Hello friends, i finally ordered a replacement stylus for my broken turntable cartridge and received it two weeks back from amazon global. This made sure I listened to vinyl after a span of around 3 years when my stylus broke down. I am listening to whatever small collection of records I have from last 2 weeks and I feel there are some interesting things it taught me coming over from digital medium. This is also the first time I played vinyl on my relatively new system.
Its not unknown that vinyl sound has a special quality and analog feel which people like. Using the same preamp, amp and speakers as I was using in digital playback, I found that sound with records is much fuller and free of any pressure on ears. That leads to a sense of satisfaction and virtually no continuous doctor like assessment of gear (that happens in digital playback more often) even though resoluton is lower and noisy. It led to a very important factor for me which i want to share, as to it made me understand kind of sound I should be targeting to get rid of the audio doctor inside me. Yes no digital medium can sound like vinyl but the experience gave me a target kind of sound to look for that satisfies my ears, and it also helped keeping amp and speakers out of the equation to solve.
Now i am not saying vinyl is wholly better than digital medium, it has its issues like clocks and pops, wear and tear and maintenance and costs. Does it sound better than digital? I cant say that is the situation always, but it does give me a sense of sound which I should be targetting to tune my digital playback. Generally it was found that digital media playback can sound stressed and hard to ears (even though I have a very good dac) which causes problems in my subconscious mind unknowingly. I highly suspect it maybe because of noisy electricity which affects digital hardware too much. All in all the experience has taught me what to expect from my system and a target sound to look for and eased the audio doctor inside me. Anyone who is in a constant tail chase to improve sound quality of his system, dont know what to target or tune (amps, speakers, cables , dacs etc) should borrow and try to listen to vinyl on his system, maybe it can help the mind to ease up and get a direction to solve the equation.
Its not unknown that vinyl sound has a special quality and analog feel which people like. Using the same preamp, amp and speakers as I was using in digital playback, I found that sound with records is much fuller and free of any pressure on ears. That leads to a sense of satisfaction and virtually no continuous doctor like assessment of gear (that happens in digital playback more often) even though resoluton is lower and noisy. It led to a very important factor for me which i want to share, as to it made me understand kind of sound I should be targeting to get rid of the audio doctor inside me. Yes no digital medium can sound like vinyl but the experience gave me a target kind of sound to look for that satisfies my ears, and it also helped keeping amp and speakers out of the equation to solve.
Now i am not saying vinyl is wholly better than digital medium, it has its issues like clocks and pops, wear and tear and maintenance and costs. Does it sound better than digital? I cant say that is the situation always, but it does give me a sense of sound which I should be targetting to tune my digital playback. Generally it was found that digital media playback can sound stressed and hard to ears (even though I have a very good dac) which causes problems in my subconscious mind unknowingly. I highly suspect it maybe because of noisy electricity which affects digital hardware too much. All in all the experience has taught me what to expect from my system and a target sound to look for and eased the audio doctor inside me. Anyone who is in a constant tail chase to improve sound quality of his system, dont know what to target or tune (amps, speakers, cables , dacs etc) should borrow and try to listen to vinyl on his system, maybe it can help the mind to ease up and get a direction to solve the equation.