Anybody still collecting the hard stuff?

[armenianteen]

i by CDs at the store when i really want it, but i usually use iTunes (sometimes file-share if i have $0) because i usually dont want the entire album i just want a few songs from the CD.

[Lamb Boy]

I'm with you on this one. Also - my experiences with MP3s have generally been less then satisfying - they just dont meet my requirements in terms of quality - i can't take it really. I'm moving more towards higher end stuff - SACDs, DVD Audio, DTS - that sort of thing. And I collect as well and I think that the artists deserve to get paid (though I have my doubts about the record company's deserving their cut)

You're part of an elite group of audiophiles. Not too many ppl are hip to SACDs or DVD-A. DTS is just a theatre format I'm pretty sure.

Converting over your entire collection to Wav from vinyl? I was actually thinking of starting a company that does JUST THAT LOL! I just don't think it would actually work as far as how much ppl are willing to pay versus how long it could take. Plus ppl like to do it themselves. Anyhow if you are going to try it yourself make sure you get a halfway decent sound card so maybe you can go line in through an unbalanced (uck!) RCA connection from the output of your receiver.

If you want to spend some money there are digital turntables that convert (A>D) at the turntable level. They have S/PDIF output and the Digidesign Mbox (ProTools) has S/PDIF input. The Mbox goes into your PC or Mac with a USB or firewire lowering the total number of times you have to A>D D>A. I mean if you go from the phonograph to the receiver to a crappy RCA line input sound card you most probably will have a TON of noise in your recording when you try to convert. Electrical current, and radio interference possibly to name a few. Ever tap on your record w/o the needle on the record and you hear a thud? Well the record can transduce a LOT of noise from the room to the needle. Noisy room = noisy recoding.

Make sure you buy a REALLY nice needle. I don't know what your price range is but they can go as high as you can! Believe it or not vinyl, although more analogous to the original waveform than the equivalent digital representation, can vary greatly in quality. Was it a first pressing (older is not necessarily better... the more times it has been played the worse shape it is in generally speaking. Reissues are cool because they probably are on the same stamper as the first pressing )? Did the mastering engineer who cut the vinyl master know what they were doing? Is it at 78, 45, or 33rpm (Faster = needle fits in groove better as groove wavelength is longer = more accurate reproduction of original sound). How much time was cut per side (Less time = hotter signal can be cut = lower signal to noise ratio)? Virgin vinyl or not? blah blah BLAH lol

After all that the frequency characteristics of vinyl can be kinda crappy. SACD is higher quality in that respect ... by leaps and bounds! Plus when you think of the signal flow from your turntable to your pc things get even scarier. Every secondary piece of equipment you run your signal through the more noise you'll potentially be introducing to the original signal.

Still in an experiment of original to recorded signals where a bunch of one particular type of bird was played their own bird calls on A). CD (probably 44.1 16 bit) ... no response on B). Vinyl the birds sang along. So vinyl picks up on subtleties which, at that time digital, couldn't replicate.

Even at 320k MP3s are roughly 1/4 the amount of data found in the same Wav. It can be difficult, depending on what monitors you're referencing from, to discern a big difference b/w a Wav and the same song ripped WELL at 320k. Still if you alter the 320k Mp3 in any way (i.e. slow down) you'll notice the artifacts soon enough. That brings up another point... certain codecs are better for certain types of music than others. You have to encode using the correct codec for the best results.

Paying the same amount for a Wav and an Mp3 boggles my mind. If Itunes is going to sell music at $.99 then they should send you a CD with the Wav on it. Or wait until you've purchased enough music to fill a CD THEN send you out a CD. It's like buying a bag of rice and at the check-out counter they remove 3/4s of contents from the rice bag and charge you the same amount.

Most ppl can't discern the difference b/w Mp3s and Wavs so what do they care? You get to carry a jukebox in the palm of your hand ... that's all that matters. Can Ipods play back Wavs? If so then you could still have a decent collection of albums on a 60GB Ipod ... until the recoding industry starts widely using 96kHz 32Bit LOL!! Get ready to replace your old collections AGAIN!!

I stick to vinyl ... it seriously weighs a ton but it's more intimate. Same way having the REAL CD w/linear notes and all is more intimate than having a burned piece of garbage imo. It's also hella cheaper for the same product. Special features, album art and Onanonanon.

As far as nice equipment goes for home situations I like Jadis, VAC, Jolida, Audiolab, Luxman, Epos Acoustics, and Melos.

[winoman]

Wow Lamb Boy - lots of excellent info - though don't know how much -if any will make any difference for me. I'm not planning to upgrade my turntables or needles at this point - (and I'm not replacing my vinyl...even if I could...!) my equipment is in pretty good shape BTW - I uses Shure V15-IVs? as I recall - I have a vintage 1970s United Audio Dual turntable - a real classic and an early 1980s? vintage Technics (with the strobe!) - both fully manual (as they should be)...and yeah while not SACD (DTS is used for 4 channel audio on some audio only CDs BTW - nice but not SACD or DVD-A) - I still find that I get nice sound from vinyl - and while lacking ultimate dynamic range (I used to run a dynamic range expander and an SAE anti scratch-pop filter piece I no longer use because of slight distortions_) - I still like that mid level warmth I get from vinyl. I think that with the passage of time and superior recording and mastering technics many recording engineers and audiophiles have recognized that a great many CDs were improperly mastered and suffer from shrillness, clipped high transient harmaonics and other innacuracies where the vinyl (good ole analog) was perhaps a better rendition of what the music was supposed to sound like. (wel OK I still listen to alot more CDs then I do vinyl...much of my listening is in the car..and it just takes effort to set up, properly clean (album and occasionaly the needle) and of course change sides 1/2 way through!...so it goes). Funny just yesterday I was talking with this (M3) guy who was describing his music server he had installed in his trunk - with interchangable 20-40GB hard drives chocok full of different music). He was telling me about some sort of lossless recording format he uses and was generally dissing MP3s (we both agreed that for listening to real music - as music - and not just AM radio quality sound - well...MP3s suck)...So yeah - I do not have full split stero inputs - just mini-RCA - and I realize this is not ideal - not sure I want to add another breakout box but may have to to do it right (and - to my knowledge) the turntable output needs to go through the SAE amps phono pre-amp prior to feeding the PC - at least that is what I have done thus far - and that might not be ideal either.... I'm actually most interested in converting my great many live concert tapes (hundreds...just of Zappa alone hundreds..then hundreds more - mainly 70s & 80s era rock and progressive)...and while the quality can be quite good on some (soundbards, digital tape, and from the trusty ole (and quite large) marantz portable...where some tapes were made with seperate mics positioned on opposite ends of the row feeding the deack located in the middle!) etc - most are of a quality where it probalby doesn't matter too too much if I'm going in on a mini-RCA...so...yeah I am aware of the line noise issues....room noise shouldn't be much of a problem (as long as I'm not cranking it and getting exessive feedback!)...so any suggestions concerning equipment hook-ups would be appreciated (though I am spending many $$$ elsewhere right now..car & house...) so may not have much discretionary free real cash...I'm constantly reminded of the Harley commerical....Harley or dinnette set...well...I'm sort of doing both +......

And I'm familiar with some of the equipment you mention but generally I place it - for me - in the 5% gain in sound quality for the 200%+ gain in price range that I ussually don't find myself making such tradeoffs...so I go Dennon, Axiom, Marantz, Carver, Onkyo, Nakamichi - that sort of range - high quality (at least not the cheap mass market stuff for the most part) - but not the highest end...frees me up to spend my $$$ on my other vices! (and on my kids/family of course!) cheers - nice to come accross another Armenian audio appreciator however...and shame you don't live closeby - I might be more then happy to let you do my digital conversions right!

[Sip]

Even at 320k MP3s are roughly 1/4 the amount of data found in the same Wav.

You can't compare those two bit rates like that as one is highly compressed and the other is just raw data.

[Lamb Boy]

(I used to run a dynamic range expander and an SAE anti scratch-pop filter piece I no longer use because of slight distortions_) - I still like that mid level warmth I get from vinyl. and I realize this is not ideal - not sure I want to add another breakout box but may have to to do it right (and - to my knowledge) the turntable output needs to go through the SAE amps phono pre-amp prior to feeding the PC - at least that is what I have done thus far - and that might not be ideal either.... I'm actually most interested in converting my great many live concert tapes (hundreds...just of Zappa alone hundreds..then hundreds more - mainly 70s & 80s era rock and progressive)...and while the quality can be quite good on some (soundbards, digital tape, etc - most are of a quality where it probalby doesn't matter too too much if I'm going in on a mini-RCA...so...yeah I am aware of the line noise issues....room noise shouldn't be much of a problem (as long as I'm not cranking it and getting exessive feedback!)...so any suggestions concerning equipment hook-ups would be appreciated (though I am spending many $$$ elsewhere right now..car & house...) so may not have much discretionary free real cash...I'm constantly reminded of the Harley commerical....Harley or dinnette set...well...I'm sort of doing both +......

And I'm familiar with some of the equipment you mention but generally I place it - for me - in the 5% gain in sound quality for the 200%+ gain in price range that I ussually don't find myself making such tradeoffs...so I go Dennon, Axiom, Marantz, Carver, Onkyo, Nakamichi - that sort of range - high quality (at least not the cheap mass market stuff for the most part) - but not the highest end...frees me up to spend my $$$ on my other vices! (and on my kids/family of course!) cheers - nice to come accross another Armenian audio appreciator however...and shame you don't live closeby - I might be more then happy to let you do my digital conversions right!

Your Zappa collection sounds nice...

The exciter/expander sounds pretty cool and I totally agree with you on the warmth factor. I must admit sometimes I get excited and go off the deep end on quality. A lot of the stuff I mentioned is what Japanese audiophiles get carried away with. They love vinyl AND CDs big time to where their home system can easily be the most expensive thing(s) they own.

Anyhow I realized that there are some really cool options for getting your phonograph signal into your PC these days AND they're pretty inexpensive and totally dedicated.

Towards the bottom of this link you'll find three reasonably priced options ...

TT Lab ... Equipment + Gear ... Production Tools/Software

Edit: Actually you'll need to navigate to the Production Tools/Software section ... sorry.

the ADS Tech: Instant Music, Griffin iMic USB Audio Interface
with Final Vinyl Software (Mac only), and Griffin Turntable Connection Adaptor with Grounding which really just allows you to bypass a bunch of equipment and pretty much go direct into your PC. Like I mentioned earlier this will reduce noise as each piece of gear will raise the noise floor.

The main problem with the mini in is that they place PC sound cards right next to the power supply!! Electricity is hella noisy so even going direct with mini (as in the Griffen $12 piece) is sorta iffy. Make sure your gain staging is pretty reasonable with no one piece of gear cranked all the way up. If you use Sound Forge or another DAW like piece of software then you can clean up alot of the hum and crap yourself.

Don't you live in Cali? Anyway I would like to move out to Cali and do your collection!! hehehehe RIIGHT! I wish I could move to Cali in general for multitudes of reasons! Perhaps in a year or two as it's seriously one of my goals ...

Did you know there used to be an in dash phonograph player? Can you imagine?

For tape transfers serious professionals (like the ones connected with the original Star Wars SFX library) discovered that slightly heating tape for short periods before transfers actually excited the rust particles in tape making the signal for transfer of higher quality temporarily. They ruined a bunch of 24 trk tapes that way until they discovered that fruit dehydrators were perfect for thr job. Not suggesting you actually do any of that but it's there for you in case your bored one day hanging out with some old Zappa tapes and a fruit dehydrator! lol Just make sure your heads are clean

Hey Sip why can I not compare lossless recodings vs lossy?

"You can't compare those two bit rates like that as one is highly compressed and the other is just raw data"

I didn't say what bit rate the Wav was at ... say 16 bit, and for the sampling rate I'll say 44.1 just to stay in line with a standard CD. For the Mp3 it'll be at 320kbits/sec (Kbps right not KBps ... we WISH!). Now given this info any comparison of the same song that is in both formats will show how the Mp3 version is 1/4 the size the Wav, roughly speaking.

Depends on which codec you use ... like VBR (Varibale Bit Rate encoding) ... the Mp3s where you think your WinAmp or whatever is freakin out 'cause the bit rate in the player keeps changing) which is pretty close to lossless for a MUCH smaller file size.

Anyway why can I not compare Mp3s to Wavs (lossy vs lossless)?

[winoman]

More good suggestions - I will certainly check them out. The direct to PC from phono certaily seems like something I might go for (though I trust in SAE to not induce too much noise into the signal - but there is always some - mostly with cabling). I have a nice top end (consumer) Creative Audigy (?) sound card - nice quality though its not a pro audio card by any means. And yeah - I imagine if the hum is always in a certain low frequency it can be dealt with...

Don't live in Cali - did live in LA (Little Armenia!) for 5 years back in the 80s. We are currently looking into properties in Sonoma County (up beyond San Fran) for retirement (near wine, woods the Pacific Ocean and a great city - who can beat it!) - so could be back in perhaps as little as 5-10 years...we live near Washington DC at the moment.

Yeah I've seen pics of these car phono players comming out the dash - now that could be a nice collectable piece! - in a vega or a pinto or a gremlin or some such eh?

I just happen to have a fruit dehydrator BTW! (perhaps I'll try it on some old heavy metal tape of one sort or another...I actually have a bunch of live heavy Metal that a good friend keeps giving me - "You got to hear this one" etc....he is a fellow super-serious Zappa heads and we both have done and traded a lot of tapes together - he knows I like some Heavy Metal - old Priest, Ozzy/BS, Motorhead - that sort of thing - but not every Scorpions varient or other thrash metal I will care for - and particularly some live tape - though one never knows - it at least is good trade material for some...funny he is also into this really vile (but hilariously funny) music - like the Mentors, King Diamond - etc - probably not your type...anyway I once gave a Mentors album as a gag wedding gift....don't think the wife has talked to me since...

[Sip]

Wav is not compressed. It is RAW data. At 44.1KHz with 16 bit sampling and stereo channels (x2) you get about a ~1.4 Mbps raw data rate.

A "320 Kbps" mp3 data stream is highly compressed (and you are right it is lossy). So if we take a 100K wav and a 100K mp3, the 100K mp3 will potentially contain LOTS more information than the 100K wav. This is because audible waveforms (like music) can be compressed a lot really well and thus "raw data" formats are not very efficient for storing them.

It's analogous to bitmap/jpeg. A 10k jpg will potentially store faaar more useful image information than a 10k bmp. Now maybe someone can create a 10k bmp that cannot be compressed (has 100% information content and no redundancy in anything) but in almost all realistic situations, images do have a lot of redundant features that don't need to be stored in raw form and can be compressed.

So basically, even though the "bit rate" of a 320 Kbps mp3 stream is about 1/4 of a raw wav file, that doesn't say anything about the relative information contents of those streams. That's why a 320 Kbps mp3 could potentially store much more information and "sound better" than a CD. The basic rule of thumb is that around 128Kbps mp3s start to sound about just as good as CDs. Some people claim they aren't happy with 128kbps mp3s and prefer 160 or 192 (or even VBR ones). But I doubt too many will claim they can tell the difference between a 256 Kbps mp3 recording and a CD recording of the same source

[winoman]

With an equal sized WAV and MP3 you would expect the Mp3 to contain more music - ie playing time/length of piece(s) - then the WAV - and by a significant amount. However I would expect the sonic detail of the Mp3 to be appreciably less. I have yet to hear an Mp3 of something that I liked and actually wanted to listen to that I haven't gone WTF??? - whats wrong here...

[Sip]

That's because most mp3s you get are compressed versions of CD audio ... in that case, the mp3 can't magically start sounding better than the source (CD). ... but take a good quality source (like DVD or laser disk etc) and compress it to high quality mp3 with a GOOD compressor (not all mp3 compressors are the same) and you might be surprised by the result.

Still, it won't be "better" than the source if you just compare audio quality but mp3 can do a heck of a job considering the amount of actual space they take to store.

So bottom line is, the mp3s you download off the web are often sloppily compressed using less than ideal hardware and software and almost always from a CD source.