Another Opinion on Why Vinyl is Better.

[krabapple]

OK ... still not certain on de-exactly what, why, how, and purpose ... I'll simply add that confusion to the "vinyl has better timing, just listen on youtube" tray.

Just to be clear, perhaps the single most evident characteristic I've seen (and heard) with many vinyl rips for (over a decades worth), irregardless of eq. cost, are timing related issues. The entire concept of "PR&T" was based entirely on the many inherited problems concerning vinyl reproduction, well prior to digital.

I can't agree. PRaT is audiophile twaddle invented by...prats.

The real 'timing related issues' that vinyl exhibits are speed/pitch effects.

 

[Thomas savage]

'Lost'? Says you. Others, who are willing to click a link or two, might disagree.



First, are there no rules about posting pseudoscientific claptrap here in the first place? Why should I or any other member have to police it? That's your job.

Second, if I had to personally walk through the science refuting their bollocks to every booby who posted bollocks, it would be a long day indeed. Hence, I'll usually post links to others who 'bring science'. If they did a good job of it, why should I re-invent the wheel?

Amir, the claims fas and Northy made fail on a fundamental basis before any of their technical claims even needs to be addressed. They fail on basic methodological grounds. As you well know. And as others here have since noted.

We all know frank and northsky Posts have little or no scientific value, no real repeatable or indeed useful information in terms of understanding how things work or how to try and make anything better.

Your the one dignifying this by engaging them, you can just ignore it. Fill your posts with great information rather than pointless personal attacks.

If you post some ' science ' or well established/reasoned content that is then countered by nonsense I will step in and remove said nonsense.

At this point your the one that's most likely to be removed.

 

[krabapple]

We all know frank and northsky Posts have little or no scientific value, no real repeatable or indeed useful information in terms of understanding how things work or how to try and make anything better.

! Harsh.

 

[Thomas savage]

! Harsh.

It's true as I see it so quit bitching about things that don't matter to us, those guys are fun especially frank who has a great sense of humour and a love of music.

Mr. Krapapple you will be needing those two things to flourish around these parts. No one is disagreeing with your reasoning just your delivery.

 

[Purité Audio]

But fair, one can read Frank's 'type'of complete tosh on any forum, I would prefer here to be different.
Keith

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

! Harsh.

Yes. It is all a matter of the tone of the response is what I think Thomas is saying. We can post disagreements and contra-opinions, and as long as that is done with civility, all will be fine.

 

[krabapple]

'Mr. Krapapple'?

You guys are so mean!

 

[TBone]

I can't agree.

How much hands on experience w/vinyl do you have?

 

[Sal1950]

Very simple test: are your speakers completely invisible at all times? If yes, a big tick - that's high fidelity; if not, then audible artifacts are too strongly present ...

Could very well be illusion, delusion, or just plain ole expectation bias. Without submitting your deductions to measurement and then the results supported with DBT's by a group of experienced listeners, you have nothing to offer to those interested in High Fidelity and advancing the SOTA beyond guesses and opinion.

An analogy would be that you compare the engine note of a Ferrari and Lamborghini to decide which is preferable;

I'm the garage mechanic who has a high performance vehicle brought to him, and hears a significant noise in the engine that shouldn't be there, and locates the cause of that abberation.

A very good analogy to your approach. The exhaust note would tell you nothing in a real world examination of two different cars beyond one persons personal preferences.

I AM that mechanic and I might give a quick guess as to the noise by listening, even take the vehicle for a ride to gather further subjective input. But before I would proceed in any direction I would plug in the diagnostic computer and run a full workup, pull out some tools such as a compression and leakdown testing, exhaust gas analyzer, etc. Use all the science I have at hand to deduce the issue before taking any rash and unsupported approach.
Without a scientific approach to diagnostics I could chase my tail for days and never pinpoint the real reason for the issue.

 

[Thomas savage]

'Mr. Krapapple'?

You guys are so mean!

I blame predicted text

Would you prefer badapple?

Personally I love crabapples especially when made into a jelly for my chicken or turkey dinner... However you are giving it a bad name

Umm, krapapple ... Hilarious

 

[TBone]

Personally I love crabapples especially when made into a jelly for my chicken or turkey dinner... However you are giving it a bad name

Well, when I was ~10 I made the mistake of eating a bunch, resulting in much diarrhea, verbal et all ...

 

[Blumlein 88]

But fair, one can read Frank's 'type'of complete tosh on any forum, I would prefer here to be different.
Keith

+1. Hoping this place will be better by the way it is different.

 

[NorthSky]

"To my ears and to my thinking, the phonograph is the only domestic playback source that does not dynamically compress music. I believe this is so because literally every other source component - CD players, DACs, even tape machines - works by modulating electricity originating in that product's power supply. But, in a conventional phonograph, apart from the motor drive, there is no need for a power supply, since the phono cartridge generates its own electrical current."

I've been reading Stereophile since the beginning, with Gordon Holt as the founder.
I am familiar with Art's articles and reviews; his style and humor.

Lol, in blue just above, what do you think his state-of-mind was @ the time he wrote it? ...Lol

 

[Blumlein 88]

"To my ears and to my thinking, the phonograph is the only domestic playback source that does not dynamically compress music. I believe this is so because literally every other source component - CD players, DACs, even tape machines - works by modulating electricity originating in that product's power supply. But, in a conventional phonograph, apart from the motor drive, there is no need for a power supply, since the phono cartridge generates its own electrical current."

I've been reading Stereophile since the beginning, with Gordon Holt as the founder.
I am familiar with Art's articles and reviews; his style and humor.

Lol, in blue just above, what do you think his state-of-mind was @ the time he wrote it? ...Lol

How should one respond to such a misguided statement as that in blue? To his ears and thinking.....well sorry wrong. It does compress music, quite a bit more than is needed by CD. Now the CD may be mastered even more compressed. So at a minimum he is blaming the medium for the mastering. Or worse his premise is simply wrong, so everything that follows is wrong. His state of mind was confused whether he knew that or not.

I don't owe him extra consideration for being wrong. Were I there in dialog I would begin explaining his errors in his thinking. Then maybe discuss how it sounds one way when we know for certain fact it is not how it sounds. The rest would depend on his response. If like many in his field, he says his ears are always right, then he is being more dismissive of the truth than I am of him. I would bid him adieu and leave him to his fantasy.

Now every indication is Gordon Hold would have a good discussion with me about why things sound one way and measure another. The founding principle of his magazine was about that. He wasn't really anti-measurement just noted that listening and measuring sometimes appear not to coincide and he would like to know why.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

what do you think his state-of-mind was @ the time he wrote it?

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Now every indication is Gordon Hold would have a good discussion with me about why things sound one way and measure another. The founding principle of his magazine was about that. He wasn't really anti-measurement just noted that listening and measuring sometimes appear not to coincide and he would like to know why.

As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel. For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing.
Remember those loudspeaker shoot-outs we used to have during our annual writer gatherings in Santa Fe? The frequent occasions when various reviewers would repeatedly choose the same loudspeaker as their favorite (or least-favorite) model? That was all the proof needed that [blind] testing does work, aside from the fact that it's (still) the only honest kind. It also suggested that simple ear training, with DBT confirmation, could have built the kind of listening confidence among talented reviewers that might have made a world of difference in the outcome of high-end audio.

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/#zurL7Xx4olKqCKfh.97

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

"To my ears and to my thinking, the phonograph is the only domestic playback source that does not dynamically compress music. I believe this is so because literally every other source component - CD players, DACs, even tape machines - works by modulating electricity originating in that product's power supply. But, in a conventional phonograph, apart from the motor drive, there is no need for a power supply, since the phono cartridge generates its own electrical current."

I've been reading Stereophile since the beginning, with Gordon Holt as the founder.
I am familiar with Art's articles and reviews; his style and humor.

Lol, in blue just above, what do you think his state-of-mind was @ the time he wrote it? ...Lol

Well, I posted it originally knowing that it would receive some "interesting" commentary here, as it has. Also, I agree that Art is a gifted and engaging writer. I regularly read his column and his reviews for that reason, not because they make any sense. Any possible relevance to me of his "findings", critiques and observations about audio vanished a long time ago. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that he praises that I would ever want in my system.

But, there is no logic whatsoever to support Art's views on this or most anything else. Yes, he is technically correct that phono cartridges, with rare exceptions, generate their own electrical signal. So what? His reasoning from there into power supplies, etc. is pure fantasy, part of a specific, back to the past agenda he has had for decades. I know this because I was once also a subscriber to his failed Listener magazine. Believe Art's opinion if you wish, but it demonstrates nothing other than total ignorance. He is a pure "nostalgiaphile", nothing more, nothing less. If you believe that nostalgia will bring us greater fidelity, go for it and enjoy it. Sorry, but that notion just does not work as far as I am concerned.

Yes, I too, began reading Stereophile magazine ages ago. I think the great Gordon Holt had a lot on the ball, unlike most other reviewers. You must, therefore, remember that he was the first high end writer to embrace digital audio as a breakthrough, imperfect though he acknowledged it was at the time. It is clear to me that a writer like Art, whatever his alleged "gifts", could never have written for Stereophile under J.G.H.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel. For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing.
Remember those loudspeaker shoot-outs we used to have during our annual writer gatherings in Santa Fe? The frequent occasions when various reviewers would repeatedly choose the same loudspeaker as their favorite (or least-favorite) model? That was all the proof needed that [blind] testing does work, aside from the fact that it's (still) the only honest kind. It also suggested that simple ear training, with DBT confirmation, could have built the kind of listening confidence among talented reviewers that might have made a world of difference in the outcome of high-end audio.

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/#zurL7Xx4olKqCKfh.97

There is another quote of JGH's that I have searched for to no avail. It was to the effect of the day that personal preference rules audio is the day that all audio progress ends. How true.

Gordon was special. Many put him on the same pedestal as Harry Pearson. But, it is not even close.

Gordon came, as we see, to rue the whole high end thing and the writers that followed him at Stereophile and elsewhere. But, he was technically sophisticated and intellectually as honest as they come. At Stereophile today, only Kal follows in Gordon's footsteps, regrettably.

 

[TBone]

I know this because I was once also a subscriber to his failed Listener magazine.

That mag added a rare humorous touch to reviewing. I remember ... in Listener he evaluated the first Sony SACD players, mentioned he still preferred his Naim CDP. Post Listener, returning to Stereophile, he then pulled a switch-er-oo claiming the Sony superior ... perhaps figuring nobody read Listener.

 

[Don Hills]

'Mr. Krapapple'?
...

Now there's a Freudian slip...