great vinyl sound cost as much as great cd sound

I guess Thom Yorke fans think alike:

I posed a similar question a while ago, and upsettingly I didn't get much help. Not having many albums, I really don't want to spend too much in total on the TT, arm, cart and phonostage.

I too wonder whether a VPI scout, JA Michell Tecnodec or Gyro (perhaps too much money) with a decent cart and a midrange phonostage will better the sonics of my emmlabs gear. Living in a smaller city, prevents me from getting to home audition some of these tables for an A-B comparison with my digital setup.

My TT thread

Perhaps, there may be a new Radiohead LP to play on my TT once I make a decision.

Does anyone have any direct experience comparing a Scout or Michell table to emmlabs gear ???

The Scout is a great TT and has an awesome upgrade path to the Super Scoutmaster, which is in the same league as your emmlabs stuff for vinyl. IMHO, I think you would be hard-pressed to spend only $2500.00 for TT,arm,cart, and Phono stage and get equal resolution as the emmlabs. I am willing to be proven wrong, and I hope someone else can recomend otherwise.
But I would persue the aquisition of the Scout, and start building an analog rig around it...upgrading pieces as finances allowed. You will not be disapointed with a good quality vinyl rig!

I just got into vinyl, and I'm very pleased. It's no question for me, given a record and a CD, the record will sound better. Period. I have the same recording on CD and on vinyl from Phillips, the record sounds better. Both formats have advantages and disadvantages, it's all about trade offs. But from an absolute sound perspective, records sound better.

I can't say I've heard the EMM gear, however, dont they convert PCM to SACD and then do the DA conversion? I think the new Teac Esoteric converts SACD into PCM and then does the DA converstion. Sounds like it can go both ways and be successful. I haven't bought into the SACD/DVD-A format so I really can't comment on sound quality here. Just an observation.

A record player will open a larger selection of music for you to choose from. If you get a clean record with a good recording, then the sound will be out of this world if you are use to CD sound. Give it a try so you can hear for yourself. My CD transport is rarely used these days.

I, too, own the EMM Labs CDSD & DCC2. I think you would spend $2500 on just the WIRE to hook up your vinyl rig- tonearm cable, interconnect for phono stage to DCC2, power cord for phono stage. The actual total cost to add vinyl playback is very high, if you include everything you need. From time to time I consider getting back into serious vinyl playback. To equal or better the EMM Labs combo in the analog realm would, IMHO, cost in excess of $30K at retail. Turntable- $10k, Phono Stage- $10k, Tonearm- $3K, Cartridge- $4k, Wire- $3k, Accessories- $1k. Of course, you can assemble a listenable vinyl rig for far less than $30k, but I think it would take $30k MINIMUM to beat the EMM Labs gear. I know several EMM Labs owners who have well in excess of $50k invested in their vinyl playback systems and, if the truth were to be known, probably listen to their digital more often. I ADORE great analog playback and definately PREFER SUPERLATIVE ANALOG to digital, but the high price of admission, the inherent inconsistancies of vinyl playback and- to a lesser degree- the software duplication and inconvenience (no remote control) keeps me from jumping back in.

If I spent that much on a digital rig, I woundn't want to know that vinyl was better, lol. Seriously:

Maybe I'm ignorant in the realm of high$$$ esoteric digital playback, but it took literally *seconds* to hear that vinyl was better than any digital rig up to $3500 I've heard in my home, with qualifications. I have a VPI Scoutmaster with Dynavector 20xL, a MuFi A308 Amp with inboard phono stage, Vandy 3A sigs, and Audioquest cables with the little battery packs. I also sprung for the VPI record cleaning machine, an absolute must.

To be precise, I only listen to used Classical, which tends to be better pressed,mastered and better handled. People typically condescendingly refer to vinyl as "laid back" and "warm," which is true, but it's more than that: what stunned me right off was the front to back space, the sense of a hall, (environmental cues), the quickness, the detangling and clarity of textures, such as simultaneously plucked low harp and string bass, and--for the most part--the explosive dynamic range, even on good recordings back to '58. With the record cleaning machine, about 98% of my records are CD quiet. For the first time I've listened to the vinyl counterparts of CDs I've owned since the '80's and heard things I've never heard previously. Shostakovich sounds like a different composer. Solti breaths more.

To be fair to PCM, I've been delighted to find that digital records sound better than their CD counterparts as well, esp. the early London/Deccas. Digital Lps were pressed up until '88 as far as I've found.

I earnestly urge you to take a listen to vinyl if you like Classical. I can't speak for pressings and recordings of other genres, so I won't. I've never enjoyed my music more, and I haven't even purchased an outboard phono stage yet.