Digital filters
My CD player, come DAC, is a good one. It has several digital filters: optimum, transient etc. I tried all the filters and could not hear any difference. I wonder what they are there for other than to look good. If you read audio forums about this, then you will see people going on about the pros and cons of digital filters; which to me seems like a waste of time.
Tone controls on the amplifier
My current amplifier does not have tone controls, some audiophiles claim that they create noise and are not necessary. But in some circumstances I miss them. Sometimes I play the audio of film DVDs through my HIFI system. One night I played the film "Gravity", the sound effects were too strong for bass, so much so that I felt uncomfortable and so did my wife. However, without tone controls I had to revert to my TV speakers to reduce the bass. Even, though I have no tone controls on my amplifier, I do not feel the need to buy a graphic equaliser. Do not believe for one minute that tone controls introduce audible electronic noise into an amplifier circuitry, as I have never heard it on my previous amplifiers that always had tone controls. Modern amplifiers are good a filtering out all all sorts of noise such as mains hum, tone control hum etc. there is no need for HIFI magazines and HIFI forum enthusiasts to go on about this.
Digital Jitter
Jitter is caused by errors in digital playback and recording, which cause timing errors and distortion of the music. Modern technology overcomes this. I have never heard this in any of the digital equipment I use, cheap or expensive. I never hear jitter from my television. There is no need to buy super expensive equipment to eliminate jitter which you can't hear.
The tactic is to suggest that jitter is a real problem for you, but here is an expensive way of fixing it. The cosmetic industry uses this tactic for wrinkles. Make up can cover wrinkles but it cannot eliminate them, everyone gets old eventually including audiophiles.
Anti-skate
Anti-skate is a condition of vinyl-record playback where the stylus and cartridge have a tendency to skate across the record towards the turntable spindle. If you look at You tube you will see plenty of demonstrations of this using blank LP records or CDs. There will also be lots of gobbledegook and pseudoscience.
According to some audiophiles anti-skate needs to set up using, little weights or springs attached to tone arms. The weights etc. counteract the skating effect which drives the stylus towards the inside of the record. Audiophiles claim that skating forces cause mis-tracking, extra distortion, uneven channel sound reproduction, extra wear on the stylus and damage to the vinyl. I don't use anti-skating and I have never heard extra distortion or unbalanced channel separation. All vinyl records have built in distortion. Only once in recent times has my stylus jumped out of the groove, but this was caused by static electricity attracting a lot of fluff from the atmosphere. The record played effectively after the removal of the dust and fluff.
I always thought that to play an LP record the stylus had to freely move towards the spindle of the turntable so why try prevent this from happening with counteracting forces.
If you have problems with stylus wear and vinyl record wear then there is a solution, and that is to buy a digital version of the music. Most digital records other than pop music do not suffer from the loudness war. You could then reserve your vinyl records for playing on special occasions. The same applies to distortion as a well recorded CD won't have any.
I have records from the early 60's and 70's which still play well even though they have been played umpteen times without anti-skating. Anti-skating became a fad in the mid-seventies, but some tone arm and turntable manufacturers still do not make provision for anti-skating, and their turntables and tone arms work perfectly well.
If you insist that vinyl playing is de rigueur then you have to accept that the whole system is flawed. There is no perfect deck set up and no perfect LP. I love playing LP records but I accept their limitations and I would never make the false claim that vinyl record music reproduction is superior to a well recorded CD or lossless digital download.
No comments:
Post a Comment