Analog review has been postponed....

Analog review has been postponed....

This week I was planning on doing some reviews on listening to records, how ever I wanted to be fair and wanted to do it right so I ordered some calibration tools. But after spending a week waiting to no avail, I am forced to put the review on the back burner.

The calibration tools would have giving me the better sound, hopefully I will get the tools this week so I can share my findings with all of you.

So in the mean time I fast written a few blog ideas to pass the time till I get the proper alignment tools. If there is one were you guys think could be developed more please let me know.

Digital Music Part III

Digital Music Part III

conclusion.

Listing to digital music is clean and easy. It certainly gets the job done. I don’t really know which one to pick quite yet. Hopefully we’ll find out next week.

Digital Music Part II

Digital Music Part II

Listening to MP3 using programs such as iTunes and good speakers is a joy. It is organized for you into separate folders for you to burn them to a car radio compatible CD. What ever you want to hear is just clicks away.

with digital you don’t get the beautiful artwork. Usual the cover image can be found fairly easy with and image search on google, but the insides lay outs are usually harder find. Sometimes you get lucky and you can find them displayed in a series of JPEGs or and PDF file.. but seriously how often do you really look at the artwork... maybe at most 10 times, then the CD case just sites there collecting dust.

The type of MP3 II prefer is VBRs based on their size and quality, I Like the quality of FLAC files but they are way too big... and OSX doesn’t have a good program to manage FLAC files. You can certainly tell the difference in the quality of VBTs but not enough of a difference for me to give up convenience for quality.

Listening to Sam Cooke’s Live at Harlem Square is amazing on the record player, and its is s still quite good in VBRs. The sound on the record is more crisp and clear in the VBR and you can hear the professional mastering of the recording, however, with the record it is warm and inviting and give you a sense that you are their in the front row, the intimacy is unbeatable with the record.

A recent blind study listening test, with my age group, showed more of them preferred the digital copy, and it turns out that most of them preferred the lossy format.

I grew up in the age of technology, so for me the digitally compressed music is more nostalgic for me, I never really listened to records before so this is a new experience for me and I still prefer the record over the digital copy.

Digital Music Part I

Digital Music Part I

Digital music on CDs are essentially compressed, down to 16 bits around 44 kHz when most recordings are around 24 bits to 176 kHz. Some may argue that that is cutting the soul, and some may argue that its beyond the ranges of most human ears.

Listening to digital is super convenient. you can listen to it where ever you go. You can download music from numerous online sources. Starting form with compact discs life has changed, you can listen to what ever song when ever you want. And with the walk man you can carry the compact discs in a thin little case. instead of worrying about carrying fragile vinyls or bulky cassette tapes. But CDs soon found a new heavy weight champion, or should i say light weight champion. with the Mp3s and the internet sharing songs became easy. in stead of spending time rerecording” it on to tape. you can just “rip” it to an Mp3 files. But in the beginning Mp3 couldn’t compete with CDs for the fact that the CD quality was still superior. Mp3s only worked when you were sitting at you computer listening to them through your gawd awful computer speakers. And to really make a decent copy the bit rate would need to be higher and at the time of 500MB hard drives an full album could take up all the available space. But now at a time with ipod carrying available of more than a hundred gigabit... it is hard to see the CD compete. especially with the amount of consumer waste we produce to make just one CD.

Listening to the 128 Mp3 is just torture when you are listening through good speakers, a good format would be a lossless like a FLAC file, but they can take up al lot of space.

Analog versus digital music PART III

Analog versus digital music PART III

Part III (The setup)

Setting up the turntable was by far the most daunting task of all the steps. I had to print of numerous directions, and templates. Just adjusting the proper weight for the tone-arm took me several days to get just right, in the mean time I used some old give alway records that were scratched up to test the sound. There is just so many different ways you can up grade your turntable, no wonder people get hooked, it is fun, and as you will find out later, the sound you get from it will be very well worth it.

For hooking up the speakers I set it up a little differently from the standard right speaker left speaker. I did what some call Biamping or Biwiring depending how big of an audio snob you are. I call it Biamping since I am using 2 channels instead of one, even though I am not using 2 amps. But it is the same basic concept as 2 different amps.

The IMAC is the one that I am the most familiar with, since I use it everyday, and I’ve converted to MP3s a long time ago. I will be using 2 different programs to rip music from CDs, MAX and iTunes, and comparing the quality of their VBR Mp3s to the lossless formats. Nothing less than 190 Kbps. Even though the IMAC is equipped with an optical out put, we won’t be able to test out that feature since my amp doesn’t feature an optical input.

analog versus digital music PART II

analog versus digital music

Part II (The gear)

So for our experiment I will be using a pair of floor standing speakers by KEF, the IQ9s(these are the same speakers as the IQ90s, except the base), a integrated amp by Pioneer(It doesn’t have and optical input, but we’re just doing stereo so that’s good enough), an IMAC for the different types of digital content from .wav to .flac to MP3s to CDs, and last but not least a newly bought turntable.

I am new to the world of records and turntables, but I have done a lot of research to find the perfect turntable for me. Turntables can be, much to my surprise, quite expensive. There are turntables that are as expensive as a house, if you didn’t know already... I don’t have that kind of capital. I found a Rega Planar 3 turntable with a RB300 tone-arm with OEM Elys phono cartridge, beautiful and elegant.

analog versus digital music PART I

analog versus digital music

Part I (The intro)

Ok... I am not afraid to admit it.... I LOVE MUSIC!!! Music is wonderful and powerful, there is nothing else on this earth that can replace the magic of music. I can still remember the first time I heard Beethoven’s 5th symphony, to the first time a power cord rings through my soul. Just a bunch of dots juxtaposed on 5 lines on paper, how deceiving of a disguise to pure genius and the transparencies of our mortal souls.

Where would any of us be without music to sympathize with us? Without music I would have never been able to calm overly emotional and hormonal teenage years. Nothing could have satisfied my emotional needs than the melancholy strumming of a minor chord, or cries from a lyrical genius that had obviously been through what I’ve been through. Music is the way we all connect.

I’ve been obsessed with music long before I picked up my first guitar. Ever changing tastes, ever changing standards and ever surprising discoveries. Analog versus digital is a very debatable subject. Just because technology has gotten does mean the product is better. For example, the album “SGT Pepper and the lonely hearts club band” by the Beatles is an amazing body of work, It came out right around the time stereo came out, so the record company wanted it to be in stereo, but the band didn’t care for stereo at the time and only mixed the mono version leaving the stereo version in the hands of others. Both is good... but the mono version is by far superior.