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big ears
Trad climber
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Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 1, 2017 - 09:00pm PT
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So im finally going to put tome money into a nice turntable set up, after years of enjoying on a pretty entry level set up.
Im looking at the PS Audio Sprout for an amp/ pre-amp and the Pro-ject Debut Carbon for the turntable.
For now i will stick with some older speakers i have, and am going to scour craigist for some good Klipsch speakers.
Anyone have advice? From what i can tell, getting the quality table/ amp first is going to get me more bamg for my buck, as opposed to getting nice speakers first, them working backwards.
Thoughts? Comments?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I have a Pro-ject Debut Carbon turntable and I like it... sort of amazing compared to 50 years ago...
a Harmon Kardon HK3470
a bunch of peripheral stuff, cassette player, cd player, etc...
can't remember what the speakers are... nice large traditional boxes...
probably work on the speakers if I ever felt I really needed to listen to music that way regularly.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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My husband used to have a pretty hi end system but sold it all off a few years ago when his hearing deteriorated to the point where it was a waste. Most of the buyers for his stuff were Orange County Vietnamese gentlemen ( interesting demographic - who knew)? Anyway I asked him your question and he says you are doing it in the right order. He thinks his old buddy Mike Yee's phono preamp is better value/ quality than PS audio but isn't sure they are still being made. He said also get the best cartridge you can afford.
Have fun! His system was his salvation for many years when he was working insane hours. Decompressing every night for an hour in the " listening room".
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big ears
Trad climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 1, 2017 - 09:27pm PT
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^^^thanks.
Im the same way, it helps me decompress. Better than the boob tube
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big ears
Trad climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 1, 2017 - 09:59pm PT
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Debut Carbon. Hef approved
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Jbl studio monitors 4400 or 4300 series. Technics MK II. UREI amps and Klark Teknik EQ.
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klinefelter
Boulder climber
Bishop, CA
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Walleye, Those ESS speakers are sporting the finest tweeters ever created, the Air Motion Transformers. I have a pair of similar ESSs, and the sound is outstanding. Good choice.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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I personally can not hear the difference between a $100 table and a $1000 table. Bi-amped speakers are the ticket. JBLs are a good choice. I like Cerwin Vegas if you are going for punch and volume. Currently using a pair of Bose 901s
My current project is to restore a pair of Bozak B-4000 speakers. Will be bi-amping them off four Outlaw 200 amps.
Probably end up selling them because you have to listen to them at least 15 feet away, not happening in my shack.
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tornado
climber
lawrence kansas
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Get a decent cartridge. Ortofon makes great stuff. Their 2m series is awesome and reasonably priced.
If you have a good cartridge then you will a true idea of the what the records sound like. Then you can swap out and try other components and see what you like best.
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klinefelter
Boulder climber
Bishop, CA
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FYI, investing in a turntable and amp BEFORE the speakers is almost universally considered a backward approach. The speakers are the most important component in any system. Invest your money there first. The best and most expensive turntable and amp will always sound like crap through mediocre speakers, where any decent source and amplifier can sound wonderful through a good set of speakers.
And if you're looking at Klipsch, be sure to invest in their Reference series. If you're seeking the best bang-for-buck, check out the highly praised Pioneer series designed by Andrew Jones -- very inexpensive and considered by many the best value around.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=andrew+Jones+Designed
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Big Ears, great to see people who appreciate vinyl. Building up your stereo you'll learn about the principle of the weakest link. I'd say you're doing it in the right order, maybe if you have to wait on the speakers get some good headphones in the interim. One thing that can make a big difference is to locate your turntable where it can't hear your speakers. If you play music loud the cartridge will pick up the sound out of phase with what it's picking up from the disc. It creates a subtle distortion but once you recognize it it'll drive you nuts.
I made masters for vinyl records for 15 years. This here is a Nuemann cutting lathe, the best ever made.
I'm running this cartridge. You can't do better without spending a whole lot more $$
Too bad you can't get this turntable or preamp any more. Great stuff. Yamaha PF800 with a Hafler preamp. That Parasound amp is another piece you can't match without going way spendo...
I'll take issue with "best tweeters ever made." Raven ribbons rock, but the crossover is specialized or their just fuses :-) The mains are Scanspeak, all the drivers are time aligned. Oh, they're custom so you can't get them either. Here they are in a professional setting: My old desk. It got moved from L.A. to Oregon though.
That's a Boston Acoustics powered sub, probably the weakest link in the rig but it works. I keep the subs pretty subtle anyway.
A collectors item, the original 45 rpm single:
edit: klinefelter's not wrong, but if you go the other way 'round you'll be committed. Get the speakers first, that might be as far as you get.
;-)
Another edit, Ionlyski, I had that Technics. Too much rumble for me. Best ever for DJ's and scratching though.
Is this my final edit? If you live in L.A., get on this places email list. They have listening events and demo's several times a year. It will enlighten you to hear some of the finest audio gear made.
Brooks Berdan ltd
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I highly recommend that you go somewhere that you can do A/B comparisons of different components (or buy stuff for your home comparison and test when you still have time to return the items you don't want). Judge with your ears, not what other people say, not what has a better reputation or higher price tag, etc.
Also beware of how much listening fatigue and the context of your listening session (i.e. what you are listening to, and what you listened to before/after the stuff you are trying to analyze) can affect your perception. I play with guitar amplifier modeling tools through full-range flat-response high quality speakers, and what sounds amazing one day (perhaps after hours of tweaking and making adjustments as my hearing imperceptibly deteriorates) makes me scratch my head the next day and start over.
Finally, consider why you listen to music- most likely to enjoy the experience? Be wary of chasing a peak listening experience of sonic bliss that spoils you to the other mundane moments in life where you could still be enjoying music, such as listening in a car.
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nah000
climber
now/here
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+1 for NutAgain's advice above. everybody has different ears with different sensitivities and what to one person is money that must be spent, is to another money that is just pissed down the drain. and once you get started, like any addiction, there is much money to be potentially pissed away... so focus on the elements, that once you hear as part of a system similar to yours, you can't live without... and if you're not sure if you hear a difference then don't worry about it despite what your audiophilic friend or online wanker rants/raves about it...
and a +1 for Ksolem's parasound recommendation. i've got an older amp, pre-amp and tuner of theirs now and agree that for the buck it was a spend i'm happy with.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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full-range flat-response high quality speakers
Hey, we're talking stereo gear here. You gotta tell us what you're listening too. There a very few speakers out there that can live up to that standard...
;-)
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briham89
Big Wall climber
santa cruz, ca
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I have a project debut carbon as well. I dig it!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Bump for Cosmic.
If they're in good shape and he's got the equalizer they come with new, the 901's are a great product for the money. Generally speaking, among serious listeners Bose products are not well regarded. These 901's Cosmic has are an exception.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Some time around 1982-3, I bought a Luxman L530 integrated amplifier, Systemdek IIX turntable and Infinity SM 112 speakers. The two first components were quite well regarded, the last one not. But I thought the components functioned well together to produce good sound. I still have the amplifier and the turntable, but five years ago I put them to the side. I still keep them and some hundred LPs. In modern times it is not easy to have an amplifier you need to pre-warm before you use. And youtube is offering som remarkable live recordings. Part of the story is also a Tandberg 3001A tuner.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Hey Kris, by your standards what I listen to can’t really be called FRFR for studio applications :)
But they are pretty darn good for the price range.
https://shop.atomicamps.com/product_p/clr-neo-mkii.htm
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/review-atomic-amps-clr-powered-wedge-neo-version.77917/
Atomic CLR 1000 watt powered wedges, light version with Neodymium magnets (to make them more manageable for bringing to rehearsals or shows)- still 33 lbs each.
I tried a pair of QSC-K10 that are popular, but I discovered they really accentuate the bass (which is fine for home listening stereo or DJ dance parties, but sucks if you use them to edit reference sounds on a box that will then be directly connected to a studio board). I made guitar sounds that I liked a lot through the QSC-K10 but it sounded weak and thin and tinny when going direct out to the board and heard through monitors in Aspens Place (recording studio north of Hollywood). That’s what made me buy the Atomic CLRs. I sold the pair of QSC K10 on Craigslist, and an arranger from The Voice TV show bought them.
The Atomics are good enough that I clearly hear how much the cheap Beringer mixers (best deals at Guitar Center) actually degrade the sound- can tell by testing with mixer in the chain or not. Best way to say it is the mixer in the chain makes it sound less “live” and “rich” and “articulate”. Maybe some phase smearing or loss of high end or I don’t know what. Testing with lossy mp3 files for a source you wouldn’t hear a difference- that would be the weak link.
All this is not directly relevant for folks shopping home stereo speakers. Most people don’t like the sound of a flat response, and upvote stuff with more boomy bass or at least clarity for listening at loud levels. But the FRFR is important for consistency in recording or going between venues for live shows.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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God damn...
Walleye steals the show!!!
Nut, judging by the reviews you've got some nice speakers. I know what you mean about flat pro audio speakers vs. home stereo gear. Mine are out of the mastering studio, and their flat, full range, and not so much fun to listen to. So I add a tasteful amount of sub, and voila.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Generally speaking, among serious listeners Bose products are not well regarded Kris, that's what my husband used to say too.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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I recently upgraded my integrated amp. I have a decent pair of older JBL speakers and I still have a turntable but I don't need a tuner so the integrated amp instead of a receiver met my needs. Since a lot of my music comes from digital sources a good DAC and a variety of input formats was also desired. I ended up with a Peachtree unit with a tube pre-amp. No bass or treble nobs.
https://www.peachtreeaudio.com/
In one song I listened to I can hear violins that I never heard before.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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A lot of people don't understand that the best level to listen to recorded music at is the level at which it would sound live. Most people play classical music way too loud. I go for the feel of being at the podium, mind you that can get pretty big at times but conductors aren't exactly losing their hearing every day...
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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We had a dryer fire and in the laundry room was a massive old Onkyo receiver that didn't work and a high quality cassette component I never used. So, insurance would pay me for reasonable replacements. I opted for a Yamaha A-S301 integrated amp (stereo "hi-fi" with modern ad-ons) and a Music Hall USB1 turntable (who needs a cassette player?). Then, it was time to replace the woofer foam on my JBL 4412a's, so I had to send them off to Portland to get done. I went on Craigslist and spotted a pair of Sansui SPX-9000 speakers for $100 bucks and decided to get them while my JBL's were in the shop; massive 16" woofers and classic old-school wooden grills.
When I got the JBL's back and hooked them up, I compared them. Each were great, but surprisingly, the Sansui's are slightly better overall. I have them both on all the time (A and B).
My basic, low-end setup is friggin fantastic. The Music Hall turntable is more than adequate and the Yamaha 301 (lowest on the lineup, 60 watts x 2) is really like an old school stereo amp. If you're going back to vinyl, two-channel hi-fi is the way to go and the Yamaha 301 matched with the JBL and Sansui speakers crank as loud as the front row at The Who. It sounds best sitting back about 15 feet. I think the JBL 4412's are actually designed for listening 3 to 5 feet away.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Kris, still relevant to this thread but slight drift...
What you said about preferred playback volume to match original source “being there”... does that mean you would master rock and roll and beyond type music at very high listening levels? Did you apply different EQ to account for Fletcher-Munson effect (less highs and lows, more mid emphasis for loud stuff) depending on source material and probable playback volume?
Is there a “sweet spot” dB level to balance background home or car listening vs concert emulation?
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Okay folks, looks like NutAgain and I are heading for some serious geeking. It'll probably be the death of this thread.
One trend in the mastering scene beginning around 1990 or so has been to slam the levels on the CD, so in a digital editor the waveform looks like a brick, as if no one’s smart enough to turn up the volume if they want to hear it loud. This is especially true for rock music, rap, dance/club, and even R&B and gospel. And more recently even jazz. When I finished a master the first thing the producer or A&R person would do is put the CD reference copy in a player and make sure it was as loud as other music in the genre, even if it would have sounded better mastered at a lower level and played louder by using the knob that says "volume."
I was fortunate to have a big array of gear, so I could usually get the perceived loudness without simply crushing the dynamics to death. A typical scenario with a digital mix coming from a studio ran like this: Run the digital source through a dbx L2 set for about 2db limiting, but with the output level down a db below clipping. Then use a high end D to A (Pacific Microsonics) and run the analog audio through whatever I wanted, choice of Sontec, Manley, Focusrite eq’s, Manley compressor and limiter, etc. Then that processed (still dynamic) analog audio went through a separate Pacific Microsonics converter doing A to D. The resulting digital audio was recorded to hard disc on a Sonic Solutions workstation. If the master was analog tape, I'd go directly to analog gear and use the L2 later in the chain. And if the mix was already "slammed" there was little I could do.
Then I’d do all of the editing. At this point the digital audio is still 24 bit 96 kHz. So out goes the edited music through a Weiss digital console, loaded with eq’s, dynamics, efx., etc. The console is programmable, so I’d get the whole album dialed in, and the play it out through the console to a Pacific Microsonics converter set to dither down to 16 bit 44.1 kHz, and record that digital output to a second Sonic Solutions system as the finished master. So rather than having to slam the music up against the wall to make it loud, I had the luxury of being able to sort a massage it in various stages to get it sounding right.
One thing a lot of mastering engineers and mixers don’t understand is that a too much level below say 40 Hz eats up headroom at bass (50-150), mid, and high frequencies. Digital can only faithfully record 96 db at 16 bits, so if you’re clipping down at 30 Hz, your higher frequencies are going to start sounding really crunched. That Weiss console had a very cool 12 or 24 db/octave high pass which I almost always used at about 30 Hz to get more headroom higher up (the digital filter has no phase shift.)
I also found that a lot of mixes were a little fat in the low mids, and a little cutting there, 250-500 hz, would really open up the sound. I never gave much thought to the Fletcher-Munson curve, just tried to do what sounded good.
You’ll get a kick out of this. The rappers could never get enough bass when they were listening in my room, but as above, I couldn’t put all the bass they thought they wanted on the master. Since the main monitors had a programmable equalizer, I had a preset just for those sessions which sent 3db more lows to the speakers than to the master. I paid no attention to what I was hearing, just went by a spectrum analyzer. They’d come back saying “See, I told you it needed that extra bottom!”
Is there a “sweet spot” dB level to balance background home or car listening vs concert emulation?
Do you have a stereo pair of VU meters? Set them so -14 dB digital reads 0 VU. Then only exceed 0 or +1 on the meters on rare occasions. That should put you in the pocket. Old analog VU's are really cool, and shouldn't be too hard to find. Just split the monitor out from your mixer to feed the meters.
This is the type, There's less expensive one's too.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Thanks for the details Kris... I'm a bit of a sound geek, some amateur digital recording experience of past band songs, but recently discovered how much deeper the hole can go with state of the art digital modeling of analog guitar amplifier components and speaker impulse responses. More nerd knobs to tweak in the products now than ever before.
Key takeaways I got from your recording process:
 Beware too much compression - the "brick" waveform :)
High pass (low cut) filters below 30Hz to give more room for frequencies more central to our hearing range (and within the range that average speakers can reproduce)
Cutting out some girth in the 200Hz to 500Hz range to "open up" the sound.
I've found very similar stuff while crafting guitar sounds:
Compression is tempting, because louder tends to sound "better" to a certain extent, but then you lose the punchiness and dynamic range. And for a full mix of instruments, lots of compression just makes my ears tired quickly.
With guitar, I typically have 12dB/octave cut at 100Hz, sometimes lower to 80Hz if I want more bottom end, but sometimes higher to 180Hz if I need to leave a lot of space for bass or keyboards.
I've seen that cutting some in the 200Hz - 500Hz range can be like "taking a blanket off" the sound, but I haven't worked out yet precisely which frequencies within that, or a consistent rule to apply. I always need to fiddle with it, but it seems that very low Q on a boost or cut tends to sound more natural, less boxy, than having a spike in the EQ graph. And I often add in a bit of 1900Hz or 2200Hz to make it "pop" more. But these details are what vary day-to-day in how much I like the result, and these are the things where the speakers you listen to make a big difference.
There, back on track to speakers!
The other key thing to mention- the room.
If folks want to upgrade to fancier speakers and specialized gear, the physical geometry of the room and composition of the surfaces might have a bigger impact. It will change which frequencies resonate and create standing waves, which acts like another EQ on the signal after it leaves the speakers.
Edit: Jim, I'm probably a bad judge of analog vs digital amp for music listening. I am not a cork sniffer. My recent "upgrade" of home music listening was a Sonos 3, through which I stream my mp3 collection. I'm not snobby about FLAC which I regret sometimes, but I am more pragmatic to enjoy music when/where I can in the format I have available (and I'm lazy so still use iTunes to organize my music). So basically, I enjoy geeking on sound stuff but I am not super-discriminating in my personal listening. Heck, I used built-in laptop speakers or apple earbuds for most of the last few years. I was disappointed with it, but accepted it.
Here is the most useful critical/comparative comments I can make for analog/digital in general:
1. Digital gear can produce sounds at a fidelity that human ears can't distinguish from analog gear.
2. A lot of what people find pleasing is a result of slight imperfections in analog equipment. Different old products have characteristic colorations or distortions that are well liked, and difficult to emulate with digital gear because it requires very complex modeling to capture the subtle ways the analog signals are distorted.
3. Any shortcomings or perceived differences of digital technology have to do with how much effort people have put into emulating in the digital domain what is really happening with the analog gear. The technology gets really deep really quickly in this space. It is evolving but it has gotten pretty damn good. Still not 100%, but plenty good enough for all but the most picky and competitive who are trying to find problems.
Talking now about guitar amp and speaker emulators, which I know more about than hi-fi stereo stuff:
1. Many modern musicians are fully stoked with the sound of digital emulated stuff- seems more so in the less discriminating range of heavy metal and very distorted players, but picking up up more classic rockers and even bluesy players too. The vast majority of people including musicians cannot tell the difference in A/B comparisons with well-adjusted sounds. But getting a "well adjusted" sound can be complicated. It is getting easier with each new release of software by the product vendors.
2. My personal experience, being in a band with an old-school really good lead guitar player (blues to 60s rock to steely dan and modern stuff), he was sometimes satisfied but often disappointed with my digital emulated tone. That has to be taken with a grain of salt because my lack of time commitment to dial it in properly, my dialing in sounds at home and no time to dial it in the band mix, and my lack of musicianship was also a factor. He was a highly complaining type that liked to pick on digital just on the principle. There is definitely a certain something great about a well-dialed analog guitar rig- a beautiful roar on stage. I think if I used my gear through a real guitar cabinet (which has a very limited and shaped frequency range) as opposed to the full-range flat-response speakers, it would have made it easier for me to dial in my sound. But the point of using flat speakers is so I can go from emulating a driven Fender Champ with a 10" speaker in one song, then next song emulating a big Marshall stack with a 4x12" Celestion G-30H speaker cabinet, or emulating a Hi-Watt with 4x12" Fane speakers. So committing to a real guitar cabinet (still with the emulated amp) might sound better on stage, but it loses the flexibility of different sounds.
3. For my home use, I can produce sounds that are sonic bliss with all digital gear through pretty "flat" (meaning a flat frequency response curve) speakers. The challenge is to get it dialed so that it still sounds blissful played louder in a band mix, opposite another guitar player using all analog gear and a loud drummer and loud bass player, etc.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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^^^ damn lot of words to not say much of practical value.
But I wanted to post that the audio gods are laughing at me now. I'm appreciating Neil Young Harvest album, but only can hear the left channel through my broken iPhone ear buds :)
And lots of ambient airport noise.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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What are your opinions about the values and drawbacks between vacuum tube amplifiers and solid state amplifiers ?
Theoretically tube amps will sound "warmer" than solid state. But it's not fair to generalize too much because of the variety of designs out there. Take that amazing McIntosh amp Walleye teased us with up-thread. The audio circuits remain balanced through the entire amp. By balanced I mean that there are two parallel audio circuits all of which go through identical amplification, but one is out of phase with the other. At the end of the circuit the out of phase signal is inverted and the two are combined. Since any noise induced into either signal will be in phase, recombining the signals cancels every bit of added noise. So you can design an amp with lots of power without having to worry too much about adding noise because it will be cancelled out in the end. But it's very pricey to make the two parallel amplifier circuits. Then they used transformers for the outputs making it smooth like tubes.
To NutAgain, whether digital is virtually indistinguishable from analog depends on many things, most importantly the resolution. Digital audio cares about one thing: How loud am I now. Each time the question is asked, the answer is encoded in some number of bits. Asked often enough, and stored with enough bits, this information will represent the shape of a sound wave. A CD asks the question 44.1K times per second and stores each “sample” as a 16 bit binary number. Sounds like a lot? Well, many instruments have key elements of their sound up at 10 kHz. But at 44.1K we only get 4 samples to draw the waveform. That’s nowhere near enough to record or reproduce any harmonics at that frequency. The result is that as we move up though the sound spectrum, progressively the cd loses its ability to see and reproduce harmonics, the variations in the shape (not the frequency) of a wave which makes one instrument sound different from another. By the time we’re up to 6,8 and 10 kHz all of the sounds are made of the same soup, we only tell the cymbal from the piccolo by it’s dynamic envelope. A good analog system is more than capable of resolving these details.
To put it simply, the distortions in digital recording are omissions. The distortions in analog audio tend be artifacts added to the sound (hiss, ticks and pops, wow and flutter, etc.) but at the high end these distortions are almost non-existent. But the CD will never reproduce harmonics at 10kHz. Of course even the most critical listener can be fooled trying to hear what's not there. But the lack of high freq. harmonics on a CD is pretty audible once you get keyed into it.
Time for me to back slowly away from the keyboard now. Gotta go. Cheers.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Kris, great point. I used to think Neil Young was a bit of a weenie for being against CDs, but your point about higher harmonics is the first argument I've heard (or the first time I heard it in a way I understood) that makes scientific sense. I hadn't properly considered it before, and I haven't done my own real observations related to high frequency distinction of instruments and different timbres when close to the sampling frequency.
Background ideas and concepts for folks who are curious:
Human hearing is at best up to 20kHz (twenty thousand waveforms per second), and typically only 12kHz or 14kHz for many adults (and progressively worse with age and exposure to loud and/or persistent sounds)
Engineers in most fields (not just audio) typically use the Nyquist frequency as the guideline for how fast you need to sample a signal. That means if we can hear sine waves up to 20,000 cycles per second, then a CD recording that captures 44,100 samples per second would seem to be good enough.
But Nyquist theorem doesn't tell the whole story for music (or any signal). That is the MINIMUM sampling frequency to avoid having "aliasing" or low frequency artifacts. It's the sonic equivalent of when you see a movie of old stage coaches and the wheels look like they are rotating backwards because the speed of the wheel spokes moving is too close to the speed of the images flickering in the movie. Google it for some interesting examples.
Many audio folks take the Nyquist sampling rate as a sort of holy grail for digital capture and playback, when it is just barely enough to avoid adding artifacts. The other consideration is what is lost.... As Kris said, it is not enough sampling to make a detailed picture of what is happening with the upper harmonics. A couple of principles here:
We can't hear the frequencies of the upper harmonics above 20kHz, but those signals can interact with each other in ways that generate lower frequency components that we CAN hear (do a google search on "beat frequency")
I'm less sure of this one, but google Virtual Pitch as a psychoacoustic phenomenon. If your brain hears a few harmonics but the fundamental frequency is missing, your brain adds in that lower missing signal. This is how small speakers can use fancy signal processing to make you think you are hearing a booming bass. I don't know if this concept still works for signals above 20kHz, where our brains might fill in a missing fundamental below 20kHz. This probably gets pretty detailed into how the Basilar Membrane works in our ear canal.
Anyhoo... harmonic content of this type (definitely from beat frequencies and maybe from virtual pitches perceived related to harmonics above 20kHz), is within a range that would be relevant for human perception. And it is chopped off even with CDs. That is the type of stuff that would affect our perception of timbre, e.g. distinguishing the tone of a piccolo from cymbals as Kris said.
Another place where missing this extra detailed sound is important is when you do sound processing in a musical recording- like to add a specific type of desirable distortion (e.g. to emulate a warm analog tube amp) or reverb or chorus or flanger effects and similar. In these situations, the signal gets degraded/distorted in an unintended way because there is not enough timing resolution in the hyper-sonic range to process the sound without missing stuff that affects the output in the range we can hear.
Some high end music products now work with 96kHz internally to avoid these problems, and some software might even do higher like 192kHz.
Any sound processing system that internally bottlenecks at 44.1kHz or 48kHz is likely to never make a "perfect" replica (from human perception perspective) of an analog sound. I wonder how much is really enough? 96kHz? 192kHz?
This could be explored theoretically by considering harmonics of instruments with high frequency components: piccolos, cymbals, snares, distorted guitars, etc... and then looking at how those harmonics interact to generate lower beat frequencies and which of those have enough power to be perceptible in an audio track.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I'm gonna have to look into that psycho-acoustic business. That's an amazing field. I had to study up on aspects of that when I was teaching a class about mastering and digital stuff for the UCLA recording program. For example MP3 uses a lot of psycho-acoustic trickery. One thing I learned, at least relative to the areas of the field I was interested in, is that psycho-acoustic perceptions vary from one individual to another.
An inconvenience with conventional digital audio is that to double the resolution with which the amplitude is encoded (bits) you just add one bit. 17 bits is twice the number of steps of resolution as 16, and so on. But to double the resolution of the sample rate requires twice as many samples.
Designers have made systems with very high sample rates, up in mega-Hertz, and two bit encoders. Basically if the sample rate is high enough all you need to encode is whether the signal is louder, softer, or the same as the previous sample. The audio simply cannot change fast enough to need any more data to encode. DBX made one for a while, I think they called it Delta-Mod. The fidelity was awesome, but the format was not robust, louder or softer does not tell you the actual amplitude so if you lose a few bits there's no way for the system to pick it back up and keep playing. Today a hard disc, vs. digital tape back then, would solve that problem. Except when you want to edit or process the signal.
edit, 96K by 24 bit is pretty darn good. For CD masters I preferred working at 88.2 by 24. The conversion to 44.1 for the product always sounded better to me. Of course that was on equipment made in 2005.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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What is that thing? Judging by the wood grain it's pretty small. Is it edible?
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big ears
Trad climber
?
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2017 - 06:56pm PT
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Thanks for the info guys. Some of you are talking way over my head but I appreciate it. Basically, i enjoy the act of putting records on a turntable. Makes listening a more participatory experience IMO. Basically i want some gear that sounds good, and will last a while. Right now i have an old Denon middle grade amp, and a plastic audio technica table. The amp is starting to give me some trouble (the source buttons are a crapshoot, take you to different sources every time) and i can just tell by the feel of the table it doesnt have a lifetime of use in it.
This is why i chose the Sprout amp and the Project table. All in all its about 800 bucks, and eventually im gonna try to spend about 800 bucks on some speakers. Ive capped my cost at 2 grand. Is there something more practical i could spend my money on? Of course. But where is the fun in that.
🍻🍻🍻
Edit: part of the reason i went this route is that it seems like good speakers pop up used more often than a quality amp or turntable. So i bought this stuff on some black friday deals, and will scour craigslist until some nice Klipsch speakers pop up
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zBrown
Ice climber
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What kind of music do you enjoy listening to?
Well I like the live kind, but man, it's so expensive these days.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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When looking at used speakers pull off the screen and inspect the foam surround. This is the foam bit around the diameter of the actual cone which keeps the cone centered in the magnetic "voice coil," and also allows it to move in and out. If they're cracked or separated, but the speakers are high quality you can get a deal. Just tell the seller they're shot but you'll take 'em anyway. There are plenty of places that will "recone" them for a fair price. I had a subwoofer (big driver) done locally near Pasadena by an pro for about $50.
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big ears
Trad climber
?
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2017 - 08:29pm PT
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Typically i am gonna be listening to rock, RnB, and any of those sub genres. Bands like The Punch Brothers, and Jazz Music somewhat regularly. Its very rare for me to listen to classical misic, but not unheard of.
Edit
What i have noticed with set ups of the caliber i will be buying have a spalshy and more alive sound to symbols. Its kind of hard to explain, but basically i want that “warmth”
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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In my last post on the previous page I try to explain why that is. Go vinyl.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Now this is a speaker...
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wayne w
Trad climber
the nw
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A friend who was in the music industry once told me that after 40 plays a record begins to lose its full sound, and with each additional play loses more. The difference between a clean vinyl record and one that has been played many times is discernable on even a decent system. A clean Direct to Disc recording will give you the optimal sound experience.
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TLP
climber
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Though I am only a microfraction as knowledgeable as other posters above, it's like wine: I know what sounds good to me and which subtle details explain why. Totally agree, get speakers first, then other stuff. It is nice if you have the access and expertise to go custom as suggested, but personally I don't. For classical, I recommend Vandersteens. They're outstanding for other styles too but I have no clue whether they excel as much in other modes as they do for orchestra, piano, and vocal.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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I have a pair of these Infinity Quantum 2s that I am in the middle of refinishing and reconing.
With the Watkins woofers and the ribbon tweaters these things are stunning. I have an old, 220 watt, highly prized Kenwood amp to power them.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Gnome, what’s that vertical strip in upper right?
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Reilly, those are three 6 inch ribbon tweeters. Those are most of what makes these so special. Kris has spent many hours listening to these. I bought them from Bob Kamps for $400. There is a freshly restored set on Ebay for $1,800 right now. And boy do they rock! At 90 pounds a piece they are a bit much to move though.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Infinity was pretty cutting edge back in the day. Now they're owned by Harmon Kardon, and their top of the line floor standing "reference" speaker goes for $400/pair.
Ribbon tweeters are great. Transparent and absolutely no roll off on top. But they require a very carefully engineered (read expensive) crossover. It you hit them with anything below about 3kHz they blow like a fuse.
I have the Raven ribbons in mine. I made sure to have a supply of extra ribbons for them.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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And yet with all of the time we have hammered my Infinities I have never had a problem with a ribbon.... that I know. They are going in for a rework soon and I guess I will find out if all the ribbons are still good.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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As a tangent to this discussion, we are watching the Bosch detective series on Amazon these days. I'm a huge fan of the Michael Connelly books. Regular reference in the books is made to Bosch being a big jazz lover and to his playing his vinyl records. Last night in one scene we got a look at his system. A MacIntosh 540, probably another Mac component, couldn't tell about the turntable and speakers my husband thought were Walsh. I asked him if it was a good system and his only comment was "very old school".
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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And yet with all of the time we have hammered my Infinities I have never had a problem with a ribbon....
Having three separate ranges of drivers simplifies the cross-over challenge. Those ribbons are pretty wide too. I can't wait to hear those babies when they're done...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Dec 18, 2017 - 08:27am PT
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And the $.20 question is, Jan, what kind of turntable was Bob Kamps running with those Infinities?
Thinking old-school here: Thorens, AR ... Mission?
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Dec 18, 2017 - 09:25am PT
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One of the best parts about vinyl was studying the album cover intensely while enjoying the music. I have a hard time reading the fine print on CD booklets.
I have good old school equipment. The only problem is many of my favorite recordings are mid 70's Fela Kuti, live cassettes from Senegal, and various 80's stuff from West Africa. Top end equipment doesn't add much in this case.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Dec 18, 2017 - 11:21am PT
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Vinyl must be popular with set designers as a means of establishing character or something. Right now we are watching another Netflix cop series called River (2014, also very good). The main character, played by Stellan Skarsgaard, also has a stereo and vinyl featured prominently in his living room.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Dec 18, 2017 - 01:09pm PT
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Those Sonab rigs might be interesting. The frequency response is nothing to write home about, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't sound good, so long as your not using them for professional reference. Lots of less than optimal speakers are great fun to listen too.
I came across a short thread here. There's a link to a thorough review in Swedish...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 13, 2018 - 01:25pm PT
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phylp said:
Vinyl must be popular with set designers as a means of establishing character or something.
I watch a lot of movies, am seeing it more and more, and I would agree with that observation: the set designers must feel that showing characters living with old record players and vinyl tells us something about them. I think it establishes a certain hominess, warmth, and sensitivity.
It's not restricted to the depiction of old retro-grouches by any means. Lots of these characters are young people.
Or they can use it to establish an upscale character, as seen in Robert Redford's character from The Great Gatsby (?), who at one point walks into a corner and plays a record on a very high-end turntable for the times, before having a nice quiet dance with a woman in his parlor.
Occasionally you see characters with those $12,000+++ turntables, things that look more like Earth orbiting satellites than conveyances of a tonearm and the means of spinning a vinyl record beneath the pressure of a stylus. Think drug dealer and master of the universe, money-killer type characters.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Apr 13, 2018 - 03:44pm PT
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I guess I'm a little late answering Roy's question but I don't remember what turntable Bob had. I almost want to say he was a cassette person. He did sell them to me because he (really Bonny) wanted something less obtrusive in their living room. I know when I had these running last I had the turntable that Kris Solem now has. We did a little trade some time ago.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Apr 13, 2018 - 04:25pm PT
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HD vinyl, seriously? LPs are the the fastest growing sector in the music business (or they were a year or two ago) so everyones looking for a new hook. Another one I jut learned about is "hot stampers". A copy of a regular pressing but it sounds better. Guy is making a killing selling these.
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/hot-stampers/
Tin ear here, I like to pick up the obscure for a buck at the swap meet.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 13, 2018 - 04:32pm PT
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What does reel to reel tape say about character development in film? ;) Ha ha. Just watched Pulp Fiction again last month. Favorite scene is Travolta and Uma Thurman having a conversation in the convertible "car" in the restaurant.
Reel to real says vinyl spelled sideways, with a heavy dose of retro-cool drug dealer chic.
Way higher fidelity than cassette tapes. And different recording speeds enabled more or less data per inch, depending on the desired quality outcome.
You could get a lot of music on one reel, enough to last for most of a party.
Those big-ass reels sure do look sweet, especially when the unit is running and they are rotating like ferris wheels!
..........................................................
Thanks Jan: cassette means/meant Nakamichi or go home.
My first quality source input was from a Teac cassette player.
Teakwood shell, horizontal, top loading configuration, brushed aluminum faceplate, sliders for volume adjustment instead of knobs, analog VU meters ... ye-aaaah baby!
(Turntable was junk conscripted from the parents: taped a penny to the head shell to effect proper tracking force)
Made a lot of YES and ELP tapes for backpacking trips on this rig, or one just like it:
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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LOL Tarbuster, that is so funny!
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Where's Minnesota Mawk? His company Magnepan out of White Bear Lake makes the kickin'est ass audiophile speakers!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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The last set of Magneplanars I heard was four years ago in a tuned listening room environment. I couldn't wrap my brain around the low end. I notice on their website that the new one's have optional add on panels for bass, and an adjustment on the speaker for low freq. response. So it seems to me they are still wrestling with the same problem. There's a set of the new one's on display down the street. I'll go down and check 'em out.
The last thing I want in a speaker is an adjustable cross-over. That is a circuit which has to be carefully optimized for the drivers in question.
The idea of an all ribbon speaker is cool, but realistically reproducing bass is about moving air. A large number of very small transducers doesn't cut it for me. YMMV.
These baby's move air...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Adjustable crossover?
I can only achieve that with a dutiful application of beer, weed, & certain brands of tequila.
Otherwise: that's gotta be pure folly!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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“High Definition Vinyl” Is Happening, Possibly as Early as Next Year. With a new $4.8 million investment, an Austrian startup says it could have “HD vinyl” in stores by 2019
From their pitch...
Lasers are then used to inscribe the map onto the “stamper,” the part that stamps the grooves into the vinyl. According to Loibl, these methods allow for records to be made more precisely and with less loss of audio information. The results, he said, are vinyl LPs that can have up to 30 percent more playing time, 30 percent more amplitude, and overall more faithful sound reproduction
This should be interesting. I'll keep an open mind and wait to see what they can come up with. But, I've been involved in enough vinyl mastering to understand that amplitude and playing time are mutually exclusive. Higher amplitude requires more real estate on the disc, which unavoidably means less playing time. I'm looking forward to seeing how they get around that.
It's probably just a screw up in the article, but when the laser inscribes the "map" it cannot be making a stamper. This first part has grooves like the finished record and cannot be used to stamp anything. It's called a "mother." A "father" is then made from the "mother" through a plating process. The "father" has the positive representation of the grooves and thus can be used as a stamper. Of course the two metals, one the mother and the second the father must be different so they can be separated after plating. Usually the mother is copper, the father nickel. Sometimes the other way 'round.
On top of that, they say that their format is compatible with today's turntables. But most cartridges get pretty maxed out by the amplitudes which are cut on club music discs. Increasing the amplitude as they claim they can will probably bounce the needle right out of the groove.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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^^^ that's when you tape a dime to the top of the cartridge ;)
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Does anyone have a suggestion for setting/adjusting the pitch on my 70's vintage Dual turntable? I used to have a cardboard disc with black spots around the perimeter, that appeared motionless under flourescent light when the pitch was correct. Are these still available, or is there another way to accomplish this?
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Urmas, that motionless dot solution is a cool idea- fancy tuners for guitar use that strobe effect too. Is there a switch to select between countries with 50hz vs 60hz ac frequency (the flicker rate of the fluorescent lights), or is it fixed for use in USA (60Hz)?
It would be a reasonable math exercise (i.e. only using high school/freshman level math) to calculate the dot spacing to create your own pitch adjuster. Print it out and glue it to a piece of cardboard.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Kris,
The main problem with a large driver, full range monitor like those (twin 15's?) in wide stereo, is "power alley". There is no physical way that method will give even, low frequency coverage from left to right, within the room.
Modern systems are increasingly reducing the size of low frequency drivers in the main left/right cabinets and either utilizing a singe point driver for everything 80hz and lower, OR if multiple low frequency drivers are needed, then spreading them across the front and "steering" the low frequency array by using incremental electronic delay, where the center is at time zero and small delay units towards the outside of the array.
That way, no center position low freq bump and no alleys with cancelled low freq.
Arne
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Matt Sarad
climber
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Over the years I have had McIntosh tube preamp and power amp, old JBLs, L 100s, AR, custom made designed on Rogers LS3/5a with KEF drivers, Hafler, Audionics, SAE...
A dozen years ago I bought Cambridge Audio integrated amp, Music Hall 5.1 turntable with Goldring, and Wharfdale Diamond 9s.
Then I crashed a mt bike and lost 60% hearing in my left ear. Sound comes to my right ear unless I crank it way up and move around to the balanced spot. My wife can’t take the volume.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Roy, I spent some time talking to Bonnie on Saturday night and she admitted that Bob was tone deaf and she didn't hear music very well either so the Infinities were lost on them. However, their cassette was a Nakamichi. You would expect no less from Bob.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Early in my career I ran a place that made high quality fast turnaround cassette copies for record company promotion departments. We had 200 Nakamichi MR-1's.
Does anyone have a suggestion for setting/adjusting the pitch on my 70's vintage Dual turntable?
Anyone interested in vinyl needs to know about this outfit:
https://www.lpgear.com/product/AT6180.html
The main problem with a large driver, full range monitor like those (twin 15's?) in wide stereo, is "power alley". There is no physical way that method will give even, low frequency coverage from left to right, within the room.
That room was designed around the speakers and tuned four times a year using a TEF analyzer at many locations in the room. It was remarkably flat throughout so long as you didn't stand against a wall. But it was built expressly for mastering work. The kind of systems you describe are not well suited for that work since they sound good by nature. Add a dB at 6K, sounds good. Do the opposite? Still sounds good. Those Tannoys in my studio had a much narrower window for what sounds right, and that "sweet spot" was tweaked so my work would translate well to a large variety of consumer stereos.
To be honest, in 25 years in pro audio I never heard the term power alley, but then I was more of a user than a designer. And help me out with this business of steering a low frequency array. The only knowledge I have about steering speaker arrays using phase delays is in large outdoor concert applications.
Of course, my system at home, which is located in the opposite of a tuned environment uses 6" lo freq outside drivers with a single point sub.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Question:
I recently replaced the belt on my, uh, belt drive turntable. As far as I know, that's the only way to "adjust" or restore pitch on a belt drive unit.
Prior to replacement, I had no problem ascertaining that the speed was slowing. It's when I went from listening to identical albums, one on CD and the other on vinyl, Miles Davis' Miles Ahead, that I finally did something about it. Just for fun, I timed the length of a particular cut, before and after replacing the belt. This was the first cut off of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska: I went from a play time of 6:24 to 5:57!
I also measured the belt: before, it was 9 3/16 inches when doubled, and after it was 8 7/8 inches ...
But how do you know the motor itself is turning at the proper speed?
A quick search yielded this, which was interesting in its discussion of 78 RPM records being produced at variable speeds, but other than that, it didn't really address the question I'm asking here:
https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=27794
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Thanks KSolem! My turntable has a pitch adjustment knob. I'm getting ready to unpack my 500 or so vinyl albums and start listening to them for the first time in about 15 years. All I need is a new cartridge and I'm set.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Tarbuster, the length of the belt does not affect speed unless it has stretched to the point that it is slipping on the motor spindle. Sounds like yours was slipping if the song got shorter. Using one of the printable templates on VinylEngine will allow you to check the speed with fluorescent light, the template goes on the platten, paying attention to the distance the bars are from the center spindle.
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Barbarian
climber
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^^^ that's when you tape a dime to the top of the cartridge ;)
and flop down on your beanbag chair to enjoy the sounds...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Okay, Jon, thanks, but what about electric motor speed?
Will that degrade over time?
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Roy, my experience with electric motors is that they don't degrade slowly over time. What you'll get is variable speed followed by failure, or failure to start. Then when it does start it will drag and the speed will jump around. A lot of times it will act up for a bit and then sort itself out. In any case a loss of speed, but still constant, is uncommon.
Of course if you check it with with one of the strobe cards you'll know, even if you can't adjust it.
Edit: Now that I think about it a loose belt will not slip at an constant rate either, so if that's the problem you should hear significant wow in the pitch, not just time. Hmmm..
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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That room was designed around the speakers and tuned four times a year using a TEF analyzer at many locations in the room.
Doesn't matter Kris how many times a room was "tuned" EQed I guess you're saying. Two sources of low end (actually 4 in this case with the 15's) cannot be corrected, electronically or otherwise. Its a simple problem of time; a smear if you will and low frequency exacerbates the problem.The solution is to try and keep low frequency out of the stereo imaging. Keep the stereo imaging at least above 80hz (some modern thinking even higher) in a frequency range that is actually directional anyway? (why try to pan low end, a non-directional range)
Power Alley is a very common and long understood problem, merely accepted until recent solutions, especially for multiple loudspeakers (sources) including sub sonic cardioid methods and other steering methods, like incremental delay of source units. You may resist accepting the notion that current live sound events are leading the way to the highest fidelity possible. No way the audio dynamics, frequency response and moving air can be reproduced or mastered to equal what is happening in the very high end tour market. Not referring to a Rolling Stones concert:)
Much cheers to you.
Arne
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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^^^^Now we're talkin'...
Arne, I understand the non-directional aspect of bass. My system at home is much more hi-fi than the big old studio monitors, and I have a single point sub crossed over at 80hz. But we managed the low end in the studio quite well. Yes the regular tuning was eq, but the room itself was constantly tested as it was built, and we continued to play with it for years after that. Some of it was accepted practice at the time; compression ceiling, no parallel walls, the usual bass trapping, etc. Some of it was our own ideas. Anyway we had a lot of fun with it, and it was a very exciting listening environment. One thing I enjoyed, which has nothing to do with the subject, was having those very inefficient mains over-powered enough that the rig was idling at a good listening level.
Are you in live sound? I knew that wasn’t for me. Too much happening all at once. I sat with a few of the best at one time or another. Ed Greene comes to mind. He sat at the console in his own bubble of calm serenity surrounded by what looked to me like chaos. Typically the work in a mastering studio moves along at a nicely controlled pace, not so many surprises 😉
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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A lot of that, like the sheet-rock with air between, is for soundproofing. Works even better if the two layers of sheet-rock are different thicknesses so they don't resonate at a common frequency. That's how they do the glass between the control room and live room in studios. They also set the panes so they're not parallel.
I've never heard of this diaphragm thing, sealing the room with plastic, but that's happening to me a lot on this thread :-)
Sounds like he used a digitally controlled eq. You can have presets. I used one in the mastering studio. I had one preset just for the rappers. I'd usually get about two minutes to listen flat before they demanded more bass, but I knew if I put all that extra bass on the master then consumer speakers wouldn't handle it and they'd be mad at me. So I'd hit the preset and send a bunch more bass to the monitors than to the master. I basically quit listening and flew on instruments. They'd take a ref disc and roll with it, play it at their crib, and at the studio. Then they'd come back and tell me how they were right to push for all that extra bass.
Did you hear about the record producer who got hit by a train? He never heard it coming...
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Yeah Kris, live audio. Started in the studio switched to live 30 years ago now the only thing left that interests me is outdoor festival stuff at the tour level, God's room right? No reflective energies to try to predict.
I've enjoyed your mastering equipment and experience topics, vinyl cutting gear all that cool stuff. My "mastering work" was really just focused on doing the dreaded transfer to digital CD 44.1 16 bit red book stuff. Mixing all the way to two track tape, then EQ to two track digital and burning to CD back in about 1987 I think.
Arne
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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I know this thread is of little interest to the majority here, but a few of us like it and it beats the hell out of politics.
Having had the time to actually think this through I have a question for Arne.
Regarding studio recordings, 90% of the music I listened to on those big Tannoy 215's: Aside from effects common in club mixes and the like, any producer/mixing engineer worth their salt sets the bass dead center. This makes all this stuff about bass in the stereo image mute, yes?
The TEF (time-energy-frequency) analyzer plays pink noise, cuts it off instantly, and shows you the room decay across the spectrum. We made adjustments in the room first, and eq second, accordingly. Pink noise is uncorrelated, so again the business of imaging the low frequencies is not relevant.
FWIW the Tannoy's were not crossed over between the two 15's even though one was a low frequency driver and the other, the one with the hi freq horn in the center, was a midrange driver. Those speakers have a crossover for the 15's which can be bypassed. They worked much better in that mode. Let the drivers sort it out, no phasing in the crossover band. I'm not sure how that would work in a cabinet that is not ported.
My comment about bass being about moving air is valid whether the layout is a single point sub or a stereo array. Size seems to matter, within reason. Subwoofers with small driver are simply tuned ports.
I'm not trying to make a specious argument, the points you have made really got me to thinking. Too bad we're not in the same area, it would be fun to do some listening together.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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We cross posted.
In 1987 that transfer to 44.1 16 bit was truly a nightmare.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Kris,
Wish I could make it down to the Bridwell Memorial. We could stay up all night talking about audio and in this case, competing sources, whether they are caused directly by speaker components stepping on each other's toes or by high energy room reflections, disturbing the math and complex prediction of the waves interfering instead of summing together like well behaved waves.
I am due however to get back down to Cali probably solo in the van and find some good campfires. Never been to the Needles either.
Yeah, with the transfer from tape to 44.1 the best you could do was try to remove some upper mid-range brightness to try and simulate analog. Wasn't horrible but not great either. Now I kind of miss it in a world of MP3 I try hard to avoid but permeates our entire listening process like an infectious disease. I miss real telephones too.
Arne
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Here's some low-grade borderline audiophile gear I've been listening to for over 30 years:
Note the 10 inch 33 1/3 jazz collection from the 50s!
(... and don't ask me about that floating turntable shelf: I don't want to talk about that right now, ha!)
Canton Quinto 510 present nice clarity, a well-organized soundstage and very tactile imaging: good for enjoying music featuring acoustic instruments and female vocals.
a/d/s L8e are nothing special, but for rock 'n roll I play them in parallel with the Canton.
Question: I lost a channel on my original NAD amp (Hafler was an upgrade anyhow, in its handling/expression of mid range), and some gearheads told me that running speakers with different ohm values in parallel could do that (cook one channel of a power amp), and a speaker selector with a protection circuit was recommended, which I now have in-line (Adcom). I don't run the protection when just listening to one pair. Does that sound right: I.e. running that extra circuitry to protect my amp when running different speakers in parallel?
[a/d/s/ are rated at 4 ohm, while the Canton say 4-8 ohm, and I think the audio guys said it even has as much to do with the mismatch of all the drivers themselves? I don't know how crossovers deal with all that stuff. I just listen to music.]
Question: you'll note those Canton monitors are rated all the way up to 30,000 Hz. They certainly are on the bright side, which I like. Yet I've heard many times that the human ear can only discern up to 20,000 Hz?
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Vinyl is about a different quality of sound than you normally get with a digital recording. When CDs were first introduced no one really understood how to get the best sound quality out of them. Also at 44khz and 16 bits there isn't enough bandwidth to reproduce sound as well as vinyl can. Now days, if someone bothers to put the effort in they can produce excellent sound at the higher resolutions available digitally.
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Binks
climber
Uranus
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My setup:
Basic setup:
Vanatoo T1 powered speakers (also have a built in DAC)
Martin Logan Dynamo 30 sub
Little Dot MK3 tube amp (used as phono preamp, and headphone amp)
Inputs:
Turntable: Project 1Xpression III with Ortofon blue cartridge/stylus
CD player: Denon DVD-2910 (plays SACD format in addition to regular CDs), digital out directly to Vanatoo T1 internal DAC
Bluetooth: Avantree Roxa
Pono player (usually run it thru the Little Dot MK 3, shines for high def files)
Chromecast Audio (I have two of these)
1) using optical digital out directly to Vanatoo speakers, which have an internal DAC
2) using optical digial out to JDS labs OL DAC, run to the Little Dot MK3, because, well, it sounds really good and sometimes I prefer the sound thru the amp
Headphones:
I have several, but my favorites are Sennheiser HD 600s, which I listen to either thru the LIttle Dot MK3 or using the balanced outputs directly from the Pono player.
The Little Dot MK3 tube amp is the genie in the bottle, or it's tubes have the genii, depending on how you look at it. I love it, it's like magic. Not everything benefits, that's why I can opt for pure digital.
I consider this a budget audiophile setup... and challenge anyone to come up with something that sounds this good for less money.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Again:
For me, listening to vinyl is more of a run what you've brung situation. I have a record collection and I'm not interested in parting with it. Those 25 10 inch 33 1/3 jazz albums may not even be available in digital format.
I'd also say there's a tactile difference in listening to vinyl (in the ear, not in the hand), and from a collector's point of view, the gatefold sleeves and associated artwork are pretty nice.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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May 11, 2018 - 06:30am PT
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♪
Vinyl. I have lp's I started collecting when I was a 14 or 15. Like Tarbuster, some are out of print and were never digitized. I can't remember when I lost my turntable, I believe my Lab chewed it up. All my sound equipment is analog. I had to quit buying CD's due to budget restraints, but occasionally will bite the dust. I think Jingy taught me to look for AAD SPARS Code on a CD, since it is a digitized version of the analog tapes.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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May 11, 2018 - 08:04am PT
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Speakers, all depends on your ear. Buy what sounds good to you, not what someone else prefers.
I like my Klipsch speaker system w/ sub-woofer. Unfortunately the Klipsch family sold out to Audiovox in 2011 and that may have changed things.
I wish I could buy a turntable, it used to be the tonearm, cartridge and stylus that made the difference in sound quality and not the turntable price.
I had a Technics SL-1200, but it was lost to my dog.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 11, 2018 - 11:30am PT
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Digital audio cares about one thing only: How loud am I now. On a CD, that question is asked 44,100 times per second for each stereo channel. That is the sampling rate, call it the horizontal axis. The answer to the question is recorded as a 16 bit number. This offers a vertical axis of resolution of −32,768 to 32,767. So comparatively the resolution of the vertical axis far exceeds that of the horizontal. To complicate the topic of resolution (sound quality) further, while we can double the vertical axis resolution with the addition on one bit, we can only double the horizontal axis by doubling the number of samples.
So, what’s wrong with 44.1? Let’s say we’re trying to record a 10,000 cycle tone (10 kHz.) But we can only ask “how loud am I now” 4.41 times per cycle. If we design our analog to digital converter to interpolate that as a sine wave we have it nailed. A faithful recording of a 10 kHz tone. Now let’s take our tone and add a simple harmonic distortion, the sort of thing which gives different sounds their colors. Our harmonic will be in the form of a small dent in the peak of the sine wave. Oh dear, we hear it before the conversion but not after. Since our 10kHz tone and our 4.41 samples don’t have an integer relationship every so often a sample will be taken on or within the harmonic distortion. Most systems encoding at 44.1kHz interpolate out this “error.”
As the frequencies in the music get higher we have fewer opportunities to measure and record the waveforms accurately. Our example above was a simple sine wave. In music, of course, we have an endless complexity of sound modulation happening all at once. Higher frequencies interacting with lower ones to create harmonics across the spectrum. Our sample rate is dreadfully slow.
Knowing this, go listen to a classical CD, a natural sound made by real instruments. Pay attention to the midrange up to the higher frequencies. The high notes on a piano, or those played by a flute, or a cymbal crash are all made of the same soup. We largely recognize them by their dynamic envelope, not by their unique tone. The formants of their sounds are washed away by the lack of information to define them.
Finally, there’s this inconvenience called the Nyquist principal. A sampling system cannot record events that exceed one half of the sampling rate. What occurs is called aliasing. When the wagon wheels in an old western appear to be spinning backward it is because the spokes are faster than the frame rate of the camera, another example of a sampling rate. But what looks cool in an old movie does not sound cool if we let it happen in our music recording.
Nyquist demands that we filter out all frequencies below 22.05kHz. Easy enough, right? We can’t hear that high anyway… But the filter design is the trick. A “brick wall” at 22kHz will create all sorts of problems in the audio passing through below; ringing, phase shift, etc. So, our filter must be more gradual. But now we are cutting into frequencies which matter. I could go on about how these frequencies we can barely detect change the sounds below them by creating harmonics.
A vinyl record, well produced, mastered and pressed – in good condition on a turntable up to the task – is free of these problems. I just came into a Leonard Bernstein / NY Philharmonic record produced by Columbia Masterworks. Still in the factory wrap. Twice, with reverence, I’ve played this disc. I have never heard any classical recording on a CD which even comes close. This is what keeps me, and many others like myself chasing down vinyl records, tweaking turntables, and enjoying the process which many see as inconvenient and expensive. And it’s fleeting. The records are delicate. Most of my favorites are like a bottle of fine wine, they only come out on special occasions.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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May 11, 2018 - 11:54am PT
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Nice exposition there, Kris: thanks! I've always said there is a tactile difference in listening to vinyl.
And then this:
Nyquist demands that we filter out all frequencies below 22.05kHz. Easy enough, right? We can’t hear that high anyway
So to my post just up thread:
Question: you'll note those Canton monitors are rated all the way up to 30,000 Hz. They certainly are on the bright side, which I like. Yet I've heard many times that the human ear can only discern up to 20,000 Hz
So what's the reason for the 30kHz rating?
Did you basically just describe it?
I could go on about how these frequencies we can barely detect change the sounds below them by creating harmonics.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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May 11, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
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Del Cross, I think for the majority, it’s about the quality of the sound. When people would ask my husband about this, he would sit them in the “sweet spot” on the couch in his listening room and play them the same cut from Kind of Blue, one on vinyl and one on CD. Everyone could hear the difference.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 11, 2018 - 12:57pm PT
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Tar,
My comment about frequencies we can barely detect influencing the sound of those below them was pointed at frequencies we lose due to the mandatory filtering for Nyquist. 16-20 kHz. Most people don't hear those very well, but they can hear their effects down through the spectrum if they spend some time listening.
Your speakers going up to 30k is unusual. But then they don't give the other half of the info you need to define the specification. Frequency response is defined by frequency and level. I would be very impressed indeed if it said "Frequency response: 36-30000 Hz +/- 2 dB." On the other hand if the speaker will reproduce 30k clearly, even if it's down 10dB by then, they ought to perform better than most at 20k.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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May 11, 2018 - 02:22pm PT
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I personally am referring to the emotional impact, the sense of how beautiful it is, etc. I couldn't speak to the technical side. But I think Kris has expanded at length in another thread about the technical differences between analog and digital recordings.
On a related note, I just read a long article in the LA Times about how the director Christopher Nolan has invested a lot of time and money into restoring a 70mm film version of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. In the article he goes on about how different, and beautiful the film version is. It's going to be released in some theaters nationwide.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 11, 2018 - 04:34pm PT
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But certainly vinyl is not free of its own problems. Some mention of its inherent limitations is missing from your post.
I did mention one of it's biggest limitations. It is fragile. No one wants to sit and listen to a dirty scratched up record. A CD or your portable device will take a lot of punishment and still come up with the goods. Which makes the whole vinyl experience different from the easily accessible always the same digital audio world. It's a bit ritualistic; the handling of the records, the decision as to when to play them, etc. And of course the variance between different turntables, cartridges, and pre-amps is far bigger than the difference between one $200.00 cd player and another.
But more directly to your question, a good one it is.
Our vinyl record, well produced, well mastered and pressed, played back on a suitable set of gear, can outperform the CD format easily. "Can" being the operative word. The CD is like many products, uniformity. That uniformity comes at a price, it is far less than ideal. A lower common denominator
The losses in analog recordings are additive. Scratches on a record, Speed changing, hiss on tape, all those things. The losses in digital recordings are subtractive. Less obvious. In an orchestra recording the basic formants of an instrument's sound decay by upper mid-range and are gone in the high end.
So, while a messed up, worn out record sounds like crap, a clean one well reproduced offers a fine listening experience.
When I was mastering at Future Disc, we got a gig to make vinyl of the Tool albums for promotional gifts to movers and shakers. I have a set. Two discs per CD, four songs on a side. F'ing awesome. They make the CD's sound like toilet paper. You in my part of the world? I'd love to play 'em for you.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 15, 2018 - 11:04am PT
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Kevin is a good friend and former colleague and knows very well what he is talking about... I would go so far as to say that Kevin knows all there is to know on the subject.
Did you find his website? http://www.cohearent.com/
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 15, 2018 - 01:04pm PT
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“It is very simple to adjust your volume control to the desired volume when playing a CD. That way you are hearing the natural dynamics of the music, not slammed, all-one-volume drek... I have heard and read dozens of mastering engineers complain about this. We are doing something about it. If LOUD is what you are looking for, please just take it somewhere else!”
That’s mint Kevin Gray. And his skill and expertise have put him in a position where he can take a stand like that.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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May 15, 2018 - 02:45pm PT
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And if you just abandon the CD as a medium all together you can release a digital version with vastly better resolution. There are some great websites selling hires recordings these days. My OPPO DVD/CD player has no trouble playing any of them from a thumb drive or straight off my computer.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 15, 2018 - 04:09pm PT
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A CD itself has the inherent capability of containing all of the audio information that most people's ears can hear.
A CD itself has the inherent capability of containing all of the audio frequencies that most people's ears can hear.
People at dbx experimented with a two bit digital audio recording system. You simply run the sampling rate so fast that an audio frequency waveform only has time to go up, down, or stay the same before the next sample is taken. Even with the codecs of the day it sounded great. The problem is that if the bitstream is broken, whether it's data loss due to the storage medium, or an attempt to edit, it no longer knows where it is.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 15, 2018 - 07:22pm PT
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Digital sound recording was in its infancy. The standards for cd had been set but were a few years from actual production. This two bit idea, I think they called it Delta Mod, sounded good. So I suppose they thought the basic problem could be solved.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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May 20, 2018 - 05:18pm PT
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I have heard that most albums do not have much response over 18khz, that do that to avoid overheating the cutter head when making masters. Kris?
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 20, 2018 - 05:47pm PT
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I have heard that most albums do not have much response over 18khz, that do that to avoid overheating the cutter head when making masters. Kris?
This is true. And even then the engineer cutting the master has to be careful about amplitude at those frequencies. Frying a cutting head is not cool, especially today when they are rare, and incredibly expensive to repair.
Where the higher frequencies do come into play is in the form of harmonics. These variations in the underlying waveform tend to happen very fast, but at a fraction of the amplitude of the overall sound. To a great extent, though, it is harmonics and overtones which give different sounds their unique qualities.
I tested my hearing with a simple online tone generator. I couldn't hear any tone above about 12.5kHz. What do you suppose that means in terms of my ability to appreciate vinyl vs CD?
That's not too bad really. Of course a lot of speakers roll off pretty sharply about there too.
But both of the questions go back to my point up-thread, that the resolution on a CD only has about 4.4 snapshots of a wave at 10kHz (that's the entire cycle of the wave, positive and negative.) That's not enough data points to resolve the higher frequency harmonic components of that waveform, whereas most of that complexity of that sound can be recorded and played back from a vinyl record. The operative words are "can be." CD resolution is consistent. Not good enough, but unchanging. Vinyl, like anything analog, is full of variables.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 20, 2018 - 08:08pm PT
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If someone plays high D on a trumpet, someone else plays the same note on a piano, and someone else on a clarinet you can tell the difference. You don't need to be able to hear the harmonics to hear how they alter the original sound.
But as you get progressively into the higher frequencies on a CD you no longer have enough data points to record/reproduce the complexity of the waveforms, and we begin to recognize different instruments by their dynamic envelope.
Let's say that the basic sine wave in this example is 10 kHz. So, we have 4.4 data points to draw the picture. See what I mean? Yet if you hear it live the harmonically distorted wave will sound dramatically different from the sine wave even if you can't hear the frequency of the harmonic.
Let's say that its 5 kHz. Now we have almost 9 data points. That's better but not enough especially considering that each time the wave repeats itself the samples will be taken at different points in the wave.
Analog or real high-resolution digital are capable of recording and reproducing these sounds. The state of the art in analog is 1/2" two track tape, Dolby SR encoded, going across the head of a Studer or Ampex machine at 30 inches per second. Professional digital today is 96 kHz x 24 bit. The very highest frequencies still sound a little flakey, but it's hard to complain about, and the precision with which amplitude is resolved is spectacular.
So, vinyl is not the best analog has to offer by a long shot, but I find it refreshing to listen to when almost all of what I hear is CD res or worse. If the record is good and the playback system capable, there is much more there than on a CD.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 20, 2018 - 10:21pm PT
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How am I saying that Nyquist was wrong? A sampling system can record frequencies up to 1/2 the sampling rate before aliasing occurs. Nyquist says absolutely nothing about the detail with which those frequencies are recorded.
The higher the frequency you are recording relative to the sampling rate, the fewer samples you have for reproducing the wave. Eventually you hit the limit Nyquist defined. But on the way there you lose more and more resolution.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 20, 2018 - 11:33pm PT
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Your telling me that you can't hear the squareness of the distorted wave on the left, the result of the 30 kHz harmonic? Or the more peak shaped wave on the right? These are differently shaped waves at 10 kHz, the result of a frequency we cannot hear. In a sense the 10k is being biased by the 30. Of course if you find an on line generator that claims produce the 10K wave with 3rd harmonic distortion and you can't hear it, that's not your ears. It's because the very low sample rate of 44.1k can't create or reproduce it.
Nyquist's theorem is simple. But there are implications. Since he says that the system breaks down if you pass the limit of one sample for each half of the waveform, it is clear that as the frequency we are recording goes up, we are progressively approaching that limit. The number of samples relative to frequency is decreasing. The ability to record details is dropping steadily. So Nyquist is not a brick wall where everything is fine until you hit it.
But you know this. Where I disagree with you is your conviction that if you can't hear the harmonic frequency it becomes irrelevant.
Anyway I'm going to be careful not to get in over my head here. What I have is some, but not all knowledge of the weaknesses of the technology, and 25 years of real world experience hearing those weaknesses and working with them. Once, preparing materials for a class I taught, I messed around with an analog tone generator making various frequencies with all sorts of harmonic distortions, listened to the original, and how it sounded passed through a 44.1 x 16 bit codec. The difference is appalling. Since music is another whole world of complexity than the simple tones we've been talking about, all that hash gets hidden inside the dynamics.
It's getting late. Cheers. Interesting stuff if your an audio geek :-)
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 20, 2018 - 11:38pm PT
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Just watched Pawn Stars. Dude sold his Beatles collection for 20 Large!
The vinyl expert valued it at $30K!
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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May 20, 2018 - 11:40pm PT
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Damn. Was it still in the shrink wrap?
I'm thinking maybe it was the half speed mastered re-issue complete set still in the original case, like a typewriter case, never opened. Or the originals still sealed. I hope for the buyer's sake they were stored flat, no more than four in a stack...
You saw it, please do tell.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 21, 2018 - 06:49pm PT
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Kris, it was a complete collection of almost everything they made.* He had like 8 variations
of a couple different albums! There were at least 3-4 still shrink wrapped, two of which I think
the expert said there were only 100 copies made! One he valued at $1200, one at $1K, and
a bunch in the high three figures! $30K seemed a little low to me. Quite amazing. I dunno
why the guy took only $20K.
*meaning all the different art and type variations
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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May 21, 2018 - 07:36pm PT
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There are some people out there with mondo vinyl collections.
For instance, Peter Buck of REM:
Buck is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of music, as well as his extensive personal record collection. On March 12, 1999, in an interview on Wiese, a television music show based in Oslo, Buck estimated his collection to be around 25,000. In the late 1990s, he estimated he had 10,000 vinyl singles, 6,000 LPs and 4,000 CDs.[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Buck
I don't know why Wikipedia hasn't got an updated total for Buck's stash: maybe he ain't talkin'!
John Bachar had a killer vinyl jazz collection, I'd imagine that is now in Tyrus' hands.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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May 21, 2018 - 08:47pm PT
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Kareem Abdul Jabbar had a huge jazz collection, sadly I think he lost most of it in a house fire :-(
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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May 21, 2018 - 09:19pm PT
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Forget about the cost for a moment: that audio gear is weirdly beautiful!
Thank you, John Brennan.
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