Turntable got absolutely crushed by CD

@ rauliruegas  I agree with you concerning nearfield listening with its less than optimal sound for music listening comfort.  Back in the 70s, I reviewed concerts at UCLA Royce Hall and traded my front row tickets for 10th row.  The first couple of rows were too direct sounding and could be too bright, hard, loud, etc.  

However, despite your criticism of the analog process of music reproduction, I thoroughly enjoy listening to "antique" music recordings from the 1900s to 1925, when eq didn't exist, speeds varied per recording artist and company and many more variables caused sonics to be less than good.  It's the performances I'm after.  After 1925, electrical recording produced very fine sound, limited by the technology, but thoroughly enjoyable on my system.  On most audio systems, the dynamic compression and lack of complete harmonic structure greatly limits the sound quality and enjoyment of post 1925 records which have the ability to transport the music listener to a blissful state.  

I also enjoy a well mastered digital recording (I am an amateur recording engineer for various choirs and chamber music which better results then most current professional recordings).  I abhor the current technique of recording at a great distance and large hall for most acoustic recordings, especially anything smaller than an orchestra.  I prefer the direct sound of pianos to cavernous recordings of them.  A touch of room or hall ambiance is beneficial but not like Yarlung recordings for example.  Sometimes I hear modern recordings such as a flute splayed across both channels as huge as a symphony in a cavernous hall.  Yuk, who would want to hear that live?   

@rauliruegas
I think I agree with much of what you’re trying to say, but your distinction between ’sound’ and ’music’ is not very helpful. Music is organized sound waves, there’s really no way around this.

What you could say is this: recorded music (whether analog or digital makes no difference) will always be absolutely crushed by live music. There’s a fundamental divide here that apparently cannot be bridged.

We’ve all heard street musicians and you can always tell even from a distance if they play live or not. It doesn’t matter if they play acoustically or with the aid of amplification. If it’s played on the spot, you will recognize it immediately. Especially in cases where musicians play live on top of a pre-recorded tape you can easily hear the fundamental difference between them both. Live music has a different ’gestalt’.

I’ve always wondered if this ’gestalt’ is already lost when the microphone picks up those airwaves. That would make the analog versus digital debate rather moot, because the essence was already lost before hitting the record button. But I have never heard a mastertape in a controlled studio environment, so I might be very wrong about this.

Perhaps the essence of live music does get captured on the mastertape, but gets lost somewhere downstream in the playback process? If this is the case the characteristics of the used ’sound carriers’ (analog tape, cassette, LP, digital tape, CD, SACD, streaming, etc.) become more important. What sound carrier and audio playback system are most capable of approaching that essence? Here opinions are all over the map, which suggests one thing: it’s all subjective. Which goes a long way to explain all those tired ’debates’ about analog versus digital, MC versus MM, CD versus SACD, tubes versus solid state, class A versus class D, horns versus dipoles, etc, etc, etc.......

It seems to me that no recording and/or playback technology is capable of capturing/reproducing the ’whole beast’. I’ve never had the same unmistakable awareness of hearing live with any audio system as I always do when I hear a street musician. Even playing through a crappy amp and loudspeaker and even from a wider distance without any visual contact. You just ’know’.

Doing the experiment, It is true. When I dropped my turntable on the CD player. No damage to the CD player. When I dropped my over 50 lb Sony SCD777ES on the turntable. bad.. very bad. The TURNTABLE GOT ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED BY CD (SACD)              

Dear @edgewear: I almost agree with what you posted. Of course that always recorded music ( no matter what. ) is totally crushed by live MUSIC and yes any one but a deaf man can identify  live music sound from a street player even if he is playing way out/distance of our sigth/eyes. 

Sound lovers against MUSIC lovers and what am I trying to say?:

all those adjectives that use as " sound/music " characteristics that certainly  we are accustom to by many many years  is a kind of sound that does not exist in live MUSIC events at distance where normally the recording microphones are positioned.

 These microphones are responsables to pick-up/first hand the MUSIC ( of course that at the very first moment that that live MUSIC goes into de microphones and the cable to the mic-electronics the signal is degraded, no question about. ) and from here pass through several steps till we can listen it at our home audio systems.

Now, we analog lovers always want that MUSIC sounds in our systems with all those " sound lovers " adjectives/characteristics but from where came all those wrong MUSIC adjectives?, this is a critical issue:

I learned as all of you from the AHEE where we all belongs and reviewers, manufacturers, audio distributors etc, etc.
What told us the AHEE? things like BD TT is the way to go, LOMC cartridges is the only way to go, tubes is the rigth way to go, tonearms with fixed headshells is the way to go, passive speakers is the way to go, subwoofers? only for home theater, and a lot of more information that still today we all received from there.

The overall audio industry is a business and the AHEE always protect what they teach os from the begining of the analog audio.

All of us learned through the corrupted AHEE that 2x2=5 not 4. Even today we still think in that answer as rigth and never as our self: what if what we learned is just wrong. What if it's?

Digital is what is nearer tothat true 4. It's not exactly the 4 but way nearer than the analog alternative.

Digital is truer to the recording than analog, the microphones signal through digital recording/playback overall process is way way less degraded that the analog alternative but because that disastrous AHEE when we listen to the digital alternative what the adjectives we use to speak against digital are exactly the same true characteristics that LIVE MUSIC owns/has.

So why want we the LIVE MUSIC sounds in a way different way?

I said that overall digital is truer to the recording ( even with all degradation steps where the signal pass through. ) and be truer to the recording means nearest to the LIVE MUSIC.

A few years now I made my self that question: what if many of what the AHEE teach was just wron? and I start to learn for my self in my system and other audio systems that the AHEE teach us wrong " things " on purpose.

From some years now my system target is to stay truer to the recording no matters if I'm listening to the analog alternative or the digital one, my system is builded around that target and to be nearest to that target my first premise is to mantain at minimum every single source of everykind of distortions that can affect the incoming audio signal.

All those discussion about tubes vs SS electronics or LOMC vs MM cartridges  and the like was provocated by our wrong learnend audio information for that 5 and some of us  just can't understand ( even by ignorance of how live MUSIC really sounds. ) that the true/real answer is not that false 5 but 4 and to understand why the 4 is the rigth answer we must have first hand experiences of live MUSIC at near field position experiences.

Pweople do not like SS electronics because belongs to that 4 and like tubes because is the 5 that destroy every audio signal that pass through where SS is truer to the recording and nearer to the 4.

And that's why I posted a difference between " sound lovers " and true MUSIC lovers where sound lovers are in reality hardware lovers and it's not their culprit but that corrupted AHEE that till today almost never gives us that 4 answers.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

and not only that but that AHEE never never said us why 5 is the rigth answer for live MUSIC instead 2x2=4.

If I talk with a tube lover or even a tube manufacturer always they told me why tubes are the rigth way to go why the 5 is the " true " but never told me any one of them why tubes is nearer to the LIVE MUSIC instead SS electronics that is the real alternative nearer/truer to the recording and the live MUSIC. SS electronics is part of the 4 answer and tube is part of the 5 answer.

Here and everywhere I posted many time supported by common sense facts and with first hand experiences in live MUSIC at near field why the 5 is totally wrong and why the 4 is the rigth answer and till today no one every where told me why I'm wrong other that " they are just sound lovers: that's what I like it ".

The 5 AHEE ha no foundations, precise foundation.

Sooner or latter LIVE MUSIC will win as is winning the digital alternative that always is growing up and minute after minute up-grading its technology, rigth now is almost a reality the 32/768 DACS where the limits of the analog alternative end years ago, exist no real grow up because there is nothing to do about but little refinements of " more of the same " but nothing through different up-grade.

Yes, I'm still an analog lover with over 7K+ LPs and at the same time I love the digital alternative.

Any one of you sound lovers can make an easy test through your 5 audio systems:

buy the 1989 Original Motion Picture Sondtrack Glory in CD and the 2000 from Gladiator CD and buy the respective LPs and then listening both in your analog rig and in any decent 24/192 CDP. Any one with the LIVE MUSIC near field experiences will know which one is nearest to.

Of course that to attest that the roo/audio system must be a true full range one with active/passive speaker " set ".

There are other examples of CD vs today LPs that like those two LPs are audiophile pressings levels. I own both and many more about.

But indeed digital is not superior from 10 years now but just almost from the begining and we can attest it through many of the digital recordings using the Soundstream PCM digital recording electronics in the Telarca LP's or the Delos or Denon labels and many more, even that in those old times the digital alternative was in the begining of its learning shape. 
At any standards many of those LP digital recordings are just outstanding.

R.