• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 31 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 31st anniversary: Happy 31st Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $24,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $24 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    Tens of thousands of subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

Vinyl Me Please is opening an "audiophile-grade" vinyl record pressing plant

I'm not a subscriber, but it could happen. We're in the process setting up a turntable, amplifier, and speaker system, so it could happen.

Dave
 
No one ever did blow off a digital file.
 
I'm not a subscriber, but it could happen. We're in the process setting up a turntable, amplifier, and speaker system, so it could happen.

Sadly, prices have gone insane during the past three years. Demand has absolutely skyrocketed. It used to be that one of the major audiophile labels would announce a new release, and we all had a week or two to decide if we wanted it. Now, if you aren't hitting the buy-it-now button minutes after release, you aren't getting a copy.
 
Maybe this is me just becoming an old man but I sold off all my Vinyl a number of years ago. No more milk crates of albums. As far as the quality I don't think I have the hearing anymore to tell. Now I browse the flea markets for used cd's. Often I can buy them for less than the price of downloading 1 song. I know I can tell the difference between a cd and a compressed mp3 file.
 
Maybe this is me just becoming an old man but I sold off all my Vinyl a number of years ago. No more milk crates of albums. As far as the quality I don't think I have the hearing anymore to tell. Now I browse the flea markets for used cd's. Often I can buy them for less than the price of downloading 1 song. I know I can tell the difference between a cd and a compressed mp3 file.

you can get high quality digital audio

"A lossless audio file format is the best format for sound quality. These include FLAC, WAV, or AIFF. These types of files are considered “hi-res” because they are better or equal to CD-quality"
 
you can get high quality digital audio

"A lossless audio file format is the best format for sound quality. These include FLAC, WAV, or AIFF. These types of files are considered “hi-res” because they are better or equal to CD-quality"

Incorrect.

The best format for sound quality is 2" magnetic tape, spinning at 15 or 30 inches per second. I have friends who collect tape. It makes collecting audiophile records look like a poor man's hobby. These people have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of 2nd and 3rd generation safety masters.

This is what audio engineers use to make CDs, SACDs and records. There really is no substitute. Musicians are returning to recording on tape -- and not digital tape. They can afford anything. But they use magnetic tape because it's superior.

Barring unlimited amounts of money, the "analog vs. digital" debate will rage on among audiophiles until quantum computers can create a sound file close to magnetic tape. In general, past a certain point, a hi-fi system will be biased to one or the other -- a digital signal processor that costs more than any new car? Yes, digital will sound lovely.

A turntable and cartridge that costs more than any new car? Yes, analog will sound lovely. (And it has MUCH higher frequency reproduction. Quadrophonic records rely on a 45kHz carrier signal. Digital konks out at 20kHz.)

I know audio engineers whose holy grail is a quadrophonic 8-track tape of The Dark Side of the Moon. These sell for thousands, when they turn up at all. There is also the Bob Ludwig mastered Led Zep II, which sells for hundreds and hundreds, even though not a single near mint copy is known. If found, one would very likely sell in the high five-figure range.
 
I know audio engineers whose holy grail is a quadrophonic 8-track tape of The Dark Side of the Moon.
Bull Shot! While 8-track media did have:
  • Wide media
  • Faster speed
The faster tape speed reduces hiss and the wider tracks allow for a higher magnetic flux, BUT it is offset by the fact that you have eight audio tracks instead of two.

This tape could only be played in a special 8 track player which was technically a 4-track quadraphonic player.

The way the tape winds through the mechanism and has to flatten and slide over the spool to the feed is not an audiophile-grade format.
  • The tape has undue wear due to the pinching and sliding (loss of magnetic particles) and tape drag, this tape would have to be thinner to fit the entire album on 4 tracks
  • Since the head changes position between tracks, in some machines, head alignment was problematic.
  • To stabilize the speed of the tape, many high end tape machines (reel to reel and cassette) have dual capstans which trap the tape over the heads. 8-track format does not allow for this.
  • I don't know how they laid out the tracks, but with 8-tracks, but commercial tapes had an annoying habit of fading-out at the track change sensor foil
I would much rather have a quad pressing of DSOTM on vinyl then go watch the Wizard of OZ.

8-track-tape-_8track.fit_lim.size_1050x.jpg


Back in the day, I had Tandburg Reel to Reel and cassette decks.

Trivia: The 8-track tape was brought to us by Bill Lear, who also gave us the Lear jet.
 
Bull Shot! While 8-track media did have:

Forest for the trees. People want the Quad DSotM for the same reason they want the Ludwig Zep 2. It is considered the best mastered version, barring having access to 2" magnetic tape. That's why these things sell for thousands. If I ever found one, I would very likely cobble together a quad system just to listen to it. And then I'd likely sell both the tape and the cobbled quad system as a package. (I mostly listen to mono/stereo post-war jazz.)

It is considered a grail because of what's on the tape. Not the format itself.

I have a neighbor down the street with a Ludwig Zep 2 for sale. $800. If the A side was in as good a shape as the B side, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I've listened to it. And even through the surface noise, it's easy to hear why people go nuts about this LP.
 
Led Zep II is one of the recordings that has helped attenuate my range of hearing in the first place. ;)

I know audio engineers whose holy grail is a quadrophonic 8-track tape of The Dark Side of the Moon. These sell for thousands, when they turn up at all. There is also the Bob Ludwig mastered Led Zep II, which sells for hundreds and hundreds, even though not a single near mint copy is known. If found, one would very likely sell in the high five-figure range.
 
What killed the 8-track? Changing tracks in the middle of a song!
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrQ
What killed the 8-track? Changing tracks in the middle of a song!
Ain't that the truth! The fade-out/fade-in was SO annoying.

In college, there was a guy on our floor that had an 8-track recorder who made his own tapes. He just recorded over the sensor strip. It was much better, it was less than a second and it was over.
 
Top