Input source chasing my tail...

[isofast]

Hi kinda new to this site hope this is general enough for this part of the forum.
I have yet to find a turntable and or an SA CD player sound as good as my Macbook and
Spotify. Does any out there experience the same thing? I do not want to spend a fortune on different combo's of tables and needles and players as I have already spent a bunch and gone down this road.
My reel to Reel sounds good but is a pain to record new music all the time. Does any one out there experience the same thing? I mean I thought my turntable would sound the best but it really does not to my ear. I think Spotify must sample a better rate than Apple lossless because it just sounds better than ITunes To my ear anyways... any one want to weigh in here? I have exercised all the usual good practices turntable shelf...move speakers far away from turntable etc etc.
Just Curious.

 

[15RTPlus]

I don't have a specific answer but suspect that the people who could help would want to know what specific components/models of equipment you've tried that aren't meeting your expectations.

 

[JoeESP9]

My TT and SACD player sound better than anything I've ever streamed from the internet. Perhaps if I subscribed and was to pay the monthly fee I'd get a higher quality stream. IME even when you pay, the stream is less than CD quality. It's usually just a higher quality MP3. I can't speak for you, but I can usually hear the difference between CD quality and MP3 quality.

FWIW: I do a lot of listening via my music server. It has my entire CD collection as FLAC files.

 

[hifitommy]

hey iso, i would be interested in your equipment list. to me, sacd is usually excellent but LP outshines them all for the most part. i have heard hi-rez downloads by such people as peter mc grath and HD Tracks and the Super Hi Res (Acoustic Sounds) which have been wonderful on high end systems like magico speakers and constellation electronics.

at my home and that of a friend who has a pro-ject extension 10 tt and volent monitor speakers with prima luna tubed integrated amp, vinyl almost ALWAYS sound better than sacd, and especially CD.

please list your equipment. mine is: http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/588.html

 

[isofast]

I will experiment some more of course, with turntables and carts, mostly because my record collection is large and in good shape.
Good tables and carts in use but I will experiment more soon.

 

[charles 1973]

"I have yet to find a turntable and or an SA CD player sound as good as my Macbook and Spotify."

I'm not that surprised if you are listening at their highest res of perhaps 320 vbr.
At his point, a well recorded song can sound very good through streaming. So good in fact that unless your turntable set up is near perfect and the phono pre-amps capacitance is correct for the cartridge, In some respects the Spotify stream might actually be more accurate.

As far as CD's go, They too have their flaws, Not the least of which is the quality of the recording. It may be Spotify uses a different, Better recording.

But still, All things considered, Even a reasonably well set up turntable, at least from my experience with a 40 year old low end pioneer TT with a new Nagoaka cartridge should also sound very good with a good LP. Even a bit better overall than most (not all) CD players or hi-res streaming with careful listening to a specific instrument.

I'm new to streaming myself and was a bit disappointed with the free offering from google music through Bluetooth. When I used the cable instead of Bluetooth things improved significantly. If the subscription service is a noticeable improvement over the free service, Google Music will soon be my primary source of music. I also listen to FM as well. The FM radio (not stream) in my Motorola smartphone sounds good too, and uses no data.

No more turntables, LP's, CD's (except to record them to my smartphone). For just $10 a month I get an inexhaustible supply of hi quality music form any band or from any year that I can play commercial free anywhere I see fit. Even without wi-fi.

 

[Alobar]

There can be all sorts of variables associated with a turntable, and you have not given any info on exactly what your system is. It shouldn't be that hard to beat Spotify with a decent sound system (amp and speakers), but it may not be readily apparent with with one that is lacking. You can have the greatest TT in the world, or the best CD player but if your amp and speakers are junk, your listening space is not good, even your hearing is not good, it all can make Spotify seem at least as good. I can tell you though, lossy format will not beat lossless, and if your vinyl is any good it wont beat that either.

 

[Quadrunner]

Hi kinda new to this site hope this is general enough for this part of the forum.
I have yet to find a turntable and or an SA CD player sound as good as my Macbook and
Spotify. Does any out there experience the same thing? I do not want to spend a fortune on different combo's of tables and needles and players as I have already spent a bunch and gone down this road.
My reel to Reel sounds good but is a pain to record new music all the time. Does any one out there experience the same thing? I mean I thought my turntable would sound the best but it really does not to my ear. I think Spotify must sample a better rate than Apple lossless because it just sounds better than ITunes To my ear anyways... any one want to weigh in here? I have exercised all the usual good practices turntable shelf...move speakers far away from turntable etc etc.
Just Curious.

Apple has always had something different that I can't appreciate in a lot of their sources. I don't really look into the reason for these things as I don't want to bias my ears and well, I don't need to. I can't really hear it so much as feel that something is off, and not in a good way for me. As for having issues with your CD player, you're going to have to give people a hand here and reveal its identity. Some people with better systems probably hate it, but I personally think Spotify does a great job at its highest settings, and often gives you the best version of the various recordings out there, but although its pretty good, it doesn't have a chance (both objectively and subjectively) against my beat up 3 dollar Sony CDP-211 I usually use, and there are many better players out there I'm sure. I wouldn't be surprised if you found them to be the same quality, but a CD player should not be losing to Spotify in my experience....Something is fishy.

Do some basic trouble shooting first to and then the more experienced people around here can help you fine tune things. There is no reason to talk about upgrading yet.

Are you using different cords, or maybe different inputs?
Can you play your CD from your computer and verify that the computer still plays better then your CD player?
Do you use quality vinyl?

Redundant but important - What equipment are you running?? How is it hooked up?

 

[4-2-7]

I do not want to spend a fortune on different combo's of tables and needles and players as I have already spent a bunch and gone down this road.

This could very well be the issue when wanting records to sound as good as digital.

I will experiment some more of course, with turntables and carts, mostly because my record collection is large and in good shape.
Good tables and carts in use but I will experiment more soon.

Good is not or mean great, and may take more than you want to spend to get where you want to be. There are important aspects to getting vinyl playback to sound better than digital. One of them is money and really learning as well. I know what I'v done and found, I know what works in my system. I also know that my vinyl front end sounds far better than my digital side, and I have spent a lot of time and money on both so it's not like I'm trying to out class one over the other.

 

[twiiii]

All sources have their short comings. Be it different for mats of tape, digital, broadcast, or vinyl. You haven't lived till you have heard a carefully produced professional encoded DBX lp recording. Imagine close to 100 db of dynamic analog purity!. Of course the microphones, mixers, etc and recording producers and engineers have to stand up to the challenge. You can have the best master tape in the world but if the pressing lab is not up to par then all the potential and effort have been compromised. I had some Telarc cassettes that were pretty amazing though they didn't compete with the CD's. Some of Telarcs Lps were fantastic, too. I have about a dozen as I recall. When doing sound jobs for name groups, I would always make a boot leg copy. Sometimes with my F4460 Ampex; mine was a 2 trk with 2 and 1/4 trk play back. And for almost all occasions was a close competitor to my 300 and AG 350. and AG 500. That is until high output tape came along. Adding DBX noise reduction made the little machine a true winner. The only issue was keeping on top of preventative maintenance to keep the W&F under control. Even with all the bells and whistles 700, Dragon and 1000 series Nakamichis couldn't keep up with the old little Ampex. Having lived with LP's for close to 55 years and other formats, I will have to say R2R 1/4 trk commercially produced tapes were the most disappointing. I passed on 4 trk and 8 trk cartridges, elcaset, beta hi fi, quad SQ and QS o can't say where they place on the worst format list. CD's can be fantastic to down right unlistenable, but thats nothing new, LP and 45's hold the record on that account. When I am auditing a new digital source I take a familiar selection I have on CD or SACD and compare the two. I have yet to find a source that can consistantly equal CD's I have at home. I know a lot of you really enjoy the convenience but I am picky about my choice of music, most services don't scratch my itch.