there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

I've owned thousands of CDs and never broke one. What are you doing with them?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing,

Seconding this ^^^ I also have thousands of them and can't understand how you can break them unless you're incredibly clumsy.

I'm agnostic on jewel cases, but one advantage of them is that you can completely replace the case if it cracks, breaks etc.

This is the only CD that's ever fully broken on me. Not unusual for this design. I ripped it in about 2005 but I can't find the files...

https://img.discogs.com/gSWK7TqWXpgxMu48NbZCWymqc60=/fit-in/600x528/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-648-1197113402.jpeg.jpg

o yah those are infamous for actually breaking

All the metal case CR albums would eventually crack the CD because the case center was made of stronger stuff than the plastic

since I started listening with a critical ear for SQ and comparing formats, I'm noticing that a lot of imperfections are actually baked into the source recording

In the early days of the format there was some standard text on just about all CDs that passively aggressively reminded the consumer of this.

Nice thing about CDs these days if you have a computer and an optical drive is you can get high end digital to analog conversion from prosumer audio interfaces not costing much more than £100.

see also: Dragonfly

Nice thing about CDs these days if you have a computer and an optical drive is you can get high end digital to analog conversion from prosumer audio interfaces not costing much more than £100.

Oh, this is def what I do with CDs (or decent digital files, which I mostly put in a similar category). But I just use a Pro-Ject Essentials II turntable for home listening. It cost much much less than $5k and sounds v good to me. A lot of folk, jazz, and old rock is very satisfying with the vinyl warmth imo. I really like Band of Gypsys in that format, for example. Some recent LPs that sound good to me are Sarah Louise's Field Guide, Battle Trance's Blade of Love (I have it in HQ digital and LP and sometimes enjoy the warmth of the LP), Sonoluminescence Trio + 1 - Live at the Record Centre.

I think Swan's The Seer is better digital, it's just entirely too long for vinyl, and changing the records is a pain.

very otm, I can't stand it when long tracks are split on vinyl

A lot of it depends on how good your vinyl setup (which requires TT, cartridge, and phonostage) v your CD player.

I have 3 Todd Rundgren albums which definitely do not sound very good on vinyl: A Wizard, A True Star, Initiation, and the first Utopia album. all of them are around an hour long (Initiation is 67 minutes long, surely one of the longest single LPs ever?) and you can definitely hear the degradation, particularly as you get towards the center of the record. CD versions of all these sound pretty good though.

(Initiation is 67 minutes long, surely one of the longest single LPs ever?

!!!! single album? I had no idea that was even possible, that's 20 mins over the recommended max, crazy

i bet it sounds like shit!

Initiation has that 30+ minute song on it, no?

"A Treatise On Cosmic Fire" 36:00

Wow.

I bet if you just grazed the surface with a fingernail you'd make a skippable scratch.

admittedly it's so strange that the poor sound quality isn't as noticeable. its more of an issue on Side 2 of AWATS, particularly "Is It My Name?" and "Just One Victory". its amusing how Todd's response to this was "yeah you've just gotta turn the volume up some"

ha, yeah making mixtapes with AWATS was funny because you had to turn the input level wayyyyy up

I'm actually kinda surprised that AWATS hasn't come out in some deluxe 2x LP configuration considering how iconic an album it is

amusingly Initiation is actually a minute longer than Todd (his prior LP), which was a double

XPS Isn't there a late vinyl-era Cure album with a notice like that re: length and mastering volume?

Friday music did a 2lp reissue of Wizard

well I'll be damned, there is

I wonder how it sounds. I don't really wanna pay $30 to find out

Side 1 of E2-E4 is 31 minutes and the whole thing is continuous. I'm sure there are records that are quite a bit longer but not too many that are supposed to somewhat full frequency range and dynamic. Never heard an original but an old Spalax reissue doesn't sound too bad.

The Cure’s Disintegration has a note saying it was mixed to be played loud, but that was on all formats. The OG vinyl does indeed sound shit though - well mostly Fascination St is a mess of inner groove distortion at the end of side 1, side 2 is just about bearable. And that’s with two songs lopped off the track listing! I can only think that after their previous 2LP the record company baulked at following it up with another (esp as they were legendarily unimpressed upon hearing the record.

In fact if we are talking original pressings then in my experience Head On The Door, KM3 and Disintegration all sounded way better on CD. I’m sure the reissues are an improvement tho.

what length does a side have to be before inner groove distortion becomes noticeable? I've only really noticed it on those Todd LPs. though I've heard that they deliberately put quieter/less dynamic songs at the end of a side to mitigate this.

I dunno, I always thought about 24 minutes was proper max LP side length. In my experience older LPs with shorter sides often better sustain surface damage, as the grooves are cut deeper (?)

I've got a copy of Arvo Part's Miserere on vinyl and side one is 34:44 - it sounds pretty terrible, weird that ECM would even bother with this in 1991 when CDs were pretty established.

Vinyl On Demand has done flawless pressings of 32-34 minute LP sides fwiw, but it requires fairly rigorous quality control

don't know what thread to post this in so I'm just picking this one

if your turntable has a preamp, does it matter which source you plug it into? I was playing a Dan Deacon record and during one of the more insane bits I noticed a ton of distortion, most of which went away when I switched from CD to AUX. but a few of my LPs still sound a bit distorted in the bass frequencies - dunno if they're bad pressings or if something's not quite right there. it's definitely not there when I switch it to just playing off an iPod, though the vinyl sounds better overall in spite of that. is there a specific setting optimized for modern turntables, a setting that old receivers may not have?

sounds like aux is the right input. is the turntable grounded?

also if the preamp has a mm or mc setting make sure that's right. patch chords are in tight, etc.

mine is internally grounded, I don't hear any hum or static

one thing I'm a bit curious about is the fact that it's a straight-arm turntable - a Stanton STR8-80 if you're curious (they don't make 'em anymore). I think this was made for DJing (which I haven't done in a long time) but I've heard that the inner-groove distortion can be pronounced on these. indeed, on some (but not all) records the last track of the side sounds a bit off. I've been thinking about getting something new but I don't know if the difference is going to be worth the cash...anyone knowledgeable on such matters?

ahh I also see that there's a Phono/Line switch under the slipmat, I'll try it on the Phono setting and see if it makes a difference, though I suspect it doesn't

i had the exact same issue with my turntable. i switched to a cartridge with a micro-linear stylus (AT VM95-ML in my case) and it made all the difference.
night and day. it's possible that the same effect could be achieved by tweaking all those tweakable things that turntables have, but 1) i am relatively inept, and 2) my turntable doesn't have most of those tweakable adjustments, like VTA etc.

i mean inner groove distortion btw.

yeah phono into aux and you'll probably barely hear any volume. i think you want line into aux.

my receiver has a Phono setting as well, which obviously I can't use with line, but maybe the preamp in the receiver is better than the one on the turntable

try 'em both and see which one you like more. maybe the distortion problem goes away with one of them.

re:any non-phono inputs on your amp / receiver, those are all just line-level. they are labeled "CD" and "AUX" for your convenience only. any differences you hear are most likely a problem with the cords / jacks or possibly something internal on your receiver.

if you're feeling like upgrading your turntable i'd say you could do much better than one of those stantons for a pretty reasonable price; that said, i wouldn't focus too much on the shape of the tonearm because imo those are discussions that really only start to matter at a price point that is well beyond what normal people would ever pay for a turntable (and most "audiophile" turntables are made with straigth arms these days anyway).

you can try to re-align your cartridge yourself if you feel like it's going out of whack by the end of the records -- if it's that bad then even eyeballing it should be an improvement!

whooops xps i guess

i my case i used a tool called templategen and aligned my elliptical stylus until it couldn't be more perfect, and still got inner groove distortion. when i switched to the micro-linear stylus, it all went away.

in my case...

i mean, turntable alignment for me is a question of geometry. your needle is on a pivot and at some points during playback it is going to line up with the groove better than others. you can mitigate this with a small screwdriver and your eyeballs. when it comes to the other stuff i confess i don't understand quite as much what's going on to solve the problem.

is the idea that a more sensitive stylus isn't going to be as susceptible to friction created by the angle of the tonearm?

nvm i can just look into this myself. but feel free to talk about it here if you're inclined!

i was originally swayed toward the audio technica cartridge, embarrassingly enough, by this post on the hoffman forum:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/praise-for-the-at-vm95ml.938864/

but i think the basic idea is that the line contact stylus has a much smaller footprint and thus tracks the grooves better.

this stereophile column also has some nice words about that cart:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-44-audio-technica-goldring-lp-gear-phono-cartridges

of course the punchline of that stereophile article -- and the reason he doesn't hear inner groove distortion with *any* of those cheapie cartridges -- is that he's mounting them on a $9000 turntable that's tuned to perfection. but still.

so what's the difference between the AT-VM95E and the AT-VM95-ML? besides about a hundred bucks, that is

and will they be any better than the one I've got now?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0735LYRRT/ref=pe_825000_114657650_TE_item

I guess I'm willing to dump a hundo or so if it will really make a difference, but I'm afraid I won't be able to tell the difference

looks like yours has a spherical (conical) stylus, or at least that's what it says on the questions and answers section of that amazon page. the AT-VM95E is elliptical. the AT-VM95-ML is micro linear. they're all different stylus shapes. that stereophile article i linked to has nice blow-ups of the different shapes. i believe the ML has the smallest footprint, and in my experience it is best at eliminating inner groove distortion, at least in the low-end world that i inhabit. like i said, those with magnificent multi-thousand dollar turntables can probably tweak their system so that all of them sound great.