I was at a friends home to help him move in a new set of speakers. He has a very nice system and thought he would impress me by playing a 180 grain vinyl pressing of Van Morrison's "No Guru". As soon as the stylus hit the surface, there it was, that unmistakable background rumble and snap, crackle, pop. I have the same recording on CD which I'll take any day. The quality of the recording also plays a major role in sound quality.
Pieces of music that digital can't get right
Ok I have a litmus test for digital when ever I have the rare option of upgrading my digital front end. Its tough on digital. Brutally tortuous and unforgiving. Digital proponents have a difficult time accepting these sonic tests.
1. Ok here is the first one. On the opening of America's "Ventura Highway" the opening dueling guitars are ambient and bounce off each channel very pleasantly in the analog domain. In the digital domain the channels are totally separate and too clean and sterile lifeless sounding. They are not talking to each other It was like this with ny Marantz 8005 but the SA-10 gets halfway there.
2. In the opening of "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles the electric guitar sounds alive with ambiance and decay. The Digital is clean and lifeless.
Ok am I right with these observation?. I have a pretty good SACD player in SA-10. Its no slouch. Do the mega expensive super smart and accurate DACs get my two above mentioned passages right? Or are we hearing colored vinyl artifacts. Well if we are I like the record better!
1. Ok here is the first one. On the opening of America's "Ventura Highway" the opening dueling guitars are ambient and bounce off each channel very pleasantly in the analog domain. In the digital domain the channels are totally separate and too clean and sterile lifeless sounding. They are not talking to each other It was like this with ny Marantz 8005 but the SA-10 gets halfway there.
2. In the opening of "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles the electric guitar sounds alive with ambiance and decay. The Digital is clean and lifeless.
Ok am I right with these observation?. I have a pretty good SACD player in SA-10. Its no slouch. Do the mega expensive super smart and accurate DACs get my two above mentioned passages right? Or are we hearing colored vinyl artifacts. Well if we are I like the record better!
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- 38 posts total
falconquest ... He has a very nice system and thought he would impress me ... As soon as the stylus hit the surface, there it was, that unmistakable background rumble and snap, crackle, pop.It sounds like his "nice system" isn’t so nice. If that’s what you heard as soon as the stylus landed on the LP, something was amiss. And given that you heard both rumble and a noisy LP surface, it’s likely that more than one thing was wrong with his system. That’s not especially surprising, however - I’ve found that many users have improperly setup turntables. Or, perhaps he just had a really bad pressing. That can happen, too. |
- 38 posts total