OT: Selling old CDs???

[old_fat_and_slow]

Originally Posted by djg21

I have a wife. That only worked for 20 years. Then I was told to clear out the closet.

I hope you returned the favor and told her to clean out her shoe closet !

[pasadena]

I'm no expert.
I'm not responding to where the sound is coming from, but the quality of the sound.

I don't know anything about the vacuum tubes or what they do, except they use up a lot of electricity.
The system does sound amazing, no matter what you play. He's not into fake mixes or anything. He's also changing the equipment all the time so it's hard to keep up.
However, everything he has is that super high end stuff that you don't just buy from a catalog. It's a mix of old stuff, and I don't know what. Pretty crazy looking equipment.
I remember he had a record needle that cost $300 or something crazy. Just the needle.

Originally Posted by benb

This stuff is often total fakery whether it's on LP or CD.

You hear the really good audiophile system and it sounds like the drummer is in the back and the guitarist is on the left and the bassist is on the right and the singer is in the middle.

There's absolutely zero guarantee what you hear is realistic. The engineer can swap their positions around in what you hear. And they might not have even all played together at the same time. Every one of the sub-tracks likely had EQ and compression on it and they played tricks to hide all the noise. If you're there when it's recorded it won't sound like the record.

Same thing with warmth in LPs and Tube amps.. that's EQ, it can be heavily manipulated, but the EQ on a hi-fi system is rarely anywhere sophisticated enough to EQ a CD to sound like an LP.

A Hi-Fi vacuum tube amp/pre-amp might be designed to be slightly warm if the designer assumes it's getting mastered recordings pumped into it. But a guitar vacuum tube amp is designed to not be warm because it has to compensate for the inherent warmth of the pickups in guitars.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by pasadena

... unrecognizable everything. I didn't know the name of any component in his system including the cd player.

That's the holy grail of audiophiles; having equipment with names that the guy off the street has never heard of. Makes the audiophile seem like they know what they're talking about.

Bonus points if the audiophile's audiophile friends have never heard of it, either. Makes the audiophile friends feel uneducated, and the audiophile feel superior!

[reuben]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

That's the holy grail of audiophiles; having equipment with names that the guy off the street has never heard of. Makes the audiophile seem like they know what they're talking about.

Bonus points if the audiophile's audiophile friends have never heard of it, either. Makes the audiophile friends feel uneducated, and the audiophile feel superior!

Carbon fiber tonearm, slammed needle...

[happycampyer]

So you’re saying my LaserDiscs aren’t worth much, either?

[pasadena]

Cutting down other people's friends because they have a niche hobby...in a niche hobby forum. Hypocrisy is so weird.

He's a great friend with an interesting hobby, he doesn't even talk about. He likes to listen to music. *** is so superior about that. Not a question.

Originally Posted by Peter P.

That's the holy grail of audiophiles; having equipment with names that the guy off the street has never heard of. Makes the audiophile seem like they know what they're talking about.

Bonus points if the audiophile's audiophile friends have never heard of it, either. Makes the audiophile friends feel uneducated, and the audiophile feel superior!

[Toeclips]

Wow how did I miss out on this shin dig

I have about two thousand cd's and I've ripped most of them into my computer and then transferred them to flashdrives

I rip everything into wave files and they sound great

I love random play and my cd player recognizes my flash drive I can listen to weeks on end with out a repeat track

I also listen to radio, locally wtmd and from philly wxpn
Wxpn plays my cd collection

I also stream a station called psychedelicized, an internet site that plays obscure music

There are songs and tracks that I can't find on YouTube and if I do find a track I like, the song will be from a concert recorded on a cell phone

Lastly I go to a lot of shows, precovid of course, and musicians love it when you ask for them to sign your cd

I just can't get rid of CD's signed by los lobos, johnny winter, nrbq...the list goes on

I love my music and it takes me away from life's curve balls

[rounder]

Cool. We live in Bel Air and also listen to wxpn and wtmd.

[barnabyjones]

Originally Posted by pasadena

I'm no expert.
I'm not responding to where the sound is coming from, but the quality of the sound.

I don't know anything about the vacuum tubes or what they do, except they use up a lot of electricity.
The system does sound amazing, no matter what you play. He's not into fake mixes or anything. He's also changing the equipment all the time so it's hard to keep up.
However, everything he has is that super high end stuff that you don't just buy from a catalog. It's a mix of old stuff, and I don't know what. Pretty crazy looking equipment.
I remember he had a record needle that cost $300 or something crazy. Just the needle.

I think benb is speaking to bias in the sense that it exists in everyone, hyper enthusiasts included. Your friend has a preference for certain sound imaging and his equipment reflects that preference. So, it's likely his choice of equipment allows for a superior subjective experience of LPs over CDs. it's kind of like air pressure in tires. Higher is faster but not better.

[dgauthier]

Originally Posted by pasadena

I'm no expert.
I'm not responding to where the sound is coming from, but the quality of the sound. (...)

You don't have to be an expert. Just trust your ears. If it sounds fantastic, that's all that matters.

[benb]

Originally Posted by barnabyjones

I think benb is speaking to bias in the sense that it exists in everyone, hyper enthusiasts included. Your friend has a preference for certain sound imaging and his equipment reflects that preference. So, it's likely his choice of equipment allows for a superior subjective experience of LPs over CDs. it's kind of like air pressure in tires. Higher is faster but not better.

More just that the whole audiophile quest is about reaching for something that's fake to begin with.

The recordings basically always sound way cleaner and more synthetic than actually being there, and they never duplicate how different stuff sounds in different spots in the room where the recording was made. If you walked from one side of the stage to the other in front of an orchestra it will sound dramatically different in a way no audiophile system can duplicate and the same is true of a regular/small band with modern electronics. A lot of the instruments do not produce sound the same way a stereo system does, and then there are all kinds of directionality issues with the different instruments.

That said.. I think all the imaging stuff is accessible at much lower total costs if you have the room setup well. And headphones do that fantastically (arguably better but only for one person) at low cost as well.

LOL some of my favorite recordings are the ones where you can hear real stuff that you usually aren't supposed to hear. Glenn Gould sniffing & humming, or being able to pick up someone's guitar action being screwed up and you can hear a string buzzing.

[C40_guy]

Originally Posted by dgauthier

You don't have to be an expert. Just trust your ears. If it sounds fantastic, that's all that matters.

Most audiophiles don't do double blind tests to compare speaker wire, or even speakers. They (we) do back to back auditions with time lags in between and different volume settings, equipment location, etc. Identical volume setting for A/B testing is actually really difficult to get right, and louder always sounds better.

Then there's the subjective...this speaker wire costs $12/foot, so it must be better, or the action of the volume control feels better on this pre-amp, or the weird tweeter on the top of the B&W speaker must be doing something, or aren't planar loudspeakers faster?

[benb]

Louder is better is a big one.

It seems like a lot of gear even changes EQ as the volume goes up, though some of that is the way our ears work. We have lowered sensitivity to highs and lows and so they "fill in" as the overall volume goes up.

[GOTHBROOKS]

it was proven years ago that monster cables were a sham.

[C40_guy]

Originally Posted by GOTHBROOKS

it was proven years ago that monster cables were a sham.

So were skinny, high pressure road tires, but we still use them.