Audiophiles or Audiofrauds? Whats the concenus.

[StevegSr]

For years, my colleagues and I have laughed at the idea of someone playing a $10 to $20 piece of vinyl plastic on sound system costing, in some cases, in excess of a quarter million dollars, or more.

Aside from the fact that most 60's and 70's albums were EQed and mastered to sound good on car radios as well as low cost turntables and rigs, how does this price disparity between the source material (the vinyl record) and the pricey playback equipment make sense? If the playback medium was as pricey as the high priced equipment it was played on, this would make sense. But it does not. Discuss.

[rcarlberg]

Colleges or colleagues?

The cost of the source is irrelevant; what matters is the fidelity and in that case yes vinyl at its very best just begins to approach CD quality.

"If the playback medium was as pricey as the high priced equipment it was played on" then nobody could afford to buy albums. Mass production keeps them cheap.

[ronmac]

What does the cost of the medium have to do with the cost of equipment playing it? That's like saying you should be paying $1000.00 per gallon for gassing up your Maserati.

Now, granted, there are enough stupid people out there who would believe that price reflects quality.

[Baribrotzer]

There have been a few high-end audio formats, like direct-to-disc, but none of them really lasted. One general problem is that the music real audiophiles listen to tends to be acoustic, with a high dynamic range - classical music or small-group mainstream jazz. But vinyl doesn't have a dynamic range comparable to the source material, so LP recordings need to be compressed. CDs, meanwhile, are digital, and made with the lowest possible sample rate that will work for the required frequency range - which throws the onus upon the A-to-D converter, and while high-end A-to-Ds are available, the result is still digital, still a synthetic recreation as opposed to the analog Real Thing, and still unacceptable to a true Golden Ear. I think there may be high-rate CDs, but they'll have the same psychological problem.

Dance clubs also use very expensive systems, to play thumpity-thump music at numbingly high volume without distortion for a stoned and discerning audience, but I suspect that's not what you're talking about.

[JeffCarney]

most 60's and 70's albums were EQed and mastered to sound good on car radios

[JJ88]

^I think that's totally wrong as well, certainly as far as albums go- particularly the type we talk about here. Singles, it's true to some extent...Motown, for instance.

I read the Steve Hoffman Forum a lot and it's an invaluable resource. But there's a lot of exaggeration about sound on there....both ways.

[JeffCarney]

I read the Steve Hoffman Forum a lot and it's an invaluable resource. But there's a lot of exaggeration about sound on there....both ways.

So true.

Add to this that whenever Hoffman masters something, it is automatically considered the "definitive" version (often ever before its release!). In addition, it will almost inevitably be suggested by Hoffman that not a single person who mastered the album for vinyl or CD had the correct source tapes and/or knew what he was doing before he got hold of it.

[Nijinsky Hind]

I was listening to an old mint Mercury Living Presence LP (Xavier Cugat, Spain) on a 100 dollar sony turntable with a new stock needle... Totally impressed by the sound from the "source". Wow!

[StevegSr]

Colleges or colleagues?

The cost of the source is irrelevant; what matters is the fidelity and in that case yes vinyl at its very best just begins to approach CD quality.

"If the playback medium was as pricey as the high priced equipment it was played on" then nobody could afford to buy albums. Mass production keeps them cheap.

I typed this post this morning from a hospital bed while on a morphine drip, so please excuse my grammatical mistake.

As I'm off the morphine now (unfortunately), your answer regarding the irrelevancy of the quality of the source medium is quite common among audiophiles and makes as little sense now as it did years ago. A cheaply produced "production line" vinyl record is what most audiophiles listen to without giving a it a second thought.

[StevegSr]

What does the cost of the medium have to do with the cost of equipment playing it? That's like saying you should be paying $1000.00 per gallon for gassing up your Maserati.

Now, granted, there are enough stupid people out there who would believe that price reflects quality.

If gasoline was made a cheaply as a vinyl record, your car would knock itself to death after driving 2 blocks.

[StevegSr]

^I think that's totally wrong as well, certainly as far as albums go- particularly the type we talk about here. Singles, it's true to some extent...Motown, for instance.

I read the Steve Hoffman Forum a lot and it's an invaluable resource. But there's a lot of exaggeration about sound on there....both ways.

Sorry, but the sound of records were always a compromise in regards to radio playback, cheaper types of music reproduction (as a majority of the listening public was not rich) and then to the "The High End" listener. To think other wise is simply fooling yourself, which the record companies loved, btw.

This is more fun without the morphine.

[Zeuhlmate]

Any media has compromises, dont kid yourself.

[Dave (in MA)]

I read the Steve Hoffman Forum a lot and it's an invaluable resource. But there's a lot of exaggeration about sound on there....both ways.

I read it a lot because I find a lot of humor in late middle aged males spending 8 gajillion dollars on audio hardware to listen to 50 year old recordings of a TV show pop group targeted at (at the time) 14 year old girls.

[Dave (in MA)]

This is more fun without the morphine.

That's would make a good sig.

[Dave (in MA)]

I typed this post this morning from a hospital bed while on a morphine drip

Hope things are OK.

[rcarlberg]

CDs, meanwhile, are digital, and made with the lowest possible sample rate that will work for the required frequency range - which throws the onus upon the A-to-D converter, and while high-end A-to-Ds are available, the result is still digital, still a synthetic recreation as opposed to the analog Real Thing, and still unacceptable to a true Golden Ear. I think there may be high-rate CDs, but they'll have the same psychological problem.

At least you correctly identify this particular meme as a "psychological problem."

The idea that analog is the "real thing" because it is continuous, while digital will forever be, I dunno, "Pepsi"? because it slices the signal up into discrete bits is patent hogswallop. It ignores all of the benefits of digital (vastly superior dynamic range, frequency response, noise profile and distortion figures) while touting a supposed benefit of analog that quite simply does not exist. There isn't a human ear on the planet that can hear 44,100 distinct samples per second and I doubt many dogs or bats would hear hear them as separate samples either.

Read up on the subject. It is well documented.

[rcarlberg]

, your answer regarding the irrelevancy of the quality of the source medium is quite common among audiophiles and makes as little sense now as it did years ago.

Are you quite sure the morphine is out of your system? Please re-read what I wrote. I did not say the QUALITY of the source medium was irrelevant, I said the COST of the source medium is irrelevant.

[Baribrotzer]

There isn't a human ear on the planet that can hear 44,100 distinct samples per second, and I doubt many dogs or bats would hear hear them as separate samples either.

The problem is that the samples themselves don't provide a true picture of the highest frequency components on their own. They do carry enough information to reconstruct those components, but even with a high-end A-to-D, it's still a reconstruction - just a better, more accurate one than a cheap A-to-D can give. Having said this, I also need to add again that I'm very aware none of it matters in real world listening, and the idea that it does is little more than a prevailing superstition among Golden Ears.

[rcarlberg]

Yeah, Bari, in real world listening it's not an issue.

I've done enough bit-level digital editing to have SOME IDEA what's audible and what's not and the idea that a digital representation is somehow lacking or discarding vital information is, to coin a phrase, hogswallop. Not to mention the fact that we don't listen to the raw digital packets -- they must go through a DAC first and be converted back into an analog waveform.

Yes, digital audio will not reproduce frequencies above the Nyquist limit. Whether or not the human ear responds to these frequencies, in any way, is a valid discussion but the science on it is pretty emphatically no.

[rcarlberg]

how does this price disparity between the source material (the vinyl record) and the pricey playback equipment make sense? If the playback medium was as pricey as the high priced equipment it was played on, this would make sense. But it does not. Discuss.

To go back to your original question, Steve, a professional recording in a professional studio can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and use millions of dollars of high-quality equipment. Certainly the "means of production" can easily exceed the cost of the "means of reproduction."

However, in order to be financially feasible, albums have to be mass-produced. These costs of production are spread out over many many copies. If they were all "one-off" productions nobody would be able to afford them.

I think the answer to your question lies in mass-production.

[JeffCarney]

Vinyl almost always sounds better than CD to me.

I don't care why.

[StevegSr]

Are you quite sure the morphine is out of your system? Please re-read what I wrote. I did not say the QUALITY of the source medium was irrelevant, I said the COST of the source medium is irrelevant.

A residual effect was probably the cause of confusing cost with quality. My apologies.

I left my opining post pretty opened ended, and I'm surprised that no one has brought up the quality of vinyl with the recent "vinyl resurgence", which is mostly based on digitally restoring album masters prior to disc cutting.

There's some excellent sounding vinyl in the stores these days that's of audiophile quality..

[StevegSr]

Hope things are OK.

I'm ok, thanks, but very sore. I just some routine open heart bypass surgery. LOL. But I'm already feeling it's benefits, so it was worth it. My stepson took away my ipod so I couldn't continue posting yesterday, in case I was causing too much trouble. He knows I'm a bit of a bugger!

[rcarlberg]

Vinyl almost always sounds better than CD to me.

I don't care why.

That's a valid opinion.

[PeterG]

I typed this post this morning from a hospital bed while on a morphine drip, so please excuse my grammatical mistake.

Hey, ya northern git what's wrong with ya? Skiving in the scratcher on morphine....luxury!

Hope all is well, and if it isn't get well soon.