On Oct 22, 3:26*pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
wrote in message
This is a continuation of a topic that has split off from
another thread. i thought it may benefit from having it's
own thread. On that thread there have been assertions
about inherent euphonic colorations of vinyl.
"You haven't noticed 'the' superior quality, you've noticed a
quality that you consider to sound superior. This could
be the different mastering used for LPs compared to CDs,
or it could be inherent sound qualities added by the
vinyl medium and playback devices, or it could be both."
I'll vote for both.
I think that is a reasonable "vote." I certainly would vote for the
mastering. I have to say I am still on the fence on the inherent
euphonic distortions. OTOH it seems you are not considering the
possibility of euphonic distortions that are not neccessarily inherent
in vinyl playback may be in play as well. I can vouch for those in my
system. For whatever vouching is worth.
The fact of the matter is that just about everybody has
abandoned vinyl but a few. *The preference has to be based on the
perception of a desired sound quality, not better sonic accuracy.
I think this is a classic case of....
6. Confusing association with causation This is similar to the post-
hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables
simply because they are correlated, although the relationship here is
not strictly that of one variable following the other in time. This
fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal
interpretation. For example, during the 1990s both religious
attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a
fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes
illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an
increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious
attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in
societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are
independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are
both increasing at the same time. A corollary to this is the
invocation of this logical fallacy to argue that an association does
not represent causation, rather it is more accurate to say that
correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it can. Also,
multiple independent correlations can point reliably to a causation,
and is a reasonable line of argument.
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp
"Please tell us how you know about this distortion that
is "inherent" in LP playback.
Please compare
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/image...8/vinyl-vs-cd-...
Note that this graphic shows a 1 KHz tone, with the second harmonic about 20
dB down, which I call 10% second harmonic nonlinear distortion. *10%
distortion is a lot of distortion by any standard.
Looks to me like a 40db difference. Maybe I am reading it incorrectly.
But more importantly, how do you differentiate the distortion that is
inherent from the distortion that is unique to that particular rig and
the test record?
to:
http://www.pcavtech.com/play-rec/rega-2/grado-SNR.gif
Note that this graphic shows a 300 Hz tone, with the second and third
harmonics each 40-45 dB down, which I call less than one percent *second and
third harmonic distortion.
OK. But again, how do you tell the difference between the inherent
distortion in the medium and the distortion that is unique to your rig
and the test record?
*What playback equipment
have you used to determine this?
Looking at the two examples, it appears that we have quite a range of
equipment.
I don't agree at all. I would argue that neither rig would be found to
be SOTA. If you are looking for the thresholds of the medium I think
you have to start with a disc cut at one of the handful of state of
the art mastering studios and you would have to use a Rockport Sirius
III or the top model Continuum or maybe the top model Transrotor rig.
One may have to use several such assults on the state of the art and
sift out the common distortions. I suspect one would need measurements
that are far more specific than levels of harmonic distortion.
The PCAVTech equipment is obviously very humble - Turntable was a Rega
Planar 2 with RB-100 Tone Arm. Test media was the HFN Test LP . Preamp was a
Conrad Johnson CJ-2. The cartridge was *either a Shure M44-7 or a Rega
Silver. Kinda doesn't matter, their performance is not that dissimilar.
I think it matters tremendously.
The hometheaterhifi.com equipment *a McIntosh MT10 Turntable with factory
cartridge (made by Clearaudio), seems to be very elegant. It seems to have
been set up with great care.
I'm sure it was.
Please be specific:
turntables, pickup arms, phono cartridges, phono
preamplifiers. Because you claim this playback
characteristic is "inherent," you must have experimented
with more than one playback system. Did you conduct any
measurements which document your claim?
I've done this kind of test many times over the decades, and the results I
posted athttp://www.pcavtech.com/play-rec/rega-2/index.htm* are very
typical of a wide range of equipment. I don't think I could get as good
performance out of a $100 plastic USB turntable/arm/cartrdige, but maybe I'm
saying that in a state of ignorace and negative prejudice. ;-)
I think that is a possibility. If one really wants to get a handle on
inherent colorations one has to be extremely careful to differentiate
colorations that are inherent from those that are unique to the rig
and test record.
The real surprise is the seemingly poor performance posted athttp://www.hometheaterhifi.com/images/stories/april-2008/vinyl-vs-cd-...
I call that really poor performance, and we don't even have a frequency
response curve that actually involves playing vinyl.
But aren't you making a qualitative judgement without even knowing
what it sounds like?
IME you don't get 7-10% THD by accident - that equipment had to be
intentionally designed to perform that poorly.
If that is the case then clearly we have something more than just
"inherent" distortion present don't we?