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In Reply to: Being real...Loving the sound of CD posted by T&T on April 18, 2007 at 17:42:50:
One can get surprisingly decent sound from the cheapest DVD player playing CDs; some of these are in the $39 price range. It is FAR harder to get good sound out of LP at lower prices because it is much, much more costly to make a turntable, tonearm, cartridge, and phono stage combination. Plus, the pieces have to be chosen properly to complement each other and proper assembly and alignment is crucial. I know that a lot of people here will disagree, but, I don't think cheap vinyl rigs compare favorably with equivalently priced CD players.A CD player, like the Rega, is in a sweet spot, as far as price/performance ratio, and tough to beat. If you spend ten times that price, you get better CD performance, but the improvement might be relatively subtle. Spend that kind of money on a vinyl rig, and the improvement over your P5 would probably be much more significant.
As to which format is capable of superior ultimate performance at any price? I have no idea. I like CDs for classical music (most of my listening) because of the long, uninterrupted sides, freedom from noise (clicks and pops are WAY more intrusive in classical music because of the wide dynamic range), and the virtual lack of LP releases of new classical recordings. Most classical reissues of vintage analogue records have decent sound. But, for pop/rock and jazz, often the CD reissue sounds distinctly inferior. I suspect it it indifferent mastering, and not the inherent quality of the different media, but does it matter? Particularly with jazz, I tend to get better sound from LP than CD.
As to any particular price point where the two are equivalent, who knows-- it depends on taste, priorities, etc. Vinyl rigs often will never be competitive at any price if the buyer doesn't sorts out the compatibility of the components, particularly the matching of cartridge to a phono stage or step up transformer.
Follow Ups:
I really can't disagree with you.If you add up the cost of all of the components that make up my vinyl playback rig, it is much, much more than I have invested in digital playback.
For me, the principal reason to have spent the money (and it kind of creeps up on you, because, unlike with digital, with vinyl you can do the upgrade one piece at a time) is my possession of a pretty good vinyl collection and access to sources of more vinyl records from friends, etc. who no longer play records and who will give them to me in exchange for my making digital copies of them.
You're certainly right about new classical releases. All of my new classical recordings purchased have been SACDs, not vinyl records.
That's why I find all of these "vinyl vs. digital" arguments to be pointless. Today, vinyl is not a substitute for digital. That question was decided 20 years ago . . . in favor of digital. The reason to own vinyl playback equipment is to have access to all of that "legacy software" out there on LPs, much of it good and much of it cheap.
Great response, thank you. I think you've hit the nail right on the head.As far as classical music goes, I couldnt agree more. Its very difficult to keep the vinyl background noise low during quiet passages. I've really enjoyed classical on my CD player lately. (I thoroughly enjoyed Ades Asyla last night)
I'll keep adding to my turntable to see if it can move up in performance.
I too liked Asyla, as well as several other Ades works, such as his Quintet for Piano and Strings and his opera "Powder Her Face."I buy a lot of works by living composers only available on CD or SACD. I recently bought Julian Anderson's "Alhambra Fantasy" and liked that recording very much.
A whole lot of older works were never made available in any format until now. For something "old" with unbelievably good sound (actually a 5.1 channel SACD), that was recently released: look for a compilation called "Bolivian Baroque."
Of course I have a lot of great classical works on vinyl that I don't expect to find CD replacements for (not that I look for such replacements), so a good vinyl rig is still a must have item.
It was the last perfomance and I was blown away. I am very impressed that you know of this! Not many do.I had to special order this CD. It's a shame how little music is being purchased by these great composers. They can't be making any money.
Thank you for music recommendations! I did not know they existed. I am trying to buy a few off the internet now.
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