What are your go to LP's for evaluating new gear or new tubes?

@billpete

Blue is the classic Joni album. She once said that it was her favorite because there wasn't an insincere note on it. I got a chance to see her perform. Right before an intermission, she sent the band offstage and sit with a dulcimer in her lap and sang "A Case of You". Just as it is on the album. It was a magical moment. "Miles of Aisles" her live album is also good should you run across it in your collection. Yes I also grew up in the 60s. Unfortunately through my teenage and 20s years. Many of my albums got trashed. My stoner friends would "borrow" them without asking. But fail to return them, or return them ruined. I could not convince them to put them back into the covers. During parties, people would even set their drinks on them. Spill there drinks on them. You name it.

As far as streaming goes. It is really quite impressive if you stream through Qobuz, who exclusively streams FLAC files. Just like with everything else. Apple refuses to play in the same sandbox, and has developed their own version of "lossless" compression ALAC. It is inferior. I would not recommend Apple Music. The term "lossless" is a misnomer. As impressive as FLAC is. It is not "lossless". I worked as a sound design engineer for PBS for 30 years. A friend of mine released an album and sent it to Apple Music. I ask him for the uncompressed LPCM files. The exact copies of what were delivered to Apple. Apple converted them to ALAC for streaming. I compared  the ALAC stream to the uncompressed LPCM files. It was night and day. Lossless my a##!

As far as digital is concerned. Anything LPCM with a bit depth of less than 24 bits is in no way as good and definitely not better than analog. CDs are 44.1K/16bit. It simply does not have the resolution ability. Which causes the imaging to collapse among other things. CDs are an archaic delivery method for digital. It was necessary because at that time, they did not have the bandwidth ability to stream more information than that. I am frankly surprised that CDs have not faded out of existence. As the technology advanced with the arrival of DVD the bandwidth pipeline was many times larger. DVD Audio, and SACD (which is DSD) came on the scene. DVD Audio was capable of streaming 192K/24bit uncompressed LPCM. A 16 bit word has a resolution of 65,536. A 24 bit word has a resolution of 16,777,216. That is a huge  difference. 256 times greater resolution. And then if you increase the sampling rate by a factor of 4. You have 1,024 times the resolution of a CD. I would be hard pressed to argue that uncompressed digital audio of today isn't superior in many ways to analog. And yet DVD Audio and SACD failed to take hold and fell by the wayside. But CDs are still being manufactured as the standard. Why?

When it comes to streaming via the internet, the bandwidth pipeline is smaller than even CD. And now the new buzz word "HiRez" is being haphazardly thrown around. Since there is no standard in place to define what constitutes "HiRez". And with the use of "Lossless" compression codecs capable of reducing the stream to the size that the internet is capable of delivering. We now have "HiRez streaming available. Don't get me wrong. FLAC is a truly impressive codec. ALAC not as impressive. I am a fan of streaming. It delivers amazingly quality audio. However. It does not sound as good as quality vinyl. I have did A/B tests between the two. It is getting close. You can stream 196k/24 bit from Qobuz using FLAC compression. And it can sound amazing. When the time comes that the pipeline becomes large enough to stream uncompressed files, then we will be there. Because let's face it. Even the older analog albums that are being remastered and pressed to vinyl today are being delivered to the remastering facilities as extremely high resolution digital files. The actual analog tape masters are too old, fragile, and valuable, to allow them to leave their home. Unless it says "Analog remastered from the original Analog Masters", which they are doing with some of the Jimi Hendrix collection. It More than likely has been converted to digital at some point.

But I must disagree with the premise that ALL FORMS of digital media is as good or better than analog. It simply isn't correct.

As for vinyl. It isn't just the warm sound of vinyl that intrigues me, and puts me in my happy place. It is the entire tactile experience for me. I am a certified vinyl junkie in that regard.

Sorry for the long digital tutorial.

@flash56 

No apologies necessary whatsoever. You are preaching to the choir.

I am another like you, who finds that most re-masters are not as well done as the originals. I find even US 2nd gen. recordings to be better than many or most re-masters. I started avoiding them if they used the word "digital". Madonna, Ray of Light, was done in a digital recording studio and it is actually very well done on the Warner label, German pressing. I'm not a big Madonna fan but to me, this is her best work. I know she took lessons for her voice and the music is very dynamic and very good. This tells me that digital is on the right track at least. It has no digital signal or sign that I can discern but it is on vinyl. I used to have the same CD and was not impressed enough to play it at all. Same music, different format. I have always said that the CD was a flawed media. While I do enjoy some of them, I still hold to that belief.

I wasn't one to loan records out by the mid 70's. My experiences before that were the same as yours. I have had similar results with books not coming back or getting trashed. Inexcusable. 

Hearing what you say with the numbers to back you up, I do understand that digital has come a long way. Perhaps at some point, it will at least equal analog. I don't see how surpassing it is possible. I remember talking to a guy in a camera store about digital cameras as I had just bought a Nikon digital camera. I asked him at what point did digital surpass 35mm photography and he said when it reached about 7 megapixels. Now, you can get a cell phone that is considerably higher than that. Kind of crazy. So..........it stands to reason that the technology will come along to at least equal analog. I've just never heard it yet. I remember hearing Neal Young talk about it once and he was supposedly working on a technology that was to vastly improve digital music. I have no idea if he accomplished it or not or what it may have become. 

I for one, completely enjoyed your tutorial. I believe that you know of what you speak. It is evident in what you say and by what you can hear. I'm with you, certified vinyl junkie.

@billpete: If you're going to look for a UK Island copy of Tea For The Tillerman, make sure to find the original version, with the Pink center paper label. I had the second version, with the "sunray" Island label, which I found to sound very odd.

The pink label pressing was on Harry Pearson's Super Disc list for many years, and was raved about by Michael Fremer as well. When I found a copy with the sunray label I bought it, thinking there might be little or no difference. My finding of the Island LP's odd sound may be explained by reading on.....

I've never heard a pink label copy of the album, but here's the full story on the Analogue Productions version of Tea For The Tillerman:

When Chad Kassem (owner of Analogue Productions, Quality Record Pressing, and Acoustic Sounds) obtained the rights to produce an "audiophile-grade" pressing of the album, he hired Bernie Grundman to do the mastering and cut the lacquers (used to produce the metal plates from which LP stampers are made). When Bernie received the original master tapes, he made a startling discovery: the tape was NOT Dolby encoded, but all LP's mastered from that tape had been done assuming Dolby noise reduction HAD been used.

Do you realize what that means?! It certainly explains why I found my Island LP to sound odd. I'm a drummer, and there was a number of things seriously wrong with the sound of the drums and cymbals on my LP (heard through loudspeakers employing ESL tweeters). The harmonic overtones of the cymbals are almost completely missing-in-action. The same is true of Cat's acoustic guitar. The kick drum is lacking in punch, and the whole mess just sounds "wrong" to me. For years I assumed the fault lay in my sunray pressing of the album, but didn't like the music enough to look for a pink label pressing.

To appreciate the significance of Grundman's discovery, you need to know how the Dolby "A" (the version used in recording studios) noise reduction circuit works. It pre-emphasizes the signal it receives with four bands of boosted frequencies, each with 12dB/octave slopes. That's for the recording of the master tape. When the Dolby-encoded tape is played back during the mastering process, the Dolby playback circuit reduces the boosted frequencies by the same amount they were increased during recording, thereby restoring the tape's original frequency response, while simultaneously decreasing tape his by the same amount.

Grundman reported his discovery to Kassem, and Chad instructed him to do his master without Dolby A engaged, as it hadn't been used in the making of the master tape. Grundman did so, and reported to Kassem that the sound of Cat's acoustic guitar was extremely bright. Grundman wasn't sure consumers would like the sound he was hearing. The thing is, Cat's guitar was an Ovation, which unlike "normal" acoustics has a plastic body, not a wooden one. It's suppose to sound extremely bright!

Kassem gave Fremer a call, telling him the whole story. Michael told him "Hey, the sound on the original tape is how Cat and producer Paul Samwell-Smith wanted it." Kassem had Grundman make a production master "flat" (no change in frequency response), and another splitting the difference in about half (between flat and Dolby boosted). After hearing test pressings, it was decided to master the album "flat".

Anyone who prefers the sound of the Island (or A & M) pressing of Tea For The Tillerman to that of the Analogue Productions pressing might want to consider having his system checked for timbral accuracy. 

@bdp24 

Well, you certainly got my curiosity up so I had to check. I only find 5 copies of TFTT, not 6. My Island copy is the pink label and is gatefold. None of the A&M'a are gatefold but the 180G on Universal is. I've never opened it past the cello wrap, just the end to pull the album out to test initially. The 3 copies on A&M all bear the same number, likely all are the same. One is still in cello and has a dbx "Full dynamic range recording" label. 

I've always wondered why people don't talk about the dynamics of Cat Stevens recordings. I've always found them to be so, even the A&M's. It is no wonder though that I am so fond of the Island copy. Thanks for the great info. You guys never cease to amaze. 

Here are a few that I like to test my system with whenever I make changes:

Radiohead – In Rainbows 

Roger Waters – Amused to Death

Jack Johnson - In Between the Dreams

Bruce Cockburn - Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws (True North pressing)