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Is it me or others

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Posted on March 28, 2025 at 16:06:17
xaudiomanx
Audiophile

Posts: 3700
Joined: August 16, 2004
 Have the same feeling when that stylus hits the vinyl and glorious music comes out. Analogue is more laborious but when that needle hits the vinyl and music is playing I feel all the labor and all the frustration just disappears.

CD to me is just ehhh!!!!!!!!!!! Too simple! And the sonics is not as good.
Yes CD is less troublesome but maybe I like trouble.

Just wanted to share!!!!!!!

 

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RE: Is it me or others, posted on March 28, 2025 at 23:31:16
Goober58
Audiophile

Posts: 6336
Joined: November 15, 2016
 Sure but how often is one going to go through the hassle of a vinyl listening session? I say 2-4 LPs a day 2 or 3 days a week is quite a bit of effort. When enjoying a GUI interface 2-4 albums everyday 5 or 6 times a week or more is an easy and comfortable reality.

What comes out of my speakers is a translation of what is encoded on physical media or contained in a digital file. The only evidence of where that translation is coming from as I hear it is in my ability to recognize the character of the system unraveling the music from it's packaging and/or difference in what is packaged and how well it has been packaged. IMO the physical media itself does not have a sound or character of it's own.

I have more money in my TT (not including arm, cart, cables and phono section) than I have in my whole digital system that includes a CDP, a streamer, cables, DAC and a hard drive. I have a great vinyl system but I consider the digital system on the same quality tier as the vinyl system. I can and do enjoy listening to LPs, CDs, internet stream and locally served flac file. Sometimes LPs sound best and sometimes digital sounds best. Lot's of LP don't reach the same level of quality as the digital version and it's got nothing to do with the physical media or the playback system.

If the LP sounds better than the CD the digital LP rip will sound better than the CD. If the LP sounds better than the stream the digital LP rip will sound better than the stream. The converse of this is true also (I admit it's likely that my analog to digital conversion could split the difference but I haven't run into that yet).

And the fact that the LP system is capable of sounding the best isn't evidence of the superiority of vinyl it's an indicator I could get better results from digital by improving my digital system.

 

RE: Is it me or others, posted on March 30, 2025 at 20:25:28
beach cruiser
Audiophile

Posts: 7368
Location: so cal
Joined: September 24, 2003
 I was just watching a YouTube site from ameba records, called what's in your bag. the artist seal brought up a point about vinyl records , how the investment of buying the record gives them a value that digital music lacks.

even if the album doesn't speak to you at first listening, the fact that you invested money gives the item an intrinsic worth, so that you will invest the time to explore the music, instead of a digital source where if it doesn't grab you right now , you just move on.

turns out he is a big Alice in chains fan. the guy was so articulate about the stuff in his bag, that now I want to investigate the Alice in Chains band.

 

Its not just you, posted on April 2, 2025 at 18:06:09
M3Man
Audiophile

Posts: 373
Joined: May 30, 2004
 My analogue system and I have been living together and growing together since about 1969. While digital is just whatever player and DAC I have at the time, my turntable and I have a relationship. I had my VPI HW19 for 30 years. Over the years, I've swapped out the plinth, the platter, the armboard and sent the Rega arm to England to be rebuilt by Origin Live. By the time I sold it, the only things original were the wood base and the power switch. Not to mention the Prime I upgraded to or the 8 or 9 phono pre-amps I've bought over the decades. And the cartridges...the moving coils, the moving irons and the hours spent installing them.

By contrast, I completely rebuilt the digital side by buying a minicompuer and a DAC with inputs for the computer, the cd player/recorder and for the TV. Its a nice little ifi Signature that The Absolute Sound cals "near reference quaility. But its more of an appliance than a relationship.

Add to that the hundreds if not thousands of hours spent browsing record stores, and the experience of finding cool new music. The best thing about CDs is they pushed millions of people to dump their records, letting me buy a couple of thousand used ones for $7 or less. I never liked CDs enough to shop for them, let alone pay more for them. Now, I aquire diigtal music by typing a few words and paying Amazon $9 a month. The music is great, all CD quality or above, but there is no experience involved and no memories created by aquiring it.

I like my digital set up and it sounds fine. But my vinyl setup often transports me to the venue where it was played, or shows me the vision of the producer, and the digital is not as good at that. I have no interest in dropping $1000's of bucks on a DAC to see if it makes much difference. I'm too busy playing records, and finding little tweaks that make them sound better.

 

RE: Its not just you, posted on April 3, 2025 at 16:21:41
Goober58
Audiophile

Posts: 6336
Joined: November 15, 2016
 I was never enamored with the sound of LPs from my earliest days. Yet there were some TTs that I thought sounded great and others that I just didn't like they way they sounded. When CDs came out in the 80s I didn't like them and it wasn't until late 90s or early 2000s that I decided a CDP was needed so I could listen to records not released on vinyl. I tried many CDPs and bought a few and eventually got attached to the music on some of those CDs and they became a part of my regular playlist.

But it really wasn't until I started collecting free lossless live music downloads and digitizing my collection of LPs (initially for portable music players) that I really began to appreciate digital as high quality source. I'm relatively new to lossless streaming and that has only bolstered my opinion on digital.

I have the same TT/arm/phono section and am on my 3rd or 4th Dynavector XX2 cart in the same vinyl setup I put together 20 years or so. And I enjoy playing LPs on it as much or more than ever. My collections consist of 2000+ LPs, 400+ CDs and around 300 lossless concert downloads (FLAC) and I have "relationships" with music on all of it.

It's cool that people love their vinyl or that people are all about AAA recordings. I have lots of respect for that. I'm not so fond of the vinyl ritual, it's often an obstacle for me when it comes to playing an album (or a random play of music) and listening to digital can and does provide good listening experiences for me. IMO it's the quality of the source material and the playback system that are the biggest influencers on the quality of the listening experience for me.

 

the relaxation and satisfaction "factor", posted on April 7, 2025 at 14:03:05
hifitommy
Audiophile

Posts: 15480
Location: canyon country califiornia, orig from buffalo ny
Joined: June 9, 2000
 ...that comes with LP playback and is absent in CD is not heard in the rapid A/B switching. SACD and some other hi-rez digital formats can come very close, but no cigar. A cigarette maybe, but no cigar.

However, when I got my first SACD player (Sony NS500V for $160 delivered), my entire CD collection sounded better than on any other player that preceded it. i attributed that to the fact that the bitstream was upsampled before filtration which kept the usual ringing WAY above the audible level.




...regards...tr

 

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