Turntables - does anyone still use them?

[pgross]

Anyone here still using record players or turntables to play your tunes?

I'm currently using Technics sl-d2

[cochra1]

Of course my friend. I use a Pro-Ject Debut turntable. My minidisc is strictly for use on the move. As much as I treasure my Hi-MD, I wouldn't sully my stereo system at home by feeding it that!

Edited February 21, 2007 by KanakoAndTheNumbSkulls

[bobt]

Of course my friend. I use a Pro-Ject Debut turntable. My minidisc is strictly for use on the move. As much as I treasure my Hi-MD, I wouldn't sully my stereo system at home by feeding it that!

??????????

[Ishiyoshi]

I do occasionally - here's my Bang & Olufsen Beogram RX2

[Number Four]

I have a Technics as well. Needless to say, it gets a lot of use at home.

[cochra1]

??????????

I mean it would be a waste of a fine home stereo system to use it to listen to a portable minidisc player, no matter how good the minidisc player is. Realistically it ain't gonna compete with a high end CD player (nor would you expect it to).

I do occasionally - here's my Bang & Olufsen Beogram RX2

That's tasty-looking, I'm jealous.

Edited February 22, 2007 by KanakoAndTheNumbSkulls

[boojum]

I mean it would be a waste of a fine home stereo system to use it to listen to a portable minidisc player, no matter how good the minidisc player is. Realistically it ain't gonna compete with a high end CD player (nor would you expect it to).

Have you heard that SONY has released some Hi-MD recorders which record in PCM, which is the same as CD's?

[Sparda]

Have you heard that SONY has released some Hi-MD recorders which record in PCM, which is the same as CD's?

I also think that a MD with a HD Digital amp would actually sound better.

Kanako have you ever tried hooking up your MD to a sound system?

[King Ghidora]

I still have a decent turntable but it's been in the attic for quite a while. I only rarely get it out. Albums do sound better than CD's but you don't get too many turntables with remotes and albums wear out way too fast. I can hear a difference after 5 plays of an album. That's why I used to buy an album and make a cassette copy of it until the cassette wore out. They I would make another cassette. I have albums that have only been played a very few times still to this day.

CD's have come a long way since the early days though. They do sound pretty good. But if you record an album to a HIMD in PCM mode it will sound better than a CD. PCM on a HIMD is superior to CD IMO. Still nothing beats a pure analog sound with no tape hiss in the background. Vinyl still sounds better than anything else for the first few times you play it.

[Sparky191]

I still have a decent turntable but it's been in the attic for quite a while. I only rarely get it out. Albums do sound better than CD's but you don't get too many turntables with remotes and albums wear out way too fast. I can hear a difference after 5 plays of an album. That's why I used to buy an album and make a cassette copy of it until the cassette wore out. They I would make another cassette. I have albums that have only been played a very few times still to this day.

CD's have come a long way since the early days though. They do sound pretty good. But if you record an album to a HIMD in PCM mode it will sound better than a CD. PCM on a HIMD is superior to CD IMO. Still nothing beats a pure analog sound with no tape hiss in the background. Vinyl still sounds better than anything else for the first few times you play it.

Do you mean Vinyl>HiMD(PCM) is better than CD?

The quality of mastering of albums seems to vary a lot. Regardless of format. You need to dig out the best recording from places like this.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/

[King Ghidora]

Yes I do Sparky. At least potentially better. The main advantage HIMD has over CD is a wider dynamic range. But there are several factors involved in whether you will get better sound recording PCM HIMD's than CD's. First is the quality of the turntable and the cartridge. There are huge differences in quality when it comes to turntables. Then it's neccessary to use a pre-amp for a turntable so the quality of that is also a potential point where the quality will become less than CD.

The A/D converter in a HIMD is very good. But whether it competes with studio quality A/D converters for CD is a tough issue. The differences are so small that few people can actually hear a difference.

The main reason for my claim that HIMD is superior to CD is the dynamic range issue. If you record your own material you will do much better recording to HIMD than you would CD unless you have studio quality equipment. Also there is the gapless playback issue. CDR's do not do gapless playback of albums that have songs that were originally gapless on vinyl. So you will experience a pause between songs that you might have learned to expect to be one continuous sound if you originally listed to the source on vinyl. MD doesn't have this problem.

But the bottom line is that other technologies exceed both HIMD and CD. 24 bit recordings of new vinyl played on high quality equipment are going to be considerably better than either HIMD or CD. And you can get 24 bit audio with several recorders currently on the market. The Zoom H4 and the Edirol R-09 are two good examples.

The differences between HIMD and CD aren't all that great IMO. But there is certainly a difference with a 24 bit recording device. If you want the best quality in a mobile player record from new vinyl to a 24 bit recorder. But don't hold your breath and expect things to remain the same. The market is in flux right now. In a few years I expect we will see even better quality recorders.

Edited February 25, 2007 by King Ghidora

[Sparky191]

Perhaps in theory or dry technical specs, LP > HiMD is superior to CD, even to the rebook recording on a hybrid SACD for example. However for you to hear it, or to record that difference, I think your vinyl would be better than HiMD, and possibly the SCAD/CD would be better than HiMD. It would be intetestng to run a ABX test on this. As most people get fooled with medium bitrates MP3's never mind anything else.

[King Ghidora]

Very true Sparky. There are people who can hear differences in equipment though. I can hear some differences but not on the level some people can. I can hear the difference between analog and digital audio for example or at least I could when digital audio first came out. It's been a long time since I tried a test to compare. My hearing is not what it was 25 years ago for sure.

Comparison audio tests are pretty difficult for almost everyone in fact. And for us older types it gets even harder. The best way to find out whether you think something is good or not is to live with it for a while unless of course we're testing 128 bit MP3's against pure virgin vinyl or something. Then it cam be very obvious. Speakers have big differences and sometimes CD players have a big quality advantage over other CD players. But I rarely hear much difference between one brand of amplifier over another unless it's real quality compared to real junk.

[Sparky191]

I don't have young ears either. However with a good bitrate mp3 192~320 kps properly encoded I can't hear a difference between that and ATRAC at 256/292kps. Perhaps I can hear a difference between that and PCM but I'm not sure I do on my low end portable set up. Probably with better portable phones, and player I'd hear it. If its played though my low end Arcam HiFi, then a good CD sounds better to me than the portable formats via line in. I actually have a low end Sony Dolby S cassette deck, but I'm not a big fan of dolby and I never actively used that feature. I might use the MPX filter to clean up an older cassette but in general I can ignore the noise and hiss of a cassette and enjoy the analog recording. Quite often I prefer the cassette to the digital formats, ATRAC, MP3 or even CD. But that said most of my cassettes are not the best quality so it might be nostalgia for the music rather than actually SQ that I'm enjoying. I no new cassettes to really listen to the quality of the deck, and don't really intend buying any. I bought it mainly to archive my favorite old cassettes, which are decaying.

I've never really had a access to a good turntable, though its something I'd like to acquire one day. I've quite a few LP's around that I can't play. A lot of my cassettes are lots LP's that friends put on to cassette for me back in the day. The LP's recordings onto cassettes seem to have a more natural quality than CD's. I like ATRAC, perhaps its the most natural sounding codec.

[greenmachine]

... The main advantage HIMD has over CD is a wider dynamic range. ...

Could you please explain why, i thought both were 16bit formats and thus limited to a theoretical maximum of 6dB per bit = 96dB (in reality often somewhat less because of quantization)? If the dynamic range is actually wider, would it be a real advantage since there are hardly any home decks (supposed to have higher quality DACs than portables) available?

[brian10161]

I mean it would be a waste of a fine home stereo system to use it to listen to a portable minidisc player, no matter how good the minidisc player is. Realistically it ain't gonna compete with a high end CD player (nor would you expect it to).

It's a digital signal. It will sound the same regardless (unless the disc is messed up). In a component system, the signal that goes to the receiver usually isn't amplified, and in that case, it should sound the same as the next CD player. My 16 year old Realistic CD player sounds just as good as my 1 year old Sony DVD player.

[Sparky191]

It's a digital signal. It will sound the same regardless (unless the disc is messed up). In a component system, the signal that goes to the receiver usually isn't amplified, and in that case, it should sound the same as the next CD player. My 16 year old Realistic CD player sounds just as good as my 1 year old Sony DVD player.

Theres no digital out on HiMD, or any recent MD with the exception of the Onkyo decks. So is it not an analog signal? So therefore does it not come down to the quality of the DAC before its amplified? I would have assumed an good quality CD would be better than an poor quality CD player. Or any source for that matter. Lots of debate in HiFi circles about the quality of optical/digital signals from cheap/expensive sources. Never mind analog sources.

Above my head tbh.

[King Ghidora]

Could you please explain why, i thought both were 16bit formats and thus limited to a theoretical maximum of 6dB per bit = 96dB (in reality often somewhat less because of quantization)? If the dynamic range is actually wider, would it be a real advantage since there are hardly any home decks (supposed to have higher quality DACs than portables) available?

Since the middle 1990's MD has had the capacity to do effective 20-bit dynamic range in the MDS-JA3ES deck. When I went looking for information to back up what I had said yesterday I was relying on things I had heard in the past. I found a quote listing MD as having a wider dynamic range potential. But after tracking down the source of this potential it became clear that this was possibly limited to this particular deck and possibly other subsequent home decks. I really don't know if this is done with HIMD recorders but I now doubt it. So my assertion may be incorrect. It was based on a comment I saw which I think probably doesn't apply to HIMD recorders.

As far as the potential advantage being limited to home decks all I can say was that I was referring to the potential of MD. I really don't think there are too many people who could hear the difference between a vinyl to HIMD recording as compared to a factory CD except for the possible artifacts that come with vinyl. I still believe that vinyl is clearly superior to any digital format I've ever heard and I believe HIMD recorders do an excellent A/D conversion so the results are going to be excellent and very much in line with the quality of CD's. But unless someone can show me that HIMD recorders use the method described on the web site I linked where a portion of the process is done in 20 bit then I don't believe vinyl to HIMD will be superior to CD.

It's a digital signal. It will sound the same regardless (unless the disc is messed up). In a component system, the signal that goes to the receiver usually isn't amplified, and in that case, it should sound the same as the next CD player. My 16 year old Realistic CD player sounds just as good as my 1 year old Sony DVD player.

Wow I don't agree with that at all. Modern CD and DVD players are far superior to old CD players IMO. I have a Sony DVD player that's about a year old also and it sounds much better than my Sony CD player which really isn't all that old. It is probably only 10 years old and it sounds far superior to the CD players I had before that. There has been a steady improvement of CD sound quality over the years IMO. At least that's been my experience. Even cheap DVD players sound better than relatively high quality CD players from the early years of CD audio. When I first bought a CD player (about a month after they first appeared on the market) I thought it sounded far inferior to vinyl but of course there were the durability and convenience issues so I stuck with the format like everyone else. There was a lot of complaints from people about the inferior quality of CD compared to vinyl in those days. Now the difference is only slight but vinyl still sounds better when it's new.

[brian10161]

Wow I don't agree with that at all. Modern CD and DVD players are far superior to old CD players IMO. I have a Sony DVD player that's about a year old also and it sounds much better than my Sony CD player which really isn't all that old. It is probably only 10 years old and it sounds far superior to the CD players I had before that. There has been a steady improvement of CD sound quality over the years IMO. At least that's been my experience. Even cheap DVD players sound better than relatively high quality CD players from the early years of CD audio. When I first bought a CD player (about a month after they first appeared on the market) I thought it sounded far inferior to vinyl but of course there were the durability and convenience issues so I stuck with the format like everyone else. There was a lot of complaints from people about the inferior quality of CD compared to vinyl in those days. Now the difference is only slight but vinyl still sounds better when it's new.

New cd players may be far superior to older cd players in the fact that the lasers are a bit better, and the features are better comparitively. However, they use the same basic principle as the older cd players. The DAC's may be a bit better and such, but I don't think the overall quality of the audio is any better.

I don't know what your listening to, but the cd's I have (some fairly new ones, and some really old ones) and they all have the same clarity on my DVD and Cd player. My CD player is actually 18 years old (checked the manual just now) and my DVD player is 11 months old. They BOTH sound the same to me. I can't tell a difference between the two. The only problem with my CD player is that the tray will sometimes pop back out when I put a cd in it. But other than that, theres nothing wrong with it. The signals that come out of my DVD and CD player are both a component system (so I guess it's an analogue signal) but they still sound damn good. If you can tell the difference between a digital and an analogue signal, then by all means, do what you will. But I personally can't tell a difference between analogue and digital.

From my understanding, analogue is better for capturing the entirety of the audio signal, digital has a certain limitation. It would be like hooking an analogue turntable up to a digital amplifier, then going to a set of speakers through an analogue line. Whats the point?

But, you know, since I'm young, I'm an idiot. So I'll leave it at that.

Edited February 26, 2007 by brian10161

[Sparky191]

...

Wow I don't agree with that at all. Modern CD and DVD players are far superior to old CD players IMO. I have a Sony DVD player that's about a year old also and it sounds much better than my Sony CD player which really isn't all that old. It is probably only 10 years old and it sounds far superior to the CD players I had before that. There has been a steady improvement of CD sound quality over the years IMO. At least that's been my experience. Even cheap DVD players sound better than relatively high quality CD players from the early years of CD audio. When I first bought a CD player (about a month after they first appeared on the market) I thought it sounded far inferior to vinyl but of course there were the durability and convenience issues so I stuck with the format like everyone else. There was a lot of complaints from people about the inferior quality of CD compared to vinyl in those days. Now the difference is only slight but vinyl still sounds better when it's new.

I reckon it depends on the unit. Theres lots of bad modern players built to a price and older players which sounded better. But it depends on the specific model you are talking about. Theres a big demand for old Discman now by the HiFi buffs. They sound better than the modern ones. With CD separates its a different story. I don't believe that if I get a High end HiFi CD player from 10yrs ago, and compared it against a £30 DVD player that I'd get the same quality at least via analog. perhaps digital would, but thats an argument I've seen many times on HiFi forums, and I get lost in the technicalities of it.

[King Ghidora]

New cd players may be far superior to older cd players in the fact that the lasers are a bit better, and the features are better comparitively. However, they use the same basic principle as the older cd players. The DAC's may be a bit better and such, but I don't think the overall quality of the audio is any better.

I can hear a tremendous difference in the CD players around today and the ones that were around in the early days of CD. And I'm talking about the audio quality. For one thing 16 years doesn't really get you back to the early days of CD. I had a CD player in 1985. I probably was on my third or fourth CD player by 1989. The quality had risen considerably by that time from the first and second generation players that I started out with. Still I can hear a difference between what was a quality CD player that I bought in the late 90's and the DVD player I'm using now. I suppose it takes a certain level of equipment to really be able to hear the difference between CD players. I don't know what kind of sound system you have but I have a very good one. Perhaps that's why I can hear a difference and you can't. I don't know that obviously. I just know that I generally use my DVD player to listen to CD's because it sounds so much better. Plus it won't skip like every CD player I've ever owned when the music gets cranked up.

I don't know what your listening to, but the cd's I have (some fairly new ones, and some really old ones) and they all have the same clarity on my DVD and Cd player. My CD player is actually 18 years old (checked the manual just now) and my DVD player is 11 months old. They BOTH sound the same to me. I can't tell a difference between the two. The only problem with my CD player is that the tray will sometimes pop back out when I put a cd in it. But other than that, theres nothing wrong with it. The signals that come out of my DVD and CD player are both a component system (so I guess it's an analogue signal) but they still sound damn good. If you can tell the difference between a digital and an analogue signal, then by all means, do what you will. But I personally can't tell a difference between analogue and digital.

What can I say. I can hear a big difference between an analog signal and a digital signal. It's not as differenent now as it was 20 years ago but it's still different.

From my understanding, analogue is better for capturing the entirety of the audio signal, digital has a certain limitation. It would be like hooking an analogue turntable up to a digital amplifier, then going to a set of speakers through an analogue line. Whats the point?

But, you know, since I'm young, I'm an idiot. So I'll leave it at that.

Maybe you just haven't been around long enough to remember what vinyl sounded like on a decent turntable with a decent stylus. I've been interested in audio since the late 1950's so that might have something to do with it.

I think I could show you the differences between analog and digital pretty quickly if I had the chance. Analog has a much fuller sound than digital. Do you know that a lot of recording artists hated CD's when they first came out? They claimed they destroyed the hard work they put into creating the perfect sound. And they were right. But the trade offs were justified and eventually CD's became much better. Even by 1989 CD sound had improved a lot. Heck CDR's were on the market by that time even though they cost a fortune.

Keep in mind that the differences now are small. I've had my turntable in the attic for years now for good reason. Admittedly I've tried to save my equipment and my vinyl for special occassions but the truth is CD sound is much better than it was at first and I was never one of people who screamed for the death of CD anyway. I knew it sounded inferior but it had so much other stuff going for it that it was always going to be a winner. It certainly had fewer flaws than cassettes and I still had memories of worn out records and out of alignment 8-track tapes. I'm not complaining about CD sound but there is a difference. In fact one of the main reasons I tried to preserve my analog equipment was so I could prove that to people if they really wanted to know about it.

If you look around the net you'll find a lot of people who agree with what I'm saying BTW. You'll also see people who say the latest in CD tech is actually better than vinyl in certain ways. And they are right. Vinyl had some limitations even on the best equipment. But overall I still prefer the sound of vinyl to CD even if it's SACD.

[brian10161]

I wasn't saying that vinyl was crap compared to cd. I have many vinyl records, and they sound far superior to my cd's.

I have a fairly high quality stereo in my room. My turntable sounds better than my cd player (on a good vinyl record) and it goes through an analogue connection.

I find analouge gives a better, fuller sound than digital IMO. My dads tape deck can make a tape sound AS GOOD AS a vinyl record.

[Sparky191]

I've heard a lot of comments on HiFi forums that newer CD's, and newer releases of older CD's are actually mastered/engineered a lot worse than the original releases. So much so that people are seeking out the original releases. Or specific releases like the redbook on a SACD, from stores like http://store.acousticsounds.com/

I think you have to clarify what level of HiFi you are comparing. I would assume that at the low end vinyl is poor and CD good but HiMD (PCM) probably better. As you increase the quality of the HiFi, perhaps Vinyl/analog gets better and even CD improves beyond that of what possible with current HiMD (PCM) products.

I can only talk relative to my own equipment which is low end hifi and low end portables, HiMD, MP3 players. Thats bottom of the scale to most people on HeadFi for example.

[King Ghidora]

I didn't say you were saying vinyl was crap compared to CD. I merely responded to you seeming to question whether I could tell the difference between an analog signal and a digital signal. I merely explained why it was easy to tell the difference.

What I don't understand is if you can't tell that analog is better than digital how is it you decided your turntable sounds better than your CD player? Aren't you hearing the difference between an analog and a digital signal there?

BTW most vinyl albums started life as a tape recording. The only albums that weren't on tape at one time that I know of are albums that were recorded digitally (which was also on tape btw but not the same as analog tape). So yes tape can sound as good as an album. But cassette decks that record that quality were pretty rare. You could get them but they generally cost a lot of money. The average home cassette deck will lose some high end and low end sound. I used to record in Dolby B then play back my tapes without Dolby turned on to get back the upper frequencies. I just lived with the extra tape noise. And I had what were considered to be very good tape decks at the time. I still use one of those decks in fact because few other decks matched it's specs. But it has always lost some signal on both ends of the spectrum. Most decks do.

I've heard a lot of comments on HiFi forums that newer CD's, and newer releases of older CD's are actually mastered/engineered a lot worse than the original releases. So much so that people are seeking out the original releases. Or specific releases like the redbook on a SACD, from stores like http://store.acousticsounds.com/

I think you have to clarify what level of HiFi you are comparing. I would assume that at the low end vinyl is poor and CD good but HiMD (PCM) probably better. As you increase the quality of the HiFi, perhaps Vinyl/analog gets better and even CD improves beyond that of what possible with current HiMD (PCM) products.

I can only talk relative to my own equipment which is low end hifi and low end portables, HiMD, MP3 players. Thats bottom of the scale to most people on HeadFi for example.

I've certainly heard lots of re-released, remastered albums sound far worse than the original. Mastering is an art form and those that think they can make it come out better just because they are using new equipment are just wrong IMO. Probably they just released a remastered version as a hyped up reason to buy stuff you already own.

Vinyl from the early 60's and before was certainly inferior to CD but vinyl from the mid 70's on was very good. I still haven't actually heard CD sound that exceeds it. Some say SACD can exceed it but I'll reserve my judgement until I hear it myself.

These formats are generally only a few degrees separated in their best form IMO so all this discussion is really moot. If it's done right vinyl and CD and HIMD can sound exceptionally good. When I think back on how these formats compare to the quality of stuff that I heard early in my life I can only laugh at what we thought was HI-FI in the old days. Audio has come a very long way. We can exceed the very best of recordings from the early 60's with HIMD as it exists now. I can certainly live with the quality I get from my own recordings. For less than $300 I can make recordings that are light years better than anything from the 50's. Remember that a lot of recording stars re-recorded their own stuff because they wanted the higher quality in later years. So 1950's artists recorded their albums again in the 70's just so the world would have a better recording of their work. They made it sound like the original only much better.

[Avrin]

My 26-years old Technics SL-7 will forever be with me (though right now it needs a stylus replacement, which I am going to take care of in a couple of weeks). Especially in the wake of this: http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm - and things have got much worse since the article was written!