Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

analog is still cool ...

Brings to mind a letter in this month's Stereophile, taking the editorial staff to task for their recent annual "best of" issue.

The letter-writer counted the products featured and rated, and also reviewed and tallied the categories into which Stereophile broke products.

The critique was this: There was a huge majority of so-called "analogue" equipment (turntables, tube amps, cartridges, phono-stage preamps) and a tiny minority of CD and Mp3 stuff. Surely, the correspondent insisted, this was a misjudgement on the editors' part?

The editorial response: This is where interest lies in the audiophile segment of the audio market. They went on to add that for the last 25 years or so, there has been a continual criticism of CD playback hardware as being lacking in soul, too harsh, clinical, fatiguing, and so on...this being accompanying by constant progress in hardware development. Now, as vinyl playback is experiencing a huge renaissance, high-end CD players are finally arriving at a point of parity with good analogue playback equipment. Ironic.

The high end is going with vinyl, and dragging more and more listeners with it. I myself have never, never been a fan of Japanese turntables in general, having over the last 30+ years upgraded from an AR-Xa through CDs, then into a Beogram linear tracker, to my Transcriptors and Thorens. The last three I still own. The newest of these is a 1985-ish (the Beogram), which puts it at the cusp of the CD's dominance of the market.

Now all of the earbud brigade are mp3-ing their lives away, having in many (most?) cases never heard a really good system playing vinyl. It is a revelation. Unfortunately, portability is non-existent.

I predict a two-level audio world out there soon, with CDs and SACDs going bye-bye, and vinyl holding down the home hi-resolution, high-soul segment of the market, and whatever digitally replaces the mp3 standard carrying the automotive and personal end of things.

This will be matched metaphorically (though not in my lifetime) by the sight of corrals at every major urban airport, as people ride their horses to the airline terminals to hop a jet to a distant locale...

I always look for whatever I want in vinyl first. Some stuff doesn't matter but good music that was recorded well absolutely shines in vinyl if you have a good copy. Steely Dan sounds great in vinyl, and jazz that was recorded during the 50's, 60's and 70's also usually sounds great in vinyl. Actually everything sounds better to me on a good record. I have Sonny Rollin's The bridge in a brand new RCA record. You'd swear he is there in the living room along with the band.
I don't have a really good turntable, in fact I have a Japanese Technics that I bought second hand about ten years ago with a hundred dollar Grado cartridge in it, it sounds great though. I have always had a turntable working with my system. I don't believe that digital sound reproduction will ever be as good as analogue, it's flaw is in the basic idea. With digital you are hearing a composite waveform whereas analogue reproduction is the real waveform. CD's etc. have many advantages but realistic, sweet sound is not among them.

I still listen to vinyl. I've got tons of albums very cheap at various estate sales and garage sales. One time, $6.00 got me a whole large stack of classic rock albums that were still new-like. (Meaning totally no dust or scratches on them. They even looked shiny like new!) Also, I like the sound of 8-track tapes. BUT, they have a tendency to self destruct.

I agree with you, Bob, on the issue of "immediacy"--the impression that the artist is in the room with you. This is most obvious with individual artists and smaller groups like Jazz quartets. My three current favorites are the Barney Kessel Quintet "Red Hot and Blues", from 1988 (oddly, a digitally-converted-to analogue disc), which has unbelieveable presence; Milton Nascimento's "Encontros e Despedidas" (1985), and Blossom Dearie's "Simply Vol VI" (1985), with Bob Dorough on piano and a trio of veterans backing them both.

I probably have a thousand CDs between here and Brasil, and out of the 400 or so I have here, there's not a one with the jaw-dropping "you are there" quality which these three--and most other of my jazz vinyls--have.

People used to talk about "the miracle of digital"; the wonder of getting musical sound out of a bunch of pits burned into the surface of a small silver disc.

But, to me, the real miracle is that a microscopic squiggly engraved line on the surface of a piece of plastic, can produce such awesome fidelity through a mechanical transducer and electronic amplification.

I've recently started listening to my vinyl again. I've got about 6 feet of it downstairs, in my recently finished basement. Making that space usable was the catalyst I needed to dust off a 20+ year-old Beogram RX (fitted with a much newer MMC4 cartridge), and my Magnepan SMGa speakers. It's all powered by a Sherwood receiver I picked up at Circuit City for $80 (wish I still had my NAD).

Now, none of this gear really rates on the 'audiophile' scale. What's most important to me, though, is that I'm actually inspired to just go and listen to music again, without doing anything else at the same time. There's a convenience to CDs and iPods and the like, which (for me, at least) tends to make it a background activity. If I'm going to go to the trouble of choosing an album and setting it up on the turntable, I'm going to sit and listen to it.

The fact that it sounds warm, wonderful and intimate is just a huge bonus.

regretfully i sold off the huge portion of my record collection several years ago. 98% of it was metal, biggest iron maiden collection you had probably seen. i miss it.

Magnepans are "audiophile" in anyone's book.

Magnepans are "audiophile" in anyone's book.

Well, maybe so, but I never really thought of them in those terms. My wife and I were wandering down the main street in Walnut Creek, where there was a craft fair in progress. We heard a grand piano close by - but when we rounded the corner, we just found this funky looking pair of flat panel speakers sitting out in front of a hi-fi store. To say I was blown away would be an understatement.

I already owned the Beogram; for a bit over $800 we took the Maggies and an NAD receiver home. I guess I've been conditioned to think of 'audiophile' as being associated with much larger sums of money.

Maggies are so well-loved that there are articles floating about on rebuilding them at home with new Mylar!

Audiophile does not necessarily mean "insanely expensive". I think, more than anything else, it's not "discount store junk". It means "someone who loves sound".

I had no idea. If mine need attention, I'll just drive up to White Bear Lake

I still love my plastic roundys!
Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!

I'm saving up for a pair of sake-soaked birch wood speakers.

"This will be matched metaphorically (though not in my lifetime) by the sight of corrals at every major urban airport, as people ride their horses to the airline terminals to hop a jet to a distant locale..."

Great stuff!!!