top ten albums how about ur hifi?

[Tom]

Well, after all those albums, what do you play them on?

My system:

Linn Basik turntable with Akito Arm and AT cartridge
Arcam Delta 70.3 CD
Naim NAC 42.5N preamp
Naim NAP 90-3 poweramp
Naim SNAPS power supply for amps
Rogers LS2a speakers
All on spiked stands

It's all getting on a bit now, new it would have cost a couple of thousand quid, I want to upgrade my speakers, but I gotta finish meh house first!

I'm a vinyl junkie, and one of the minority who thinks they sound better (and I can tell you why if you want to know)

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Hugh & Cuthbert Gramophone.....nuff said

 

[.cage]

nullsoft winamp 2.81
eac + oggenc / lame

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by .cage
nullsoft winamp 2.81
eac + oggenc / lame

^^

My hifi br0ked :-----)

 

[Mr. 47]

newest winamp

 

[Testin da Cable]

I have an onkyo tx-ds595 receiver with a matching onkyo dvd player [subtype forgotten -not really interested in audio stuff you see] and two audiopro stage66's . it's a nice sounding set imo, but I'm looking to complete it with some surround speakers [perhaps some audiopro stage44's?] comments would be nice

 

[tris-]

creative playcenter

 

[xane]

Do you want a bag on your head ?

 

[Munkey-]

Comp:

winamp 3.0
labtech arena-530 speakers
SB Live! 1024

Roundandabout:

RIO 500
(some shite sony headphones, had a very nice pair.....but they broke.)

gonna treat myself to a niccce big sound system when i scrounge up enough cash, bit annoyed by lack of one atm.

 

[Will]

Some Aiwa micro-hifi via my PC. Cheap, cheerful, and the powered sub-woofer scares the shit out of the old dear downstairs.

 

[pcg79]

Winamp / Audigy Platinum / Inspire 5300

or

NEX II.

 

[.cage]

COCKS

 

[Flimgoblin]

It being work, mooamp and a pair of Technics headphones (total overkill for mp3 I know, but they block out the noise of co-workers )

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Originally posted by Tom[SHOTTEH]
I'm a vinyl junkie, and one of the minority who thinks they sound better (and I can tell you why if you want to know)

Go on then.

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by Tom[SHOTTEH]

I'm a vinyl junkie, and one of the minority who thinks they sound better (and I can tell you why if you want to know)

Because you're old and decrepid?

 

[Tom]

Re: Re: top ten albums how about ur hifi?

Originally posted by Scooba Da Bass


Go on then.

You really want to know? Bet ur taking the piss

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

No, I'm 100% serious as to why you think it sounds better.

 

[Recoil101]

I too would love to know... as I think its bullshit.. but there you go...

Although apparently one of the directors at teh company I work for has his stereo in a seperate listening room in his garage with a seperate ring main for the electrics so he doesnt get spikes, the speakers cost 10k and the turntable is a granite one that has to keep spinning or it will lose alignment

Whereas I use a panasonic mini system with minidisc and fab speakers that each have a sperate bass unit in the back and it sounds ace... thing is it keeps going wrong

 

[Tom]

If you're not interested in technical stuff, read the next post





Analogue hifi, sounds 'warm'. I know that doesn't make much sense, but the idea that digital is somehow 'perfect' is incorrect. In fact, a CD contains less than 5% of the source material.

Let me explain:

Woman singing at middle C = approximately 1Khz tone, which means her larynx is belting out that note 1000 times a second. She sings into a microphone, which resonates in sympathy, at 1000 times a second (1KHz). The signal goes into an amp, and is digitised (in a modern studio). I'll miss all the other stuff out, but imagine from hereon the signal goes straight down onto your CD.

CD's have a sampling frequency of 44.1Khz (chosen because humans have a range of about 20Khz at birth, (and doubled to eliminate aliasing effects)), and a resolution (dynamic range) of 16 bits. That means, that every 44100th of a second, the digitising hardware looks at the analogue signal coming in, matches the level up to the nearest digital value, and stores that number. Obviously, you only have 16 bits to play with, so the initial sample will not be absolutely representative of the level of the source signal. The 'spacing' or linearity of these digital steps (65536 of them if I remember) is not even. The closer you get to level 0, the further the spacing between each step.

'Interpolation' is used to fill in the gaps between each sample. The hardware is basically taking a guess at what is inbetween those samples. Obviously if one sample is 12444 and the next one is 12448, it's fairly obvious that the signal inbetween will be 12445, 12446, 12447. 'Dither' is also used to reduce noise caused by the non-linearity of the resolution. Low level signals on CDs are grossly distorted.

Anyway, thats the Digital technical stuff out of the way, suffice it to say that CD's contain far less information than the manufacturers would like us to believe, and significantly more distortion (hence the plethora of technologies used to clean things up).

One good thing about Digital is that it is less likely to suffer from noise, purely because you are dealing with 1's or 0's. Hence a lot of early CD buyers were listeners of classical music.

Now step back to the bit where we digitised the signal, and imagine that that signal was going straight to a cutting machine for a vinyl disc (forget pressing for now). The resolution of the vinyl is only limited by it's molecular structure and the speed of the needle across the vinyl (33), which is far far higher than CD (and much higher than humans can hear). The dynamic range is only limited by range of movement of the recording needle, and the depth of the groove.

Because the vinyl disc rotates at a constant velocity, when the needle reaches the centre of the disc, or the last few tracks, it's effective velocity across the vinyl drops significantly. This is one reason why you tend to find ballads on the last track of each side, because of the increased high frequency distortion. And of course, vinyl can be scratched easily (but so can CDs). Vinyl also collects dust, which can gather in the groove, and be difficult to clean out (but not impossible).

 

[Tom]

subjective stuff now

Right. Vinyl sounds warm, and 'cosy'. It has much greater dynamic range, less distortion, and just sounds superb. CD's also sound good, but can grate on the ears, they sound clinical, flat.

You can look on any audiophile website, or in any magazine, and you will find a majority of music lovers prefer vinyl to cds. It's difficult to explain in technical terms, but in blind tests vinyl outperforms cd.

I would put my £350 turntable against a £1000 cd player anyday, and expect it to knock spots off the cd.

If you ever want to buy yourself a new hifi, I strongly recommend you steer clear of currys or dixons etc, and goto a quality hifi shop. Tell them your budget, and they will book you into their listening room, with a range of equipment to choose from. Hifi is very subjective, there are believe it or not amplifiers that are better for certain types of music than others.

One more thing - the speakers are the least important part of any hifi. Garbage in, garbage out - you could have a £10k pair of speakers fed by a £200 source and amp, and it would sound much worse than a £10k source and amp, and a £200 pair of speakers. A ferrari with a Lada engine will only ever look good. A lada with a ferrrari engine will at least go fast!

 

[bodhi]

At uni I use a Sony micro system which goes very loud and p0mps. But at home I have.....


Marantz PM66 KI-Signature Amplifier
Marantz CD63MKII KI-Signature CD Player
Mission 733i speakers
Linn Bi-wire speaker cables
Audioquest Interconnects.


It sounds pretty damn good tbh.

 

[old.tRoG]

for the pc i have winamp 2.something

i play my cds on the dvd player downstairs, and recently cought this MASSIVE subwoofer (£120!) which gives some pretty good sound

i have no idea about names, only that my downstairs soundsystem rules

 

[(Shovel)]

Pioneer DVD ROM drive
WinAmp 2.81
Soundblaster Live! Value
Cambridge A1 Amp
JPW Speakers (unsure of the model)
Unbranded gold plated cabling.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Originally posted by Tom[SHOTTEH]
<snip>

Ok, starting off, I agree with you that vinyl sounds 'better', however, I can't see any technical reasons for this. As you stated above most studios will take a mic into a digital recording system simply because too few people know how to use analog recording systems well. 95% of people will record at the resolution that they are going to end up using due to limitations of systems and the quality of convertors. That's pretty much messed up the chance of having a decent signal sent to the cutter because if you are ramping the signal backup before sending it you've got interpolation going on, that's giving you the 'disadvantages' of digital and analog all at the same time, uh-oh, bad idea.
So assuming that your song is produced at one of the 5% of places that actually use a higher resolution to record at and downsample as needed for digital formats and maintain high fidelity for the vinyl market and is pumped straight to the cutters. Unless you are going to produce a piece of 'audiophile' grade vinyl (with the accompanying cost), the cutting plant will pass your signal straight through a 16-18KHz filter to lop off any high content. Unless you use a special cutting head arrangement content in this range will be hideously over emphasised on playback due to the nature of the RIAA curve used to take the signal on vinyl back to a normal range.

The dynamic range issue again suffers from all of the above issues, so unless you've got an AAA (Analog recording, analog mastering, and analog medium) recording the dynamic range isn't there, in fact on most recordings anything above 16K will be nothing other than surface noise. As you pointed out human hearing is limited at 20 Khz, and drops pretty far as you age. So assuming that you can even hear this HF content, you need a system that can reproduce it. 95% of needles can't, in your case the Audio Technica MC carts go up to 25K, not a lot more range, you've then got problems with amps and speakers reproducing these frequencies.

Despite all this I also think that vinyl sounds better and I don't have a clue why other than the mental aspects of vinyl. Playing a record is a special thing compaired to a CD.

 

[Tom]

I was trying to point out that the end product, the 16bit 44.1Khz CD, is not perfect, and when compared to vinyl, has a lower bandwidth, and lower resolution. I know that modern studio systems sample at 48 or even 96k, which is obviously better than the CD, but your average 2" 16/24 track from those days was superior to the format of the day, vinyl, in the same manner.

CDs have many advantages over Vinyl, but sound quality will never be one of them, so long as we're stuck with 44.1Khz and 16 bits (and a non-linear 16bit as well).

Most people here will never have listened to a well cut vinyl disc, on a reference system. Most people tend to believe what the manufacturers tell us, and they go out and buy the shiniest hifi on the shelf, but would they be happy if they were only allowed to test drive a new car in the showroom, and not on the road?

If you want to hear vinyl at it's finest, look for Mobile Fidelity pressings, or Linn pressings. Noise free, distortion free, and just - well, unbeatable.

I've not heard SACD yet, but if it takes off, maybe in another 10 years or so it will be able to compete. Remember, vinyl has been around for donkey's years! God help us if mp3 ever becomes mainstream, and we're fucked if DAB broadcasts are transmitted at their current data rates (most DAB broadcasts are inferior in quality to FM transmissions)

I take your point about the upper ends of the HF spectrum, my point there is that on the outside edge of the disc, vinyl can reproduce these frequencies with greater accuracy and less distortion than CDs. In fact, correct me I might be wrong here, but don't most digital systems have a cutoff below 20Hz? Analogue systems don't have this, and there is much research to show how infrasonic waves can affect humans.

One more thing, I know that valve amps introduce particular types of harmonic distortion, that might be a reason why some people prefer their 'cosy and warm' sound. I wonder, could the same be said for vinyl?

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Aye, my valve amp sounds fantastic on everything, defintely warmer, SACD and DVDA both sounds pretty good, certainly noticably better than normal CDs, but still not as warm as vinyl.

As you say a good reference system with vinyl will probably sound better depending on the individual mediums, but how many people can be bothered to spend the money required for a decent vinyl system? Especially with the increasing tendancy for vinyl to be harder to get hold of outside of the dance genres.

 

[Tom]

Aye (looks sad )

Still, with two equally expensive systems, Vinyl has to be better than CD, right?

BTW I demand to know what your system is. I need to know!

 

[Tom]

Aye (looks sad )

Still, with two equally expensive systems, Vinyl has to be better than CD, right?

BTW I demand to know what your system is. I need to know!

 

[nath]

I have a fairly shitty hifi system (I mean, it's proper hifi none of this midi system bollocks but it's low end) and I get that warm sound from cd's. I haven't heard decent vinyl so I guess I'm not in the most objective position to comment, but there is that fluffy warm atmostphere from playing cd's. Some more than others.. the new coldplay album has it in bucketloads.

Incase you're interested, my system as it stands:

Rotel RA-921 amp
Marantz CD-4000 cd player
Acoustic Energy Aegis One speakers.

Like I said, budget. When I bought it I knew fuck all about hifi (still do pretty much) but I seem to have lucked out. All the elements of my hifi are fairly low end, but they've been put together well thanks to the lovely bods at Audio-T. Got it for a snip at 300 quid (inc nice qed cables) 2 years ago.

 

[Lester]

Originally posted by Scooba Da Bass
Aye, my valve amp sounds fantastic on everything, defintely warmer, SACD and DVDA both sounds pretty good, certainly noticably better than normal CDs, but still not as warm as vinyl.

As you say a good reference system with vinyl will probably sound better depending on the individual mediums, but how many people can be bothered to spend the money required for a decent vinyl system? Especially with the increasing tendancy for vinyl to be harder to get hold of outside of the dance genres.

Ban Him. He said DVDA!!!