From: DPierce@world.std.com (Richard D Pierce)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: CD vs. LP again
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:43:03 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

In article <1993Jan26.191547.5316@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> Thomas J.
Trebisky writes: 
>> ...  That's why people spend upwards of $25K for a turntable system,
>
>Are there actually people who spend this kind of money for a TURNTABLE ??!!
>What have they been smoking?? Get with it man, haul those LP's and that
>turntable to the dump!  I'm sorry, anyone who spends this kind of cash
>on a total system even, has lost all credibility with me, that's for sure.

You may have to be nuts to spend $25K on a turntable system, but your
ravings certainly mark you as the first in line when the loony bin hatch
opens. Let's see why:

>I got rid of my turntable and all my LP's years ago and no regrets from
>me.  I can start fresh and build a music collection with superior technology.

Fine, your preference, most of us have no complaints.

>Are these people actually serious about advocating LP's over CD's ?
>Do I need to clean the wax out of my ears?  They want the scratches and
>pops, the needle reaming their records smooth on every playing. 

Point 1: The physical evidence, as demonstrated adequately in the
professional journals, is that an appropriate turntable system, one orders
of magnitude under the $25K limit, is capable of playing vinyl record with
no permanent deformation. 

>Dragging a rock thru congealed petroleum, yeah, that's the technology for
>me! 

An interesting metaphor, if not wholly inaccurate, but amusing nonethless
in its child-like simplicity. And like many child-like metaphors, is wrong.

>They want the compressed dynamic range, a whole 30 minutes or whatever
>it is of music before you have to flip the thing over?  The wonders of
>RIAA equalization curves, low tracking weight tonearms skidding across
>your precious vinyl when some clod bumps your turntable.

The "wonders of the RIAA equalization curve?" I can only guess what you mean
by that. Are you complaining of the fact that the curve introduces phase
shift? Indeed it does. It happens to introduce precisely the opposite
phase shift added during recording. Frequency response errors? Ditto, just
exactly the opposite that made during recording. Frankly, the RIAA part is
among the easy parts, so what precisely is your problem here?

>I can't think of any reason to prefer LP's to CD's, except that some
>music has not been properly remastered for CD's and is available in a
>good LP -- or is not available at all on CD.  I think the LP heads are
>just hoplessly biased by shelf-fulls of LP's they don't want to admit
>are obsolete.  I have done my time with LP's and CD's both, the choice
>is clear to me.

Well, you started to make a perfectly valid case for LP's, the blew it. My
musical interests incorporate keyboards works running from the 15th to the
middle 17th century. I have several shelves of LPs. I also have several
shelves of CDs. Literally hundreds of each. There do not exist any CDs of
Michel Chapuis' performances of the Fugues and Caprices of Francois
Roberdais. No one has come out on CD with as definitive a performance of
Couperin's Livre de Clavecin. The current CD releases of the complete Bach
Organ works suck. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelink on CD?, not a lot around, sorry.

Now in just the Roberdais, the Couperin and the Sweelink alone, I have
about 32 LP's, but all of 3 CDs. Now scoff if you will at my particular
musical tastes, but it point out the deep validity of your point. Much of
the esoteric repetoire is simply not available, and may never be available
on CDs. Period

The LP medium is not perfect. Far from it. The LP reproduction technology
suffers from some fundamental insurmountable limitations for which there
is and, in all likelyhood, never will be a solution. But in all your
ill-informed, offhanded dismissal of the medium, you failed utterly in
making an assertion that has any hope of withstanding even the most casual
scrutiny.

On the same token, the CD medium is also less than perfect. One of its
major problems, which is not a technological issue, is the fact that it
completely ignores the vast majority of the musical literature. If you're
into Metallica or Bon Jovi or the well-worn classical War Horses and have
no interest in pursuing the more esoteric examples of music, then CD's
will suit you fine. Unfortunately, this stuff all sounds like bad elevator
nusic to me at this point. Any interest in delving more deeply into music
than this, you quickly hit a brick wall.

And, by the way, CDs also have technological limitations as well, as often
as not in the inadequacy of your playback equipment.

>This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire
>civilized world.  Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of

You should also learn to use your news poster properly.


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