More Audiophile Lunacy (DG 'Original Source' Part 2)

Well, it seems that my first video on DG's "Original Source" LPs, a beautiful deluxe product that I welcomed as such, nonetheless stirred up a fuss from the vinyl fetishists. They were wrong to circle the wagons, and here's why.

[gonzaloms]

It's like most luxury items (wines, watches, clothes), there's a point where you stop paying for quality and start paying for marketing or sophistication. It's fun to study the market and try to find the sweet spot between cost and benefit.

[stephenkeen]

“If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.”
― G.K. Chesterton

[eddiegreschak]

Man are you awesome to listen to on a sunday afternoon before an eagles and steelers game. Dave have a great afternoon. No one could have said it any better.

[josepheads]

I can accept the eccentricity of the audiophile. The guys that drive me crazy are the vinyl fetishists who own cheap stereos but still swear up and down that they can hear the sonic superiority of LPs.

[brianchristensen]

Dave, as someone who has spent a significant amount of time tweaking my sound system, trying to find the best equipment for the right price, who admittedly loves vinyl for a number of reasons, but also has an enormous collection of CDs… you are absolutely right about almost everything here. I love my vinyl, but it IS utterly ridiculous.
I’ve had about 4-5 CDs out of the 5, 000+ I own experience some sort of digital corruption even when properly cared for, but that’s anecdotal and a staggeringly low percentage.

[iptych]

Indeed, it’s not rational. This is the same romance some of us are having with mechanical watches, enjoying the cogs and springs of a well-crafted micro-machine when we all know the accuracy of an electronic quartz watch is way better. The romance of interaction with your gadgets in a physical way goes all the way from cars to coffee machines to diamond-tipped cartridges, and long may that be so!

[andrew]

I have had my Linn turntable since around 1985. I have upgraded it several times since. I also have a decent CD player. I like both media. I am not a fan of streaming, but that's because our broadband is erratic.

In the UK, some stores (I am looking at you HMV) are charging about £30 for a new release for all genres of music. Therefore the DG Original Source becomes relatively good value. I have only two of these releases, Tchaikovsky 4 Abbado, and Stravinsky Rite of Spring. Both of these are beautiful with genuinely superlative sound and I consider very good value. If you look at the folk who happily buy multiple recordings of Steely Dan, Dire Straits, or Dark Side of the Moon at £200 per LP, then that becomes crazy.

Where we are fortunate is that there are many secondhand LPs in charity shops which have been handled carefully and cost £1 - 2 each. When cleaned properly, these are often faultless and can sound better than most new releases.

A couple of other points mentioned by Dave:

- With a good record cleaner and quality turntable, there is hardly any background noise. I have many early stereo LPs from the 1959-69 era which have no clicks and pops.

- Most concert halls in the South of England have abysmal acoustics and you might as well listen at home. At a Mahler 2 in the Royal Festival Hall recently, the "off stage" instruments sounded clearer than on stage.

Having defended LPs, if I were starting out now, I would probably stream given the extortionate prices of new LPs and the necessity to spend £1000 plus on a decent enough turntable.

[neonquixote]

“Audiophiles don’t use their equipment to listen to your music. They use your music to listen to their equipment.”

[marcelogaume]

Hello, I am an “audiophile” and you are right: what “sounds” better is subjective. However there are some indicators that are not so personal: Background noise is one of them. If you are in a concert hall maybe you will hear people coughing, but not a “white noise” behind (as vinyl) or pops and ticks. Better sound (at least with acoustic music) is the one that represents better the live sound. It makes sense to invest some money in gear to get that. About media, a CD or Tidal will give you less noise than a vinyl. Having said that, the most important point here is to enjoy music, to feel emotions when you listen to it. It is more likely to feel that without noises, right? Congrats for your channel Dave. I followed some of your recommendations and generally we agree!

[goldchrome]

Some thoughts. in the 80ties it was perfectly normal to tape your own LPs on chromium dioxide compact cassettes with dolby to avoid tear and wear to the LPs. This allowed you to listen to the music on the Walkman, on the car and to wake up with the music using an electronic alarm clock. but i wonder why the "original source" LPs are not released on CD as well? Is the process totally specific to vinyl medium by only optimizing the groove density etc. ?

[strqrt]

Black magic markers? C’mon, Dave, that’s ridiculous. It’s GREEN magic marker. Everyone knows that. Black magic marker makes no audible improvement in the sound. 😂

[jesus-of-cheeses]

If you’re going to preserve the original medium by not playing it, then CDs are the way to go! You can rip them quickly on any computer with a CD drive, and without any loss of quality.

[rugerthedog]

Many good thoughts here. This coming from an old vinyl owner who has kept a modest collection of black discs to avoid paying for digital duplicates - the cheapskate effect. The good part of being old is not being able to hear some of the black-disc defects. Not that any of that stopped me from designing and building my own custom phono pre-amp. I guess it's all about having fun, and being a music lover who likes good sound and a guy who likes electronics I am indeed enjoying listening to both old vinyl and new digital in my home. BTW, the "guru" was Harry Pearson. Thanks Dave, you made me giggle at myself!

[willcwhite]

A frenzy for Historically-Informed Media.

(Ironically, I don’t think any early music ensembles release on vinyl.)

[Lohensteinio]

I love how Dave’s every mention of vinyl spawns a whole series of reaction videos by vexed vinyl vloggers. Keep up the great work, Dave! Your decades of experience and ever-present humor are priceless — both in 1970s and 2024 dollars! 😄

[IanKnight]

You hit the nail on the head Dave.... Its FUN....the more money you spend to have FUN the more serious the FUN becomes..

[tomfinot]

I like my Lps when I listen to jazz or 50's and 60's vocalists. I never wanted to duplicate this stuff because they are recorded at a high enough volume that you don't really hear the noise if you take care of your records. But when it comes to classical, so much is in a quiet to medium range that you do hear every bit of surface noise, so I only listen to the LPs that have never been released on CD and that isn't much.

[damianthompson]

It’s always fun to listen to hardcore audiophiles who aren’t into classical music but have to own a first pressing of Ansermet conducting ballet music (a ‘grail’ recording) in about five different pressings. Often they know the catalogue number off by heart but can’t actually tell you the name of the orchestra.

[dennis_gentile]

Why is the audiophile demographic 97% male? I don't know the answer, but it seems odd.

[williamevans]

One thing I find amusing is that by the time most people have sufficient disposable income to buy a so-called 'audiophile' system (i.e., when they've reached their forties and fifties) they can no longer hear the higher frequencies they could in their 'teens or early twenties, so anything above around 12kHz is lost on them.