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Rediscovering the Joy of Digital?

Guys,

I've been into analog for a long time, and it's always been a royal pain in the neck to perform all the necessary adjustments to keep my tt at its best; not to mention the record cleaning rituals and the inflated prices they're charging for high-end analog gear these days.

I bought an early generation CD player back in the mid 80's, a modified Magnavox CDB-650, which was considered good at the time, but is not so good by today's standards. I also invested in some of Audio Alchemy's early DDE's, but they had some problems as well. So I went back to analog and bought a VPI Aries/JMW 10 and more recently, I have moved to a Michell Orbe SE with a Wilson Benesch arm and a Shelter 501 II cartridge.

It took a lot of work to get the Orbe/WB combo to sound its best and in reality, it's not a whole lot better than my much less expensive digital gear, but it sure is a lot more work. It's been my experience that you have to spend a lot more money on analog to get it to sound as good as today's respectable digital gear. I own a Parasound transport, a Bolder Cable modified ART DIO, and a Perpetual Technologies P-1A and it kills most of the Linns, Regas, and all but the highest priced VPI's that I've heard.

With my digital, there's no futzing with VTA, no worries about an expensive and delicate stylus assembly, and I have instant track access. Plus, it sounds virtually as transparent and liquid as analog and eschews those annoying ticks and pops.

My records and gear are sure taking up a lot of space. Perhaps I should dump my whole lot of LPs at the local Salvation Army and be done with it. Then I could sell that expensive analog front end that is a constant source of angst and buy something really cool with the money like a lot more CDs. Whadaya tink?
plato
dougdeacon
3,338 posts
 
Twl, You'd BUY a car? We kinda figured you'd make your own.

High end MP3 players! Ouch. Actually Phasecorrect sent me his test report on one last week. Let's see, "The Hitushi Whale Semen MP3-XXX offers 2,056x upsampling for only $25K. It closely matched many of the $75K, multiple chassis MP3's we've tested recently. Strongly recommended for true audiophiles on a budget."
newbee
4,768 posts
 
Plato, Everytime I had a a clean and undamaged disc skipping problem I utimately traced it to the CDP or transport I was using. It needed cleaning, repairs or replacements. Take those bad CD's some where and see if they skip on other players. I have a fairly large collection and even those disc's we were all warned about which have turned bronze haven't been a problem (yet).
jposs
99 posts
 
As far as high priced analog, it has been my own personal experience that you can definitely better CD with good analog, but you have to spend much more to do so. I realize this may have to do with poor matching, or bad synergy, so this is not to be taken as an absolute statement. I have a relatively entry level turntable setup: Rega P2 with RB250 arm and Grado silver cartridge. I bought it used for $350 bucks. In the same system I have a Sony SCD-CE775 that I bought used for 175 bucks.

The Sony at least matches the Rega as far as redbook playback goes. Of course it is recording sensitive, but more CDs sounds better than LPs sound better.

My brother has a no holds barred Teres setup that sounds glorious; there are recordings that sound better on my SCD-1, but more recordings sound better on his TT than recording that sound better on my CD player. However his turntable setup cost a helluva lot more than my CD player.

Now if you compare SACD to the vinyl, there is no comparison at the same price point. I couldn't tell you whether a 10k digital SACD setup sounds better than a 10k TT rig, because I have never heard a 10k digital setup. But I do know that at the entry level of both, SACD sounds better. My cheap little Sony playing back SACD surely has some glare, ill defined bass and lightened highs, but those weaknesses are not as pronounced as the weaknesses in my TT.
But I do know that my 3k SACD play rivals my brother's 13k TT setup. It may not be better, but it is damn close. 10k is a lot to pay for something that is only sometimes marginally better.

I realize software is another issue altogether, but I am just talking about analog prices here.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just goofy?
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Just the other day I was doing some comparitive listening to recordings I own in both formats, in order to help get a handle on some analog upgrades I've added recently. On some disks, the LP wins, on others, the CD. Some were about even, with strengths on both sides. There are certain advantages that CD always enjoys, but these hardly equal universal superiority for the format. All in all, mastering quality takes the cake - it is far more determinative than which format. IMO, both vinyl and CD are inherently compromised formats from the sonic standpoint, and if all we were concerned about was obtaining best sound - no holds barred - then we'd all be listening to reel-to-reel.
plato OP
1,543 posts
 
Zaikesman, I am listening to reel-to-reel and I have a small collection of prerecorded tapes that I cherish. When I started listening to the tapes on a decent machine, I was shaking my head thinking about all the money I had spent on my TT gear. But frankly, all my sources sound quite good and there are variations in the recording quality of R2R tapes too (not to mention losses from just sitting around for decades). But it's too bad that the R2R format fell out of favor because with today's advances, better parts, and improved tape formulations they could make machines that would have unbelievably great performance. It's unfortunate that most people value convenience of operation to quality of sound -- the general population, anyway.

Newbee, that's a good point that the CD skipping could be a transport-related problem. I'll check into that.
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