Vintage vs Modern Audio Gear: Which is better?

[crazyfingers]

Ya I didn't mention my turntable above. It's again 40+ year old. A Technics SL-3200 semi-automatic with a new Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge. It still blows my mind that the platter is the motor. One moving part.

I don't listen to vinyl much but sometimes I get into a nostalgic mood and sometimes I want to remember what's on it and if it's worth getting the CD. I did that with a pile of old Billy Joel vinyls and ended up buying the CDs.

You're right about some CD's not sounding right. A major one for me that comes to mind is Dire Straits live album Alchemy. It was one of the first vinyl's put onto CD IIRC and there is something about it that's just wrong. It's way too bright. And other issues. I recall a few years ago looking to see if anyone bothered to go back and do a remaster but didn't find anything on it.

 

[highfigh]

I believe subpar recordings causes more upgraditus than any one aspect of audiophilia. Excellent recordings can sound audibly flawless on a lot of gear covering a pretty wide economic span. These days, when I see someone firmly planted in one of the more mainstream, dated genres, going for neutral speakers and gear, and no tone controls, I figure they are going to have their hands full finding satisfaction. Back in the day, sales people used to audition gear for us with contemporary jazz, which was much cleaner than say rock and was known as cheater music.

If anything, equipment SHOULD have been demo'd with Jazz if it provided the best sound quality. When CD players were new, I took a phone call from someone who was disappointed in the sound from his pricey CD player (the Sony CDP-101 sold at list price in the beginning, $900). I asked which CD he was listening to and he said it was 'The Who, Live At Leeds". I told him it was a live recording from 1973 and asked if he really expected it to sound good.

Why demo with bad-sounding recordings? Wouldn't you want to hear the equipment at its best? Also, it would expose people to music they may like, but hadn't heard before. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Someone who's expecting all recordings to sound the same or to sound good really doesn't understand how this works. If they haven't heard differences between recordings, I would say that something isn't allowing it- the differences are glaring.

 

[highfigh]

Ya I didn't mention my turntable above. It's again 40+ year old. A Technics SL-3200 semi-automatic with a new Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge. It still blows my mind that the platter is the motor. One moving part.

I don't listen to vinyl much but sometimes I get into a nostalgic mood and sometimes I want to remember what's on it and if it's worth getting the CD. I did that with a pile of old Billy Joel vinyls and ended up buying the CDs.

You're right about some CD's not sounding right. A major one for me that comes to mind is Dire Straits live album Alchemy. It was one of the first vinyl's put onto CD IIRC and there is something about it that's just wrong. It's way too bright. And other issues. I recall a few years ago looking to see if anyone bothered to go back and do a remaster but didn't find anything on it.

One part moves? Motor, tone arm, cuing lever, return mecahnism.....

What's your opinion of the sound quality of 'Brothers In Arms' on CD and LP? Have you heard both?

 

[crazyfingers]

One part moves? Motor, tone arm, cuing lever, return mecahnism.....

What's your opinion of the sound quality of 'Brothers In Arms' on CD and LP? Have you heard both?

I'd think that you could tell from the context that the one moving part comment was in reference to the platter movement.

I don't have Brothers In Arms on vinyl. Brother's in Arms is not up there among my favorites so I don't really listen to the CD though I have it.

What's your opinion of it?

 

[crazyfingers]

If anything, equipment SHOULD have been demo'd with Jazz if it provided the best sound quality. When CD players were new, I took a phone call from someone who was disappointed in the sound from his pricey CD player (the Sony CDP-101 sold at list price in the beginning, $900). I asked which CD he was listening to and he said it was 'The Who, Live At Leeds". I told him it was a live recording from 1973 and asked if he really expected it to sound good.

Why demo with bad-sounding recordings? Wouldn't you want to hear the equipment at its best? Also, it would expose people to music they may like, but hadn't heard before. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Someone who's expecting all recordings to sound the same or to sound good really doesn't understand how this works. If they haven't heard differences between recordings, I would say that something isn't allowing it- the differences are glaring.

Since I don't have any jazz, I would not demo anything with jazz regardless of the quality of the recording because I'm not familiar with any of the music and would have no point of reference.

I believe that a demo of a system should be done with a high quality recording of something that one is VERY familiar with. On the few recent occasions that I've demo'd something, I've brought along a USB stick with selections of my own that are high quality and very well known to me.

 

[crazyfingers]

A major one for me that comes to mind is Dire Straits live album Alchemy. It was one of the first vinyl's put onto CD IIRC and there is something about it that's just wrong. It's way too bright. And other issues. I recall a few years ago looking to see if anyone bothered to go back and do a remaster but didn't find anything on it.

Having re-looked into this, I now recall that there was a remaster but also much disagreement whether the remaster was actually better than the original CD.

Which Dire Straits "Alchemy" do you prefer?

Hi, there are two quite different mastered releases of this live album: + The original version + The remastered version from '96 by Bob Ludwig...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

 

[MrBoat]

If anything, equipment SHOULD have been demo'd with Jazz if it provided the best sound quality. When CD players were new, I took a phone call from someone who was disappointed in the sound from his pricey CD player (the Sony CDP-101 sold at list price in the beginning, $900). I asked which CD he was listening to and he said it was 'The Who, Live At Leeds". I told him it was a live recording from 1973 and asked if he really expected it to sound good.

Why demo with bad-sounding recordings? Wouldn't you want to hear the equipment at its best? Also, it would expose people to music they may like, but hadn't heard before. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Someone who's expecting all recordings to sound the same or to sound good really doesn't understand how this works. If they haven't heard differences between recordings, I would say that something isn't allowing it- the differences are glaring.

Not saying to demo with bad recordings, but what one buys, better match what they want to listen to. Especially if they don't want to have to earn a minor degree in audio science and electronics to get there. Used to take awhile, when all there was were magazines once/month to get info from.

The Japanese managed to match the hatch pretty well in the '70s and '80s with furniture store grade rack systems. Loved that stuff. It hooked me forever. Pioneer, Fisher, Marantz etc. We took our friends and favorite music to audition and that's all it had to do was pass the dirt and loud test.

Proper, revealing/accurate speakers would not have cut it. If speakers did rock and pop/country good enough to party to, great. Jazz would only sound better from there. This, from a time we bought stuff in person and really had to demo it if we were to have to eat ramen for a year to afford it and with the info age yet nowhere in sight.

Higher end, so-called proper speakers were a realm that a young working man could not afford to make a mistake in. Better just to buy the sure bet fun stuff that you can afford. We had heard enough snobby equipment that was not fun to listen to. Those dudes had no friends. They were all over at my dump with the 15s and a heap of records.

 

[highfigh]

Not saying to demo with bad recordings, but what one buys, better match what they want to listen to. Especially if they don't want to have to earn a minor degree in audio science and electronics to get there. Used to take awhile, when all there was were magazines once/month to get info from.

The Japanese managed to match the hatch pretty well in the '70s and '80s with furniture store grade rack systems. Loved that stuff. It hooked me forever. Pioneer, Fisher, Marantz etc. We took our friends and favorite music to audition and that's all it had to do was pass the dirt and loud test.

Proper, revealing/accurate speakers would not have cut it. If speakers did rock and pop/country good enough to party to, great. Jazz would only sound better from there. This, from a time we bought stuff in person and really had to demo it if we were to have to eat ramen for a year to afford it and with the info age yet nowhere in sight.

Higher end, so-called proper speakers were a realm that a young working man could not afford to make a mistake in. Better just to buy the sure bet fun stuff that you can afford. We had heard enough snobby equipment that was not fun to listen to. Those dudes had no friends. They were all over at my dump with the 15s and a heap of records.

I sold a lot of those pre-packaged systems starting in 1978 and some were decent, none were really good until Sony, Pioneer and a few others came out with a step-up line of equipment unless the various step up systems were assembled by the stores because the manufacturers didn't always sell them that way. The Pioneer systems like the CE-3, CE-5 and CE-7 were less expensive than adding the price for each piece, but in today's dollars, they were pretty expensive. IIRC, a CE-7 sold for $799 and if an inflation calculator is used, that comes to more than $3380 and comparing this one with modern equipment, it was decent but I wouldn't describe it as better than that.

At that time, customers were often under-informed and mis-informed, especially if they didn't understand what they had read in some of the audio magazines, so it was up to us to educate them if we wanted happy customers because just pushing boxes would result in a lot of equipment damaged by un-managed expectations.

However, it would have been a disservice to not play better equipment and better-sounding music when we saw the reactions from people who weren't always impressed by what they could buy for the price they expected, so we would guide them into better speakers and cut costs where it wouldn't degrade the sound. We would bring our own music in for demos- it was very common for people to ask "This is really good- who is this?" and when I mentioned the name, they asked "Who?".

 

[highfigh]

Since I don't have any jazz, I would not demo anything with jazz regardless of the quality of the recording because I'm not familiar with any of the music and would have no point of reference.

I believe that a demo of a system should be done with a high quality recording of something that one is VERY familiar with. On the few recent occasions that I've demo'd something, I've brought along a USB stick with selections of my own that are high quality and very well known to me.

IMO, it's more important to listen for the sounds of the instruments than to appreciate the music but even then, the recording process and production make a huge difference. Listening to what you're familiar with only allows you to compare equipment with what you already have- you're more familiar with the sound of your equipment and will make comparisons that are purely mental unless you bring your speakers to the demo or the prospective speakers are brought to your place. While I agree that it's a good idea to avoid adding variables to a demo by playing different music at each demo, owning Speaker A may prevent hearing details from music that Speakers B, C, D, etc may reveal and vise-versa. I heard many people say that they loved their old speakers until they bought different ones and some didn't like the new ones until they took the time to become accustomed to the sound. The biggest problem with speaker demos at a store- the room sounds different from the customer's place and little effort was used in setting up the placement.

 

[highfigh]

I'd think that you could tell from the context that the one moving part comment was in reference to the platter movement.

I don't have Brothers In Arms on vinyl. Brother's in Arms is not up there among my favorites so I don't really listen to the CD though I have it.

What's your opinion of it?

I like it, but I'm really tired of 'Money For Nothing' because it has been played too much. It was also one of the first to use the Sony 24 track digital recorder, so they were still learning to use that to whatever advantage they could. IIRC, it was one of the first records to have D/D/D for the SPARS code, too. The reason I asked is because the digital basic tracks, mix and master would have been the reference, rather than using analog recording in any part of the recording process and re-mastering it for a digital version when the two need to be so different since mastering for LP and not re-mastering for CD is one of the factors that caused many of the early CDs to sound bad.

 

[MrBoat]

I sold a lot of those pre-packaged systems starting in 1978 and some were decent, none were really good until Sony, Pioneer and a few others came out with a step-up line of equipment unless the various step up systems were assembled by the stores because the manufacturers didn't always sell them that way. The Pioneer systems like the CE-3, CE-5 and CE-7 were less expensive than adding the price for each piece, but in today's dollars, they were pretty expensive. IIRC, a CE-7 sold for $799 and if an inflation calculator is used, that comes to more than $3380 and comparing this one with modern equipment, it was decent but I wouldn't describe it as better than that.

At that time, customers were often under-informed and mis-informed, especially if they didn't understand what they had read in some of the audio magazines, so it was up to us to educate them if we wanted happy customers because just pushing boxes would result in a lot of equipment damaged by un-managed expectations.

However, it would have been a disservice to not play better equipment and better-sounding music when we saw the reactions from people who weren't always impressed by what they could buy for the price they expected, so we would guide them into better speakers and cut costs where it wouldn't degrade the sound. We would bring our own music in for demos- it was very common for people to ask "This is really good- who is this?" and when I mentioned the name, they asked "Who?".

Actually, it was my my local sales rep who taught me how to avoid distortion via headroom with consumer gear. He explained to me where it occurred, the most common cause being equipment being pushed near, or worse, at or beyond it's limits, and without having to teach me the fundamentals of clipping. I had noticed with all my friends gear, that I wanted something slightly better. When I got to compare what they had bought in store, while they were trying to cheat a bargain, it was with the next step up in size and power I found my threshold. They had all bought 12" or smaller speakers, 80WPC or less. My sweet spot was 15", with 100+WPC. I never had to run mine more than half. No, it wasn't "audiophile grade" by any means, but pretty darned perfect for classic rock or pop. My 15" Studio Standard (Sanyo) Fisher speakers sounded way better with that music than the Advent speakers of the time. My roomie had Advents. He agreed and just put them away. It was most apparent when we played something like Led Zeppelin 1, back to back, on each system.

What a lot of compute age audiophiles tend to discount is how variable and wide the idea of audiophilia is beyond measured ideals. I grew up on crap systems from Sears (Magnavox etc.) that essentially came with speakers blown before they played the first tune, the AM dash radio in the car, again with the blown mono speaker, and transistor and equally crappy portables. Lots of mono. Those rack systems from the'70s and '80s were perfect by comparison.

I have found that even now, with much more superior speakers and amps, that if I go straight from no music at all, to a session on one of those well preserved/restored rack systems with giant speakers and a CD player, I can really jam out with it still, just like before. Especially if I am revisiting that same classic rock and pop. At least now, with these modern comparisons, I know I wasn't dreaming. It's still actually pretty darned good.

 

[highfigh]

Actually, it was my my local sales rep who taught me how to avoid distortion via headroom with consumer gear. He explained to me where it occurred, the most common cause being equipment being pushed near, or worse, at or beyond it's limits, and without having to teach me the fundamentals of clipping. I had noticed with all my friends gear, that I wanted something slightly better. When I got to compare what they had bought in store, while they were trying to cheat a bargain, it was with the next step up in size and power I found my threshold. They had all bought 12" or smaller speakers, 80WPC or less. My sweet spot was 15", with 100+WPC. I never had to run mine more than half. No, it wasn't "audiophile grade" by any means, but pretty darned perfect for classic rock or pop. My 15" Studio Standard (Sanyo) Fisher speakers sounded way better with that music than the Advent speakers of the time. My roomie had Advents. He agreed and just put them away. It was most apparent when we played something like Led Zeppelin 1, back to back, on each system.

What a lot of compute age audiophiles tend to discount is how variable and wide the idea of audiophilia is beyond measured ideals. I grew up on crap systems from Sears (Magnavox etc.) that essentially came with speakers blown before they played the first tune, the AM dash radio in the car, again with the blown mono speaker, and transistor and equally crappy portables. Lots of mono. Those rack systems from the'70s and '80s were perfect by comparison.

I have found that even now, with much more superior speakers and amps, that if I go straight from no music at all, to a session on one of those well preserved/restored rack systems with giant speakers and a CD player, I can really jam out with it still, just like before. Especially if I am revisiting that same classic rock and pop. At least now, with these modern comparisons, I know I wasn't dreaming. It's still actually pretty darned good.

If an amplifier operating at its limit, there's really not going to be any useful headroom and a spec called 'Dynamic Headroom' was created as a way to find out how an amplifier would respond to peaks when it was at rated power output. Many amps didn't do well but I remember NAD being better than most. Some well-known brands were capable of 0dB Dynamic Headroom.

I bought a new pair of speakers in 1979 and for their size, they do pretty well in the low end. We were selling them for $200/pair and with the inflation calculator, that makes the price equivalent to more than $800, now. Eep! That's a chunk of change, but 44 years later, they still sound very good.

The first rack systems often had paper cone tweeters or if they were slightly better, paper cone with Phenolic ring. We had our own name for those. Then, we started seeing dome tweeters that were plastic, then textile domes. The textile made a big difference in sound quality and they're still one of the most popular materials.

Man, some of that late-'70s stuff was terrible! I'll take the speakers I bought back then or the ones I built over anything that sold for less than about $2K at the same time. Maybe the ESS AMT-1b, Ohm-F or a few others, but I wasn't too geeked by a lot of the most popular speakers, for various reasons. Some smaller manufacturers built some decent stuff, but they didn't have the money to compete with the big guys.

If you ever have a chance to listen to MicroAcoustics FRM-1A speakers, pass it up.