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Review and Measurements of Musical Fidelity MX-VYNL

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amirm

amirm

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Try to get a mint vinyl of the original Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits and the first version of the corresponding CD (the remastered versions are compressed).
I got Love Over Gold as it was recommended on some site.
 

LTig

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The manual says this:

View attachment 27392

That is not what it is doing (only filtering subsonics).
The manual is not correct. The IEC specification is a 1st order highpass at 20 Hz (pole at 7950 microseconds), which means -3 dB at 20 Hz as implemented by Musical Fidelity. A subsonic filter OTOH would use a 3rd or 4th order highpass at e.g. 15 Hz.
 

LTig

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I got Love Over Gold as it was recommended on some site.
Yep, this is also an excellent recording. I own both original LP and original CD, and the sound difference here is similar to Brothers in Arms. On Love over Gold though the reason could be a little more loudness in the quiet parts of the LP. I notice this with the drum beats in Private Investigations; on the LP they have more power.
 

LTig

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I am using headphones so I can hear more than someone using speakers. I did note that this was during fade-outs where there was still music but at lower levels. My point wasn't as much that there was groove noise but that it provided a false sense of ambiance.
Listening with headphones to vinyl is actually not a good idea. Somehow headphones let the flaws (noise, ticks) show up easier.
 

LTig

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Recently tried out vinyl again after I got an old (80ies) Sony amp with, according to reviewers back then, really good phono stage. Record player is the classic Technics SL1200 with a good cartridge and new needle.
Dug out a LP with classical music from my collection - a recording which I'd recently listened to on Spotify. LP was clean and appeared virtually unplayed (very well possible, I was a bit of an obsessive collector back in the day).
The experiment lasted half a side (<10 minutes). There was the hiss, there were the crackles, there was the obvious limits on dynamic range. There also wasn't anything there that would have made the defects of the format worthwhile.
I still like the large covers, occassional liner notes, and the optics and haptics of putting a record on the player. Actual playback from LP is no longer acceptable to me.
Listened yesterday to the original LP Colours by Eloy, made in 1980:


I really liked it, wide sound stage, bass guitar has a good drive. TT is an LP12/Lingo(old)/Ekos(old) with a Van den Hul MC-One Special. Bought in the 90s, most of it used. Phono preamp is DIY. Since I don't have the CD I cannot compare.

But I must admit, that very few vinyl records are made good. Often the vinyl material is not virgin, resulting in a noise floor which is higher than the one of the master tape. Even the new vinyl you can get today is more often than not handled improper, being packed in paper without inner plastic sleeve. No wonder that one has to clean them before the first play to get rid of paper dust. One more reason to stay away from the hype.
 

Frank Dernie

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Yep, this is also an excellent recording. I own both original LP and original CD, and the sound difference here is similar to Brothers in Arms. On Love over Gold though the reason could be a little more loudness in the quiet parts of the LP. I notice this with the drum beats in Private Investigations; on the LP they have more power.
That would be what I would expect.
Before the loudness wars mixing pop music for listening on car stereos and earphones in noisy environments CDs were made with the original recorded dynamic range and LPs were slightly compressed to move the quiet bits a bit further from the higher noise floor.
LPs don't quite have enough dynamic range for all music whereas CD has more than enough for any music I have ever heard of.
 

anmpr1

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Listening with headphones to vinyl is actually not a good idea. Somehow headphones let the flaws (noise, ticks) show up easier.
What are you talking about? Not a good idea? How old are you? I grew up with records. And massive over the ear headache inducing Koss headphones, too. You are obviously spoiled by pristine sound. I'll bet you didn't walk to school in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways, to and fro, either. Good grief...the younger generation!

Joking aside, records today are generally much better quality (physical product) than what you used to get. Better and heavier vinyl, and more care taken in mastering and pressing.

But seriously, the only reasons to go with records are: a) like me you have too many of them from years of collecting, and want to live in nostalgia; b) you like the haptic experience and ritual of adjusting for different tracking correction schemes, spending a fortune for different carts, trimming capacitance, cleaning silicone gunk from your hands after you've loaded the damping trough, comparing record clamps and mats, and imagining there's a big difference; c) you just like to watch things go round and round.

Sure, digits are the way to go. I never thought my main front end component would be a PC. When I bought my first record there was no PC. The transition had been made from vacuum tubes to SS mainframes, though. Imagine sorting your music collection using punch cards. Funny how you never read that calculations were solved more realistically using a UNIVAC (the damned thing had 5000 tubes--just imagine the mid-range liquidity) instead of a TRADIC ("these numbers are so hard, and lack any air between the results").
 
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Listened yesterday to the original LP Colours by Eloy, made in 1980:


I really liked it, wide sound stage, bass guitar has a good drive. TT is an LP12/Lingo(old)/Ekos(old) with a Van den Hul MC-One Special. Bought in the 90s, most of it used. Phono preamp is DIY. Since I don't have the CD I cannot compare.

But I must admit, that very few vinyl records are made good. Often the vinyl material is not virgin, resulting in a noise floor which is higher than the one of the master tape. Even the new vinyl you can get today is more often than not handled improper, being packed in paper without inner plastic sleeve. No wonder that one has to clean them before the first play to get rid of paper dust. One more reason to stay away from the hype.

I'm sure that you can get a good listening experience from vinyl when the stars align - and the ritual of playing vinyl is nice. It's just that the starts don't align easily, and using digital I don't need any astrology at all for a great listening experience.
 

Daverz

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What are you talking about? Not a good idea? How old are you? I grew up with records. And massive over the ear headache inducing Koss headphones, too. You are obviously spoiled by pristine sound. I'll bet you didn't walk to school in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways, to and fro, either. Good grief...the younger generation!

Same here. Grew up listening to budget-label records on a cheap Japanese table with a cheap Japanese receiver and those on-ear Sennheiser's with the yellow foam pads (can't remember model number) or Koss PortaPros. That's where I learned all my Bartok, Beethoven and Brahms.
 

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Amir, do you know what the gain for the MC setting on this phono preamp was? The standard 60 dB? Or a bit less or more?
If you also know the gain is for MM that would be perfect, but I'm mostly curious about the gain for the MC setting :).
 

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But seriously, the only reasons to go with records are: a) like me you have too many of them from years of collecting, and want to live in nostalgia; b) you like the haptic experience and ritual of adjusting for different tracking correction schemes, spending a fortune for different carts, trimming capacitance, cleaning silicone gunk from your hands after you've loaded the damping trough, comparing record clamps and mats, and imagining there's a big difference; c) you just like to watch things go round and round.
Being into vinyl is a hobby, no, a lifestyle. Listening to music digitally is just listening to music. Vinyl lovers won't give up their lifestyle of choice for anything in the world.
Someone once said "There's no such thing as a part-time record collector". As a former record collector myself I can attest to that - it was life-consuming.
 
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amirm

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Amir, do you know what the gain for the MC setting on this phono preamp was? The standard 60 dB? Or a bit less or more?
If you also know the gain is for MM that would be perfect, but I'm mostly curious about the gain for the MC setting :).
The MM gain is in the dashboard: 42 dB. Sorry I don't recall the MC gain but I think their specs are accurate enough to rely on for this.
 

Jaimo

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Same here. Grew up listening to budget-label records on a cheap Japanese table with a cheap Japanese receiver and those on-ear Sennheiser's with the yellow foam pads (can't remember model number) or Koss PortaPros. That's where I learned all my Bartok, Beethoven and Brahms.

HD414 of my memory serves me well
 

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I still use my HD420s. Open, very light, and more comfortable than my DT880 sweatboxes.
 

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The MM gain is in the dashboard: 42 dB. Sorry I don't recall the MC gain but I think their specs are accurate enough to rely on for this.
Thanks! But the company's specs actually don't state the MC gain. But when you mentioned the 42 dB I included that number in my search and then, finally after a lot of searching, found a report (http://www.analogueseduction.net/us...ril June 2018-9 Musical Fidelity MX-VYNL.pdf) where the MC gain was mentioned, and it turned out to be 56.7 dB. So the +6 dB gain switch would only bring it up to 62.7 dB.
I asked about this issue, as I've been looking for an MC preamp with more gain, and just shy of 63 dB wouldn't give me much. But Arcam's Rphono offers 70 dB of gain (as well as 60, 80 and 82), and I'm trying that out in this coming week.
 

Dj7675

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Thanks! But the company's specs actually don't state the MC gain. But when you mentioned the 42 dB I included that number in my search and then, finally after a lot of searching, found a report (http://www.analogueseduction.net/user/brands/37 Pages from CR50 HIFICRITIC vol 12 no2 April June 2018-9 Musical Fidelity MX-VYNL.pdf) where the MC gain was mentioned, and it turned out to be 56.7 dB. So the +6 dB gain switch would only bring it up to 62.7 dB.
I asked about this issue, as I've been looking for an MC preamp with more gain, and just shy of 63 dB wouldn't give me much. But Arcam's Rphono offers 70 dB of gain (as well as 60, 80 and 82), and I'm trying that out in this coming week.
Appreciate your post. I have a Hana EL which appears to need around 60-62 db of gain. I'm now trying to either purchase or build my own 5pin din to mini xlr. Listening to it now and and it subjectively sounds very good with no hum, so not sure it is worth the effort to get balanced input working or not. Thanks again.
 

Dj7675

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@amirm Any idea if changing to a balanced input from single ended would change the test results at all?
 
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