Blind test to try for yourself immediately: $ 78 turntable against $ 500,000 turntable

[totti1965]

The A is the AR ? Finally I prefer A (less crackles).

I preferred A also.
Spoiler alert:
This video was my first contact to this comparison. It tells us, which Turntable got the 35 votes and which got only 25 votes…
Have fun!

 

[rank]

This test is reasonably scientific, well enough. The technical characteristics of vinyl are still lamentable, especially the noise added to the signal that is tortured to be able to be recorded.
So the signal-to-noise ratio, theoretical dynamics and bandwidth compared to digital are low. But the distortion is there.

 

[goat76]

I'm surprised that so many of you prefer A over B. The overall sound of "A" is less clear and a bit on the "murky" side, and the separation between the instruments in the mix is way worse than that of "B".

Even if we can't be sure if it's the different masters of the song we judge or if it truly is the different sounds of the turntables, it's still interesting to dig a little deeper into the analysis of the sound differences, so the following is the way I hear it...

• The sound clip starts with a kick drum, a snare drum, a hi-hat, and a tom. The tom and the kick drum don't sound as punchy in "A" as in "B" and it's also more clearly hear the difference in velocity between the hits of the drums. All the drums sound way more defined, and the reverb tails ring out more naturally in "B" while it sounds more dampened/muffled in "A".
• The guitar almost sounds as if it's out of tune in "A", it sounds wobbly compared to a more stable tone in "B".
• The vocal in "A" suffers in the same way as the drums, it sounds less refined, "bloomy", and a bit on the thick side.
• At the end of the sound sample, all the above problems in "A" are heard even more when the intensity goes up in the song, and here it's easy to hear that "B" has way better and more clearly heard separation between the sound objects in the mix (or maybe just better separation between left and right channel in the playback system).

These are the differences I hear and why I prefer the sound of sample "B" by a large margin. I'm surprised some of you don't hear the abovementioned faults in sample "A". I think you should listen again, and use a DAW or something where you can A/B the different sections of the sound files easily.

 

[rank]

A call for humor ?

 

[Salt]

I'm surprised that so many of you prefer A over B. The overall sound of "A" is less clear and a bit on the "murky" side, and the separation between the instruments in the mix is way worse than that of "B".

Even if we can't be sure if it's the different masters of the song we judge or if it truly is the different sounds of the turntables, it's still interesting to dig a little deeper into the analysis of the sound differences, so the following is the way I hear it...

• The sound clip starts with a kick drum, a snare drum, a hi-hat, and a tom. The tom and the kick drum don't sound as punchy in "A" as in "B" and it's also more clearly hear the difference in velocity between the hits of the drums. All the drums sound way more defined, and the reverb tails ring out more naturally in "B" while it sounds more dampened/muffled in "A".
• The guitar almost sounds as if it's out of tune in "A", it sounds wobbly compared to a more stable tone in "B".
• The vocal in "A" suffers in the same way as the drums, it sounds less refined, "bloomy", and a bit on the thick side.
• At the end of the sound sample, all the above problems in "A" are heard even more when the intensity goes up in the song, and here it's easy to hear that "B" has way better and more clearly heard separation between the sound objects in the mix (or maybe just better separation between left and right channel in the playback system).

These are the differences I hear and why I prefer the sound of sample "B" by a large margin. I'm surprised some of you don't hear the abovementioned faults in sample "A". I think you should listen again, and use a DAW or something where you can A/B the different sections of the sound files easily.

+ 1
But levels are not the same (audacity say A: RMS dB left -24.9 right -22.6 , and B: RMS dB left -23.7 and right 22.7) and thus it's all subjective.

 

[goat76]

+ 1
But levels are not the same (audacity say A: RMS dB left -24.9 right -22.6 , and B: RMS dB left -23.7 and right 22.7) and thus it's all subjective.

Yes, the channel balance is different between A and B but the integrated loudness level is the same for both files at -21.6 LUFS.

 

[Salt]

This is what DeltaWave says (A is Ref B is Comp): we have significant differences in amplitude (SPL), and some minor ones in frequency response.

 

[goat76]

This is what the waveform statistics say in iZotope RX9.

A:

B:

I also tested the files with the Youlean Loudness Meter and it also registered an integrated loudness reading of -21.6 LUFS for both A and B.

 

[Galliardist]

I had a listen. My conclusion was that they were both turntables. A might have been denoised to fool people?

In any case, the Spotify Premium version beats both by miles. And that's both lossy and dynamically compressed. So that would be my takeaway here.

 

[rank]

Which shows, without wanting to split hairs, that vinyl is only very averagely "high fidelity", adding crackles and distortions and reducing the bandwidth. But it is the entire analog recording chain that is at fault, such as tape recorders.

 

[mrmoizy]

I recently got the Fosi Audio DS2 DAC/Headphone amp dongle, and I've been listening on some Zero 2 IEMs. I listened to both tracks, and I preferred B. Interesting to read through all the comments, appears I'm in the minority. The channel separation seemed more distinct on B, and the bass was better I thought. The kickdrum at the start was the biggest difference - on A the kickdrum would come in on the left channel, and have some punch. But on B, it shot out to the left, and it hit harder and deeper. I switched between tracks to confirm, and it was a distinct difference for me at least.

Now, would I trade my home for the turntable that produced B? Uh, no Clearly you can see by my gear I am low budget, trying to hit that high value/high performance sweet spot

 

[rank]

It's different, not better, also the crackles on B prevent me from really concentrating.
Uh, and the sound variations are extremely tiny. So much so that the state of the vinyl could be responsible.
I could live with the B at the limit, already that the song is frankly not fantastic. I prefer my lady D'Arbanville.

 

[JeffS7444]

The B recording is +5dB Bass louder. In the range of 5-8Hz we see System vibration which causes unnecessary loss of amplifier power. Every bezie smartphone sounded better than an LP
View attachment 402279

What kind of crazy phono preamplifier is designed to reproduce all of the subsonic energy? Oh right, really expensive audiophile products, because "purity".

I thought "B" had slightly more high frequency clarity, but I suppose that could be explained by the level mismatch. In any event, I felt that a slight tweak of the equalization would be all that was needed to make one sound exactly like the other.

 

[Thomas_A]

The spectrum of the two files are quite different. This is quite a useless test since they didn't use the same record, cartridge and phono pre.

 

[Wmusic]

With my inexpensive Galaxy Buds Pro, I found, in an really no-scientific way, that B (for me) is quite clear better...

 

[goat76]

It's different, not better, also the crackles on B prevent me from really concentrating.
Uh, and the sound variations are extremely tiny. So much so that the state of the vinyl could be responsible.
I could live with the B at the limit, already that the song is frankly not fantastic. I prefer my lady D'Arbanville.

I would say sample B is better as the details in the recording are better preserved in sample B than in sample A. The points below that I wrote in an earlier post are real differences between the two sound files and they are not "tiny", but which of those differences are coming from the playback system or the different masters is hard to tell as it's not an apple-to-apple comparison of the turntables when the masters are different. At least the "wobbly-sounding" guitar should be a turntable problem, but the rest can as likely be differences between the different masters.

• The sound clip starts with a kick drum, a snare drum, a hi-hat, and a tom. The tom and the kick drum don't sound as punchy in "A" as in "B" and it's also easier to hear the difference in velocity between the hits of the drums. All the drums sound way more defined, and the reverb tails ring out more naturally in "B" while it sounds more dampened/muffled in "A".
• The guitar almost sounds as if it's out of tune in "A", it sounds wobbly compared to a more stable tone in "B".
• The vocal in "A" suffers in the same way as the drums, it sounds less refined, "bloomy", and a bit on the thick side.
• At the end of the sound sample, all the above problems in "A" are heard even more when the intensity goes up in the song, and here it's easy to hear that "B" has way better and more clearly heard separation between the sound objects in the mix (or maybe just better separation between left and right channel in the playback system).

 

[Thomas_A]

I wonder why they seldom use classic music...

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[rank]

I would say sample B is better as the details in the recording are better preserved in sample B than in sample A. The points below that I wrote in an earlier post are real differences between the two sound files and they are not "tiny",

• For me it's tiny, "real differences" OMG ! It's not a call for humor or ?
• With an equalizer from last century, I'll recreate just for you the sound from A to B and vice versa! Have you ever heard and compared master tapes in the studio? I have!
  
  
  

 

[goat76]

@rank
I never said the sound of sample B couldn't be replicated in sample A using EQ; most of it can but fairly large (not tiny) adjustments are needed.

It will be more problematic trying to correct the wobbly out-of-tune-sounding guitar using only EQ, as turntable A is in serious need of hardware adjustments.

I have never compared master "tapes", only digital 64-bit fp masters of the recordings I've done myself (if that floats in your book), but I don't know what that has to do with the discussion at hand.

 

[VientoB]

"A" sounds duller than "B"