Excited about tomorrow...

[joeinid]

Welcome to the forum Dan, thank you for joining.

 

[Priaptor]

There's a time for everything In my world , there are times when i let the digital run , times when i feel like selecting so i get up and select my CD's from my library collection , times when i feel like analog LP or cueing up a tape. Personally i couldnt live with anyone format, as i enjoy playing with them all...

Analog LP has been a reference for me for so long no way to leave it alone, well not now and i do play digital 70% of the ( for most new recordings it's a must have ) time so not anti-Digital at all, but we should address the elephant in the room ...

100K digital for happiness .....

Not happening ...

I get it and fully understand on both choice and $ being spent.

My philosophy on this stuff is similar to what DeNiro said in the movie Heat and I am paraphrasing, "never get too attached to anything that you aren't willing to walk away from in 30 seconds".

I understand people's unwillingness to spend 100k for digital and I also understand those like myself who are unwilling to ever go back to vinyl and spend similar if not more for the SOTA vinyl systems, that require pampering, cleaning, etc.

I understand people wanting to enjoy all that is out there, including vinyl, digital and tape.

There is no right or wrong for the individual as that is determined by the individual. I have read on forums where people have a bone up there ass because I or someone else spent and inordinate amount of money on some gear. I never understood why others are concerned how much others are willing to spend. I don't think one needs to spend what I or others do to find enjoyment and I will be the first to admit that sometimes I can just lounge with my Mojo with Audeze iLCD4s and just enjoy myself.

My biggest gripe with digital is how crappy the overwhelming majority of recordings are. I have heard many arguments as to why so many of the same recordings on vinyl are better, from the medium itself to the lower DR, etc. Truth is, with the Select II, some of the original releases on redbook sound so superior to the latest and "best" remasters highrez being released with few exceptions. Even in the vinyl domain, we have re-release after re-release, which is a great way for all of us to part with more money and business as usual.

Newer recordings and not re-masters, where people are actually paying attention to the method of recording will, in my humble opinion, bring digital superiority to the forefront. Even if I am wrong, I don't care because there is something about listening to the Select II, from my chair, without the futzing around of other mediums that for me, individually, can't be beat.

 

[Priaptor]

Glad to hear that MSB technology has made digital palatable to some. Now let’s bring this technology down to a 4 figure price versus 6 figures.

With all due respect, it is much MORE than just "palatable to some". My other tenet about this audio stuff is you have to live with it to understand just how good or bad it really is. A flyby, at a show or a quick demo is OK but not revealing enough about any product.

This is not just making "digital palatable" but bringing out the best that digital has to offer, has probably been there from the very earliest of days and is a landmark product allowing those of us lucky enough to have it, to realize just how good digital can be (assuming of course the recording is a good one)

 

[mep]

I get it and fully understand on both choice and $ being spent.

My philosophy on this stuff is similar to what DeNiro said in the movie Heat and I am paraphrasing, "never get too attached to anything that you aren't willing to walk away from in 30 seconds".

I understand people's unwillingness to spend 100k for digital and I also understand those like myself who are unwilling to ever go back to vinyl and spend similar if not more for the SOTA vinyl systems, that require pampering, cleaning, etc.

I understand people wanting to enjoy all that is out there, including vinyl, digital and tape.

There is no right or wrong for the individual as that is determined by the individual. I have read on forums where people have a bone up there ass because I or someone else spent and inordinate amount of money on some gear. I never understood why others are concerned how much others are willing to spend. I don't think one needs to spend what I or others do to find enjoyment and I will be the first to admit that sometimes I can just lounge with my Mojo with Audeze iLCD4s and just enjoy myself.

My biggest gripe with digital is how crappy the overwhelming majority of recordings are. I have heard many arguments as to why so many of the same recordings on vinyl are better, from the medium itself to the lower DR, etc. Truth is, with the Select II, some of the original releases on redbook sound so superior to the latest and "best" remasters highrez being released with few exceptions. Even in the vinyl domain, we have re-release after re-release, which is a great way for all of us to part with more money and business as usual.

Newer recordings and not re-masters, where people are actually paying attention to the method of recording will, in my humble opinion, bring digital superiority to the forefront. Even if I am wrong, I don't care because there is something about listening to the Select II, from my chair, without the futzing around of other mediums that for me, individually, can't be beat.

Bingo! So does the MSB Select make those crappy digital recordings sound great or are they still bad recordings?

 

[a.wayne]

I get it and fully understand on both choice and $ being spent.

My philosophy on this stuff is similar to what DeNiro said in the movie Heat and I am paraphrasing, "never get too attached to anything that you aren't willing to walk away from in 30 seconds".

I understand people's unwillingness to spend 100k for digital and I also understand those like myself who are unwilling to ever go back to vinyl and spend similar if not more for the SOTA vinyl systems, that require pampering, cleaning, etc.

I understand people wanting to enjoy all that is out there, including vinyl, digital and tape.

There is no right or wrong for the individual as that is determined by the individual. I have read on forums where people have a bone up there ass because I or someone else spent and inordinate amount of money on some gear. I never understood why others are concerned how much others are willing to spend. I don't think one needs to spend what I or others do to find enjoyment and I will be the first to admit that sometimes I can just lounge with my Mojo with Audeze iLCD4s and just enjoy myself.

My biggest gripe with digital is how crappy the overwhelming majority of recordings are. I have heard many arguments as to why so many of the same recordings on vinyl are better, from the medium itself to the lower DR, etc. Truth is, with the Select II, some of the original releases on redbook sound so superior to the latest and "best" remasters highrez being released with few exceptions. Even in the vinyl domain, we have re-release after re-release, which is a great way for all of us to part with more money and business as usual.

Newer recordings and not re-masters, where people are actually paying attention to the method of recording will, in my humble opinion, bring digital superiority to the forefront. Even if I am wrong, I don't care because there is something about listening to the Select II, from my chair, without the futzing around of other mediums that for me, individually, can't be beat.

There's tons of crappy LP recordings too , far more than crappy digital recordings. IME redbook was always very good and always best from a CD player, never from streaming.



Regards

 

[FDPDK]

There's tons of crappy LP recordings too , far more than crappy digital recordings. IME redbook was always very good and always best from a CD player, never from streaming.



Regards

Well this is interesting as i do not agree , and of course its just what i have tried here in my setup so other may have different experiences.
But my Lumin T1 easily outclass my old Audia Flight CD one , maybe it was just not that good.. but i dont know .
Also the convenience of streaming from something like Tidal Hi-Fi as it works out like a kind of library as you probably now.
And for me safes me lot of money and space.
That said i would of course like to try out some exoteric or accuphase cd-players if i could do that.

 

[Priaptor]

Bingo! So does the MSB Select make those crappy digital recordings sound great or are they still bad recordings?

The point I am making is that in an era of "digital" it is easy to stamp out a recording with little regard to quality of the actual mastering. The Select II isn't going to make a bad recording sound good.

The other point I am making is that there are so many amazing redbook recordings from the early days of digital that have been dismissed as "low res digital" sounding "digital" leading to the re-mastering of "high res re-masters" which in many cases the high res are worse than the original cuts it's just that no DAC I know of was able to bring out all that redbook was capable of. It is on these recordings that the Select II shines. To me newer recordings being done primarily at high res when recorded well is where high res and DSD will shine on the Select II.

So in summary, a bad recording sucks no matter; however, the question is if it is really a bad recording. Redbook has been seen as a suboptimal media designated too often to sounding "digital" which is the polar opposite of the truth as the Select II illustrates. High res, IMHO, is best designated to record new material and despite high res, as the Select II demonstrates and as Sony claimed in the old days, redbook may indeed be the best format. We will see.

 

[Priaptor]

There's tons of crappy LP recordings too , far more than crappy digital recordings. IME redbook was always very good and always best from a CD player, never from streaming.



Regards

True BUT there is a difference. Crappy LP recordings have been tossed and are gone and lost forever more frequently than bad digital as digital lives on. I had thousands of LPs and now LPs are made much more sparingly than digital so there is a difference between the selection and quality process which lends itself to vinyl as being superior.

 

[mep]

The point I am making is that in an era of "digital" it is easy to stamp out a recording with little regard to quality of the actual mastering. The Select II isn't going to make a bad recording sound good.

The other point I am making is that there are so many amazing redbook recordings from the early days of digital that have been dismissed as "low res digital" sounding "digital" leading to the re-mastering of "high res re-masters" which in many cases the high res are worse than the original cuts it's just that no DAC I know of was able to bring out all that redbook was capable of. It is on these recordings that the Select II shines. To me newer recordings being done primarily at high res when recorded well is where high res and DSD will shine on the Select II.

So in summary, a bad recording sucks no matter; however, the question is if it is really a bad recording. Redbook has been seen as a suboptimal media designated too often to sounding "digital" which is the polar opposite of the truth as the Select II illustrates. High res, IMHO, is best designated to record new material and despite high res, as the Select II demonstrates and as Sony claimed in the old days, redbook may indeed be the best format. We will see.

You seem to be contradicting yourself with regards to digital. Your post above that I quoted you saying stated: "My biggest gripe with digital is how crappy the overwhelming majority of recordings are." That has now morphed into: "The other point I'm making is that there are so many amazing redbook recordings..." Are you saying that digital in general suffers from the overwhelming majority of recordings sounding crappy, but RBCD has more amazing recordings than bad ones?

 

[a.wayne]

Well this is interesting as i do not agree , and of course its just what i have tried here in my setup so other may have different experiences.
But my Lumin T1 easily outclass my old Audia Flight CD one , maybe it was just not that good.. but i dont know .
Also the convenience of streaming from something like Tidal Hi-Fi as it works out like a kind of library as you probably now.
And for me safes me lot of money and space.
That said i would of course like to try out some exoteric or accuphase cd-players if i could do that.

We used to do the comparison and this was true up to 2 yrs ago..

1. ABX and level match ,
2. CDP beats streaming/DAC when playing Redbook.
3. High rez beat Redbook by having less digital noise..


No3 was easy to ascertain, i could pick hi rez 10 out 0f 10 because of the noise ( grunge less of ) level vs Redbook 44/16.


It would be interesting to do again , CDP used at the time was dCS , DAC and streaming changes so often difficult to hold onto anything really ...



Regards ...

 

[Priaptor]

You seem to be contradicting yourself with regards to digital. Your post above that I quoted you saying stated: "My biggest gripe with digital is how crappy the overwhelming majority of recordings are." That has now morphed into: "The other point I'm making is that there are so many amazing redbook recordings..." Are you saying that digital in general suffers from the overwhelming majority of recordings sounding crappy, but RBCD has more amazing recordings than bad ones?

Two issues.

Crappy mastering. I can name tons and will sound like crap no matter what the media. Doesn’t mean the music sucks just a bad recording.

Then there is redbook specifically, long seen as a suboptimal media/recording resolution which just isn’t the case.

The point being there are just too many bad recordings out there. Yet on the other end some of the albums that have been released as “bad” were designated as such because few DACs do redbook justice.

Two separate issues.