Who Is Listening To Vinyl?

Stu: Direct to disc is great. I have one or two ... the first one I bought (and still really like) is one of the Sheffield Lincoln Mayorga discs. Can't remember the disc title, but it's the one with a version of the Beatles' Blackbird and Norwegian Wood ... really nice.
 
I spin a ProJekt with a Sumiko Blue Point, through an Audible Illusions Modulus 2a burning a quad of vintage Amperex USN CEP 7308's. The outputs push an Acurus DIA 100 for the mid and high drivers and a Classe CA150 for the bass drivers. I think it sounds pretty sweet (though I over-drove one of the subs the other day and have a cone repair I need to make time for).

Some of the old classical vinyl will never be reissued much less remastered for CD. I do have some problems with late 60's - early 70's rock recordings on vinyl showing very compressed dynamic range. To me some of the latest vinyl pressings sound better than the same program material on CD. My CD player outputs through a tubed buffer with a nice set of TFK E88CC, then to the Modulus so the CD sound is as "warmed" as it can be.

My 3 & 5 year olds ask for "Revolver", "Are You Experienced", "Night at the Opera" and a bunch of Talking Heads on vinyl. Actually they could not care less what the source is - they just like the songs. A gritty MP3 of Tegan & Sara "Walking With a Ghost" played through some marginal computer speakers is also a frequent request.

- John
 
My System and LPs

My System and LPs

Grado platinum cart., Rega P25, Marantz 2010 or Fisher 400 receiver (tube), Bogen DB 212 stereo integrated tube amp. Altec Valencia speakers (the ones with the Voice of the Theatre drivers) or Dynaco A25 speakers.

Vinyl: about 2000 LPs, about one third R&R, one third classical, one third jazz and other. Neil Young, Van Morrison, Dire Straits, Vaughan Williams, Bach, Beethoven fan.

No question in my mind which sounds better.

Steve
 
Analog all the way!

Analog all the way!

Linn LP12, Majik-I, LK100, Keilidhs (active) playing lots and lots of vinyl- jazz re-issues on primo vinyl from Acoustic Sounds, Analogue Productions, Cisco, Mosaic, Rhino, etc. Been playing Bob Dylan reissued by Sundazed. There's tons of used vinyl from thrift stores, garage sales, local record shops, swap meets and flea markets. Of course, there's online shopping.
Check out Michael Fremer who writes in Stereophile magazine (http://www.stereophile.com/) and find out how you can get into vinyl for as little or as much (money no object) as you want.
 
I may be unusual here in that I listen to records, but don't subscribe to audiophile views on equipment. My player is a simple Kenwood KD-770, attached to an early 1980s Technics Class A amp. I think I paid less than 100 EUR for the whole setup; some people spend more than that on cables.

I've also got a business plan (in case my PhD fails) to sell cables to audiophiles. This includes superconducting rails placed in little tubes cooled down to -200 °C with a cooling aggregat in the cellar, a cable suspension system designed to suspend existing cables from little hooks to isolate them from the detrimental effects of capacitive connection to the ground as well as ground radiation (looked like a 1920's streetcar overhead wire system, with little gold wires to hold the cable in place), and power cables from recycled copper from overland lines (because fifty years of supplying raw power at 400 kilovolts irons out all the impurities, of course).
 
wolves3012 said:
It IS your imagination! ...
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Actually, it's not. On good equipment, vinyl will sound better. The 20kHz filter on CD replay causes lots of unpleasantness that is quite audible. On vinyl, there is no such filtering and the results can be heard. Modern CD replay is much better but there is still a difference.

My system is a Michell Gyrodec, Linn Ekos & Troika, Musical fidelity A3 pre/power and ProAc Response 2.5 speakers, with home made cables.

Ernst
 
rxmd said:
I've also got a business plan (in case my PhD fails) to sell cables to audiophiles.
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Ah, audiophools and cables.

I had a rather 'elitist' audiophile come over to my place to listen to my system. He brought at least a half-dozen sets of cables to demonstrate to me what I was 'missing' (my cables are actually pretty good, but this dude knew better...)

He went on and on and on about all of the differences he heard between the cables, and how some were good for this, some for that, etc.

What he didn't know was that the wires on the new crossover I had just installed were too short. Inside the speaker cabinet, I used romex and wire nuts.
 
bean_counter said:
........ I used romex and wire nuts.
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You must live in the burbs otherwise you would have to use conduit put in by an IEBW brother! (sick local humor, Chicago and several of the collar towns and villages require hard conduit for electrical cable because of the big fire a few years back, and the strong unions too)

B2 (;->
 
from analogue kid to digital man

from analogue kid to digital man

Well, I love threads like this because I've never stopped listening to vinyl or shooting film. To me, there are many parallels. From the fiddling with the equipment, to replaying and preservation of those sounds and images. I won't go so far as to say that the analogue recording on vinyl or film is technically better than their digital counterparts. But for me, I receive the greatest pleasure from those analogue experiences.
Perhaps it is a bit of nostalgia for the simpler times and things. Perhaps it has something to do with the self defeating persuit of perfection. Analogue is full of imperfections. Scratches, dust, warps and fuzz. Part of the fun is tackilng those flaws, and producing a better result in the end. It all lends itself to an ambiance or an air that is closer to lifelike. My life anyway. I never experience anything outside of a studio that is as clean and perfect as a well lit product shot in a glossy magazine. As interesting as that is as an art form and a craft, it is an unconvincing illusion. Give me life-like, imperfections and all!
But then, I have to admit that it is pretty tough to play my turntable in the car. So, I get to enjoy my old vinyl through the magic of a digital copy. I have a fairly large collection of vinyl, much of which will never see the light of commercially published digital, so I burn my own files for personal pleasure on those long road trips. And yes, I do have many new and paid for cd's which I dearly love. As well, listening to my MP3 player when I fly is a real treat. My images usually end up in a self-published book, which, of course, first reqire digitization and processing. I confess, sometimes I actually take a short cut and use a digital camera!
Resistance is futile, so I explore and embrace all formats. But for pure pleasure, I still go back to my old trusty Sanyo turntable and some virgin vinyl. On the street, it's the wonderful Zeiss Ikon and a couple of rolls of Reala. Sweet.

N
 
Last weekend, I was helping a friend with her yard sale (we are in our 40's) and this young 19 yr old art college girl came by with a couple of 60's vintage Connie Francis and Johnny Cash albums under her arm and a box of country music 8 tracks she had just bought elsewhere, asking us if we had a turntable to sell her.

My friend obliged by at letting her play the vinyl on her own turntable. The girl hung out with us for the next three hours...good times!!!

Vinyl is not dead!
 
rxmd said:
I've also got a business plan (in case my PhD fails) to sell cables to audiophiles. This includes superconducting rails placed in little tubes cooled down to -200 °C with a cooling aggregat in the cellar, a cable suspension system designed to suspend existing cables from little hooks to isolate them from the detrimental effects of capacitive connection to the ground as well as ground radiation (looked like a 1920's streetcar overhead wire system, with little gold wires to hold the cable in place), and power cables from recycled copper from overland lines (because fifty years of supplying raw power at 400 kilovolts irons out all the impurities, of course).
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LMAO!😀 The recycled copper may still have impurities but they will at least properly aligned. Just remember to cryo-draw the wire or you will totally screw up its sonic properties.

In the real world, I did have to shield my cables and cage my tubes - you could hear a noise floor and quiet blip from the wireless network. Unplug the network - no noise. Shield stuff - no noise.

Responders to this thread are calling out some pretty esoteric gear.

- John
 
Some of you guys would probably enjoy www.tnt-audio.com for DIY solutions. They've got plans for making great speaker cables from Cat5e ethernet cable and component isolators from abrasive pumice blocks meant for removing calluses from your feet. Definitely anti-audiosnob there.
 
dpetrzelka said:
I run an MMF-7 with Benz Glider, through a DIY Bottlehead tube system ( Seduction phono-pre, Foreplay II pre, and Paramour 2A3 monoblocks) into Fostex FE166E back loaded horns. Single ended triodes are absolutely stunning.

Bottlehead Tube Amps
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Great to hear of another bottlehead (and Doc, Eileen and PJ are the best) on this forum and my system is very similar to yours. Table is a Michell Gyrodec which is input to a Seduction phono stage into a Foreplay II pre into Paraglow II amps with cobalt trannies output to a pair of Straight 8 loudspeakers.

And I love listening to vinyl. The whole experience is, in my view, superior to CD. I've also noticed an interesting phenomenon that has been confirmed by some other vinyl listeners. Listening to CD's typically means carefully selecting which CD to play and then giving up an hour to it. Then another round of careful selection and hour commitment. However, it's different with vinyl. I flip through a few albums until something just catches my interest. I then play one side of that selection while enjoying perusing the album cover. The commitment is less, say 20 minutes. And somehow, during that 20 minutes, either the music or something on the album cover triggers the thought to play some other specific vinyl album (e.g., hearing one song makes me think of another song from another album, noticing one of the instruments does the same, reading about the musicians makes me think of another, etc.). I then locate and play that "triggered" album or, at least, one side of it. This then triggers another album, and another, and another. This cycle continues until I run out of time or have to go to bed (work the next morning sure ruins a lot of listening sessions!). Anyways, this "meandering through my music collection" is just fundamentally different with vinyl than with CDs. Not sure if my explanation made sense or if others on this forum who listen to vinyl have experenced the same thing but I have noticed it repeatedly. But it, in addition to the great sound, sure keeps me interested in maintaining my vinyl collection. And it makes me wonder about corrollaries to the "slow down and truly experience what you are doing" that others have commented on re shooting film and using rangefinder cameras.

-Randy
 
Ahh, I knew I found the right forum!
I love my cameras and been trying to decide on either a Zeiss Ikon, MP or M7, but I love my vinyl.
Still have about 1500 LP's which still sound much more musical than the digital versions.
Play these on my SOTA Sapphire series III with Souther/ Clearaudio tonearm and Alpha Genesis cartridge. Also have Martin Logan electrostatic speakers, Electron Kinetics Pre-Amp and Amp.
Analog still is wonderful either film or audio.
 
I still do, although we buy CD's, too.

-Just- bought "Robert Fripp & the League of Crafty Guitarists-Live".

Love that album, glad to have it on -vinyl-.
 
as a student 10 years ago, I skipped even CD's because I did not have any money for those. MP3's (no, not the Leica) were new thing then. it was cheap way get music, but only with my PC, as iPods came later. sorry little o.t. 😛
 
photogdave said:
My girlfriend just bought me a turntable for my birthday and I love it!
I haven't really been able to listen to records since I was a kid, excepting when one of roomates was a DJ about 10 years ago. I believe vinyl really does sound better than CDs! I bought some Fela Kuti records that I already had on CD and the sound is richer and more dynamic. I'm definitely hearing things I haven't before on some of the tracks.
I also love the whole ritual of pulling the record out of the sleeve, spinning up the platter and dropping the needle. I guess this relates to my enjoyment of working with my film cameras, brewing espressos and mixing traditional cocktails.
So who else is spinning on the wheels of steel? 😎
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This is a rangefinder forum. What does that have to do with vinyl records?
 
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