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tsdh

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  1. barrows said: "still, there is a healthy enough market for vinyl (which is expensive to produce and distribute-more so than high res digital) to be produced encompassing very many titles." You'right that vinyl had ressurected in the last ten years. But you have to see the differences between vinyl and hi-res download. Vinyls able to secure a healthy market, not just because of its sound quality, but several other factors: 1. Vinyl is a physical medium. Some of them become collectible or memorabilia pursued by collectors(thus can be auctioned at high price). 2. The exotic and complexity of vinyls playback, become an "art" and pride to some audiophiles. 3. Vinyl is re-saleable, even some used-vinyls may command higher than its original price if it become a rarity. Those three factors, plus the fact that hi-res download is easily copied/shared to many people, will put vinyl at different league than hi-res download, at least from the marketing point of view.
  2. I agree with esldude. Vinyl is not hi-fidelity, it has certain amount of coloration, mostly from its cartridge. (I do not agree that RIAA equalisation is the culprit here). But those colorations are wonderfully leaning toward beautify the sound. (The same as vacuum tube vs solid-state). Digital on the other hand, especially in hi-resolution, is more faithful to the original. The problem why CD sound awful is mostly attributed to its mastering and recording method. Most of the CD were mastered with excessive compression (hence there is a term called "loudness war"). That compression is there for a purpose: to make CD listenable better on small gadget (and small speakers) such as car-audio, computer, mp3 player, etc. The second ugly thing about digital is: the enormous features available and its easiness during mixing/mastering causing engineer to "polish" the sound in similar manner as digital-photo manipulated using Photoshop. The result is a sound which may be beautiful, but not faithful to the original.
  3. john2in3 said: "What dynamic range are you guys seeing with your high end turntables and record cleaning systems out there? It would be interesting to know this information to see if many of us can do better. I get 60 DB on only the cleanest, best albums, most are 50 or even 40DB. I am using a vintage Kyocera Belt driven turntable with Denon Cartridge." The dynamic of vinyl mostly depend on the pressing (beside the cleanliness). Most of vinyls dynamic range is below 60 dB. Only few can exceed that (e.g.: Sheffield direct-to-disc; Amanda McBroom - Growing Up in Hollywood Town). My tube phono-stage has only 74 dB dynamic, even with the quiet tubes. You're right, volume level of -10 or -20dB will be sufficient to record the vinyl using a 24bit ADC. Usually I adjust the input signal to -10dB on its loudest part. If there are some pop/click which exceed that level (thus it will off scale and clip), then I will manually eliminate that pop/click using the wave-editor. Other thing to note: thin vinyl (less than 200gr) most likely to have a high level of rumble, in this case I will run high-pass filter with cut-off frequency on 20Hz at the wave-editor. This will reduce the rumble.
  4. Below is the steps I use to rip vinyls (I have close to 1000 vinyls, and currently around half of it have been digitised). 1. Play the vinyl and adjust passive-preamp behind phono-stage to get the right volume. 2. Play one side of the vinyl and record to WAV 24/192K 3. Flip the vinyl, and record to another WAV file. 4. Run the WAV file thru ClickRepair to eliminate pop/click 5. Load the file into editor, enter information (album, song name, artist, etc) and save individual song to FLAC file (resolution stay at 24/192K) 6. Delete the WAV files. My equipments: Turntable: Thorens 160 with Dynavector 10x2-H cartridge connected with Van den Hul phono cable to Phono stage: Audio Research SP-8 ADC: EMU 1212M Software: Goldwave and ClickRepair I put a volume control (switched resistor array) and balance converter using BurrBrown DRV134 behind the phono-stage to allow balanced connection to ADC.
  5. darthlaker, I see what you mean. Yes.. technically they can just add hi-res download quite easily. But from business point of view, the insentive to do so is too little for the execs, especially if they need to do remastering (most of the consumer musics were mastered for CD, 16/44.1K).
  6. darthlaker, Few years ago, Sony/Philips aggressively promoting their SACD. They did many things; e.g.: re-issuing the RCA's Living Stereo catalog on SACD (do note: most of the recordings listed in TAS were from this catalog). Despite their promotion, it seems as the popularity of SACD in audiophile market is still behind vinyl which gained phenomenal resurrection, and the future of hi-res music will likely be driven by the advance of internet technology. But the internet technology itself is a double-edged sword in this industry; piracy become rampant thru peer-to-peer and file-sharing. Looking at that situation, if I were a recording company exec, then I will look into the largest growth-potential among the population, which is the mass market, the people who listen to iPod, MP3-player, handphone, etc. The booming of small gadget today, shows that this is a potential market where the large pool of money is located. By able to sell in huge volume at very low price, the impact of piracy is less severe as compared to low-volume-high-price model. (We can observe this in movie industry)
  7. darthlaker said: "I'm just surprised the record company execs haven't seen the light and say something like, "Let's release these higher resolution recordings and call them 'High Definition Audio' and charge more money for them"....." The record company execs surely have seen that. But it still a slow process, considering the following factors: - Sony/Philips already came out with SACD format, which they have to promote since they spent money for the R&D. And Sony/Philips own some big labels, thus the execs of that labels will not be free to release the hi-res material outside of SACD format. (well.... SACD is hi-resolution audio) - Selling hi-res files online via internet, will only be feasible in countries where hi-bandwidth internet is available. The rest of other countries will still be better using physical medium (CD, SACD, etc). - The market for hi-res music is limited to those audiophiles, a niche market. While the bulk of the people will be happy with CD-quality sound. They won't pay more for hi-res music. (I guess: iTune Store generate higher profit than HDTrack's hi-res) - From that tiny audiophile-market, only a few are computer-audiophile. The rest are still relying on physical mediums (vinyls, SACD, DVDA, CD, etc). Therefore the market of online hi-res music, is very very small (but it slowly grows).
  8. During the 70s era, my father played reel-to-reel tape, superb sound. But the recording materials became scarce (and expensive), so I played vinyls, which is cheaper and easily available during the 70-80s. Then came CD with great fanfare, I change to CD. After 10 years listening to it, I missed the old analog sound. The best of CD is still pale in comparison with the best of vinyl. So I switched back to vinyl during the 90s, ditching all of my CDs. Now I have close to 1000 vinyls, and no CD. In 2005, hi-resolution ADC/DAC became available at low cost, therefore I started converting my vinyls to 24bit/192KHz digital. (and purchasing some hi-res albums from HDTT and HDTrack).
  9. I have close to 1000 vinyls, during the past several years I slowly convert my vinyls into digital. I am using EMU-1212M as the ADC. ( http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=9872 ) The reason is: - low cost but using AKM ADC chip, which was one of the best ADC chip few years back. - sampling rate up to 24 bit 192KHz - balanced input/output, instead of the ordinary unbalanced. I compared some capture softwares, and finally settled with the simplest one (Goldwave, http://www.goldwave.com/ ). As long as the software is able to capture directly from the sound card without passing thru Windows' mixer, then it is fine. To adjust the volume level, I am using DIY switched resistor-array after the phono stage. After converted into WAV file, it then passed thru a software called ClickRepair ( http://www.clickrepair.net/ ) to eliminate the pop/click which may exist.
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