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Is the Pro-ject Debut III just not going to cut it?
- Thread starter pedrohead
- Start date
melofelo
Addicted Member
even untouched 1st 2nd or 3rd generation mastertapes do degrade...that's one of the limitations of using tape as an archival medium...and why cd came into existence in the first place..
vinyl on the other hand if relatively well stored..will pretty much outlast the mastertape in terms of the fidelity of the signal that has been inscribed on it..
..you'd be surprised to know how many digital 'reissues' are actually taken from a mint first pressing on vinyl..simply because the mastertape was in too poor a condition to be of any practical use anymore...
but they wont tell you that on the cd label..:scratch2:
vinyl on the other hand if relatively well stored..will pretty much outlast the mastertape in terms of the fidelity of the signal that has been inscribed on it..
..you'd be surprised to know how many digital 'reissues' are actually taken from a mint first pressing on vinyl..simply because the mastertape was in too poor a condition to be of any practical use anymore...
but they wont tell you that on the cd label..:scratch2:
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boreas
"If it sounds good, it IS good." E.K.E.
I think that's largely due to the tapes themselves having disappeared or deteriorated to the point of being unplayable. I see old Sony or TEAC R2Rs from time to time in the thrift shops and I'm tempted every time.
John
boreas
"If it sounds good, it IS good." E.K.E.
drknstrmyknight
Addicted Member
The Debut III is about what the Music Hall 2 is minus Roy Hall's markup. Make in the same factory and a pretty decent table for the money.
Synergy is what it's all about, from the vinyl to the speakers and everything in between, no different from digital, you need to balance each of your components.
You'd be surprised what lossless files on an Ipod can sound like and how crummy a good pressing can be.
Synergy is what it's all about, from the vinyl to the speakers and everything in between, no different from digital, you need to balance each of your components.
You'd be surprised what lossless files on an Ipod can sound like and how crummy a good pressing can be.
At least get yourself a TCC 750 preamp, or even better: one of those discrete Regas at 100pF. Then upgrade the OM tip to the nude or microline. You won't be complaining about a lack of special highs anymore. The idea of dumping the Project for a Technics 1200 and Denon HOMC is not a bad one, but at least get something better than the Phono Box. Overpriced and boring sounding. And by the way, one of the great joys of vinyl is buying older records that were originally recorded on analog. Buying new stuff recorded in digital that's available on CD in vinyl doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you already have good DAC ability.
Interesting. No need for DSD, it sounds like. I heard someone complain that the Thriller reissue was taken from the master tapes and sounded vastly inferior after all these years to the first edition CD. I wondered why they didn't just use an unplayed, heavy-weight vinyl. You would think a few would be in storage, or something.
Just because the original band had the guy's name, doesn't mean he was ever the one who really cared about sound. Check out the stuff the rest of them have been involved in, and you'll find that sound. My brothers got a bunch of digital recordings from the ex-band mates different projects, some of them unissued stuff, and the vast majority of it supposedly is mindbogglingly great. He can take the fame; they took the sound.
I own a Debut III and upgraded the stylus to the OM10 (I couldn't afford £90 for the OM20 stylus at the time) - to these ears, the highs aren't really a problem: it's the mids. To me, they sound rather brittle and untamed so I personally have never been tempted to upgrade the OM any further. I popped my old Audio Technica AT110E in there and the sound was significantly improved - the highs were a lot sweeter, the bass more rounded and nicely-controlled mids. I've got a Shure M97xE on its way as I write so I'm hoping it will open up the system a lot more - if it has the tone of the AT110 and better tracking than the OM10, I'll be happy.
I think Santana peaked around his third album - I've heard later albums, but they don't seem to have that same fire. Sonically speaking, the MoFi remasters of his first and second albums have me drooling like Homer Simpson :-D
mrt2
Super Member
True. I am pretty sure Wes Montgomery's "Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery", Mingus' "Live at Antibes", and Chico Hamilton's "Ellington Suites" are all basically needle drops.
The only one that disclosed this is the Hamilton set, which was OOP because the master tapes had been lost for years until a Canadian record collector found a test pressing in a mismatched jacket in a record store in Brighton, put it on his TT and realized what he had and contacted Michael Cuscuna over at Blue Note.
mrt2
Super Member
The vinyl pressings of Thriller were definitely not heavy weight audiophile approved. They pressed 10s of millions of copies and they were very thin, lightweight.
And I think that's probably the bottom line for me. As I (and previous posters have noted), I'm having a hard time stomaching the cost that would go into upgrading into a 'worthy' setup for the maybe 10-20 records that I have that were actually good old analog recordings (especially once the Beatles CD remasters come out this September if they're any good :scratch2
. I think it's a totally viable and wonderful medium for those primarily interested in the aforementioned jazz, classical, or rock before the digital recording medium really started to be dominant. But for a guy who is primarily interested in newer, indie rock, it's tough to find enough new vinyl that was recorded in analog (Spoon and Wilco may be the last mainstay since even Radiohead has moved digital past OK Computer. Even the Sigur Ros stuff that was recorded in their Icelandic swimming pool was still to SawSound, a DAW) to make it worth sinking in for a new cartridge/RCM/etc. to satisfy my handful of old Neil Young and Dylan records that aren't up to snuff right now because of their cleanliness or "poorly needled" condition. It sounds like maybe the only thing left I could do is spring for a better needle (the OM20 sounds like a winner since I won't, and can't, change any of the setup parameters here with it) and see if it changes my mind drastically in some way. Otherwise my money may be best spent on cutting bait for what I've already invested in and put that into an upgraded digital path.
Yeah... not so much in the Detroit area. There's only a small handful of servicable record stores in the area anymore, and they're priced accordingly.
Good points. From an academic standpoint to get nerdy for a bit (I also have a Masters in Electrical/Acoustic Engineering, skipping the PhD for now) I studied analog vs. digital and DSP and a lot of the things you're saying. And from a literal sense, you're right. According to Nyquist, the CD should be able to reproduce up to 20kHz, which is beyond what most people can hear. But what that fails to account for is that digital doesn't do a "great" job of reproducing that high. If you understand digital sampling and how it's impacted by the wavelength sampled, all the Nyquist theorem is stating is that you shouldn't expect too much aliasing or mis-sampled info up to 22.05kHz with a 44.1kHz sampling rate. It still doesn't necessarily do a good job of fully sampling the waveform, or more importantly, capturing harmonics of the waveform which fit together with the fundamental to our ears (which are "analog" in the end
) to form what the human brain expects to hear. I also did some study into the differences between audible distortion on analog vs. digital, and it also has to do with producing 2nd vs. 3rd harmonics when distortion occours. The analog 3rd harmonic distortions are sensed as pleasing to the ears, where the digital 2nd harmonic distortions are sensed as cold and brittle. Almost like playing intervals on a scale where some will form chords, while others clash. So when you experience those distortions in the digital vs. analog realm, you get a very different sensation.
But ultimately, aside from an academic standpoint that 44.1kHz/16bit audio should be sufficient, it's no debated point that moving up to even DVD audio (96k/24 bit) in recording or playback is well preffered. So the better sampling of the higher frequencies in our audible range, and the shorter steps the higher bit rate afford you, are in fact very, very noticable (whether Nyquist says it should matter or not).
Detroit..I see cool stuff pop up on their Craigslist from time to time. The only music I ever encountered there was electronic/house, which isn't my thing.
If you get a new CD player...you just might end up wanting a better amplifier as well, so keep that Project around, you never know. I had my Linn 5 years before I realized its potential.
minimax
Physicist
That's a really interesting point. I'll try to go further on that one. For my starting point must I understand that digital tends to add mostly 2nd harmonic distortions and analog, 3rd harmonic distortions. I'm curious to know why, but it should be easily explained.