PC Rules

Read the fable about the wager between the North Wind and the Sun. It might help you better reframe your arguments.

It's much more fun this way.

Onhwy61, your statement in regard to the solid state preamp is valid. The stock interface was "crap". After you get a better cartridge, do you say the sound from the lesser cartridge was the true sound, since it was the first one you heard?

Unless you where in the mastering room at the time the final mixes were approved you can never know the true sound of a recording. What I can determine is whether a recording of a vinyl, CD or tape recording sounds like the original recording when played back on the same systems in the same room. In other words a copy of a copy should be indistinguishable from the "original" copy. If I want to remaster the copy that's a whole other thing.

04-20-11: Orpheus10
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.

The obvious interpretation of all of this seems to me to be that you've proven (at most) that by changing phono stages (and perhaps cartridge loading as well), and simultaneously introducing a particular a/d converter circuit and a particular d/a converter circuit into the signal path, you've modified the sound so as to reduce "record noise" and make the overall sound quality subjectively preferable to you, in your particular system.

Nothing more.

But perhaps less, considering that the turntable was not only moved, but was exposed to the sound from your main speakers during the A/B comparison while not being similarly exposed during the ripping process; there may have been differences in its support and leveling, as Onhwy61 noted; and there conceivably could have been other relevant differences in rfi/emi, cabling, ground-loop related noise, power distribution, etc.

As I see it, the changed phono stage in itself invalidates the "PC Rules" conclusion, not to mention all of the other variables that were involved.

Regards,
-- Al