If your speakers disappear with digital but not with phono, then something is probably not right with your phono setup (not uncommon).
Is your cleaning method working? How d you clean the records?
How did you pick the equipment you did? Was there a plan to make sure they work well together or was the decision process more random, based solely on reviews or such? Have you verified everything is set up correctly and in good working order?
Also, what is the rest of your system (amp. pre-amp, digital source, etc.?)
Sorry for all the questions, but these are so many things that can go wrong with vinyl playback that it is worth considering everything when something is not performing to expectations.
BTW what are your expectations regarding vinyl? Records can be hit or miss from record to record, more so than with CDs these days I have found. You ned to manage your expectations. Some records should sound very good and satisfy most, but many will never satisfy a most highly discriminative listener.
FWIW< I use a Linn Axis + DL103R and the phono pre-amp built into my ARC sp16 and the sound is very similar to my digital as a whole, more or less. Everything is listenable and clean sounding at a minimum to excellent in most ways when things are clicking with particular decent to good recordings, digital or analog. |
It takes a lot of experience and know-how to get really top notch sound from records. It can take a long time (and lot of money) to find the way on your own. If you are serious but perhaps not infinitely patient, I recommend you find a professional knowledgeable with your stuff that you can trust and work with them to get things sounding right. With a 300+ album collection, assuming that is in decent condition to start with and you are serious about rediscovering and posibly even extending it, it is probably worth it to do what is needed to get the playback working right. |
"Depth, width, and height of the image is ALWAYS superior with vinyl compared with CD"
Not the case at all with my system. I guess I must be doing something right.
just like some speakers are more efficient and easy to drive than others, not all are equally easy to get to do soundstage and imaging well.
But if you start with speakers that do those things well, and have them set up well to enable them to do it (including decent amplification), the source format pretty much is a non issue.
That is the case in my system with the OHMs and largely the case even my monitors, though perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent than with the omni and highly coherent OHMs. Almost everything I play has huge soundstage and accurate imaging, including FM and even home recorded cassettes. Even mono lps and CDs have a clean and natural sounding multidimensional aspec to them, though the soundstage is then restricted mostly to within the two speakers, though still with execellent depth, at least on decent recordings.
Each format has its limitations even when done to the max, but soundstage and imaging need not be one of them IMHO and experience. |
Newbee,
Not sure I am clear what you refer to as specificity? Is that essentially imaging accuracy, ie being able to identify specific location of instruments and such within a focused soundstage? I believe all formats are capable of doing that well as well, at least to my satisfaction, which requires that I be able to identify location of specific instruments or recording tracks relative to each other as I please during listening, at least to the extent possible which is largely determined by the recording quality and technique, which varies widely from recording to recording, but similarly regardless of source format.
Different source types (vinyl, FM, cassette tape) may be subject to different types and levels of background noise in general that may mask some details, but the cues needed for the stereo soundstage/imaging trick are still there under noraml conditions unless things get abnornally out of hand noise-wise.
CD may have noise/distortion in the time dimension as a result of jitter as well with similar detrimental effects, although this kind of distortion/noise may not be as easy to identify by ear as other types associated with other formats. I believe jitter can negatively impact the cues needed to simulate a 3-d soundstage optimally with digital recordings much as other noise types might mask these cues in other formats. However, under normal good conditions, these cues are present in all formats and some speaker setups will be able to reproduce them better than others. |
Newbee,
Your description makes sense.
Not sure I agree that solo instruments necessarily occupy the entire soundstage in all cases you identified though.
It is not the case with omnis I have heard, which are OHM and MBL. Have you actually heard these properly set up?
There is a greater sense of room ambience perhaps with properly set up omnis, but soloists are located just fine, in fact the mbls are the best I have ever heard at doing exactly that in that they have the deepest soundstage I have heard yet the best specificity.
OHMs I have heard do it almost as well, however I have never heard a soundstage with OHMs as deep as with mbl. I attribute that mostly to differences in room size during audition and the fact that mbl is true omni and OHM Walsh only pseudo omni ( sound in wall facing directions is attenuated with sound damping material located inside the can to allow closer placement to walls). Old OHM Fs and Es were true omni, but I have never heard those. |
Lewm,
I would not suggest that your speakers specifically are "deficient". All I'm saying that it is not always the case that vinyl always does imaging and sound staging better. In your case, apparently this is true, in mine it is not. Both formats produce similar results that are both competitive with the best I have heard in my case, at least that is my assessment.
I believe based on my observations that when one format sounds categorically better in this regard, something unique is going on in that sources signal path that accounts for it. It may be a combination of multiple factors that add up to less rather than any one thing. The configuration of the speakers in the room could be the culprit. My big OHM 5s cannot work their magic as well without room around them to breath, for example. Same true of many large speaker designs: mbls Maggies and many floorstanders, based on my experience. Sometimes, the system may be capable excelling in this area, but the room is the constraint. In some cases, inferior recordings in this regard might sound better because they do not requrie as much room to breathe properly. Smaller speakers like monitors generally do imaging and soundstage better in smaller or cramped rooms I have found. Bigger is not always better (except in bass levels perhaps but too much of that is not necessarily a good thing either).
Also, having run many speakers on various quality sounding systems over the years, I also know that some speakers do imaging and soundstaging better than others because they do so even with lesser electronics up front and set up in the same room. I've heard this with the OHMs and Triangles in my system representing the best and most other speakers I have tried trailing behind those to various degrees. |
As a kid, watching a record spin and play fascinated me. I think it may have been the first thing to get me interested in a tech/engineering career of some sort. If only CDs came in nice packages like albums used to. CDs are certainly not very interesting visually (sexy?) while playing, another shortcoming. Now that I have things pretty well tuned in, the sound quality is no longer an issue for me. |
Raul,
The OP indicated that those were the aspects of sound missing in his vinyl versus CD, hence the focus there in the discussion.
Obviously, there are many other ingredients needed to make the audio soup best as well!
Cheers! |
Gee, I guess that guy really doesn't like the Linn!
I guess he's right and the countless satisfied owners who have run their Linn tables happily for decades (like me) must be wrong. It's the only piece in my system that has survived that long, though I have run various models of OHM speakers for longer. |
I'm not worried. The guy who wrote that is a very entertaining writer and has some good insights into audio. His Linn bashing is just way negative and over the top IMHO, I suppose because there surely are better tables out there 20-30 years later.
I don't know if I would shell out the bucks these days for a new Linn table, but the one I have that I acquired in 1986 or so for well under $1000 has served me extremely well. Perhaps the line is a dinosaur, but it deserves some respect for its staying power and the value it has provided to many over the years, similar to many other vintage designs. |
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One thing I will say about the Lp12, from what I read, it is not easy to get set up right for whatever reason. It is not for those who are more interested in easy plug and play than tweaking, perhaps.
On the other hand, the simpler but similar Linn Axis that I have run for years is a piece of cake to set up and get good sound out of, no more than most any other vintage table I have operated over the years. These are harder to find though these days I believe.
Other than that, for those interested in easy set up/plug and play, I would probably look elsewhere. Stay away from potentially great tables that require an engineering degree to set up optimally. |
