All the current cheapies seem to be USB based. Argos sell some really cheap and nasty ones with a radio and 1.5w per channel which will sound awful even to a deaf granny.
Bush used to make a cheap midi sized one which cost £40 and it got half decent reviews in the HIFI press.
I am worried that anybody wanting to get back into the wonderful world of vinyl would buy one of these USB or £50 all in one things find it sounds awful and be put off.
I have a ten year old Project Debut II, it is a very basic deck which cost me £130 ten years ago but it still sounds better than my £300 Marantz CD player or £100 sound card.
Mind you it doesn't matter and I think I have missed the point completly, nobody cares about sound quality anymore. This would certainly explain why the market for budget turntables dosn't seem to exist.
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No one wants to get back to vinyl. There are few new turntables because there are few new albums on viynl
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Zero,
Plenty of people still have vinyl collections, collections collections collections !
Last edited by: Pugugly on Wed 15 Dec 10 at 22:58
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>> Zero,
>>
>> Plenty of people still have vinyl collections, collections collections collections !
>>
Indeed and they still have their old turntable
No-one is buying new. If they were they would be making them
Supply and demand, no demand no supply
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This is my point of my thread I guess. They are still making them. Superfi have about 25 different models in stock alone and Suerpfi is very much aimed at the lower to mid range market.
www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/category.cfm/Category/104
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That's not true. New turntables are still selling. Linn is still making the LP12. There are new releases on vinyl and older releases that have been re-pressed onto heavy weight vinyl.
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>> That's not true. New turntables are still selling.
Not many.
There
>> are new releases on vinyl and older releases that have been re-pressed onto heavy weight
>> vinyl.
Few - very Few.
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Zero how can you say not many? And I am pretty sure I read some where that vinyl has been selling as well as CDs in certain genres. If you go to into my local record shop (KingBee Records) you sill plenty of new release vinyl.
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Oh get out of it rattle, compared to CD the market is minsicule.
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I suggest you email Neil at Kingbee then and tell him he is selling the wrong kind of records as there is no market for them!.
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Rattle, the world does not stop at some little record shop in Manchester. In fact, contrary to what you think the music scene does not end at Manchester. It never even started in Manchester.
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Most the bands I listen to arn't from Manchester anyway but a big part of modern music did explode in Manchester in the mid 70's nobody can deny that. What started in New York and London landed here and a load of bands followed from that.
It is probably share to say that Manchester bands have spent more time on the charts than Liverpool bands have!.
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But in fairness Zero there is a limited market for vinyl, a niche market - obviously there records being sold at one outlet are made in sufficient quantity for them to be financially viable. So there is a market for them, I suspect it may be a growing one as well.
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>> But in fairness Zero there is a limited market for vinyl, a niche market -
Exactly. That's what I have been trying to tell you. Limited market for vinyl=limited market for turntables.
But its a market that no-one is going to get back into or even get into for the first time. And there is the answer to rattles very first post on the subject.
And yes I still have my turntable and some vinyl. I haven't bought any vynil for 18 years tho.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 18:31
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There are some comparison sales figures here:-
arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/01/digital-albums-vinyl-made-a-comeback-in-09-while-cds-slide.ars
I agree vinyl has seen a significant comeback, but still way behind digital, unfortunately you can't do a straight CD vs. vinyl comparison from those figures.
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I've got a Sony PS-LX47P sat on top of an ancient D505 separates system, one of my friends lent it to me when I moved out of my parents' in 1992 and he hasn't asked for it back yet! The belt's gone at the moment though :(
I sold most of my dance 12"s on fleabay a year ago, wish I hadn't because as you say the sound quality was streets ahead of any CD or mp3 source. And to think in my younger days I used to run deafeningly loud car ICE systems based around a tape deck...
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Wed 15 Dec 10 at 22:58
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>> Mind you it doesn't matter and I think I have missed the point completly, nobody
>> cares about sound quality anymore. This would certainly explain why the market for budget turntables
>> dosn't seem to exist.
Surely lots of people care about sound quality, but don't own or want to buy vinyl?
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Of course that wasn't really what I meant. But I suppose my point was if you wanted a turntable you care about sound quality and are perhaps not likely to go and buy a £50 Bush. But that old £50 bush was actually half decent and had its own built in phono stage.
I am not sure how many people will pay the current £150+ just to get a taste of it.
I must admit I am too lazy to use vinyl a lot these days and often stick to 320kbs Spotify premium and my collection stopped at 150 LPs sadly :(.I do have every single New Order and Joy Division record to be released on vinyl though.
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For my 40th birthday (this time tow years ago) I decided to give myself a proper hifi. AS I am on a budge, only the speakers were bought new (Tannoy). The main source is a fully automatic Sony turntable acquired from ebay for about £50, hooked up to a Denon amp of early 90s vintage from the same source.
It all sounds lovely, but isn't one side of an LP short?
In short, Rattle, the answer is secondhand, unless you can go very hi end and get something like Linn.
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My TT is already quite decent, it has the upgraded OM10 cartridge too but new Project models use glass platters and thicker arms, they cost £300+ though.
I am sure I have mentioned this many of times but my sisters amp is of 1979-1980 vintage and still sounds good. It lacks the musicalness of modern amps but it produces a nice dynamic clean sound.
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As Rattle says in a later post... and somewhat going against the thread title... Superfi list loads. Mind you most of them seem to be variations on a basic Project with very small changes as the price rises... as in how many different ways can you market a potato.
Only recently I sold a Thorens I'd owned since the 80's... I see they are still going and list 13 models.
Haven't looked at turntable prices for ages so was interested to find...
My Thorens wasn't seen as a very top model in its day but the current version would be £1800 plus £240 for the cartridge I had fitted. It's a great deal of money to play a few old albums!
Also note that a replacement stylus for my current (modest) cartridge would be £100.
For me vinyl has become a secondary source to CD (I don't like mp3) so I now run an interesting old Technics linear tracker turntable which only has the footprint of an LP sleeve and will play perfectly well stood on edge.... all functions are auto too. This meets the needs of something that is unobtrusive and teenager proof.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Wed 15 Dec 10 at 23:25
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I must admit me getting my turntable out is a bit of an art form. To change speeds it involves lifting up the platter and using a key to lift up the belt (in order not to get oil deposits on it) and changing to a different pully.
Is all that faff which makes it so special though.
I get annoyed that rock and indie clubs don't play vinyl and half of them don't even bother using CDs. They just play what ever they have stolen of the internet!.
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I was in a very well stocked vinyl shop the other day - although equally well stocked with CDs (Including a second hand Joy Division Box Set Rattle), still a market even in the colonies !
www.cobrecords.com/
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 00:37
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How much was that JD box set? I ask as I reckon they will be selling it for half the price of any Manchester shop would sell it for. I don't have that either I have all the commercialy released singls and LPs but not the collectors items.
My local Vinyl shop has been going since 1987 and is about 70% vinyl and 30% CDs it is always mad busy as well but it sells the rarer stuff, none of the ABBA Greatest Hits 70p car boot crap.
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I'm going back into town tomorrow and I'll have a look for you. I actually said to the Mrs..."Rattle would like that" she gave me a blank stare, but hell, I'm used to that.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 00:39
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Anyone remember Dick's 3rd Rock comment?
"perhaps one day humans will discover vinyl" or something similar.
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The Project Debut is a cracking turntable for the money. I havent owned one for what must be 15 years now.
Just 'make do' with the Ipod, I suppose you get used to it. Never did hear any of my collection on a Linn or Roksan :-(
Maybe one day, but not when i'm in the market for cars that cost less.
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>> How much was that JD box set?
I've got Joy Division box set 'Heart and Soul'.
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I still have my Thorens 160 (£55 secondhand in 1980; used with Grado cartridge).
The current cheapish USB turntables seem to be mainly intended for converting records to MP3s and similar formats.
There are still some true hi-fi quality turntables around as already pointed out, but this might make you gasp with astonishment that anyone would be THAT keen(!):
tinyurl.com/32qummz
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That arm is bizarre. I was expecting a few tens of thousands, not, well I won't spoil it. Not a piece of kit for using when you've come in from the pub with some mates then!
John
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...That arm is bizarre...
I've got a kitchen spoon with a handle that looks like that - are we being had?
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The arm is very retro - so maybe there is something in it. We had a "RadioGram" when we were kids - huge walnut cabinet - valve powered with an ancient deck that had a bakerlite arm that looked like that - they gradually evolved into tiny tubular things. Memory now is over a Garrard SP25 with a Shure cartridge that we had when I was in the sixth form - they were the sort of the upper end of the mass produced market.
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There was far more crap spouted about tone arms than there ever was about speaker cable.
The world of über hifi is complete tosh
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>> There was far more crap spouted about tone arms than there ever was about speaker
>> cable.
>>
>> The world of über hifi is complete tosh
>>
Indeed, the ultimate "emperor's new clothes" market.
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>> Indeed, the ultimate "emperor's new clothes" market.
There's a really good online catalogue of those at
tinyurl.com/asc6q
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"I do have every single New Order and Joy Division record to be released on vinyl"
Is that so you can play them at 78 rpm so they don't sound so maudling, depressing and suicidal?
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>> "I do have every single New Order and Joy Division record to be released on
>> vinyl"
>>
>> Is that so you can play them at 78 rpm so they don't sound so
>> maudling, depressing and suicidal?
They are an aquired taste, but one that I like when I'm in the mood. Joy Division lyrics are fantastic. Can't say that much of New Order sounds maudling, depressing and suicidal, far from it.
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"They are an aquired taste"
My best mate is a life-long massive New Order fan, he's a musician and it was always obvious where his life was going. He was in one of the big Madchester bands and all of a sudden he's got Peter Hook round his house. It's one of life's twists that always makes me smile, I suppose it would be the equivalent of me having Richard Dawkins round for tea.
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A lot of Joy Division stuff isn't that depressing either. I mean Love Will Tear Us Apart, Transmission and She's Lost Control are still floor fillers in alternative clubs in Manchester.
Met hooky a few times in clubs/bars in Manchester.
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>> >> Mind you it doesn't matter and I think I have missed the point completly,
>> nobody
>> >> cares about sound quality anymore. This would certainly explain why the market for budget
>> turntables
>> >> dosn't seem to exist.
>>
>> Surely lots of people care about sound quality, but don't own or want to buy
>> vinyl?
>>
If many people cared about sound quality we'd all be using SACD or FLAC players, not listening to 128K or less MP3s. Convenience and cost is far more important to most people than sound quality. Hence there is no market for a budget turntable, personally I was very glad to leave behind the world of snap, crackle and pop and move over to CDs in '87.
I've still got my vinyl and still play stuff occasionally that isn't available via CD/MP3 but most people I know dumped their vinyl in charity shops once they'd moved over to CD.
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I sold my Technics turntable about 2 years ago. I replaced my hi fi 2 years before that and had no phono input. I hadn't used the turntable in years, just couldn't be bothered. 15 - 20 minutes per side, occasionally a little more.
So now it's CDs and, less face it, they're a bit old hat. In fact Linn are still selling turntables but they've decided that CDs are dead and no longer sell CD players. The trouble is you cant buy uncompressed downloads or high quality recordings unless you go to specialist sites such as Linn, and what is available there is not exactly mainstream.
Yesterday there was a big thing about Radio 3 being in "hi def". There's a term that's being abused and done to death. "Hi def" in this case means it's "only" compressed to 320k v 192k on DAB. A tiny fraction of FM or CD.
John
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>> sell CD players. The trouble is you cant buy uncompressed downloads or high quality recordings
>> unless you go to specialist sites such as Linn, and what is available there is
>> not exactly mainstream.
There are places ( har har Jim Lad) where you can get recordings in in FLAC.
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But no better than CD quality surely?
John
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Actually with a good low latency sound card and a high quality DAC lossless or very high bit rated MP3s etc would sound better than CD. The CD does have quite a few flaws one of them is jitter caused by errors reading the CD, this is one of the things which makes cheaper CD playeers sound harsh compared to vinyl.
I store my most listened to CDs digitally in very very high bit rate on a 500gb hd so rarely use the CD player now. I also used Spotify Premium which is 320kbps not CD quality but it is more than list-enable.
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My father was a producer of opera records in the 1950 and 60s. He has thousands of LPs. These days he listens to CDs, but he still has two or three turntables. He never spent more than the current equivalent of about £1,000 on a turntable and probably a lot less. He never had a Linn or anything special.
He invested in good amplifiers and speakers though and yes - did use bell wire for the speaker cable.
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:(
But then the old speaker cable debate can go on for ever. Personally bell wire does sap a lot of the music out but I also think it crazy to spend a lot on speaker cable. I have spent about £10 on speaker cable which considering the value of everything else is not a lot.
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>>I have spent about £10 on speaker cable which
>> considering the value of everything else is not a lot.
But is still crazy. 13amp cable will give you a better result than you'll ever need. There's no debate. There's so much pseudo-non-science in any article on speaker cable that there's presumably no truth in any of it.
There's no doubt that the weak spot in my own hifi is the pot behind the volume control. Always sounds better if it's turned back and forth a few times to shift the surface oxidation.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 14:03
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I think that was why solid state ones came in but for me the best volume control will always a be a high quality pot. Most HIFI amps now use a standard pot with a motor behind it for the remote control as you will know. Quite a clever solution really as the adding of the remote control has no effect on sound quality.
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>>Always sounds better if it's turned back and forth a few times to shift the surface oxidation.>>
Same in my case with a NAD 7030 tuner-amp.
Best to turn the speakers off first though...:-)
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I was expecting the answer to be "They went when tenders went."
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>> I was expecting the answer to be "They went when tenders went."
>>
There's still a few around! Yeovil for example:-
maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=50.923879,-2.613443&spn=0.000779,0.002411&t=h&z=19
Even with tank engines it was nice to turn them now and again to even out the wear, particularly on lines with tight curves.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 12:51
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It's worth keeping an eye on freecycle. My old Dual deck died a year or so ago; I picked up a rather nice old Sony (good sound) for no money at all.
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>>There was far more crap spouted about tone arms than there ever was about speaker cable.
The world of über hifi is complete tosh<<
Yup, couldn't agree more.
I still have - in use - the Fergus Fons CQ30 belt drive turntable with SME 3009 arm/Shure V15/3HE that I bought secondhand more than 20 years ago. It has three variable speeds and we still use it to play our extensive collection of 78s, but using a Shure M75EJ. When was the last time anyone heard of a Fergus Fons?
In the attic I have an idler drive Lenco GL78 with its own arm and a Goldring cartridge - also good for 78s and far superior noise-wise than the Garrard 401s that people still rave about.
I suppose it's a bit like old cars - the nutter who pays a quarter of a million for an Aston Martin DB5 pays 1000 iron men for a second-rate Garrard.
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Wow - same turntables and cartridges as my father!
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Zero, have to disagree with you that all that Uber- fi is tosh. There is perhaps a realistic limit, a point of ever diminishing returns but I've had the pleasure of Linn and Roksan turntables, Naim amps and various speakers over the years. Few people today even understand what a properly reproduced soundstage is like, let alone have heard it on a decent system. And vinyl is best for it! Good turntables are absolutely stunning and need to be heard to be believed. I have heard some very expensive systems sounding quite poor - room size and speaker type and placement can have quite an effect. Compressed MP3 files are just appalling although highly convenient. As long as you enjoy what you hear then it doesn't matter, does it?
rattle - I've got everything by Joy Division and New Order too - went to see NO 3 times in my youth - brilliant. Went to see Bad Lieutenant earlier this year at the electric ballroom -have you got the CD?
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Not got the CD but will listen to it on Spotify later. I might be surprised but I wasn't impressed with New Order's last album.
I saw New Order live in either 2004 or 2005 in Hyde Park. Was impressed they knew how to put on a good show. Moby was the supporting act too.
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...Compressed MP3 files are just appalling although highly convenient...
Agreed.
I can tell the difference between the various bitrates on DAB stations, and the difference again between those and a good FM set up.
Speaker cable does make a difference to what I can hear.
It's worth paying about a £1 a metre but no more.
Room acoustics and cable runs also make a difference.
The ideal stereo set-up is one metre of cable running to each speaker from an amp in the middle with the listener positioned as if at the top of a pointy triangle.
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Which is what I have got the perfect triangle setup. I should really start thinking about fixing my Cambridge amp but some of the comments on the other thread have got me a little scared! I shall at least try and measure it.
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>> I still have - in use - the Fergus Fons CQ30 belt drive turntable with
>> SME 3009 arm/Shure V15/3HE that I bought secondhand more than 20 years ago. It has
>> three variable speeds and we still use it to play our extensive collection of 78s,
>> but using a Shure M75EJ. When was the last time anyone heard of a Fergus
>> Fons?
From the brief period (78-80) I spent more interested in HiFi than listening to music that was a classic combination.
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>> Mind you it doesn't matter and I think I have missed the point completly, nobody
>> cares about sound quality anymore.
Generally I think you're right. I see kids walk past with their mobiles in their hand and some tinny carp playing out of it, and I think, yeah, they've got access to fantastic technology that we never had, but the sound quality has taken a dive. The best you can do is rip your CD's at the highest quality, then use some quality earphones with your MP3 player. I'm still considering some high end sennheisers to go with mine, but still in two minds about the cost.
It's hardly worth listening to music through a mobile phone speaker or the laptop speakers. I occasionally play records through my Rega Planar 2 turntable, and I always forget how fantastic tracks sound compared to CD - there's a warmth and naturalness you don't get with the former. Yes it's more hassle to use a turntable, but you can't deny they sound good. I used to have a friend who worked in a specialist hi-fi shop. The hi end stuff we used to play with in there when the customers had gone away, it blew me away(and my eardrums). I was like a kid in a sweet shop.
There is plenty of new vinyl out there, but it is a niche market.
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>> >> Mind you it doesn't matter and I think I have missed the point completly,
>> nobody
>> >> cares about sound quality anymore.
>>
>> Generally I think you're right. I see kids walk past with their mobiles in their
>> hand and some tinny carp playing out of it,
.and 40 years ago it was a cheap transistor radio on medium wave, 20 years ago it was a Walkman with its halo of distortion.
>>
>> It's hardly worth listening to music through a mobile phone speaker or the laptop speakers.
>> I occasionally play records through my Rega Planar 2 turntable, and I always forget how
>> fantastic tracks sound compared to CD - there's a warmth and naturalness you don't get
>> with the former. Yes it's more hassle to use a turntable, but you can't deny
>> they sound good.
I don't doubt that some vinyl can sound nicer than some CDs, (which is what matters at the end of the day) but in an age where the recording workflow is almost all digital I'd be dubious of claims that vinyl sounds closer to the master 'tape' than CD. There are just too many non linear processes in the vinyl mastering.
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>> .and 40 years ago it was a cheap transistor radio on medium wave, 20 years
>> ago it was a Walkman with its halo of distortion.
20 years ago it was a large portable stereo with built in subwoofer. Much better!
Walkmans usually had headphones attached to them, still better than an external speaker on a mobile.
40 years ago I wasn't really in any state to listen to music :-)
Last edited by: corax on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 20:33
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i agree with the above comments its like a fad yesterday gone tommorow comes fashions change, i got a technics turntable a slb22 but its not connected to my roksan kandy amp, the comment about the warmth you get when you listen to records, is due to the fact that the record playback cartridge has a frequency response way over what the ear can easily hear, typical 20-30k or over.
With cds you got a freq response of 20-20k and the bits you cant hear are taken out, so if you have a identical cd and lp you probably will notice the difference subtly.
I bought a tape deck from ebay a nakamichi dr3, and i listen to my old cassette tapes, it takes me back to when i was a teenager, i dont have a mp3 player and think that the old tech like records and cassette there something in it that makes it more compelling to listen to.
You can now buy cd players with a valve tube stuck on it, to get to that warmth
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But some of the harshness of CD is not just due to the frequency but also jitter caused by cheap transport. When a CD is read there is quite a few errors it dosn't read every bit correctly. This is what can make CDs sound harsh. More expensive transports tend to make a lot less errors. This is also why a file stored on a hard drive will always sound better than one on a CD assuming it is the same bit rate and exactly the same DAC etc.
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The audio data on CDs is triple interleaved so you'll need an awful lot of jitter before the bit errors are unrecoverable. Surely the data I read from CD-ROMs would be slightly different every time (which it obviously isn't) if jitter was a real problem?
The other point I meant to make earlier was, how many people know what real live music sounds like anyway? I know plenty of people who've never been to a live gig, classical or contemporary.
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rattle its not due to the laser it the dac, when the first cd players came out there were the philips cd100 and the sony one, there was a marked difference in sound the philips sounded warmer due to its 14 bits 4x4 oversampling the sony was 16 bits but its sound was too harsh.
you can upgrade the player by upgrading the dac, also speaker placements, speaker wires and type of amplifier all make a difference to the sound.
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I can't agree that CD is so inferior to LP. Fair enough a high end turnable/arm/cartridge helps to get the best out of vinyl but for repeatable performance out of the packet in most people's systems CD beats LPs hands down.
I really don't know what you've been listening to Rattle to worry about harsh jittery CD players.
What is a factor with CDs is that they often have very different mastering/mixing to the same album on LP so can sound quite different if played back to back.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 22:46
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There is NO way, no physical way, that something sliding in a grove, scraping around indentations, is going to sound better than something that has no phyisical contact,
As for "its got a much higher response than the human ear" well if it has you cant hear it can you.
Vinyl sounds warmer because it cant reproduce all the frequencies that digital can.
Anyway, everything is digitally recorded these days, so there not much stuffing it onto a physical contact analogue medium is there.
YOu know why you have to pay a fortune for a decent turntable? to over the many inherent defects in the medium.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 16 Dec 10 at 22:56
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Brilliant parody of the vinyl enthusiast here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCumH8LRo1A
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Best sound source I ever had was a fantastic Akai reel-to-reel machine that I bought from a guy who brought it back from Hong Kong in the late 1980s as it was never imported into the UK. Can't remember the number but it had DBX and at 7.5 inches per second it had an open sound I have never heard bettered. Not remotely practical of course and eventually I sold it to a 'talking newspaper' organisation. I have a photo of it somewhere and when I come across it occasionally I still sigh and wish it was still bending the shelf under its weight...
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The output from the record has to be boosted at certain points (RIAA) so it has defects, but it works well, given the right kit, which is expensive. CD upper frequencies that are often filtered sharply, seem to cause something unpleasant down in the range of hearing. Fatigue is the result. Sometimes too much artifice gives poor results, but its all terribly subjective. We have CD plus a good old turntable, Rega RB300 arm and MC cartridge. SWMBO has better hearing than me, is musically trained (was) and knows what she prefers, which is not the CD player.
Arcam via Quad amps and LS5/3A speakers so its not the highest quality but not too shabby.
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>> The output from the record has to be boosted at certain points (RIAA) so it
>> has defects, but it works well, given the right kit, which is expensive. CD upper
>> frequencies that are often filtered sharply, seem to cause something unpleasant down in the range
>> of hearing. Fatigue is the result.
Agreed many early CD players didn't use oversampling, so needed a sharp anti-aliasing filter at 20KHz, which did lead to distortion in the audio frequency range. By about 1990 the majority of CD players used oversampling - typically 4x - so then the anti aliasing filter didn't need to kick in until 80 KHz, and the problem went away.
The issues I see with vinyl are the imperfections, the cartridge has inertia, the quality of the vinyl can affect the sound, the cutting engineer needs to compromise the sound so it can actually be cut into a groove, and so on. That's without the snap crackle and pop after a few playbacks.
>>Sometimes too much artifice gives poor results, but its
>> all terribly subjective.
Fair comment, as I said above the most accurate sound reproduction is not necessarily the most pleasant to the ear. It would be interesting to see the results of double blind A/B listening tests on some different vinyl and CD (maybe also SACD and DVD-audio) setups.
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>>>We have CD plus a good old turntable, Rega RB300 arm and MC cartridge. SWMBO has better hearing than me, is musically trained (was) and knows what she prefers, which is not the CD player. Arcam via Quad amps and LS5/3A speakers so its not the highest quality but not too shabby.
I hate to get hi-fi nerdy about this because I'm very keen on the attitude of getting a system that you like then enjoy it ignoring all the black art aspects of the hi-fi world.
However.... there is a good chance that the system above isn't exactly in balance and the accepted warmth of vinyl may be favoured for the wrong reasons. Those LS3/5a speakers have a cult status and fetch massive prices on EBay but they were not designed for domestic use but as an outside broadcast van type monitor for the BBC where space was very tight.
They have great presence in the treble and midrange but little true bass. This means great care is needed with the partnering CD player to avoid a harsh sound.... but it's not really the fault of the CD more down to the sonic balance of the speakers.
When the LS3/5a were current reviews for using them as a domestic speaker consistently criticised them for...
lack of deep bass
boomy UPPER bass
hard nasal mid range
grainy 'zitty' treble
tubby wooden and boxy colourations
If you replaced the speakers with some that catered evenly for all frequencies then CD sound may be far more acceptable.
BTW I don't know if you are aware just how much of a cult speaker yours are... on Ebay a tidy pair will sell for £600-£1000 and exceptional early examples have topped £2000! I remember choosing not to but a new pair for just over £200 in the 80s.
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I bought them new, in 1982 I think, after listening to many speakers and making up my own mind. I'd heard them in the mid to late 70's and simply could not believe my ears, so didn't buy then! I have a collection of LS3/5A reviews: they are not all as damning, and had quite a few favourable comments. But I'm not going to trade magazine opinions: they were built for near-field, tonal accuracy and voice and my examples are very good at that, but not perfect. Others may hear what they like, but for simple voice and much classical music they are, IMHO, only bettered by Quad electrostatics. Deep bass is unimportant really, as is "pop" to me, but they make a fair go at Bach Toccata and Fuque on the organ. I've heard Bach (Marienkirche, Lubeck). No speaker will give the trouser-flapping bass of a church organ. Maybe a Klitschorn or large Tannoy monitors could come close (listened to both) but I do have neighbours.
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Fair points.
I wasn't trying to be negative about the LS3/5a so much as to indicate system balance can have a huge effect on folks perception of CD sound. Sometimes just dropping a CD player into a system that was well regarded for vinyl doesn't give the best.
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I'm probably too deaf to notice:) My low frequency hearing is apparently very good, but not so brilliant above 10k. Perhaps others would wince at my set-up but the Quad 405II amp isn't as "in your face" as some I have heard (I think I've heard, I should say!) but I do think the LS3/5A has varied over time. Mine were one pair of just a few made by RAM, out in the wild, before they went under. They'd just got the licence from the Beeb as well. I'm comforted by the fact that there is a demand for them: the Far East market likes the 15 ohm versions particularly:)
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Fri 17 Dec 10 at 16:01
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Well I pitched into this thread thinking it might be about old railways but it's populated by you music obsessives so cheerio.
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>> Well I pitched into this thread thinking it might be about old railways but it's
>> populated by you music obsessives so cheerio.
>>
Well me and Mm did try a bit of thread drift half way down but no-one bit. ;-)
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The're a driven and narrow minded lot these audiophiles.
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The're a driven and narrow minded lot these audiophiles.
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>> The're a driven and narrow minded lot these audiophiles.
>>
>> The're a driven and narrow minded lot these audiophiles.
>>
Stereo?
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The true hi fi fanatic only has "The Hi Fi for Pleasure Stereo Test Record" in his (it's always "his" ) collection.
"This is the Left channel"............................................................"T
his
is the Right channel"
:-)
John
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>> The true hi fi fanatic only has "The Hi Fi for Pleasure Stereo Test Record"
I'm gutted to find they don't have that one on Spotify. Fortunately, I can console myself with the rather tasty "Sound FX- Amazing Sound Effects Of Doors", which is actually on one of my playlists.
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>> >> The true hi fi fanatic only has "The Hi Fi for Pleasure Stereo Test
>> Record"
>>
>>
>> I'm gutted to find they don't have that one on Spotify. Fortunately, I can console
>> myself with the rather tasty "Sound FX- Amazing Sound Effects Of Doors", which is actually
>> on one of my playlists.
>>
I'm sure I've still got my copy of HFS75 somewhere I could rip to MP3 if you like ;-)
cgi.ebay.co.uk/STEREO-TEST-RECORD-HFS75-1974-very-nice-example-/230547818197
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I'd have bid on that for fun.
You can't possibly rip an mp3, it would be jail. It will be at least six months in a re-education facility even for suggesting the distribution.
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>> I'd have bid on that for fun.
>>
>> You can't possibly rip an mp3, it would be jail. It will be at least
>> six months in a re-education facility even for suggesting the distribution.
>>
I'm not at all sure the LAME or whatever codec Nero uses for MP3 is optimised for sine waves either. I'm almost tempted to try it to find out what the result sounds like.
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Going back to turntables, I imagine BBD hankers after a Pink Triangle.
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I remember them they were good bits of kit.
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...I remember them they were good bits of kit...
So they were.
I'm tempted to say the guy who came up with the name must have had his tongue in his cheek.
But it was probably in something else.
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I recall that it was a "gay" company in the days when people thought a homophobe was some sort of audio device, be nice to think we've moved on a bit. Clearly not sometimes though.
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Turntables 96, Liberals 70.
Hi Fi is officially more intersting then politics.
Turntables move onto the next round where they will face digital cameras.
John
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To me I much prefer digital cameras in every way to 35mm. My four year old Pansonic FZ7 bridge is the best thing I ever bought.
You don't need that good hearing to appcreciate HIFI unless you're compeltly death. I have hearing problems myself I used to wear hearing aids and I now suffer from tinatus due to far too much clubbing but I can still easily tell the difference between a £100 Marantz amp and a £1000 quad.
Personaly though I would never spend a real fortune on HIFI, even if I had the money I would probably stop at £5k.
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>> You don't need that good hearing to appcreciate HIFI unless you're compeltly death.
Brilliant! I don't know whether that was your spelling or meant in a humorous way, but I like it.
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My apparant dyslexia symptons probably caused by too many dead brain cells or more like that I type everything at 300wpm.
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>> .............. nobody
>> cares about sound quality anymore.
You need good hearing to appreciate good quality sound and a lot of us oldies haven't got good hearing. Similarly, you need good eyesight to appreciate high definition television.
Our record player has a horn to emit the sounds, and our television has 405 lines. They both suit us.
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" our television has 405 lines". You're watching Hughie Green then?
John
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It's not just the warmer sound that records give, it's the tactile pleasure of pulling one out of your collection, admiring the artwork before going through the ritual of placing the record on the platter. Records were always reasonably priced as well.
CD's - you crack open a nasty plastic case, sometimes the plastic lugs snap, there's a miniscule example of artwork on the front, and the price was extortionate, luckily they have had to reduce the price because of competition from the various other sources.
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One thing I didn't really add but by the late 80's and early 90's on a typical MIDI setup with a cheap and nasty turntable the CD player probably did sound better. Cheap turntables produce far too much rumble and other wanted distortion. You can make a CD player out of cheap materials and it will sound OK but for some reason probably physics you can't really do that with a record player.
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The most stunning hi-fi set up I've ever heard was vinyl sourced. A bank busting set up consisting of a Michell Orbe / SME V / Lyra Lydian Beta, feeding Krell KBA/KPL preamp combo, a pair of KAS2 monoblocks and a pair of MartinLogan Quest electrostatic hybrid speakers.
Listened to the whole of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged album from start to finish, and couldn't have got up if I'd wanted to. Close your eyes, and you couldn't have pinpointed where in the room the speakers were. The band could have been in the room with us. No colouration or perceptible effect on the sound whatsoever, just the music as it should be played.
High end turntables such as the Orbe are also things of beauty. Wonderful works of engineering art.
There is a lot of crap talked in hi-fi. Directional speaker cable (which carries an alternating current) is one example that springs to mind, and "high quality" mains cables which plug straight into your noisy, 20+ year old household wiring being another.
My separates system is now 15 years old, and at new prices is about £1300 worth with all the interconnects and cables. It still sounds superb, and it all still works. Just needed to clean the volume pot on the amp a couple of times. How many all in one systems last more than 3-4 years?
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I am very jealous I would have loved that experience. A few of my customers have allowed me to listen to their setups but even if the expensive ones are usualy just standard Naim affairs, still worth as much as brand new Fiesta though! The problem is they always play classical music thtrough them and I am a rocker so it is wasted on me.
To compare HIFI it has to be done with a recording I know well as I know how it should sound to my ears. If my hair starts to rise I know it is a supurb system.
Sadly since I have got into the lower mid range I have not been able to afford any more hair raising experiences apart from listening to certain recordings especially live ones.
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You can spend a fortune and it can still sound carp. Having been to a few hifi shows in the last few years I am dismayed at what is considered a good sound. It isn't. No mid range, all treble and bass so wobbly it's Vanessa Feltz. I didn't stay long in the £100k hifi room - full of men in beards listening to jazz. Linn was little better. Somehow they'd set up their old deck to have a really annoying resonance that wasn't there in their new super dooper deck. Pity was everyone wondered how they hadn't noticed it before....
The irony was the best bang for buck kit was in Totem's room - Cheapo rega amp and baby totem arro speakers. Probably £1500 worth and it was much more listenable than the £100k system in the other room. Their expensive gear with the £4k totem speaker and £15k worth of Einstein front end was sublime though. But not 10x as good. There's usually a show in Manchester in November at the Radisson. Often one in February too at the airport hotel.
I just buy second hand gear. Got some old linn isobariks and naim olive amps. A fraction of what new stuff would cost and much better I think. I went shopping a few years ago to replace an old cyrus 2 with psx thinking it would be a few hundred quid to get something better. I was so wrong. Nothing under £3k new sounded anywhere near! That's how I got into naim. Half that and so much better than the cyrus.
I'm not sure vinyl is the top of the game anymore. Even the old roksan xerxes with lyra cartridge doesn't sound as good as a naim cdx2 in all respects. It is warmer but soundstage is a fraction of the size and loads of detail is missing. Vinyl is a pain. It's still a treat for me to get a cd off the shelf and play it even if the artwork is no good.
No point playing rock music through a decent hifi. Most of it is badly recorded with no dynamic range! Take some Yello or Joe Cocker :-)
If you want decent interconnect and speaker cables then get Maplins silver stuff. Far better than just about any commercial cable at any price. Cheaper kit doesn't tend to show up any cable differences. More expensive stuff can but it isn't chalk and cheese like you'd think. I often can't tell at all.
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A lot of the music I listen to is quite well recorded. Some of the heavier Joy Division pressings can sound stunning. Attompshere on 12" import from USA for example.
I used go to that same HIFI show too but found the room accousitcs were crap. Whas is the point on trying to show off high end equipment in tiny rooms and dirty mains?
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If you can make something that sounds good even when in a small room then you've got something pretty special. I was amazed at how even the high end people didn't really bother trying to get the best out of what they had with room treatment and so forth. Modern houses are not much more than partition walls so they aren't going to be that acoustically different and will suffer the same dirty mains problem anyway.
Funny thing was I heard some of the same gear in a proper hifi shop with a big room and it sounded just as poor as in the hotel.... some of it just sounds crap full stop! Densen make some rubbish. Well reviewed too. I was very disappointed at just how bad it was.
When I say within the last few years I realise I actually mean between 3 & 5 years ago I think. How time flies....
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>>Having been to a few hifi shows in the last few years..>>
I used to enjoy the hi-fi exhibitions at The Last Drop Village organised by a Bolton hi-fi outlet, but they ceased some years ago...:-(
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>>>It's not just the warmer sound that records give, it's the tactile pleasure of pulling one out of your collection.
100% agree with you corax... playing vinyl is an event. But don't be so hard on all the negatives of the CD packaging being so small/fragile. I have most of my teenage years albums in decent condition.... and I have all the CDs from the format's earliest days. At least you have sometjhing to show for your purchase.
Compare with my teen daughters who have all their music as a file on a chip with no supporting physical element. It makes their attitude to it so disposable.
>>>My separates system is now 15 years old, and at new prices is about £1300 worth with all the interconnects and cables.
Similar here DP... my main system is all around 20-25yrs old and would add up to £1500 at 80s prices. Just one simple repair to the Mission amp by an electronics engineer friend in all that time and it still gives great pleasure.
I do notice in other folks houses how few have what might be called a hi-fi.
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I am not even sure what HIFI it is anymore. To me it is something that at least aims to be HIFI and the cheapest of such products is probably those mini Denon/Teac/Onkyo systems.
It is very common to see the cheaper end of the market Cambridge Audio amps round here but rarely do I see any prober HIFI systems and if I do it tends to be the every high end £20k+.
One of my customers spent £1500 on a pair of computer speakers I forgot the brand but was one of the old British classics they are basically active speakers.
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I've got an original Pioneer A400 amp, and this is part of what stopped me chucking any more money at hi-fi when I realised, after auditioning several potential upgrades, that I was going to have to spend over a grand to get anything noticeably better.
Drives a pair of KEF Q60s which are a very smooth, quite laid back speaker, but the Pioneer kicks them into life quite nicely. The KEF Uni-Q driver was/is a bit of a Marmite idea, but I really rather like the way it allows you to listen off axis and still get decent imaging and soundstage depth. Bizarre looking things though.
System matching is as important as the amount you spend. The A400 could sound so awful with some speakers that you couldn't actually listen to it for more than a few minutes.
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You know, I despair on here at times.
It seems to me the typical person on here
1/ Drinks real ale and is a member of camra.
2/ Is a Hi-Fi buff who thinks turntables are de-rigour
3/ Sports a beard to strain the hops from the real ale
4/ Knows all the numbers of the old BR coaching stock.
5/ Likes Bristol Motor Cars.
I bet you all wear sandals as well.
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Only 2 out of 5 for me there Zedski. Must try harder.
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0.5 out of 5 for me. You can't dislike a car like the Bristol with a V8 in it.
John
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Don't think I fit your description Zero. I am fond of Bristols though.
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>> I bet you all wear sandals as well.
Well it's good we've got you on here to stop the rot setting in.
(Toe posts, but only in the summer)
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Never wear sandals. Never worn jeans. Nearly bought a Bristol 406 before the Beast but was beaten to it. I have always been interested in railway motive power but refused, on principle, to collect numbers. And I do miss a decent pint over here.
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de-rigour?? You forgot the pedants Zero.
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They're having Christmas off.
John
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Well, just in case this thread has inspired anyone to return to the era of snap, crackle and pop John Lewis are flogging turntables for 25 quid! Unlikely to be up there with an LP12 but anyway:-
www.johnlewis.com/230918289/Product.aspx?source=46387
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They've sold out.
The best music reproduction I ever came across - music that is, not immeasurable background noise or huge dynamic range - was in the workshop of the Quad dealer at Somerton many years ago - the delightful man was a local legend.
He had an electric 78 rpm turntable with a purely acoustic pick-up head using sharpened thorn 'needles', connected to a horn (with carefully calculated dimensions) that ran the length of the room under the floor and opened into a aperture at the back. No electronics whatsoever.
SWMBO was suitably impressed, too, when he demonstrated that different types of music were enhanced by sharpening the thorns at different angles.
The place is an antique shop now and I stood in the same room a couple of years ago. I said to the woman running it 'give me a ring if you ever decide to take up the floor'. She looked at me in a very strange way...
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Mon 27 Dec 10 at 13:02
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I can vouch for the thorn needles. My Dad used them, and steel needles. He had a needle sharpening device too, basically a small wheel and a holder that pressed the needle to a ring of fine sand-paper.
John
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The guy mentioned above used to trim his with a cutter designed for the job, a bit like a pocket knife. I wonder if there are any left in the world?
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Turntables - what has happened to them? - Zero
