Hi-Fi Nerds?

[denimdestroyedmylife]

ha, right? funny thing is, i picked up the local newspaper a day or so after that incident, and he was interviewed about how the slowing economy has put the squeeze on his business. you gotta hustle to live nowadays.

[kiya]

Good storyz y'all.

Turntables are for rich people...you need $$$ to buy one, $$$ to replace the needle (almost right away cuz the shit they put on is...shit), $$$ for cleaning the stylus, $$$ for cleaning the vinyl, $$$ for isolation, $$$ for a proper stand......and then you gots no $$$ left for fuckin records!

My 2 cents - LP = ripoff. CD's sound better anyhoo.

Wow, i feel very very differently.

I will die by my records.

[n9no]

Wow, i feel very very differently.

I will die by my records.

^^word to this. CD vs LP? Not even a question.

[kiya]

^^word to this. CD vs LP? Not even a question.

It's not even an issue i'd even consider pondering.

LP's are (for me) a win win in almost every single catagory.

[n9no]

It's not even an issue i'd even consider pondering.

LP's are (for me) a win win in almost every single catagory.

truth again! thanks for the rep homey - giving it right back.

LPs FTW

[JohnnyLaw]

I could not disagree more. I listen to my turntable about 90 percent of the time when I am REALLY listening to music. My current turntable is a Technics that I got about 7 years ago. I have never replaced the needle. I have never used a record cleaner. I don't buy into this audiophile bullshit; i am not after fidelity, that only reduces the charm. i seek warmth. isolation is bizarre and unnatural, i like the sounds to blend with my environment. and furthermore, i rarely pay more for a record if it is available on CD for less, though i admit to sometimes having the same album on both CD and vinyl.

oh, and all my gear is stacked in a rolling IKEA table.

I totally agree with this. I don't really have an interest in hi-fi sound but I love my vinyl. I have cheap shitty gear, but I listen to cheaply produced, shitty music so it works out fine. I do try to keep my records clean and my turntable in decent condition but the main reason I listen to vinyl is not because of the arguable superiority of analog sound but because I love to handle the things.

Records are great, with big full colour sleeves and pages of liner notes, not tiny CD booklets. The vinyl itself is much more attractive to me than a CD: a thick slab of wax instead of a shiny little disc. Colour vinyl is nice as well.

As far as price goes, I rarely pay more than $12 for an LP or $5 for a 7". Standard punk record prices.

I would like to listen to my records on a really high-end system once, just to see if my hearing isn't too damaged to appreciate the difference, but for now I'll stick with my cheap gear and spend more on records and beer.

[grilled cheese]

ha, right? funny thing is, i picked up the local newspaper a day or so after that incident, and he was interviewed about how the slowing economy has put the squeeze on his business. you gotta hustle to live nowadays.

i live to hustle. but that guy is grimey. it's the type of thing that would make me sure not to revisit his store under any circumstances.

i'm a vinyl til i die guy myself. i've got 6000LPs (trying to get down to 4500), 2000 12"s, and about 1000 45s. i've been collecting for over 15 years now, and i've built nice oak shelves by hand. i've invested too much to ever walk away from it. and i know what diddy is saying re: the audiophile wackness, and it's true. i don't want some high-tech sterilized experience--i've got enough of that in my alienated post-modern world. i've also got more than enough isolation to go around, haha. but if there's one audiophile concept i buy into, it's "imaging." and to me, records "image" like nothing else--it's beautiful and warm, connecting. this can be done on a budget obviously--good speaker placement and a certain green substance can really help (so i've heard).

[mr fluffernutter]

green stuff... moss? moss is great for soundproofing a room!

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP0265990.html

[gimmegimme]

Ha...I thought that might get the thread bumping again.

[jcotteri]

Good storyz y'all.

Turntables are for rich people...you need $$$ to buy one, $$$ to replace the needle (almost right away cuz the shit they put on is...shit), $$$ for cleaning the stylus, $$$ for cleaning the vinyl, $$$ for isolation, $$$ for a proper stand......and then you gots no $$$ left for fuckin records!

My 2 cents - LP = ripoff. CD's sound better anyhoo.

neiighh

i disagree. I love the warm sound that you get from playing, touching, looking and thinking about vinyl

[readytoignite]

It's not even an issue i'd even consider pondering.

LP's are (for me) a win win in almost every single catagory.

as i keep saying, it depends on the mastering and to a lesser extent on the pressing of the lp. i don't get why people can make blanket statements about vinyl vs cds where even with vinyl, the quality of playback among different pressings and editions differs so greatly. yes, i personally favor vinyl all other things being equal; in particular when it was the original edition the record was released in. but when you get into the 70s/80s it can be pretty rough going.

the case i keep going back that gives the lie to this is commercial hip hop lp pressings, which sound like dogcrap compared to the cd pressings. i mean, i don't care of people are drawn to lps as fetish objects (or financial reasons) but call a spade a spade s'il vous plait.

anyway i'm kind of intrigued by gimmegimme's adventures in ripping - i'm sort of going through a similar process with some of my cds but am concerned it'll be awhile before i can come up with a similar performing playback system to the one for my cd and lp sources. because of this i'm basically only doing it for stuff i don't feel too strongly about. did you actually research and test drive soundcards / portable players or did you just say screw it? i'm assuming you used flac btw.

[gimmegimme]

The debate will never end...so I don't bother getting too involved in it. I was just giving an update on my personal situation. If everyone else prefers vinyl...that's okay with me. I know what sounds better to me, and where there were a few lp pressings that sounded great, the financial burden couldn't keep my interest. I'm also lazy and don't like to get up to flip the record over every few songs.

I have an old mac which happens to have a decent sound output. I did a lot of research on the subject, and settled with what I had for the time being. Although most of what I download is FLAC, I compress it to Apple Lossless files, which doesn't alter the sound. I've also begun downloading high-bitrate files from the likes of HD Tracks and other websites. I store all the files on two separate harddrives (for back-up purposes).

[denimdestroyedmylife]

I have to renege on my earlier post about the CD Lens cleaner. It didn't do shit in the long run. I spent more time spinning the cleaning disc than listening to actual CDs. So I replaced the NAD cd player with a Cambridge Audio Azur 540C. I like it a LOT more.

[gimmegimme]

I have to renege on my earlier post about the CD Lens cleaner. It didn't do shit in the long run. I spent more time spinning the cleaning disc than listening to actual CDs. So I replaced the NAD cd player with a Cambridge Audio Azur 540C. I like it a LOT more.

I really like the Cambridge line...nice and compact too.

I sold ALL of my CD's and am fully on digital media now...eek! :eek:

I kept my DVD-A's though. Is anyone into multi-channel audio?

[readytoignite]

i never got into 5.1 audio other than for special compositions that were intended for multi-channel (such as xenakis' bohor or legende d'eer). something like that braxton 4 orchestra piece would probably be epic too.

sadly, most current applications seem like "dog licking his bollocks" technology.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

^ Seconded. The less speakers the better. In a perfect world, I would have a one-speaker system, playing mono recordings on vinyl.

Check it out, I was googling for this passage from Baudrillard's Seduction (awesome read btw, and found it quoted in a relevant (to this thread) and thought-provoking essay:

A bewildering, claustrophobic and obscene image, that of Japanese quadraphonics: an ideally conditioned room, fantastic technique, music in four dimensions, not just the three of the environing space, but a fourth, visceral dimension of internal space. The technical delirium of the perfect restitution of music (Bach, Monteverdi, Mozart!) that has never existed, that no one has ever heard, and that was not meant to be heard like this. Moreover, one does not ‘hear’ it, for the distance that allows one to hear music, at a concert or somewhere else, is abolished. Instead it permeates one from all sides; there is no longer any musical space; it is the simulation of a total environment that dispossesses one of even the minimal analytic perception constitutive of music's charm… Something else fascinates (but no longer seduces) you: technical perfection, ‘high fidelity’, which is just as obsessive and puritanical as the other, conjugal fidelity. This time, however, one no longer even knows what object it is faithful to, for no one knows where the real begins or ends, nor understands, therefore, the fever of perfectibility that persists in the real's reproduction.

[gimmegimme]

Depends on what you're listening to, but I quite like multi-channel audio. It has to be either recorded properly, or re-mastered properly, but it can sound fantastic on the right disc. The latest Fleetwood Mac BBC recordings in multichannel are quite amazing...almost like you're in the studio with them (too bad the music itself was a bit more interesting). Modern releases can be over done though and it all goes to hell.

[DEPHT]

I don't have as much experience with vinyl as many of you guys so I can't really make a statement about CD's vs LP's, but sometimes I wonder if people say LP's are better just because everyone says that they are....that they have a warmer, more organic sound.

I personally started buying up vinyl because I found that listening to albums on vinyl gave me a more complete "experience." I find that when I listen to my ipod/cd player I have ridiculous song ADHD. Most of my songs have low play counts because I rarely finish a song. Coming home from work/school, putting on a LP and doing hw/lifting/working on projects and listening through an entire album is something that I find valuable, and that's probably the main reason why I will continue buying vinyl.

[grilled cheese]

Thinking about getting this joint, the Onkyo A 9555. Based on my reading/research, seems tough to beat at around $500. Any thoughts from my more knowledgeable nerdlings?

[patrickamory]

I'm a vinyl head.

Garrard 301/LignoLab base

EMT 997 tonearm

Shindo Super-SPU cartridge

Shindo Monbrison preamp underneath

[readytoignite]

nice stuff. so is there any real, practical point to 180g pressings other than marketing? it's come up in this thread before and i assume you guys have done some sort of look-see into cost/benefit. my theory is that labels should spend more time/effort on the actual mastering but you're one of the few that seem to be pretty consistently on point in this regard.

[gimmegimme]

I bought a few 180g records, and some sounded great, but some didn't. I'm sure it's just a matter of the heavier pressings not wearing down as fast (maybe?).

Factors that influence the sound the most (according to some guy on the internet):

1. recording quality

2. room

3. speakers

[patrickamory]

Nah, there's not much point to 180-gram pressings. What you really want is an early pressing off an early stamper - the closer to the master tape the better. If your 180g's were reissues of classic records from the '60s or the '70s, they most likely came from a second generation tape and went through digital processing at some point in the mastering process, which cancels out much of the benefits of vinyl anyway.

[readytoignite]

hmmm... i was thinking more of first time pressings, i've heard enough terrible 180g get back "audiophile" reissues to steer clear of that racket (though to be honest still jonesing to hear how those tasty looking burma 2lp remasters stack up against the originals).

case in point: i would bet you 99% of the self-proclaimed vinyl lovers that would be in the market for such a thing (incl myself) don't even know what the theoretical audio benefits of heavier vinyl are. [i would guess resistance to warpage and added stability which are easily addressed externally (proper storage and a record clamp)]

that said if i was running a record label that cared about things enough and had the pockets to absorb the incremental cost of 180 vs 140 without charging $20 per lp then hey why not?

[mrip]

got a pair of beyerdynamic dt 770 on winqs recommendation

my first pair of legit headphones

hello new world

[keagan]

some fucks broke my blew out a fucking transient fuse on my fucking event sp8's tonight.

so now my tweeter doesn't fucking work, or whatever.

LEETS ADD SUM VOCALS is what he said.

[grilled cheese]

Just got back from my lunch break, during which I auditioned the Monitor Audio RS6. Wow these things are great (especialy for retailing for less than $1000). The sound was incredibly three dimensional and enveloping. I now want them.

A while back I ended up getting the Onkyo A-9555 amp. So far, it's great, but I need a serious speaker upgrade to the old Polk Audio bookshelf speakers I'm using, and I'm thinking the above speakers may fit the bill. I know that poopieboy mentioned the Monitor Audio brand a while back, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned these when gimme gimme was looking for speakers for less than $1000... Any thoughts on these?

Any recommendations for speaker cable and interconnects?

[gimmegimme]

I did look at the line, and contemplated the bookshelf monitors, but ended up going with my Totems for other reasons (store credit).

I use cheap ass speaker cables from radioshack...there are tons of arguments on expensive cables vs. cheap cables. I guess my ears are tuned enough to know the difference, so I saved myself a few hundred $$$ after testing them in the store.

[RobZ]

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread but I've been attempting to re-download all my music in FLAC and convert to ALAC. There are some albums I can find on FLAC but a lot of them are missing. Any good websites that someone can recommend?

I've also considered going to the public library and checking out some CDs but I don't think they have the newer releases.

Just got a portable headphone amp for my Grados and am trying to give it the best source possible.

[gimmegimme]

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread but I've been attempting to re-download all my music in FLAC and convert to ALAC. There are some albums I can find on FLAC but a lot of them are missing. Any good websites that someone can recommend?

I've also considered going to the public library and checking out some CDs but I don't think they have the newer releases.

Just got a portable headphone amp for my Grados and am trying to give it the best source possible.

I just go with the regular big torrent sites (which I won't name), but essentially you can type in "(album name) flac torrent" or something like that into google and it'll come up with something if anything's available. I haven't come across any secret or outstanding FLAC-biased dl sites though.

Library is a good idea though...can't hurt to look.