Completely Pointless

[callmeslick]

..but, funny as hell. Check out the item's price and read the customer comments:

http://www.needledoctor.com/Clearaudio- ... ategory=45

[Spidey]

People who still listen to vinyl are mostly nuts anyway…so it seems to make some sense.

[callmeslick]

watch it, buster.....I don't own a 170K turntable, but I do have a pretty good one, and about 1200 LPs to use with it. And, I'm as sane as they come.

[Spidey]

Hey, everyone has the right to enjoy a little hum, pop, warble, crackle and harmonic distortion…who am I to judge…

So what if vinyl degrades the minute you play it…that’s only a myth…

[Foil]

[Moved to the Café.]

Seems like I saw something similar at Amazon a while back...

[vision]

Hilarious comment section.

So what if vinyl degrades the minute you play it…that’s only a myth…

Oh man, some vinyl is really durable though. I used to work at a record store and a copy of an old favorite of mine came in. I thought "oh, I should get a new copy" but then I thought it would be interesting to compare the sound quality. I brought my old copy to work and played it alongside the new one... no perceptible difference. My years old copy held up nicely to dozens and dozens of plays. As long as you set up your turntables properly, high quality, well cared for vinyl will last a long time.

Yeah, the "hum, pop, warble, crackle and harmonic distortion" are truly subjective. I dig it. But I also don't like anything high-def and even preferred a CRT monitor for my computer until it became too impractical, haha.

[flip]

watch it, buster.....I don't own a 170K turntable, but I do have a pretty good one, and about 1200 LPs to use with it. And, I'm as sane as they come.

I bet Slick could fit in anywhere he went.

[callmeslick]

thanks, Flip(I think)......anyhow, if you know how to care for LPs, clean old ones(dirt is the source of most 'pops' and 'clicks'), and have a good table and VERY good cartridge, vinyl can trash CDs and a lot of digital formats. What you get is better transient dynamics, less compression of sound and a deeper soundstage. Now, FLAC and SACD will outdo most all vinyl versions, in my experience, but you need the right system to maximize(or, even utilize) those two. Essentially, it comes down, for me, to music. A lot of my LPs are either sentimental to me(I've owned some of them for 30 years, or more) or contain recordings I would never be able to find in a playable format. I have about the same number of CDs and SACDs around, too, so I'm not some vinyl snob weenie, either. It's all about the music.......

[flip]

. No vinyl for me but i love just about all kinds of music. Mostly the older stuff but every now and then a real musician breaks through these days.

[callmeslick]

. No vinyl for me but i love just about all kinds of music. Mostly the older stuff but every now and then a real musician breaks through these days.

true, in both whole new types of music and old formats. Example of latter: Esperanza Spalding is the best female jazz artist of the last two or three decades. I won't kid anyone about vinyl. You have to sink well over a grand into it for it to be a serious sonic player, but for those with the change, the sound is unique and well worth it.

Back to original topic--I hope you all read some of those responses. I thought they were priceless. My favorite was "won't play underwater but otherwise all right."

[Alter-Fox]

I think the thing with vinyl isn't so much that the vinyl is causing better dynamics and such than a wav CD, but at that point in time, when musicians had really just started recording, they didn't have the tools that cause all these "problems" in the name of the greater gain.

Yes I just made a terrible pun.

[Tunnelcat]

Hmmm, it's using a miniature version of the tuned mass damper in the Taipei 101:



Here's it is in action during an earthquake.

[flip]

Yikes, I wouldn't want to be around if that thing ever failed. Might bring the whole building down with it.

[callmeslick]

I think the thing with vinyl isn't so much that the vinyl is causing better dynamics and such than a wav CD, but at that point in time, when musicians had really just started recording, they didn't have the tools that cause all these "problems" in the name of the greater gain.

Yes I just made a terrible pun.

I think you have a very good point. Music software used today kills much of the subtlety of music. Back in the day, musicians went and played, and the result was mixed, but not homogenized.

[woodchip]

Well you can have the best turntable around, without good speakers you are dead in the water.

[Alter-Fox]

I think you have a very good point. Music software used today kills much of the subtlety of music. Back in the day, musicians went and played, and the result was mixed, but not homogenized.

Not the software itself, it's some of the tools within the software that the musicians use -- they cause these ... issues ... but from the musician's point of view, the end goal -- the reason they use these tools in the first place -- is worth it.

[flip]

I really only like live performances myself. I miss the 70's for that very reason. You have to be good and practiced to sound good live, plus I think being in front of the crowd makes people perform better. Too much manipulation goes into it in the studio.

[Foil]

It depends on the musicians/studio/engineers, but I think you're correct that most mass-audience music is way over-produced. Producing a song well definitely has benefits, but there seems to be a "point of negative returns", where more manipulation of the music ends up taking away something. One of my favorite bands just released an album in which they intentionally cut back on the production, and it ended up sounding much cleaner.

I've also been able to experience this just a bit over the last month or so. On occasion, a friend of mine and I play out for fun (mostly cover tunes with a few originals); but recently we decided to do some recording. We're using lower-end equipment and mixing on PC software, but it's pretty amazing how much difference a little work can make. On the other hand, I tend to get a bit perfectionist about my vocals, and my friend had to stop me at one point, saying something like, "Leave it, it has character that way."

[callmeslick]

Well you can have the best turntable around, without good speakers you are dead in the water.

to some extent true about pre-amp, power amp, phono preamp, disc player, DAC, etc, etc. I won't go down the cable route, as I tend to be amused by folks suggesting I go out and pay $5000 for speaker wires and $500 for power cords.

[Krom]

Heh, expensive cables. I just laugh every time I see a 6 foot HDMI cable marked as premium and sold for $75, I got a 3 pack of 6 foot HDMI cables for $3 one day and they perform just as well.

[callmeslick]

Heh, expensive cables. I just laugh every time I see a 6 foot HDMI cable marked as premium and sold for $75, I got a 3 pack of 6 foot HDMI cables for $3 one day and they perform just as well.

Try $3300 per meter/pair for speaker wire, $7000 for a set of RCA interconnects or $1000 power cords. Yes, those prices are legitimate, just check out certain vendors in Sterophile, Absolute Sound, et al.

[Top Gun]

Heh, expensive cables. I just laugh every time I see a 6 foot HDMI cable marked as premium and sold for $75, I got a 3 pack of 6 foot HDMI cables for $3 one day and they perform just as well.

I try not to wonder how much my dad spent on a 4-foot Monster HDMI cable. Sad thing is that it was way too short to do anything until they got a new TV for their bedroom.

[snoopy]

Heh, expensive cables. I just laugh every time I see a 6 foot HDMI cable marked as premium and sold for $75, I got a 3 pack of 6 foot HDMI cables for $3 one day and they perform just as well.

Try $3300 per meter/pair for speaker wire, $7000 for a set of RCA interconnects or $1000 power cords. Yes, those prices are legitimate, just check out certain vendors in Sterophile, Absolute Sound, et al.

See, I'll buy that good shielding will do wonders... but I'm not sure about them being quite that pricey...

I use high-end RF cables all the time at work.... to the tune of up over 4 figures each.

[Krom]

The main point is to never use "high end" cabling for a digital signal. In digital signalling there is no difference between "perfect" and "good enough" when the signal gets to the other end.

High end cabling is potentially more useful for analog signals because analog is a lot more susceptible to noise, but I'd wager in blind tests most people wouldn't be able to perceive the difference.

Although this is all a big part of the reason why I use an optical SPDIF cable from my PC to my amplifier. The analog outputs on pretty much every PC I have ever used would often pick up noise from the computer itself (the high performance headphones I have probably don't help any here, since they pick up everything). High end cabling won't help either because the noise is coming from inside the PC. For example I could hear buzzing from the CD/DVD drive or a PWM fan controller, or even hdd accesses could cause a whistle in the analog lines. But by using a digital link from the PC to the amp, I completely isolated the analog conversion away from the noisy PC which has worked perfectly, I haven't heard a single buzz or whistle from the PC ever since.

[Capm]

Wow, it weighs over 700 lbs!!

In any industry, there can be extremes. For purist audiophiles, this turntable is the Lamborghini to your toyota corolla, and is priced accordingly.

As for shielded cables, depends on how far you are going. If you're going 6 feet from your receiver to your tv, you won't see a difference between HDMI and component, no matter what kind of cable you're using. If you're going 75 feet, You'll see it. and you'll see it faster if you're using a low-quality cable. For the digital signal, shielding makes a difference on the long runs. You might not make 75 feet on HDMI with a poorly shielded cable. Of course, your source has to be able to drive that signal that distance too. Unfortunately, there is a lack of diagnostic equipment for troubleshooting that kind of thing. (or if there is, I've not yet seen it... edit... I was wrong about that... http://www.testpath.com/pdf/Tektronix/t ... asheet.pdf )

In my experience, HDMI cables are overpriced everywhere. When i see how much we buy them for, and how much walmart even, is selling for, its ridiculous how much people are getting gouged. And analog cables, even the high-priced ones are poor quality when you cut them open.

[Sirius]

Because of, well, what Krom said - I generally don't accept that something is "better" unless properly tested (i.e. double-blind).