Why, oh why, does vinyl continue to blow away digital?
- Thread starter godofwealth
- Start date
This sounds like one of two things, or both:
A) Your streaming is not that good. In that case it would be no wonder that a CD of the same music will sound better, provided the playback is good. Somewhat electronic sounding timbres, a flattened soundstage and lack of ambience would be typical of suboptimal streaming afflicted by digital/RF noise. I am allergic to the synthetic, 'plasticky', electronic sound which comes from that.
It doesn't matter if it's 'hi-res' or not. Well implemented Redbook CD playback will beat suboptimally implemented 24-bit 192 kHz playback any minute of any hour of the day. It's the implementation, not the numbers. On the other hand, well implemented 'hi-res' may result in some gains compared to Redbook digital.
Reproducing ambience and depth should be no problem for digital. This last season I attended again a number of classical concerts in Boston Symphony Hall and other locations. In comparison to live I was struck by how well my CD playback gives an impression of ambience, including differences between recorded concert halls. No, it's not the same. The scale is obviously smaller, and the large amount of air in a hall, and the nuance that comes with it, is not reproduced as much (how could it be in a moderately sized living room?). Yet still, the relative amount of hall ambience, as well as the character of it and of its 'air', are quite well recognizable and seem familiar compared to live. I base that impression mostly on modern digital recordings. I am always critical when it comes to comparison of my system with live music and not that easily impressed, but in this case I am actually quite pleasantly surprised.
B) The specific recording and/or mastering is not that good. I have heard, in direct comparison, some 16/44.1 masterings crush some 'hi-res' files of the very same recording where the mastering was obviously lame. Of course, there are great 'hi-res' files as well.
Both stats and horns can be made to sound very natural and engaging. In fact horns with Be drivers have a very stat like transparency .
Where they differ is horns can allow you great midbass and bass implemention, that electrostats haven't managed to get past without hybridizing.
And more importantly horns allow use of better electronics than stats. Slagle tried to get past this with a 300b implemented stacked quad set up https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/zero-distortion-stacked-quad-57s.38033/
Sound-Lab A-1’s took a decent tilt at that particular Stat Windmill , with the Majestic 945PX taking Stat bass about as far as it could go on a commercial stat .
My huge Acoustats also could do amazing bass...really world class and seemingly without compression.
Whats wrong Ron. You accuse me of being rude when I make a joke then say I have not answeed a question. I was very clear. Ked understood. Do you not know what a high power tube amp and dynamic driver speaker is. You own one of the amps. Take your pick on speakers. Magico, Wilson, Rockport, Focal. They all give the same "general" flavor.
I have personally never agreed with people that say certain speakers play certian muisc better than others. Maybe it would be more accurate to say, certain speakers are more limited on certain genera of music than others.
Heck, I even had a customer with a very similar system, accept he had an even more well know SS amp with the same speakers reciently say he won't play classical as it does not sound good on his stereo. He has had the store come out multiple times to set it up and dial it in. It plays well but could be set up better.
I have another friend who is very very satisfied with his sytem that is again one of the above speakers and SS amp that plays the same music. Pretty much everything accept classicsl and jazz. These people are very satisfied with their systems for the mysic they play. And I respect that all their sysrems play that type of music much better than my system. They all prefer digital. They reapect analog and have all taken a stab at it. All a better stab than a Duel table and Denon cartridge.
Nice write up. Years back I went to a store and the owner specializes in rebuilding 15 ips tape machines. He was proud to display digital music pushed through one of his tape machines and resultant analog type playback I started a thread about it. Something along the lines of, If tape records so well, why does it change the sound so much. I forget the actual title. Long time ago. Anyhow, all this has made me wonder about doing as such with my current system. Pusing the digital through my tape machine. I suspect I will add distortions and loose a little data. But it may be pleasing.
I was thinking Microzotl for a tube option. It is best if its a headphone amp with preamp output. In the $1500 and under range.
I am open to SS as my Transimpedance Lino 3.3 phone pre is very good with my setup. A designer I respect told me SS can be excellent as a phono pre. Even preferable. So why not the same with a tape preamp. I already have a system tube preamp with tube amplifiers. I have a lot of tubes.
Don't know that preamp, heard their stuff is good and not on the warm plush side of the tube spectrum. I have a SS phonostage in one of my systems...not as good as my tube one but it is definitely musical. As for line preamps, I haven't heard a single one with the exception of the old Lyra Connoisseur preamp that was SS, which i would use instead of a good tube preamp. That said, I wouldn't use a cheap preamp of any type as it is too important to the system sound.
Not offhand, but I have an integrated amplifier with headphone output suggestion...two in fact. Aries Cerat Genus and Aries Cerat Protos. Both have headphone outputs in addition to their speaker outputs. Then you don't need a preamp and you have your headphone amp built-in. In both cases I think they take the headphone signal off a different winding of the output transformer of the amp itself...not off the preamp section.