[commodorejohn]

Oh, and I still like to play actual CDs, but I doubt I'll ever get into vinyl. When I started buying music (mid eighties) CDs were new and vinyl was old, so I didn't bother with it anymore. I can't justify buying more duplicates of music I already have. A couple of hundred vinyl records would take up significant space as well.

For me, at least, the appeal of vinyl is more about the object and the tactile experience than anything - I do like the way it sounds, but I'm not gonna pretend there's necessarily anything magic about it outside of my own head. But there's a certain coolness factor in having the sound encoded in a form you can actually (sorta) see, and with a lot of the music I like (classic prog) there was so much effort put into the accompanying album art that it's a shame to compress it down to 25 sq. in. compared to 144 sq. in. on the LP cover...plus, sometimes you come across interesting little oddities that never even saw a CD release.

But yeah, it can definitely balloon out to a significant amount of space while you're not looking...

[Jacques]

But yeah, it can definitely balloon out to a significant amount of space while you're not looking...

Surely that's what all those empty Origin and Onyx racks are for - convert them into record cabinets!

[Irinikus]

Here are some pics of what a Jeff Rowland Coherence II Preamplifier looks like on the inside: (This is definitely the most well engineered item I own, and one that I'd definitely recommend.)

Its an absolutely amazing piece of hi-fi equipment!

[Irinikus]

This is the tweeter that I'm seriously considering for my Beolab Penta 3 upgrade: (ScanSpeak Illuminator Ring Radiator)




The faceplate will have to be removed though: (This image shows that it can be done safely)




Here's another midrange driver, which I've just found which also might show promise:




Here are some close-ups

[hamei]

Oh, and I still like to play actual CDs, but I doubt I'll ever get into vinyl. When I started buying music (mid eighties) CDs were new and vinyl was old, so I didn't bother with it anymore. I can't justify buying more duplicates of music I already have. A couple of hundred vinyl records would take up significant space as well.

The trouble with CD's is not the sound quality - you can argue that or not, doesn't matter - but what they did to create the CD. They've all been "remastered." You take music that the Beatles spent hours and hours getting exactly the way they wanted, then hand it over to some mouth-breather with a tin ear to "remaster" like that's some wonderful thing, and you get a big disappointment when you buy the CD.

"Remastered" is actually a synonym for "butchered"  :(   At first I thought it was my ears failing but no, it's real. Compared a record to the so-called CD a few times and the CD is entirely different.

Jerks.

[jan-jaap]

"Remastered" is actually a synonym for "butchered"  :(   At first I thought it was my ears failing but no, it's real. Compared a record to the so-called CD a few times and the CD is entirely different.

<<Sigh>>

So true. Actually, "remastered" is often a synonym for "louder". CDs of today (and remastered issues of older recordings) can be up to 10dB louder than recordings of the 80s. With a fixed upper limit to the audio signal, raising the volume of soft passages means limiting the dynamic range of the recording, and harsh distortion where it tries to cross 0dB anyway.

Countermeasures exist: (1) avoid remasters, (2) apply replaygain to your ripped tracks to quiet down loud tracks / albums (this doesn't undo the damage of course).

There's a plugin for the  Foobar2k music player which can calculate the dynamic range of tracks. And a database of the results
Here is the data for just a random album, avg / min / max dynamic range:

[Irinikus]

For those who insist on using CD's try to get your hands on Japanese pressings, as they're usually superior!

I do however agree that Vinyl, is the better solution, looking at it from an artistic point of view. (Extremely expensive if you want to go high end though!)

The reason for this, is that turntables basically have to be mechanically perfect, and properly decoupled!

These machines are hobbies within themselves:

[Jacques]

Having spent my first twenty years in South Africa, I learnt the local pressing company in SA at the time (CDT) happily butchered imports and masters for the sake of passing off cheap shit to make as much money as they could. I only picked this up after listening to a CDT pressing of Smashing Pumpkins' 'Gish' album, compared to my friends USA import, the difference was unbelievable. The CDT version was clipped and sounded harsh, while the import sounded smooth and round. Whenever I could I'd buy imports and happily paid to have my local Look & Listen and Musica import them for me.

[Irinikus]

Having spent my first twenty years in South Africa, I learnt the local pressing company in SA at the time (CDT) happily butchered imports and masters for the sake of passing off cheap shit to make as much money as they could. I only picked this up after listening to a CDT pressing of Smashing Pumpkins' 'Gish' album, compared to my friends USA import, the difference was unbelievable. The CDT version was clipped and sounded harsh, while the import sounded smooth and round.  Whenever I could I'd buy imports and happily paid to have my local Look & Listen and Musica import them for me.

That's exactly why I only use imports. High end hifi's ruthless when it comes to poor recordings!

[hamei]

High end hifi's ruthless when it comes to poor recordings!

I discovered the same thing with monitors .... I thought my photos were okay until I got a 200 dpi monitor. Eeeuw.

At least no one else knew how bad they were, so I was safe

Medium format film will separate the men from the boys, too.

Sometimes I wish I had an artistic bone somewhere in my body ....