SteveFord

You aren't kidding about wimpy albums. Some of them are so thin that they get bent up and stuck on the VPI vacuum cycle and I have to rotate the stupid thing by hand.

A good record cleaning machine can work wonders for the noise floor. No snaps, pops or crackles with an album in excellent condition. Both formats have their strengths and weaknesses, neither one is perfect.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of Frank Zappa...

Just curious what makes you think Vinyl sounds better? REGARDS SNOW Sorry, I don't think I ever answered this and don't know if I can effectively put it into words. If I could plunk you down in the magic chair and play an album for you and then put on a CD of the same recording you'd see (or hear, rather) what I mean. There is a warmth, depth and feeling of realism to the album that the CD approximates but can't match. It might be the medium, the engineering or the playback equipment - probably a combination of all three. If you ever make it to the wilds of Pennsyltucky, stop in and make your own call. I don't mean to beat a dead horse but this offer is extended to all members of the forum if you're interested. I might even have some songs about pussy!

AUSTIN, Texas (Billboard) - Lou Reed is lashing out at new modes of audio technology, saying that "people have got to demand a higher standard" than current MP3 music files. The edgy rocker delivered the keynote speech at the South By Southwest Music Festival + Conference, which is underway in Austin, Texas. Reed was interviewed Wednesday by producer Hal Willner, who recently worked with him on the opulent "Berlin" concerts in which the musician delivered a theatricalized concert version of his under-appreciated 1973 concept album of the same name. Those shows are the subject of "Lou Reed's Berlin," a documentary by Oscar-nominated director Julian Schnabel that had its American premiere at SXSW. In typically glib and dry-witted form throughout the wide-ranging 55-minute conversation, the bespectacled Reed bemoaned the current state of audio and other digital technologies, noting that "it's like the technology is taking us backwards. It's making it easier to make things worse. "Here's our song reduced to a pin drop -- what, what, what?!" Reed explained. "It's like if no one knows any better or doesn't care, it's gonna stay on a really, really low level and people who like good sound are gonna be thought of as some kind of strange zoo animal." Reed did express some hope that "you hear they've got a newer version (of MP3) that sounds better, and you suddenly hear the other instruments that are on the song. They've got to bring up the standard. You have the world open to you now; you can get almost any song in the world as an MP3, and I suppose if you like it you can go out and try to find a version you can actually listen to -- if you like good sound. If you don't like good sound, none of this matters for a second."

I think that you guys are explaining why Mark (RadioEng2) was so excited about that PS Audio Digital Server. What's on the horizon is what's been missing? If so, will our CD players go the way of the 8 track and cassette deck? Obi mentioned tubes vs transistors as being sort of like analog vs digital and I can't help but feel that when an old technology is replaced by the new one it's kind of like Italian motorcycles: one step forward, one step backwards and two steps sideways. It's an improvement, maybe!

Crud, I've gotta run to work. I've been thinking along the same lines as Obi and I do believe that BillD is right in that the medium copies things so well that we can't tell the difference BUT something is screwed uip when it just goes to CD. Our ears and vinyl are imperfect - maybe that's why digital recordings can sound odd? Could things be too precise and that's what the deal really is?

Mark, Do you have some sort of graphic display that will show us exactly what we're hearing on an analog passage and then the same thing on digital? We're trying to describe something that perhaps we really need to see. Kind of like that old joke with the row of blind men describing an elephant - the one up at the trunk says it's like a huge python, the one holding the leg says it's like a tree, the one in the center says it's like a huge mountain, the one at the tail says that it's like a reed and the one at the very end in the pile of dung says that it's soft and mushy.

At least I'm consistent!

I've given this matter a lot of thought and my best (?) idea is that the rise and decay of notes is slower in analogue than it is in digital which is the main reason why CDs always sound a little off to me. Am I more full of it than usual?

Obi, I replaced the astonishingly viscous goo in the tone arm cup, adjusted the azimuth and reset the tracking force back to 1.5 grams. She still skip SO I said heck with this and adjusted (decreased) the anti skating to where it will glide past the "pop". Not quite where I would think the anti skating should be but that is such a bizarre contraption if it's happy, I'm happy. One feature that I miss from the Stanton is the brush to keep the crud off of the diamond. Me needum demagnetizing gun.

My turntable has been skipping (A LOT), even with brand new albums. I finally called Ortofon for suggestions on tracking force. They said to go up a tenth of a gram to 1.6 and that it takes a good 50 to 60 hours for the rubber mounts in the cartridge to break in. The Ortofon tech's suggestion was to simply let the cartridge rest on an album with the turntable off to put some weight on the rubber mounts. If I should still have problems, they said to send it in and they'll issue a replacement of need be. Good company.

Eyecatching advertising, that's for sure.

Kjames, Yes, buy more!

Or eBay which is where I got mine. Just do a search for Black CD-R.

One good thing that I can notice (quite easily) is that I've had NO Check Disc errors with the black CD-Rs whereas I had a lot of bad ones with the silvers.

Brian Eno.

Send me a PM with your address, please.

I thought I put a reply here. With or without headphones, on vocals or instrumentals, I would fail a blind test between black and silver CDs. If there is a difference (seems more bass on the black ones), it's very subtle and might just be my imagination.

Blues, I can not discern any difference between black and silver discs on instrumentals. I'm doing a CD with a few more vocals on them (Zappa - You Are What You Is) to see if that will help. Anyone who wishes to try for themselves, just say the word and I'll ship you some discs to listen to. Just listened to some vocals with Stax headphones on and I can't tell which disc is silver and which is black. I'd flunk a blind test on this one.

BillD mentioned starting a thread on burned CDs. I've been fooling around, comparing burned CDs against the originals, and I'm finding that the burned CDs DO sound better than the originals. I'm not quite sure why that is - I suspect that my burner has something to do with it. Here's a link if you're interested: http://www.hhb.co.uk/hhb/global/brochures/CDR830Plus_Brochure.pdf That burner has been discontinued but they pop up every so often on Audiogon for a reasonable price. At any rate, have other people on this forum noticed a difference between the copies and the originals?

S&M Queen was a gal named Gemine who was black and perhaps that saying got garbled and should read: if you go black you may not survive the attack. Lynda (my fiancee) is Latino, much more my speed. One difference is that the black CD-Rs are thinner than the silver ones. Perhaps that would make some sort of a difference in sound quality? Like you said, we need young ears for this one.

Not quite true, after the S&M Queen I went Latino! Did I say that out loud? Back to the topic at hand, I'm burning a silver one right now to see if I'm kidding myself. Anyone want to hear a black and silver one side by side and give me their opinions???? Same tunes, some recording level. Zappa's The Grand Wazoo from the remastered CD which is big band music so there's LOTS of different instruments to listen to. I can't tell any difference, maybe someone will hear things that I don't?

I just burned a black CD and played it and it sounds tremendous. My preamp won't let me do volume matching (with the stock CD) so it was recorded a bit louder than stock but some of Zappa's weird noises came through quite a bit clearer. I don't think that this is a case of the emperor's new clothes. I'll have to do a normal silver one and see if there's any difference that I can detect. For what it's worth, I'm using a good burner (HHb BurnIt Plus) so maybe that accounts for it? I honestly don't know enough about the subject.

Always liked Pictures At An Exhibition by ELP.