Analog Upgrade Bug

[User211]

Quote Jeff - "If your collection consists of mostly bargain records, spending more than $5-10k on an analog front end (table, arm, cartridge and phono preamp) will only give you marginal improvement in resolution, because the information is not in the pressing."

This sounds like a great point and one you should agree with. There's no question great pressings give great sound given a great recording and exceptional cutting equipment.

But I have some difficulty with it - and I'll try and express why.

I have written off a lot of pressings as being just plain poor in the past. Most of these are on thin vinyl, unquestionably done to a slim budget. Yet every time I upgrade my analogue front end, they become more and more acceptable. Now some of the stuff I wrote off as useless sounds amazingly good given it's obvious budget approach. In other words, the information is still basically there, and can be lifted given a great analogue front end. The records that usually have this problem are the ones that your arm/cart/TT combo could never actually track well enough to realise how acceptable they really are.

This is where I have a hard time with the "use a cheap or medium priced TT for the poor pressings/2nd hand vinyl" type concept. Personally I always want the best a pressing can give, regardless of it's quality.

However, a better reason for a 2nd TT, for me at least, would be to be safe in the knowledge there are no tracking surprises that might make your cart leap from the grooves, and cause your premium priced cart a real shock. Particularly true, I would imagine, if you are runnning second hand vinyl from an untrustworthy source. Sure, it may not break it, but it is possibly a cumulative thing. Given 100 bad hits, it might be the 100th that finally releaves your Clearaudio Insider of it's tip. But then again a re-tip may cost less that your 2nd TT anyway.

Swings and roundabouts, maybe.

 

[SundayNiagara]

Quote Jeff - "If your collection consists of mostly bargain records, spending more than $5-10k on an analog front end (table, arm, cartridge and phono preamp) will only give you marginal improvement in resolution, because the information is not in the pressing."

This sounds like a great point and one you should agree with. There's no question great pressings give great sound given a great recording and exceptional cutting equipment.

But I have some difficulty with it - and I'll try and express why.

I have written off a lot of pressings as being just plain poor in the past. Most of these are on thin vinyl, unquestionably done to a slim budget. Yet every time I upgrade my analogue front end, they become more and more acceptable. Now some of the stuff I wrote off as useless sounds amazingly good given it's obvious budget approach. In other words, the information is still basically there, and can be lifted given a great analogue front end. The records that usually have this problem are the ones that your arm/cart/TT combo could never actually track well enough to realise how acceptable they really are.

This is where I have a hard time with the "use a cheap or medium priced TT for the poor pressings/2nd hand vinyl" type concept. Personally I always want the best a pressing can give, regardless of it's quality.

However, a better reason for a 2nd TT, for me at least, would be to be safe in the knowledge there are no tracking surprises that might make your cart leap from the grooves, and cause your premium priced cart a real shock. Particularly true, I would imagine, if you are runnning second hand vinyl from an untrustworthy source. Sure, it may not break it, but it is possibly a cumulative thing. Given 100 bad hits, it might be the 100th that finally releaves your Clearaudio Insider of it's tip. But then again a re-tip may cost less that your 2nd TT anyway.

Swings and roundabouts, maybe.

Post of the day!

 

[DrJRapp]

Putting it in terms that I think I understand what Jeff is saying is that the more costly higher resolution analog equipment may make a fair number of mediocre pressings sound terrible and having a lower resolution and more forgiving alternate to play them on could make many painful-to-listen-to albums more acceptable. This makes perfectly good sense.

I own many CDs that are so over equalized that they are difficult to listen to on my Summit/Palladium/VK31SE/808 rig, but sound much better on my teenage daughters boombox because they were produced to sound better on a boombox. There are many vinyl recodings that fall into that same category.

 

[tonepub]

This is where I have a hard time with the "use a cheap or medium priced TT for the poor pressings/2nd hand vinyl" type concept. Personally I always want the best a pressing can give, regardless of it's quality.

However, a better reason for a 2nd TT, for me at least, would be to be safe in the knowledge there are no tracking surprises that might make your cart leap from the grooves, and cause your premium priced cart a real shock. Particularly true, I would imagine, if you are runnning second hand vinyl from an untrustworthy source. Sure, it may not break it, but it is possibly a cumulative thing. Given 100 bad hits, it might be the 100th that finally releaves your Clearaudio Insider of it's tip. But then again a re-tip may cost less that your 2nd TT anyway.

Swings and roundabouts, maybe.

I can't say I agree from my experience, and we spent a fair amount of time playing with this this evening...

Some of the more harsh and compressed LP's I've picked up over the years sound much more agreeable with the Clearaudio Maestro Wood than they do on the Dynavector XV-1s or Skala.

The more time I spend with this, I really see the cart as a variable. Everything is mixed and mastered so differently, I do see some records sounding better on different carts. But I am starting to get too obsessed!

And at five turntables and counting, there's no end in sight. Now if I could just get that Oracle running again!



You are absolutely right about the cartridge damage. I was at a friends house once and watched him mess himself when his $6500 Koetsu got trashed by a used record! I've kept a second table with a lesser cart ever since....

Again, because I spend so much time listening due to the job, I see the tip top cart as the Ferrari you take out on sunday and the other cart as the daily driver. The Clear is still very enjoyable and when I want to listen to vinyl, but am not really listening critically, I'm not piling up hours on the XV-1s.....

 

[User211]

Well Jeff you have a lot me equipment to play with than me, so you should come to more informed conclusions.

However, I will say that precisely nothing sounds better via my old Ortofon MC5000 compared to my current Orpheus. But when chaning carts in the past I have prefered some recordings via the old one against the new. Maybe it's a stylus profile thing. The groove modulation/depth of groove etc being prefered by one cart and not the other. But there are other factors in the equation.

 

[twich54]

additional analog thoughts !

I'm beginning to think it would be a good idead that we have a seperate 'venue' on the forum for just 'Analog Discussion'........shoot me a PM if interested, I'll talk to the 'Boss', I've got a couple of ideas and we'll see what happens..... !!

Anyways continuing with Jerrys analog upgrade I was wondering...has anyone seen or prefferably heard this cartridge - Miyajima Shilabe ? Somebody was supposedly featuring it out @ RMAF...I missed it !!

It's a very low output MC, with a shibata stylus, compliance around 10 I believe. I've been hearing some positive talk on other forums and was wondering if anyone within our group had any imput ??

Here's a link....

http://www1.bbiq.jp/miyajima-lab/e-stereo.html

 

[risabet]

I'm beginning to think it would be a good idead that we have a seperate 'venue' on the forum for just 'Analog Discussion'........shoot me a PM if interested, I'll talk to the 'Boss', I've got a couple of ideas and we'll see what happens..... !!

Anyways continuing with Jerrys analog upgrade I was wondering...has anyone seen or prefferably heard this cartridge - Miyajima Shilabe ? Somebody was supposedly featuring it out @ RMAF...I missed it !!

It's a very low output MC, with a shibata stylus, compliance around 10 I believe. I've been hearing some positive talk on other forums and was wondering if anyone within our group had any imput ??

Here's a link....

http://www1.bbiq.jp/miyajima-lab/e-stereo.html

I'm interested in an Analog section!

The cartridge seems interesting but the web site, specifically the Flash animation, is comical. Can't someone find a translator who actually understands and can write both Japanese and English, though I got the gist of his argument.

 

[User211]

It seems to me that you can't fairly have an analogue section without a corresponding digital section and stay balanced...

I think everyone can say pretty much what they want to say on this site without the these extra categories, but it would be nice to have them.

At the end of the day, a compromise between sections and complexity has to be reached.

What do people think on this one? You could start a thread on it it, Dave, for a general consensus.

 

[lonergan2468]

I prefer the Gyro as opposed to the SE. If you go for Michell partner it with an SME arm, they go hand in hand. Try and get an SME IV, even better if you can get the V.

 

[ALTMAN]

I'm not so sure what Tonepub was trying to prove by putting a $5,000 cartridge on a Rega 9. It has been my experience that your money is better spent on a superlative turntable and arm before you even approach $5,000 cartridges.

As far as vinyl quality is concerned I have a small collection of 2k-3K albums but I have a fairly complete set of Mark Levinson pressings. If you play the ML records on a Rega vs. a modest Linn turntable there is a quantum leap in performance and My Linn only has an ITTOK. I suppose if you play the record on a Continuum one would have some sort of religious experience.

I'm not sure why one would not strive to buy only the best programme material.

Note: Please view this as an uninformed alternative approach as I'm sure Jeff heard what he heard and he is much more up to date on the current high end scene.

 

[tonepub]

I'm not so sure what Tonepub was trying to prove by putting a $5,000 cartridge on a Rega 9. It has been my experience that your money is better spent on a superlative turntable and arm before you even approach $5,000 cartridges.

As far as vinyl quality is concerned I have a small collection of 2k-3K albums but I have a fairly complete set of Mark Levinson pressings. If you play the ML records on a Rega vs. a modest Linn turntable there is a quantum leap in performance and My Linn only has an ITTOK. I suppose if you play the record on a Continuum one would have some sort of religious experience.

I'm not sure why one would not strive to buy only the best programme material.

Note: Please view this as an uninformed alternative approach as I'm sure Jeff heard what he heard and he is much more up to date on the current high end scene.

Actually the P9 and Dynavector XV-1s is a very good combination and it sounds like you don't have any experience with the current P9. The point of putting the dynavector on the P9 was to have an apples to apples comparison with the Continuum, which had an identical XV-1s mounted. Both tables went through the same phono preamp with two inputs, so again, apples to apples.

I find the P9/RB1000 combination to be one of (if not the) most musically resolving table and arm combinations I've heard for $5000. And it is something I'm very familiar with.

The point I was making in the review was that on less than the best pressings, there was not that much difference between the P9 and the Continuum. We had a room full of people who heard the difference and all involved came away, not having a religious experience with the Continuum, but amazed at how well the P9 with the Dynavector was. Yes, putting a 5000 dollar cartridge on the P9 was a little overkill, but putting anything less on the Continuum would not have been good enough for that table.

And for what it's worth, I sold an LP-12 with all the goodies to get my P9. I found the much more musically revealing. I still have a lot of respect for the LP-12, but I'll take my P9 over the LP-12 any day, though I haven't heard the latest with all the very latest upgrades. I would hope that for 20k it's a better performer. One is on the way after CES, so we shall see.

As for program material, it's not striving to buy the best material that is the issue. The issue is that most of the best program material is either not available anymore or not available at anything near reasonable prices. With original Blue Notes going for 1500 bucks each and Steely Dan's Aja selling for close to a thousand, most average people even with excellent systems are going to have a pretty small record collection.

The point I was trying to make there is that much of what's available in the average used record store for 5-20 dollars a pop isn't close to what the early pressings sound like.

 

[User211]

The point I was trying to make there is that much of what's available in the average used record store for 5-20 dollars a pop isn't close to what the early pressings sound like.

This is mainly true - unless it's been MoFi'd or it just so happens that the later pressings were better for some reason. But the $1500 is taking it a bit far. OK for some artists for rare material it is true, but that is just life.

With a little common sense and knowledge you can walk into a second hand record store (at least you can here in Bristol) and walk out with some excellent sounding stuff for peanuts. Here are some golden rules:

1) USE YOUR EYES. Look at the sleeve condition - does it look like the record has been used a lot? Is there lots of sleeve wear? If so, avoid, unless it's something you really want. Either way, go to step 2.

2) Pull the record from the sleeve, handling it only via the lead-in groove and record label. Does the surface look clean? Move it around in the light until you get a good angle and can see it properly. If so, go to step 3.

3) Is the record thin? Does it bend really easily? If so avoid - it was a budget pressing and will weigh less than the 180+ gram target you are looking for. However, this isn't always true. See the next step.

4) This is the most important factor - the groove modulations. Do the grooves look deep and well cut? Or is there more than 5 5 minute tracks on one side of the LP? If so, more material than is ideal will have been placed on it - and the groove modulations will have to suffer as a result. This is why many albums these days are pressed onto double albums. Much better sound is achieved this way. The best, of course, is the 45 rpm 12 inch single, which can have modulations so big you can literally follow the cut around the record with your eyes. Given a good recording and pressing, they just blow everything else available on the commercial scene into oblivion IMHO.

5) Keep an eye out for scratches, or clear signs that it has been washed in soapy water or any other evidence of poor cleaning practice. Though I should have said this at step 2, but can't be bothered to edit. This sort of thing can sound really noisey.

6) Some labels were ALWAYS excellent. Experience will tell you which.

It's probably a bit like scoring good, clean Heroin from a dealer. You have got to know what you are looking for, and where to get it. Hence the term "vinyl junkie".

Never forget that nearly everything came from an open reel tape recorder pre the advent of digital. Those machines, with their thick tape and high spin speeds, were just unreal. So good it hurts. Nothing else approaches them for sound quality. Nothing. Zilsch. Zero.

Don't forget a lot of the stuff that is being pressed now is being done brilliantly, too. Really happy with the last Kings Of Leon album on double vinyl. Excellent vinyl quality and really well cut.

To conclude: if you know what you are doing and where to look, at least here in the UK, you can do really, really well.

All this is a bit much for younger people with no experience. Get yerself a good CD spinner unless you can really cope with all the nonsense I have just posted above!