audiophiles or retrophiles


As I read the posts on Audiogon with their gushing about the warmth of tubes, vinyl, horns, older technology, it seems there is a reversion. New bad, old good. Solid state bad, tubes good. Digital bad, analog good.

I expect a return of the wind-up gramaphone with catus stylus. No electricity to sully the sound and a natural material used to read the grooves. Must be good!

How many audiophiles are actually retrophiles?

But then again, many refer to their audio systems as a hobby, rather than as a means to the end of listening to music. As such, the care of analog tape with its fragility (head alignment, avoiding print through), matching of output tubes, cleaning vinyl and worrying about tracking forces, and so forth are activities that a hobbiest might enjoy. So much more opportunity to demonstrate expertise than merely turing on solid state electronics and putting a CD in a drawer. So much more lore. So much more mystic.

db
donbellphd

Showing 2 responses by donbellphd

For those of you who wondered whether my exposure to audio was entirely through reading, my first experience with serious audio systems began in the early 1950s. I've built amps, preamps, and speaker cabinets. I've owned tubes, vinyl, and corner horns, and still own a collection of Westminister Lab series and two of the early Capital FDS LPs. My early research was in binaural processing. And I periodically listen to current high-end tubes and vinyl.

Although posed as a question about how many audiopiles are actually retrophiles, I was trying to make a point. Too often the advice given to a real question is you need vinyl or tubes to get good sound, and the advice is spewed forth smugly as though it should be self evident. Having matched my share of pairs of 6L6s and KT88s, and having adjusted my share of tone arms to track properly, I'm skeptical about the superiority of tubes and vinyl.

db
Stanhifi's response is a prime example of what I was trying to address. This does not help anyone. If he would care to offer a reasoned explanation of why digital and solid state are so obviously inferior that any of us with exposure should appreciate that inferiority, that would be helpful.

Stanhifi, there are so many transduction processes in recording, beginning with when the acoustic energy hits the diaphram of a mic and is converted into electrical energy through to when electrical energy is converted to acoustic energy by a speaker, it surprises me that you would choose to dwell on whether the electrial energy is passed through solid state or vacuum, whether a waveform recorded digitally is maintained as a digital representation or pressed into vinyl and read from vinyl (two more transductions). One would surely think the transduction processes would be the weak links.

db