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Yes, if you don't rewind it tails out, I hear you never get out of purgatory.
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Turntables - help me understand the appeal?
- Thread starter dkinric
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Way back when, a co-worker/friend has this Micro Seiki.
The picture doesn't really do it justice. And you could have up to three arms mounted on it. One for each foot. He had two arms on his. He had taken it to a local high end store to get a third arm on it. The place closed up shop and all the gear disappeared as it bankrupted. He never got any money or his TT back. I loaned him a cheap Dual TT until he got a suitable replacement. Which was a Linn. He never liked the Linn as much.
Two years later another friend was employed at a different High end outlet. And they used an identical TT in their demo room. It looked like his, and those weren't common. It had the same two arms he had, and a third one. But he had no serial number or way to prove it was his. We always thought it was his. We couldn't get a straight story on how they acquired it or from whom which was fishy of course. My friend who worked there actually got him a really, really good deal from them on a better arm and cartridge for his Linn. Which actually made us even more suspicious they had his TT from some iffy source. The owner of the new store which was evasive was acting guilty.
So why post all this? Stuff that only my friend (who has passed), my other friend who worked at the store (who has also passed) and myself know. Because can you imagine anyone being this involved with a lost CD player, and heck there isn't even any hardware for file based playback for such a thing to happen? Odd, unusual, passionately designed, low volume mechanical gear like these and other TT's get an involvement with the owner which is way beyond their utility. People talking of pure utility don't understand the actual human utility involved. In some ways this is good, we don't become attached to physical gear. In another way, for those who lived when mostly you did, modern stuff doesn't provide a way for things to matter so much personally. Seems something of value is lost. With the hanging on of LP and TT at least a few of the younger people grok that too.
The picture doesn't really do it justice. And you could have up to three arms mounted on it. One for each foot. He had two arms on his. He had taken it to a local high end store to get a third arm on it. The place closed up shop and all the gear disappeared as it bankrupted. He never got any money or his TT back. I loaned him a cheap Dual TT until he got a suitable replacement. Which was a Linn. He never liked the Linn as much.
Two years later another friend was employed at a different High end outlet. And they used an identical TT in their demo room. It looked like his, and those weren't common. It had the same two arms he had, and a third one. But he had no serial number or way to prove it was his. We always thought it was his. We couldn't get a straight story on how they acquired it or from whom which was fishy of course. My friend who worked there actually got him a really, really good deal from them on a better arm and cartridge for his Linn. Which actually made us even more suspicious they had his TT from some iffy source. The owner of the new store which was evasive was acting guilty.
So why post all this? Stuff that only my friend (who has passed), my other friend who worked at the store (who has also passed) and myself know. Because can you imagine anyone being this involved with a lost CD player, and heck there isn't even any hardware for file based playback for such a thing to happen? Odd, unusual, passionately designed, low volume mechanical gear like these and other TT's get an involvement with the owner which is way beyond their utility. People talking of pure utility don't understand the actual human utility involved. In some ways this is good, we don't become attached to physical gear. In another way, for those who lived when mostly you did, modern stuff doesn't provide a way for things to matter so much personally. Seems something of value is lost. With the hanging on of LP and TT at least a few of the younger people grok that too.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I remember when we closed a shop many years back. It had repairs that had never been collected or had refused quotes/no contact details etc. and the store owner said to me "take what you want". Much as I wanted some of the gear, I didn't take any. It wasn't mine to take.
A retail customer of mine and a legend in the industry in our state, who sold his building to developers, took me out the back to the service area and said "I know you love old gear and restoring, take what you want, bring your car around back". I took one turntable, a 1972 Pioneer PL50 complete with all the parts still in their foam. There was floor to ceiling gear too.
I've been gifted gear because someone just decided the cost was too much to go ahead with restoration. Even that gear went into my storeroom as it never really felt like it was "mine".
That Micro going "astray" would make my blood boil. Likely there was no other turntable he would ever want, other than his own one back.
There is one definite improvement offered by digital music, which weirdly enough is the flip side of the criticism that ending the length limit imposed by the vinyl format has resulted in all sorts of filler material and stuff that at one time would have been left on the editing room floor for good reason filling up releases and lowering music standards. If you enjoy orchestral music or opera digital music has ended the limitations imposed by physical carriers and the need to break the performance illusion by having to get up and turn a record over and then go onto the next record. CD improved this hugely by making most orchestral music fit within a single disc and no need to swap discs (although there were always outliers which still needed two discs) but even the CD format didn't really fit opera. Now it doesn't matter what you listen to, you hit play and are able to enjoy the full performance with no interruptions. Even Celibidache's Bruckner 8....... The CD transformed the accessible of a lot of music, such as the Bruckner symphonies which never really fitted into the vinyl format.
Yeah...that's pretty spectacular...
I don't think that's quite right. I don't know anything about CD rot, other than I have one CD that's gone cloudy and will not rip, only discovered when I ripped my collection, it doesn't seem a major problem. CD players will and are vanishing from peoples homes, I know quite a few people who don't have CD playback ability in their houses anymore, the mass market is rejecting physical media without really thinking about it. CD sales are collapsing the way vinyl did 30 years ago, how that plays out will be interesting to see, will the record companies pull the plug when sales get too low, or will they be happy with low sales for years? But I've long thought that vinyl will outlast the CD, digital will always dominate but I can see CD production stopping, and never restarting, but vinyl continuing.
I'm am a bit shocked by this.
Both take from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46735093
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
For a little while, Fremer was posting Platterspeed results for some of the turntables he reviewed:
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/exclusive-one-week-technics-new-sl-1000r-direct-drive-turntable
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Pre-echo print through is the 7th rung of hell.
Some will however hunt for old CDs that were not remastered poorly and rip them. Some do the hunting of LPs. But the rest will be satisfied with streaming.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Yeah, I don't collect / listen to classical on LP for that reason, and technical ones (IGD during end of side crescendos, for example).
Analog-wise, I only collect / listen to classical on RTR, and those are all concert recordings, as opposed to commercial releases.
Hugo9000
Addicted to Fun and Learning
My biggest complaint with DVD was that they didn't make the DVD disc system itself fully compatible with the Redbook CD-DA file system. I so desperately wanted to be able to put whole operas onto a single disc and put it in a standard home machine and just hit play. I did burn a few DVD-A compatible discs, but my Denon occasionally would glitch with them, so I gave up.
Then I ripped the majority of my CD collection and spent ages coming up with the perfect tagging system for all classical works (not as simple as people might think haha!), as well as file naming and folder organization, etc., so that sorting and searching would be natural and easy for what I wanted (you have to take into account various systems and the way they sort numerically and alphabetically with files and so on, it wasn't logical numeric order, so leading zeros were required--thanks Microsoft haha!). Then I found random clicks as files got tiny corruptions for no apparent reason, which is something I never had to worry about with just playing the CD. It made it like listening to LP or cassette for me, having to wonder if I'd be taken out of the ecstasy of my music by a stupid and very audible glitch.
So then I gave up ripping and playing from a computer, and I've just been playing the actual CDs again, and I deal with changing discs on the longer works such as operas, oratorios, masses, a few symphonies from gasbags like Bruckner and Mahler haha! Although the CD has unexpectedly increased in 'maximum' length, from 74 minutes to around 84 safely* (I have at least a few from BIS) by decreasing the track pitch below the Redbook standard, but within the allowed % tolerance. This has allowed Karajan's second to last recording to be re-released on a single disc (Bruckner 8 with Vienna). Blu-ray audio, of course, holds hours and hours, but I can't just load up my own 16/44.1 CD opera rips and put them on a single Blu-ray and put it in the player and go, so it does nothing for my existing collection, and at this point I don't really want to buy all my favorites again on another format, even if the record companies weren't so slow these days with releases of classical. There are only about a dozen core performances that I will continue buying on new format releases until I die, and they are all recordings made by Leontyne Price.
*There is at least one commercial CD out there at 86 minutes, I think, but I have no idea if it plays properly on the majority of machines or not. I've never had an issue with my BIS discs at 82+ minutes, nor with my DG 82 min 58 sec disc lol
P.S. The main thing I dislike about 2 or more discs for an opera isn't getting up to switch in itself, it's the horrible cases for the discs! When most companies switched to those slim multi-disc cases, they had to change the center spindle/grippy thing, and some CDs feel like you'll crack them trying to get them out! I'll often put the discs into separate standard "jewel boxes" next to the original case just to avoid that nuisance.
I find it slightly odd that the vinyl revival includes classical music for this reason. I can understand the attraction of something physical, the cover art and the tactile feel of a mechanical format but in the case of classical having to keep changing sides and discs during a performance just sucks. I recently bought the DG re-issued of Bernstein's Beethoven cycle with the VPO, it's a wonderful set and includes a blu-ray. I don't think the high res upsampling does anything but the blu ray includes a surround sound version which is excellent and puts the whole set on a single disc. When I have read online reviews etc there are people insisting that the much more expensive vinyl edition is better and that any serious fans will buy the vinyl. Why-oh-why would you pay about five times more and lose the surround mix and have to keep changing discs for the same master as the CD set? To me that is bonkers.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Is it on the TAS / legacy Harry Pearson's "Records to Die For" or "Desert Island Disks" or whatever they call it?
I honestly have no idea, I don't follow vinyl. DG reissued the set in vinyl along with the CD/blu ray edition, it was a beautifully packaged set. As performances, apart from a slightly odd 5th it's still a superb Beethoven cycle.
Every Proprius LP I have showed that issue. But audiophiles love them.
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watchnerd
Grand Contributor
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Clearly you have yet to grasp that analog distortion is good, euphonic, organic, warm, etc, and digital distortion is harsh, brittle, glaring, and Satanic.
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The 2nd post here describes how "Jazz at the Pawnshop" was recorded.
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/jazz-at-the-pawnshop-whats-the-big-deal.26546/
