most audiophiles who consider themselves analog "first" kind of guys also have the capability to play back different digital medium as well. I know I do. I don't think the opposite is true. Many lovers of the digits sold off their entire record collections and turntables once they discovered how great digital is and never looked back. Some people who are younger only had digital sources and never owned analog sources.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Some of us have analog equipment but no longer have any need to use it. ;-)

Kal

 

[DonH50]

Ah, another member of the "turntable's in the closet" club...