Is a vinyl rig only worth it for oldies?

Dear Dover: No, I don't listen only bass. Fortunately my system bass is IMHO first rate and realy permit to enjoy the whole music frequency range in a way that maybe you can't even dream.

Yes, it is a complete " fluke ", a stunning fluke/surprise. I respect your opinion but IMHO you can't have an opinion till you can hear it. A " nice and different " experience I can say.

Anyway, other than distortions level what makes a system difference are not only our each one priorities but our each knowledge level and skills to achieve with success our each one targets.

Because your posts here and elsewhere I'm sure that your ignorance level is different from mine, your place in the audio learning curve is not the same that mine.

regards and enjoy the music,
R.

I still favour the sound of vinyl, whether old or new to cd, or SACD for that fact.

If vinyl replay has more distortions, then they are of the pleasing variety, much like poor measuring SET amplifiers which sound better than the specs would lead you to believe.

Which brings me to my point this time.

Good vinyl systems do sound very good, and good digital systems can also sound very good.

I upgraded both my sources, from a Rega P9 to a SME 10. SMEv arm, from the Rega Exact 2 MM to a Clearaudio Talisman V2 Gold.

I switched from an Audio Aero Capitole cd player to an Esoteric Ex-03.

Both moves were indeed upgrades.

The Esoteric is the best digital player that I've owned, but my friend has the full Scarlatti set up and he also has the SME30, with the Goldfinger MC.

Also,I have listened to his very high end computer based system, and heard detail I never heard with cd or sacd.

At the end of the nite, he switched over to his vinyl setup, threw on a $5.00 used Ray Charles LP, and the system took on a whole other dimension.

The vinyl sound was just more organic,less electrical or manipulated.
Perhaps it's all those nasty distortions that somehow manage to make music sound more realistic.
Especially music that was recorded without any type of digital interplay.

It was a more relaxed atmosphere,the music wasn't forced out of the speakers(Sonus Faber Strad)like it did with any of the digital set ups.It just flowed out, almost oozing all the fullness and naturalness of a live event, which in itself is wrought with distortions.

I am betting it is the inclusion of the distortions,captured in a true all analog system that is missing in the squeeky clean digital recordings and gear.

The stuff that digital algorithms fail to acknowledge and skip over.

But just like the god particles, are what holds the music together.

Dear Lacee: +++++ " If vinyl replay has more distortions, then they are of the pleasing variety... " ++++

I have no doubt about and agree with you because that's what happen.

IMHO the main problem is that many of us are totally accustomed to those wrong but " pleasing " distortions in the same way many of you are biased and accustomed to tube electronics.

Nothing wrong with that but my point and main subject is that on playback the digital alternative is truer to the recording with a lot less distortions ( every kind. ). That we like it or not is a different matter.

This was posted for other person in other thread:

+++ " that we do have a long term acoustic memory of a sort - as well as a bias - sometimes so much so that it makes an unbiased hearing of something different very difficult, " ++++

In the same way that exist people that only listen to digital as there are people that only hear LPs and obviously like you an me whom hear both alternatives.
If you make an invitation to a " digital person " to listen LPs he still will prefer digital in the same way the other side around but if we take out our bias and only compare what we listen through both alternatives ( both with a set up that fulfill each one alternative needs. ) with what are our live event experiences ( better if those experiences were near field. ) we will know for sure which is really more near that live event experiences/performances and that IMHO is digital.

Lacee, I'm not against LPs experience/alternative it's only that I like to analize what happen down there through playback and all those added distortions during playback does not makes it a better alternative than digital.
I posted twice that both alternatives have its own trade-offs, there is nothing perfect.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

R. What I feel is the problem with digital, is that it sanitizes too much of the natural distortions that are a part of everyday life,which includes the instruments themselves ,the room, the recording chain etc.

When you start to eliminate these natural occuring distortions at the time of the recording which are different from the things like groove distortion that you are focusing on at the playback end of the chain,you also eliminate part of the liveness that an analog recording and replay system has.

It's this warts and all type of realism that I am talking about.The distortions that we hear in everyday life that analog so faithfully reproduces and that digital omits.
It's an analog world, full of distortions.We have developed an attachment to them, and we sense when they are absent.Our ears and minds don't cancel out the distortions of our everyday lives,The distortions are part of life.Eliminate them, and you are left with only part of the picture, pieces of that picture are missing.And we can sense that something is not right.

Our minds are left restless and weary ,trying to fill in the missing gaps.

There's not much equipment induced distortions in my friend's superior system.If they're there in the recording you'll hear it, what I am saying is that his gear in either format, adds very little of it's own.

In light of this fact,this ultra resolving system quite easily reveals the superiority of vinyl in an area that seems to have never been experienced by most folks in the digital camp if they haven't heard a great vinyl set up.

It's the ease and relaxation that sweeps over you as you listen to vinyl on such a superb system.Something that is seldom realized with digital, and my friend agrees.
He loves to demonstrate all his digital gear and the computer based system of high res downloads which the Scarlatti reveals whether they are or are not high res.

My friend also likes to end the evenings listening with the aforementioned 5 buck used lp on the SME set up, just to make everyone shake their heads in awe and ask, "why would you need anythingelse than this?"And my friend agrees wholeheartedly.

He embraced digital replay with some of the best gear money can buy,yet at the end of the day,he is more impressed with the sound his vinyl gear makes.

He's not alone.

Yes the Scarlatti gear does great bits and pieces better than my Esoteric does, that's a given.It should.
But it still lacks that last bit of realism that the vinyl gear brings to the party.

It's the desert at the end of a great meal,perhaps all that you really needed.

Dear Lacee: +++++ " I feel is the problem with digital, is that it sanitizes too much of the natural distortions that are a part of everyday life,which includes the instruments themselves ,the room, the recording chain etc. " +++++

+++++ " When you start to eliminate these natural occuring distortions at the time of the recording ... " ++++

Sanitize????, well IMHO you are only speculating. Where do you learn/read/inform about? why sanitize those " natural distortions "? it does on purpose?

at the recording stage the microphone say at 1m. from the sound source takes the sound/music generated at high SPL mainly direct sound with all its distortions if any and for a digital is to easy to conform ceros and ones (0,1. ) all those information that is more complicated for analog because of the magnetic print out that's not perfect, the analog signal is a lot more complicated that the ceros and ones. IMHO there is no single sound that can escape to the microphone that can escape to the digital recording.

All those " natural distortions " that you and your friend like on analog playback does not existed during recording almost all were generated during playback. Lp playback is a " misery " and has not " natural distortions ".

Analog LP is a non-accuarte medium and you, me and no one else can do nothing about but only try to lower system distortions during playback at home.

Natural accuracy is perhaps the " name of the game " and digital is accurate. It is obvious that we don't like accuracy and that's why we like analog LP, tubes, fancy cables, BD TTs, and the like.Btw, I prefer the Esoteric K series to the Scarlatti, way better.

Anyway, I think I will follow enjoying both alternatives. Why not????

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.