[BC] They can't give 'em away!

[Dana Puopolo]

Before my ex wife threw it all out, I had about 5000 LPs and a nice belt drive
Thorens turntable with an Adcom moving coil cartridge. My preamp was a
modified Phoenix Systems P-100, hand built by John Roberts, later of Peavey
fame. The preamp was unique in that it had a passive roll off for the HF pole
(above 500 Hz) and an active bass boost below 500 hz. The passive pole came
first, so the active part didn't have gobs of high frequencies to deal with.
It was a simple cap to ground from the output of the low noise hand graded
class A biased FET (running with zero negative feedback) that came right off
the phono cartridge. The entire preamp also was DC coupled with a servo and an
active ground.

My amplifier was a modified Adcom GFA-555, using a recommended mod. of its
circuit designer Victor Campos (later of NAD fame). Victor personally mailed
me all the parts and a service manual-for free. Let's just say that the four
25,000 uf 75 volt computer grade electrolytics and four 10uf teflon dielectric
capacitors probably cost big $$. Speakers were either KLH model 9
electrostatic panels or Celestion SL-700s. Source switching and volume were
all passive, using sealed gold contact mercury whetted relays and Alps 5000
ohm step attenuators. My CD player was a highly modified Magnavox
(Philips)-known for it's high audio quality. My FM tuner was a modified Magnum
Dynalab FT-101, the finest tuner available at the time. It was connected to a
ten element FM yagi on a rotator. I also had a hand built FM preselector (made
by Craig Healy of this list). Analog reel to reel was a Technics RS-1500 with
a closed loop servo tape capstan. Interconnects were 18 gauge stranded silver
coated teflon hook up wire (another freebee) tightly twisted. Speaker wire was
tripled up pieces of the same wire.

The reason I tell you all this is to illustrate that I had a 'high resolution'
stereo system. With the right source material it sounded absolutely stunning!

I could easily hear big quality differences between LPs and CDs. Invariably,
the LP's always sounded better! Sure, the CDs were quieter-but the LPs' sound
always sounded 'right'. FM stations' sound ran the gamut from fabulous to
horrid (I lived between Providence and Boston, but could also pick up
Worcester, Northern CT and Cape Cod FMs). The strange thing was that it wasn't
format dependent-some rock stations sounded great, while one classical station
sounded awful (no, it wasn't in Boston).

But that was almost ten years ago. Now I'm in my mid 50's and I know my HF
hearing isn't nearly what it used to be. One thing that I do know however, is
that I still can't stand the sound of any audio files with a bit rate of less
than 256 kbps. 384 kbps sounds even better to me, and my personal preference
are WAV and FLAC encoded (linear) files).

-D 



------ Original Message ------
Received: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:13:45 PM EDT
From: Rich Wood <richwood at pobox.com>

------ At 01:33 PM 9/19/2008, Glen Kippel wrote: -------

>Yes, and in an article in the old db Magazine, Rupert Neve said he could
>listen to LPs all day, but listening to CDs made him feel "edgy" and
>ill-at-ease.  In a later article he said that he didn't have a problem with
>sound recorded in 24/96.

I recall many audiophiles didn't and still don't like CDs. Vinyl is 
supposed to have a comfortable "warm" sound and CDs bring music "in 
your face." Remember, most of the early CDs were dubbed from the 
vinyl masters that had been EQd specifically for vinyl. The heyday of 
well-recorded CDs is gone in favor of its version of the loudness 
wars. I believe grunge processing has hurt radio over the years.

I've heard young concertgoers complain that live Classical music 
"doesn't sound right."

Rich