PC Rules

Mr._Hosehead, the computer is in the basement, and the listening room is upstairs. I recorded the LP through an Audiolab 8000-C pre to line in of computer interface. I added this to my playlist. After that, I took the TT upstairs to phono of Audible Illusions. The computer comes to tape in of Audible Illusions. The TT was cued in at the beginning of the same LP that was being played back from the playlist. I could switch back and forth between the phono and tape, this allowed me to make a very good comparison. The difference was striking; record noise was audible from the TT, but none from the playback. Now that my records are on hardrive, I no longer use the TT.

It is unlikely that this product will ever reach the market: A- you don't believe it, B- computer people don't need it, C- no one is going to put money into something without a market.

There are A/D converters and software for transferring lps to computers and servers and I'm sure there will be more and better ones as time goes on. I think that one day most audiophiles will think that digital (not cd) sounds better than vinyl. Digital is improving rapidly.

I have read quite a few posts from people who think their cds converted to WAV or Flac files sound better than the original cds, same goes for lps. Don't be surprised if some of the vinyl enthusiasts around here don't receive this possibility enthusiastically though.

Few, if any, people know how to conduct a true A/B test, especially since it must include 'others' who will make the determination, not the person who sets it up.

Tomcy6, I'm glad someone else beside me, is aware of this phenomenon.

The LP I used was pristine and washed. If you played it on your "high end rig", you would say there was no noise; however, if you made a side by side comparison with a "blacker" background, you would discover there was noise you were unaware of.

Reviewers who reviewed FM Acoustics phono pre's described this phenomenon; they called it "outer space black".

Rather than comparing vinyl to a hard drive recording of that vinyl you actually may have compared the line stages of a solid state preamp to a solid state preamp running through a tube buffer stage and differences in turntable stands/supports. What you should have done was make recordings of the stock interface and then recordings of the upgraded interface and then compared.

I also have a problem with your declaration that one sounds better. A recording can only sound faithful to its original or not. If the recording doesn't sound like the original, then by definition there is distortion in the recording chain. For any number of reasons you make like the sound of those distortions better than the undistorted original, but you are listening to a distorted version.