wrote:
Ban wrote:
wrote:


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you? Does
anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


Well, the crackles and the distortion sound similar, but of course
each catridge has its own colour, which is superimposed on the
music, much like a loudspeaker. Then some have more hum than others,
and some are better

isolated from vibrations.

Scott, a simple test can be done:
Record your favourite music from the rig to CD. Now start the
turntable and play the record and when the sound arrives, start the
CD player. listen with the headphone to the CD and synchronize the
vinyl by slowing the platter with your hand.
Now turn down the volume, switch the preamp over and turn up the
volume to the same loudness. (It will be good to mark the 2 settings
with a chalk pen).
Have a friend or your wife switch without your knowledge. Now try to
identify the real turntable. Can you do that?


I have done comparisons of CDs ripped form my turntable and direct
feed from my turntable. I have no problem hearing differences.



Even MP3 is much more difficult to identify than vinyl, I wonder why?


You have trouble hearing the colorations of MP3?


Yeah, at 320kb/s VBR I really cannot identify the MP3 reliably. At 128kb/s
it is easy: the soundstage collapses from outside the speakers to a line
between the speakers. Also transients when brass or violins are coming in
are more "smooth" and do not have this "edgey" scratch in the beginning. I
do not hear colourations though.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

On 23 Apr 2005 15:01:25 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

"Chung" wrote in message
...
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On 20 Apr 2005 23:59:14 GMT, Chung wrote:

wrote:

But, if you cannot hear the
complexity of the decay of a sustained note on a real live piano maybe
you simply aren't picking up on the substantial differences between a
live piano and the recording and playback of a live piano.

So you are saying that you cannot observe the complex amplitude decay of
piano music on CD's?

Here is a good one for you to try out:

Emil Gilel's Beethoven Sonata #8 (Pathetique) on DG 400036-2. This is an
early 1980 digital recording. You can easily find it at the local
library. Check out track 1. Listen to the solid frequency stability of
the big chords. See if that sounds like a real piano in your experience.

What a bizarre coincidence! I only have half a dozen or so solo piano
recordings, but that superb performance is one of them, and the first
part of the 'Pathetique' is indeed a superb recording of the natural
decay of a solo piano, as is the 'Moonlight' on the same CD.

On vinyl, there would be impossible distractions from wow and surface
noise, but that CD is an immaculate recording which allows the natural
sound of the piano to flow into your listening room. Wheeler is just
plain wrong about this.


I mentioned that particular recording because I also have the vinyl
version. Now someone may want to argue that I do not have the ultimate
vinyl gear, but the CD is simply superior in every respect: stability of
the tones (frequency domain) in sustained notes, the huge dynamic range
that allows the big chords to decay to silence and the quiet passages
(like the Moonlight Sonata) to come through cleanly, and the lack of any
surface effects or tracking distortion. All this from a 1981 digital
recording.


I continue to wonder if those who claim in the past to be horrified by
wow and flutter on piano tones when playing vinyl, or who go on and on
about clicks and pops, ever really optimized their vinyl setup.

Oh dear, here we go again..................

In the first place, no decent vinyl rig should have audible wow or
flutter on its own. If it does, then it needs a belt, idler wheel, or
DD motor replaced. Secondly, the arm and cartridge must be
matched...high compliance cartridge with low mass arm, medium
compliance with medium mass arm, and low compliance with high mass
arm. Any other combination will result in anomanolies caused by
stylus compression or unweighting.

Yes, all the above is a given for the serious audiophile who has a
collection of vinyl.

Third, records must be cleaned. I don't necessarily mean with a
washer, but at least cleaned with a record brush before every playing
or as I do using Last cleaner fluid and application brush. Otherwise
the stylus will run into grunge in the grooves which will distort
sound in addition to creating lots of the dread clicks and pops, which
will only become worse with time if they are ground in by playing an
uncleaned record. If you have a supply of Last record preservative
(hard to get these days) treatment will create records that sound
subtly cleaner in the mid's and high's, an effect that is permament
(only need to treat once). It must also be mentioned that a bi-radius
or line-contact stylus is necessary to minimize noise and get the most
from the grooves.

Indeed, vinyl is a serious pain in the butt if you wish to get the
best from it! :-)

Finally, a record clamp is needed to prevent vinyl resonance..no using
one will accentuate pops and clicks and can cause slight
disintegration of image localization.

I agree, but there are certainly those of a different presuasion.
Indeed, the original Roksan Xerxes even had a removable spindle!

Personally, I'd go the whole hog and advocate vacuum hold-down. If
it's good enough for the cutting lathe...............

All this of course is to naught if the cartridge is not matched
properly to the preamp input. This requires an effort to get and
understand information and to work to make whatever changes are
required to get that optimization. This is one area where most high
end phono preamps made the job much easier than lower priced preamps,
which tended to be non-adjustable. Since 1990 I have used three
different cartridges in three different turntable/arm/cable combos and
into two different headamps/preamps. I hve never been unable to get
the cartridge/turntable/preamp combo to sound tonally identical to my
CD players during this period of time. There are still subtle
differences, often to the preference (in my case) to phono, but they
are subtle and not in any way major difference in tonality.

I cheated and built my own headamp, but my GyroDec/RB300/OC9 combo
certainly sounds 'drier' than most vinyl rigs, and quite neutral in
balance - or as near as it can be, playing vinyl.

When all is right, their needs be little or no difference between CD
and vinyl. Including wow and flutter.

Now *that* is utter rubbish. While wow *may* be inaudible if the
record centring is *exactly* correct, there remains a *very*
significant audible difference between CD and vinyl. The regular
'swoosh' of surface noise, the inevitable ticks and pops, and the
equally inevitable splashy treble as you approach the inner grooves,
are fundamental weaknesses of vinyl, and not subject to the expense or
careful setup of the replay gear.

Case in point, I picked the
top record off the group of RCA's I had out, which was Van Cliburn
playing the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto with Fritz Reinger and the
Chicago Symphony orchestra. I recently picked this up as a $2 used
record, but only played it once now that I also have the SACD release
of this same recording. This is not the original, but a Dynagroove
re-release on inferior, thin vinyl. Accordingly it is somewhat warped
and especially vulnerable to vinyl resonance. So put it on the
turntable (at this point a modest Dual 701 with Accuphase AC-2 MC
cartridge, into a modified Marcoff PPA-2 headamp). Cleaned it, clamped
it, synced the start with my Sony C222ES SACD machine...and listened
through the whole piece, occassionally switching back and forth CD to
Vinyl and back. The two where reasonable level matched and synched.
Other than an occassional low-level pop (maybe one a minute) I'd be
hard pressed to remember which I was listeing to. Plenty of sustained
tones and no difference in wow and flutter. The record was showing
plenty of warp, but the cartridge and arm were riding the groove with
equanimity and no sign of "bounce".

Interesting claim, since Dynagroove records are known to contain a lot
of *deliberately* introduced distortion, which is at its worst with a
line-contact stylus, as well as being notorious for the heavy-handed
use of compression to lift 'low level' detail.

Of course, to the uncritical listener there might be a passing
resemblance to an SACD............... :-)

My conclusion, if you really want to enjoy your records, make the time
and effort to optimize your system...the annoyances of vinyl will be
largely minimized and the sound quality may astound you.

Indeed, it can sound very good, but it will never have the fidelity of
CD.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 23 Apr 2005 15:01:25 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

snip


Case in point, I picked the
top record off the group of RCA's I had out, which was Van Cliburn
playing the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto with Fritz Reinger and the
Chicago Symphony orchestra. I recently picked this up as a $2 used
record, but only played it once now that I also have the SACD release
of this same recording. This is not the original, but a Dynagroove
re-release on inferior, thin vinyl. Accordingly it is somewhat warped
and especially vulnerable to vinyl resonance. So put it on the
turntable (at this point a modest Dual 701 with Accuphase AC-2 MC
cartridge, into a modified Marcoff PPA-2 headamp). Cleaned it, clamped
it, synced the start with my Sony C222ES SACD machine...and listened
through the whole piece, occassionally switching back and forth CD to
Vinyl and back. The two where reasonable level matched and synched.
Other than an occassional low-level pop (maybe one a minute) I'd be
hard pressed to remember which I was listeing to. Plenty of sustained
tones and no difference in wow and flutter. The record was showing
plenty of warp, but the cartridge and arm were riding the groove with
equanimity and no sign of "bounce".

Interesting claim, since Dynagroove records are known to contain a lot
of *deliberately* introduced distortion, which is at its worst with a
line-contact stylus, as well as being notorious for the heavy-handed
use of compression to lift 'low level' detail.


You are correct, and as a result I went back and looked at the album cover,
and I was wrong. The recoding is indeep the thin, warped vinyl. But it is
labeled "Dynaflex" which is what RCA started calling them after they dropped
the "pre-distortion" aspect of Dynaagroove (which was roundly criticized).

Of course, to the uncritical listener there might be a passing
resemblance to an SACD............... :-)


As does any other high quality recording in which I have been able to make
the comparison.

My conclusion, if you really want to enjoy your records, make the time
and effort to optimize your system...the annoyances of vinyl will be
largely minimized and the sound quality may astound you.

Indeed, it can sound very good, but it will never have the fidelity of
CD.

Maybe not on paper, but in reality with proper care it can. And it opens up
a whole additional world of collecting...I know I've taken chances on $1.50
or 2.00 records that I never would have if they had been $15.00 CD's or
SACD's. Not to mention the fact that my LP library with choice titles from
the '60's and '70's is pretty damn large and hugely enjoyable.

wrote:
Ban wrote:
wrote:


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you? Does
anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


Well, the crackles and the distortion sound similar, but of course
each
catridge has its own colour, which is superimposed on the music, much
like a
loudspeaker. Then some have more hum than others, and some are better

isolated from vibrations.

Scott, a simple test can be done:
Record your favourite music from the rig to CD. Now start the
turntable and
play the record and when the sound arrives, start the CD player.
listen with
the headphone to the CD and synchronize the vinyl by slowing the
platter
with your hand.
Now turn down the volume, switch the preamp over and turn up the
volume to
the same loudness. (It will be good to mark the 2 settings with a
chalk
pen).
Have a friend or your wife switch without your knowledge. Now try to
identify the real turntable. Can you do that?


I have done comparisons of CDs ripped form my turntable and direct feed
from my turntable. I have no problem hearing differences.


Unless you have done them badly: baloney.


BTW, none of Yundi Li's music is available on vinyl. Only on CD's.


Only CD? Can't get it on MP3?



Scott Wheeler

Even MP3 is much more difficult to identify than vinyl, I wonder why?

You have trouble hearing the colorations of MP3?

You can't make an MP3 that's audibly indistinguishable from source?



--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

wrote:
Well the real bad reasoning is ignoring the fact that the medium was
around for quite some time as a niche market product and did not
dominate the market until such a time as it became convenient to play
in the car and on portable players.

This is not wholly correct. It is true that CD did not supplant
cassettes as the top-selling medium until portable/mobile disk players
became popular in the early to mid 90s, but CD "took off" long before
then. In fact, CD's year-to-year growth rate was falling by the time it
started really eating into cassette sales. But by the latter half of
the 80s, CD was anything but a niche product. In 1989 (the earliest
figures at www.riaa.org), CD had 28% of the long-playing market share
by units shipped. In a three-competitor market, 28% is not a niche.

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade. That's a niche. (Not that there's
anything wrong with being a niche!)

bob

wrote:
Chung wrote:
snip


Well, I attended a piano recital by the rising star Yundi Li

last

week.

And throughout the recital, I kept thinking how close my CD rig

sounds

to the live piano I was hearing. You know, the solid sustained

notes,


Solid sustained notes? I've certainly heard this on numerous CDs

of

piano but never on a live piano. This is one of the most easily
identifiable shortcomings one can hear on most CDs. A sustained

note on

a real piano is anything but solid.


Well, I have a grand piano, and the sustained notes are solid.

Perhaps

you are too used to vinyl?


No. It is not natural for any real paino to have solid sustained

notes.

The decay of a note from a live piano is anything but solid.

Perhaps you were confused when I said solid sustained notes.



I don't think so. Perhaps you didn't mean what you said.

As another poster once said, how could you possibly argue with me about
what I meant when I said it?

Solid does
have a pretty well known definition.
(2) : joined without a hyphen a solid compound c : not interrupted by
a break or opening a solid wall
3 a : of uniformly close and coherent texture : not loose or spongy :
COMPACT b : possessing or characterized by the properties of a solid :
neither gaseous nor liquid .


I clarified what I meant when I said solid sustained notes already, so
you are simply trying to argue semantics.


I meant the

frequency of the notes, and not amplitude. I thought it was obvious

from

the context, but I guess one never knows.



Well there are several different overtones coming from a sustained note
from a piano, Their decay patterns are each different which creates a
sound that is constantly changing in tone, location and volume. By the
above definitions how does one find such a character of decay solid?
IMO the decay of a sustained note of a piano is quite the opposite of
the above cited definitions of solid.


I thought I said the frequencies already, but perhaps you were too busy
caught up in your own thoughts?




So, it is perfectly natural for a real piano to have solid sustained
notes in terms of frequency stability. Now, do you still want to

argue

that it's not the case?



Yes. You are now changing your claim and yet it still doesn't hold
water in terms of human perception.

I never changed my claim. It's only for your edification that I provided
the clarification. Other posters don't seem to have any trouble
understanding...

If one listens to a sustained note
on a piano it does not *sound the same in tone* as it decays. Now if
one were to take a test tone or a combination of test tones and dim the
level at a constant rate in time you would have what I would call a
solid sounding sustained note. That is nothing like what one hears from
a live piano. It does acurately describe the sound of a sustained note
on any number of CDs I have listened to.

I suggest you either (a) listen to live pianos, and (b) get good CD's,
preferably good digital recordings. It seems rather obvious that you
have been preconditioned to the vinyl sound, and the CD sound somehow
does not sound right to you.






You think there are some magical process in CD's that stabilize

those

"real-life" wavering notes?



No. Simplifying a a complex signal is not magic.

Taking out the frequency variations (which caused the wavering of the


pitch) is almost magic...



No it's not.

Well, why don't you provide some examples of technologies that take out
frequency variations in recorded sound?





Now, do you think the CD is capable of removing frequency

instability?


I think it is possible to get CDs in which this has happened. I don't
think it is magical or desireable.


Examples of CD's removing any frequency variations from the original
please? What you think really is not that important, is it?







Hey, there will certainly be fame and riches

for you if you could figure out how...


No. Just lower the resolution of any signal and ou will loose
information. I'm surprised you didn't know this already.

If you can lower the resolution and hence remove the frequency
instability, there will certainly be fame and riches for you.



Really? It's that difficult to lower the resolution of a live piano in
the recording and playback proccess? I think you are quite mistaken
here. Any telephone will do the trick quite nicely. No fame or riches
for me. Loss of resolution has been with us all along.

Can a telephone remove the frequency variations in sound? Now you are
being seriously technically challenged.








the great dynamic range, and so on. There was no way the LP can
reproduce that piano sound without very noticeable degradation.

There is no way any recording/playback system can reproduce a

live

piano without very noticable degradation. I doubt your system CD

player

and all are really any exception.


The degradations from a CD are much less than those from vinyl. In

fact,

I have piano recital CD's that sound very close to the real thing.


Again. I am quite skeptical of such claims.

There is nothing like listening, I guess.




An odd guess. It seems you arte assuming that I am not listening to CDs
of piano recordings. I suggest you listen more carefully if you really
believe sustained piano notes sound "solid."

That was an obviously educated guess, based on your descriptions of how
the piano sounds worse than on vinyl. The other guess is that you simply
have not listened to good CD recordings.





Try recording the output of

the phono stage onto CD's. Voila, all the magical "complex" signals

that

you claim can only be heard on vinyl are preserved!



Been there, done that. Didn't seem to happen so well.

Well, it does take some competence to do this right. Certainly not a
given that everyone is capable of transcribing to CD's, but it is
definitely not difficult to do either.







But, if you cannot hear the
complexity of the decay of a sustained note on a real live piano

maybe

you simply aren't picking up on the substantial differences between

a

live piano and the recording and playback of a live piano.

So you are saying that you cannot observe the complex amplitude decay

of

piano music on CD's?


I am saying that IME it is often reduced or lost on CDs.

Your experience is simply, shall we say, unusual?





Here is a good one for you to try out:

Emil Gilel's Beethoven Sonata #8 (Pathetique) on DG 400036-2. This is

an

early 1980 digital recording. You can easily find it at the local
library. Check out track 1. Listen to the solid frequency stability

of

the big chords. See if that sounds like a real piano in your

experience.

I'll keep an eye out for it. I don't have high expectations though. I
have heard nothing but awful sound from that label in that era.

That particular record is very highly regarded. Don't take my word for
it, check out the reviews.








That was

a reminder of why I like digital so much. As someone who owns a

grand

piano, I can say without any doubt that the CD sounds so much

better

than vinyl on piano music.


Opinions abound. The person who started this thread clearly

disagrees.

It seems she does speak from considerable experience with live

music.

That's my point, in case you missed it. Opinions abound. and I

speak

with considerable experience from listening to a live piano.


And yet you think the decay of a sustained note is solid. I'm

afraid

that there is more to it than just experience.

The frequency is solid.



The tone is not. That is what we percieve.

Your definition of tone may not be conventional.


Not sure what solid decay means, since I never

used that term...



You said sustained notes. They decay as they are sustained.
decay:2 : to decrease gradually in quantity, activity, or force


Since I did not use that term, not sure why you bother defining it for me...






In fact, I

just did.



And to the OP, someone *could* have said "But you have not

heard a

decent CD rig and decently recorded CD's!" But of course, we

won't

resort to that.


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you?

Does

anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


No, some CD rigs sound bad because of poor speakers. And then

there

are

poorly recorded/mastered CD's. Of course, the competent CD players

sound

very similar, but you know that.

I don't know that. I know some people believe that and some believe
otherwise. I have not spent much time c0omparing CD players myself.





BTW, none of Yundi Li's music is available on vinyl. Only on

CD's.


Only CD? Can't get it on MP3?

You can make mp3's out of CD's, of course. What exactly is your

point,

or do you have one?



That it can be had on more than just CD. Wasn't it obvious?

It is a rather, shall we say, pointless point then.


No.


You can of course

make cassette tapes, MD tapes out of the CD.



You can also legaly down load music on line in the form of MP3s. It is
a different medium in which commercial music can be aquired and used.

You still are either totally missing the point, or simply want to argue
for the sake of arguing. To make it clear for you, his music is only
mastered for CD release, not for other formats. The mp3's are simply
compressed versions of the CD.



I guess according to your

logic, when someone releases a movie on DVD, it is simultaneously
released in divx, mpeg4, vcd, realmedia, windows media formats

already.

In some cases they are released on vcd. Most of those others would be
pirate copies. I am not talking about pirated copies but legal releases
on various formats.



To make it easier for you to grasp, Yundi Li's music is not released

in

vinyl. So is a lot of new classical music.



I guess *you* didn't get *my* point.

If it was the rather pointless point, it really does not matter.




Scott Wheeler

wrote:
Chung wrote:

wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On 19 Apr 2005 23:54:39 GMT, wrote:


Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Heads up now, what really launched CD into
the mass market was *classical* music listeners, i.e. people

who

live

with live music.

Stewert gets his facts wrong again. What really launched CD into

the

masss market was the availablity of portable CD players and car

CD

players. The classical music listeners are very much a niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene over all. By the way,

many

classical music lovers do not spend much time with live music.

This comes from a guy who has just attempted to tell someone who
*owns* a grand piano, what sustained notes from it sound

like......


What does Chungs inability to recognize that a sustained note from

a

live piano is not solifd but cmplex and constantly changing in

tone?

Does it make my true statement a false one? Where is your logic?

Well, you choose to mis-interpret Chung's statement in a way that you


could attack Chung's ability to listen. Despite the subsequent
clarification by Chung. One would think that this is a display of

your

tendency to argue on semantics, and to burn the strawman.

The statement that "many classical music lovers do not spend much

time

with live music" is patently false.



Absolute balony. One need only look at concert ticket sales to see
this.

How can you see this by looking at concert sales? The last piano concert
I attended was sold out two months in advance. And, of course, there are
many ways of "spending time with live music" without attending concerts.
I can do that any time of the day, in my home.





Most classical music lovers I know

of play instruments, attend concerts and recitals, and a lot them

have

children who play classical music.


Well that is a sound scientific rebutal of my claim. Not.

It is a lot more scientific that the other claim "many classical music
lovers do not spend much time with live music".





Out of curiosity, do you consider the jazz music market a "niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene overall"?



Unfortunately, yes. Are you aware of the sales being done in the music
industry?

Not sure what you meant by "sales being done", although I am aware that
there are sales in the industry . I have some access to sales figures,
though. Do you?







Unfortunately for Wheeler, he doesn't get to write history books,

and

the plain *facts* of the matter are that CD sales in the first two
years were below predictions, until the word began to spread among
classical music lovers that this new medium simply did not suffer

from

wow and flutter (which, contrary to Wheeler's bizarre opinion, are
horribly destructive of solo piano music), and had such low

background

noise that all kinds of musical subtleties became noticeable,

which

had previously been swamped by surface noise. It was the classical
market which dragged CD out of the red in the early years, and
everyone but you is well aware of this - ask any record store

owner

who was in business in the '80s, or of course go straight to RIAA
sales archives.


Fortunately for audiophiles Pinkerton does not get to rewrite

history.

The *fact* is that CD sales took off exactly when portable CD

players

and car CD players became widely available at affordable prices.
Fortunately for people who enjoy CDs the success of that medium was
driven by somethging more than a niche market like classical music.





Certainly portable players and car players helped to boost

volumes,

but note that they did not become widespread (especially car

players),

until well after CD was firmly established.


Wrong.

You are wrong, CD displaced vinyl several years before the widespread


use of portable players and car players.



Now you are ridiculously wrong. Lps were never displaced by CD in the
first place. They were displaced by cassettes and for the very same
reason. Portability and car play.

Now you are wrong again. CD displacing vinyl means CD taking over the
place of vinyl in sales. You seem to have trouble understanding what I
said, again. The point is, of course, having displaced vinyl, CD was now
"firmly established", before the widespread use of car and mobile CD
players. Unless you want to argue that vinyl was never firmly established.




As early as 1989, CD's already

outsold vinyl LP's by a ratio of 2.7 to 1.



In 1989 Cd was still not the dominant medium for music consumption.
Nice try. Funny, It had been on the market for six years by then.
Funny, when it did become the dominant medium it was when car players
and portable CD players did become common and affordable.


The point is that it had solidly displaced vinyl's position in sales.
Wonder why you found all this funny?



In 1989, portable and car CD

players were not in widespread use. For home audio, CD became the
dominant medium as early as in the mid-to-late 80's.



Guess again. Actually dont guess, just look at sales.

Been there, done that, have you?




Of course, for

mobile audio, CD did not replace cassette until mobile CD players

became

popular in the mid-90's.


Sorry Stewert. You don't know what people were doing with their
cassettes. We can look at sales. Sales support my claim not yours.

Sorry Stewart for having Mr Wheeler feel sorry for you .





Wouldn't you call a medium that outsold vinyl LP 2.7 to 1 "firmly
established"?



Seems you are now trying to change the subject.

Just to make sure you understand, when Stewart said that portable and
car players did not get widespread use until after the CD was firmly
established, you said he was wrong. My question was not to change the
subject, but to ask you if outselling vinyl 2.7 to 1 mean that CD was
firmly established. If the answer is yes, then clearly you were wrong
when you said Steware was wrong. Got that?



Scott Wheeler

wrote:
Ed Seedhouse wrote:

On 21 Apr 2005 23:59:10 GMT, wrote:


Fortunately for audiophiles Pinkerton does not get to rewrite

history.

The *fact* is that CD sales took off exactly when portable CD

players

and car CD players became widely available at affordable prices.
Fortunately for people who enjoy CDs the success of that medium was
driven by somethging more than a niche market like classical music.

This could go in a textbook as an example of bad reasoning!



Balony.


I guess anything that Mr. Wheeler does not agree with tends to be called
"Balony" (sic).



Correlation

does not prove causation.



It supports it.



The fact that two things happen at the same

time does not prove that one causes the other.



It supports it.


The fact that something

occurs before something else does not prove it causes the something
else. "Pos hoc, ergo propter hoc" is still a fallacy and always will
be.




Well the real bad reasoning is ignoring the fact that the medium was
around for quite some time as a niche market product and did not
dominate the market until such a time as it became convenient to play
in the car and on portable players. It would be quite bad reasoning to
ignore the fact that exactly the same "coincidence" took place with the
previously dominant medium. It would also be poor logic to ignore the
fact that classical music sales by their sheer lack of volume cannot
possible impact the market the way sales due to portability can. Oh
well.

The real bad reasoning is saying that CD was just a niche market because
it did not have the largest sales. In 1990, there were 9.2 million CD
players sold annually in the US, and 288 million CD's sold in the US.
And as early as in 1986, there were already 53 million CD's sold in the
US. A niche market?

Perhaps now is the time for Mr. Wheeler to provide another definition of
niche market.




Scott Wheeler

wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

bob

chung wrote:
wrote:
Chung wrote:

wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On 19 Apr 2005 23:54:39 GMT, wrote:


Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Heads up now, what really launched CD into
the mass market was *classical* music listeners, i.e. people

who

live

with live music.

Stewert gets his facts wrong again. What really launched CD into

the

masss market was the availablity of portable CD players and car

CD

players. The classical music listeners are very much a niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene over all. By the way,

many

classical music lovers do not spend much time with live music.

This comes from a guy who has just attempted to tell someone who
*owns* a grand piano, what sustained notes from it sound

like......


What does Chungs inability to recognize that a sustained note from

a

live piano is not solifd but cmplex and constantly changing in

tone?

Does it make my true statement a false one? Where is your logic?

Well, you choose to mis-interpret Chung's statement in a way that
you


could attack Chung's ability to listen. Despite the subsequent
clarification by Chung. One would think that this is a display of

your

tendency to argue on semantics, and to burn the strawman.

The statement that "many classical music lovers do not spend much

time

with live music" is patently false.



Absolute balony. One need only look at concert ticket sales to see
this.

How can you see this by looking at concert sales?

That is where classical music lover go for quality live music.




The last piano concert
I attended was sold out two months in advance.


That is good to hear but how many seats were there to begin with?




And, of course, there are
many ways of "spending time with live music" without attending
concerts.
I can do that any time of the day, in my home.


Not quite the same thing.









Most classical music lovers I know

of play instruments, attend concerts and recitals, and a lot them

have

children who play classical music.


Well that is a sound scientific rebutal of my claim. Not.

It is a lot more scientific that the other claim "many classical
music
lovers do not spend much time with live music".


No it isn't.









Out of curiosity, do you consider the jazz music market a "niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene overall"?



Unfortunately, yes. Are you aware of the sales being done in the
music
industry?

Not sure what you meant by "sales being done", although I am aware
that
there are sales in the industry . I have some access to sales
figures,
though. Do you?


Sure. Now lets look at what percentage of over all music sales are from
classical music.










Unfortunately for Wheeler, he doesn't get to write history books,

and

the plain *facts* of the matter are that CD sales in the first
two
years were below predictions, until the word began to spread
among
classical music lovers that this new medium simply did not suffer

from

wow and flutter (which, contrary to Wheeler's bizarre opinion,
are
horribly destructive of solo piano music), and had such low

background

noise that all kinds of musical subtleties became noticeable,

which

had previously been swamped by surface noise. It was the
classical
market which dragged CD out of the red in the early years, and
everyone but you is well aware of this - ask any record store

owner

who was in business in the '80s, or of course go straight to RIAA
sales archives.


Fortunately for audiophiles Pinkerton does not get to rewrite

history.

The *fact* is that CD sales took off exactly when portable CD

players

and car CD players became widely available at affordable prices.
Fortunately for people who enjoy CDs the success of that medium
was
driven by somethging more than a niche market like classical
music.





Certainly portable players and car players helped to boost

volumes,

but note that they did not become widespread (especially car

players),

until well after CD was firmly established.


Wrong.

You are wrong, CD displaced vinyl several years before the
widespread


use of portable players and car players.



Now you are ridiculously wrong. Lps were never displaced by CD in
the
first place. They were displaced by cassettes and for the very same
reason. Portability and car play.

Now you are wrong again. CD displacing vinyl means CD taking over the

place of vinyl in sales. You seem to have trouble understanding what
I
said, again. The point is, of course, having displaced vinyl, CD was
now
"firmly established", before the widespread use of car and mobile CD
players. Unless you want to argue that vinyl was never firmly
established.



It didn't displace vinyl regardless of how you try to re-word your
claims. Vinyl was the top selling medium until Cassettes displaced it.
Cds did eventually displace Cassttes after the portable CD players and
car CD players became readily available and affordable.







As early as 1989, CD's already

outsold vinyl LP's by a ratio of 2.7 to 1.



In 1989 Cd was still not the dominant medium for music
consumption.
Nice try. Funny, It had been on the market for six years by then.
Funny, when it did become the dominant medium it was when car
players
and portable CD players did become common and affordable.


The point is that it had solidly displaced vinyl's position in sales.

Wonder why you found all this funny?


Because of all the backpeddling.






In 1989, portable and car CD

players were not in widespread use. For home audio, CD became the
dominant medium as early as in the mid-to-late 80's.



Guess again. Actually dont guess, just look at sales.

Been there, done that, have you?


Yes, that is why I am making the claims that you are reading here.







Of course, for

mobile audio, CD did not replace cassette until mobile CD players

became

popular in the mid-90's.


Sorry Stewert. You don't know what people were doing with their
cassettes. We can look at sales. Sales support my claim not yours.

Sorry Stewart for having Mr Wheeler feel sorry for you .





Wouldn't you call a medium that outsold vinyl LP 2.7 to 1 "firmly
established"?



Seems you are now trying to change the subject.

Just to make sure you understand, when Stewart said that portable and

car players did not get widespread use until after the CD was firmly
established, you said he was wrong.



Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead availablitity of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the introduction of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for years before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.



My question was not to change the
subject, but to ask you if outselling vinyl 2.7 to 1 mean that CD was

firmly established.


Once you and Stewert started talking about "firmly established,"
whatever you guys want that to mean, you changed the subject. The
subject was the launch into the mass market. Hey our local burger joint
has been in business for 50 years. I think that makes it "firmly
established." It has never been launched into the mass market. Apples
and oranges.



If the answer is yes, then clearly you were wrong
when you said Steware was wrong. Got that?


The question has no meaning since I never said no to the claim of
"firmly established." Got that?


Scott Wheeler

Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
Ban wrote:
wrote:


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you?
Does
anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


Well, the crackles and the distortion sound similar, but of
course
each
catridge has its own colour, which is superimposed on the music,
much
like a
loudspeaker. Then some have more hum than others, and some are
better

isolated from vibrations.

Scott, a simple test can be done:
Record your favourite music from the rig to CD. Now start the
turntable and
play the record and when the sound arrives, start the CD player.
listen with
the headphone to the CD and synchronize the vinyl by slowing the
platter
with your hand.
Now turn down the volume, switch the preamp over and turn up the
volume to
the same loudness. (It will be good to mark the 2 settings with a
chalk
pen).
Have a friend or your wife switch without your knowledge. Now try
to
identify the real turntable. Can you do that?


I have done comparisons of CDs ripped form my turntable and direct
feed
from my turntable. I have no problem hearing differences.


Unless you have done them badly: baloney.


1. How does one do them badly without clipping the signal?
2. How do you know my claim is balony? Were you there? I don't think
so.





BTW, none of Yundi Li's music is available on vinyl. Only on
CD's.


Only CD? Can't get it on MP3?



Scott Wheeler

Even MP3 is much more difficult to identify than vinyl, I wonder
why?

You have trouble hearing the colorations of MP3?

You can't make an MP3 that's audibly indistinguishable from source?


Yeah. You can't?



Scott Wheeler

Ed Seedhouse wrote:
On 23 Apr 2005 20:53:14 GMT, wrote:

Ed Seedhouse wrote:

This could go in a textbook as an example of bad reasoning!

Balony.

Calling in "Balony" doesn't make it balony.

I suggest you think more carefully about the claim. You are putting the
cart before the horse here. Calling something balony doesn't make it
balony but calling something that is balony, balony is just accurate
reporting.



Name calling isn't good
reasoning either.


Calling things as one sees them is just honesty. The reasoning takes
place first. I would expect any reasonable person to see that.




Correlation does not prove causation.

It supports it.

By itself, no it doesn't.


Yes it does.




The fact that two things happen at the same
time does not prove that one causes the other.

It supports it.

By itself, no it doesn't.


Yes it does.




Well the real bad reasoning is ignoring the fact that the medium was
around for quite some time as a niche market product and did not
dominate the market until such a time as it became convenient to
play
in the car and on portable players.

No one has ignored that so far as I can see.


You certainly did in your rebuttal to my claim. You still do when you
start off with "by itself..." Obviously my reasoning was not done in a
vacuum but with the consideration of such things as the history of
dominant media.


You've stated it was the
*cause* of the CD's success,


Into the mass market. You are taking this claim out of context without
including this part of the claim.



but the only evidence you've supplied is a
claimed correlation.


And the repetition of history. That's a lot of corolation. And you
offer nothing to show that the claim is wrong.


That's fallacious reasoning and all your
handwaving won't change the fact.


Wrong. See above.


Scott Wheeler

Harry Lavo wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 23 Apr 2005 15:01:25 GMT, "Harry Lavo" wrote:

snip


Case in point, I picked the
top record off the group of RCA's I had out, which was Van Cliburn
playing the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto with Fritz Reinger and the
Chicago Symphony orchestra. I recently picked this up as a $2 used
record, but only played it once now that I also have the SACD release
of this same recording. This is not the original, but a Dynagroove
re-release on inferior, thin vinyl. Accordingly it is somewhat warped
and especially vulnerable to vinyl resonance. So put it on the
turntable (at this point a modest Dual 701 with Accuphase AC-2 MC
cartridge, into a modified Marcoff PPA-2 headamp). Cleaned it, clamped
it, synced the start with my Sony C222ES SACD machine...and listened
through the whole piece, occassionally switching back and forth CD to
Vinyl and back. The two where reasonable level matched and synched.
Other than an occassional low-level pop (maybe one a minute) I'd be
hard pressed to remember which I was listeing to. Plenty of sustained
tones and no difference in wow and flutter. The record was showing
plenty of warp, but the cartridge and arm were riding the groove with
equanimity and no sign of "bounce".

Interesting claim, since Dynagroove records are known to contain a lot
of *deliberately* introduced distortion, which is at its worst with a
line-contact stylus, as well as being notorious for the heavy-handed
use of compression to lift 'low level' detail.


You are correct, and as a result I went back and looked at the album cover,
and I was wrong. The recoding is indeep the thin, warped vinyl. But it is
labeled "Dynaflex" which is what RCA started calling them after they dropped
the "pre-distortion" aspect of Dynaagroove (which was roundly criticized).

Of course, to the uncritical listener there might be a passing
resemblance to an SACD............... :-)


As does any other high quality recording in which I have been able to make
the comparison.

My conclusion, if you really want to enjoy your records, make the time
and effort to optimize your system...the annoyances of vinyl will be
largely minimized and the sound quality may astound you.

Indeed, it can sound very good, but it will never have the fidelity of
CD.

Maybe not on paper, but in reality with proper care it can. And it opens up
a whole additional world of collecting...I know I've taken chances on $1.50
or 2.00 records that I never would have if they had been $15.00 CD's or
SACD's. Not to mention the fact that my LP library with choice titles from
the '60's and '70's is pretty damn large and hugely enjoyable.


On the other hand, there is a distinct advantage in being able to go to
the library and checking out CD's, knowing that the quality is going to
be just as good as brand new discs unless they are damaged (which
happens to a very small percentage of discs). This way, you can sample a
lot of recordings before you have to spend money. To me, that truly
opens up a whole additional world of collection.

wrote:
wrote:
Well the real bad reasoning is ignoring the fact that the medium
was
around for quite some time as a niche market product and did not
dominate the market until such a time as it became convenient to
play
in the car and on portable players.

This is not wholly correct. It is true that CD did not supplant
cassettes as the top-selling medium until portable/mobile disk
players
became popular in the early to mid 90s, but CD "took off" long before
then.

Then how is it not wholly correct? It seems you are agreeing with my
claim that CDs did not dominate the market until the availablity of
portable players.



In fact, CD's year-to-year growth rate was falling by the time it
started really eating into cassette sales. But by the latter half of
the 80s, CD was anything but a niche product. In 1989 (the earliest
figures at www.riaa.org), CD had 28% of the long-playing market share
by units shipped. In a three-competitor market, 28% is not a niche.


In 1989 the medium had been around for six years and classical music on
CDs had been around for as long. The Beatles had practically come and
gone in that amount of time. Sorry, the bottom line is that Stewert's
claim that classical musaic lovers' support of Cds was the catalyst for
that medium's launch into the mass market just doesn't hold water. It
was the portability that did the trick.



By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade. That's a niche. (Not that there's
anything wrong with being a niche!)


I agree that LPs have been reduced to a niche market and will never be
more than that ever again in all likelyhood. Cds are headed there as
well. Convenience always wins the day in the mass market. I-Pods are
the talk of the town. They are even more convenient. So long CDs.


Scott Wheeler

wrote:

Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead availablitity of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the introduction of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for years
before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.

In which case you're both wrong. Classical fans aren't numerous enough
to *launch* anything into the mass market (although they were among the
first to recognize and trumpet CD's virtues). But CDs were definitely a
mass-market item by the mid-to-late 80s. Portables and car units were
rare before 1990.

bob

wrote:

I agree that LPs have been reduced to a niche market and will never
be
more than that ever again in all likelyhood. Cds are headed there as
well. Convenience always wins the day in the mass market. I-Pods are
the talk of the town. They are even more convenient. So long CDs.

Yes, eventually, but given that there were 767 million CDs shipped in
the US last year, they are a loooong way from a niche market. And a
fair amount of what's stored on iPods these days was ripped from CDs.
(Ever thought about what it would cost to fill a 40-gig iPod at 99
cents a pop song?) I predict that CDs in large quantity will be with us
for some time yet. As a point of comparison, consumers purchased
downloads equivalent to less than 20 million albums last year. They
have a ways to go yet.

bob

wrote:
wrote:

Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs
were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead availablitity
of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the introduction
of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for years
before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.

In which case you're both wrong. Classical fans aren't numerous
enough
to *launch* anything into the mass market (although they were among
the
first to recognize and trumpet CD's virtues).


OK we agree on the impact of classical music consumers on the mass
market.


But CDs were definitely a
mass-market item by the mid-to-late 80s.


I didn't say they weren't a "mass market item." Perhaps we are talking
about two different definitions of "launch." This was what I was
thinking.
1 a : to throw forward : HURL b : to release, catapult, or send off (a
self-propelled object) launch a rocket . When portable players and
car players became widely affordable CDs went from a distant second to
a clear cut first in market share. That would be a catapult or throw
forward in my book.



Portables and car units were
rare before 1990.

bob

wrote:
chung wrote:
wrote:
Chung wrote:

wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

On 19 Apr 2005 23:54:39 GMT, wrote:


Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Heads up now, what really launched CD into
the mass market was *classical* music listeners, i.e. people

who

live

with live music.

Stewert gets his facts wrong again. What really launched CD into

the

masss market was the availablity of portable CD players and car

CD

players. The classical music listeners are very much a niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene over all. By the way,

many

classical music lovers do not spend much time with live music.

This comes from a guy who has just attempted to tell someone who
*owns* a grand piano, what sustained notes from it sound

like......


What does Chungs inability to recognize that a sustained note from

a

live piano is not solifd but cmplex and constantly changing in

tone?

Does it make my true statement a false one? Where is your logic?

Well, you choose to mis-interpret Chung's statement in a way that
you


could attack Chung's ability to listen. Despite the subsequent
clarification by Chung. One would think that this is a display of

your

tendency to argue on semantics, and to burn the strawman.

The statement that "many classical music lovers do not spend much

time

with live music" is patently false.



Absolute balony. One need only look at concert ticket sales to see
this.

How can you see this by looking at concert sales?

That is where classical music lover go for quality live music.

Now we see the back-peddling to using the new term "quality live music".
So now Mr. Wheeler's claim becomes "many classical music lovers do not
spend time with *quality* live music"? Who are you to define what is
quality live music for the rest of us? I attended a junior Bach festival
the other night, and the performances were uniformly excellent. I am
sure the attendance figures would never appear in any concert sales
data. The pitch was rock solid in those sustained piano notes. I can
definitely compare what I heard in that live performance to what is on
CD's and on vinyl. No doubt you would argue that that was not "quality"
live music.





The last piano concert
I attended was sold out two months in advance.


That is good to hear but how many seats were there to begin with?


Sure the numbers are smaller than rock concerts, but given that
classical music lovers are also smaller in number, the percentage of
those who attend concerts is still comparable to fans of other music
taste. And why the fixation on concerts? Don't you know that people can
spend time with live music by playing instruments, or attending
recitals, or attending young musicians' performances, or simply
listening to friends and relatives play?




And, of course, there are
many ways of "spending time with live music" without attending
concerts.
I can do that any time of the day, in my home.


Not quite the same thing.

That is truly baloney. You are simply in denial. Someone can be
practicing on the piano 8 hours a day, and yet by your standards, never
spends time with live music.










Most classical music lovers I know

of play instruments, attend concerts and recitals, and a lot them

have

children who play classical music.


Well that is a sound scientific rebutal of my claim. Not.

It is a lot more scientific that the other claim "many classical
music
lovers do not spend much time with live music".


No it isn't.

So what is your scientific proof? Can you provide figures for the
percentage of classical music lovers who do not spend time with live
music? That seems like a truly extraordinary claim, and you should
provide some evidence. Although we shouldn't be holding our collective
breath...










Out of curiosity, do you consider the jazz music market a "niche

market

that barely impact the commercial scene overall"?



Unfortunately, yes. Are you aware of the sales being done in the
music
industry?

Not sure what you meant by "sales being done", although I am aware
that
there are sales in the industry . I have some access to sales
figures,
though. Do you?


Sure. Now lets look at what percentage of over all music sales are from
classical music.

Hey we all know that classical music sales is not a big percentage of
overall music sales. Neither is jazz.










Unfortunately for Wheeler, he doesn't get to write history books,

and

the plain *facts* of the matter are that CD sales in the first
two
years were below predictions, until the word began to spread
among
classical music lovers that this new medium simply did not suffer

from

wow and flutter (which, contrary to Wheeler's bizarre opinion,
are
horribly destructive of solo piano music), and had such low

background

noise that all kinds of musical subtleties became noticeable,

which

had previously been swamped by surface noise. It was the
classical
market which dragged CD out of the red in the early years, and
everyone but you is well aware of this - ask any record store

owner

who was in business in the '80s, or of course go straight to RIAA
sales archives.


Fortunately for audiophiles Pinkerton does not get to rewrite

history.

The *fact* is that CD sales took off exactly when portable CD

players

and car CD players became widely available at affordable prices.
Fortunately for people who enjoy CDs the success of that medium
was
driven by somethging more than a niche market like classical
music.





Certainly portable players and car players helped to boost

volumes,

but note that they did not become widespread (especially car

players),

until well after CD was firmly established.


Wrong.

You are wrong, CD displaced vinyl several years before the
widespread


use of portable players and car players.



Now you are ridiculously wrong. Lps were never displaced by CD in
the
first place. They were displaced by cassettes and for the very same
reason. Portability and car play.

Now you are wrong again. CD displacing vinyl means CD taking over the

place of vinyl in sales. You seem to have trouble understanding what
I
said, again. The point is, of course, having displaced vinyl, CD was
now
"firmly established", before the widespread use of car and mobile CD
players. Unless you want to argue that vinyl was never firmly
established.



It didn't displace vinyl regardless of how you try to re-word your
claims. Vinyl was the top selling medium until Cassettes displaced it.
Cds did eventually displace Cassttes after the portable CD players and
car CD players became readily available and affordable.

You have problem understanding a simple word like "displacing"? I never
re-worded my claim. Check it out again. I said: "CD displaced vinyl
several years before the widespread use of portable players and car
players". What you said was rewording was simply my effort in trying to
help you understand what "displacing" means.








As early as 1989, CD's already

outsold vinyl LP's by a ratio of 2.7 to 1.



In 1989 Cd was still not the dominant medium for music
consumption.
Nice try. Funny, It had been on the market for six years by then.
Funny, when it did become the dominant medium it was when car
players
and portable CD players did become common and affordable.


The point is that it had solidly displaced vinyl's position in sales.

Wonder why you found all this funny?


Because of all the backpeddling.

I agree that all the backpeddling can get funny.







In 1989, portable and car CD

players were not in widespread use. For home audio, CD became the
dominant medium as early as in the mid-to-late 80's.



Guess again. Actually dont guess, just look at sales.

Been there, done that, have you?


Yes, that is why I am making the claims that you are reading here.


You mean like your claim that CD's were a niche item before the car and
portable players became popular? Perhaps it's time for you to supply us
a definition of "niche"?

Your only claim that holds is that CD's did not overtake cassettes as
the number one medium in terms of unit sales until mid-90's. But have
you noticed that we are not arguing with you on that?

Your other claims like (a) CD's did not get launched until mobile/car
players are popular, or (b)many classical music lovers do not spend much
time with live music, are simply figments of your imagination. Or
really poor choice of words.

BTW, CD's entered the market in 1983, and already 53 millions CD's were
sold annually in 1986. By any reasonable definition, CD's have been
"launched" and were "firmly established" several years before widespread
use of mobile/car players.







Of course, for

mobile audio, CD did not replace cassette until mobile CD players

became

popular in the mid-90's.


Sorry Stewert. You don't know what people were doing with their
cassettes. We can look at sales. Sales support my claim not yours.

Sorry Stewart for having Mr Wheeler feel sorry for you .





Wouldn't you call a medium that outsold vinyl LP 2.7 to 1 "firmly
established"?



Seems you are now trying to change the subject.

Just to make sure you understand, when Stewart said that portable and

car players did not get widespread use until after the CD was firmly
established, you said he was wrong.



Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead availablitity of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the introduction of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for years before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.


Please pay attention now. Stewart said "Certainly portable players and
car players helped to boost volumes, but note that they did not become
widespread (especially car players), until well after CD was firmly
established." To which you replied: "Wrong". Just read up a couple of
posts back.

You were clearly wrong, because CD's were firmly established before
portable players and car players were in widespread use.




My question was not to change the
subject, but to ask you if outselling vinyl 2.7 to 1 mean that CD was

firmly established.


Once you and Stewert started talking about "firmly established,"
whatever you guys want that to mean, you changed the subject.

But you still said "Wrong"! Was that some sort of reflex action?


The
subject was the launch into the mass market. Hey our local burger joint
has been in business for 50 years. I think that makes it "firmly
established." It has never been launched into the mass market. Apples
and oranges.

Now you are arguing with yourself...




If the answer is yes, then clearly you were wrong
when you said Steware was wrong. Got that?


The question has no meaning since I never said no to the claim of
"firmly established." Got that?

Please re-read what you wrote.



Scott Wheeler

wrote:
wrote:
wrote:

Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs
were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead availablitity
of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the introduction
of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for years
before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.

In which case you're both wrong. Classical fans aren't numerous
enough
to *launch* anything into the mass market (although they were among
the
first to recognize and trumpet CD's virtues).


OK we agree on the impact of classical music consumers on the mass
market.


But CDs were definitely a
mass-market item by the mid-to-late 80s.


I didn't say they weren't a "mass market item."

Ah, so you mean they were "launched into the mass market" they were
already in. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

Perhaps we are talking
about two different definitions of "launch." This was what I was
thinking.
1 a : to throw forward : HURL b : to release, catapult, or send off
(a
self-propelled object) launch a rocket . When portable players and
car players became widely affordable CDs went from a distant second
to
a clear cut first in market share. That would be a catapult or throw
forward in my book.

I wouldn't use the word "launch" to describe something that was already
in motion--and starting to slow down.

bob

wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
Ban wrote:
wrote:


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you?
Does
anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


Well, the crackles and the distortion sound similar, but of
course
each
catridge has its own colour, which is superimposed on the music,
much
like a
loudspeaker. Then some have more hum than others, and some are
better

isolated from vibrations.

Scott, a simple test can be done:
Record your favourite music from the rig to CD. Now start the
turntable and
play the record and when the sound arrives, start the CD player.
listen with
the headphone to the CD and synchronize the vinyl by slowing the
platter
with your hand.
Now turn down the volume, switch the preamp over and turn up the
volume to
the same loudness. (It will be good to mark the 2 settings with a
chalk
pen).
Have a friend or your wife switch without your knowledge. Now try
to
identify the real turntable. Can you do that?


I have done comparisons of CDs ripped form my turntable and direct
feed
from my turntable. I have no problem hearing differences.


Unless you have done them badly: baloney.


1. How does one do them badly without clipping the signal?

That's one way. Using a preamp stage that introduces audible distortion
would be another. Using a very poor A/D converter would be another. Using
a rig that is not shielded from computer noise is yet another. These are
all unlikely for anyone competent at doing A/D transfer, but I wanted to
at least allow the possibility.

2. How do you know my claim is balony? Were you there? I don't think
so.

How do I know a perpetual motion machine doesn't work as claimed? I don't
need to be there. There's no voodoo involved, nor is it a purely
subjective claim. You assert you have 'no problem' telling a digital
transfer of an LP from its source. I assert that *if* you hear such a
difference -- and that assumes you did the comparison using good level
matching and blind controls and a statistically robust number of trials ,
of course -- then there was something wrong with the transfer. It also
assumes that new pops and clicks were not introduced onto the LP after the
tranfer, which would of course allow for its identification. Because
otherwise there's no scientific reason why a 16/44.1 digital transfer
would not completely and accurately capture the information from something
as bandwidth- and resolution-limited as an LP.

Even MP3 is much more difficult to identify than vinyl, I wonder
why?

You have trouble hearing the colorations of MP3?

You can't make an MP3 that's audibly indistinguishable from source?


Yeah. You can't?

No, I *can* make an MP3 that you will not be able to distinguish from its
source.



--
-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

Chung wrote:
On the other hand, there is a distinct advantage in being able to go to
the library and checking out CD's, knowing that the quality is going to
be just as good as brand new discs unless they are damaged (which
happens to a very small percentage of discs). This way, you can sample a
lot of recordings before you have to spend money. To me, that truly
opens up a whole additional world of collection.

And even the damaged ones can often be repaired back to 'like new' sound.

--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

wrote:
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

bob

One thing I am trying to find out is whether those figures are USA only,
or worldwide. According to this website:

http://www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm

there is a pretty big difference between US sales and worldwide sales.
For instance, in 1990, worldwide sale of CD's was close to a billion
units, whereas the US sales was *only* 288 million units.

Here is a very interesting 5-part "Sony History" on the CD:

http://www.sony.net/Fun/SH/1-20/h5.html

Make sure you read all 5. BTW, on the second paragraph: "on October 1,
1982, Sony launched the CDP-101". I think it is pretty clear what we all
meant by "launch" .

An interesting piece of trivia, CBS/Sony launched the world's 50 CD
titles, and the very first one was "52nd Street" by Billy Joel. Another
piece, according to Sony, it was Mr. Ohga of Sony, a trained musician,
who pushed for the 75 minute, 12-cm disc, because it needed to be big
enough to fit Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I had heard that it was
conductor Von Karajan who stated that requirement.

On 24 Apr 2005 21:31:06 GMT, wrote:
Ed Seedhouse wrote:

Calling it "Balony" doesn't make it balony.

I suggest you think more carefully about the claim. You are putting the
cart before the horse here. Calling something balony doesn't make it
balony but calling something that is balony, balony is just accurate
reporting.

But since you didn't lay any foundation at all before you used the name,
I think reasonable people will agree that it was in fact, just name
calling.

Calling things as one sees them is just honesty.

Yeah, right.

The reasoning takes
place first. I would expect any reasonable person to see that.

Then show us the reasoning. The reasoning you did show us was bad
reasoning.

Correlation does not prove causation.
It supports it.
By itself, no it doesn't.

Yes it does.

Well, you can say this as many times as you like, but that won't make it
any truer. Correlation may be evidence for causation, but only in
the context of other evidence. By itself it is never evidence for
causation.

Well the real bad reasoning is ignoring the fact
No one has ignored that so far as I can see.
You certainly did in your rebuttal to my claim.

But I did not rebut your claim. I merely disputed your reasoning.

but the only evidence you've supplied is a
claimed correlation.

And the repetition of history. That's a lot of corolation. And you
offer nothing to show that the claim is wrong.

Hardly surprising since I am not saying that your claim is wrong. I am
saying you haven't proven your claim about causation.

Your claim may be perfectly true, I wouldn't know. Your claimed cause
might be the real cause for all I know. But your reasoning was bad and
didn't provide evidence for your claim.

If I say:

"Some planets have atmospheres.
The Earth is a planet.
Therefore the Earth has an atmosphere."

....I am guilty of a childish fallacy. My conclusion doesn't follow from
my premises. It is still a fact that the Earth has an atmosphere
despite my bad reasoning, but my reasoning doesn't prove it one way or
the other, so it is bad reasoning.

You might come to the right conclusion with bad reasoning, but that
doesn't make it into good reasoning.

If someone then points out that my reasoning is bad they are not
rebutting my claim that the Earth has an atmosphere. They are just
pointing out that my reasoning is bad.

And that's what I was doing - pointing out that your reasoning was bad.


Ed Seedhouse,
Victoria, B.C.

wrote in message ...
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial movement from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop. Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce pas?

Norm Strong

Chung wrote:
wrote:

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall
sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about
3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down
21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

bob

One thing I am trying to find out is whether those figures are USA
only,
or worldwide. According to this website:

According to my source (This Week in Consumer Electronics, 4/4/05),
those are US-only figures.

bob

wrote:
wrote in message
...

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall
sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about
3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down
21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial movement
from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop.
Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce pas?

Good catch. From the report I saw:

"In the first half, DVD-Audio sales were up while SACD sales were down,
and Sony attributed that at least in part to music labels that coded
hybrid CD/SACD discs of big releases as CDs to get the disks in the CD
section of music retailers."

Of course, it's highly likely that almost no one who bought the hybrids
knew or cared that they were SACDs, but there's no way to know for
sure.

bob

wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial movement from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop.
Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce pas?


An equally large question is whether or not the RIAA numbers include
internet sales, or simply just bricks-and-mortar retailers. I've heard
rumours of the latter; I do not know the answer. Do any of you have that
info?

wrote in message ...
wrote:
wrote in message
...

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall
sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about
3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down
21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial movement
from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop.
Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce pas?

Good catch. From the report I saw:

"In the first half, DVD-Audio sales were up while SACD sales were down,
and Sony attributed that at least in part to music labels that coded
hybrid CD/SACD discs of big releases as CDs to get the disks in the CD
section of music retailers."

Of course, it's highly likely that almost no one who bought the hybrids
knew or cared that they were SACDs, but there's no way to know for
sure.

bob

That may be true for some folk, but certainly the SACD enthusiasts knew they
were SACD's and bought them largely because of that.

Chung wrote:

An interesting piece of trivia, CBS/Sony launched the world's 50 CD
titles, and the very first one was "52nd Street" by Billy Joel. Another
piece, according to Sony, it was Mr. Ohga of Sony, a trained musician,
who pushed for the 75 minute, 12-cm disc, because it needed to be big
enough to fit Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I had heard that it was
conductor Von Karajan who stated that requirement.

I'd always heard it was the Sony exec, but I've also read that the story
is apocryphal. It is true, though, that the 9th holds (or held, back then)
a special place of reverence among Japanese music consumers...I recall
reading an article about the almost fetishistic worship of the piece there,
a long time ago.

--

-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee

wrote:
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

Here's a spreadsheet that is informational:

http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/...arEndStats.pdf

In 2004, the US sales of CD totalled 766.9 million units, while LP/EP's
totalled 1.3 million units. So the vinyl LP/EP total is only about 0.17%
of CD. And no doubt a significant percentage (perhaps even the majority)
of vinyl sales goes to the DJ/club market. The 0.6% is probably the sum
of LP/EP and vinyl singles, the latter accounting for 73% of total vinyl
unit sales.

In the US, cost per unit is rather high: both CD and vinyl LP/EP costs
close to $15 per unit, while SACD costs $21 per unit.

I can't find the worldwide numbers, but in 2000, US accounts for 38% of
total CD sales. Assuming the same percentage, the worldwide CD sales
would then be 2 billion units.

I can't find any data on the US percentage of total worldwide vinyl
sales either.


BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

bob

wrote:



I have done comparisons of CDs ripped form my turntable and direct feed
from my turntable. I have no problem hearing differences.


Just like a good turntable setup, you have to choose the right digital
equipment when making your own audio CDRs. What type of soundcard did
you use? Please don't say Creative Soundblaster, or anything Creative
for that matter. Also, what type of MP3 encoder? These 2 components of a
digital audio system probably contribute the most coloration/degradation
to an analog audio signal.

Hint - If you like Echos and are LAME, then I'd be impressed

CD

On 25 Apr 2005 23:29:29 GMT, wrote:

wrote in message ...
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000 units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about 3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down 21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial movement from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop. Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce pas?

They're classified as SACD, and this is a rerun of Betamax and
Elcaset. Unfortunately, DVD-A looks likely to suffer the same fate,
due to widespread audience satisfaction with DD/DTS on DVD-V.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Harry Lavo wrote:
wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never
recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000
units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That
last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for
the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall
sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about
3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down
21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial
movement from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop.
Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce
pas?


An equally large question is whether or not the RIAA numbers include
internet sales, or simply just bricks-and-mortar retailers. I've
heard
rumours of the latter; I do not know the answer. Do any of you have
that
info?

I'd really be surprised if they skipped e-tailers, esp. since this
report also lists download sales. They might miss the smallest
sites--just as they miss the smallest stores, which I believe they have
to extrapolate for. But the thing about the small places is that, well,
they're small. Even if they're pumping out a disproportionate share of
a certain format, they aren't going to change the numbers much in a $12
billion market. And as far as trends are concerned, RIAA probably
missed the same places last year.

bob

wrote in message ...
Harry Lavo wrote:
wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
wrote:

By contrast, vinyl fell below 2% in 1991, and has never
recovered.
Ignoring single-year blips, it's basically flatlined at 600,000
units
per annum for the last decade.

Pardon me. I was reading a chart of market share, not units. That
last
sentence should read, "...flatlined at 0.6% of units shipped for
the
last decade."

BTW, the 2004 RIAA figures came out earlier this month. Overall
sales
were up for the first time since '99, with CD unit sales up about
3%
over 2003. By contrast, vinyl was down 12% from 2003, DVD-A down
21%,
and SACD down 40%. "Niche market" may now be an overstatement.

I wonder about the SACD numbers. If there was a substantial
movement from
SACD-only to dual layer SACD, that might explain the large drop.
Dual-layer
discs are usually classified as CDs, rather than SACDs, n'est-ce
pas?


An equally large question is whether or not the RIAA numbers include
internet sales, or simply just bricks-and-mortar retailers. I've
heard
rumours of the latter; I do not know the answer. Do any of you have
that
info?

I'd really be surprised if they skipped e-tailers, esp. since this
report also lists download sales. They might miss the smallest
sites--just as they miss the smallest stores, which I believe they have
to extrapolate for. But the thing about the small places is that, well,
they're small. Even if they're pumping out a disproportionate share of
a certain format, they aren't going to change the numbers much in a $12
billion market. And as far as trends are concerned, RIAA probably
missed the same places last year.

Yes, but they would have picked up Best Buy and Circuit City closing
down/shrinking their high-res sections, but might not pick up the migration
of those purchases to the internet.

chung wrote:
wrote:
Chung wrote:
snip


Well, I attended a piano recital by the rising star Yundi Li

last

week.

And throughout the recital, I kept thinking how close my CD rig

sounds

to the live piano I was hearing. You know, the solid sustained

notes,


Solid sustained notes? I've certainly heard this on numerous CDs

of

piano but never on a live piano. This is one of the most easily
identifiable shortcomings one can hear on most CDs. A sustained

note on

a real piano is anything but solid.


Well, I have a grand piano, and the sustained notes are solid.

Perhaps

you are too used to vinyl?


No. It is not natural for any real paino to have solid sustained

notes.

The decay of a note from a live piano is anything but solid.

Perhaps you were confused when I said solid sustained notes.



I don't think so. Perhaps you didn't mean what you said.

As another poster once said, how could you possibly argue with me
about
what I meant when I said it?


I cannot argue with what you "meant." It does appear that it is in
conflict with what you "said." What you "said" is in print and the
meaning of the words are clear and not yours to manipulate. I even
offered dictionary meanings of some words. If you wish to comunicate
with any success you cannot change the meaning of those words. If by
the dictionary meanings of the word solid you wish to stand by your
claim that "sustained notes" from a piano are "solid" go right ahead. I
find them to be anything but solid in character. Now as far as your
revised claim,that the "frequencies" are solid (of course one wouldn't
need to revise a claim if they "said" what they "meant" in the first
place) I think your claim still stands on ahakt ground. You may "know"
that those frequencies don't change but the perception of "tone" from
the combination of those "frequecies" decaying differently does change.
I suspect you are claiming to hear what you already know is there.




Solid does
have a pretty well known definition.
(2) : joined without a hyphen a solid compound c : not
interrupted by
a break or opening a solid wall
3 a : of uniformly close and coherent texture : not loose or spongy
:
COMPACT b : possessing or characterized by the properties of a
solid :
neither gaseous nor liquid .


I clarified what I meant when I said solid sustained notes already,
so
you are simply trying to argue semantics.


No. I am also agruing perception. The tone of a piano due to the
complex decay of the many overtones is hardly "solid" in tone. You may
claim to be hearing the individual overtones sounding solid but I am
skeptical of that claim. The "tone" of a sustained paino note is
constantly changing as it decays. Just so we don't go down the road of
misunderstanding this is the dictionary meaning of "tone" I am using in
this post.
1 : vocal or musical sound of a specific quality spoke in low tones
masculine tones; especially : musical sound with respect to timbre
and manner of expression





I meant the

frequency of the notes, and not amplitude. I thought it was obvious

from

the context, but I guess one never knows.



Well there are several different overtones coming from a sustained
note
from a piano, Their decay patterns are each different which creates
a
sound that is constantly changing in tone, location and volume. By
the
above definitions how does one find such a character of decay
solid?
IMO the decay of a sustained note of a piano is quite the opposite
of
the above cited definitions of solid.


I thought I said the frequencies already, but perhaps you were too
busy
caught up in your own thoughts?


Perhaps you were. The tone of a piano is the combination of all the
frequecies of sound coming from it at any given moment. Perhaps you
were so caught up in your thoughts to chose not to answer my question.







So, it is perfectly natural for a real piano to have solid
sustained
notes in terms of frequency stability. Now, do you still want to

argue

that it's not the case?



Yes. You are now changing your claim and yet it still doesn't hold
water in terms of human perception.

I never changed my claim. It's only for your edification that I
provided
the clarification.


Sorry but you don't get to determine the meaning of words. Your claims
were clearly different. One was far more global than the other. You
either meant what you said the first time and changed it the second
time or you didn't mean what you siad the first time. you take issue
with both but it is an either or situation.



Other posters don't seem to have any trouble
understanding...



A group of people that are IMO highly biased in their support of some
posters and dismisal of other posters.





If one listens to a sustained note
on a piano it does not *sound the same in tone* as it decays. Now
if
one were to take a test tone or a combination of test tones and dim
the
level at a constant rate in time you would have what I would call a
solid sounding sustained note. That is nothing like what one hears
from
a live piano. It does acurately describe the sound of a sustained
note
on any number of CDs I have listened to.

I suggest you either (a) listen to live pianos,


I suggest you pay more attention to the content of my posts if you are
going to respond to them in any meaningful way. I have told you in no
uncertain terms that I do listen to live pianos.



and (b) get good CD's,
preferably good digital recordings.


See above.



It seems rather obvious that you
have been preconditioned to the vinyl sound, and the CD sound somehow

does not sound right to you.


You couldn't be more wrong. Maybe you should check your own biases at
the door next time. Maybe you would say the same of the original poster
of this thread? You know, the one that conducts live music.









You think there are some magical process in CD's that stabilize

those

"real-life" wavering notes?



No. Simplifying a a complex signal is not magic.

Taking out the frequency variations (which caused the wavering of
the


pitch) is almost magic...



No it's not.

Well, why don't you provide some examples of technologies that take
out
frequency variations in recorded sound?


Are you serious? You think pitch vannot be manipulated after a
recording has been layed down?







Now, do you think the CD is capable of removing frequency

instability?


I think it is possible to get CDs in which this has happened. I
don't
think it is magical or desireable.


Examples of CD's removing any frequency variations from the original
please? What you think really is not that important, is it?


I suggest you reread what I wrote. I never said Cds did anytyhing of
the sort. I guess you feel that no one can manipulate pitch before a
final CD is burned.










Hey, there will certainly be fame and riches

for you if you could figure out how...


No. Just lower the resolution of any signal and ou will loose
information. I'm surprised you didn't know this already.

If you can lower the resolution and hence remove the frequency
instability, there will certainly be fame and riches for you.



Really? It's that difficult to lower the resolution of a live piano
in
the recording and playback proccess? I think you are quite mistaken
here. Any telephone will do the trick quite nicely. No fame or
riches
for me. Loss of resolution has been with us all along.

Can a telephone remove the frequency variations in sound? Now you are

being seriously technically challenged.


No you are just stuck on this one. If you loose harmonic information of
an instrument like a piano that has many overtones you loose the
accurate senseation of pitch. If you loose that accuracy then the
perception of pitch can change. There is no magic involved. Now if you
think the percieved pitch of a sustained paino note will sound the same
over a phone as it does live.....













the great dynamic range, and so on. There was no way the LP can
reproduce that piano sound without very noticeable degradation.

There is no way any recording/playback system can reproduce a

live

piano without very noticable degradation. I doubt your system CD

player

and all are really any exception.


The degradations from a CD are much less than those from vinyl.
In

fact,

I have piano recital CD's that sound very close to the real
thing.


Again. I am quite skeptical of such claims.

There is nothing like listening, I guess.




An odd guess. It seems you arte assuming that I am not listening to
CDs
of piano recordings. I suggest you listen more carefully if you
really
believe sustained piano notes sound "solid."

That was an obviously educated guess,


No it was an obivously biased guess and it was totally worng. Get past
it please.


based on your descriptions of how
the piano sounds worse than on vinyl.


Where did I ever say any such thing? Can you not argue your point
without inventing such ridiculous claims about the content of my posts?



The other guess is that you simply
have not listened to good CD recordings.

Yet another bad guess that appears to be based on biases rather than
actual attention payed to the content of my posts.








Try recording the output of

the phono stage onto CD's. Voila, all the magical "complex" signals

that

you claim can only be heard on vinyl are preserved!



Been there, done that. Didn't seem to happen so well.

Well, it does take some competence to do this right. Certainly not a
given that everyone is capable of transcribing to CD's, but it is
definitely not difficult to do either.


I didn't have any trouble. Thank you for the concern.









But, if you cannot hear the
complexity of the decay of a sustained note on a real live piano

maybe

you simply aren't picking up on the substantial differences
between

a

live piano and the recording and playback of a live piano.

So you are saying that you cannot observe the complex amplitude
decay

of

piano music on CD's?


I am saying that IME it is often reduced or lost on CDs.

Your experience is simply, shall we say, unusual?


Hardly. If you want to pretend no one has had any issues with the sound
of many many CDs that is fine. It isn't the truth but whatever.








Here is a good one for you to try out:

Emil Gilel's Beethoven Sonata #8 (Pathetique) on DG 400036-2. This
is

an

early 1980 digital recording. You can easily find it at the local
library. Check out track 1. Listen to the solid frequency stability

of

the big chords. See if that sounds like a real piano in your

experience.

I'll keep an eye out for it. I don't have high expectations though.
I
have heard nothing but awful sound from that label in that era.

That particular record is very highly regarded. Don't take my word
for
it, check out the reviews.

OK but can you tall me how it compares, IYO, to the sound of paino
recordings from Wilson Audio, Reference Recordings (Nojima records come
to mind) Performance Recordings or even Waterlily? I would rank those
as amoung the best recordings of piano in terms of life like sound
quality IME.










That was

a reminder of why I like digital so much. As someone who owns a

grand

piano, I can say without any doubt that the CD sounds so much

better

than vinyl on piano music.


Opinions abound. The person who started this thread clearly

disagrees.

It seems she does speak from considerable experience with live

music.

That's my point, in case you missed it. Opinions abound. and I

speak

with considerable experience from listening to a live piano.


And yet you think the decay of a sustained note is solid. I'm

afraid

that there is more to it than just experience.

The frequency is solid.



The tone is not. That is what we percieve.

Your definition of tone may not be conventional.


It comes from the dictionary.
1 : vocal or musical sound of a specific quality spoke in low tones
masculine tones; especially : musical sound with respect to timbre
and manner of expression
If you find the number one dictionary defintion "unconventional" that
in and of itself may be unconventional.





Not sure what solid decay means, since I never

used that term...



You said sustained notes. They decay as they are sustained.
decay:2 : to decrease gradually in quantity, activity, or force


Since I did not use that term, not sure why you bother defining it
for me...


You did not use the term "sustained notes?" I beg to differ. Are you
claiming that sustained notes from a paino do not decay? I beg to
differ again. So whether or not *you* used that term or not is
irrelevent. "Sustained piano notes" do "decay" and I can talk about the
"decay" of a "sustianed piano note" and be on topic whether *you* used
that term or not.









In fact, I

just did.



And to the OP, someone *could* have said "But you have not

heard a

decent CD rig and decently recorded CD's!" But of course, we

won't

resort to that.


Of course not. You believe they all sound the same don't you?

Does

anybody believe all turntable rigs sound the same?


No, some CD rigs sound bad because of poor speakers. And then

there

are

poorly recorded/mastered CD's. Of course, the competent CD
players

sound

very similar, but you know that.

I don't know that. I know some people believe that and some
believe
otherwise. I have not spent much time c0omparing CD players
myself.





BTW, none of Yundi Li's music is available on vinyl. Only on

CD's.


Only CD? Can't get it on MP3?

You can make mp3's out of CD's, of course. What exactly is your

point,

or do you have one?



That it can be had on more than just CD. Wasn't it obvious?

It is a rather, shall we say, pointless point then.


No.


You can of course

make cassette tapes, MD tapes out of the CD.



You can also legaly down load music on line in the form of MP3s. It
is
a different medium in which commercial music can be aquired and
used.

You still are either totally missing the point, or simply want to
argue
for the sake of arguing.


How can *I* be missing the point? I was the one making a point there.



To make it clear for you, his music is only
mastered for CD release, not for other format The mp3's are simply
compressed versions of the CD.


That could not be any more irelevent to the point *I* made which is
that it is commercially available on more than just the CD format.






I guess according to your

logic, when someone releases a movie on DVD, it is simultaneously
released in divx, mpeg4, vcd, realmedia, windows media formats

already.

In some cases they are released on vcd. Most of those others would
be
pirate copies. I am not talking about pirated copies but legal
releases
on various formats.



To make it easier for you to grasp, Yundi Li's music is not
released

in

vinyl. So is a lot of new classical music.



I guess *you* didn't get *my* point.

If it was the rather pointless point, it really does not matter.



Oh, you are the arbitrator of what matters and does not matter? Guess
again.



Scott Wheeler

wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
wrote:

Wrong again. this what Stewert actually said.
"Heads up now, what really launched CD into the mass market was
*classical* music listeners," To which I said he was wrong. CDs
were
"launched" into the mass market with the wide spead
availablitity
of
portable CD players and car CD players. Not with the
introduction
of
classical material on CDs Classical CDs were available for
years
before
CDs were a successful "mass market" item.

In which case you're both wrong. Classical fans aren't numerous
enough
to *launch* anything into the mass market (although they were
among
the
first to recognize and trumpet CD's virtues).


OK we agree on the impact of classical music consumers on the mass
market.


But CDs were definitely a
mass-market item by the mid-to-late 80s.


I didn't say they weren't a "mass market item."

Ah, so you mean they were "launched into the mass market" they were
already in. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

Perhaps we are talking
about two different definitions of "launch." This was what I was
thinking.
1 a : to throw forward : HURL b : to release, catapult, or send off
(a
self-propelled object) launch a rocket . When portable players
and
car players became widely affordable CDs went from a distant second
to
a clear cut first in market share. That would be a catapult or
throw
forward in my book.

I wouldn't use the word "launch" to describe something that was
already
in motion--and starting to slow down.



It was hardly starting to slow down. CD consumption grew tremenduosly
after that time.


Scott Wheeler

This part of the thread has certainly degraded to arguing semantics:
what you think I meant and what I think you meant and so on. So we just
have to agree on the differences:

I believe that the CD is much more capable of reproducing live music,
especially sustained notes from piano solos for instance, where any
slight wavering in frequencies can be readily detected. Mr. Wheeler
thinks that it is one of the easily detectible shortfalls of the CD that
piano notes do not sound natural to him.

Theporkygeo... :You may
claim to be hearing the individual overtones sounding solid but I am
skeptical of that claim. The "tone" of a sustained paino note is
constantly changing as it decays.

This is very true, as it is for any sound. In addition, the issue of
timbre is major in the perception of music. Two voilinists sitting
next to each other will often be perceived to be out of tune, when in
fact they are actually "out of tone" due to instrument quality
differences, different bows, even different bow HAIR. The room the
music is played in also is a major factor, as everyone knows. I've
heard the same ensemble play in Carnegie, the Eastman Theater, and a
typical 500 college theater. Obviously, the music sounds DIFFERENT,
but it's more subtle than that. The difference in timbre in, say, a
Bach trumpet played in those three venues causes it to sometimes sound
to the less experienced listener as "out of tune" when it's really not.
As for piano, in a good hall, the tone doesn't really sound "solid" at
all, in my interpretation of that word. The attacks generally aren't
as "sharp" and in what are regarded as the best halls, the lower
frequences of the instrument ring far longer than the highs. This is
one way that the music sounds "warmer".

Jenn wrote:
Theporkygeo... :You may
claim to be hearing the individual overtones sounding solid but I am
skeptical of that claim. The "tone" of a sustained paino note is
constantly changing as it decays.

This is very true, as it is for any sound. In addition, the issue of
timbre is major in the perception of music. Two voilinists sitting
next to each other will often be perceived to be out of tune, when in
fact they are actually "out of tone" due to instrument quality
differences, different bows, even different bow HAIR. The room the
music is played in also is a major factor, as everyone knows. I've
heard the same ensemble play in Carnegie, the Eastman Theater, and a
typical 500 college theater. Obviously, the music sounds DIFFERENT,
but it's more subtle than that. The difference in timbre in, say, a
Bach trumpet played in those three venues causes it to sometimes sound
to the less experienced listener as "out of tune" when it's really not.
As for piano, in a good hall, the tone doesn't really sound "solid" at
all, in my interpretation of that word. The attacks generally aren't
as "sharp" and in what are regarded as the best halls, the lower
frequences of the instrument ring far longer than the highs. This is
one way that the music sounds "warmer".

And somehow the CD fails to capture that, and the vinyl format, with its
much higher likelihood of adding wow-and-flutter, plus noise, does it
better?

DO you agree that the sustained piano notes should be solid in frequency?

Chung: And somehow the CD fails to capture that, and the vinyl
format, with its
much higher likelihood of adding wow-and-flutter, plus noise, does
it
better?

Do MOST CDs played on MOST players fail to capture the "warm" sound
that I hear live in decent halls in my view? In my experience, yes.
Are there good sounding CDs and good sounding CD players in my view?
Yes, certainly. I'm speaking here about what I hear on average. And,
to my ears, the best sounding CDs tend to be those that have an
analogue original source, on average. I've heard really good DDD discs
as well.

DO you agree that the sustained piano notes should be solid in
frequency?

Yes. And, I have to admit that I don't listen to piano recordings
nearly as much as I do to wind music and string music. I don't recal
ever being put off by variation in pitch while listening to piano
recordings. And in my listening to string and wind recordings, I may
not notice it because virtually all of those instruments are played
using vibrato. Or maybe the w&f are below the level where it bothers
me; I don't know. Based on what I do for a living though, I'm fairly
sensitive to pitch differences.