Do you still play LP's?

Vinyl? Hell no

I'm a digital nerd at heart, all my music is in AAC format on a couple of networked hard drives, played through an ancient Pentium 2 laptop under my son's bed running iTunes. Streamed from there over ethernet via an Airport Express to my Panasonic receiver, and from there to living room or garden speakers.

Oh, and iTunes is controlled using the Remote app on my iPhone, so I can switch albums, songs, playlists remotely, plus adjust volume and even which set of speakers it plays through. Plus I get to see the cover art for each album as I scroll through the album list.

My Thorens deck was beyond repair - so now I have a 'Project' somethingorother...

However, my amp is very much current tech. A Denon with built-in pre-amp for the deck.

I have a few albums on both vinyl and CD, and to be honest prefer the 'clean' sound from the CD.

Still have my Heybrook TT2 (poor person's Sondek purchased with hard saved cash when I was an impoverished postgrad' in 1984)with a later generation Basik and AT cartridge. Since owning it, apart from upgrading the arm, I have tweaked the suspension a little, replaced the tone arm cabling and mat and replaced the bearing oil and belt several times. Output is fed to an X-LP head amp with dedicated X-PSU before passing to my MF A1001 Class A dual-mono integrated which serves as a useful extra heat source in the winter months. For listening I use KEF Reference Model Ones with added ballast/damping material in the bases. Most of the cabling, including mains, is custom made using silver or silver-coated OFC purchased form Campaing Audio Design. For digital and FM I use Musical Fidelity's A3.2 CD player and tuner. I have a DAB tuner for listening to BBC R6 and 7, but MUCH prefer listening on FM and was delighted to learn this week that the enforced switch-off and migration to DAB has been delayed and may even be scrapped All the equipment is on a separate mains spur with added ground spike and fed via mains purifying boxes (assortment of home-made and purchased).

I don't listen to my LPs, some of which date from the mid-70s as much as I should but would never part with them. At its best, CD can approach the quality of LP but not exceed it and doesn't possess the same spine tingling quality of the best, simple-miked/mixed analogue recordings.

Remain totally unconvinced and unimpressed by all the lossy digital formats that today's 'yoof' and 'cloth ear brigade' consider to be the acme of music reproduction In fact, I treat it with the same disdain as I do fast food: cheap (or at least it should be), widely available, overly processed, addictive but ultimately unsatisfying

If, perchance, there are any of you our there connected with the 'Grumpy Old Men/Women' programmes please contact me by PM. I'll need no more than 24h notice, demand no fee and cover my own costs

Rant over

Blimey !! And I thought the MP3 was technical !!

Gave the Denon gear to my daughter,put the Technics stuff and the Tannoys in the loft and now play all my CDs through Altec Lansing 5.1 set up and an ATI sound card or listen to Classic FM through the TV.At dinner parties we can use the DVD player as a CD player - simples !

Many years ago I read a story in a hi-fi mag about a teacher who had a matched B&O type setup with speakers et al - his son`s best mates parents came round for a meal and were blown away - the father had mix and match top of the range gear with graphic equalising and special fitted speakers/tweeters/woofers,gold cables etc etc.
Following week the teacher had traded for the father`s type system and the father had invested in a B&O system - funny old world eh ??


Tony

So how do you feel about the various lossless digital audio formats? I'm wondering if you actually dislike lossy audio formats, or if you simply dislike modern audio formats

Slightly off topic. My folks still watch TV on their, at least 20 year old, B&O telly. I always suggest they get a new one but they're happy. I have to say its still twice as stylish as any modern TV (the remote can't be bettered) and sounds pretty good.

Chalk and cheese, Tim; chalk and cheese. I'm happy to embrace any digital technology that offers a demonstrable advantage and improvement over what it is intended to replace. The problem is not digital per se, but the way it is packaged and marketed with often outrageous claims made for it. I don't know if you are as long in the tooth as I am (well preserved gentleman in 50s is as much I'm prepared to divulge) but if you are you'll remember all of the hype that accompanied the release of the CD format. Since then, digital formats have been exploted ruthlessly by many manufacturers and content producers/owners to maximise profits and, increasingly, to tie consumers into long-term relationships in which they unwittingly, in the main, I suspect, cede their rights to use the content paid for as, when how and on what they choose to the extent that they, the consumer, retain no automatic right of ownership as traditionally understood: Apple being a prime example.

I am not so much of a dullard, well at least not yet, to acknowledge that for many people the convenience and durability of digital audio, as well as for some the perceived kudos attached to the ownership of certain players, outweighs all other considerations. For me, however, what matters most is the quality of the listening experience, which remains an ill-defined amalgalm of the performer(s), performance, venue, ambience and the care taken in the recording, mastering (hands of those compression sliders, please) and choice of format used for distributing the finished product.

Have to stop now as my blood pressure monitor has just self-immolated and I urgently need to take a quadruple dose of beta-blockers

Jon

That's enough posts for today (Ed).

As we know, there are many claims made for the effect of cabling on the sound quality of both analogue and digital audio, but has anyone claimed to see a difference in IQ resulting from a change of the wire from DSLR to computer.....?

If the impedance/capacitance/semiconductor effects due to impurities of the cable between your camera and PC were the limiting factor of the speed of transfer then going LCOFC/low capacitance may increase the speed. I suspect however that it is not.

There is some justification for the view that cables can affect analogue sound quality, but none whatsoever for digital.

G

I think a lot of the hype about special i.e. very expensive cables, has very little scientific basis. Cables carrying analogue low level signals from a MC pickup cartridge obviously need care about resistance, capacitance and screening so may reasonbly be costly compared with bog standard coax..

The most obvious rip off are the expensive mains cables connecting the Hi Fi to the mains socket 3 feet away completely ignoring the yards of standard copper cabling in the house not to mention miles of cable connecting to the national grid.

Archie

Sorry George - not true.

Digital signals are about transition from one state to another - 0 to 1 if you will. As the capacitance (ability to store charge) of the cable increases, the time required to reliably change from one state to the other increases. This will limit the speed of data transfer.

As to analogue cables, they can make a world of difference to the signal.

I work in a theatre, handling lighting and sound gear. We don't buy gold plated cables or horrifically expensive ones. We do buy good quality shielded ones, but that's due to needing them to be hard wearing and resistant to interference. We definitely don't use ones that have had any pseudoscientific nonsense applied to them!

Sorry Oggy, but you are talking theory, not practice.

Digital signals travel much faster than they need to in order to produce the right sound at the right time from the loudspeaker. One of the jobs of the D/A converter is to slow down the signal and output it at the right speed.

For digital audio, a cable only needs to be good enough to ensure that all the data arrives intact.

I wasn't arguing about analogue. I am quite happy to believe that a good cable will perform better than a bad one, but I have never found the time to to a comparison.

G

On the other hand, most safety critical applications I have worked with (e.g. aircraft, gas pumping equipment) do extensively use gold connectors.