digital vs analog

ponchonlefty

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8 track,cassette,cds and anything else. it seems to me analog has more character. whether its music or mechanics.
what say you? do you think digital can ever give the same results?
 

semioldfart

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Cassette was about 6 bits worth of digital. Add in some wow and flutter if you want to add character. There are plugins for that.
Undo and infinite layers/retakes does have an impact. And IMHO shuffle and instant fast forward was camel's nose in the tent. They probably did more evil than all the much more maligned aspects combined.

I regret selling my Zoom R24. I may buy another some day - I wish it worked with MIDI like a 90's multitrack. It was digital but I used it like a tape machine. Never really mastered punch in/out so grab another track and keep the better of the two takes. The time or two I did keyboards on it I ended up just printing it like it was a real rhodes/B3. And it didn't break every time I went to upgrade my video driver to play some game.
 

Pilgrim

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I honestly can't usually hear a difference between analog and digital, and when I can, it's in favor of digital. I think it also depends on the music system you're listening on. If you have $10,000 or more into a system and under-30 ears that haven't been exposed to gunfire or ridiculous concert sound, then I wouldn't be very surprised if you could hear a difference, but I'm not convinced that it would be in favor of analog.

I think that "character" depends a lot on the sound system and the surroundings. But again, I don't have a BMW-priced sound system. I've built mine from Facebook, Craigslist, pawn shops and Ebay based on reviews and recommendations.

I'm firmly convinced that psycho-acoustics are a major factor in each of our listening preferences. If we are convinced that A is superior to B, we will perceive that as a fact regardless of measurements.

My position is partly influenced by my years in radio working with reel to reel tape, LPs, carts and cassettes. I am currently digitizing cassettes of my multi-year radio show in the 90s and I'm having to work with a lot of EQ, some noise canceling when the background noise gets excessive, and (board op error) levels which are off. Cassettes were a good solution at the time for portability, erasure and re-use, and their sound was acceptable for the time.

Anything vinyl melts or warps easily, tends to accumulate needle noise at the start of a cut when it's played often (and immediately if it was cued up), gets scratched easily, and takes up a lot of room in storage and transportation. IMO the one thing LPs have going for them is room for album art and notes.

For storage, portability, durability and consistent sound quality, I'll take CDs every time. I know some of the early CDs were poorly engineered and EQd, and I have a couple of those. (Mitch Ryder's compilation album "All Mitch Ryder Hits" is one of the offenders.) But most CDs are much better than that. I have at least 200 in one moderate sized bookshelf.

Here's a photo of part of one wall in our living room, showing (IMO) one of the highest and best uses of LPs.

Albuyms on wall.jpg
 
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ponchonlefty

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The very first time I saw a CD, it was a Pointer Sisters demo. The CD was cracked in half and taped. And it played. Defies everything I've ever known about CD's in the intervening 40 years.
i got pretty good at taping cassettes back together when my piece of crap player would eat it. i lost some music but
it worked. it was a glorious day when i got a better player. used to do vhs tapes too.
 

fcleff69

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I can definitely tell a difference between vinyl, CD, and streaming. Streaming is the worst as the compression needed really makes me work to hear the music. That doesn’t mean I don’t use it, because I do, and frequently.

But I remember getting my turntable set up for the first time in a very long time. When that needle dropped, it was stunning at how warm it all sounded. It just filled the room in a way that streaming can’t really do.
 

semioldfart

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Now one place where modern absolutely sucks is the 120hz crossover and one note sub because everyone loves tiny speakers.I want a pair of 8" MTM's in the living room like back when we had real speakers. That hasn't really flown so far because of WAF but one day... I don't even mean audiophile, i just mean HiFi speakers that can do 50hz and 100db should be the minimum living room speaker.
 

ponchonlefty

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Now one place where modern absolutely sucks is the 120hz crossover and one note sub because everyone loves tiny speakers.I want a pair of 8" MTM's in the living room like back when we had real speakers. That hasn't really flown so far because of WAF but one day... I don't even mean audiophile, i just mean HiFi speakers that can do 50hz and 100db should be the minimum living room speaker.
i put 6x9 speakers in a 5 gallon bucket when i was 16. it worked better than i expected. i have no expertise in frequencies but have played with different types of enclosures over the years. those buckets were great tailgate party
speakers. i have back fired subs and got more of a deep bass out of them.
 

Pilgrim

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I can definitely tell a difference between vinyl, CD, and streaming. Streaming is the worst as the compression needed really makes me work to hear the music. That doesn’t mean I don’t use it, because I do, and frequently.

But I remember getting my turntable set up for the first time in a very long time. When that needle dropped, it was stunning at how warm it all sounded. It just filled the room in a way that streaming can’t really do.
I have an old set of Design Acoustic PS-10 speakers in the family room as primary front speakers in a surround system. They're pretty surprising.

They're close to being a foot-per-side cube. (Removable grilles are laid on top of each speaker)

qx81khxy3tb11.jpg


But the kicker is the bottom. Note that they sit a couple of inches off the base on standoffs. Here's the woofer on the bottom with the base removed and the speaker upside down. That's a LOT of woofer for a small cube of a speaker. The PS-10 is an old design, but a good one.

its-cube-time-design-acoustics-ps-10-v0-vl45jo1i6ge81.jpg

use

If you want some speakers that just above bookshelf size but which punch above their weight, look for a set of these used. The foam surrounds may have gone bad, but they're quite easy to replace with a kit that's around $30.
 
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semioldfart

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Looks like it's disappeared from internet but I want to build a pair of Dave Tenny's D8 MTM speakers. That's about as big as I'd want in my living room. Not this living room though - nothing fits this living room (12x24 fireplace smack dab in the middle of one wall. Just nothing fits in a logical fashion
 

bonin in the boneyard

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I have no dog in this fight.

I still feel the sting of wearing out demo tapes that never got rereleased digitally or as anything else. And these days, in our tight-ass quarters, I don't care for the clutter of tangible media at all.

In my head I romanticize the ritual of sliding an LP off the shelf and cranking it through a modest but quality system.

But I have nowhere to put a system, and albums I listen to all the way through make up about 2% of my music collection, so I like being able to make playlists and listen to them anywhere I go. I have a 100w rechargeable boombox that sounds great. I can blast it in the kitchen and carry it from room to room while I do chores.

1737736817489.png

But if life changed and we ended up out of the city where we could have some space, I would have a billiard room / library with an analog shrine at one end and a bar at the other.
 
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