Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

Ralph (Atmasphere) and other vinyl lovers -- a couple of comments and Qs:

I've been an audiophile hobbyist since my late teens back in the early 70s. I'm almost 60 yrs old now. I mention all this because I started with vinyl; pretty much the only game in town in the 70s unless you were a real-to-real-head.

Over the years, I've put together a rig that gives me a lot of pleasure. My systenm has both "redbook" CD and vinyl source inputs. Foundation now set for my comments and Qs.

The comments: As regards my CD source input, I've picked up some discs over the years that are very nice sounding. Some digital recordings from unexpected places and not so well recognized labels too. More dogs than diamonds I'm sorry to say. I attribute this more to the recording quality than the CD format.

As regards vinyl, similar comments. Some gems; some dogs. But . . . last night, I received in the mail an LP just purchased off the "Gon" -- Leopold Stokowoski conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Stravinsky's Firebird Suite plus other goodies like Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain (London Phase 4 Stereo SPC 21026). WOW!! WOW!! and one more time -- WOOWW!!

I closed my eyes and was there in front of the orchestra. Could even sense concert hall LF resonances that I could literally feel in my gut. There's was a certain life and energy to the music that I rarely if ever took away from a CD, even though I've come across some digital gems here and there.

I have other London Phase 4 and ffrr recordings that do great justice to the music too -- but not like the LP mentioned above. My bottom line thought is that I really like the vinyl medium. I find it very involving -- starting with pulling the LP out of the jacket and then reading the inner sleeve comments while listening to the music.

Yes . . . , I like my CD set up too and have no intention of tossing it in favor of vinyl or some other so called super hi-rez "niche" digital formats. And I'm just too old to start exploring computer based formats. Having said all of that, I still love my vinyl rig and would like to source more predictable, less risk high quality labels (vintage or new).

The Qs: Ralph, have you commercialized your LP set-up and if so, where can one purchase your recordings. Also, to avoid a lot of the risk and uncertainty when looking to buy quality LP recordings, is there any information source or web site where I can buy LPs (used or new) of top quality?

Thanks and regards,

Bruce (bifwynne)

I have a test pressing of one of Ralph's recordings. It features Ralph on flute and his then wife on vocals. Great recording and exactly what Ralph is talking about in this thread. Man, O' Man ... nothing like tubes from the beginning to the end.

It seems to me, that the out of hand dismissal of CD sound quality, is a little out of date. Ironically, as LP became a"legacy" medium, the offerings of turntables, arms and phonostages etc, exploded in terms of quality and quantity.

I put legacy in quote marks for vinyl, as it seems to be going from strength to strength. If one medium is threatened, it's CD, with sales falling off a cliff and some manufacturers, like Linn, abandoning CD players altogether. Well what is left seems, compared to 20 years ago, to be of such better quality. Even middle grade CD players are excellent and the top end, Nagr's, Zanden's and Wadia's, quite superb. Better than top flight LP? maybe not, but the gap is smaller and the effort and cost of getting to top flight sound, a jolly sight easier.

The argument for having both, for me, is the greater access it gives yme, to the range of music I want in my collection. I am an opera lover and live in the UK, so the incomparable world of 50's to 70's EMI and Decca boxed sets, is available on E bay, garage sales and charity shops. In this instance, the CD copies of these recordings, I absolutely would agree, is nowhere near as good.

Is one better than the other? maybe, do I care, no. I weant access to the music I want, in the best format it's available on. That might be CD or vinyl.

Forget all the " problems " during LP playback I posted and think for a moment how you or any one could gives " support " or speak of " superiority " to the LP playback when in this medium we can't even READ WITH ACCURACY WITH PRECISION ANY SINGLE GROOVE IN ANY LP!!!!!!!!!!

Raul, this is blatantly false and if you actually believe that then you need to know its not true. Now, it is true that cartridges and arms have certain limits, some being better than others. Like I said before, its the mark of a good mastering engineer to understand those limits so he can produce an LP that can be played but still shows off the master recording (unless its directly to LP...).

Now I did comment directly to this issue of traceability above, but the *generalization* that no groove can be tracked by any cartridge is simply too much of a generalization. If that were true LPs would not still be around.

Again, you should spend some time around a mastering setup to see what the recording was like before it went into the grooves. Then listening to what the cartridge/arm combo thinks is there, sounds to me like you might be quite surprised at what is possible.

Its also helpful to make a recording and then put out an LP and a CD of it. That is perhaps the most telling. I have such recordings- one of the better known ones I have done is Canto General by Mikas Theodorakis (peotry by Pablo Neruda). Its pretty easy to discern that the CD **in no way** is able to keep up with the LP on a decent playback system.

I had a guy come into our room at THE Show this last January. He was somewhat notorious on the AudioAsylum.com website for his rants about phase and digital. He did not know that we had a phase switch on our preamp so he had us play a CD and then said that reversing the phase would make it better. I flipped the switch... so there was maybe a very small difference. Then he as insisting about how much better the digital was over analog if it was 'in-phase'... So I put on the LP for him, which instantly smoked the CD (we had a very nice digital system in that room BTW). So then he proclaimed that if there was an analog master tape involved that what he was talking about didn't apply. It was obviously a face-saving comment- he got up and left as fast as he could. I'm afraid we had a good chuckle at his expense.

Raul, I was pretty sure that you are making a phono stage and a tone arm. These comments of yours sound to me unlike what I would have expected- have you experienced a change of heart?