I went to a local high end gear store just for this purpose several years back. We listened to a mid-range analog front end and a probably little better than midrange digital setup through Krell monoblocks and Apogee speakers - yep, been a while ago, digital has probably improved more since then than analog, obviously. I brought the music in digital that I was REALLY familiar with and they had everything I brought in analog. No stacked deck, not regular CD versus MFSL vinyl or anything like that. Anyway, to cut to the chase... both were really good, simply put, over that great system. But, there is something about an AAA recording (is it analog or the vinyl, I don't know...) that an AAD or whatever seems to lack. There is some small factor of being "there" that the vinyl seemed (and seems) to preserve that I can't seem to get with digital recordings or digital mixes. But, I like tubes better too. My engineer friend says that tubes and analog are better. Period. He also makes speakers, amps and digital front ends - for what an anecdotal point is worth. He can go on and on about why, but it is over my head.
I have also heard differences between pieces of gear that some of you would disagree with, but I was a bachelor with a bachelor room dedicated to my music. I nerded out on speaker placement, etc.... My gear was more midrange than the apogess and Krells. I had Paradigms, Sumo and Conrad-Johnson at home. Knowing recordings in a stable controlled environment is key. Double blind studies are total BS because a sh*tty MP3 of low quality reproduces enough information to sound like a CD when you are listening to popular music (especially) over a system you are unfamiliar with and music you are unfamiliar with. I argued over and over with a guy who is a big hydrogenaudio guru at another forum. He says that it has been proven (scientifically, even) that people can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3 in blind testing (I don't remember if it was 256 or 320 MP3) - bullsh*t, anyway. Maybe they can't tell the difference between two Michael Jackson songs or two Katy Perry songs they only hear in their car or at the gym between the two formats. But, You take a chamber ensemble that you have heard hundreds of times (and love to listen to) and have someone play an MP3 or vinyl record (frequency response variations introduced by vinyl aside) of it on YOUR SYSTEM and you will hear the difference. Similarly, I was shocked and very disappointed when a guy that peddled ridiculously expensive wires put his ridiculously expensive cables (everything changed out: interconnects and speaker cables all at once) in my system and I heard a definite improvement. I don't have the money for that stuff but I had to admit that it really was better. Could I hear that difference listening to Maroon 5 (don't like) in some lab on stuff I have never listened through. I'd bet money on no. Could I hear the difference between the expensive cables and my cheap ones ON MY SYSTEM listening to Fleetwood Mac Rumours (like it, know EXACTLY what it sounds like in my room) unfortunately, yes, and clearly. I also could tell the difference between amps pretty clearly in that room. I used to buy and sell gear. Bedini, Forte, Adcom, B&K, Sumo all had characteristics that were different. Not huge, but definitely discernible - just between power amps. They are supposedly pretty similar in sound, less variation that speakers (HUGE) and even pre-amps. I am laboring the point of familiarity because only on familiar recordings over familiar systems can the differences between vinyl and digital be heard. The fundamentals are there on a very lossy digital format, but the harmonics and spacial cues of a small ensemble playing in a live recording space is an enormous amount of information to communicate. I think you would hear the difference between a record and a CD, in other words. Vinyl may be euphoric, I can't say, but it seems to keep more of the recording space in my opinion. I don't know if you consider visceral reactions to music as meaning anything, but I have gotten goosebumps to things I have heard on vinyl, but I don't think that has ever happened when listening to digital sources... don't know why... (you can keep boner comments, etc... to yourselves) I am not talking about coconut audio stuff here (that is a funny site), just the fact that given the proper cues, the ear/brain combo can react as if it was in the space the recording occurred in. I don't know what kind of music you like but some of the songs on Jackson Browne's Running on empty have a lot of "space" to them. If you can, listen to that vinyl record and CD and see what you think. The CD sounds great. But, listen the the record afterward and I think that you will see that it seems like you are more "there" than on the CD. By the way, Stereophile printed and article a few years back where the guy from Krell, Nelson Pass an amp designer and some other golden ears went to a studio and listened to live music while it was being recorded digitally and in analog. They subsequently listened to the recordings on CD, reel to reel and record. They all preferred the record, even to the reel to reel (I may have screwed details up badly, but the take-home message was the vinyl preference). That seems to suggest that there is some artifact that is pleasing to the ear introduced by the action of a diamond racing around banging off of vinyl walls at high speeds. To sum up my take, I like both. Records are a hassle for sure. But some recordings seem to suck me in better on vinyl. -- brjoon1021 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ brjoon1021's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12136 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=85590 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
