Buh Bye CD players?

[numbnuts240]

i actually just got a new turn table for christmas. scouring used record stores and flea markets for vinyl rules.

[sx moneypit]

Mornin' Tito! Try to find you some direct to disc or half speed master recording albums.If they are in good shape and you have a quality turntable the fidelity is incredible.

[DJ_B_Easy]

i actually just got a new turn table for christmas. scouring used record stores and flea markets for vinyl rules.

What did you get? Direct drive I hope?

[AppleBonker]

Pretty sure he got one of these

[frapjap]

Pretty sure he got one of these

JFC! What justifies needing one of those?!

I'd love to compare the generally accepted "best" versus that piece of equipment.

[DJ_B_Easy]

I'd love to compare the generally accepted "best" versus that piece of equipment.

DJ standard is the Technics 1200 which goes (or went when I purchased mine years ago) for around $500. It appears this contraption above essentially floats the entire platter and tonearm, eliminating any hum or vibration caused noise from entering the stylus. If you pounded the table next to a 1200 with stylus on vinyl and motor stopped, you would hear it in your speaker. That thing, not so sure.

[szh]

AAC has a lossless format as well.

I'm baffled by lossless compression. I guess a zip file doesn't lose the data, it just shrinks it.

That is the correct analogy.

Lossless compression of audio bit files is the same from a "concept" perspective. The audio bits are not removed (in the way that MP3 does for example) - the bit stream is just compressed so that the act of uncompression re-creates the same exact original bit-stream.

So, a CD that is read and compressed with any lossless compression method will sound identical when that data is uncompressed and played back (assuming everything else in the audio chain is the same, of course! ).

Z

[MinisterofDOOM]

AAC has a lossless format as well.

I'm baffled by lossless compression. I guess a zip file doesn't lose the data, it just shrinks it.

It's all in the way the algorithm works. Imagine you're trying to compress a book into a single page of encoded text. You can choose a method that preserves the formatting of the book, and includes every single letter and punctuation. Or you can choose a method that only preserves whole individual words. When you decode it, one will be 100% faithful to the original, while the other will not. They both might contain the same raw story content, but the latter still isn't an authentic reproduction. Ebooks are a great example: sizing might throw off chapter breaks or alignment or the placement of an illustration.

With music, it's the same thing. You can get back a faithful recreation, or you can get back a condensed facsimile. It's still the same song, but one version is fully reproduced and the other is not.

The really stupid part is that, when done right, lossless compression is not necessarily less efficient space-wise than lossy compression. Why any lossy method EVERY becomes mainstream is beyond me.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

My work van has a base model radio, no Aux port, no CD player, no tape deck, just AM and FM. So I'd kill for a CD player since I spend roughly 4-6 hours a day driving. I have an ancient DEH-1500 cd player (it's older than Ipod) in the 240 and the girlfriends car only has AM/FM. Needless to say any long distance travel tends to suck for me.

[EW]

It is a reality that as technology changes so will formats. Unfortunately, the newer formats are worse than CD which does not make sense to me. I will never purchase a lower quality recording if the CD is available. 128kbps sucks.

[Otto.]

I still feel you lose fidelity through compression and decompression though, no? I dont know, like frapjap said it just never sounds quite right to me.

Nope. Pretty much the highest technical audio quality you can achieve nowadays is with a 192khz/24 bit file. There's even SACD technology which has better audio quality than normal CD's and even supports surround sound. Similar to the quadraphonic systems they had in the 70's.

But of course, CD's already sound good and anything of higher technical quality is only going to produce marginally better results in the real world. Usually at that point, it's more the gear you're using and the listening environment rather than what's being played through it that makes the difference.

It is a reality that as technology changes so will formats. Unfortunately, the newer formats are worse than CD which does not make sense to me. I will never purchase a lower quality recording if the CD is available. 128kbps sucks.

Unfortunately, in this day and age convenience takes importance over quality. That goes for anything, not just for audio.

Most people have not really been exposed to what good sound is like. Ignorance is bliss.

[Jesda]

I still prefer the sound of analog.

[sx moneypit]

I still prefer the sound of analog.

[numbnuts240]

i still wish my s30 came with an 8-track.