Listening comments...

slowGEEZR said:

I've just finished listening to Joni Mitchell's album, "Blue" on CD and vinyl, back to back. Both are new releases put out by Reprise, Warner Bros. records. I was struck by how much better the vinyl sounded on my system. There was a "realness" to the vinyl, like Joni was performing in front of me rather than sounding like a great recording, which is what the CD sounded like. What really stood out was that I could hear her voice like it was coming from her body rather than from the speakers. An actual person was singing. But, it wasn't just Joni's voice, the guitars sounded earthier, with more substance to them, also. All in all, simply more convincing!

It seems to me that we're all here because we love great sounding music. I've heard some great sounding systems that cost many times what my system cost, but I haven't heard those systems using vinyl. I wonder just how good they would sound if the source was vinyl? Oh well, as my system gets better and better, I guess I'll find out. The next step for me is add the Benchmark DAC to improve the CD sound. Cheers, Steve.

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aliveatfive said:

It has been my experience that whenever you play the same album on cd and then on vinyl, most of the time the vinyl wins. To be fair, I've never listened to a $10,000+ cd player. That's why I still try to acquire as many new releases as possible on vinyl. (To further qualify, I listen to cds and SACDs on an Esoteric DV50s - not exactly chopped liver.)

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twich54 said:

Steve, good day, you know I have a few "dups" myself and I can point to some that the Cd is actually better, but I must agree in the case of my Chuck Mangione selection, for each and every one is clearly better on viynl. I atribute this to the fact that the recordings I'm speaking of are from the seventies and early eighties when Cd recordings from analog master tapes were fair at best.....fast forward to todays stuff and as was said in earlier threads/posts.....whatever floats your boat, just relax and enjoy the music !!

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Joey_V said:

I like that you brought this up... vinyl, for me.... is the final frontier and so I'm reading up on it and familiarizing myself with the analog side of things.

Soon, I will have my vinyl setup... probably not until the end of the year though, but I'll be patient.

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nsgarch said:

Two nights ago, my friend Michael brought over his just calibrated Technics 1700RS R2R, and along with my Nak CR-7A, Wadia T2000/27, Goldmund/SME-V/Transfiguration W, we A,B,C,D'd :rocker: the following albums:

R = reel to reel
D = digital
C = cassette
V = vinyl

Miles Davis, 'Sketches of Spain': R, V/C, D
CCNY, '4-Way Street': D, V, C, R
Cat Stevens, 'Teaser and the Firecat': V, R, D. C

It is interesting that vinyl and reel-2-reel ended up as the top two pics in two out of three sessions

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slowGEEZR said:

Joey,

I don't have the best vinyl rig, but it is amazing how much bang you get for your buck with vinyl. I have the least expensive new VPI turntable (Scout) with a lower end (price wise) cartridge (Clearaudio Aurum Beta S - wood). I did spend a little bit on the phono amp and got a BAT VK-P5, which was a huge improvement over the cheap Bellari phono amp I had. - Steve

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