Well, today I made my way over to the record store. After all, I simply don't have enough albums. Don't believe me? Just ask my wife, she'll tell you. When I get to a record store I always have a checklist in my mind of records that I am looking for. They start with records that I have been looking for for a long time that I don't own. Then I am looking for records that will replace ones that are "worn out" or that the pressing just didn't sound very good. After that, I am just looking for something that looks interesting or that I had heard about but never picked up.
So today's trip was to Tom's Music Trade over in Red Lion, PA. I love that place and Tom is easily one of the nicest guys that you will ever meet. Wanna talk vinyl, this is the mecca of vinyl. Back in high school I lived in Virginia and frequented a place called Penguin Feather. It was a really great place to hang out, buy records, listen to records and well heck, just talk about records. Tom's Music Trade is just like that. He has thousands of records on the floor but I would guess he probably has that many over again in stock that he doesn't have the space to show. I have gone to some record shops and they may have a couple of thousand records but they never have anything new on the floor. Tom is always looking for more records. He is a real record store.
Anyway, enough of the free plug. So I had 2 targets on my list today and maybe 5 others that were I'd like to have if I find them but since a few of them I haven't found in years I wasn't holding my breath.
I have been looking for a replacement for my Bruce Springsteen The River album for years and while they are actually out there and for the most part readily available, because it was such a popular record and was often handled by kids, most of the copies that are available are really worn and not worth the few bucks that people are asking. Well less than 2 minutes into my perusal of the record bins what do I find? Bruce Springsteen's The River, new, unopened first pressing. WOW! Successful trip! I couldn't believe my luck so I am thinking okay I probably won't find anything else that I am looking for. So then I think, well I am looking for Genesis' Wind & Wuthering and Selling England By The Pound. What are the chances that I can find both in good shape if at all. After all, both were released when Genesis was a real progressive band before there pop years; which I think they were brilliant as a pop band too, I just prefer their progressive rock years. I would have been happy to find just one. I bought a copy of Selling England By The Pound several years ago and it was an ok buy but the record had been handled quite a bit and you could tell. So, to my absolute delight I found both! I paid $12 for just Selling England By The Pound a few years ago but today I picked up both for a grand total of $5. I was thinking, oh boy. These are going to sound like I'm playing a pizza on my turntable. NOPE! Both are clean and good copies! Life is good. Surely I won't find anything else that I have been looking for right? WRONG!
I am a closet Pete Townsend fan, I think his song writing is brilliant and his musicianship speaks for itself. One of my top albums of all time is White City, he was pure genius on that record. So I have a CD of his All Of The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. I love this CD because of how different it is. I mean it is a lot different than everything else he has done before. It is far more pop like. It is also a CD that I can listen to start to finish not get tired of. So I always wanted the album but I have never found it anywhere. Well, Tom had it (of course) for the whopping price of a buck. Again, I am thinking a dollar record when I haven't been able to find it anywhere else, it is going to sound awful! Nope, sounds EXCELLENT! Once again, Tom is golden.
So now I am ready to head out and I get to thinking, my copy of the Moody Blues Days of Future Past is a bit worn. Wonder if there is a better copy than I have. So, not to be disappointed there it was and for $2. I know that he is making money at what he is doing, not sure how because his prices are so low but heck, he seems to be doing ok. Oh, and I put it on the turntable and it sounds great! Once again.
So I have saved the best of my finds for last. For this one we have to go back to 1971. That was the year that one of my top 3 favorite records was released. That was the year that the new band called Wings formed and released their debut album called Wild Life. It was panned by much of the musical establishment. I don't see how they didn't like it then because here we are 40 years later and I still think it is pure musical genius, and here is the brilliance of not only Paul McCartney but the whole band. 5 of the 8 songs were done on the first take. It was recorded live in the studio with the best recording engineer to ever grace a studio: none other than Alan Parsons. He put the magic in to the Dark Side of the Moon and I think that he breathed life into Wild Life. My dad bought Wild Life for me and it was probably the 5th record that I had ever owned. Somewhere over time it went missing; until today. I have been sad for probably 20 years that I didn't have that record and every record store that I go into I always take a peek to see if they have it. So, the record that I have coveted for the past 20 years or so I picked up today for whopping grand total of $3. I will admit that I came home, went straight to the turntable, put it on and just listened, twice. I think that I may have to take another listen later, a few more times. It was Wings at their best and probably least commercial. How can anyone not listen and marvel at the songwriting? From the first beat of Mumbo you hear the heart of the Beatles. and Bip Bop sounds like something that could have been recorded in a barn at the end of a dirt road in 1920's Alabama. Alan Parsons captured the essence of the song and dirtied it up as only he could. Love Is Strange is one of the coolest swinging grooves of that era or well actually, any era. Danny Seiwell laid down one of the coolest and funkiest grooves to what is in my opinion one of the songs that is probably one of the toughest to cover because everyone expects to hear Mickey & Sylvia's kind of easy beat. Denny is far to funky for that and thank heavens for that! The harmonies on this song are also classic Wings and when you listen to all of their albums it is a hallmark of their brand. That said, this song was recorded in just one take. Listen to that song with everything going on in it and you will instantly see why I call it one of the 3 best albums I have ever owned. My dad once said to me, Kevin (because that is my name) you can listen to this record and hear the difference between John Lennon's wife and Paul McCarney's wife. Linda has talent, Yoko has none. I challenge everyone to prove me wrong. Linda was such a strong presence on this record with not just her abilities on keyboards but also her backing vocals. She doesn't sound like a cat in heat (like Yoko), she just sounds hot. Dear Friend is in my opinion the greatest song to end an album. When I listen to that song, it really sums up the band. Wings was just a bunch of friends having a lot of fun. This song outlines enduring great friendships.
I guess to round out my trip to the record store I had to pick up an album that is universally loved. James Taylor's JT called my name as I walked passed it. I have the record but I bought it in a used bin many many years ago. It was in pretty heinous shape then and I have never really played it which is a shame because I really love that album. I saw it today for a dollar and picked it up. It is in far better condition than the one that I had so I am very happy about that. It isn't in perfect condition but after a really good cleaning I can play it and be quite satisfied with my $1 purchase.
So, my trip to the record store today far exceeded my expectations. If you can't tell, I love Tom's Music Trade. If you are in the south Central PA, Northern Maryland area please check out his store. You will not be disappointed. If you are outside of our area, he is on the web at www.tomesmusictrade.com. If you have a record that you are really looking hard for give him a call. He will take a look to see if he has it, 717-246-5712. Finding quality record dealers that truly understand records is so hard to find. Lots of people sell them few can actually talk about them. Tom can.
Showing posts with label pink floyd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pink floyd. Show all posts
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
So I have to settle an argument.
While extolling the virtues of vinyl over CD a friend of mine sent me a message on my facebook page saying that there was no way that a record could sound better than a CD. The CD is so much cleaner and it doesn't wear out over time. The music is more dynamic he says. REALLY? Well on 2 of those points I will concede, they are cleaner sounding. In quiet passages on a CD you hear nothing and I mean nothing. But, what if in those quiet passages you are supposed to hear something, maybe a singer taking a very dramatic soft breath or soft resonances of a guitar string that softly decays into the next note? Sure if you don't take care of your vinyl you may also have some unwanted hiss from dust but keep them clean and take care of the needle on your cartridge and that problem isn't such a problem. He is right, records do wear out, that is a point I can't argue but the reality is that it takes thousands of plays for a record to wear out and I have indeed worn out records, few but I have worn some out. That brings us to his point of CDs being more dynamic. I scoff at this because simple physics tells us that this is impossible and the human ear can attest to it.
Now, about this dynamic thing. Let us first take a look at the facts of a CD. A digital signal chops up an analog signal into parts at 44,100 times per second. It looks at each part to make sure that everything is the same. CDs use 16 bit so each of those digital chops has to be one out of 65,536 (simple math here). So that right there tells us that a digital recording isn't actually capturing the sound wave as originally played. Don't believe me? Listen to Pink Floyd's Time and take a listen to the drums on vinyl then the CD, you would be hard pressed to think that the CD is capturing the full tone of the drums. Listen to Spyro Gyro's Morning Dance, same thing. You lose so much of the steel drum that all you are left with is a high pitched mass of mess. The vinyl recording you can hear the tone of the steel drum and the decay of each note but I digress.
A vinyl record is different, very different. Each groove on a record is cut as an exact wave form of the original sound wave from the instrument or vocal. If the microphone can pick it up it is cut into the original wax recording. There is no chopping of the signal at all. One thing that people often say when listening to vinyl after not hearing it for many years is how much more lifelike the music sounds. How much fuller the tone is and how much more natural the bass is. It is because the signal isn't being compared to a bit rate, the turntable is simply reproducing the note as the original wave form was recorded.
DVD actually is getting closer to almost half of what music actually sounds like and well, it is a step in the right direction but even at 24 bit and a sampling rate of 193kHz it is still very very far off. If you do the simple math, that is about 16,777,216 tiny little chops of information. Still not really close to the actual sound wave.
In the end, it comes down to whether you want your music exactly as it was recorded or if you are satisfied with something close. I prefer mine as recorded and apparently a lot of bands and musicians like their music as close to the original recording as well as more and more are releasing their new music on vinyl again. Death Cab For Cutie, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Matt Costa, the Cars and Forever The Sickest Kids have recently released their new albums on vinyl. Turntables, cartridges and needles haven't changed much in the past 50 years or so but the means by which bands master their music in the studio have and some of those changes do make a record sound more dynamic. People laugh at me but I say that John Mayer's Room For Squares is one of the best sounding records that I have ever bought. The bass on that record at lower volumes vibrates things on my desk across the room, you can actually hear the sweet decay each time the drummer hits his hi hat, you can actually hear the tone in each of the guitar strings and you can hear every breath that he takes before he sings. Almost all of that is lost on CD, I know, I've played one over the other switching back and forth between CD and vinyl. I'll offer this. Play Why Georgia and pay particular attention to the acoustic guitar. Can you hear the woody resonance sound of the body of the guitar at the same time as hearing the tone in the strings? Can you hear bass guitar coupling with the bass drum as separate instruments or does it sound like the bass drum and bass guitar are the same. These are the details that are lost in the age of digital. Compression is well, compressing the music and compression is never a good thing.
So that is my explanation of the difference between a CD and vinyl. Oh, and don't even get me started on downloads.
Here are some new records that I think are worth the money.
John Mayer - No Room For Squares (every record collection should have this for the pure dynamics)
Matt Costa - Songs We Sing
The Cars - Move Like This
Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys
Stereophonic - Decade In The Sun
Beck - Guerolito
G. Love - Fixin To Die
Forever The Sickest Kids - Forever The Sickest Kids (This record will shake your house apart!)
Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What. (of course if you are Paul Simon with limitless resources you will be able to make the best sounding vinyl. This album is a must!)
Rufus Wainwright - All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu
R.E.M. - Chronic Town
Force Family 5 - Dance or Die (my daughter came home from the Creation Festival with this one and while I'm not a big fan of the band itself, just not by style of music. The record is recorded as well as any that I have heard in a long time.)
So there ya go!
Now, about this dynamic thing. Let us first take a look at the facts of a CD. A digital signal chops up an analog signal into parts at 44,100 times per second. It looks at each part to make sure that everything is the same. CDs use 16 bit so each of those digital chops has to be one out of 65,536 (simple math here). So that right there tells us that a digital recording isn't actually capturing the sound wave as originally played. Don't believe me? Listen to Pink Floyd's Time and take a listen to the drums on vinyl then the CD, you would be hard pressed to think that the CD is capturing the full tone of the drums. Listen to Spyro Gyro's Morning Dance, same thing. You lose so much of the steel drum that all you are left with is a high pitched mass of mess. The vinyl recording you can hear the tone of the steel drum and the decay of each note but I digress.
A vinyl record is different, very different. Each groove on a record is cut as an exact wave form of the original sound wave from the instrument or vocal. If the microphone can pick it up it is cut into the original wax recording. There is no chopping of the signal at all. One thing that people often say when listening to vinyl after not hearing it for many years is how much more lifelike the music sounds. How much fuller the tone is and how much more natural the bass is. It is because the signal isn't being compared to a bit rate, the turntable is simply reproducing the note as the original wave form was recorded.
DVD actually is getting closer to almost half of what music actually sounds like and well, it is a step in the right direction but even at 24 bit and a sampling rate of 193kHz it is still very very far off. If you do the simple math, that is about 16,777,216 tiny little chops of information. Still not really close to the actual sound wave.
In the end, it comes down to whether you want your music exactly as it was recorded or if you are satisfied with something close. I prefer mine as recorded and apparently a lot of bands and musicians like their music as close to the original recording as well as more and more are releasing their new music on vinyl again. Death Cab For Cutie, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Matt Costa, the Cars and Forever The Sickest Kids have recently released their new albums on vinyl. Turntables, cartridges and needles haven't changed much in the past 50 years or so but the means by which bands master their music in the studio have and some of those changes do make a record sound more dynamic. People laugh at me but I say that John Mayer's Room For Squares is one of the best sounding records that I have ever bought. The bass on that record at lower volumes vibrates things on my desk across the room, you can actually hear the sweet decay each time the drummer hits his hi hat, you can actually hear the tone in each of the guitar strings and you can hear every breath that he takes before he sings. Almost all of that is lost on CD, I know, I've played one over the other switching back and forth between CD and vinyl. I'll offer this. Play Why Georgia and pay particular attention to the acoustic guitar. Can you hear the woody resonance sound of the body of the guitar at the same time as hearing the tone in the strings? Can you hear bass guitar coupling with the bass drum as separate instruments or does it sound like the bass drum and bass guitar are the same. These are the details that are lost in the age of digital. Compression is well, compressing the music and compression is never a good thing.
So that is my explanation of the difference between a CD and vinyl. Oh, and don't even get me started on downloads.
Here are some new records that I think are worth the money.
John Mayer - No Room For Squares (every record collection should have this for the pure dynamics)
Matt Costa - Songs We Sing
The Cars - Move Like This
Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys
Stereophonic - Decade In The Sun
Beck - Guerolito
G. Love - Fixin To Die
Forever The Sickest Kids - Forever The Sickest Kids (This record will shake your house apart!)
Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What. (of course if you are Paul Simon with limitless resources you will be able to make the best sounding vinyl. This album is a must!)
Rufus Wainwright - All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu
R.E.M. - Chronic Town
Force Family 5 - Dance or Die (my daughter came home from the Creation Festival with this one and while I'm not a big fan of the band itself, just not by style of music. The record is recorded as well as any that I have heard in a long time.)
So there ya go!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Great music should be played on great equipment (vintage prefered!)
Ok so I have gotten several emails about what kind of stereo I use so I figure what the heck, I'll write about what I use and why. First and foremost, I am a vinyl hound so my stereo is geared toward my records not CD. In fact I don't even have a CD player hooked up to my stereo. When I want to listen to CD I simply play it through my computer and an incredible speaker set. I'll get to that later.
So, my stereo consists of a Sansui 1000x receiver, Dual 1237 turntable with an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge and a pair of Fisher XP-66 speakers and this combination sounds simply amazing. I have monster cable for all of my connections.
I picked the Sansui 1000x receiver because it can really drive the low end. It has really nice circuitry. It was the first non tubed receiver that Sansui ever built. I always liked the sound of their tubed receivers but they are not as efficient and the tubes had a notoriously short life. Even using Mullard tubes they tended to not last as long. I also like the power of the Sansui 1000x. I have people ask me all the time how much power my receiver has and I tell them that I have 28 watts per channel and they laugh. The joke is on them though. 28 watts in a receiver that was built in 1971 is a lot different than anything that is built now. My receiver has a pair of enormous caps that store a lot of power. No tiny chip amp here. This is real power. Don't believe me, go ahead and touch one of those caps while the power is on and let me stand back and laugh. The phono preamp section of the 1000x is very quiet as well. You actually hear what the turntable is saying and nothing is getting lost in the circuitry. Speaking of which, I am still amazed at how well designed the wiring inside is. Everything has a purpose and a place. It is obvious that a lot went into the design so there is no extra noise introduced into the output section. Pull off the cover of a new receiver and ask yourself, where is the power and why is it so noisy. The Sansui is simply the best sounding receiver I have ever owned.
The Dual 1237 has been my favorite turntable (in a reasonable price range) since I bought my first one in 1978 at the Sight and Sound store at the PX in Heidelberg Germany. When you look at the specs and listen to this turntable you can quickly realize that the specs don't tell the whole story. The wow an flutter and Rumble is a little on the high side but when you listen to the music it adds to the fullness of the music I think. I have eliminated a lot of the noise that is unwanted by upgrading the cartridge to the Ortofon Blue 2M. The low end is very punchy and the highs are very clear and everything in the mid range sounds full and accurate. One of my favorite records to listen to is Norah Jones because her smokey voice has so much timbre with this turntable cartridge combination that you would swear that you are sitting in a small club listening to her live.
So if you have a receiver and turntable you have to have a pair of speakers right? I do and they are simply splendid. The Fisher XP-66 speakers in my opinion are tough to beat. When they were introduced in 1968 they were actually considered a bookshelf speaker. Well, it would have had to have been a seriously large shelf because these babies are heavy and big. I use them as floor speakers and they can really hit the low note. The 12" woofers can shake a large room and when coupled with the power of the Sansui 1000x receiver have the ability to really get loud. But, a deep bass driver means nothing unless the mids and highs are accurate and on the XP-66 they are. The mid range is a big beefy 6" and the highs are from a 2 1/2 in tweeter. With a 6" mid range it can produce nicely through the mid bass through the high mid since the crossovers are at 400 and 1000 hz. Try that with modern speakers and you will have a frying pile of mess if you want to play something like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Everyone talks about how accurate and clear CDs are and how they are sonically better than vinyl. Well, I would submit that if you play records through a stereo with a good turntable, good speakers and a well designed high current receiver it will blow away a CD as long as the record has been well taken care of and well cleaned. The Fisher XP-66 speakers can do things in the low end that are unheard of without spending thousands of dollars.
Well, that is my stereo. It is one that has given me probably thousands of hours of happy listening. A receiver from 1971, a turntable from 1978 and a pair of speakers from 1968. I still haven't heard a low cost stereo that would make me want to get rid of anything that I have. Sure, replacing it with some Adcom and Magnepan and Creek Audio equipment would be really fun. Anyone's got a spare $10 grand ya wanna give me to do it? I think that is the only way I'd get the kind of sound that would make me give up what I have now.
So, when it isn't practicable to listen to my records or something is only available on CD what do I listen to you may ask. Well I have found that the CD in my laptop is more than adequate. That with my iTunes and I am good to go. I have though fallen in love with the Hercules XPS2.1 40 Slim speaker system. The system consists of a really nice powered subwoofer and a pair of satellite speakers. It has a great wired volume control with a headphone jack integrated into it so that you when you plug the speakers into the headphone jack on your computer you don't lose the ability to use headphones. The volume control also has a line in so that you can plug your iPod into the speaker system. I love that feature. Well, back to the speakers. The satellites are 8 watts each and the sub woofer is 16 watts (32 watts, 64 watts peak). It is plenty of power for my music listening. I have never made them bottom out. I used to use a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system and I will admit that I used to bottom that out all the time. I used to get so frustrated while listening to Charles Mingus' The Unique that I stopped listening to it on my computer and would have to run a cable from my computer to my stereo because the Cambridge just couldn't take the low end. Listening to Swing Out Sister's Kaleidoscope World had similar results albeit for different reasons. The mid range really gets a work out on that CD. Corrine Drewery's voice is simply wonderful and fills the mid range and that is not something that small speakers can typically handle. Her voice on most small speaker systems tends to flutter and sound flat because the speakers simply cannot reproduce her voice the way it should. Here is a test, play Forever Blue on your speakers that are hooked up to your computer and then play that song through your stereo. See the difference. The only speakers that I have heard that haven't annoyed the crap out of me are the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speaker system. Yes, the record sounds better on my stereo but I am actually happy with the way it sounds on my computer as well. Not that looks really matter much to me but the XPS 2.1 speaker system looks great as well. The satellites have a sleek look with a piano black looking finish. Very classy looking, The subwoofer looks like well, a sub woofer. It is under my desk and out of sight so I really don't care what it looks like. They could have done something a little cleaner looking there but like I said, mine us under my desk and out of sight. I'm glad they put the money into the speakers and not the aesthetics. Anyway, if you are looking for a great sounding speaker system pick up a pair of Hercules speakers. They have a great selection depending on how much sound you want and how much you want to spend. Here is a thought, I have also heard the XPS 101 and if you can spring for them, BUY THEM. They are pretty incredible too! Bottom line, I don't think that you can go wrong with anything that Hercules builds. If you are so inclined go down to the bottom of this page and click on the Amazon.com link to get to Hercules. They carry a lot of Hercules speaker systems and even their neat looking DJ deck.
So, there it is for those that have asked. If you are going to listen to music, go vintage and get rid of that CD player. If you are just to hooked on CDs, play them through your computer and get a speaker system from Hercules.
Some of my favorite analog albums:
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Pete Townsend - White City
John Mayer - No room For Squares
Styx - The Grand Illusion
the Alan Parson Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Sting - Nothing Like the Sun
U2 - War
The Tubes - Completion Backwards Principle
Roger Hodgson - In the Eye Of the Storm
Toto - IV
Stereophonics - Decade In the Sun
Also, I don't have them yet but the Car's and Death Cab for Cutie are both supposed to sound as good as any record has ever sounded so as soon as I get them I will do a review.
Some of my favorite cds and digital media (for my Hercules speakers)
Maceo Parker - Roots Revisited
Mary Black - Babes In the Wood
Swing Out Sister - Kaleidoscope World (this CD should be included with every pair of Hercules Speakers. It sounds almost as if it was mixed on their speakers!)
Mark Schultz - A Night Of Stories & Songs
Radiohead - Pablo Honey
Rod Stewart - Vagabond Heart
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Traffic - Far From Home
Bee Gees - One
Barenaked Ladies - Maroon (make sure your neighbors aren't home and then crank this one up and makes sure that you don't have any breakables in a table near the sub woofer. trust me on this one)
So, my stereo consists of a Sansui 1000x receiver, Dual 1237 turntable with an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge and a pair of Fisher XP-66 speakers and this combination sounds simply amazing. I have monster cable for all of my connections.
I picked the Sansui 1000x receiver because it can really drive the low end. It has really nice circuitry. It was the first non tubed receiver that Sansui ever built. I always liked the sound of their tubed receivers but they are not as efficient and the tubes had a notoriously short life. Even using Mullard tubes they tended to not last as long. I also like the power of the Sansui 1000x. I have people ask me all the time how much power my receiver has and I tell them that I have 28 watts per channel and they laugh. The joke is on them though. 28 watts in a receiver that was built in 1971 is a lot different than anything that is built now. My receiver has a pair of enormous caps that store a lot of power. No tiny chip amp here. This is real power. Don't believe me, go ahead and touch one of those caps while the power is on and let me stand back and laugh. The phono preamp section of the 1000x is very quiet as well. You actually hear what the turntable is saying and nothing is getting lost in the circuitry. Speaking of which, I am still amazed at how well designed the wiring inside is. Everything has a purpose and a place. It is obvious that a lot went into the design so there is no extra noise introduced into the output section. Pull off the cover of a new receiver and ask yourself, where is the power and why is it so noisy. The Sansui is simply the best sounding receiver I have ever owned.
The Dual 1237 has been my favorite turntable (in a reasonable price range) since I bought my first one in 1978 at the Sight and Sound store at the PX in Heidelberg Germany. When you look at the specs and listen to this turntable you can quickly realize that the specs don't tell the whole story. The wow an flutter and Rumble is a little on the high side but when you listen to the music it adds to the fullness of the music I think. I have eliminated a lot of the noise that is unwanted by upgrading the cartridge to the Ortofon Blue 2M. The low end is very punchy and the highs are very clear and everything in the mid range sounds full and accurate. One of my favorite records to listen to is Norah Jones because her smokey voice has so much timbre with this turntable cartridge combination that you would swear that you are sitting in a small club listening to her live.
So if you have a receiver and turntable you have to have a pair of speakers right? I do and they are simply splendid. The Fisher XP-66 speakers in my opinion are tough to beat. When they were introduced in 1968 they were actually considered a bookshelf speaker. Well, it would have had to have been a seriously large shelf because these babies are heavy and big. I use them as floor speakers and they can really hit the low note. The 12" woofers can shake a large room and when coupled with the power of the Sansui 1000x receiver have the ability to really get loud. But, a deep bass driver means nothing unless the mids and highs are accurate and on the XP-66 they are. The mid range is a big beefy 6" and the highs are from a 2 1/2 in tweeter. With a 6" mid range it can produce nicely through the mid bass through the high mid since the crossovers are at 400 and 1000 hz. Try that with modern speakers and you will have a frying pile of mess if you want to play something like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Everyone talks about how accurate and clear CDs are and how they are sonically better than vinyl. Well, I would submit that if you play records through a stereo with a good turntable, good speakers and a well designed high current receiver it will blow away a CD as long as the record has been well taken care of and well cleaned. The Fisher XP-66 speakers can do things in the low end that are unheard of without spending thousands of dollars.
Well, that is my stereo. It is one that has given me probably thousands of hours of happy listening. A receiver from 1971, a turntable from 1978 and a pair of speakers from 1968. I still haven't heard a low cost stereo that would make me want to get rid of anything that I have. Sure, replacing it with some Adcom and Magnepan and Creek Audio equipment would be really fun. Anyone's got a spare $10 grand ya wanna give me to do it? I think that is the only way I'd get the kind of sound that would make me give up what I have now.
So, when it isn't practicable to listen to my records or something is only available on CD what do I listen to you may ask. Well I have found that the CD in my laptop is more than adequate. That with my iTunes and I am good to go. I have though fallen in love with the Hercules XPS2.1 40 Slim speaker system. The system consists of a really nice powered subwoofer and a pair of satellite speakers. It has a great wired volume control with a headphone jack integrated into it so that you when you plug the speakers into the headphone jack on your computer you don't lose the ability to use headphones. The volume control also has a line in so that you can plug your iPod into the speaker system. I love that feature. Well, back to the speakers. The satellites are 8 watts each and the sub woofer is 16 watts (32 watts, 64 watts peak). It is plenty of power for my music listening. I have never made them bottom out. I used to use a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system and I will admit that I used to bottom that out all the time. I used to get so frustrated while listening to Charles Mingus' The Unique that I stopped listening to it on my computer and would have to run a cable from my computer to my stereo because the Cambridge just couldn't take the low end. Listening to Swing Out Sister's Kaleidoscope World had similar results albeit for different reasons. The mid range really gets a work out on that CD. Corrine Drewery's voice is simply wonderful and fills the mid range and that is not something that small speakers can typically handle. Her voice on most small speaker systems tends to flutter and sound flat because the speakers simply cannot reproduce her voice the way it should. Here is a test, play Forever Blue on your speakers that are hooked up to your computer and then play that song through your stereo. See the difference. The only speakers that I have heard that haven't annoyed the crap out of me are the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speaker system. Yes, the record sounds better on my stereo but I am actually happy with the way it sounds on my computer as well. Not that looks really matter much to me but the XPS 2.1 speaker system looks great as well. The satellites have a sleek look with a piano black looking finish. Very classy looking, The subwoofer looks like well, a sub woofer. It is under my desk and out of sight so I really don't care what it looks like. They could have done something a little cleaner looking there but like I said, mine us under my desk and out of sight. I'm glad they put the money into the speakers and not the aesthetics. Anyway, if you are looking for a great sounding speaker system pick up a pair of Hercules speakers. They have a great selection depending on how much sound you want and how much you want to spend. Here is a thought, I have also heard the XPS 101 and if you can spring for them, BUY THEM. They are pretty incredible too! Bottom line, I don't think that you can go wrong with anything that Hercules builds. If you are so inclined go down to the bottom of this page and click on the Amazon.com link to get to Hercules. They carry a lot of Hercules speaker systems and even their neat looking DJ deck.
So, there it is for those that have asked. If you are going to listen to music, go vintage and get rid of that CD player. If you are just to hooked on CDs, play them through your computer and get a speaker system from Hercules.
Some of my favorite analog albums:
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Pete Townsend - White City
John Mayer - No room For Squares
Styx - The Grand Illusion
the Alan Parson Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Sting - Nothing Like the Sun
U2 - War
The Tubes - Completion Backwards Principle
Roger Hodgson - In the Eye Of the Storm
Toto - IV
Stereophonics - Decade In the Sun
Also, I don't have them yet but the Car's and Death Cab for Cutie are both supposed to sound as good as any record has ever sounded so as soon as I get them I will do a review.
Some of my favorite cds and digital media (for my Hercules speakers)
Maceo Parker - Roots Revisited
Mary Black - Babes In the Wood
Swing Out Sister - Kaleidoscope World (this CD should be included with every pair of Hercules Speakers. It sounds almost as if it was mixed on their speakers!)
Mark Schultz - A Night Of Stories & Songs
Radiohead - Pablo Honey
Rod Stewart - Vagabond Heart
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Traffic - Far From Home
Bee Gees - One
Barenaked Ladies - Maroon (make sure your neighbors aren't home and then crank this one up and makes sure that you don't have any breakables in a table near the sub woofer. trust me on this one)
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