Vinyl rules !!!!!

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by PHC1

So can you silver disc worshipers give an example of what is the advantage of a CD when it comes to recreating an analog waveform captured by microphone onto an analog tape and then remastered onto a silver disc with many ones and zeros, tiny little steps that are still a digital stepped version of a completely smooth analog waveform?

l.

Serge
Who cares if it recreates an analog waveform!! I want it to sound like live music, not a tape or vinyl disc or a digital track. You don't really think microphones are able to pick up all the nuances of live music?
Jim

[PHC1]

Man, I wish had the technological knowledge to prove that some of what you hear with CDs, that extra amount of what many think is resolution and "air" is nothing more than the pre echo and post ringing artifacts. I have a good feeling it is exactly what it is... Ever since I started listening to Ayre CDP with the MP filters, I noticed the glare, or the trailing edges of transients are a bit more subdued but more natural at the same time. Took me a while to get readjusted to that but when I got into vinyl, I was convinced since that is what I hear with analog playback as well.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Stillone

Serge
Who cares if it recreates an analog waveform!! I want it to sound like live music, not a tape or vinyl disc or a digital track. You don't really think microphones are able to pick up all the nuances of live music?
Jim

Jim, precisely. Musical instruments create analog waveforms, microphones pick them up as analog waveforms, the "analog" recording media records them as such. Vinyl and analog tapes are able to recreate them as such. CDs can not!!!!

So you want to listen to live music or a digital version of a stepped analog waveform?

Is it a surprise when some of the reviewers of the various magazines get to hear a reel to reel tape playback at shows and are not able to get their jaws up off the floor?

Do you think they are easy to impress or don't know what they are hearing?

Analog is analog, it is real, it is live, it is music.... A digital copy is nothing more than an attemtp to recreate that the best it can. Period.

[PHC1]

"Playing the Tape Project's open reel reissue of Reference Recordings Tutti, the TAD (Reference One) presented one of the most completely persuasive facsimiles of a symphony I've heard from a system. Voices and smaller groups were equally convincing, with unsurpassed tonal truth and beauty. For me this was the sonic Everest of the show, indeed, of many a show."

Paul Seydor - PS's Best of Show - The Absolute Sound, April/May 2008

"The TAD room was noteworthy not just for its excellent speakers, but also for the best sounding source of the show: The Tape Project's direct-from-master analog tape."

Alan Taffel - AT's Best of Show - The Absolute Sound, April/May 2008

"...excellent source material tipped the scales for me. I loved the massed strings and dynamic headroom via The Tape Project’s master tape (duplicate -ed.) on the TAD Reference One..."

Jim Hannon's Best of Show - AVGuide.com, The Absolute Sound, April/May 2008

"Also on the 34th floor was Andrew Jones’ beautiful, three-way, floorstanding TAD Reference One loudspeaker ($60k)–with its famous concentric beryllium midrange/tweeter and two ported 10-inch woven-Aramid-sandwich woofers–fed by Ayre electronics and one of The Tape Project 15ips, two-track tape players. The sound on the tapes was, needless to say, astonishing."

Jonathan Valin - AVGuide.com, The Absolute Sound, April/May 2008

"A demo using the big, full-range TADs demonstrated that open-reel analog tape still smokes even high-resolution (24-bit/192kHz) digital."

Michael Fremer - Stereophile, April 2008

Impressions of the Tape Project from Head-fi NorCal Regional Meet, August 25, 2007

"one word--WOW. This had to be the most musical and emotionally moving listening experience I've encountered. It's extremely rare I can listen to unfamiliar music and feel so moved and hang on every note, wishing it not end. The (Tape Project) tape had an utter breathtaking realism that everything else just melted away. It doesn't do it justice to use audiophile terms, which usually best describe an artificial attempt at replicating sound. Dare I say it, the closest to the real deal--like being in the studio on the musicians side of the glass. While listening I had goosebumps, walking away I had goosebumps, a bit later talking about it I got goosebumps or even thinking about it right now I am relishing the moment and sighing long and hard because I don't know when something so emotionally intense can happen again."

Head-fi member 909

"It has already been said, but ironbut's rig is truly extraordinary. The same Tape Project (demo) tape was at HE2007 and on a hugemongous speaker setup it had the same impact on me. Natural, fleshy sound that cannot be beaten by digital sources, and I don't think that I have heard a vinyl setup that can match that same kind of sound."

Head-fi member Voltron

"Ironbut's Technics reel to reel > Bottlehead tape pre > Zana Duex > Ed9s this was the best sound I have EVER heard. The mastering on that reel was crazy good this rig removed the last pane of glass that separates you from the music. Not only was it detailed but had a lifelike quality that sends a shiver down your spine."

Head-fi member jp11801

"tape project...just **** amazing way to hear music. I listened to the classical recording on the tape and everything was so completely 3 dimensional in terms of sound...texture, soundstage, incredible weight to the music."

Head-fi member foo_me

TAS comments on the The Tape Project in the MAGICO room at CES 2007

"Folks, I've heard some mighty fine stereo systems over the years...But fed by the Technics tape deck and those Japanese oddball electronics from BA Labo, the Magico Model 6s reached a level of realism from full orchestra to solo voice that I've simply never heard matched." - Jonathan Valin, Best of Show CES 2007,The Absolute Sound, April/May 2007

"The best systems were Ray Kimber's...the Spectral system... and the MAGICO Model 6, fed from a 15ips analog tape machine." - Robert Harley, Best of Show CES 2007, The Absolute Sound, April/May 2007

"perhaps the most convincing recreation of a symphony orchestra I have ever heard" - Wayne Garcia, on hearing an excerpt from Arnold Overtures on the MAGICO/Tape Project combination, Best of Show CES 2007, The Absolute Sound, April/May 2007

Positive Feedback on Tape Project tapes in the E.A.R. U.S.A room at CES 2007

"the sound was no less than drop dead stunning. Dynamic, ultra-resolved, it makes digital high-res formats look pale, flat and sad in comparison." - Danny Kaey, 2007 CES, Positive Feedback Online Issue 29

[vintage_tube]

Originally Posted by Stillone

I have always said there are a lot of ways to get great sound out of a system but saying that A is always better than B is poop, as you put it.

Your wordsmithing is exceptionally good Jim.

Bob

[vintage_tube]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Is it a surprise when some of the reviewers of the various magazines get to hear a reel to reel tape playback at shows and are not able to get their jaws up off the floor?

Those prosumer Technics J-Corders & the revamped Otari's are really fabulous machines. Of which, guess which one Steve Hoffman uses & is using for the upcoming Nat King Cole releases -- yep, a Technics J-Corder Ruby (Technics RS-1520).

BOb

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Jim, precisely. Musical instruments create analog waveforms, microphones pick them up as analog waveforms, the "analog" recording media records them as such. Vinyl and analog tapes are able to recreate them as such. CDs can not!!!!

So you want to listen to live music or a digital version of a stepped analog waveform?

Is it a surprise when some of the reviewers of the various magazines get to hear a reel to reel tape playback at shows and are not able to get their jaws up off the floor?

Do you think they are easy to impress or don't know what they are hearing?

Analog is analog, it is real, it is live, it is music.... A digital copy is nothing more than an attemtp to recreate that the best it can. Period.

Why is audio the only area where digital is not considered at least capable of equaling "analog"? No one is complaining about digital HD versus analog TV. There are very, very few people who do not consider todays digital camera capable of matching or exceeding film cameras. And of course Betamax is superior to DVD or Blue-ray.

To say that the recording and playback of audio is the only "technology" that the entire world has not figured out a better way of accomplishing since the late 50's is mind boggling.

Microphones, only pick up a an analog facsimile of the sound produced by instruments.

[PHC1]

Jim, you are comparing very different things here.

Fundamentally, a sound wave is a smooth wave that rises and falls. Fundamentally, digital has either full on or off state, one or zero. Thus a digital wave is made up of small steps, the higher the resolution, the finer the steps but they are still there. No way around that.



That microphones vary in quality and much what you hear from say an analog recording has to do with their quality, recording techniques and equipment, etc... doesn't change any of the above fundamentals.

[jdandy]

Records are not immune to the loudness war, not by a long shot. It has been going on in the vinyl domain, as well. The technique of raising the softer sounds, and reducing the loudest sounds to achieve a higher audio impact across the board has been going on for a long time, and often is done to the analog signal at the mastering stage. Using a magnetic tape master that has had heavy gain riding and compression applied, the loudness war scurge, won't provide a better finished product sound just because the analog signal is transfered to vinyl. Vinyl, in and of itself, is no miracal recording medium. Tracking vinyl, with all of its physical limitations and mechanical necessities, is no assurance of audio nirvana, either.

Intentionally reduced dynamic range in the interest of loudness is a curse to all recorded music, in my opinion. Dynamic range that mimics reality is one of the goals to lifelike musical playback. There is little doubt the dynamic range capabilities of CD/SACD/XRCD exceed that of vinyl. 45 dB of dynamic range is considered excellent in vinyl, as is 30 dB of channel seperation during playback. One has to look at owning something like the Clearaudio Goldfinger phono cartridge ($10,000) to achieve a claimed 45 dB of channel seperation. The Clearaudio Stradivari ($3500) claims 30 dB of crosstalk. These numbers pale in comparison to 100 dB of dynamic range, and 98 dB of channel seperation typical of high-end digital audio players. Stereo music reproduction is as much about the absence of sound versus peak levels, as it is about frequency response and channel seperation. Limiting any of these criteria, individually or in unison, ultimately reduces the authenticity of the reproduction, and the listener's enjoyment.

Reproduction of music is never accurate to the original performance no matter what medium is chosen. That's why it is called a reproduction, and not live. Both mediums, vinyl and digital, have positives and negatives, and have their advocates and adversaries. Both mediums are far from perfect vehicles for delivering the sonic perfection that we quest. We can talk about pre-ringing, post ringing, jitter, and more when trying to explain why digial is inferoir to vinyl. We can talk about mistracking, inner groove distoration, arm resonance, arm/cartridge complience, rumble, wow and flutter, speed accuracy, dynamic range reduction, back ground noise levels, and the inheriently delicate nature of vinyl as a storage medium when we try to explain why vinyl is inferior to digital.

It boils down to personal preference. There is no right or wrong, simply a difference of opinion. Many embace both mediums of playback, and accept the shortcomings as simply part of the experience. Both playback mediums in there present configurations are flawed. If you want an absolutely perfect audio performance, hire Steely Dan, or Katie Melua to perform in your living room. There will be no loss of dynamics, no loudness wars, no pre-ringing or jitter, no mistracking, or wow and flutter, just pure unadulterated music. This hobby is about fun......remember?

[PHC1]

The fact that vinyl mastered from digital sounds edgy, glary and harsh only underlines the fact that it the digital nasties do not go away once introduced into the process. Its just the nature of the beast.

No doubt digital will still keep evolving and maybe someday it will be impossible to tell at all. I sure hope so. It is no doubt a much less tweaky media and more convinient once placed into music servers, PCs, etc.. In the mean time I listen to both but really enjoy the vinyl for its more natural sound that is rich, dynamic and musical to my ears.