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planetzog — MINISTRY OF SOUND
Published: 2020-08-20 20:02:09 +0000 UTC; Views: 167; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 1
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Ortofon!!! Man, that sure brings back memories. As purty (and impractically retro) as a ‘67 Camaro. Good times I don’t miss, but a wonderful shot of nostalgia.
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My first real Stonehenge system was built around a pair of Altec A7-500s, biamped. That was when I really became aware of turntables as microphones. The next system was all home-constructed around Dynaudio drivers and 5400 rms watts of triamped amplification. By that time my turntable was a thick aluminum billet turning on a cultured stone base. Platter mat and clamp of course - you had to peel records off of it. The turntable sat on a cast-iron storm drain grate glued to a 1-1/2” slab of marine plywood floating above a second slab on a partially filled bike inner tube. All of that sat on four cinder blocks. And it still wasn’t enough to keep the bass from getting muddy at 115db.
My first CD player was a Carver. I’ll never forget it because it’s the first time I had ever heard bass that articulate at that volume. I felt like I’d gotten a whole new set of speakers because intermodulation I hadn’t known I was hearing was suddenly gone. Everything stayed clean and wide-open, even cranked to volumes that made me think there was an actual band in the room. And then there was the dynamic range! I remember playing Donald Fagen’s “Ruby” and having those opening snare hits startle me at they leapt out of absolute silence.
And all from a medium that was comparatively indestructible, didn’t degrade with every play, and didn’t require degrees in geometry and physics to use well.
I never looked back. Vinyl has its romance, and retro is its own kinda cool. There IS a certain sound particular to analog, and I love it too. But the advantages of digital made it a clear winner for me. And that’s at CD resolution. High-resolution downloads over, for instance, an Apogee interface? It doesn’t get any better at any price. I’d put a MacBook and Apogee Duet playing hi-res files up against any turntable ever made - and it wouldn’t even be close.
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