cc_rider wrote:
A 64K VBR mp3 does not sound anything like a 320K CBR mp3. If you want to compare the mp3 format to analog or CD you need to turn up the knobs that get you what you want.

I can't hear the difference between a 320K mp3 and a CD on my equipment. Maybe you could convince me there is a difference, but if I close my eyes and can't tell why should I care?

 DaveInVA wrote: 
We all should have known.
Thank you Mr. Wizard!

 Lazy8 wrote:  Precisely. I have always appreciated sound quality, but dang, vinyl was a huge hassle. I bought a very nice, basic cassette deck, and recorded my vinyl to cassettes, often on the first playing of the record. Put the record away, and have a handy, very good recording to play at my convenience. When CDs started coming out, I knew that was a huge leap in convenience, with very little loss of sound quality. Practically speaking, no loss of sound quality, except under the most discriminating conditions (quite rare, as you said.) But when MP3s came along, I heard a HUGE degradation in sound quality. Maybe it was the emerging technology and lousy/lossy compression routines, but I simply could not STAND to listen to them on a full-size home system. I still do not buy music as MP3s, period. But then I don't buy much music anymore anyway, and I never sit and listen to music the way I used to: enveloped in it, savoring every note and nuance. In that environment, a nice setup is truly wonderful.

I had to drive the busted-ass pickup today. I turned on the stereo (not the OEM built-in stereo, but the aftermarket job the previous owner installed)...and was assaulted by a godawful racket from the junkyard speakers the teenager installed in one of his ham-fisted attempts to modify the truck. Even over the exhaust noise and rattles from the loose bits still somehow clinging on after years of bashing down unpaved roads I could tell this was worse than what we had before. I had to turn it off.

It put this discussion in context tho. We don't always listen to music sitting in an acoustically-perfect room in the exact center of the expensive speakers' sound pattern to hear the exquisite detail from our tube amplifiers. Most of the time it's thru a cheap set of earbuds or whatever speakers fit the space in a busy, noisy room. The recording medium is not the weak link here.

Let's harken back to the good old days of vinyl. Is that needle pristine? Are the grooves freshly cleaned? Is the ground on the turntable clean enough to kill off that nasty 60 cycle hum? Does the sound feature scratches, clicks, and pops anyway? Yeah, mine too.

Vinyl played under ideal conditions—the first time the record is played—has potential to sound better than a digital medium. That state is exceedingly rare. Most of the time the recording medium is making its bazillionth trip out of its sleeve out into the real dusty world, held by fingers that aren't wearing lint-free white cotton gloves. Hell, half the time that recording medium gets dropped on the way to the player. Under real-world conditions digital music sounds better.

There, I said it. Digital media aren't perfect. Their recording and encoding processes are lossy. Yeah, I know about FLAC and lossless encoding and all that, and no I can't hear the difference most of the time. They are simply more robust than analog processes, and in the real world where I hear music they sound better. They are also much much easier to use, and given the choice between pushing "play" and cleaning a disc, cleaning the needle, playing four songs, flipping the record, doing all the cleaning all over—-I'll push "play". And I'll listen to music a lot more often in a lot more places under a lot more circumstances. And I'll enjoy life more.

I still have a turntable, and I still use it once in a while. I play it thru very nice (tho fairly old) equipment, but I don't do it very often. If those times (especially those times when the dishwasher isn't running and the wind isn't trying to tear my house down) were my only opportunities to hear Mr. Young's music I'd never be able to remember the words to Cinnamon Girl. And I dearly love to sing along. Even if that isn't how Mr. Young wants me to hear it.

I love ya Neil, but don't tell me how to enjoy your music.

 fuzzy wrote: 
When my wife bought me mine, the Bose folks demo'd the then-new, CD-less model in a small auditorium with comfy seats. On stage were a medium-sized pair of floorstanding speakers. The Bose was left concealed behind a sheet. Of course, my wife and everyone else in room thought the great sound was emanating from the floorstanding speakers. They were all blown away to discover that they were, in fact, listening to the Bose all the while.

I like its portability, in that I often use it with my PMP when I'm working outdoors. 

EDIT: When I really want to listen outdoors, however, I pull out the 300W self-powered JBL EON 15s.

 cc_rider wrote: 
I'm all for separate power supplies especially for preamps even more so if they are tube and have a more complex supply. I've designed and built many as such. My current MC preamp that I built I run off a 12v battery. My modified PS-Audio pre thats temporarily on my main system also uses an external supply. I a, in the middle of building a fully balanced tube phono and line pre and it uses an external supply and the phono and line circuits are also on separate from each other chassis. Its always a great idea to keep the ac power supply noise away from the audio circuitry. 

 Proclivities wrote: 

Yea those Gateways make most excellent doorstops!

 cc_rider wrote: 
I had a Gateway laptop, years ago, that was very sensitive to unfiltered power coming in.  It would mess up the display and I would have to unplug it, remove and replace the battery, and plug it in through a filtered line in order to set it straight.

 DaveInVA wrote:
 
Shielding and filtering are reasonable issues. We're working on a product right now that's calling for a filtered AC receptacle, so I'm looking at the filtering abilities of various configurations. It makes sense to filter out all the extraneous frequencies from your input power. But that whole gold-plated thing is a steaming load.

You'd be better off building a regulated, filtered outboard power supply, and bypassing the internal power supply of the component(s). Provide ultra-clean DC power from the git-go, instead of screwing around with chi-chi power cords.

 maryte wrote: 
Gut's. He hates their guts. Dammit! 

 BillG wrote: 
I always point that out to my audiophool friends that go crazy over high end ac cables. Sometimes though it does make sense to use a shielded ac cord though if you have a tight area and cant keep the ac cords away from things like phono cables and other low level stuff. But you can buy them cheap or make them yourself.

 islander wrote:  How did you know? I just picked up one of those out of surplus stock. No digital readout on mine though, that's for sissies.

 islander wrote: 
Actually ramping up the voltage slowly in stages is the right thing to do with very old equipment that hasn't seen power in years or decades. It helps reform the electrolytic filter caps which like to otherwise go shorted when hit full on after a long rest.

Neil Young hates MP3's what?
(sorry...I just couldn't resist)

 BillG wrote: 
You plug into the wall? What kind of a Luddite are you? 

If you don't plug into a variac and spend 5 minutes slowly ramping up the power (10 minutes during full moon phases), then you might as well jam toothpicks in your ears while chewing on tin foil.

 

 islander wrote: 
Craziest of the crazy:  high-priced premium AC power cords — to connect your precious tubular delights to the wall socket that's wired with Romex & connected to FSM knows how many kilometers of electrical grid.

Evidently the fact that the part that's visible is insanely expensive makes all the difference in the world. Honest. 

 islander wrote: 
Freebies/castoffs.  Series II, so the cloth driver surrounds.  They're actually pretty nice speakers - I just wish I had the right room for them.

 DaveInVA wrote: 
Since I do a lot of appliance repairs and whatnot, I save lengths of 'lamp cord', and better still, two-wire extension cords. Use 'em for speaker wire. The heavy-jacketed orange extension cords are great for that, and since they're not grounded I wouldn't wanna use 'em for extension cords anyway.

Bose FAQ

 He hates CD's too.

"For about two decades, rarity made a cult out of On the Beach. The title was deleted from vinyl in the early 1980s and only briefly available on cassette - the old slide-out case style, as well as 8-track Cartridge tape. On the Beach headed the list of most-desired albums not released on CD. ^{<citation needed>} Along with three other mid-period Young albums, it had been withheld from re-release until 2003; the reasons remain murky but there is some evidence that Young himself didn’t want the album out on CD, variously citing “fidelity problems” and legal issues. Beginning in 2000, over 5000 fans signed an online petition calling for the release of the album on CD;^<2> this wish was finally granted in 2003. "