In this month's issue, Art Dudley takes quite a spin on how LP is "better" than digital. Sounding ? Maybe - but most of the piece was defending LP's mechanical playback !
First, AD mentions how CDs "delaminate". Well - copy to CDR and then again, every 5 years. Or right to a memory stick. Just don't store (any) disc in the sun or high heat - cool, dry places will do...
Then, to omit LPs playback problems was almost laughable. I'll quote Steve Nugent - engineer and owner of Empirical Audio (from interview at AudioStream):
"LP has intrinsic limitations with dynamic range, L/R channel crossover distortion, equalization curves, wow and flutter. These limitations are a result of a single stylus for 2 channels, the physics of the mass of the cartridge and stylus, the imperfect "cut" in the vinyl and the rotating platter. There are too many moving parts that are not ideal".
Needless to say, it cost a fortune to battle these problems. And yes, there is progress - but it's always WAY beyond the reach of the typical listener. Even with software - the best record cleaners cost a cool $4000.
What gets me was Art's unknowing (or caring) in the advances of digital playback. With hardware, not the newly available hi-rez signals. Anyone that hears a well-made music server piped through a cutting-edge DAC (like EMMs, Bricasti or Empiricals) would not say that "LP is better". At least with a turntable up to 30K...
There are even no-DAC ideas like the NAD M2/390DD or Lyngdorf Millennium - all of which convert to analog at the switching output (of their units).
Art said in 2010 (in one of his reviews) that most modern turntables are "soulless and uninvolving". Almost no-one would have said that, at the time - given the great advance record players made from the mid-1980s-on.
Now he's one the *very* few to defend the mechanical nature of LP -
In this month's issue, Art Dudley takes quite a spin on how LP is "better" than digital. Sounding ? Maybe - but most of the piece was defending LP's mechanical playback !
First, AD mentions how CDs "delaminate". Well - copy to CDR and then again, every 5 years. Or right to a memory stick. Just don't store (any) disc in the sun or high heat - cool, dry places will do...
Then, to omit LPs playback problems was almost laughable. I'll quote Steve Nugent - engineer and owner of Empirical Audio (from interview at AudioStream):
"LP has intrinsic limitations with dynamic range, L/R channel crossover distortion, equalization curves, wow and flutter. These limitations are a result of a single stylus for 2 channels, the physics of the mass of the cartridge and stylus, the imperfect "cut" in the vinyl and the rotating platter. There are too many moving parts that are not ideal".
Needless to say, it cost a fortune to battle these problems. And yes, there is progress - but it's always WAY beyond the reach of the typical listener. Even with software - the best record cleaners cost a cool $4000.
What gets me was Art's unknowing (or caring) in the advances of digital playback. With hardware, not the newly available hi-rez signals. Anyone that hears a well-made music server piped through a cutting-edge DAC (like EMMs, Bricasti or Empiricals) would not say that "LP is better". At least with a turntable up to 30K...
There are even no-DAC ideas like the NAD M2/390DD or Lyngdorf Millennium - all of which convert to analog at the switching output (of their units).
Art said in 2010 (in one of his reviews) that most modern turntables are "soulless and uninvolving". Almost no-one would have said that, at the time - given the great advance record players made from the mid-1980s-on.
Now he's one the *very* few to defend the mechanical nature of LP -