# CDs, MP3s, Radio, LPs, Tape Cassettes, or 78s . . . How do you listen to Classical?



## mitchflorida

I have about 350 CDs that I bought in the late 80s through early 2000s. I haven't listened to them in many years. For a while I liked the convenience of listening on various radio stations from the Internet, but hated all the chatter and occasional ads. Now I have moved entirely to mp3s, actually using a streaming music service. I like the sound quality and most of all the convenience of having to bother with physical media like CDs.

Do some people still prefer vinyl LPs ? I have never used a 78 but sometimes used to see them in a back corner of an attic or sometimes at a used bookstore. They seem so funny to me. My father bequeathed me some tape cassettes of Columbia Masterworks recordings, I keep them for sentimental reasons, but never play them anymore.


What is your preference in listening to the world's finest music?


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## Polednice

I prefer using a great classical music service on the internet called Mog! It's absolutely fantastic - the catalogue is huge, the sound quality is great, and it's only $4.99 per month! But, even if you're lazy and unemployed, there's a FREE trial. It has truly changed my life, and I'm just a customer!


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## Krummhorn

mitchflorida said:


> . . . Now I have moved entirely to mp3s, actually using a streaming music service.


When working at my PC I will listen to streaming radio (commercial free Pandora @ $3/month), or listen to CD's that I've ripped from the original.



mitchflorida said:


> Do some people still prefer vinyl LPs ? I have never used a 78 but sometimes used to see them in a back corner of an attic or sometimes at a used bookstore. They seem so funny to me. My father bequeathed me some tape cassettes of Columbia Masterworks recordings, I keep them for sentimental reasons, but never play them anymore.


A good number of people still have LP's, although more commonly the 33's - I still have my collection from the 60's and 70's and have an active turntable as part of my home audio system.

At the thrift store where I work, we have a whole section devoted to LP's - they are selling like hotcakes. I've heard that some musician groups are now cutting LP's as the cost is cheaper than producing CD's in some cases.



mitchflorida said:


> What is your preference in listening to the world's finest music?


LP's, CD's (especially in the car on longer trips), streaming, and live air broadcast from our local PBS Classical station, KUAT.

Kh


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## mitchflorida

Maybe I am getting lazy, but all that work of locating the exact CD in my collection, opening up the case to make sure the CD is there, loading it into my computer DVD player, then going to the trouble of copying it into iTunes , remembering to return the CD back into its case and then running downstairs to return it to the case. It can get exhausting.

Plus now I can listen to 20 versions of La Mer to find out which is the best. So far it is Charles Dutoit, but I did listen to at least 5 others so far.


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## Ukko

mitchflorida said:


> [...]
> What is your preference in listening to the world's finest music?


My 'active' listening is ~98% CDs, though some of them are CDRs of material from LPs or downloads. I too still have some cassette tapes, and listen to them occasionally. My only problem with them (tape hiss is beyond my hearing range) is the lack of track/band information.

So you haven't listened to a symphony or opera from 78s! It's an _experience_.


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## mitchflorida

I think it would be cool to listen to Walter Bruno's recording of Mahler in Austria from 1939 on 78 rpm discs. The sound quality isn't that good anyway, so you aren't losing much. How many discs does it take to play a symphony using the old 78s?

I have noticed that you don't see people playing 78 rpm records in the old black and white movies. People just listened to the radio during that era, if you go by the films of that era.


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## Ukko

mitchflorida said:


> I think it would be cool to listen to Walter Bruno's recording of Mahler in Austria from 1939 on 78 rpm discs. The sound quality isn't that good anyway, so you aren't losing much. How many discs does it take to play a symphony using the old 78s?
> 
> I have noticed that you don't see people playing 78 rpm records in the old black and white movies. People just listened to the radio during that era, if you go by the films of that era.


My classical recording listening 'career' began in about 1952 - near the start of but into the LP era - so my long-work experience with 78s is limited. I think you could expect somewhere around 4-5 minutes per side; so a 50 minute symphony would be on maybe 7 78s, with a blank side or a filler. That means a lot of getting up, or a changer. 78s are relatively heavy, so in the inexpensive stack & drop changers there was a _thump_ involved (I have seen pictures of an expensive 'shuffle' type changer, never seen one in the 'flesh'). Both the distraction of repeated manual record changing and the thumping (maybe with assorted mechanical noises) would probably detract from the on-screen action.

In the last decade of 78s popularity, the sound got pretty good - about as good as in early LPs.


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## bigshot

I've found that there definitely is a place for 78s. When I was getting interested in older music, I was initially discouraged by the opaque, dim and muffled sounding transfers on LP and CD. In the digital era, strange outer space digital gurgling artifacts caused by excessive noise reduction piled on top. One day I was listening to an LP and marveling at how much better it sounded than the same recording on CD, and I realized that most 50s recordings sound better in the format of original release. I decided to set up a turntable to transfer 78s and find out if it held true there too.

I discovered that the world of 78s has a lot to research. There were different pressings at different times in different countries and all that can have an effect on the sound quality. So I picked a few key recordings and went searching for the best pressings in clean condition to experiment with. I developed a system for minimally invasive digital restoration and was very happy with the results. It's time consuming, but for the recordings I chose to work with, it was worth it.



mitchflorida said:


> I think it would be cool to listen to Walter Bruno's recording of Mahler in Austria from 1939 on 78 rpm discs.


That's one of the recordings I sought out when I was amassing my wall full of records. I'll post a link to my transfer of it below. I think the sound quality will surprise you.

Mahler Symphony No 9: Bruno Walter/VPO 1938
http://www.vintageip.com/xfers/mahler9walter1938.mp3

Here are a couple more for you to hear. I have more if anyone is interested.

Beethoven Diabelli Variations Artur Schnabel 1937
http://www.vintageip.com/xfers/schnabeldiabellis.mp3

Wagner Die Walkure Act 1: Bruno Walter/VPO, Lehmann, Melchior, List 1935
http://www.vintageip.com/xfers/walkureact1walter1935.mp3



mitchflorida said:


> I have noticed that you don't see people playing 78 rpm records in the old black and white movies. People just listened to the radio during that era, if you go by the films of that era.


Records were most popular during the teens and twenties and the late 30s. When radio was introduced, sales of records took a hit, and that was compounded by the depression. Later on WWII shellac shortages curtailed record pressings until the postwar years.


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## mitchflorida

Thank you for the Mahler Bruno Walter recording. It is certainly a novelty to listen to, and to imagine how others heard it during that era. We have progressed mightily in terms of sound !

I can't say I would listen to this particular recording very frequently. Perhaps once every few years. Life is too short for poor quality sound.


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## Jeremy Marchant

mitchflorida said:


> What is your preference in listening to the world's finest music?


I like to listen to new music and new recordings (indeed I am paid by _Fanfare _to review them) so it has, by default, still got to be CD.

I have just inherited from my mother my parents' vinyl collection, thereby adding some nine feet of shelving of LPs and I will enjoy getting to know them.

In earlier times, when I could afford expensive hifi, I put together a vinyl replay system which (then) bettered any CD player. Although I also have an excellent CD player, there is a sense in which I feel I have to "put up with" CD quality.

The scales were lifted from my eyes when I heard a CD compared to itself - but copied to a server using a massive amount of error correction. The server-based file was substantially better than the CD itself, albeit it took the best part of seven minutes to make the copy (not much use if you have a thousand CDs).

Last time I was at the Linn facory, I heard a similar demo (admittedly on their ultimate system) plus a comparison with a studio master of the same recording (the Linn release of _Messiah_). The improvement delivered by the latter was jaw dropping. This is clearly the way to go and it is bitterly disappointing that more record labels do not make this quality available for download. For example, Hyperion could have done this with their Brian _Gothic _release (the recording was available in this format from the BBC).


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## tgtr0660

CDs exclusively. I have a collection of 1526 of them.


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## mitchflorida

Have you transferred them digitally to your iPod so you can play them when you are in your car or on the go? (gym, for example)


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## mitchflorida

Jeremy Marchant said:


> The scales were lifted from my eyes when I heard a CD compared to itself - but copied to a server using a massive amount of error correction. The server-based file was substantially better than the CD itself, albeit it took the best part of seven minutes to make the copy (not much use if you have a thousand CDs).
> 
> Last time I was at the Linn facory, I heard a similar demo (admittedly on their ultimate system) plus a comparison with a studio master of the same recording (the Linn release of _Messiah_). The improvement delivered by the latter was jaw dropping. This is clearly the way to go and it is bitterly disappointing that more record labels do not make this quality available for download. For example, Hyperion could have done this with their Brian _Gothic _release (the recording was available in this format from the BBC).


The solution would be to convert your CDs to mp3s as you are listening to them. A one hour CD would take seven minutes as you say. That is what Linn is doing. You could copy them at 320kbps, with the price of a 2TB hard disk down to $100, you could put your entire collection on the disk and stream it to your system, which is what Linn Factory recommends. Then you could trade your CDs for others. Amazon pays about $3.50 per used CD. You could also record them off Spotify if you care to.


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## Vaneyes

CDs almost exclusively. LPs for the rest.

Note: Anyone selling classical music CDs (orchestral, chamber, solo), can always PM me a list with prices.


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## PetrB

mitchflorida said:


> .... Now I have moved entirely to mp3s, actually using a streaming music service.


and thereby cutting out about 1/3 of the frequencies of all you listen to. Convenient? Maybe, but at a great price I think.


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## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> Life is too short for poor quality sound.


A lot of kids think that about black and white movies and silent films too. They have no idea the riches they're missing. Caruso, Chaplin, Chaliapin, Keaton, Murnao... Color and digital sound are the least important aspects.


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> and thereby cutting out about 1/3 of the frequencies of all you listen to. Convenient? Maybe, but at a great price I think.


Hogwash. Compressed audio at decent bitrates is audibly identical to the original CD and covers the full range of audible frequencies. I defy anyone to consistently tell the difference in blind testing at AAC 256 VBR.


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## Vaneyes

I had no doubt that this thread would soon become another one of those audio pissing contests.


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## tgtr0660

mitchflorida said:


> Have you transferred them digitally to your iPod so you can play them when you are in your car or on the go? (gym, for example)


I play the cds in my car. I don't need portable music since I rarely go to gyms and I do most of my listening at night with my headphones, during the day with my good speakers ar home, or in the car.


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## Xaltotun

CD's and Spotify. I prefer CD's not only because of the sound quality but also because of the inlay notes. Spotify is great in getting to know new music, though. And when I find something I like, I always buy a CD.


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> A lot of kids think that about black and white movies and silent films too. They have no idea the riches they're missing. Caruso, Chaplin, Chaliapin, Keaton, Murnao... Color and digital sound are the least important aspects.


I just happened to catch an old black and white movie from 1940, and the entire movie was premised on Olivia De Haviland being a classical violin player in a music acadamy. Classical was incredibly popular during that period. NBC and CBS even had their own Symphony Orchestras! And I did notice them playing some 78 rpm records on her "phonograph". When was the last time I heard the term "phonograph"! LOL.

There is going to be a showing of Let There Be Music with Jascha Heiffitz on Thursday 5-17 on TCM from 1939. There were countless other classical music-themed movies from that era. Even one with Elizabeth Taylor as a pianist!


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## beethovenian

I am new to the classical market, so no LPs for me. I usually get CDs then ripped them to my iPod Classic. 

Rarely have the time to listen to CDs on a speaker system, but i am sure i will in the future when i am old and plenty of time on my hand not sure if though if the CDs will last that long...argh.


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> Hogwash. Compressed audio at decent bitrates is audibly identical to the original CD and covers the full range of audible frequencies. I defy anyone to consistently tell the difference in blind testing at AAC 256 VBR.


I can hear the difference between 320 bps and 256 .. so could you , I am sure.

One thing about using a CD player in a PC , you can hear the noise of the CD revolving and playing . .not there on mp3.


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## mitchflorida

I just ordered a pair of Sony MDR V6 stereo headphones. Haven't listened to music on headphones for a long time. Is it better or worse than listening on traditional speakers?


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## meaned

I listen to mp3s at 320 kbps whenever possible, or CDs. Radio directly on occasion, but only to record a performance, really. WQXR, the main classical station available in the NY/NJ area has sold its soul so Sominus. I can't deal with the mainly yawn-inducing choices for performances they play, so I get my own and blast those.

For this I've gotten a new mp3 player, out of fear that my 5th generation 60Gb ipod 'brick' will _shuffle_ off its mortal coil. The new one is a Sansa Fuze+, with 4 GB on board but has a card slot which allows for 32GB more. I thought the horrible reviews were right but the thing is great and I love it now. Battery life and storage capacity were key for me, and this $45 dollar thing will keep me sane on long painting jobs in quiet places. 
I transferred 1,500 CDs to the hard drive, one by one, over months when I got the ipod years ago. A few a day. It works. Strange that we who can sit through an hour plus to reap the beauties of a Brucknerian marathon symphony (_especially with a Celibidache at the helm!_) still demand instant gratification with the infrastructure of our listening world.

I also got the most wonderful little headphone amp, the type called a C-Moy, form a vet who builds and sell them on some forum. The builder's tag was Walking Wolf. Great, snazzy and simple, it is an amp in an Altoids tin powered by a 9 volt, with an indicator LED, on/volume potentiometer knob, and in/out 1/8" headphone plug connectors. it powers a pair of Grado SR60s just so. 320 kbps on the jobsite at best possible levels makes for all the difference.

At home I pop a CD in every so often, especially y since the 2 year old gets a kick out of the process involving these rainbow-mirrored wheels.

And there is always the occasional live attendance... oh to have the time and $$ to do _that_ more often!

Guillermo
http://statework.blogspot.com


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## mitchflorida

CDs and high quality MP3s have really killed the concert going for me. What's the point? Maybe if you have fantastic front row seats . . but in the balcony? Why bother?


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## meaned

I feel there is something to it, concertgoing. It's ineffably more than just the speaker pushing air at me. Certainly the world is more than what our simple 5 senses tell us; We evolved these to inform us of the medium-sized occurrences in our medium sized human interactions. So there is a wider dimension to hearing a live orchestra. Surely the feel, eyes closed, is different when you are -even in the nosebleed section- amidst sounds made by the vibration of a dozen strings and metals and woods and reeds and such, as opposed to the cones and tweeters or suspended diaphragm in a no-matter-how-fancy box. Or earpiece.

And mind you, I am completely in love with my Sennheiser 590's. I just that live has something more.
Besides, it is an excuse to slug martinis at the intermission, with, uh, less judgement involved.

Guilllermo
http://statework.blogspot.com


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## mitchflorida

Depending on the hall and the location of the seats, you can frequently get better sound from a CD than from being there in person.


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## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> I can hear the difference between 320 bps and 256 .. so could you , I am sure.


I'm not talking about MP3, I'm talking about AAC, which is Mpeg 4. And i've done line level matched A/B tests on good equipment and couldn't detect a difference. AAC is effectively transparent at 192. By 256, just about any kind of music can be compressed without a degradation in sound.


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## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> I just ordered a pair of Sony MDR V6 stereo headphones. Haven't listened to music on headphones for a long time. Is it better or worse than listening on traditional speakers?


Good speakers are always better, but they're considerably more expensive than decent headphones.


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> I'm not talking about MP3, I'm talking about AAC, which is Mpeg 4. And i've done line level matched A/B tests on good equipment and couldn't detect a difference. AAC is effectively transparent at 192. By 256, just about any kind of music can be compressed without a degradation in sound.


Maybe my ears are more trained than yours. I can tell the difference. 256 is good but not great. CDs are at 1411 kbps. I am happy with 320 kbps


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> Good speakers are always better, but they're considerably more expensive than decent headphones.


You seem to consider yourself an expert. Why do so many studio engineers use headphones?


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## bigshot

I've supervised sound mixes for CD and television. In 20 years, I have never seen an engineer use headphones. The only time headphones were used were for isolation so the musician could hear his playback. And those cans were beaters, not audiophile headphones.


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> I'm not talking about MP3, I'm talking about AAC, which is Mpeg 4. And i've done line level matched A/B tests on good equipment and couldn't detect a difference. AAC is effectively transparent at 192. By 256, just about any kind of music can be compressed without a degradation in sound.


I guess I got confused between 320 mp3 and 256 AAC. Is that the same thing as FLAC? I have no choice on how it is streamed to me , and for whatever reason, mog (and spotify, I believe) streams mp3 and not AAC. if the latter was better , why don't they use it?

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/02/dj-music-files-formats/


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## Vaneyes

meaned said:


> ....I transferred 1,500 CDs to the hard drive....


Any CDs for sale?


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## mitchflorida

I have a couple of hundred available, though most of them are from the 1990s. Canadian Brass is one I remember . .










I used to like Leonard Slatkin .. he has gone out of style.

It would probably take more time for me to catalog them than it is worth. Amazon pays about $3.50 per used CD, usually less.


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## UberB

MP3 -V2 for me.


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## graaf

I listen to MP3s only. I use my CDs only once - to convert them to MP3s on my computer.

I just love all the rave about how this format or that piece of gear is either unacceptable or a must, and then seeing the same guy making some basic mistakes and revealing his ignorance. Please, don't be offended, it's just the plain consequence of the fact that vanity is bad, mkay. There is only one guy on this forum that persuaded me that he can hear the difference among MP3 files up to V2, and thus uses V0. He needed just one simple post stating that, because I saw from his other posts that this guy knows his stuff.

There's nothing bad about having expensive toys, _but bad arguments make it so_.

I'm off to some classical guitar listening.
Enjoy your music, guys.
graaf


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## Moira

mitchflorida said:


> Depending on the hall and the location of the seats, you can frequently get better sound from a CD than from being there in person.


Indeed, and if one uses local orchestras like the one I listen to, the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, one usually gets a better rendition. However there is magic in a live performance that doesn't exist in the best recorded version. I have been attending live concerts for nearly forty years (over forty years if one counts the recitals that my music teacher's pupils gave) and I have never once come away from one without having increased my sense of well-being and happiness.

But I did point out to one of the other critics that if she moved forward by four rows to the point at which the balcony is no longer above her, her listening pleasure would be increased. She did so and reported that the sound was indeed better from where I suggested she sat. I noticed however, that she and her partner still choose to sit in the very back row under the balcony. One of the very rich culture vultures in the city always chooses the cheap seats in the front row for nearly everything except the symphony concerts. I asked him why he sits there. He said he dislikes audiences between him and the performer. By sitting in front he eliminates distractions to the front of him. I request tickets on the off-piano side (the right hand side of the concert hall, right near the door). I do this because I am slightly disabled and I battle with steps and this place suits me. Sometimes it is not the sound or the view, but something else which motivates our choice of seats. Or of anything really.


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## moody

mitchflorida said:


> I have a couple of hundred available, though most of them are from the 1990s. Canadian Brass is one I remember . .
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
> I used to like Leonard Slatkin .. he has gone out of style.
> 
> It would probably take more time for me to catalog them than it is worth. Amazon pays about $3.50 per used CD, usually less.


What a weird statement, I've never heard of a conductor being "out of style".
He is conductor of the Detroit Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Orchestra and Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lyon.
I have a high regard for him.


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## Moira

mitchflorida said:


> I have a couple of hundred available, though most of them are from the 1990s. Canadian Brass is one I remember . .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I used to like Leonard Slatkin .. he has gone out of style.
> 
> It would probably take more time for me to catalog them than it is worth. Amazon pays about $3.50 per used CD, usually less.


I had this on LP. Getting rid of the LP player and records saved me a lot of space, but I regret it often.


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## mitchflorida

Canadian Brass has evolved and is no longer just Brass . . they will throw in a piano and bass guitar sometimes. Of course it is readily available online and on mog and spotify.


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## moody

mitchflorida said:


> I just happened to catch an old black and white movie from 1940, and the entire movie was premised on Olivia De Haviland being a classical violin player in a music acadamy. Classical was incredibly popular during that period. NBC and CBS even had their own Symphony Orchestras! And I did notice them playing some 78 rpm records on her "phonograph". When was the last time I heard the term "phonograph"! LOL.
> 
> There is going to be a showing of Let There Be Music with Jascha Heiffitz on Thursday 5-17 on TCM from 1939. There were countless other classical music-themed movies from that era. Even one with Elizabeth Taylor as a pianist!


The NBC Orchestra was a full time orchestra put together especially for the great Arturo Toscanini.
The Columbia Symphony Orchestra was the general name for ad hoc groups put together for special projects.


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## moody

I started off on 78's, loved them , what magic emanating from that disc flying round at a huge speed.
I have none now but thousands of LP's and prefer them as far as sound is concerned , but they must be looked after and to that end have a cleaning machine to do the job.
On the subject of old recordings, if you can't or will not listen to them you do not really have knowledge of music.
This means that names that you hear quoted mean nothing to you . In the case of singing particularly it is of paramount importance that you should hear singers who still show some vestige of the classical style.
Of course you don't need to do any of this , but then how can you take part in forums on classical music?


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## Orange Soda King

I have plenty of CD's, countless MP3's, but also countless vinyl records and a good number of cassette tapes. I don't listen much to the radio or have any 8-tracks, hehe.


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## bigshot

I recently got a receiver capble of receiving internet radio and I'menjoying it very much.


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## mitchflorida

I don't care for internet radio that much. First of all, there is too much talk and chatter between songs. They only play one movement out of a symphony, and playing an entire album is out of the question. Plus the sound quality is not up to my standards. But other than that . . .


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## bigshot

None of those things are true of the stations I'm listening to. Today I was listening to an all Baroque stream that played complete works with no interruption at all. Great sound quality. There must be tens of thousands of streams. Impossible to make any generalization about them. My receiver recommends stations and I've found astounding stuff... 24 hour Chinese opera from Bejing, traditional Arab music from Egypt, 20s dance bands, old time radio drama, British comedy, complete opera broadcasts, Latin jazz... People pay to get the same ol same ol spoon fed to them when the internet is overflowing with great stuff for free


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## Guest

99.9 % CD, and about 95% of those are SACD.


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## quack

bigshot: Do you get to see the stream addresses of the radio stations? I would love some good station recommendations.

Thread duty: I listen to ripped CDs or downloads in mp3 or flac via my puter to my stereo, often with wireless headphones so I don't accidentally strangle myself.


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## bigshot

My receiver is a Yamaha. I don't think it shows web addresses. If I give you the name of the stream, perhaps you can Google it? I've got about five classical streams I frequent. I'll see if I can get info on them. (I have to drop my projection screen to see the detailed menu. It might take a day or two.)


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## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> None of those things are true of the stations I'm listening to. Today I was listening to an all Baroque stream that played complete works with no interruption at all. Great sound quality. There must be tens of thousands of streams. Impossible to make any generalization about them. My receiver recommends stations and I've found astounding stuff... 24 hour Chinese opera from Bejing, traditional Arab music from Egypt, 20s dance bands, old time radio drama, British comedy, complete opera broadcasts, Latin jazz... People pay to get the same ol same ol spoon fed to them when the internet is overflowing with great stuff for free


There is no such thing as a radio station that plays full CDs. I have mog , spotify and rdio are similar services.


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## bigshot

I don't think you know what internet radio is. It's not like Spotify. You don't choose what they stream to you. You choose the stream. It's more like radio with an almost infinite number of stations.

It isn't necessarily broadcast radio stations being streamed to the internet, although it can be that. There are a lot of internet radio stations that are just nonstop streams of music being played from a library housed on somebody's web server... no announcers... no commercials... no station IDs. Just music 24/7. These stations are dedicated to specific things... old time radio drama, comedy and spoken word, ethnic musics of all types, country music, bluegrass, oldies, and classical organized by type... baroque, pops, symphonies, opera, chamber music, etc. The sound quality of the stream is dependent on the bandwidth of the server and/or the number of people listening at any given time. Some (generally the ones in Arab and African countries) are very lofi. Others (like the classical stations) are hifi.

It's like satellite radio except non-commercial. All you need to become a station yourself is an internet connection and an iTunes library. There are tens of thousands of them out there, but very few people know about them.

My Yamaha receiver has an internet connection that feeds it a curated directory. I guess it's curated by Yamaha, but I don't know. It has an endless list of stations of all types organized into hundreds of categories to choose from.


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## quack

There's no need to pull your house apart to look for the stream details, just if you happen to know the good ones ;~)

I've tried spotify and while there is some very cool rare stuff there is lots missing too. Internet radio stations are good for just hearing a random range of music. And as bigshot says, anyone can set up a station and play their music library to the world (although most home connections couldn't handle many listeners).

Here for example is Otto's Baroque radio:
http://209.73.150.68:8045

You can copy and paste it into most music players and listen to 24h baroque

Ctrl+U in iTunes or Windows Media player
Ctrl+L in Winamp


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## mitchflorida

That radio station is a 96 kbps. If you can listen to that, good luck. I can't listen to anything less than 192 and prefer 320 kbps. KUAT is not a bad radio station if it has to be for free.


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## bigshot

There are sometimes multiple feeds with different bandwidths, and also dynamically assigned bitrates depending on your connection speed or the number of listeners at any given time. I've been listening to Otto's Baroque and it sounds quite good. Better than FM radio because there's no compression applied.


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## bigshot

I did some googling and found the service that curates Yamaha's internet radio channels...

http://vtuner.com/setupapp/guide/asp/BrowseStations/startpage.asp

If you have an internet radio app, like RadioBox on your iPad or iPod Touch, you can use this as a jump page to launch streams in your player. You can bookmark and sort the streams into your own lists in radiobox. Very slick!


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## moody

mitchflorida said:


> Depending on the hall and the location of the seats, you can frequently get better sound from a CD than from being there in person.


Oh boy, you are good at missing the point. It's the atmosphere darn it and even the latest hi-fi cannot replicate "live" sound---particularly the strings,


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## Moira

mitchflorida said:


> There is no such thing as a radio station that plays full CDs. I have mog , spotify and rdio are similar services.


Radio stations sometimes have programmes of full works. ClassicFM in Johannesburg plays full works in the late evenings (starting when I am still at the theatre, so I don't catch them). My gripe is that they don't announce what they are playing in advance - meaning that I don't always make a plan to hear a work I don't own or would otherwise not hear.

That reminds me - I must ask the station manager to please co-ordinate his play list to have the same works played on radio as are being played at our National Arts Festival - on the same day, if possible, so that those of us who are not going to the festival can at least enjoy the same works.


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## mitchflorida

Again, it depends how close you are to the orchestra. And I don't miss people coughing during the performance, lol.

Opera is a different matter . .there is so much to see at an opera performance.


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## bigshot

I spoke to a sound engineer once who told me about an epiphany he had. He was at a local carnival standing at the top of the chute with crowds and game barkers on either side. In the distance at the end of the row was a merry go round. He was struck by the sounds and closed his eyes and tried to think about how he would go about capturing and reproducing it. As he thought about it, his plans got more and more complicated, until he realized that anything he could do, even on an infinite budget, would be an approximation. He came to the conclusion that accuracy in reproducing the totality of the sound field is impossible. All he could do is focus on a small sliver of sound and try to reproduce that reasonably well.

There's more to hearing a symphony orchestra perform live than just the orchestra in front of you.


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## mitchflorida

Wow, I just located a free Internet Radio station that streams at 320 kbps plus does play complete symphonies! Plus has printed playlists so you can play it again on your own. Don't want to spoil a good thing. If anyone is interested, pm me. Thanks.


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## bigshot

Keep in mind if the stream is AAC or mono, it doesn't have to be 320 to sound good. Mono can be half the bitrate and sound the same and AAC 192 is comparable to MP3 320.


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## mitchflorida

Who listens to classical music in mono? I have found when using mp3 files, I don't need to go beyond 320 .

AAC 192 might be useful when ripping from a cd source, you can save disk space, if you are short on storage.

For whatever reason, not many online sources stream in AAC, though there are a few. Thank you for your input.


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## kv466

Now I mostly listen through cd's and records but I grew up on cassette tape. It's hard for me to decide because I love all forms of tape and treasure my reel to reel and most things old. I do, however, remember how extremely tedious it was to always have a pad and pencil so I could write down another version of a beloved work or even a new work altogether that I might not hear again for another few months. I used to listen to classical radio many hours a day. 

So, thinking about all that listening and going to the library and hearing some of the same pieces over and over and over without even loving them...now, just being able to go to the tube and type in a piece and be able to hear anything that comes to mind, well...that's pretty good stuff too and as I don't like using earplugs anymore, I couldn't possibly imagine walking around with a Walkman anymore. It's all speakers for me now.


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## mitchflorida

When I think of cassette tape I just think of one word, hiss. Lots of noise in the background, and worse sound than an LP vinyl record. If you want to record anything that streams , you can try Audials. I have it and it records all digital radio stations and Pandora and all of the rest of them.
It also allows you to record several stations at the same time.


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## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> Who listens to classical music in mono?


There's a LOT more than just classical music on internet radio. The ability to hear stations from other parts of the world is eye opening... Or ear opening, I suppose. And the comedy and old time radio streams are priceless. The other day, I discovered an obscure BBC stream that plays music and news from the 1940s. Time travel.

Cassettes sounded fine if you used the high bias tapes and dolby. It wasn't quite as good as the best LPs, but it was close.


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## msvadi

After resisting it for a long time, I have recently switched to compressed digital music (mp3's & AAC's). Using professional monitoring headphones, I did some testing on myself and my family members, and realized that none of us can tell a difference between 256kbps AAC and CD sound. So, why waste limited shelf space on boxes and boxes of CDs, when digital music is cheaper and more convenient?


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## mitchflorida

Here is a free version of Audials, so you can easily listen to and record multiple radio streams. 
It also lists 8000 different radio and music streams.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Other-AUDIO-Tools/Audials-Light.shtml

http://min.us/mbmvZK3Yn1


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## Moira

kv466 said:


> Now I mostly listen through cd's and records but I grew up on cassette tape. It's hard for me to decide because I love all forms of tape and treasure my reel to reel and most things old.


Reel to Reel.

You must be older than I am.


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## kv466

Moira said:


> Reel to Reel.
> 
> You must be older than I am.


Haha,...na, just mid-thirties and lucky enough to have used them most of my life; ten of them, for work. There's a rich quality to the sound that is hard to describe. I'm gonna upload an old show I made to my 'keep looking up' thread...I used one of my favorites to make it.


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## mitchflorida

i remember my dad used to own this very bulky Webcor reel to reel recorder. Another popular make for tape recorders was Ampex. For whatever reason, he liked to audio tape sports events like the Kentucky Derby. The tape was manufactured by the Shamrock company, along with 3M tape. It would unspool all over the place. . sometimes was worn out or stretched. It was considered very high tech 50 years ago, I suppose.









An early Webcor home reel to reel vintage tape recorder, circa 1952.*
Mono, 2-track, 2 speeds 7-1/2 and 3-3/4 ips, 4 heads, bi-directional record and playback, 7-1/2" reel capacity. 2 motors, idler drive, tube amplifier. Extremely heavy, 45 lbs.


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## bigshot

There are R2R tapes that rival CDs in sound quality, and if the masters haven't survived in good shape, they can exceed them. I have a set of Kna's Bayreuth Parsifal on R2R that I'm itching to transfer and see how it sounds.


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## DennyL

Polednice said:


> I prefer using a great classical music service on the internet called Mog! It's absolutely fantastic - the catalogue is huge, the sound quality is great, and it's only $4.99 per month! But, even if you're lazy and unemployed, there's a FREE trial. It has truly changed my life, and I'm just a customer!


When I looked at Mog it said that it is not available in the UK. How did you get around this?


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## mitchflorida

spotify in UK cost 10 pounds a month. Mog is only $5 but you would have to get a vpn that makes it look like you are in the usa. You could also get netflix that way (first month is free). mog's biggest asset is the high quality sound 320 mps. A VPN would cost about $4 a month, so not worth it to most people.


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## Tero

CD, mp3 and iPod. But iTunes makes a total mess of classical albums quite often.


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## Conor71

I listen all on my iPod* and sometimes Computer (dont own a stereo anymore!) - My Classical Music is encoded at 320kbps AAC (suspect it's overkill but Im very happy with the sound quality) and 256kbps for Non-Classical Music 

* 160 GB iPod Classic - 2 1/2 years old


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## mitchflorida

I mainly listen at my computer as well. I am using a JVC shelf speaker system. It didn't cost me more than $300 but it sounds pretty darn good. No surround sound, but that really isn't needed with stereo music, is it? Or do some people have $1500+ sound systems, with subwoofers, surround sound, etc.?


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## bigshot

All my life I lived in apartments. When I finally could afford a house, I dedicated a whole room to being a theater / listening room. It's set up for 1080p projection on a ten foot screen as well as two channel and 5:1 sound. Running it all is a Mac Mini with 25 TB of online storage. (yes, TB!) It's the greatest gift I ever gave myself.


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## Philip

bigshot said:


> All my life I lived in apartments. When I finally could afford a house, I dedicated a whole room to being a theater / listening room. It's set up for 1080p projection on a ten foot screen as well as two channel and 5:1 sound. Running it all is a Mac Mini with 25 TB of online storage. (yes, TB!) It's the greatest gift I ever gave myself.


Very nice. What do you mean by online storage? Also, is the Mac Mini capable of 24p? I know Ivy Bridge can't do proper 24p even now due to hardware limitations... which had me holding back on building an HTPC and just settling for DLNA thru the TV/audio receiver.


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## bigshot

Online storage is my library... 25 TB of music and movies available at a click. The Mac Mini can do everything except play blurays. I have to use a separate player for that. The mini handles everything I throw at it and makes it all simple. I have a Harmony Link that makes it possible to control everything from my iPhone.


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## PlaySalieri

Nowadays mostly on youtube, car CD or radio. My preferred format for sound quality is LP - I have a big collection (5000) sitting in the garage - a consequence if marriage.


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## Philip

bigshot said:


> Online storage is my library... 25 TB of music and movies available at a click. The Mac Mini can do everything except play blurays. I have to use a separate player for that. The mini handles everything I throw at it and makes it all simple. I have a Harmony Link that makes it possible to control everything from my iPhone.


What format are your movies?


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## bigshot

DVD rips for 480p and Mpeg-4 with an MKV wrapper for hidef. Eventually, I would like to make everything into MP4 and shuffle it all in a jukebox with playlists like iTunes. It's too convoluted and time consuming now, but I'm sure it will be the way things work in a couple of years.

I'm happy to share everything I've learned if you're interested in setting up a server. It is a really great way to store and organize media. It runs both my theater and it streams music wirelessly to every stereo and boom box in the house 24/7.


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## Philip

bigshot said:


> DVD rips for 480p and Mpeg-4 with an MKV wrapper for hidef. Eventually, I would like to make everything into MP4 and shuffle it all in a jukebox with playlists like iTunes. It's too convoluted and time consuming now, but I'm sure it will be the way things work in a couple of years.
> 
> I'm happy to share everything I've learned if you're interested in setting up a server. It is a really great way to store and organize media. It runs both my theater and it streams music wirelessly to every stereo and boom box in the house 24/7.


I was wondering what format because of the large quantity. I guess you're using codecs XviD and x264 for SD and HD, respectively. Yes, ripping is very time consuming. If you've got advice, feel free to share. I've already got a Freenas server for all my media. I went for cheap, open source, light: old AMD box + PSU, Freenas (FreeBSD), gigabit LAN, wireless bridge for TV/receiver.

I usually encode videos with MeGUI, all x264 with original audio or AAC depending on the application.

What hardware/software are you running?


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## bigshot

The DVD rips are straight copies- no compression. I have to compress blurays. They're just too big. I have a Mac Mini. I use 9 iTunes libraries for music, divided by genre. I use the Mac's DVD player and Plex for MKVs. There are 4 Drobos with four drives apiece. They run kind of like a RAID, backing themselves up and recreating lost data on crashed drives. All of my DVDs have been relegated to suitcases in the closet along with my CDs. I'm still ripping CDs. About 4,000 to go.


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## Philip

I see, you could definitely save some space by compressing those DVD rips. Good luck, if you do. I think the MP4 container actually yields smaller files than MKV, you could save a bit there too, but the main advantage is compatibility. Although, MP4 used to have issues with Dolby audio (AC3), but i think that's been resolved now, at least in my experience.

Often, when i buy DVDs and CDs, i'll just download a copy to save me the hassle of ripping and encoding them. There's no way in hell i would rip 4,000+ CDs, let alone tag them all.

Remember that RAID (or "BeyondRAID") isn't technically a backup, though having the physical DVDs is a pretty robust backup, unless your house burns down, of course.

25TB is huge.


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## PlaySalieri

Has anyone tried the Brennan device which holds 5000 CDs.
Strikes me it would be a pain to load them all in.


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## MaestroViolinist

Oh normally radio, but I have quite a few CDs too. Actually, I've also got a couple of DVDs of performances, I find it much funner to watch and listen than to just listen.


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## PlaySalieri

A lot of people seem to be listening low-fi - in other words on computer or ipod or similar - does nobody listen to a prime source (cd/LP) connected to a pre-power combination with 2 speakers?


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## mitchflorida

stomanek said:


> A lot of people seem to be listening low-fi - in other words on computer or ipod or similar - does nobody listen to a prime source (cd/LP) connected to a pre-power combination with 2 speakers?


a computer output can be attached to a $15,000 sound system. not necessarily tiny speakers. yes I use a separate amplifier.

it is amazing though what great sound you can get for well under $500


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## Philip

stomanek said:


> A lot of people seem to be listening low-fi - in other words on computer or ipod or similar - does nobody listen to a prime source (cd/LP) connected to a pre-power combination with 2 speakers?


Why do you assume people are running lo-fi equipment with their computers and ipods?


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## bigshot

Those sources aren't necessarily lo-fi. Through the line out, iPods and computers are capable of the same sound quality as CD players. It all depends on the bitrate of the file you're playing. My library is all encoded at a rate where it's identical to the original CD.


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## presto

I’m always buying CD’s and immediately copy them on a external drive and put the music onto my ipod.
I like to listen to my music in more than just one place and the ipod enables me to do this.
I’ve got a number of good quality docks around the house and garden I can plug into.
So I’ve got many hundreds of CD’s only ever used once, crazy but I feel I cant part with them.


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## PlaySalieri

mitchflorida said:


> a computer output can be attached to a $15,000 sound system. not necessarily tiny speakers. yes I use a separate amplifier.
> 
> it is amazing though what great sound you can get for well under $500


The CD player on a computer is not going to be anything like as hifi as a dedicated stand alone player. It's like hooking a walkman up to a Naim pre-power combination. Have you heard a high end setup? Obviously not if you think $500 gives you great sound.


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## PlaySalieri

bigshot said:


> Those sources aren't necessarily lo-fi. Through the line out, iPods and computers are capable of the same sound quality as CD players. It all depends on the bitrate of the file you're playing. My library is all encoded at a rate where it's identical to the original CD.


There's more to it than that. Ipods and pcs do not deliver hifi sound. You just have not heard a quality stand alone player.
But then I'm an analogue nut and think digital is a step back anyway.


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## Tero

> What is your preference in listening to the world's finest music?


CD or iPod.

I like the physical CDs for storage. I have over 700, maybe half are classical. iTunes just does not do classical well. I keep some in Amazon cloud, ones I bought there. I add to iTunes as needed.

8GB are on a thumb drive. Stuff I sold and never tried to decide what it was worth. I can play it and delete as needed.


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## bigshot

stomanek said:


> There's more to it than that. Ipods and pcs do not deliver hifi sound. You just have not heard a quality stand alone player. But then I'm an analogue nut and think digital is a step back anyway.


You're absolutely, 100% wrong. But don't let me stop you from speaking without knowing what you're talking about.


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## Philip

Oh boy here we go again...


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## Philip

stomanek said:


> The CD player on a computer is not going to be anything like as hifi as a dedicated stand alone player. It's like hooking a walkman up to a Naim pre-power combination. Have you heard a high end setup? Obviously not if you think $500 gives you great sound.


In a PC, the device you are referring to is called a CD (or DVD) drive, not a player, some older drives had analog outputs but this is not the current trend (IDE/SATA, ie. digital). Even a basic drive has error correction capabilities, and most consumer to "high-end" (still cheap) drives have better error correction than a standalone player. The idea is that a drive can take all the time it wants to read a disk (when ripping), while a standalone player has to do it in real-time and will usually just interpolate.

Secondly, the CD drive only reads the data, the sound card is actually doing the D/A work. If you're using integrated audio in something like a mini-ATX board, surely sound will be impaired by a high level of noise. However, get a dedicated audio card and sound will drastically improve.

Depending on your setup and requirements, you may need to get a dedicated DAC unit instead of a sound card, eg. with a laptop. You can use whatever amplifiers you want... Therefore, theoretically, a decent PC with a decent sound card will be equal or better than most standalone CD players; in practice, both are indistinguishable when operating within spec.



stomanek said:


> There's more to it than that. Ipods and pcs do not deliver hifi sound. You just have not heard a quality stand alone player.
> But then I'm an analogue nut and think digital is a step back anyway.


What is hi-fi sound? With a claim like that, you better provide some kind of concrete evidence if you want to convince anyone bearing any hint of rigour and methodology. Have you looked at measurements? Have you compared both setups in blind testing conditions? What were the results?

Lastly, are you at all familiar with the theory behind digital audio? Are you aware of the pros/cons as well as limitations of digital vs analog audio? You say digital is step back... have you ever heard of the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, which was formulated in the 1920's?


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## bigshot

It won't help. His tone gives me the impression that his lack of knowledge comes from ridiculous amounts of stubborness.


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## PlaySalieri

I am not sure what the arguments are concerning cd drive in pc vs standalone player - but I will do some research and get back to you! It seems absurd that people out there are paying several thousand for high end CD players and you are saying a cheap cd drive in a noisy pc will do as good if not better job just because it has all the time in the world to rip - i assume you then play back from the HD. I knew people who used to say the same about a budget LP player vs high end and I did take that claim seriously - rejecting it after spending time listening to various players including blind testing.
As for digital - I came to CD first - spent big money on a system - and was surprised that my friend's cheap LP based system sounded better - was more enjoyable to listen to - so i changed my CD - tried an outboard DAC etc etc. Still could not match the prescence and musicality of LPs. In the end I ditched the CD unit and went big time into vinyl. Over the years I keep listening to advances in CD technology and although it is better than it was then - it still does not match up to the experience.
I don't care about theories concerning digital v analogue - something either sounds good to you - or it does not.
I also convinced some CD enthusiasts a few years back by comparing the CD and LP versions of several recordings on quality CD and LP players through the same amp/speaker set up. They were really quite astonished at the difference in sound quality. Of course they remained with CD - it's a convenient format and I don't blame them - but that's how it goes in the modern world - convenience comes first. I listen mainly to CDs myself now as I have a family and my expensive styli kept getting broken plus we seem to listen to a lot on the PC or whatever digital source and you need to be dedicated to listen to vinyl - it takes time to get out an LP - dust it off etc etc - plus I have valved which take time to warm up.
Well that's it - don't say I'm stubborn or poorly informed - I just know from my listening experience what I prefer but I do accept that most people either can't tell the difference or just don't care.


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## PlaySalieri

"Even a basic drive has error correction capabilities, and most consumer to "high-end" (still cheap) drives have better error correction than a standalone player. The idea is that a drive can take all the time it wants to read a disk (when ripping), while a standalone player has to do it in real-time and will usually just interpolate."

I would have thought that high end standalone players have far superior error correction - so don't agree with that. And CDs rip is 3 or 4 minutes in WMP for example - so I would have thought the error rate would have been much greater than in real time playing on a standalone. Over to you.


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## quack

WMP does only a basic "good enough" rip of an audio CD if you want accuracy you would use something like http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ which guarantees bit perfect copies of the CD data and will verify them with an online database of CD signatures called http://www.accuraterip.com/ It still will not take much longer than 5 minutes to rip accurately, assuming a good working drive and a clean, well made CD, as it is not playing the CD like an audio CD player, it is merely ripping the raw data.

An audio player is geared towards on the fly decoding of data, a PC drive is geared towards accurate reading of the data. The PC drive has to be accurate as one bit of error could cause a program not to execute, an audio drive can fudge errors in high speed decoding and the music will still be audible.

Once you have the identical audio data from the CD on your computer the actual playback has the potential of being equal to a high end CD player, although that is obviously dependent on the subsequent equipment used.


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## PlaySalieri

OK I accept that - so then all you need is top quality DAC and you can outperform a top notch CD player if you have bit perfect data.
But do you accept that people who listen to MP3s and other compressed formats - are compromising on sound quality for convenience?


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## Sonata

I admit I'm one of the Ipod-ers. I like having my whole collection with me at once. I download quite a bit of my music, but a fair bit of my music also consists of CDs, I load every new CD into my computer and onto the device. It just works for my life, I don't always have access to my stereo. I do have a run-of-the mill stereo in the living room which I use, as well as my car CD player. I would definitely like to get surround sound and a higher quality stereo at some point, but not anytime soon with a new baby on the way . And I invariably spend money that COULD go towards a stereo towards new music instead! I can't stand listening on my computer though because the background noise of the computer running is off-putting to me.


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## Philip

stomanek said:


> OK I accept that - so then all you need is top quality DAC and you can outperform a top notch CD player if you have bit perfect data.


In terms of fidelity, a top quality DAC _chip_ is worth peanuts and outperforms every single turntable mechanism on the market. What you are paying for in a dedicated DAC _unit_ is features, outputs, the quality of the analog circuitry, included headphone amplifier, overall build quality, etc. That being said, you don't need to spend big money, like you seem to believe. Here are a couple readings for a popular sound card:

Frequency Response









Noise Level








http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-xonar-essence-stx-review/15



stomanek said:


> I would have thought that high end standalone players have far superior error correction - so don't agree with that. And CDs rip is 3 or 4 minutes in WMP for example - so I would have thought the error rate would have been much greater than in real time playing on a standalone. Over to you.


It can take several minutes to hours to rip a damaged CD with software like EAC.

Additionally, note that masters on CD an LP releases are often different. Most modern CDs are highly dynamically compressed. This is not a format limitation but rather a production choice by the artist/producers and/or sound technicians. This is also the case for many remaster releases. For example, compare the original CD releases of David Bowie albums with the remasters, the difference is noticeable in CD vs CD comparisons.

Nonetheless, even with the same master, the LP will sound different than the CD, there's no question. Now, which offers more fidelity? Measurements are on the CD's side. Which is more pleasing? That's for you to decide.


----------



## quack

stomanek said:


> But do you accept that people who listen to MP3s and other compressed formats - are compromising on sound quality for convenience?


Listening will always be a balance of convenience against quality, it is up to the individual where they draw that balance. I personally don't believe mp3s are that much of a sacrifice, they were specifically designed to be a reasonable compromise, but changes in technology have altered the balance and lossless is almost as convenient now. But if, for instance, you want portable listening then you have to sacrifice a certain amount of quality, just as you sacrifice quality with home listening compared to listening to a live orchestra.


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## bigshot

iPods through the line out, boutique CD players, WalMart CD players, fancy DACs and computers playing CDs all measure and sound exactly the same.

Compressed audio can sound bad and it can sound exactly like the original CD. It all depends on the codec and the bitrate you are using.

Although LPs sound great, CD sound quality is superior to LPs in both distortion levels and dynamic range. The reason that the record might sound better than the CD release has nothing to do with the format. It's all in the mastering.

Why do people spend thousands of dollars on audiophile equipment when midline components that cost a fraction of the price? Because people assume more money means higher quality, and they believe what salesmen tell them.

If you want to be an informed consumer, you have to ask the right people the right questions and then listen to the answers.


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## PlaySalieri

Thanks for that explanation. You see I am not an obstinate die hard LP freak. I have simply in my listening sought what I found most enjoyable. Quite often I been restricted - even to a tiny cassette player with 1 watt output - and limited to that choice - got much pleasure from it. I do go to operas, concerts when I can and that is my first choice of course. I agree that technically all the arguments are in favour of digital recording and playback - if one is to examine the figures and graphs. I have not done any high volume listening for some time - where I try - in a room - to create a realistic soundstage - I recall that this could cause me listening fatigue problems with a CD player - maybe it is different now with technology advances - though reading the hifi forums - many listeners who have digital or LP - report this continued problem. Some have also speculated that the rich warmth of LPs are nothing more than sweet distortion - others have said that the sonic limitations of LP is actually a plus particularly at higher volume levels. Well I do not know. However - I accept now that a computer hooked up to a quality amp plus speakers can deliver hifidelity. Though as I am LP enthusiast - you should also understand that seeing a record spin and tracked on a beautifuly made record player adds to the pleasure of the playback.


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## mitchflorida

This discussion reminded me to make a change on my system I removed the analog RCA cables, and replaced them with a direct USB to USB digital connection to my receiver. Pretty basic, but I never had gotten around to it. It sounds noticeably clearer!


----------



## Philip

I've come to perceive terms such as "hi-fi, audiophile, high-end, quality", etc. in a negative way. The "audiophile" market is loaded with scams. Many ultra "high-end" manufacturers deliberately alter their hardware for non-flat responses, therefore yielding audible discrepancies between other devices and manufacturers. Cables......

Hi-fi forums, review sites, for the most part, are ridiculous places. Don't think for a minute that you're getting reliable information in these forums. This thread prompted me to look at some of them today; it gave me a headache. The least worst of them is probably Hydrogenaudio.


----------



## Philip

mitchflorida said:


> This discussion reminded me to make a change on my system I removed the analog RCA cables, and replaced them with a direct USB to USB digital connection to my receiver. Pretty basic, but I never had gotten around to it. It sounds noticeably clearer!


What is the source?


----------



## cwarchc

This ultimately comes down to, that old word again, "subjectivitiy"
I've read the previous posts and note that you have both sides here - digital and vinyl
In therory digital "should" sound superior
However the components add their own "signature" to the output
Whether or not you think one is better than the other, relates to what you feel sounds better.
There is certainly a lot of "snake oil" peddled in the "audiophile" industry (don't start me off about cables)
However there is no argument that, mp3 in particular, certain compressed files sould awful (I know it's opinion, but I'm not the only one who can tell)
You then look at high end audio. I have a Rotel cd player that is over 20 years old, however you can compare it to a more modern device, the sound is different. Is it better??
I love cd's I have hundreds
I also love vinyl, it's a different sound? only YOU can say


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## mitchflorida

Philip said:


> What is the source?


The High Definition Audio from my PC Sound card, direct digital to the receiver. Do most new receivers have USB input?


----------



## Philip

mitchflorida said:


> The High Definition Audio from my PC Sound card, direct digital to the receiver. Do most new receivers have USB input?


Most of them have USB inputs for USB drives... to play MP3 files, for example.

When onboard audio is too noisy, one solution is to use the S/PDIF or coax output from PC to receiver; if it supports USB (like most DACs now do), then use whatever cable you have laying around, unless you are short in USB ports.


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## cwarchc

usb outputs tend to be "noisy"


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## mitchflorida

"I understood the advantage of USB attached audio input devices to be that the device converts the analog data to digital data and that the DD cannot be corrupted by RF noise. In other words, once the data is in digital form, it's safe."



If the interference is strong it will corrupt data to the point it cannot be reconstructed. The interference has been proven and demonstrated many times by users and testers.

As more and more computer builders are aware of the problem with unshielded cables connecting front USB ports to rear USB controllers, the problem is less prevalent than several years ago. We currently recommend desktop computer users to first find a good rear USB port that allows for high accuracy and low interference.

I personally cannot hear any noise coming from the USB port, I think it would be obvious if a digital signal was corrupted by interference.


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## bigshot

cwarchc said:


> However the components add their own "signature" to the output


Modern solid state amp, DACs and CD players all perform to a standard that exceeds the threshold of human hearing. They have flat response, no distortion to speak of and a monumental dynamic range. If you carefully line level match, you'll find that all electronic components that are performing to spec sound the same.

Speakers, headphones and turntables have much higher noise and distortion, and much wider ranging response curves. They sound different.


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## bigshot

cwarchc said:


> usb outputs tend to be "noisy"


USB, optical, coax... all put out bitperfect sound. It can't get any less noisy than bitperfect.


----------



## bigshot

Philip said:


> I've come to perceive terms such as "hi-fi, audiophile, high-end, quality", etc. in a negative way.


I can understand why equipment salesmen engage in spreading the bull. They get a nice fat commission for selling you that high end cable with the eight times markup over cost that makes absolutely no audible difference... The question is, why do consumers spread the bull even further in internet forums? They have nothing to gain and only get angry when their foolishness is pointed out to them.


----------



## bigshot

stomanek said:


> - I recall that this could cause me listening fatigue problems with a CD player - maybe it is different now with technology advances.


It's quite possible that your speakers have a spike in the upper frequencies. CDs present high frequencies flat up to the absolute edge of human hearing. LPs usually had a high end rolloff, so delicate upper frequency modulation wouldn't turn to distorted mush after a few plays. A spike above the LP rolloff point would only be noticeable with CDs which have no rolloff.

Hard surfaces like marble and mirrors in the listening room might exacerbate the problem. Equalization could fix it.


----------



## PlaySalieri

I am glad to be out of it now of course - it's an easy thing to get sucked into - interconnects costing a couple of hundred which can apparently transform your system - system supports and tables costing up to a thousand which tighten the lower end and sweeten the top end - it's a big industry.


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## bigshot

You must have been speaking to all the wrong people. It seems you've picked up every myth in audiophoolery.


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## PlaySalieri

bigshot said:


> You must have been speaking to all the wrong people. It seems you've picked up every myth in audiophoolery.


I never believed it - I only ever buy the cheapest speaker cable and always did. I did buy a special wall mounted support for my record player - as I had wooden floorboards. Apart from that I only ever spent big money on the major components - amp/player/speakers. But there are plenty of people who buy interconnects costs several hundred.


----------



## mitchflorida

The law of diminishing returns applies to audio. There really hasn't been much advancement in terms of sound except that you can get incredible sound for very little money compared to 25 years ago. A great sound system costs much less now than it did before. You can spend large amounts of money today on audio equipment, but the actual improvement in terms of sound quality is negligible.


----------



## Vaneyes

stomanek said:


> I never believed it - I only ever buy the cheapest speaker cable and always did. I did buy a special wall mounted support for my record player - as I had wooden floorboards. Apart from that I only ever spent big money on the major components - amp/player/speakers. But there are plenty of people who buy interconnects costs several hundred.


Cheapest speaker cable doesn't get the job done.


----------



## Philip

Vaneyes said:


> Cheapest speaker cable doesn't get the job done.


I got some free cables from some dude and they work fine. If the cable resistance is low enough, they will definitely get the job done. Electrical engineers understand this; but marketers usually aren't engineers, and they're only interested in obtaining the consumer's sweet moolah.


----------



## quack

Cheap cables are liable to snap, high end cables are much more resilient, piano wire even better, but you really shouldn't strangle audiophiles even if they do have cool equipment.


----------



## Philip

I don't see how cables can be cool, perhaps the colour? I think mine are grey. I do however sport some colourful cable housings on my bicycle for street cred. Audiophiles should take a circuit theory class or two before spreading around these myths, otherwise i'll gladly strangle them with their own cables if given the opportunity.


----------



## mitchflorida

You can't consider yourself an "audiophile" if you aren't using the Monster audio cables.

These bad boys do the job. Sure they are expensive, but so what?


----------



## Philip

Monster is too mainstream, i much prefer Nordost cables.


----------



## mitchflorida

Speaker audio wire Does and Don'ts:


Speaker wire should always be the same length or sound will arrive a few milliseconds late at the longer cabled speaker

You need to break in your cables. It takes 3 months for cables to be primed and ready to go at top performance.

Silver Wire is better - Are you using copper wire or silver? Silver is a better conductor so smaller wire can be used on longer runs. 

Oxygen Free Wire is Better - Removing oxygen from wires removes iron impurity which can reduce the resistance.

Expensive Speaker Wire produces better sound. The larger the circumference, the better.


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## bigshot

You know some poor sap isn't going to know you're joking.


----------



## PlaySalieri

All this debate about what is better - cables, main source etc - got me thinking the only way to prove it is blind testing. If you will accept that as proof. I found this article which I thought was very interesting:

http://www.stereophile.com/features/113

To save many of you the time of reading it what i got was this: A test was organised in which two amps were put against each other and the question was after a listening: different amps or the same?
What the subjects scored was more or less as follows, on 7 comparisons - about 78% scored in line with chance or worse. In other words, 78% could not reliabily say whether a and b were from the same amp or different amps. The remainder 22% scored better than chance and the best was 6 out of 7.
What does this tell us? Perhaps, just perhaps - we should think very carefully before spending large sums on expensive components - including cables.


----------



## bigshot

Remember that Stereophile has a vested interest in skewing things to protect their advertisers. I bet a few more rounds of comparisons and everyone would have fallen into the category of random chance.

The most important part of a system is the headphones or speakers. With speakers, the room itself can often make more of a difference than the speakers. We're very lucky that inexpensive amps, cables, CD players, etc. all sound so good. We should take advantage of that to put money into the area that really matters... The music.


----------



## Philip

stomanek said:


> All this debate about what is better - cables, main source etc - got me thinking the only way to prove it is blind testing. If you will accept that as proof. I found this article which I thought was very interesting:
> 
> http://www.stereophile.com/features/113
> 
> To save many of you the time of reading it what i got was this: A test was organised in which two amps were put against each other and the question was after a listening: different amps or the same?
> What the subjects scored was more or less as follows, on 7 comparisons - about 78% scored in line with chance or worse. In other words, 78% could not reliabily say whether a and b were from the same amp or different amps. The remainder 22% scored better than chance and the best was 6 out of 7.
> What does this tell us? Perhaps, just perhaps - we should think very carefully before spending large sums on expensive components - including cables.


Next we have: "_Is smoking good for your health?_" *

Did you really think Stereophile was basically going to squash their whole business?

I think the final paragraph says it all:



Stereophile said:


> I would think it obvious that those professionally involved in listening at this level of concentration get better at being able to discriminate very small differences between nominally identical components. Isn't it reasonable to expect that J. Gordon Holt or Harry Pearson, for example, who have been professionally listening to high-end components for three and two decades, respectively, should have developed a considerable degree of *skill* in this area? The question then should be whether it is worth designing and manufacturing components that only a favored few will be able to distinguish.


Read: "I got the skill, you ain't."


* Hosted by Marlboro


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## bigshot

I love the concept that the ears are like a muscle- the more you use them, the better your ability to hear will get. Eventually, you'll have superhuman powers of hearing! The brain may be a muscle, but it's not going to get stronger thinking boneheaded thoughts like that.

The most interesting study I ever heard about was one where regular folk and golden ears audiophiles were asked to try to discern the difference between two amps. The audiophiles were positive they would be able to. After the test, it turned out neither audiophiles nor normal people could tell a difference. But there was one difference between the two groups. When the normal folk realized they couldn't tell any difference, they laughed and shrugged it off. The audiophiles became furious.


----------



## PlaySalieri

As for the stereophile article - unless I missed it - it did not establish whether those who scored better than chance had any expertise - or whether statisically - someone who got 6 out of 7 did so out of chance - in line with statistical variations - just as some scored 1 or 2.


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## mitchflorida

Who makes the best quality audio speakers at a reasonable price? I am talking bang for the buck . .


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## Very Senior Member

bigshot said:


> The most interesting study I ever heard about was one where regular folk and golden ears audiophiles were asked to try to discern the difference between two amps. The audiophiles were positive they would be able to. After the test, it turned out neither audiophiles nor normal people could tell a difference. But there was one difference between the two groups. When the normal folk realized they couldn't tell any difference, they laughed and shrugged it off. The audiophiles became furious.


 Which amps would these be?


----------



## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> Who makes the best quality audio speakers at a reasonable price? I am talking bang for the buck . .


You can't go by brand names on speakers. You have to go into a store and listen to them using a CD you're familiar with. The speaker is the most important part of any system. It's worth the trouble.


----------



## bigshot

Very Senior Member said:


> Which amps would these be?


I can't remember the models. One was super high end and tHe other was something like a $150 Yamaha.

There was another interesting test performed by Bob Carver where he told audiophiles to give him the best sounding tube amp they could find, and he would tweak a solid state amp to sound exactly the same. He did it. They couldn'ttell the difference.


----------



## Very Senior Member

bigshot said:


> I can't remember the models. One was super high end and tHe other was something like a $150 Yamaha. There was another interesting test performed by Bob Carver where he told audiophiles to give him the best sounding tube amp they could find, and he would tweak a solid state amp to sound exactly the same. He did it. They couldn'ttell the difference.


 Are you suggesting from this that, generally speaking, there is no broad correlation between price and quality in the amplifier market, and that one need spend no more than $150 to get quality that matches much more expensive equipment?


----------



## bigshot

As long as an amp is strong enough to push the speakers, it's going to sound the same as any other amp.

My brother has a Macintosh system that he paid a great deal of money for. I once plugged my old 50 watt Sanyo amp into his system bypassing his pre and power amps and it sounded great. No obvious difference, but I didn't do a controlled test on it. My Sanyo has since burned out and my brother's Macintosh is still going strong, so there is an advantage in durability.

In the past decade, solid state amps, even inexpensive ones have gotten very good. The main differences between amps are power and features. Today, things like multichannel sound, internet connectivity and HDMI are much more important reasons to choose an amp than sound. Most good amps sound the same, even relatively inexpensive ones. The same goes for CD, DVD and bluray players. The main differences there are features and how tempermental they are playing borderline disks, not sound.

The exception is the extreme high end stuff marketed at audiophools. Those are often colored to give a "house sound". I prefer my electronics to be clean and flat.

It's a great time to be a hifi nut. Nothing like the way it was back in the 70s when I first got interested in sound. The real issue now is speakers and getting them to sound right in your listening room. Speakers can be pricey, but if you're clever with EQ and room treatments, you can squeeze a lot out of them.


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## bigshot

Here is some interesting reading for you...

http://www.hometheaterfocus.com/receivers/amplifier-sound-quality.aspx

http://www.matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/12752-blind-listening-tests-amplifiers.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carver#Amplifier_modeling


----------



## mitchflorida

bigshot said:


> You can't go by brand names on speakers. You have to go into a store and listen to them using a CD you're familiar with. The speaker is the most important part of any system. It's worth the trouble.


Thanks, I guess.


----------



## Very Senior Member

bigshot said:


> As long as an amp is strong enough to push the speakers, it's going to sound the same as any other amp.


 I would agree that it's not necessary to spend a vast sum of money on an amplifier to get decent sound in a typical domestic environment. But I don't go along with your suggestion that quality tapers off dramatically once above the $150 price level. That seems to be taking audiophile criticism much too far. From my experience you've got to spend a good bit more than that to get decent sound. In the UK market, with which I'm more familiar, I would guess that £300 (= circa $450) is the entry level for a good amplifier, but even then you'd have to choose very carefully among a selection that's not all good. From personal experience I'm in no doubt that sound quality can be improved noticeably beyond what you get at that price level by a judicious selection among more highly priced specimens (without going to ludicrously high levels in price), in terms of focus, depth of bass and tautness. Build quality is another issue where I believe you generally get what you pay for up to a certain price level. My current amplifier is made the British firm Cyrus. I've had several by this firm and just love the natural, very detailed sound they provide.


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## bigshot

In one of those links above, there's a blind listening test of a variety of amps, from a $120 Pioneer with a volume control slider and a crappy 5 band equalizer all the way up to a $20,000 monoblock array. The golden eared audiophiles couldn't tell the Pioneer and the monoblock apart.

The big sound quality issue with amps is running into clipping. It may be true that with certain less efficient speakers, an underpowered amp might peg. In that case, you may be right that $400 is the lowest range where amps sound good, but that's because of the power rating, not the sound of the amp itself.

I have a nice Yamaha AV receiver which I spent a little extra on, but that was because I wanted HDMI in and out, wifi connection for internet radio, and 5:1 with enough power to push my speakers.

Build quality is definitely something you get what you pay for, but if a $100 CD player and a $1000 CD player sound exactly the same, you could replace the $100 one ten times. And odds are with the way technology is going, every time you replace it, there will be better features for a lower price. It just doesn't make sense to buy a CD player that you want to last a lifetime. If I had bought a high end amp fifteen years ago, I would be stuck with an amp that couldn't drive my 1080p projection system and 5:1 sound. Fifteen years ago, I wouldn't have even known I needed that. Sometimes having an amp burn out is a good thing.

Today, almost all electronics are made from the same stock parts. Manufacturers don't make their own parts, they simply assemble from off the shelf ones. You might find the same DAC chip in a high end standalone DAC as in a "lowly" iPod or cheapo Korean CD player.

Amps and CD players all fall into the same basic specs when it comes to distortion, frequency response and dynamic range. The more expensive amps and CD players may have better numbers on paper, but the sound quality of inexpensive gear is so good, none of the improvement is audible.

Of course, better numbers on paper is important to audiophiles. But the importance lies in assuaging their OCD, not their ears.

By the way, flowery terms like "focus" and "tautness" sound really good when you read them in fancy audio magazines. But they don't relate to anything in terms of sound. What spec covers "tautness"? As for depth of bass, that is a wattage issue and a function of the speakers, not the amp. Inefficient speakers require a lot more power for low bass than they do upper frequencies, and smaller speakers can't get down that low even with the best amp. All amps and CD players, even the cheapest, have a frequency response going down to the lowest range that can be heard.


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## bigshot

mitchflorida said:


> Thanks, I guess.


Last time I was in the market for speakers, I went down to the stereo store and parked myself in the speaker room with a yellow pad and a classical, jazz and rock CD that I was familiar with. I promised the salesman that I would look him up when I had made my decision if he showed me how the switcher worked. He left me alone. I made three passes though every speaker in the room using each CD and made notes of which ones I liked and which I didn't. I never looked at the price, I just listened. After about three hours I had narrowed it down to four sets of speakers. I called the salesman over to see what he could do pricewise and found out that I had chosen the most expensive speakers in the room (naturally!) along with three more that were considerably less expensive. I chose one of the less expensive sets and they've served me well.

The thing I learned was that price and brand name meant nothing. There were expensive speakers that sounded awful, and just because one particular model sounded good, it didn't mean that others in the same brand did. The only way I could sort it all out was to listen.


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## mitchflorida

Fair enough. I am hearing some good things about Polk Monitor Speakers. I just don't have the time and interest to go to a lot of hi fi stores. I usually can save 40 percent by ordering online.


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## bigshot

It was a while ago, but when I was checking out speakers, I liked the Polk bookshelves, but not their full sized speakers. As I remember, they were a little thick sounding and lacking in the mids. They weren't awful though. Just not as good as some of the others. They might work well in a room with a hard slab floor.

Many stereo stores will match internet prices.


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## mitchflorida

I saw these Klipsch Mirage Omnisat OS3-FS Speakers on sale for $199 a copy. They look sort of bad ***. I am not one to go to a store to listen to them, I would just read the reviews (which are good). I generally have good luck with that, but I am not as particular as most people would be.


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## bigshot

I use Klipsch bookshelf speakers for my rear channel. I paid $150 a side for them if I remember correctly. They were the best sounding small speakers in the store. Do you have a subwoofer?


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## quack

These look cool http://www.amazon.com/Waterfall-Audio-Niagara-Standing-Loudspeakers/dp/B002BSH27I/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_3









Yours for under $54,000


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## bigshot

Ugh! I love reviews like this one...

I am an investment banker who has been very lucky with investments and also an audiophile, so I wanted to buy something special just to say that I could actually afford something so outrageously expensive.

This one is more like it...

Got a couple of these in my kid's room. They love listening to Raffi and Disney songs on these before bed some nights. When they turn ten I'll probably upgrade, but for now these are an excellent compromise. The crystal glass is beautiful and allows you to paint or crayon on them while keeping the acoustics pristine and the resonance in caliber. Wouldn't recommend them too close to the pool, as some boisterous party goers knocked them in and they sink like the heavenly stones that they are, chipping my personalized golden tile inlay. Sent it back to amazon, with a case of Don, and got a couple refurbished back in a week. Bravo Amazon! Also, they make for excellent studio speakers when playing back sounds of your bowels. I recorded myself on the throne multiple times and these get it "right". Crystal clear highs and lows allow me to relive each movement with unparallelled memory. Toying with the notion of grabbing a few dozen pair and creating a sound heaven wall that would make Odysseus' sirens blue with envy. Perfect wedding gift, and makes an excellent house warming gesture. Grab them while the price is low.

Always read the Amazon reviews before buying!

http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-NR...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending


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## PlaySalieri

I spoke to a guy who used to work at Quad. About CD error correction - as I understand from him - the errors are in the manufacturing process and error correction is there to, predominantly correct those errors - and can do so with pinpoint accuracy - whether you play from a CD player or from a CD ripped to hard drive - there should be no difference at all on that account. Errors do not occur from the reading process. This is just going back to a dozen or so posts earlier as I recall someone saying ripping to HD is better because it results in a more accurate reading.


----------



## Philip

stomanek said:


> I spoke to a guy who used to work at Quad. About CD error correction - as I understand from him - the errors are in the manufacturing process and error correction is there to, predominantly correct those errors - and can do so with pinpoint accuracy - whether you play from a CD player or from a CD ripped to hard drive - there should be no difference at all on that account. Errors do not occur from the reading process. This is just going back to a dozen or so posts earlier as I recall someone saying ripping to HD is better because it results in a more accurate reading.


No offense, but you have to understand that an engineer perhaps won't feel like explaining to the average guy the exact design details and algorithms. What he told you is not incorrect. CDs are manufactured to a standard that states that no uncorrectable errors (CU) are allowed. Errors codes are written on the disk because errors are inevitable, but redundancy makes them correctable. There is a standard for how many C1 and C2 errors are allowed on average, i don't remember these numbers.

A CD player will correct these errors on the fly, but can only interpolate or mute the unrecoverable samples. A CD drive will attempt to reread. New disks will play/read without any difference in both a drive or player, a damaged disk may or may not; this is why a player can only do as good as a drive, given that it has C2 correction capability.

The more expensive CD players have disk stabilization apparatus, multiple lasers, and probably other intricate mechanisms that work to reduce read errors, thus error correction, or interpolation in case of uncorrectable errors. These mechanisms are simply not needed in a CD drive.


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## PlaySalieri

He seemed to be saying that the cd players don't have to re-read as they pick it all up as it is on the disc first time. He explained about interpolation and muting which he said is necessary when they CD is scratched/damaged and the data is not correctable. Anyway in his opinion - and he worked in R and D at quad for 25 years - right up to the mid 90s - there should be no difference in playback whether from a ripped disc - or player playing in real time.


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## PlaySalieri

Just to add - a CD with 60 minutes playing time is read in 60 miutes by a player - yet ripped in 5 minutes by a drive. It does not take 1 second of the CD player's time to read the bits - probably just a fraction of a second - thus there is bags of time to get an accurate reading. Re-reading is more likely to be necessary in a pc based cd drive where you have a fan and other bits causing unstability.
It's all academic anyway as on a blind test I doubt if anybody could tell the difference.
I once downloaded a highly compressed beethoven vc and could not tell it had been compressed - it seem high enough quality to me.


----------



## Philip

stomanek said:


> He seemed to be saying that the cd players don't have to re-read as they pick it all up as it is on the disc first time. He explained about interpolation and muting which he said is necessary when they CD is scratched/damaged and the data is not correctable.


Yes, that's pretty much exactly what i said in my previous post.



stomanek said:


> He seemed to be saying that the cd players don't have to re-read as they pick it all up as it is on the disc first time. He explained about interpolation and muting which he said is necessary when they CD is scratched/damaged and the data is not correctable. Anyway in his opinion - and he worked in R and D at quad for 25 years - right up to the mid 90s - there should be no difference in playback whether from a ripped disc - or player playing in real time.


Why do i get the feeling we're going in circles? What your friend told you is correct, however you don't seem to have grasped any of these concepts. Your argument about ripping time is completely ignorant.

May i also point out that you were the one trying to tell us that "hi-fi" sources like CD players were better than a PC... and now you're talking as if you're trying to convince us that they sound the same... we know!

Next time, ask your engineer friend before having to backtrack.


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## bigshot

All CD players, whether standalone or PC based, sound exactly the same. Even the cheapest WalMart special can play a CD perfectly.

Shall we discuss how all solid state amps sound the same now?


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## quack

I'm glad then that all music sounds different.


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## bigshot

Music is what matters.


----------



## PlaySalieri

Philip said:


> May i also point out that you were the one trying to tell us that "hi-fi" sources like CD players were better than a PC... and now you're talking as if you're trying to convince us that they sound the same... we know!


Yes true but I changed my mind after reading your posts and doing some research. I'm not obstinate! Just interested.


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## bigshot

Wow! You are a rare bird indeed. Most folks dig in and don't give an inch, even if they're wrong. Welcome to the club!


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## mitchflorida

If you aren't in the US and want to try mog.com for free trial, you can use this free vpn service to get a U.S. IP address. You can use it to sign up for Netflix in the US or Pandora. Tell me if it worked for you.

http://hotspotshield.com/lp/vpn_privacy_aw/?gclid=CNK6oLnPgrECFUNrtgodxwYYIA

I also want to post a free radio recording application for recording great music and talk radio as well.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Other-AUDIO-Tools/Audials-Light.shtml


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## mitchflorida

I got me some bad *** stereo headphones, Sennheiser.


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## HoraeObscura

I prefer streaming services... Now I use Spotify, I tend to devour music and I have a too broad taste to buy it all... Now if I read a suggestion here I can just head over to Spotify, search it and enjoy it! 

I did hook up my pc with my hifi though, for better results


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## mitchflorida

HoraeObscura said:


> I prefer streaming services... Now I use Spotify, I tend to devour music and I have a too broad taste to buy it all... Now if I read a suggestion here I can just head over to Spotify, search it and enjoy it!
> 
> I did hook up my pc with my hifi though, for better results


I have mog which is similar to Spotify . . love it and its at high frequency. You have got to listen on Sennheiser HD598 (around $220). You will notice things in your favorite recordings that you have never noticed before. Usually that's good, it really opens your eyes and ears. Sometimes it is bad because I can no longer listen to some of my classical harp CDs were recorded with so much distortion that I can no longer listen to them.


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## bigshot

I have HD590s, which are very similar to your cans. They're very nice. But headphones tend to exaggerate noise. Things that sound "eh" on my headphones sound fine on my speakers.


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## mitchflorida

Those are about 11 years old .. lots of technological improvement in that time. And things that sound eh on my speakers sometimes sound great on headphones. I listen in a small room where you couldn't really put fantastic speakers there, and if you could they would cost a fortune. I really like these, they hit the sweet spot for bang for your buck.


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## bigshot

It all depends on whether you're calibrated to a flat response. The flatter the frequency response, the more likely everything sounds good on it.


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## Head_case

mitchflorida said:


> You have got to listen on Sennheiser HD598 (around $220). You will notice things in your favorite recordings that you have never noticed before. Usually that's good, it really opens your eyes and ears. Sometimes it is bad because I can no longer listen to some of my classical harp CDs were recorded with so much distortion that I can no longer listen to them.


Oh no. That's terrible. It drives me potty when I hear harp strings break up on headphones. I used to get that all the time with the Grado RS series 

The HD598s are very decent. I stopped the HD600s for the Ultrasone Pro900s (Thumbs up!)

Recently I'm using the Sennheiser HD25 Amperiors. WOW.


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## mitchflorida

In some ways, Harp music may be the acid test for headphones or any sound system. There is no hiding anything there, it is basically naked . . It certainly tests the highs and mid-range . . and the occasional low strings are make or break .. lots of sympathetic harmonic vibration.

This is a very good recording

http://www.amazon.com/Rössler-Roset...binding_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1355142800&sr=1-1


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## Head_case

and this one!










Mysterium Druidum - for harp & string quartet


----------



## quack

I hadn't really noticed the harp as being a good audio test subject, although solo instrument recital discs are usually what I pick or more usually soprano recitals.

This should be a harp thread, I love the harp, much more interesting than format wars. Heard that Rosetti disc but not the other Englichová one, I was thinking of getting this with modern works, despite the dubious cover.


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## mitchflorida

Isn't it said that if we die and go to heaven, we will all be playing harp music or just listening to it?

I can vouch for this album. I am very picky about my harp music . . it is very relaxing though.









For modern harp compositions, this is the only one in my collection


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## Ralfy

CDs, with computer backups. For other media, conversion to digital.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

For me LP's are still the way to go i.e. vinyl the touch feel and sounds of a gih turn table is the best. 

Although Id have to say - I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music


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## mitchflorida

Not too much new classical music coming out in vinyl these days . It is more for nostalgia or memories that I would play the old LPs. I have some cassettes from my deceased father's collection. Rarely played. I love digitial and headphones for most of my listening.


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## bigshot

The best reason to have a turntable is for bargains. Classical LPs can be had for fifty cents a disk.


----------



## Tristan

256Kbps AACs ripped from CDs, by means of iTunes. 

I still have all my CDs of course, and I also have a small vinyl collection, mostly opera recordings that I got from my grandparents.


----------



## Vaneyes

LP manufacturing has been on the significant rise for a couple of years now. Of course it's nothing like the ol' days, and being geared to audiophiles, it's understandably more expensive. Previously-enjoyed LPs in good condition can still be found in a variety of shops--thrift, used books, CDs, estate sales, etc.


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## bukowski

i've just finished organizing my cd collection (that was the reason i've found TC). today they're almost all (at least the ones that interest me most) on my itunes.

i hear them with my Samson SR850 headphones (cheap and fabulous!!! try them if you can!).


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## bigshot

That is an accomplishment! Congratulations. I've been working on that same project for over six years with no end in sight.


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## Head_case

Living in a capital city with claustrophobic space issues, and also being an agoraphile (love open spaces), I'm very careful about buying that "Just one more" book, vinyl LP, CD or manbag"

I love trawling through friends' CD racks, just to marvel at their personalised filing systems. Vinyl LPs collections are hard to explore but more exhilarating - marvelling at the fabulous 12 inch square covers and liner notes; sometimes coloured vinyl discs and prefaces and a little bit about each ensemble.

On the other hand exploring friends' iPods and MP3 player directories is insanely tedious.


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## mitchflorida

bukowski said:


> i've just finished organizing my cd collection (that was the reason i've found TC). today they're almost all (at least the ones that interest me most) on my itunes.
> 
> i hear them with my Samson SR850 headphones (cheap and fabulous!!! try them if you can!).


Do yourself a favor and order the Sennheiser HD 598 headphones for under $200 ... from Amazon. If you aren't impressed you can just send them back. If you have thousands of dollars of CDs and listening to them on a $54 pair of headphones . . something doesn't add up.


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## Vaneyes

bukowski said:


> i've just finished organizing my cd collection (that was the reason i've found TC). today they're almost all (at least the ones that interest me most) on my itunes.
> 
> i hear them with my Samson SR850 headphones (cheap and fabulous!!! try them if you can!).


Re CDs that don't interest you, you're welcome to sell them at TC. :tiphat:


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## bukowski

mitchflorida said:


> Do yourself a favor and order the Sennheiser HD 598 headphones for under $200 ... from Amazon. If you aren't impressed you can just send them back. If you have thousands of dollars of CDs and listening to them on a $54 pair of headphones . . something doesn't add up.


cheaper than that Sennheiser it's the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 and they're better (for me, by far).

i don't choose my headphones by the price. 
and you're right, i've already tried the Sennheiser HD 598 and i wasn't that impressed. :tiphat:


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## mitchflorida

I am sure the Samson headphones are a good value considering the price. But when you are ready to run with the big dogs (Sennheiser), let me know. Then we can talk serious audiophile.


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## bukowski

mitchflorida said:


> I am sure the Samson headphones are a good value considering the price. But when you are ready to run with the big dogs (Sennheiser), let me know. Then we can talk serious audiophile.


do you even know the Audio-Technica ATH-M50? have you ever tried them?

... then we can talk serious audiophile.


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## bigshot

Audio Technica makes some very good headphones.


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## bukowski

for sure. and besides Audio-Technica other brands like Beyerdynamic, Audeze or even Grado are making amazing over-ear headphones.

there's an entire world of awesome headphones beyond Sennheiser...


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

well I'm still buying and using phono cartridges my favs are Joe Grado Signature 8 MR and Audiotechnia OC9

call me old skool

"I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music."


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## BlazeGlory

I used to listen to the classics on my Edison phonograph pictured here, but I've moved up to a wire recorder.


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## mitchflorida

The old 78 rpm records held a maximum of 4.5 minutes of music. So a symphony could easily take 8 separate disks depending on the piece. Are there any people out there who think that the old 78s sounded better than LPs? Stokowski's work on the 78s are supposed to be very good.


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## KRoad

That 78s in general had sonic fidelity far exceeding todays CDs is well known among audiophiles "in the know"!


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## bigshot

I collect classical 78s. They don't sound as bad as people make them out. They have great bass, even if the frequencies above 12kHz are lacking. They have surface noise, but the proper stylus and digital processing can eliminate that. What they have in abundance is great music making of a variety that just doesn't exist any more... Stoki with the Philadelphia, Caruso, Heifetz... That stuff is golden, and CD transfers don't always do it justice. (Although restoration techniques have improved tremendously in the past ten years.)

Also, acoustically recorded records on an acoustic gramophone sonds a million times better than the same records transferred electronically to CD. The record manufacturers also made phonographs so they were able to tweak their recorded sound to sound better on their phonographs, and. The phonographs were tweaked to make the records sound better. It wasn't the same as modern high fidelity at all. It operated on their own experiments in primitive psycho-acoustics. Every record label had a lab where they experimented. It's an interesting subject to study.


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## mitchflorida

I find Heifetz playing just a little bit over-bearing. He lacks the subtlety and feel of some of the other great violinists. I would classify Heifetz as the Jimi Hendrix of the violin, which is a mixed blessing.


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## Vaneyes

No need to single out Heifetz. Virtuosity was the name of the game decades and decades ago. Oh, let's make it over one hundred years ago with Caruso. That's how they set themselves apart, for personal integrity, fame, and riches. Not necessarily in that order. I think many of them believed as some sensible composers do. That is, once it's down on paper, it's open for interpretation.

Following a score to the letter often makes for duller everything.


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## bigshot

Performers used to perform. We live now in an age of lukewarm dishwater and it's so pervasive, some of us have been convinced that we actually like it. God forbid virtuosity might rear its ugly head! We want bland appropriateness.

A dusty old 78 is often apt to contain more sweeping technicolor grandeur than a super high bitrate THX certified computer file.

"Agism" when it comes to recordings is the single biggest mistake newbies make.


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## mitchflorida

I think there are several better violinists out than Heifetz. It depends if you liked his aggressive, strident style of playing the violin. There is a player Vadim Repin whom I would rather listen to.

I will grant you that Heifetz was quite a showman . . exciting to watch.


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## Vaneyes

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying which era or artist was better or best. If one wants to state what he or she *like*, fine. But a statement of what's *better* or *best...*that is usually very suspect. A favorite ploy is to tear down one, in order to build up another. Eras, artists, etc. I do realize, that without such blatancy thread pages aren't likely to multiply. :tiphat:


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## bigshot

All eras are not created equal. There are Rennaissances and there are Dark Ages. Some folks may like Dark Ages better, but that doesn't make them an age of enlightenment and growth.


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## Vaneyes

Disconnected again. :tiphat:


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## farmerjohn

I rip CDs into flac, which is an excellent format.

1) It is lossless so none of the quality of the CD sound is lost

2) It can be converted into another format if desired without loss of quality.
This is an important point to make I feel. Whilst listening tests show that people cannot reliably distinguish between the original CD and a high bitrate lossy encode, if converting between lossy formats artifacts get introduced. This is because different lossy codecs work in different ways and remove different parts of the audio to keep the size down. Therefore, converting from one lossy format to another is considered to be a no-no as resulting quality will be inferior to converting from lossless.

3) It requires very little computing power to encode or decode, meaning it works a treat on any hardware, even really old systems.

4) It has wider support than any other lossless codec (it has native support on Android

There is a new lossy codec called Opus which is really fantastic. I have been using it recently. It is the best lossy codec ever invented. It is incredibly efficient and sounds great even at low bitrates. It has also been adopted as an internet standard by the IETF (Internet Engineering Taskforce). Interestingly, unlike MP3, AAC etc. it is also very low latency. This makes it ideal for musicians to play together over the internet. It is also incredibly versatile and is also the best codec for recording speech in and so is ideal for audiobooks, audio and video chat over the internet etc.

For anyone who is interested, there is a good site called hydrogenaudio, which regularly conducts scientific listening tests of the latest codecs. It is an excellent resource and I would recommend it.

I have a pair of Sennheiser headphones which I mostly use when listening late at night so as not to disturb others.
They are great. Excellent sound quality and very comfy even when wearing for a long period of time.
I find I have to be careful though wearing headphones for Classical music. Whereas in pop music the volume tends to stay more or less the same throughout an album, in Classical music there are often considerable fluctuations in volume and a lot of sudden crescendos without warning. One minute everything is so quiet I can hardly hear anything so I higher up the vol. Next thing I know I am nearly deafened by a sudden transition from pianissimo to fortissimo lol.


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## mitchflorida

When you say you listen on Sennheiser headphones, that is like saying you had meat for dinner. You can have oxtails which is meat or Chateaubriand Kobi , which is truly the finest steak of all. Which model headphone are you using and why? That is very important information.

FLAC sounds interesting but can an Ipod play it and how much storage space does it need vs. AAC 256 or MP3 320?


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## bigshot

On an iPod, you'd use ALAC (aka Apple Lossless). It's the same as FLAC. Lossless files are many times larger than an audibly transparent lossy file.

As for transcoding lossy files, I think that is greatly overstated. I took an AAC 256 VBR file and encoded and reencoded it ten times. The tenth generation reencode sounded very good. As long as you rip to a lossy format that is audibly transparent and transcode it to another lossy format that is audibly transparent, you shouldn't have any problem. The best way to find out it to try it like I did!


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## quack

Here's an interesting video showing the effect of the accumulation of encoding errors using a famous experimental piece. Of course most don't convert their music or video files 1000 times. FLAC or ALAC are around twice as large than the highest quality ACC or mp3.


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## jtbell

I started out on LPs and cassettes in the 1970s, switched over to (mostly) CDs in the 1980s and 1990s, and am now switching over from CDs to CD-quality lossless files (ALAC format) streamed from iTunes on my Mac to an Apple TV box which feeds into the receiver in my living-room A/V system (NAD receiver and PSB speakers).

In a box in a closet I still have some LPs that have never appeared on CD (so far as I know). I got rid of my old turntable about twelve years ago. I've been toying with buying a new turntable, phono preamp and DAC so I can digitize them. The main problem is clearing enough space on my desk for the turntable. My current A/V stand in the living room can't accommodate a turntable.


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## bigshot

quack said:


> Here's an interesting video showing the effect of the accumulation of encoding errors using a famous experimental piece. Of course most don't convert their music or video files 1000 times. FLAC or ALAC are around twice as large than the highest quality ACC or mp3.


YouTube compresses audio to a maximum of AAC 128. That is well below the level of transparency (somewhere between 192 and 256). It would be interesting to do the same thing with a high fidelity audio file at AAC 256 or higher. I did it ten times and the file sounded fine, but I didn't have enough patience to find the point where artifacts begin to accumulate. I wonder where that point would be.

One thing about file sizes... A large file is much more likely to become corrupted by random disk error than a small one.


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## mitchflorida

This is just what the doctor ordered if you have vinyl and want to digitize it.

https://www.livingsocial.com/produc...ntable-by-crosley?ctr=93&ref=National01.28.13


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## quack

Most USB turntables aren't that good, that Crosley seems to be especially poor junk http://www.knowzy.com/Electronics/Audio/Turntables/Crosley/Keepsake_Turntable_CR249/index.htm#Review You are better off using a decent turntable and a PC soundcard with audio input if you wish to convert vinyl.


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## bigshot

You can pick up better turntables at second hand sales than buying new. Just look for Technics, Thorens or Dual turntables. For $50 to $150 they will perform better than new turntables that cost several times as much.


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## mitchflorida

There seems to be a myth that all desktop MP3 players sound alike . after all they are just playing the same bits and digits.

I have found this not to be true. All of my MP3 files sound better using this program, and it is free. Try this program and tell me if you can't tell a significant improvement from using WMP or VLC or Itunes Players.

There is also a plug-in included called Sound Sharpener, which is also very good.

http://www.foobar2000.org/download


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## bigshot

All iPods sound pretty much the same. I don't know about other brands. EQ and DSP plugins can always help, but they are correcting for your headphones and speakers more than your player.


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## mitchflorida

I really wasn't talking about Ipods.


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## bigshot

Are there othe mp3 players? Smiley here


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## mitchflorida

I am talking about PC desktop MP3 players, the kind that play music off a PC's hard disk. Examples are Windows Media Player, VLC, Itunes and Winamp. This one is called Foobar2000.


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## bigshot

ITunes? Are there others?


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