Leonard Smalls

[quote name='bigjohn' timestamp='1355493516' post='1899180'] Comparing vinyl to cd on the same HiFi isn't really playing fair. The signal chains are different. The vinyl chain has a phono-preamp. It's like plugging a passive bass into a nice pre-amp and saying "wow, listen to this, it's alive with these sounds and dynamics", then comparing it with an active bass plugged straight into a poweramp and saying it sounds dull and crap. Have a listen to a decent HiFi with a decent DAC and compare that with vinyl. The digital stuff sounds fine then. [/quote] The output from a phono stage is line level (give or take, depending on the phono stage). All the phonostage does is take a low level signal from a cartridge, boost it to line level and apply (hopefully) accurate RIAA equalisation. Some phono stages have variable input impedance to better match cart types, but otherwise it gives out an analogue signal at about the same level as the analogue output of a DAC. It's not like a graphic equaliser with variable frequency adjustments - though you can buy phono stages with variable (fixed) RIAA equalisation to match older standards. An active bass has boost and cut available, whereas a passive one only has cut... And talking of decent DACs, mine's an Advantage; they don't exist any more, but check out Bladelius hifi to find out what it's like - same designer. It sounds better than a Wadia 861 if that means owt! Even though it sounds excellent there's still a tiny bit (subjectively!) missing compared to vinyl - at least to my jaded and no doubt deafened ears.

Funnily enough my phono stage has no rumble filters, or attentuation at any higher frequency, and it still sounds subjectively more pleasing! CD sounds pretty good as well, but after all, I'd prefer to hear badly recorded, poorly reproduced good music than extreme hifi music (like you'd hear on the Linn and Naim labels) on the world's most expensive stereo... It's the music I'm listening to, not the hifi!

They should've got that nice Michael Buble in...

I managed to give myself a nasty black eye yesterday by underestimating the torque reaction of a drill bit jamming and due to being jammed in a cupboard, being too close to a chunky 18V battery as it swung round... And I've split my thumb from excessive plucking.

First time I noticed bass was when a lad at 6th form started playing in a band called the Action Transfers - he let me play his violin bass Then I heard Norman Watt-Roy and that was it, I gave up piano and got a mohawk together...

I've been enjoying Bruichladdich PC7 as well...

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1355230856' post='1895613'] Having said all of which the best reproduction I've ever experienced was 192KHz 24bit in a great control room. So IMO CD can be bettered, although I struggle to see how many of us would benefit from the difference between CD and even 96KHz in the front room, with the kids.... [/quote] Funnily enough, I haven't heard much better in a studio than at home - though this of course relies on auditory memory which is quite unreliable! However, as an exBBC sound recordist I was trained to listen, and have worked in some pretty serious places so maybe it's not so unreliable as it could be, and I do use the same amps as those at BBC Maida Vale (Bryston 14bsst) Room treatment-wise, I discovered that anything that was domestically acceptable made very little difference - as a result I don't use DSP either, though I have fiddled rather a lot with speaker placement. So it's as good as I can be bothered to make it; and if it sounds rubbish I turn it up (record is 123dB peaks at the listening position) and pretend I'm at Brixton Academy!

I've tried a few room treatment options such as bass traps and absorbtion panels.Because of the room it is - very old with sound absorbing lime plaster walls, no 2 walls parallel, ceiling not parallel to floor and broken up by beams - it made very little difference, in fact a heavy sofa and curtains was all that was needed. In a lot of cases it's worthwhile, and cost effective, to try digital room correction like [url=http://www.bd-audio.co.uk/room-correction.html]THIS[/url].

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1355137722' post='1894423'] Interesting that the general consensus on here seems to be that £20k mains leads are snake oil but £20k turntables are not. [/quote] £20k is an enormous amount for a turntable, though there's a lot of pride of ownwership to be had if you like that sort of thing, and can afford it. A Clearaudio Master Reference is a thing of beauty - even Lara Croft had one And it will make vinyl sound as good as it possible could. However, in terms of bang per buck it would only be a tiny bit better than a £3k turntable (like mine), which is much a higher percentage better than a £300 one... As for mains leads, so long as it can pass the appropriate current, any old one will do. After all, there's miles of non-foo cable getting the electricity to your house, so what difference can a stupidly expensive one that's been hand-rolled on the thighs of Brazilian virgins make? As far as I'm concerned, this also applies to all hifi cables - all they have to be is electrically sufficient and not too high in terms of capacitance, inductance and to a lesser extent, resistance (unless you have a Naim amp, but that's another story...)

[quote name='gelfin' timestamp='1355088146' post='1893934'] For everyone's info the top spec turntable from Linn the LP12 now costs in the region of £20k [/quote] £20k if you buy all the factory upgrades such as the Keel sub-chassis, Trampolin base-board, Lingo/Radikal power supplies etc. But in terms of vinyl reproduction only die-hard Sondek-ers would dispute that you can do much, much better than that for a fraction of the cost. Frinstance, you can buy one of the best TTs in the world (in my opinion!) for £8k, the Platine Verdier: Or if you really want to push the boat out (short of buying a Rockport at £70k), you can spend the same as a full-spec LP12 on the next TT up from mine, complete with parallel-tracking tonearm:

A good record cleaner works wonders - you'd be surprised at the difference it can make to a crackly-sounding record. £40 buys you a Knosti Discostat, which works pretty well though it's a faff, up to £1000 (if you're made of money) will buy you a VPI vacuum record cleaner. Of course, any hifi would be incomplete without one of [url=http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina45.htm]THESE[/url] (and no, it isn't a joke website!).

As has been pointed out, cd (and definitely higher resolution digital formats) is technically superior to vinyl. However, I find that when played side-by-side, folks still prefer the sound of vinyl. For me, the sound of a record is more musical, somehow, than a cd. And for the record (!) I have a Clearaudio Reference TT, and Advantage cdp. Perhaps it's the valve phomostage?

[url="http://www.knightonmusiccentre.com"]www.knightonmusiccentre.com[/url] have got a Parker SB51 5 string at £699. It's not shown on his website, but I saw it there today... I bought the 4 string version off them, here with my Sandberg and Wal:

You wouldn't have heard me squealing like a girl over the vtwin racket!

[quote name='daz' timestamp='1337518766' post='1661198'] Aha, Shropshire middle of nowhere. I know it well Welcome. (I only once road a 1970s Moto Guzzi,850 and the brakes failed, just as I was coming up to a roundabout. I ended up riding straight over the grass in the middle!) [/quote] Never had the brakes fail, though the throttle stuck open once on the A1... Got it up to around 120mph before realising switching the engine off would stop it! Good noise though...

Aye - we were proper fashion victims! Didn't matter what we sounded like so long as we were looking good. Or at least crazed...

Lawks! 6 rehearsals a year? That's pretty much professional as far as my 2 bands are concerned. One is a funk rock band doing 30% covers - we're lucky if we get 1 rehearsal a year (as one guitarist is in the south of France) where we'll usually write/work out 3 new songs. And gig soundcheck is a chance to quickly run through anything we're a bit worried by. And the other band doesn't rehearse at all; we have a list of songs, ranging from Hendrix to John Coltrane that we all decide on by email though no=one decides what key, speed, feel etc until we're actually playing it. Luckily it's meant to be improvisation! Still, it would be nice to get together a few more times with both...

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1334908346' post='1623182'] wow. that was a sight for sore eyes over breakfast! How does it sound/play too [/quote] It's nowhere near as good as my Wal, sandberg or Parker, despite the EMGs. Which is why it's hanging on the wall. And we were well known for our collective handsomeness back then - probably about 1989!

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1334859952' post='1622583'] you don't see many of those Kawai Sleeklines about, what's it like? [/quote] It's currently hanging on the wall - only picture where you can just about see it is this!

I went to see Ginger Baker once with Jonas Hellborg on bass. Jonas was amazing, but Ginger was painful - he even stopped a song halfway through to tune his snare!

I'm currently really enjoying a tone from my Parker bass on "slap" tone, going through a Yamaha FX770 with compression and a tiny touch of down octaving, into a Roctron Utopia on "Bass Ballz" setting (with some of the distortion dialled out), then all of that going through the FX loop on my Marshall into a Qtron. It's a seriously dirty Bootsy noise, which only gets crazier if I configure the Rocktron pedal to act as a bass wah.

On certain floor types isolation will make a big difference to the sound of a bass cab (or any speaker!). The air within a hollow stage or floor can resonate, causing boom which will swamp other notes. If anyone ever played at the Greyhound on Fulham Palace Road they'll know how bad it could be if not isolated. Another cheap'n'cheerful way of doing it is to get a sheet of mdf, and glue half a squash ball into each corner...

The bass I'd least like to own is a Hofner violin bass... Horrible to play and a terrible sound. And I can't get on with P basses with the thumb guard/rest thingy and metal bridge that sits right in the way. And I'm not a fan of Rickenbackers either.

We've got a venue locally where they insist even the PA, which is 10kW goes through the limiter, which is set at 92dB, c weighted, and the mic is right by the stage! The real problem is that the limiter itself is only rated at 13amps - i.e. a max of about 3kW. So it's possible to fry the limiter with the PA and a Kw of backline plugged into it -these sort of things worry me being an electrician! And being c weighted means it's biased toward bass frequencies, so it's very easy to set off. And if it does go off, that's the whole PA plus backline to be damaged when they come back on again... However, there just happens to be a large supply on stage designed for lighting which isn't through the limiter, so we use that... Unofficially of course.

I've had my Marshall Jubilee amp with EV cab for 20+ years now. Can't see me changing it unless it explodes!